Nothing like going to the movies to escape the troubles of the world.  Especially as the summer season starts to kick into gear, it’s a good idea to escape into a good story on the silver screen, filled with explosions, action, and intrigue.

It’s kinda like watching wrestling, in a way.  Interestingly, though, wrestling had always taken its cues from Hollywood.

Especially as it relates to their matches.

The reason this Mat Matters exists is because I was supposed to do my usual recap for NWA POWERRR, and the Main Event between Aron Stevens and the current NWA Heavyweight Champion, Thom Latimer, for the Ten Pounds of Gold was to be contested in a “Mint Julep Match.”  As I tried to glean any information from the subject, the pieces of the puzzle made it clear this was to be a cinematic match.

I could not in good conscience cover this like any normal gig, as I explained to my editor.  This, in my mind, needed a different approach to be covered; not in some conventional, five-star match wrap review.

I’ll leave that to Fightful and Wrestling Observer.

This needs some sort of gravitas; dare I say, a Squared Circle and Cinema™ review.

But before we get into the weeds of that match, we should first lay a foundation of what is considered a Cinematic Match, as it relates to the Sport of Professional Wrestling.

That said, let’s start with what can be considered the precursor to what Cinematic Wrestling is as we head to the heart of America…Mexico, and it starts with…

El Santo

It can be argued that El Santo, El Enmascarado de la Plata, was the first to bring the squared circle and cinema together.  Already a popular technico (good guy) in his native Mexico, Santo became involved in the silver screen.  The most famous of which is the classic El Santo contra Las Vampiras Mujeres (El Santo versus The Vampire Women).  As IMDB.com lists it, the plot of the movie focuses on this: “A professor recruits a professional wrestler to protect his daughter from vampires’ intent on kidnapping her and marrying her to the devil.”

Is it Shakespeare?  No.

Is it awesome?  Damn right it is!

Also, before I go on, allow me an…

(Author’s Note: You can see the complete version on YouTube down below, or if you are a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, you can see it on streaming services.  I know it’s titled “Samson vs. The Vampire Women” because…y’know, White People Nonsense™).

Of course, that helped set the basis for the run in modern years of…

The Broken Universe

Matt Hardy was already an established superstar, having made his bones in WWF/E alongside his brother Jeff Hardy in tag team action as well as in singles competition.  But it’s during his run in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) in 2016 he re-invented himself as “Broken” Matt Hardy; a man with a stripe of white in black frizzy hair and an overly sophisticated accent who tried to “delete” his brother Nero (Jeff’s middle name) and it culminated in a “Final Deletion” Match.

Nothing at that time had been able to capture the magic of that cinema or that uniqueness.  WWE tried, when they brought Matt as a “Woken” Hardy (which, let’s be honest, won’t play in this current culture), as they did in AEW with some success as it relates to Isiah Kassidy.  But the best student to learn that craft in the WWE era has to be Bray Wyatt, who went to the Hardy Compound in an “Ultimate Deletion” match.

This is important to note since the next matches after that to employ the cinema were at…

WrestleMania 36

To channel my inner Sophia from The Golden Girls (Wiki it, kids) …

Picture it: Orlando, FL.  2020.

The COVID pandemic was in full effect, and being around humans was just…ick.  However, as in life and pro wrestling, the show must go on.  And on this night, WWE gave us two nights with cinematic matches.  Night One featured the Boneyard match between AJ Styles and The Undertaker in his final match.

As cinema goes, it was a horror classic as a monster goes after Styles, who channels The Power of Douchenozzlery™ (or as I call them, “Teens”).

Many a meme has been made from that moment, like this recent post on “X”/Twitter:

Night Two featured John Cena facing Bray Wyatt in a Firefly Funhouse Match, where Wyatt took “Hustle, Loyalty, and Respect” down a Wonderland rabbit hole of all his gimmicks to a very weird conclusion that can be considered, dare I say, Fiendish.

If the Boneyard Match was a classic Universal monster movie pic, then the Firefly match was David Lynch in a tryst with Francis Ford Coppola and Gus Van Sant in the squared circle.

Also…

(Author’s Note: Yeah, that was a barrage of imagery.  That means the Genius Juice™ shifted to high gear, so I better get to the point.)

I could go on further with how EC3 tried to capture the zeitgeist of that idea with TNA and then his own “Create Your Narrative” promotion, but there is only so much time to delve into that, as I now lead folks to what took place on the latest NWA POWERRR.

To wit: Aron Stevens challenged Thom Latimer for the Ten Pounds of Gold, and he accepted.  However, the match (as told through vignettes) was not going to be a simple squared circle lockup.

Thus, it would be contested as a…

Mint Julep Match for the Ten Pounds of Gold

This is where my usual recap needs to treat this to some degree like a movie review.

The plot goes like this:

Latimer goes to Chez Stevens (which anonymous sources have confirmed is the infamous Sausage Castle based in Florida).  As Stevens leads Latimer around his “house,” it gets even more surreal until the moment when Stevens (in a monogrammed karate gi with zebra sash) meditates.  He speaks to Latimer (who is like an English version of Wolverine in this moment, which is equal parts irritation and bemusement, and rage), and Stevens finally announces that, “Once we go out that door, our final battle will commence.”

To describe the action, I can only explain it as David Lynch meets The Shaw Brothers after having a cup of coffee with Rob Zombie and the producers of John Wick.

Yes, I know.  The barrage of imagery.  Let’s press on!

Then the fight begins and Stevens employs Mongrovian Kara-tay on Latimer, then it continues on a tilt-a-whirl, and then proceeds into a spooky cabin that the Wyatt family had possibly left over and Randy Orton didn’t burn down.

From there, Steven’s tag team in Blunt Force Trauma enters the picture, and then it goes to a squared circle where, in a dream sequence, Latimer is teamed with Carson Drake against the Slimeballz amidst a soundtrack similar to TOOL (it’s not.  I checked).

Then, as Latimer gets knocked out, he awakens on a shore next to EC3 and Pastor C-Lo to where their final battle commences.

As far as this match stacks up to the aforementioned cinema matches mentioned above, it does have some eye-popping moments.  There are some areas where you can tell that whoever directed it decided to see what would happen if you threw an idea on the wall and see if it would stick.  Some stuck more than others, but it was an interesting concept.

The only thing that stands out is that this match, unlike the others mentioned above, had a title on the line, while the others were more blowoffs of a feud.  That does beg the question if this will be the norm, not just for the NWA, but wrestling as a whole for these types of matches?

For me, less is more, and if this is used sparingly (like a Hell in a Cell match), it can have an impact.  I don’t know if this was the right way to use this type of cinema match with the Ten Pounds of Gold on the line, but it did get the job done, and may have people talking more about the product.

As for the match itself, I’ll give it a solid “B” grade, since this was above the average NWA match and still weird enough to see at home or in a grindhouse theatre.