Review: Dash Decker vs. Tito Santos (88Wrestling)

Dash Decker vs. Tito Santos is the culmination of 88Wrestling's inaugural King of the Ring tournament. It features a former King against a brand new wrestler who made it past superstar Austin Cooper to make it here. I'm always down for anything Dash-related, so I decided to check this one out.

The King of the Ring concept carries over.

Dash Decker is the known quantity here, so I'll just say that he's still a hot muscleman. He's more expressive on top than he used to be, but still a solid seller for a usually dominant man. Tito Santos is a rookie, but he's actually made it to the finals. Smaller and younger than Dash, he's got a ripped body and confidence. He's not totally smooth in the ring, yet, but he's definitely energetic.

Dash realizes he might be in for a rare fight.

Dash's power is always impressive.

A choke and a scissors makes Tito feel cocky.

The wrestling is good, not great with pretty standard action. Dash's belly-to-back suplexes are the most impressive moves, but I always like the classics like a figure-four, camel, crab, etc. Dash is too big for Tito to move, so you get a lot of mat action, stomps and elbows. I like seeing Dash manhandled by the smaller stud. More on that later.

Joe at Ringside has commented on the distant camerawork and that's definitely true here. With only one camera, you get a lot of wide shots at the wrong angle. I think the holds below would've been even hotter with different views. Maybe the ring is too big or they really need two cameras.

Big Dash controls little Tito.

Dash is a good seller, but we can't see his pain.

A great way to keep a big man down.

A close-up of Dash's face would've made this perfect.

One of the things I did do was edit this into a 14-minute squash of Dash. I've done this before with Dash, the best being a 7-minute version where Colt Stevens squashes the muscleman. It was fairly easy here and makes a very watchable piece. Like Rock Hard Wrestling, the new group has a formula of long stretches of domination and guys who "recover immediately". Plus, Tito gets more time on top than most Dash opponents.

In this case, I edited out Dash's pre-match interview, sticking only with Tito's where he confidently expresses his desire to "get these old veterans out" and promise that "Dash is going down, all the way down". After that, there are only two mid-match cuts required. You can see below that it works fairly seamlessly. Certainly seamlessly enough that it doesn't distract me.

Dash stalks at 1:53 then again at 4:47.
Three minutes of Dash domination gone.

Dash bends over at 12:04 then again at 18:31.
Do these two edits and you'll get
a nice run of Dash destruction.

In the end, I liked this. Dash is still sexy and Tito is feisty. It's nowhere near the level of Rock Hard Wrestling's King of the Ring matches, mostly because Tito isn't as charismatic or skilled as guys like Jake, Alex, Ethan, Z-Man and Austin. But, it's very watchable and there's no sense in wallowing in the past. And at the risk of being immodest, my edits make it even better.

What are other bloggers saying?

INNER JOBBER: WORK FOR IT

RINGSIDE: SHAKE'N ACHE

So, that's my take. What's yours?

Alex