[2000-10-13-IWC SoCal] Frankie Kazarian vs Ricky Reyes

Reyes is someone that never impressed me in singles competition or really all that much in tag competition so I was dubious going into the match here. The opening mat work was pretty sloppy but they were cutting a good pace and the crowd was into Ricky with loud chants from him. Reyes was on top for a vast majority of this match and his offense reigned from impressive to eye rolling. It is kind of par the course for the indie talent in 2000 although I do think as a whole we see more promise here than the counterparts in IWA-MS and CZW such as Ric Blade, Suicide Kid, American Kickboxer, etc. 2000 has really showed a gulf from what will become the indie stars looking fairly good IMO (Dragon, Punk, Hero, Styles) to the lower levels that didn’t show up much past 2002. This match does serve as a good middle ground as neither of these guys were ever stars but both had established indie careers and would be relied upon to produce quality matches over the next decade. As a match, this is just merely ok with Kaz getting the win with the lifting reverse DDT but as an overall arc on where the depth of indie talent is in 2000 especially in the so cal scene, it was enlightening. **1/2