Samoa Joe & Dan Maff vs. Big Van Vader & Mike Awesome - JAPW When World Collide, 6/5/2004

This is a 3/4ths of a fever dream and 1/4 Hit Squad. This is another match in a long line of matches that I had heard about for years and years, and I think because of that, it built up in my head as something that must be absolutely insane to watch. It's got four big, beefy dudes who like to beat the shit out of people in some dingy northeastern indie show gym, so it's gotta fuckin' slap, right?

Well...

Far be it from my to speak ill of the dead, especially of two guys whose work I absolutely adore. Vader, alone, has been one of my all time favorite wrestlers since I was a young kid watching him in WCW beating up Sting and Cactus Jack. But neither Vader or Awesome showed up to this match in the type of shape they would've needed to be in for this match to reach the heights I had built up in my mind (and I'm sure many others had as well). Honestly? I don't even think Vader or Awesome showed up in general ring shape either! It was legitimately sad, especially knowing how things play out for both men in the coming years.

But Samoa Joe is here, and Samoa Joe is pro wrestling. Any chance this had of being a car wreck was absolutely, 100% saved by Samoa Joe being a fucking killing machine.

Maff works a long face in peril segment with Vader, who seems more interested in getting into it with the Rahway locals at ringside than working the match. But finally, the moment that this match essentially sold itself on happens, and we get a generational beefy boy brawl, and HELL YEAH dude.

And then the rest of the match sort of just happens. Mike Awesome finally gets tagged in and looks like he'd rather be anywhere else but here. Maff is completely gassed and honestly, I get this was his home promotion, but he really had no business being in this. And Joe continued to do what he could before it eventually became a lost cause. 

Awesome breaks out some of the greatest hits he once played to thunderous applause in the ECW Arena and FMW against Masato Tanaka, but he performs them like the surviving members of your favorite mid-90's band reuniting half of the group to play at a food festival in the midwest -- safe and sloppy.

All four men get into brawl, and Vader seems more interested in house cleaning by getting weapons out of the ring than he seems in working the match. Awesome goes to Awesome Bomb Maff into a table set up in the corner, but Maff sloooowwwllllyyyy gets down, and then sloooowwwllllyyyy gets behind Awesome to then sloooowwwllllyyyy suplex Awesome through the table with the softest throw ever, a move even the Miz would look at and go "come on, lay it in some, brother!"

Maff covers Awesome to win while Vader just stands there before slapping his back at the 3 count, but the match is mercifully over, and so is any dream of this match being an all-timer.

MATCH RATING: **