Carlos Colon vs. Steve Strong (Barbed Wire Match) (10/7/89)

This is JIP with Carlos hitting some headbutts on Strong and the crowd going fucking bonkers. Strong quickly gets the advantage shoving Colon’s head into the barbed wire and hitting Colon with headbutts and forearms. Colon is busted open already. His selling is really good early on too. I love the almost overhead camera angles in this. Way more than the low ringside shots through the wire. I am enjoying this early on so much more than the TNT barbed wire match. Colon’s selling is awesome and is really carrying this early making all of Strong’s basic power stuff like forearms to the back and shoulder blocks look really good. The pop for Colon’s comeback and especially his cartwheel is seriously one of the biggest pops on the entire set. I don’t know if the crowd is mic’d differently for this because on a set full of crazy crowd reactions, this is a truly remarkable reaction to Colon’s big comeback. They blow a DDT in about the worst fashion possible and go right back to it and manage to hit it. But you don’t even care because the crowd is so hot. I’m just about to make fun of Strong’s selling of the double clothesline knockdown spot but when he finally falls, seriously the crowd is so absurdly loud I can’t even make fun of it. You get your standard Carlos leg work where he just stomps and kicks the shit out of the leg over and over again. Strong is pretty awesome selling it actually doing the Kawada collapse on an Irish whip attempt. Carlos is pretty great just trying to get the figure 4 on but struggling because Strong’s legs are so big. Love the desperation shoulder block attempt by Strong that he misses. Colon finally gets the figure 4 onto Strong and I’m concerned by speakers are going to burst but Chicky is there to spray Colon in the eyes with hairspray I assume. Post match brawl with Chicky on the outside and TNT running in is crazy. Fans are throwing chairs and shit ringside. Match gets restarted, Carlos hits probably the worst german suplex ever but with the bright light shining directly in the camera and the crowd you hardly even have time to notice or care. WOW WOW WOW WOW. YOU’RE FUCKING KIDING ME. CARLOS FUCKING COLON! WOW. There is no way this was this good. I am hallucinating or something. NO FUCKING WAY. I fucking loved this. I don’t even really like barbed wire matches and Strong is so obviously an incredibly limited wrestler and this was still an awesome match. WOW. That came out of nowhere.

Most of this was covered by elliot above me, but I'll be damned if I don't have to stress one thing: The CROWD!!! I'm not certain how they managed to drown out the fucking horns during Colon's comebacks, but they did. I agree that in a set full of amazing crowd reactions, this one is just the biggest and best. Fans almost pegging Chicky in the head with chairs from the front rows is possibly one of my favorite things ever happening outside the ring. Sloppy as shit and Strong is nowhere above decent, but this somehow ends up being a classic match.