SOMETHING TO PROVE: Reviewing the 2024 Carolina Classic

© Photography by Deadlock Pro Wrestling

If it’s not obvious based on an entire previous review series I’ve done on this channel, I’m quite fond of the one night tournament with 8 wrestlers in 4 singles matches ending in an elimination 4-way formula. I did a whole review series of this based around RevPro’s British J Cup and I was craving doing another one so I’ve turned my attention across the pond to America’s east coast for DPW’s Carolina Classic.

Debuting in 2022, it sees DPW utilise the same formula I mentioned earlier with the winner getting a shot at the DPW World’s Championship down the line. We’ve got 3 of these to watch through so without any further admin, let’s get started with the most recent rendition of the tournament from 2024!

MATCH 1: JAKE SOMETHING VS MAD DOG CONNELLY

Jake was built as the focus of this year’s Carolina Classic, with his performances in the previous year’s tournament marking him as that year’s MVP of the Carolina Classic as he’s since gone on to become a cornerstone of DPW’s programming throughout the rest of 2024 until an injury took him out in early 2025. In a promo before this match, he talks about the effect that getting caught out early in the 2023 Carolina Classic had on him and that it’s effectively do or die this year, but the ‘die’ part of that comes quick as he’s facing Mad Dog Connelly, the biggest breakout of independent wrestling 2024.

For those who haven’t seen him, Mad Dog is a different beast entirely. The closest encapsulation of Bruiser Brody since, well, Bruiser Brody, Mad Dog earned that title through the virtue of bringing his favoured dog collars connected by 20 ft of steel chain with him to every show, forcing whoever was tasked with wrestling him to ‘live their truth’. Jake mentions this wily and chaotic nature by saying that Mad Dog is the man Jake was 10 years ago, but a decade changes people. It’s evident in even the physical similarities and their techniques that both men are so similar, yet so different. Both men wrestle a high-impact, no-nonsense style but Jake looks like he was meticulously crafted and chiseled by the gods of Mt. Olympus with barely a scrap of fat on him and muscles bulging out of places I didn’t even know had muscles, while Mad Dog looks like he was moulded with mud and dirt from the marshes of America’s south, rough around the edges and with an attitude to match.

It displays in the match too. Jake’s an absolute freight train of a man and on paper, Mad Dog looks and wrestles like someone you probably can’t strategise for, only survive but Jake disproves that by opting to slow himself down and ready himself for any of Mad Dog’s wild punches. He repeatedly drives Mad Dog’s face into the ground and keeps him grounded in an attempt to gas out the King of the Dog Collar, but the truth is immortal and it prevails, meaning Jake has to floor it. The big bombs come out from both men, taking shape through those excellent wily punches from Mad Dog as well as Jake’s classic body block and a WICKED looking Into the Void from Jake Something to wrap the match up. Mad Dog manages to power Jake up for some incredibly impressive gutwrench suplexes served alongside some ROUGH looking lariats and a wild flying headbutt, but Jake is inexorable as the true titan of DPW and manages to put down the Mad Dog.

This match isn’t even 8 minutes long, and it’s a perfect example of less sometimes being so much more. Jake goes in and plays a perfect hand against the most unpredictable man in independent wrestling, advancing to the finals of the tournament that he wronged last year. A fucking great way to start this tournament.

RATING: 8.7/10 (****.25)

MATCH 2: LUKE JACOBS VS KEVIN BLACKWOOD

I didn’t know how to start this match review without coming off as too pessimistic, but let’s talk about Kevin Blackwood for a moment.

On paper, he’s everything I should LOVE in a wrestler. A cool and somewhat unique look with a full blackout tattoo, straight edge like myself, a penchant for kicking people, similar inspirations and tastes in wrestling as myself, he’s everything that I love in a wrestler but when you put the pieces together, it’s like nothing matches together at all. It feels inauthentic and almost like cosplay; Kevin has the framework to be something truly special but for me, I often find myself watching Kevin fall into typical cookie cutter, paint-by-numbers indie wrestling matches and I can never gel with it at all, it just never connects with me.

I’ve had my issues with Jacobs’ work in the past and sadly, those issues come out to play here. Combined with Blackwood’s borderline mysterious abilities to have the makeup of a sick wrestler but then come off as incredibly formulaic, Luke and Kevin have your typical indie ‘banger’ of a match and it just doesn’t work. Luke’s control segment feels empty and lacking in meat on the bone, the selling is non-existent, the whole match doesn’t give you anything to bite on and the match can best be summed up with this sentence.

Everything means nothing, nothing means anything.

RATING: 6.4/10 (**.75)

MATCH 3: LABRON KOZONE VS TIMOTHY THATCHER

Timothy Thatcher is a wrestling god.

He is a man who has never gotten the credit he fully deserves in major circles, but my god this man is a FANTASTIC wrestler. Not only is he an absolute ace on the mat with how much consideration is taken into the details of what he does and just the incredibly gritty and sandpaper-rough nature of it all, but he’s so great and accentuating the strengths of his opponents and eating shit for under preparing for it. Kozone was still on an odyssey at this point on his way to righting the wrong that was his loss to Adam Priest earlier in the year, and had been building a steady streak of relative upset wins as he was putting all the pieces together.

It made Thatcher and Kozone a perfect match for each other here. As you’d expect, the ever-cocky Thatcher grinds Kozone’s pitching arm into a paste with submissions and some really ugly techniques, like bending Kozone’s arm all the way backwards on the ground before doing the same to his fingers and just ramming them into the mat. What makes Thatcher’s control so great though is the facial expressions he has throughout. During the whole contest, so much can be read from how expressive Thatcher is.

When he’s in control, he’s doing everything with this wide eyed murderer’s smile and a distinct sense of psychotic glee in what he’s doing, but when Kozone’s mounting offence it puts Thatcher into a panic. Kozone lands a hasty Ball Game on Thatcher but the work done to his arm means he can’t make the pin and Thatcher rolls outside to make distance, doing whatever he can to make distance by just swinging an errant arm at Kozone, even if it doesn’t connect. It’s the moments of desperation like that that help Kozone continue in putting the pieces together and give him more to fight from underneath against when it works for Thatcher, such as Thatcher blocking another Ball Game with a headbutt to the arm. Kozone is eventually able to string together a chain offence including a left arm Ball Game that ends with a full force Ball Game on his worked arm to put Thatcher down after a wondrously brilliant contest.

It’s consistent and passionate bodywork, it’s great facial expressions, it’s meaty uppercuts and lariats, this is a fucking great match and if it wasn’t for Thatcher’s current role as effectively the head honcho of WWE ID, it’s one I’d love to see ran back for Kozone’s National Championship. My favourite Carolina Classic match to date across all 3 tournaments.

RATING: 8.9/10 (****.25)

MATCH 4: TITUS ALEXANDER VS MIKE BAILEY

I was NOT expecting to like this as much as I did.

Titus is a wrestler who I’ve had issues with in the past in terms of connecting with him. I’ve only gotten to know his work in the past few months in DPW and he’s been among my least favourite performers on the roster due to most of his matches feeling quite formulaic and not allowing much room for exploration of any ideas. I thought him being in the ring with Speedball would maybe accentuate both contestant’s weaknesses but I was pleasantly surprised to say that both wrestlers put on a pretty good performance here.

Far and away, this is the best performance I’ve seen out of Titus. I think Speedball’s innate babyface nature helped embolden Titus’ heel tendencies and while neither wrestler’s selling throughout the contest was that good save for a few moments from Speedball, I felt that they both made up for it by doing a great job maintaining a frenetic pace and sprinkling in some fun moments throughout. Titus gets the jump on Speedball during his entrance and Brainbusters him onto a chair and while I wish that had been used as the key narrative thread for the match, they still managed to put together a pretty entertaining contest so I digress. Titus’ mannerisms were great here and combined with his freakishly athletic abilities, it helped piece together a really solid heel performance, topped off with the finish of the match.

As both men are trading reversals, Speedball ends up shoving Titus into the referee and the ref goes down, with Titus reacting to this with the most ‘alright then’ facial expression ever before whalloping Mike right in his Speedballs. However, he takes too long to actually do anything and by time he tries to do something, Speedball has recovered and he can roll up Titus in a wonderful bit of heel comeuppance and Titus eating a mound of shit for his transgressions. It’s at this point I’ve realised that Titus is what people are saying the ‘improved’ Blake Christian is.

It’s not great by any means, but this was way more fun that I expected with a really great performance from Titus and a good performance from Speedball to go with it. A good little time.

RATING: 7.8/10 (***.75)

FINALS: JAKE SOMETHING VS LUKE JACOBS VS LABRON KOZONE VS MIKE BAILEY

I’m out of breath, mate.

While I do think this is the first Carolina Classic final that somewhat decreased in quality as it went along, the quality stayed so high for so long that it was hardly even noticeable.

The first third. Good fuck. The best bombfest opening of any elimination 4 way I have ever reviewed on this channel. It being made up of 4 of the undisputed best wrestlers in independent wrestling at the time helps a lot but jesus christ, some of the things they do in this opening third are utterly butterly ridiculous, especially Kozone hitting a double decker spinebuster on Jacobs and Speedball because what the ACTUAL FUCK, Kozone?

The most important thing about this opening section is the dynamic of Speedball and Jake. They had been DPW World Tag Team Champions for 4 months by time the Carolina Classic rolled around and with their unstoppable act as a team, it was fun to think about whether or not they would go the ‘team-up ’til we get to the final 2’ route or the death before dishonor route of merking each other at every opportunity they could befitting of what’s at stake. They went for the latter and good GOD did they go for it. The bell rings and Speedball soars out of the gate with a boot to Something before the match starts moving at that same pace that Speedball did all 4 competitors dropping warchests of bombs on each other with much haste. Combined with Kozone still dealing with the effects of Thatcher going to town on his shoulder and Luke being a brilliant shit-talking, anti-american cocky heel, everything came together to form an absolutely stunning first segment of the match. Jake hurling himself at anyone he can, plenty of stiff ass lariats, Jake being super god, it rocked.

Kozone’s elimination onwards is where I started thinking a few things could’ve been tweaked. Jacobs had been playing it up as a shithouse heel in DPW (something he has continued to do and he does brilliantly do this day) so I think it would’ve been so much better if he had bragged all the way to the moon after taking out Kozone only to die at the hands of the tag team champions and be gone just as fast as the match went from 4 to 3. What they went with was still great though, a really solid triple threat with some amazing cohesion from Speedball X Something that ended in their AMAZING Ultima Powerbomb finisher. As you’d expect, perennial Carolina Classic nearly man Speedball has to slug it out against his own friend and most unfuckwithable man in DPW, Jake Something.

While they went a bit too indieriffic for my tastes with a lot of kickouts and a 9 count spot that makes me actively want to swallow my own teeth any time I see any wrestler do one, they still had a great match-within-a-match that kept the dynamic of their partnership as a constant thread throughout while using the punishment they were inflicting as a glue to bond their relationship to become stronger. I do also think it could’ve done with a little bit of trimming but that’s a very small nitpick. Speedball’s growing desperation to finally win the Classic (this was his third time being in the final 2 out of 3 tournaments) was a fun little seasoning in moments when Jake kept kicking out of all their offence and the chemistry the two had was on another level, leading to a great moment of Jake hitting a RAD Into the Void for the cathartic 3 count, fulfilling the prophecy he failed to fulfill the year prior.

Of all the one-night tournaments I’ve reviewed so far on this odyssey, this was comfortably the best. Jacobs/Blackwood is very much the red-headed stepchild of the tournament, but everything else was absolutely fantastic. What a tournament, and the best of the 3 Carolina Classic’s as things stand. Can’t wait for 2025’s.

RATING: 9.1/10 (****.25)