[2000-06-17-MPPW-TV] Derrick King vs Alan Steel

[soup23]

Derrick King and Corey have an awkward interview where it comes out DK is going to be married soon. I love the local feel of the promotion where he mentions a bridal shop and Corey without skipping a beat says “oh yeah off Hickory Hill”. Steel comes out and explains that his dad gave him a talking to after last weeks match when he took the short cut to achieve a victory. He promises to have a clean, technical match this week. I love premises like this in wrestling and they did a great job with it in execution. This gets 10 minutes which again feels like an eternity for Memphis studio wrestling of yesteryear. The work is solid, technical, and clean. The match ramps up in the final 2 minutes or so before the time limit expires. Five more minutes is granted and Steel is quickly rolled up by DK for the win. You can tell Steel is really frustrated and I bet a heel turn is right around the corner. *** (6.0)

[Tim Evans]

Derrick King has grown a lot from 1998 when he was pretending to be HBK and falling in love with Miss texas. OK match as Steel is competent compared to others in Memphis and Derrick King is awesome. I'm guessing they were going to do a Steel heel turn but I don't think that happens. Corey Maclin ragging on Derrick about getting married and Derrick looking like he wanted to deck him for doing so was funny.

[Robert S]

I like this really simple and straightforward storytelling here. I was actually surprised that Steel did not already turn at the end of this segment.

[GSR]

‘Mr Personalities’ joins Corey Maclin and after last week he’s looking forward to facing Alan Steel again, but he’s more excited about another Power Pro Heavyweight title match that he’s got coming up. Corey oddly congratulates King on the fact that he’s getting married, although I’m guessing that the Memphis Bridal Factory up on Hickory Hill has sponsored the show and that was just an excuse to name drop them (and for Maclin to give their exact location!). Alan Steel then joins them and he wants to apologise to King for his actions last week as his father, his biggest fan, said that he was a cheater and a sore loser. That was hard for him to hear and accept and that’s why he made this challenge, because he knows he can beat him in a technical wrestling match.

 

Turns out that this is also a ‘teacher vs student’ encounter as King helped to train Steel. That Bridal Gallery has definitely chucked a bit of money Power Pro’s way as Corey is namedropping them again! These two are very evenly matched here. Headscissors escape from a headlock by Steel, but King escapes that, side headlock takedown and they’re right back where they were. Hip toss is blocked and Steel with a cool double arm overhead belly to belly. A lovely arm drag and Steel bars the arm whilst applying pressure to King’s shoulder. King backs him into the corner and lays in some knife edge chops. Steel grabs hold of the ropes to block the O’Connor roll, but a crossbody by King gets him a two. Neither man is able to sustain a prolonged advantage as the match seems to be going one way then quickly changes to the other. Victory roll for a near fall, King tries it again but this time Steel pancakes him face first to the canvas. A clock has appeared on the screen FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER and this has got time limit draw written all over it. King counters a float over DDT into a Northern Lights suplex as the two counts continue to come thick and fast. Bulldog off the turnbuckles by Steel, top rope splash, but the time limit expires before the official has a chance to slap the mat for the third time. Steel wants five more minutes, although Dave Brown isn’t sure that they’ve got enough time left on the show and may have to have a rematch at a later date. The ref decides that they have and orders the bell to be rung to get this one restarted. A whopping twelve seconds later King gets the pin after a sunset flip!

 

Why did they have to do that horrible restart/flash pin finish! My gut says that these two had just put on the Power Pro match of the year so far and then they do that to me. While the time limit draw was blatantly telegraphed by putting that clock on screen, just have the pair of them shake hands and come back next week to do it all again. You can then have Steel cut a promo on King saying that he told him he could beat him in a straight up technical match and the only reason he never was because they ran out of time. He challenges him to a match with no time limit and you can play the finish there however you want (I’d do Steel cheating in some form to get the victory). So infuriating that someone felt that there needed to be a decisive ending here and that a draw wouldn’t have sufficed. The action in the match was really good, technical, scientific and both cut a quick pace throughout ramping up the near falls and two counts towards the end. I don’t know if there was a slight timing issue on that finish as you see the referee delaying the count and also King kicking out to make sure he’s not pinned. Still, I liked this one a lot but darn that restart!