Matt Sydal vs Salvatore Rinauro (IWA MS, 9-17-2004)

IWA MId-South Ted Petty Invitational, Highland, IN

Like the Lacey-Martinez match that opened this show, I’m reviewing this on memory from watching it again last night. I was going to do that back-to-back earlier but got sidetracked and didn’t.

Anyway, this is the opening match of the TPI tournament, with NWA Midwest X Division champion Sydal taking on NWA Wildside’s Rinauro. Sydal had really started making a name for himself on IWA shows at this time, particularly for breakout matches with AJ Styles, an established star who lent him some real rub despite always losing to Styles and consistently getting his head cracked from that mean young veteran. (Styles of this era is, without question, my favorite “live experience” wrestler ever. He was awesome to watch up close. He laid EVERYTHING in and there was a legitimate nastiness to his offense.)

I remembered this match being a little choppy but fun as a live match, and that’s what it is. There are some hiccups here and there, but a lot of fun offense, too, from both guys. Rinauro gets some really cool shit in, including a neat superplex of sorts from the middle of the second rope (like, mid-ring), and then Sydal gets a run of great looking juniors offense — a shooting star where he uses Rinauro’s back as his springboard, plus his great belly-to-belly moonsault superplex finisher.

So Sydal wins and moves on, which was expected, but Ian also had a way of throwing some curveballs in these tournaments, so it wasn’t a complete lock.

Rating: 3/5. Again, ratings are a mix of match quality and my personal enjoyment. I quite enjoyed this, it’s a fun pace and lots of cool Moves are done. Quality-wise? I’d be hard pressed to give it Three Stars, if I were star rating, because of the messier moments here and there, little minor bits of miscommunication or whatever that don’t ACTUALLY interrupt the flow of the match much at all, but folks, I am a very accurate star rater, and I don’t just chuck stars into the heavens like David Meltzer or your favorite YouTube personality, motherfuckers out here anymore like, “First half hour of this match sucked but the last 15 were pretty good, disappointing overall. ****1/2”