FIVE COURSE GRAPS #13 — JJ Gale

© Photography by Beyond Gorilla, Revolution Pro Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment, Total Nonstop Action

Something I’ve always liked to do when watching wrestling is pick out specific and small moments and try to draw them back to various points of influence in wrestling history. Wrestling’s history often finds itself going back to… well, itself and I always find it fascinating to see what sources the wrestlers of today will draw from to craft their own history, influence and visions for professional wrestling.

I had an idea of how I wanted to explore wrestling history while also drawing back to the wrestlers of today that I love and here I am finally executing it, look at me go. So now I must answer the question that some of you are hopefully asking, what is Five Course Graps?

The main reason I started this whole Wrestling Odyssey thing was to have a way for me to explore as much wrestling as I possibly can, while also having a medium through which I can review and express my thoughts on everything I see. While writing has taken much of a backseat in my creative endeavours in recent times due to burnout and general writer’s block, I am proud to say the desire is back thanks to this new Five Course Graps idea I have.

The gist is simple enough: I ask someone who works/has worked in professional wrestling in any major capacity for 5 matches that are major influences on their style of wrestling, tastes in wrestling, what they want wrestling to look like etc. and review them for this blog to both explore wrestling I (likely) haven’t seen and to get a better understanding of what influences the wrestlers of today.

We’re awfully close to home for FCG today, taking a look at one of a short list of notable wrestling exports from my own hometown of Southampton, that being the ‘Heart & Soul of RevPro’ JJ Gale’. A graduate of RevPro’s own Portsmouth School of Wrestling, JJ has moulded himself into one of RevPro’s most reliable names, becoming a core member of the roster and embodying his Heart & Soul moniker, featuring on more than half of RevPro’s shows since RevPro came back to running shows post-pandemic. Having recently had his first challenge to the British Heavyweight Championship after 7 years of graft and set to conclude the story of the Sons of Southampton this Sunday in RevPro, let’s check the forecast and see what 5 matches JJ Gale would say made JJ Gale.

MATCH #1: EDDIE GUERRERO vs REY MYSTERIO JR., 26/10/97

*This cropped up on Shane Hook’s FCG a couple weeks ago so after a rewatch (my 5th at this point and genuinely this match is just fucking absurd), my opinions remain the same so this review has been lifted.

There have been a few things in wrestling history that I’ve had to watch a couple times to truly get. Contemporaries of mine have often cited this as being in contention for the greatest match of all time and while I always thought it was undeniably fantastic, I never quite got that shout for it. However, watching it again has made me at least understand that take on it a lot more, because this was the first time the match TRULY hit for me.

Eddie had been on a dominant run as US Champion in WCW for almost a year at that point with his run coming to a halt at the hands of fellow luchador, Rey Mysterio Jr., who had put his mask on the line in order to get the match. The story itself is unbelievably simple, 2 men from the same wrestling culture that wrestle vastly different styles out of it and they collide SO beautifully. Rey tried to gung-ho Eddie into submission with lightning quick offence and pure speed but Eddie is a calculated, strategic, unfiltered villain. He completely roadblocks Mysterio at several points in the match and it makes the cutoffs so much more potent that just when you think Rey might be building momentum, Eddie swats his ass like a fly and continues the onslaught. He bends, breaks and manipulates Mysterio for so long that you wonder when Rey’s actually going to find any respite.

When he does, though, it is absolutely breath-taking. The athleticism Rey possesses in this match is fantastic and it helps build a further contrast between the 2 that Rey’s offence is so incredibly bombastic while Eddie’s is so muted, yet both possess the same level of effectiveness. As the match progresses, Rey slowly realises that he has to rely on a window to steal the match because Eddie’s awareness is too sharp for any control to be fully maintained. It shows in the brief spells that Rey has on top of the match, chief among them being THAT Moonsault DDT off the top that is probably the most iconic visual from this match, just beating the TOPE CON DRAGONRANA Rey hits around ⅔ of the way in.

In the end, Eddie yet again cuts Rey off and aims big with a Crucifix Powerbomb from the top to the mat, but Rey manages to hurricanrana him down instead and hold the pin for JUST long enough to defeat Eddie in one of the most beautifully succinct matches ever done and one of the best of the 90s. And to think the whole thing was done on the fly, too.

When asked to offer insight on the match, JJ said:

“For pure athleticism and the style of wrestling that fascinates me and was so innovative, not to mention being so ahead of its time.”

SHIBRUVA RATING: 9.4/10

MATCH #2: JOHN CENA vs CM PUNK, 27/6/11

I remember these days so clearly. Personally, this feud was the true start of CM Punk becoming my guy as a young fan. Like many others, even my 6 year old self was starting to fade out of wrestling after Wrestlemania 27 (like I then did after mania’s 30, 31 AND 33 somehow), but it was this promo that pulled me back in because Punk had done something no one had ever done live in wrestling before: Acknowledge what we as fans couldn’t see. As a young kid, it was fascinating to see a wrestler acknowledge the done-to-death insult of ‘Wrestling is Fake’ I used to hear on the playgrounds constantly when I would bring my figures into school. He broke the 4th wall and lit the pipe-bomb that made room for a divisive era of wrestling, blending the elements of kayfabe that built wrestling with the embracing of the real world around it, and it was this match that fully started it.

The match itself is LONG, to start, well over 30 minutes but it’s paced pretty well. The vast majority of the match focuses on the ornate struggle of wrestling, Cena doing what he can to protect the company’s crown jewel and what Punk’s home city of Chicago does for him in the match. Cena throws the whole 9 yards at Punk throughout the match, constantly trying to wear him down with holds & submissions, namely the STF, and bringing out the big bombs where he can but nothing works because it’s Punk in Chicago, supercharged by a packed out arena of people aching to see their boy win to spite the suits at the top and the incredibly cucky commentary. One could argue that this is where the notion of Chicago being a great wrestling crowd came from, or at least got their reputation.

The crowd are hanging on to everything both men do; going nuclear with heat for Cena and rallying behind Punk whenever he’s on top. There’s even Punk’s own lifeblood running through the front row with countless fans in the hottest seats reaching over the barricade to bang on them like the good ol’ days of ROH, a place crucial to Punk’s growth as a wrestler. Cena keeps throwing everything he can at him but nothing works, to Cena’s own shock, he’s usually the most impervious man in the game but it’s hard to knock down a man with an entire city behind him.

Towards the end, Punk nails Cena with a slightly off-kilt GTS that sends Cena to the outside, where some twats in suits (we’ll call them V and J for the sake of not mentioning them directly because they don’t deserve my finger motions on this keyboard) come out to look panicked. Punk takes it back to the ring and is quickly snatched into the STF and in an attempt to re-run the plan of the Montreal Screwjob, V calls for the bell and sends J to affirm it but Cena slips out of the ring and decks J before he can call anything, before going to V and simply saying ‘not that way’, choosing to go about the way Cena’s almost always done it: Respectfully. Of course, this buys Punk time and as Cena gets back into the ring, he’s caught with 1 more GTS and the hand hits for 3, as Punk wins the gold and hightails it into the Chicago night with the WWE’s most prized possession, a free man… for 8 days.

A very good match, if a long one that almost feels like a litmus test for longer matches. Packed with struggle and a great narrative and one of the most satisfying endings WWE ever put to television. Again, shame about how long they actually committed to it.

When asked to offer insight on the match, JJ said:

“For kickstarting the modern style of work/shoot storytelling that invests the modern audience and does an amazing job at suspending their collective disbelief.”

SHIBRUVA RATING: 8.7/10

MATCH #3: WILL OSPREAY vs MICHAEL OKU, 18/2/24

Before I review this, it’s important for me to establish a very important piece of personal context: This is my favourite match of all time. Just… keep that in mind if this review seems a bit wild and out of line compared to a lot of my established wrestling thoughts.

I will love this match ’til the day I die, no matter what you try to tell me about it and it’s admitted flaws. Being in the building for this match produced one of the most unforgettable nights of my life and one of the most unforgettable wrestling moments of my life, which is simply the beginning of the match. The bell goes after 2 epic entrances featuring custom music, new gear, special entrances and a fucking KATANA, and the energy is unbelievably fervent, almost beyond words. The noise bouncing around the room was so potent, so unfiltered, so thick that it felt like you could grab at the sound in the air and hold it in your hands, a condensed essence of what was effectively the point British wrestling had been rebuilding to after an incredibly turbulent and at times, shameful couple of years.

The occasion of the match makes it special before it even starts. This was Will Ospreay’s last match on the British indie scene, a scene he started his wrestling journey on and given over 12 years to before bidding farewell as he went to wrestle full time in America. Before going, he stated he wanted one last shot at the British Heavyweight Championship, a title he held during Britwres’ darkest days for a staggering 919 days, a title he held in a time where he became untouchable in the scene, holding it up as new stars blossomed under him while he reigned as the kingpin. The current champion, Michael Oku, had become something of an ace to the scene in Ospreay’s absence and obviously wasn’t going to back down, leading to one of, if not the most important match in the history of British independent wrestling.

The 2 men play out a drama over the course of nearly an hour with EVERYTHING packed into it, covering their own history as well as their personal, individual histories as wrestlers. Ospreay introduces the same towel that Michael’s valet and girlfriend Amira Blair threw in to forfeit Oku’s second match against Ospreay, still stained with Oku’s blood, a starmaking performance for the OJMO on that night. Oku manages to best Ospreay in a lot of sequences, finding a target on the knee but sadly not going for it that much. Ospreay finds constant respite with that explosive offence before the Ospreay of 2021–2022 comes out to play. The untouchable emperor of Britwres that took no jokes from anyone and doled out punishment with psychopathic glee as he saw fit. He launches Oku into the ring post and blood begins to pour, with Ospreay working the cut as it flows. He taunts Amira with Oku’s bloodied face and Amira spits at him in defiance, but Ospreay sends her hurtling into the barricade with a remorseless boot to the chest.

This invigorates Oku as only seeing a loved one fall can and he begins to finally fight back, hitting Ospreay with that same ring post slingshot Ospreay hit him with and Ospreay draws red. Oku begins to dominate with that same diminishing offence, looking down on Ospreay in the same way Ospreay looked down on and dismissed him after watching his first match, saying Oku would be ‘a good comedy wrestler’ and nothing more. Oku starts gunning down the knee with everything he can, and while Ospreay doesn’t sell it great in the long term he’s so good with it in those moments under the onslaught, buckling and grabbing at it, constantly trying to maintain blood flow into it. The 2 men keep going back & forth, exchanging blows as blood flows, before Oku manages to find a gap and slice at Ospreay’s head with a Hidden Blade, Ospreay’s own finish.

He keeps going with them. Another Hidden Blade. And another Hidden Blade. One for every family member of Oku’s that Ospreay said he looked in the eyes before striking Oku with repeated Hidden Blades 2 years earlier. Ospreay catches him with a flash Hidden Blade and later, nails the Styles Clash, the finisher of AJ Styles, the man who Ospreay had his breakout match with just under 10 years ago at the time of the match. Oku soon crawls to Amira, now back on her feet, begging her to not give up and asking for support and Ospreay tries to drag him back to center, but Amira holds and Amira goes with him. They both get to their knees and Ospreay lines up a Hidden Blade, goes to strike and Oku ducks… but Amira doesn’t and down she goes.

Ospreay keeps going and busts out the big guns. Storm Driver ’93. Hidden Blade. Stormbreaker. But Oku just keeps fucking kicking out. The Oku that Ospreay faces today isn’t the same skinny cruiserweight champion of 2021 and 2022, rather a man who is battle tested and beaten the best. With nothing else having worked prior, Oku reaches into the pocket of the biggest Britwres cult hero possibly of all time, the late Kurtis Chapman and busts out the illustrious Sega Megadriver, before hitting 2 frog splashes and locking in the Half Crab as a now conscious Amira kisses Ospreay goodbye, the Crab gets torqued back and Ospreay taps.

Does the match have flaws? Yes. Absolutely. Ospreay’s selling is spotty, Oku’s is almost non-existent long term and there’s a million and six kickouts. But on this occasion, I just can’t bring myself to care as much as I do in other cases. This match means so much more to me that I just can’t bring myself to be objective in the way I normally am when critiquing it. It’s everything I love about wrestling. It’s feeling, it’s passion, it’s genuine, unfiltered love for the wrestling on your doorstep. To me, it’s what makes independent wrestling so special. I will forever love this match, and to me, it will forever be perfect.

When asked to offer insight on the match, JJ said:

“Two of the greatest to come from our country and amazing storytelling, emotion and fan reception inside the arena; I was there live to feel everything they were doing.”

SHIBRUVA RATING: 10/10

MATCH #4: UNDERTAKER vs TRIPLE H, 1/4/12

Right. Let’s be honest about this match.

I get why this match has the reputation it does in the wider wrestling world. 2 people touted as all time greats by the company they occupy, refereed by another man touted as an all time great by that same company coming together for a 30 minute epic in an iconic stipulation on an iconic show *brand-wise, Mania 28 itself is a bit duff. But if I personally am being honest with my thoughts on this match…

Poo.

It’s 30 minutes of old men repeating dialogue without any real change in inflection or emotion, Shawn Michaels putting in a VERY exaggerative refereeing performance, slow ass wrestling with LOTS of moseying around before an actually alright finish. The year before, HHH had tried to avenge his career-long best chum Shawn after Taker had retired him the year before that in a match miles better than this one. HHH had come closer than arguably anyone before, so he figured it was worth one more shot to end Taker’s illustrious streak, this time with Shawn as the special guest referee and inside Hell in a Cell, arguably the specialist stipulation of both men. With the men involved, it plays out how you’d expect.

Taker gets a long control segment of battering HHH around the cell, not too dissimilar to Taker battering Shawn around the cell at Badd Blood ’97, before HHH takes control and launches his own control segment of weapon shots and LOTS OF DIALOGUE which is mostly HHH just shouting variations of the phrase ‘END IT!’ to Shawn, all while Shawn looks overly emotional at doing the job assigned to him because the 2 blokes he’s refereeing are his mates. The match honestly feels like the first of it’s kind, with more focus on in-match dialogue and non-wrestling interactions between characters than the actual contents of the match, akin to what we got a lot of in 2020 and the years after with the birth of the cinematic match, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.

The match continues as HHH tries to literally kill Taker with a sledgehammer swing to the head but Michaels intervenes and removes the hammer. Taker thanks Michaels for saving his life by locking him in Hell’s Gate for some reason, giving HHH a window to smash him in the head anyways. Taker somehow gets up from this, hits HHH with a Chokeslam who kicks out, and then Taker decides to Chokeslam replacement referee Charles Robinson. What an arse. We then get the iconic moment from the match, Shawn decides he’s had enough and hits Sweet Chin Music on Taker into HHH hitting the Pedigree (was that called the X-Mark way back when or am I imagining that?), but Taker kicks out and Michaels sells this with an interpretive dance and some sad expressions. It’s just too much of trying to make it bigger than it is.

The match continues as Taker maintains control for pretty much the rest of the match with a flurry of chair shots as he intervenes with HHH getting the sledgehammer and disarming him of it, taking it himself. HHH chooses to die on his sword with the ultimate act of defiance, a crotch chop, before Taker nails him with his own hammer and HHH crawls up Taker in the same way Shawn did before accepting fate, being hit by a Tombstone for the win.

Long. Winding. Boring. Pfffeegghhh.

When asked to offer insight on the match, JJ said:

“Pure pro wrestling spectacle. The magic of the stars, sheer spectacle and long term investment into characters.”

SHIBRUVA RATING: 4.9/10

MATCH #5: SAMOA JOE vs CHRISTOPHER DANIELS vs AJ STYLES, 11/9/05

I think with 95% of wrestling promotions, you could argue for a couple matches to be the defining match of the promotion. With TNA, even with a company with coming up a quarter-century’s worth of matches, there is no debate. This will always be THE definitive match of TNA’s catalogue.

There are matches that are influential and then there are matches that are timeless, and this is one of them. It doesn’t matter what era of wrestling we’re in, what year it is, what culture of wrestling is ruling the roost, this match will always prevail as a nexus point for modern wrestling and what’s come of it. 3 men who wrestled light years ahead of their time and continued to for a stupidly long amount of time showcasing everything they were about with lightning chemistry, ridiculous speed and a fun story to boot. The story going in was that Daniels was X-Div champ at a time where Styles & Joe were the prevalent A1 & 2 of the division (no diss to Chris), and after Daniels pitted them against each other, both Styles & Joe eventually got a shot at Daniels for a triple threat at Unbreakable to form a match that’s become so synonymous to that show, it’s now known as simply the Unbreakable Triple Threat.

This match is just unreal. The fingerprints of this match are on THOUSANDS of matches in the modern day in both the individual spots and the structure of the match. Styles & Joe start by teaming up on the aggressively cocky Daniels, but soon start going for each other. Daniels constantly finds windows of opportunity to be a dick, shoving Joe out of the ring as he’s lining up his face wash or poking AJ in the eyes as a counter to his counter. The 3 maintain a breakneck pace for the entire match with several highspots, including THAT Shooting Star Press AJ hits to the outside on both opponents, which sadly tends to overshadow THAT fucking sick Tope Con Hilo Joe gets on Styles & Daniels. There’s high counters, ridiculously smooth chemistry, perfect character moments, they even manage to nail ugly fighting with a sequence between Joe & Styles where they just start punching each other loads and it’s awesome and serves as a little easter egg that in & amongst a match of jaw-dropping acrobatics, you get a little bit of pure human spirit in there too.

And to top it off, the breakneck speed they do everything at works greatly into the match’s benefit. On top of all the VERY good nearfalls in the final few minutes, it’s a relatively sudden roll-up during a sequence that ends it as Daniels gets his Angel’s Wings flipped over by AJ who maintains the mount to score 3 and become X-Division Champion, ending Daniels’ record breaking longest ever run as champion.

A timeless match in every sense of the word. Over 21 years on from it happening, it is still talked about and will live forever in infamy as one of the most influential matches of all time, no debate. Watch it, it’s a match to see before you die.

When asked to offer insight on the match, JJ said:

“A match both revolutionary and generational that showcased the creativity of modern pro wrestlers.”

SHIBRUVA RATING: 9.6/10