(Stand clear of the closing doors. Bing bong!)
It’s never too early to start preparing for the 2027 edition of the 30 Under 30 project! While we’ve been keeping an eye on the folks like Danny Orion, Shimbashi, and Johnnie Robbie in companies like New Texas Pro Wrestling, St. Louis Anarchy, West Coast Pro Wrestling, and Pandemonium: Pro Wrestling, we should also check in on what’s happening in companies that might not normally pick up notice. With the help of recommendations from some trusted sources, let’s dive one level deeper in the hierarchy of American independent wrestling companies to the WrestleARTS, the Underground Wrestling Alliance, the Arizona Wrestling Federation, and the Reality of Wrestling.
In this edition, I covered:
- David Ali vs. Connor Hopkins (WrestleARTS, November 5, 2025)
- David Ali (c) vs. Connor Hopkins (WrestleARTS, May 23, 2026)
- Rachel Armstrong vs. Allie Allbright (WrestleARTS, June 20, 2026)
- Richie Coy vs. Cosmo Orion (UGWA, July 11, 2026)
- Clutch (c) vs. Gabe Roka (AWF, July 11, 2026)
- Monica Monroe (c) vs. Rachel Ley (ROW, July 11, 2026)
David Ali vs. Connor Hopkins
WrestleARTS Betamania
November 7, 2025
2025 Cagematch ranking as of 9/1/26: N/A
Cagematch rating as of 9/1/26: N/A
David Ali and Connor Hopkins’s feud and WrestleARTS came across my radar thanks to Corey Clark’s piece on the Jim Fannin Family and WrestleARTS’s attempts to restore the feeling of IWA-MS. Naturally, I had to see what the deal with Ali (“another secret of the Midwest in his own right,” per Clark) and Hopkins (“one of the Midwest’s best-kept secrets”) was. Hopkins had a YouTube page with his matches and a Linktree with a link to his merchandise store.
Was Hopkins’s “Fuck Hulk Hogan” t-shirt supposed to inspire me to boo him? If so, it was not very effective…especially compared to Ali’s entrance costume, which was reminiscent of the Homelander. Of course, he wouldn’t be the first wrestler to misunderstand the Homelander and think that the character’s imitable. To ingratiate himself with the crowd, Ali took a toke from something a ringside fan offered. Hopkins just swiveled his hips and took off one t-shirt to reveal a second t-shirt, this time emblazoned with what I thought was the Chosen Higher Wrestling Club’s logo.
WrestleArts uploaded a “fan cam” of this match, which took place outside the Beta Theta Pi House in Indianapolis, Indiana. It was certainly a unique venue, and shooting the match against the starless sky gave it a very gritty, clandestine atmosphere. (Also, the fan cam might have been the steadiest handheld camera of all the matches covered in this column.) Unfortunately, this atmosphere came at a cost: I could not hear a word of Ali’s promo after the match was initially stopped because Hopkins smashed a garbage can over Ali’s back and a beer can against Ali’s head.
At 38 years old, Ali had ten years’ worth of life experience and 128 matches’ worth of in-ring experience on Hopkins. However, at least according to Cagematch, Ali (since 2016) and Hopkins (since 2018) had been wrestling for a similar number of years. Notably, Ali wrestled 12 matches on AEW Dark in 2020 and 2021 when the company filmed from Daily’s Place. I was most entertained by the realization that Ali wrestled twice for Style Battle because Style Battle will always evoke Nick Gage’s very effective promo for his match against WALTER. (Hey, that promo got me to go to Saint Finbar Catholic Church Gym for Style Battle 01.08.) (For more information about Ali’s background, I recommend listening to this interview.)
Since Hopkins wore a shirt that poked at Hogan months after his death, it made sense that Hopkins was the cowardly heel in the match. He retreated repeatedly from Hopkins: at the start of the match, after Ali’s strong shoulder tackle, and after Ali rolled him up and tossed him by the arm several times. Hopkins reminded me of the former Curt Stallion, now forced to go by Stallion Rogers because he signed his name away to WWE. Both were lanky men, and they both projected an oily villainy in their personas. One could easily imagine Stallion smashing an opponent with a piece of plastic like Hopkins did to Ali.
To Ali’s and Hopkins’s credit, their fistfight after the match was restarted had a good level of energy and intensity, and Ali’s springboard backward elbow strike looked well executed. I am amazed that Ali used a chair against Hopkins in such tight quarters, and I suppose we could excuse how unfazed Hopkins was by Ali’s chair shots because Ali didn’t have space to follow through on his swings. On principle, however, I don’t think that wrestlers generally should act as though getting hit by a chair didn’t affect him at all. Ali, at least, looked dazed when Hopkins hit his back with the chair.
Setting up two chairs and two cans of beer so that Ali and Hopkins could sit, drink, and punch each other in the face befit the match’s rowdy and chaotic atmosphere, and it let Hopkins prove to be the villain again. Hopkins took a swig, spat the beer at Ali’s face to blind him, and beat Ali about the face and body. Considering the condensation and spilt beer on the mat, Hopkins and Ali acquitted themselves very well in the match. That said, bouncing off of the piece of wood on the spear in the corner must have sucked for Hopkins’s head and neck.
Ali, as the face, had much flashier offense than Hopkins, but Hopkins helped to keep the match together through his antagonistic chemistry with the rowdy crowd. I was heartened to see that Hopkins returned to St. Louis Anarchy recently at Who Wants to Live Forever, albeit in a six person match, and that Hopkins remained the DREAMWAVE World Champion. Thanks to this Fannin Family storyline in WrestleArts, this was Hopkins’s best window of opportunity to expand his presence beyond the Midwest. I’d be interested in seeing Hopkins tangle with veterans like Jeremy Wyatt or bruisers like Brick Savage to see how else he could harness his heel energy.
Similarly, I would be interested in seeing Ali wrestle hard-hitting opponents. He was a flashy foil for Hopkins here, and he played the crowd favorite well. Because he’s older, his ceiling might ultimately be lower, but he seemed like a solid veteran who could be useful on many company’s rosters. However, before we come to any other conclusions, we need to see how Ali held up his side of the Fannin Family storyline.
You can watch the match on WrestleARTS’s YouTube page.
David Ali (c) vs. Connor Hopkins
WrestleARTS 30: Racing Pulse
May 23, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 9/1/26: N/A
Cagematch rating as of 9/1/26: N/A
After Ali defeated Hopkins at Betamania, Ali unseated Josh Crane as WrestleArts’s Smash’d Midwest Burgers Triple Crown Champion at WrestleARTS 28. While Ali defended this championship against Appollo Starr, Hopkins defeated Brayden Lee to become the number one contender for that title at WrestleARTS 29: Tankman vs. Prophet. (Kudos to Appollo Starr for doubling almost every consonant in their name, though I wish they had fully committed to the bit and spelled Starr with two t’s.) Hopkins also joined the Fannin Family, and Jim Fannin evoked the names of IWA-MS legends like CM Punk and Bryan Danielson and his own history in professional wrestling to lend Hopkins credibility. In the process, Fannin did some much appreciated, good ol’ fashioned hard selling for Hopkins’s rematch with Ali at WrestleArts 30.
As Corey Clark laid out in their piece, Fannin also resurrected the IWA World Championship and awarded it to Hopkins. That decision set up the more interesting side story that could help Hopkins expand his visibility. Fannin and Hopkins challenged former champions to face Hopkins. In that promo, I saw a spark of Adam Cole in Hopkins’s delivery, which spoke to Hopkins’s potential. (For the record, both Hopkins and Cole were billed at 5’11″/180 cm, though Cole was heavier at 202 lbs./92 kg. With enough time, Hopkins could probably bulk up from his 180 lbs./82 kg.) In laying out the challenge, Hopkins opened the door to facing active former IWA World Champions like:
- Eddie Kingston
- Nick Gage
- Chris Hero
- Matt Cross
- Calvin Tankman
- Mance Warner (Hopkins and Warner had a singles match in March 2026)
- Jake Crist
- John Wayne Murdoch
- Toby Klein
- Shane Mercer
- Darin Corbin (Hopkins and Corbin last wrestled in a singles match in 2023)
- Aaron Williams
- Ace Perry
- Kongo Kong
I won’t pretend that pairing Hopkins with these wrestlers would produce the greatest matches in the world. However, the name of the game is visibility, and facing Mance Warner again, for example, might provide an in-road to AEW.
First, Hopkins needed to conquer Ali so all of Hopkins’s and Fannin’s boasting wouldn’t seem so hollow. Ali, as the noble babyface, appealed to Hopkins’s inner goodness to reject Fannin’s help and compete fairly for the WrestleArts’s Smash’d Midwest Burgers Triple Crown Championship. Hopkins responded by French kissing the WrestleArts’s Smash’d Midwest Burgers Triple Crown Championship belt when the referee presented it to him before the match.
Similar to their first match, Hopkins opted to bail out of the ring at the opening bell. It’s all about the game and how you play it, I suppose. Meanwhile, the commentators pondered whether Ali’s smartest move would be to pull a Pedro Martinez and attack a respected elder like Fannin as soon as he could. To my great surprise, Hopkins and Ali took their collar-and-elbow tie-up out of the ring, around the ring, and then back inside the ring. This was more successful than Cosmo Orion and Richie Coy’s attempt in their match because Hopkins and Ali were able to project intensity more successfully. The simple act of breaking up their tie-up outside and lunging at each other to re-engage gave the sequence a gritty, competitive edge that Orion and Coy lacked.
It also helped that Hopkins and Ali committed to the bit. Back inside the ring, Ali used his size and leverage to pin Hopkins, which shook Hopkins up enough that he clutched the bottom rope after he kicked out for safety. That little act, helped by Hopkins’s acting, helped greatly to make the sequence work even as the commentators babbled about Smash’d Midwest Burger’s delicious offerings. (I’m surprised that WWE hadn’t already gone down the sponsored championships route and that AEW got there first.)
I wish the play by play commentator, Nick Maniwa, didn’t feel like they were obligated to pretend to not see Fannin’s interference. Don Coss ain’t need no blinders to villainous shenanigans. Lance Russell didn’t need to side with the face or the heel. Coss and Russell worked for the company, and they could describe the events of the match as reporters would recount the scene.
Hopkins and Ali kept to a simple formula where Ali could overpower Hopkins one-one-one, but the wily Hopkins could outmaneuver Ali. Ali tried a springboard Superman punch (there is an absolute epidemic of Superman punches in wrestling thanks to Roman Reigns) from inside the ring to Hopkins, who was on the apron, but Hopkins dropped to the floor to dodge the attack. Hopkins then tripped Ali on the apron and focused on Ali’s back with a back suplex on the apron. Hopkins repeatedly distracted the referee so Fannin could use the most laughably feeble attacks on Ali, like pulling Ali’s arms while Ali was suspended on the bottom rope or shaking Ali’s shoulders while he recovered from Hopkins’s back suplex. Fannin’s interference undercut the seriousness of his interference, but the comic images of Fannin’s attacks on Ali didn’t detract from the match much.
Hopkins and Ali had a solid, if unspectacular, match. The match ended, as it had to, with controversy. Ali inadvertently destroyed the referee with a springboard cutter, and Trik Davis ran into the ring to hit Ali with a Codebreaker. Hopkins sealed his victory with a wrist-clutch Exploder Suplex, but the WrestleArts Director of Operations David Staggs forced the match to restart. Ali fought off Davis and defeated Hopkins after hitting a Phantom Driver and a diving elbow. It was chaotic and frankly a little over-stuffed, but I understand the impulse to give Fannin and company some legitimacy to their grievances even though they blatantly cheated.
After the match, Fannin and Hopkins ran off with two of the belts that made up the WrestleArts’s Smash’d Midwest Burgers Triple Crown Championship so they could claim that possession equaled ownership of the title, which would fuel the next step in the story. Hopkins continued to refine his oratorical skills (he tripped over the phrase “Fannin Family” and got frustrated), and he continued to project Adam Cole energy in his wrestling and his talking. He shouldn’t be one of the Midwest’s best-kept secrets for long.
You can watch the match and the show on WrestleARTS’s YouTube page.
Rachel Armstrong (c) vs. Allie Allbright
WrestleARTS 31: Heatwave
June 20, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 9/1/26: N/A
Cagematch rating as of 9/1/26: N/A
In October 2023, I came across Rachel Armstrong’s name for the first time when REVOLVER announced that she would wrestle Billie Starkz in the first round of their Women’s Grand Prix. That matched placed at #305 in this site’s 2023 Match of the Year poll. From there, she popped up with a match in Kitsune (before it shut down), a match against Nicole Matthews in DPW, a random showing in wXw, or an out-of-nowhere match against Maya World in GFW in Indiana not long after World signed with AEW. Armstrong’s highest profile match was probably against Athena in ROH in 2025, and she seemed to reach as high as she could in the American independent wrestling hierarchy with a scattering of GCW appearances.
Thus, I was pleasantly surprised that my dip into WrestleARTS to see what David Ali and Connor Hopkins have been up to also gave me an opportunity to check in on Rachel Armstrong. And while “she’s back,” per WrestleArts’s very excited image, she wasn’t back in POG form. So, was she really back?
Armstrong did not have a YouTube page, and she seemed to use her Instagram page as her main landing. Allbright had a YouTube page and an Instagram page, but she did not have a Linktree.
At first, compared to UGWA’s jittery handheld camera, the steady, albeit washed out camera from WrestleArts felt like a godsend. Given WrestleArts’s mission to provide youth with opportunities to develop their video and event production skills, I think we can be direct and fair with critique. It was disappointing when the handheld shots started shaking too when it tried to capture Allbright and Armstrong’s grappling on the mat. Also, the color levels for the hard camera and the handheld camera were not aligned, similar to what we’ve seen in promotions like PWA.
Most irksome of all, on multiple occasions, the director cut away from when Armstrong or Allbright made contact with their opponent (such as Allbright’s running knee in the corner or Armstrong’s thrust kick late in the match), which diminished the attack’s impact. I encourage WrestleArts’s instructors to show their trainees the films of directors like John Woo, who capture the action and reaction in the same shot to emphasize the action’s impact. This short video essay explained how Woo achieved this. Cinematography, like professional wrestling, didn’t need to be complicated. Sometimes, the simplest and oldest ideas worked best.
According to the commentators, this was Rachel Armstrong’s return after recovering from a broken foot. As of this writing, Armstrong had wrestled 210 matches since 2021, according to Cagematch. With that level of experience, it was especially unfortunate that Armstrong failed to find Allbright’s head on a standing switch on her headlock to set up the side headlock takeover. Allbright’s inexperience (only 55 matches since 2023 according to Cagematch) was apparent when Allbright tried to knee Armstrong in the stomach. They made up for it with a tight Northern Lights Suplex.
In general, when Allbright wrestled more to her size with power-based offense (running splashes and middle rope cross body splashes), she was sharper.
Armstrong’s execution of the Northern Lights Suplex, the Tiger Feint Kick, and the short DDT looked sharp. Allbright and Armstrong, like Ley and Monroe below, aimed for a fairly simple match, and they achieved it without too much trouble. Armstrong seemed like a sympathetic figure, even here where she was the defending champion, and I envisioned the 5’0″/152 cm tall Armstrong as a likable underdog similar to Spike Dudley whom a larger, more experienced opponent could bully.
You can watch the match and the show on WrestleARTS’s YouTube page.
Cosmo Orion vs. Richie Coy
UGWA Crisis on Infinite
July 11, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 9/1/26: N/A
Cagematch rating as of 9/1/26: N/A
Richie Coy came on the recommendation of Tim Buechner, who mentioned him as one of the Los Angeles wrestling scene’s best kept secrets on a recent episode of ThROH The Years, one of my favorite wrestling podcasts. (Deep Vein Thrombozos, rise up!)
West Coast Pro announced that Richie Coy would join Gabe Roka and Bryce Kouza in challenging J.T. Thorne for the Golden Gate Championship at Bodyslams on Broadway, so Coy could be picking up more notice. Like Roka, Coy had their own YouTube page, but there were only four matches on the page. However, they had a playlist of their matches from various companies, though the most recent matches seem to be from a year ago. Unlike Roka, Coy had a Cagematch profile and a Linktree profile that pointed to Coy’s merchandise page, contact info, and social media accounts.
Cosmo Orion’s Dragon Ball Z scouter headset felt very…low level indie wrestling. (Admittedly, I don’t think UGWA would dispute that characterization.) Orion’s first match on Cagematch was in 2021, and they’ve wrestled 187 matches as of this writing. Coy’s first match was in 2021 as well, and they’ve wrestled 119 matches.
(A quick word about UGWA’s handheld camera shots. I have maintained that Kyushu Pro’s steady, confident camera work remained my gold standard for how companies with limited resources could present professional wrestling. UGWA’s handheld camera shots were neither steady nor confident; there was near constant jitter that made viewing the match very uncomfortable.)
Coy and Orion’s lock-up battle would probably have come off a little better had I seen this match before Mio Momono vs. Sareee. Even without that point of comparison, it lacked intensity, and it came off as goofy and much too light-hearted. In particular, the idea that they would roll back into the ring under the bottom rope while they were still in the collar-and-elbow lock-up felt like it came with a nudge and a wink to the audience. I guess I should have listened when the commentator said, “If there’s one thing of UGWA don’t care for, it’s ‘serious.'”
Speaking of the commentator, they gave the match’s game away when they noted that five and then ten minutes had passed. From Coy and Orion’s pace, it was clear that they were aiming for a time limit draw. Orion milked the seconds by tying their hair up, pacing around after Coy attacked their arm, and brawling around Narrative Fermentations after they already went through the crowd with their lock-up sequence. That reset my expectations for the match even as they worked their way at a leisurely pace through some intricate mat wrestling that I probably would have seen previously in Chikara undercard matches.
The match picked up slightly when Orion was in control of Coy (except for when Orion was beating Coy up in the crowd). Sadly, Coy couldn’t quite pull off their La Mistica attempt because they lost control of Orion’s body when Orion dropped down. Orion also slipped off of the middle rope with about two minutes left in the match. I also don’t understand how Coy’s standing Superman punch was more effective than a standing straight.
I commend Coy and Orion for their ambition in the match. The commentators noted that they had expected a more dynamic, high-flying match from Coy and Orion. Instead, they tried to find intensity in the ground game, exchanging pins and holds before a small crowd at Narrative Fermentations that was close to the action and thus could easily see what they were trying. Their ambitions exceeded their grasp on a couple of occasions, and they seemed to trade speed for precision as much as they could. That trade-off was understandable, especially for wrestlers with their experience level.
Still, it was hard to sense a competitive spirit, much less violent intent, from either; it all seemed like blithe play-acting. For their experience level, technical slip-ups can be worked out. However, developing the intensity (if that’s their goal) that was key to verisimilitude should be a priority. Of course, if “serious” was anathema to UGWA, as the commentator said, then it would appear that developing the ability to project intensity might not be the goal. If that’s the case, why should I bother investing in you as a wrestler?
After the match, the commentator announced that they had reformatted their Gatekeeper Championship into a triple threat championship. Furthermore, the commentator announced that Coy and Orion would have their rematch for the championship, which meant that the time limit draw between two competitors would be resolved in a match involving a third party. Sigh.
You can watch the match on Cosmo Orion’s YouTube page and the show on UGWA’s YouTube page.
Clutch (c) vs. Gabe Roka
AWF High Voltage
June 27, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 9/1/26: N/A
Cagematch rating as of 9/1/26: N/A
Gabe Roka came on the recommendation of Timothy Teresi, who noted that he was a breakout wrestler from West Coast Pro’s Iron Sharpens Iron series of matches, and from Griffin Peltier, who described Roka as their “vanity pick of the list, included on pure potential alone” in Roka’s blurb for the 30 Under 30 honorable mentions.
Roka presented a good example of the difficulties with tracking up-and-coming wrestlers from afar. Roka lacked a Cagematch profile as of this writing, and they didn’t have a ProFightDB until their first match for West Coast Pro. Their YouTube page had many full matches, such as matches against Aaron Solo from West Coast Pro or Jeffrey Excellence from Future Shock Wrestling, but the page had only 216 subscribers. Some matches, such as the one against Ramon Romantico, Eli Emerson, and Kairo Leon, had thousands of views, but most (including the Solo match) had only hundreds. Roka’s Instagram page had clips from matches and glamour shots of Roka that highlighted his impressive physique, and it had his email address for bookings. However, the Instagram page didn’t have a link to the YouTube page.
In October 2025, Roka defeated Clutch for the AWF Unleashed Championship, so the drama laid in whether Roka could unseat Clutch again. Roka claimed a background in Muay Thai kickboxing, as exemplified by his kickboxer shorts. However, he wore wrestling kneepads and boots, so Roka didn’t go full Sagat or Adon. In total, he looked more like a professional wrestler than his opponent, the AWF Heavyweight Champion, Clutch. (Also, boo-urns to the sole fan trying to start a “Both these guys” chant. Pick a side, friend.)
The commentator made me chortle when he talked about the money line being even for this match. If you’re betting on any professional wrestling, much less a match in the AWF, you really should listen to this obligatory cautions about gambling at the end of every gambling ad on podcasts.
Though Roka had an impressive physique, he showed some mechanical clunkiness. His leg lariat and running big boot to Clutch in the corner looked awkward, and his penalty kick to a seated Clutch didn’t have the visual or audio impact that I would have expected from someone who emphasized their kickboxing background. Judging by the chants for Roka, he had a strong connection with the crowd, and his selling wasn’t too exaggerated. He fought back just enough while Clutch laid his beatdown to keep me engaged, but his spit Superman punch made him look like a dork. There was a fine line between paying homage to your heroes and seeming like a cosplayer, but a spit Superman punch to bow down to both The Rock and Roman Reigns pushed Roka over the line.
Roka’s comeback was too fast and shallow. After taking an extensive beating from Clutch, Roka defeated Clutch without much difficulty. It seemed like the idea was that Roka’s combination of Kamigoye, cartwheel German Suplex, and spinning kick knocked Clutch out, but I just didn’t feel Roka’s struggle and comeback.
Given his connection with the AWF crowd, I agree with Peltier that Roka had potential. However, I’d like to see him harness it. In this match, it was apparent how far ahead Clutch was as a professional wrestler than Roka based on Clutch’s understanding of narrative timing in a match. Roka’s kicks consistently felt soft and slow; incorporating the fast leg checks from high level kickboxing, for example, and increasing the power and speed of his kicks would make them more convincing and help differentiate him from other wrestlers. Using more knee strikes from kickboxing would also help. Dumping the spit Superman punch and finding something of his own would greatly help.
The closest parallel might be Mike Bailey, but I would also encourage Roka to look back at Tommy End when he emphasized his kickboxing background more than his fanciful, spooky lore. Tommy End’s performance against Timothy Thatcher in Evolve 40, for example, would be an example of how to make your kicks impactful and meaningful (even when you were actually as sick as a dog from the flu, as End had told my friend and me on his way into the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds that day). Also, Roka could look to how Low Ki used his kicks, knee strikes, and Dragon Sleeper and how Ki projected a sense of danger in every match.
You can watch the match and AWF’s show on AWF’s YouTube page.
Monica Monroe (c) vs. Rachel Ley
ROW Platinum Revolution Rising
July 11, 2026
Cagematch ranking as of 9/1/26: N/A
Cagematch rating as of 9/1/26: N/A
Monica Monroe impressed me in her matches during this year’s WrestleMania Week, and I’ve kept an eye on her match history to see if she would ever have a match that lasted longer than eight minutes. Unfortunately, her four recent matches were all less than seven minutes long, so we’ll have to settle for seeing how she performed in a sprint.
Originally, I had considered Monica Monroe’s more recent match against Gianna Capri, formerly known as Valentina Rossi. However, because Capri signed a WWE ID contract, she was one step too close to WWE, which left her out of this column’s scope. I recognize that Monroe herself might become out of scope soon because she recently tried out for WWE’s consideration and that she primarily worked for Booker T’s Reality of Wrestling. Nevertheless, Monroe was still nominally an independent wrestler, so we can focus on her match with the rookie Rachel Ley instead.
If nothing else, Ley, the former Rutgers Scarlet Knight gymnast, was certainly flexible.
Commentator Chris “Don’t Put in the Papers that I’m Mad Dog” Russo noted that Monroe and Ley were both former gymnasts. After drinking deeply from Sareee’s cup last time, it was admittedly a rough transition from her level of intensity and intentionality to Monroe and Ley, who seemed much more obviously cooperative. Still, Monroe’s likability, her greatest strength, came through clearly, and it was easy to envision her as a face in an American televised wrestling company.
As you would expect from a young wrestler, Ley’s strikes, like her knee lift to Monroe, were clunky. Things that weren’t dynamic and didn’t lean into her gymnastics background, like a standing switch, also dragged. Her run from one corner to another looked tentative and would more accurately be described as a stroll. And she lost her grip on Monroe during her backstabber. In short, it wasn’t the best night for Ley. To be fair, Ley only started wrestling in 2024, and she only had sixty-one matches under her belt as of this writing.
Ley’s moonsault looked thudding on impact. Whether that was a positive or negative was up to you, but I winced when I saw it.
Monroe started wrestling in 2021, but she only qualified as the veteran in the match by dint of just forty-nine more matches than Ley. So, I was concerned when it looked like she almost landed on the back of her head on Ley’s suplex. Compared to Ley, Monroe seemed like Zaynab Dosso when she ran in the ring. Her Lionsault, superkick, and Swanton Bomb looked well-rehearsed, and she guided Ley through a basic match template as best as she could as the relative veteran.
It was good to check on Monroe. She still appeared likable, even if the charisma seemed fairly shallow. She looked competent in the ring, but the match was once again short. Ideally, Monroe would sharpen her talents against wrestlers outside of the Reality of Wrestling and Inspire environments so we can see her in longer matches and with more experienced wrestlers. Monroe vs. Charity King, for example, would be a fascinating pairing.
You can watch the match on ROW’s YouTube page.
Next time: We’ve dug deep. Now, let’s widen our lens and survey the wide world of wrestling. We’ll stop in the United States, Canada, England, Germany, Uganda, Australia, and Japan.
