Eddie Guerrero vs. Doug Williams - FWA: UK Revival, 2/9/2002

(Hey gang. Back in 2020, in the months before COVID, I started a site similar to this and reviewed some stuff. I recently remembered it and decided to move those reviews over here. Hopefully you'll enjoy and they can reach a larger audience. Or not. Whatever. But this was my brain before the pandemic broke it. Or fixed it? I dunno.)

This was a Semi-Final match in FWA:UK's King of England tournament.

Only backstory I can knowingly provide on this is that it was during Eddie’s clean-up period from the first 4-5 months of 2002. I also believe this is the show where Eddie was clean for like, less than 2-3 months, and it was being made known this was his recovery tour, if you wheel, and even knowing that, Brian Christopher (who got fired from the WWF for drug related reasons as well just a few months before) asked Eddie if he wanted to get high:

Look, folks, I don’t write the stories. But the infamous Angelfire list said it was true, and that list has literally never been wrong in my eyes.

So this is great right off the bat. Good exchange to start but Eddie overpowers Williams (Eddie is HUGE here) and Eddie keeps trying to lock down Williams in a hold. Williams is able to use his legs, even in the slightest of ways seemingly, to escape. Eddie finally says fuck that and gets Williams face down on the mat, trapping his ankles in a pretzel and forcing pressure down on them.

Not the most flattering angle as it looks more like Eddie’s about to get him some sweet brother sex. But still. Williams keeps managing ways to escape, so Eddie steps up his game with a step over toe hold into a BRUTAL looking STF. I wish the production was better on this because for a split second you saw Williams leg was being bent opposite of how it ever, ever should.

We’re two minutes in, not a single full bump yet.

Williams again escapes and it looks like they’re doing this story of even though Eddie is bigger, Williams is strong and Eddie underestimated this. Williams slides out of the STF as I mentioned and grabs a side headlock, but Eddie shoves his way out of it, AND WE GET A TEST OF STRENGTH.

GONNA NEED TO KEEP SEEING MORE TESTS OF STRENGTH.

Eddie starts with the advantage but Williams again is overpowering Eddie to the point that Eddie has to use his agility for this cool looking spot.

Granted, the landing didn’t stick, but it inadvertently added a bit of desperation to Eddie’s motivation at this point.

Eddie tried getting into a stand up fight with Williams and Williams easily takes the advantage. Williams grounds Eddie and traps him with a modified head scissors, but Eddie sneaks out of it and gets Dougs legs trapped the same way before.

AND THIS TIME HE’S GOING ALL THE WAY WITH THE MEXICAN SURFBOARD.

But because of his ring positioning, he can’t fully extend, so he adapts and FUCK ME that looks painful!

Eddie breaks are 3 and as soon as they get up, he sees Doug favoring his lower back so Eddie takes an immediate shot to it and Doug crumbles.

Eddie is fucking shining now. Some shoulder thrusts to Dougs back in the corner, steps back and runs forward with a dropkick spot on to the back. Big back drop follows and a quick elbow drop to the center of his back. Williams is up on all fours, AND EDDIE HITS A SPRINGBOARD SENTON ONTO HIS BACK AND HE JUST CRUMBLES!

Doug goes into this weird place where he just kind of no sells that and starts this weak comeback. Eddie moves as Doug charges him in the corner with a knee, and he hits it on the middle turnbuckle as a result. Eddie goes right back to work on Doug’s legs now and locks in what the announcers are calling a British Figure 4. It kind of looks like Charlotte’s current finish. Decent point from the one commentator who says that Eddie wasn’t able to capitalize on any Mexican style offense just yet so he’s resorting to British style.

Williams isn’t selling anything outside of the holds themselves and it’s kind of pissing me off. Eddie’s worked over the lower 50% of his body but during another comeback, Doug hits a diving knee drop from the top with ease and not even a sign of pain after.

The longer we’ve gone, the closer this has gotten to the pretty short time limit, so pin attempts are getting thrown around. Only memorable one so far was a seamless huricanrana into a pin by Eddie.

Apparently the winner of this is advancing in the “King of England” tournament. Looking at it on Cagematch, the only other names I recognize are Jody Fleisch and Robbie Brookside. Although the semi-main of the whole show was Brian Christopher vs. Ulf Herman which, just...holy shit what.

Now, after all the work on Doug’s lower body, Eddie has him right where he wants him and locks on the Gory Special to a big pop. He slowly maneuvers himself to get into a modified backslide to sort of surprise Doug with a pin, he kicks out...and god damnit, it’s the RVD/Jerry Lynn pinning combination.

It’s not bothering me as much here because out of all of the pin attempts, there’s been any straight forward flat back pins, it’s been all unique pin attempts to try and throw each other off.

Eddie goes for the Frog Splash after seemingly laying Doug out for good.

Doug moves and Eddie rolls through. Doug runs the ropes because I GUESS HIS KNEE IS FINE and hits his Revolution DDT set up but Eddie slams him down. He hits the ropes and goes for the La Magistral Cradle, BUT DOUG BLOCKS IT AND LAYS ON TOP WITH THE LEGS HOOKED FOR THE THREE COUNT!

So I liked the overall story of the match. Cocky vet in an away game can’t keep his finger on the pulse of the match. And even with adjusting his style, Doug is just the better man tonight for at least 3 seconds. Doug’s decision to randomly stop selling 3-4 mins in was a big detractor to me and having seen enough Eddie matches over the years, you can kind of tell when he’s pissed, and this looked like it. Maybe I’m just reading too much into it. I will say this, I know that it's a tournament and I'd have to see his other two matches to really get a good read on it, but this was all Eddie and didn't really do too many favors for Doug, obviously other than the big one of getting the win.

Additionally, the small ring seemed to throw Eddie off a few times in a positioning sense but he made the best of it. Wasn’t a fan of the ten minute time limit either. But whaddya gonna do? Still good shit, pal.

MATCH RATING: ***1/2