Roy Wilkins vs. Trevor Lee

[5.0] "This match sees Trevor Lee put his CWF Mid-Atlantic career on the line against champion Roy Wilkins. It's quite an ambitious match at almost an hour and 45 minutes in length, and while i have to commend the effort here i dont think this one fully comes together. The first hour is generally pretty great. I found myself losing focus occasionally as there were some parts that werent very interesting but i thought the two had a good dynamic, the crowd was into it, the wrestling was mostly sound and both guys did a great job at selling the exhaustion of the match. As soon as the match passes the 60 minute mark though is when things start getting a bit silly. For the next 5 or so minutes, a group of heels come down and just start beating up Trevor while Roy has a breather on the outside. Why they chose to run down now instead of at any point during the last hour is beyond me. Trevor eventually fights them off but it doesnt take long for them to interfere again which leads to some babyfaces running down to make the save, which again is something that realistically shouldve happened way earlier. Roy and Trevor go on to wrestle normally for the next 10 or so minutes after this before the first of 3 ref bumps happens and the heels come down again to attack Trevor which leads to another group of babyfaces coming to make the save, one of whom turns out the lights before appearing in the ring, before we are once again left with just Trevor and Roy. By this point the match had gone on for about 90 minutes and i was kind of ready for it to end. But as the match goes on we get two more ref bumps and more interference from Roy's manager at ringside. Trevor eventually deals with him and we finally enter the closing stretch which sees a few decently hot nearfalls as well as a genuinely pretty firey kickout at one from Trevor and a pretty brutal looking spot onto some upturned chairs. Finally Trevor nails some of his biggest shots onto Roy before locking him in an STF while another babyface at ringside prevents interference from the manager, leaving Roy with no choice but to tap out and finally end the match. Im really torn on this because while i generally enjoyed the first hour, the bloated run time and incessant overbooking of the second half really hurt this overall. Had this been a well paced 50 minute match, i think it wouldve worked far better because these guys had some interesting ideas, a good face/heel dynamic and the crowd investment to actually pull off a really good long match. Id still say the positives just about outweigh the negatives here but this match has some very glaring issues that prevent me from fully enjoying it. **3/4"

[10.0] "This was Trevor Lee's magnum opus. One hour and forty five minutes of pure southern-style wrestling. Never before or since has a match this long been nearly as great. Roy Wilkins played a tremendous heel, and Lee's heroic fight to beat the odds is not forgotten by the few who witnessed it. Fans today who see Cameron Grimes do his wacky character in NXT, or even those who saw Trevor Lee heel it up in PWG, probably will never fully grasp just how marvelous this wrestler could be when he was in his home promotion, in front of a couple hundred people who knew how to keep a secret. ****3/4"

[10.0] "The beginning of one of the best title reigns the indies (and all of US wrestling) saw in the 2010s. Trevor Lee as champion of CWF-MA was magic that very few outside of the territory were aware of at the time, and this match was the spark of that years-long run. Every trick in the book is pulled out to make a 1h45m match flow properly and keep the crowd invested, and each and every one is played out to near perfection. I can't say there weren't SOME bits of dragging, but when you have a match that runs longer than most films, you're going to have low points. At the core, Lee & Wilkins put on a top-notch pro wrasslin main event with exceptional face/heel dynamics, while an entire cast of characters do their best to keep the action up while the two participants get the occasional breather. The story told here is both simple and excellent, the most long-form "babyface overcomes the odds" formula match, and yet the grueling nature of the match and its length go from feeling comically long to being a truly earned victory for Lee. If you ever have the urge to watch some mediocre movie to kill time in the evening, watch this match instead, it'll engage you beyond what you thought was possible for a single wrestling match. ****3/4+"

[9.0] "This was proof that not only njpw can have excellent long matches. It is not easy to have a match last this long without it dragging, and for me this never dragged. They told a story and they told it well. The babyface overcame the odds and captured the title, with which he would have a very successful reign, in an emotional and gripping match."