Jack Gallagher vs. Timothy Thatcher
February 14, 2016
PROGRESS
The Ritz (Manchester, England)
***
The matches Timothy Thatcher has been booked in over the past year or so have gotten awfully repetitive. Go down a list of his singles matches since the start of 2015 and a lot of the names repeat. Case in point, during the tour of Europe Thatcher was on that encompassed this match he faced Zack Sabre Jr. twice in the span of 10 days and it is not as if that match was never ran before then. If nothing else, Gallagher represented a fresh opponent for Thatcher. Beyond that, Gallagher was also an opponent who stylistically felt like a good match for Thatcher. That’s opposed to say the now-canceled Tier 1 match with Michael Elgin which, while also with fresh opponent, was not a good fresh opponent.
Gallagher and Thatcher wrestled the exact match you would expect from them. Holds and counter holds ruled the day. The more athletic and interesting stuff was largely performed by Gallagher (flying arm bars and the like) but Thatcher was fine as well. To their credit, they stuck to their respective strengths which meant little striking and few periods of prolonged standing. The match was also easily digestible at under fifteen minutes. The ending came before it felt overdue which is always a welcomed sight for me. My painfully obvious recommendation is that if you like Thatcher, this is worth watching although do not expect a classic. If you don’t like him or are largely indifferent to him, then the match is probably worth skipping.
