This is the first edition of TEW — not Total Extreme Warfare, it’s Thatcher EVOLVE Watch — brought to you by NZ — not New Zealand, it’s the NearZone. I told myself I’d watch through every Tim Thatcher EVOLVE match a while back and I got sidetracked then, but now I’m gonna give it a run. So here we are with EVOLVE 31, where Timothy Thatcher debuted in the company against Drew Gulak in the first edition of a Style Battle.
Note: I’m not going to be reviewing the rest of these shows in here so I might miss out on some storyline stuff. I’m not really a fan of EVOLVE and never was; I was a fan of Thatcher and Catch Point.
One of the reasons that I wanted to watch Timothy Thatcher’s EVOLVE matches was because he caught my eye as a guy who did not use shortcuts. Lots of wrestlers put a spot early on in the match, throw in a big dive, something to get the crowd engaged so that they’re into it starting on. I’m not saying that’s bad but I think there is a cost that goes along with it. But I won’t talk directly about that right now, because as I said, Thatcher and his opponent Drew Gulak didn’t use any. That means that the early part of their match felt very tame. They were really intense all the way through but I did not feel that there was any danger, any real reason to pay attention. It wouldn’t end soon so I could just hang back.
I’m not sure exactly where it turned a corner, but I definitely recognized the feeling in myself when Thatcher hit those three suplexes. It’s not that I felt “wow holy shit this is awesome” at that moment. It’s that I realized okay, we’re in the space where anything can happen now. Blood is in the water. That’s an important thing that most matches need to do. I feel like this is the “second gear” that people talk about, when it’s more than just testing, when people are looking to really break through their opponent’s defense and finish. What really interested me about it though is that it wasn’t a moment of specific danger in the match. Throughout, Gulak and Thatcher were having a duel of submissions, and their focus was on the limbs. So it’s not just a matter of “I’ve done a move which can potentially end the match”.
I think that second gear means something along the lines of “after this point, a really strong push can get the finish”. It means that you now have to watch because any time one person starts putting moves together, you could be seeing the end. It’s not that someone is in immediate danger, but it is still about the nearness of that danger. This is an important distinction because I feel a lot of the discussion about gears and matches getting interesting puts the level of the action to the forefront. There’s a focus on when moves start to get cooler etc. Thatcher & Gulak didn’t really do “cool moves”. There were some neat escapes and great transitions but there were very few high spots. What I remember from the match is that the two wrestlers didn’t give each other an inch and those three suplexes, and the fact that it drew me in just by ramping up that level of danger.
This didn’t hit a “third gear” so I don’t have many thoughts on that at the moment. Gulak came in as the favorite and he wrestled as the favorite. He was the one with hope spots, the quick sharp moves that showed the crowd he was still in it, that catapulted him up to the same level of damage-dealing that Thatcher was gaining through the longer grind. He finished it with an ankle lock, one of the few generic holds with the cachet to finish a match. A very strong effort which makes me excited to dig deeper into this run.
Technique A
Intensity B
Drama C
Excitement C
Strong Match
