Horatio

This was a Solid-Steel Championship match with B-Boy defending. I can see how other viewers might have their quibbles with how this match went down, but for what I saw them pull off, I'm giving it a more than solid ****... I almost have to find that Danielson/Homicide match now, because one of these bad-hand-story matches left a bad taste in my mouth, iirc, and it wasn't Makabe/B-Boy. After a second-viewing, I have to give it to Makabe and B-Boy, they're a great match and I have to wonder if a re-match ever took place.

The story is that B-Boy got his right-hand hurt when Makabe charge'd him with a running-dropkick in the corner and although I was skeptical about how B-Boy was going to sell for the remaining 20 minutes of the video, it was an all-time great title defense. Nearly every one of Makabe's reversals was base'd on B-Boy not being able to lock hands with normal grip strength and although that doesn't sound that interesting on paper, it's incredible how many times it happens over 10-15 minutes at the pace that this match went. B-Boy repeatedly, foolishly throws punches with his bad hand because he was either desperate or piss'd off, and it maybe cost him the win (or maybe shameless Makabe's dastard ways are why it ended the way it did). Makabe didn't get that many big moves in but his standing strikes were worth the time he put into them (in essence, there was quite a number of punches and hard chops thrown by the challenger). B-Boy gets a ton of sympathy from the raucaus crowd when they realize he's fighting hurt, but by the end of it, they're happy to see Makabe get the win, probably because their man B-Boy wouldn't stop throwing those closed-fists with the bad hand they were crying for - it's just hard to cheer for a champ when he's performing that much in-desperation.