Image Credit: Michael Watson/@brainbuster_

“Paper Champ”

Baltimore’s historically been a city that major companies have run in. Plenty of WWF/WWE and JCP history is here. AEW even would add Baltimore to their list of towns. But Maryland’s indie wrestling history isn’t the richest. When EVOLVE announced adding Joppa, Maryland as one of their new towns for their touring schedule, even with me being a decent ways away from that part of the state, it was an impossible opportunity to pass up. I was a 19 year old with no car and working at a KFC that has since been torn down, but I HAD to get there. So I did. I found a way and I got to see the best match to this day that I’ve ever seen live at EVOLVE 60 in Zack Sabre Jr vs Chris Hero. It’s a memory I hold dearly, but it’s somehow not the most stand-out memory of my times going to the MCW Arena to watch EVOLVE. That would come several months later at EVOLVE 66.

EVOLVE 66 marked the indie wrestling debut of Cody Rhodes. The line to take pictures and shake hands with Cody was sizable and the arena was notably much more full than when I saw EVOLVE back in May. The excitement and eyes were on what Cody would look like post-WWE and if he could live up to the hype set by his infamous List. ZSJ vs Cody was fine, and the crowd went home satisfied. But the biggest story of the night in my eyes was Timothy Thatcher.

Thatcher’s encounter with Matt Riddle on that card was by far the best match of the night, but also a match where the crowd was super into Riddle and badly wanted him to win. On its face, that maybe doesn’t sound too crazy. Hot new rookie talent that at the time was extremely likable and personable and his wrestling matched the hype. It doesn’t sound like the craziest thing in the world, right? Thatcher vanquished Riddle and out came Riddle’s Catch Point comrade, Drew Gulak, who had been targeting and picking apart Thatcher for months by this point. Thatcher and Gulak had a match scheduled for the next day in Brooklyn, and to one of the loudest pops I’ve ever heard in my life, Gulak hit Thatcher with a spinning back fist. Beyond it being wild to watch someone who’s very much the heel in this story cheered in such a way, it’s also just by far the most I’ve ever heard people cheer for Drew Gulak. But the moment was less about Drew and more about the frustrating and growing resentment towards Timothy Thatcher and his title reign. Thatcher exited the ring, holding his jaw and walking to the back as the crowd chanted “PAPER CHAMP!”. 

In 2015, something like that would have been hard to imagine. Since becoming a WWN mainstay in early 2014, Thatcher was someone who stood out from the crop pretty immediately. Peers like Biff Busick and Drew Gulak had done WWN shots in the past, but their appearances in the company started picking up alongside Thatcher’s and that’s not a coincidence. Gabe Sapolsky saw the stylistic trend on the horizon that was these wrestlers with a gritty, slower-paced, often mat-based style of wrestling and the attention it was receiving and wanted to get ahead of the curve. Gabe even ran the first Timothy Thatcher vs Drew Gulak matches on 2014 FIP shows. Gabe doesn’t deserve all the credit here either, places like Beyond Wrestling and CZW also played a massive role in platforming that vision. But EVOLVE being the place with the most eyes on it, it’s hard for people to not attribute all of that to Gabe. 

Even among his stylistic peers, Thatcher was something unique and unknown. Drew Gulak and Biff Busick were both guys you could find frequently on Beyond, CZW, or CHIKARA shows. Timothy Thatcher made his bones on a West Coast scene that didn’t have all the thriving promotions that it does now in 2024. Yeah, PWG existed and was THE premier independent wrestling promotion for damn near 10 years. But to get to PWG, you had to become a name somewhere else major first, and being on the 2013 California indies didn’t present much opportunity for that. It’s also worth noting that in 2013, the availability of footage wasn’t the same as it would be just two years later and that, especially in Thatcher’s case, affected things. EVOLVE’s initial use of Thatcher came as debuting him in a Style Battle Round Robin featuring the aforementioned Gulak and Busick, as well as James Raideen on their August weekend 2014 shows. Thatcher made a strong first impression for a lot of people and it’s hard to not be intrigued by the guy when you first come across him. He’s a tall, chiseled dude with a chipped tooth and an expressive face. He wouldn’t be out of place as a goon or henchman or random tough guy in a movie. Just on a visual level, it’s damn near impossible to see him and not be fascinated.

And the wrestling matched. His particular brand of grappling and the sense of struggle conveyed in it, resonated with the audience the more they saw him and that led to his clash at Mercury Rising 2015 with Chris Hero. 

Who Do You Love?

By this point, Hero is some months removed from dropping the EVOLVE title to Drew Galloway and made it a point to target the new hot commodities on the EVOLVE roster. The lead-up to this saw Hero collect wins over Gulak and Busick, with Thatcher being the only one of that triumvirate who hasn’t fallen victim to the Knockout Artist.

It was a fitting main event to the 2015 Mercury Rising event, and the audience reaction alone could tell you that. Thatcher, stone-faced and focused as ever in his biggest match to date. For Hero, it clearly wasn’t that big of an occasion. The contrast to Thatcher staring down Hero so intensely that it felt as if at any moment, ray beams could start shooting from his eyes, to Hero taking his sweet old time elbowing all the audience members and rapping along with his theme song. Even once in the ring, it’s more of the same. Thatcher, never taking his eyes off Hero and in complete tunnel vision, and Hero egging on and lapping up the massive crowd reaction. There’s a particularly long dueling chants segment here before the match even starts of “LET’S GO THATCHER” and “LET’S GO HERO”. And it’s a perfect encapsulation of Hero, ever the showman, doing all that he can to make the fervor of this match even wilder and more intense. And Thatcher, with nothing but desire in his face, held true to his stylistic manifesto of:

“I’m not here to be a sports entertainer, I’m here to entertain you with my sport”

As the match finally unfolds and both men are feeling each other out, it’s clear that the pace of the match is something that favors Thatcher. Hero is no slouch on the mat, he’s as well-traveled and a student of the game as anyone in wrestling history. But the mat is Thatcher’s world. Some of their mat scrambles and submission exchanges end with Thatcher getting the upper hand and Hero having to roll out to get out of the situation and compose himself. It’s something small but goes the extra mile in establishing that Thatcher is the man if the fight is taken to the ground. Lesser wrestlers could have wanted to riff some more and show off their technical prowess, but Thatcher and Hero both understood what they were trying to accomplish here. 

Hero takes a detour from the grappling and throws some chops at Thatcher, just for them to be shrugged off. Thatcher is too focused, too sharp, to be thrown off by what he knows to expect. Almost Terminator-like. Hero has to throw in a little potshot slap in the corner to open Thatcher up and be able to create some offense for himself. A scramble for control ensues and Hero finally catches Thatcher with the first big piece of offense in the match, a Cyclone Kill boot that Thatcher collapses from as if he got hit with the head kick that Rashad Evans won TUF with.

So much about Thatcher during his time as a Discourse lightning rod was made about his style being rooted in matwork and grappling. And while the most ardent Thatcher supporters can say that’s true and even Thatcher himself would say so as well, a key part of the appeal of Thatcher that I feel like his detractors always left out was his selling. Straight up, Thatcher is one of the best sellers of his generation and maybe one of the best ever at that aspect of wrestling. From the way his body is almost lifeless after a strike, his commitment to selling a body part when it’s the focus of a match, and even his body language, facial expressions, and screams in pain. He understands how to convey the struggle of a wrestling match more than most people ever will. To go to the other side of the fandom coin, selling is also an aspect that got glossed over as a strength of Tomohiro Ishii’s game. If Ishii just did lariats and head drops, would he still have people who rode for him? More than likely, yeah. But what made Ishii special was his selling in that match style. The glossy eyes and thousand miles stare, the way he’d crumble after a big strike. Being so good at that takes him from being a fun wrestler to one of the most likable underdog babyfaces of the last 15 years. 

Mercury Rising 2015 is a selling masterclass from Thatcher. The way he’s jarred and rocked with every strike Hero lands, the way his head snaps on the basement dropkicks, his yelling out in agony as Hero goes back to the mat and manipulates his elbow and shoulder. This match isn’t about Thatcher’s grappling acumen or who’s the real submission specialist, it’s Thatcher having to claw his way out of the hole he was put in and fighting for respect. As Thatcher finds an opening and rises, you see his eyes wide and chipped teeth gritted, and all the determination and fight that he has in him pushing him forward.

As Thatcher is throwing forearms at Hero, Lenny Leonard points out that Thatcher may be playing too much into Hero’s game but as soon as he finishes that thought, Thatcher feints a forearm only to take Hero down with a double leg takedown and transition immediately to a double wristlock. It’s something that feels so savvy and like a genuine on-the-fly adjustment. As if Thatcher was starting to get away from the game plan his coaches laid out, but shifted focus back towards his best chance to win. But Hero once again gets out of the ring when Thatcher gets him on the mat. A little bit of cat and mouse and then Hero is back in control after a boot in the face. Thatcher counters the rolling elbow and gets Hero’s arm, but Hero finds another way to get away from him and keep things in his favor. My favorite part of this match is Hero taunting a wounded Thatcher, who’s on his back, and doing these upkicks to keep space between them. But Hero just leaps and crushes Thatcher with a senton. 

As I write this, I realize how little I have talked about Hero. And it’s not because he’s not great here or not integral to how successful this match is. He’s phenomenal at being this domineering, important force for Thatcher to overcome. Hero represents someone who on paper has enough skills to get Thatcher into waters he can’t swim in. And the plan isn’t wrong. Thatcher’s slaps look like desperate flails more than significant blows, when he runs the ropes he’s very clearly out of his element and pays for it with a rolling elbow. But he has fire and it makes it hard to not want to see him win. How genuine that part of Thatcher makes a spot like him running into Hero’s boot 5 times in a row transcend its inherent goofiness and become something character-defining. 

Hero did everything right. He steered away from making this a grappling bout, he created space when Thatcher got him in a compromised spot, and he found ways to catch Thatcher off guard to gain an advantage. He’s just as brutal here as he is cunning. And it still wasn’t enough, because Thatcher had enough will left to grab his arm in a Fujiwara armbar and make him submit with a truly out of nowhere flash victory.

I Don’t Love You Anymore

Something like this match, with the crowd’s dueling chants and roar of satisfaction when Thatcher wins, makes it so strange to watch WrestleMania weekend a year later and see Thatcher get booed despite being essentially the same wrestler. The rest of 2015 sees him go on to win the unified EVOLVE/DGUSA titles after beating Drew Galloway. The thing too is that Thatcher was so abundantly clear the right guy to win the belt. Not too soon after Thatcher wins the belt, Biff Busick wraps up on the indies and reports to the WWE PC. Knowing the Gabe to WWE pipeline, it’s reasonable to assume Gabe knew Biff would be gone soon. But even beyond that, Biff was in the WWN system almost a whole year before Thatcher was and Gabe never put him in that sort of light. Same thing with Drew Gulak. I think a part of that was Biff and Drew already being such established names on other big east coast indie promotions, that Gabe wanted to make a guy who felt like his own and Thatcher fit that. Beyond the direct style comps of possible title holders instead of Thatcher, Mike Bailey lived in Canada and was banned from the US, ZSJ also still lived in England. People like Hero and Gargano had already been champions, and several other hot names of the time were signed to ROH, who weren’t allowing contracted talent to do a bunch of other indie shots. The only other name that’s probably fair is Trevor Lee and every company dropped the ball with him. Genuinely, the first few months of Thatcher’s reign were really good and had several very good defenses against the likes of Johnny Gargano, Trevor Lee, Biff Busick, Zack Sabre, and Chris Hero. So what happens between July 2015 and August 2016 to bring us to a point where Thatcher is getting booed in a story in which he’s very clearly the hero? 

I still don’t think I have a very good grasp of that. Off the bat, Thatcher was the face of a stylistic divide and some people probably wanted to hop on the first opportunity possible to rail against him and say that building around the style he represented was a mistake. This article isn’t to bash anyone who wasn’t a fan, but it’d be very naive not to factor in that the loudest voices on Thatcher were people who already didn’t like him. Another thing you could point to is that the Catch Point story sucked, but why was that placed at the feet of Thatcher? The discourse at the time wasn’t that maybe Gabe was missing the mark on this whole story, it was “Thatcher doesn’t have it”. That he’s boring, that the crowds don’t care about him, and whatever else people who weren’t into him would say. But Thatcher’s first three months with the title directly contradict that line of thinking, the Roderick Strong matches and the Mercury Rising Hero match also disprove that. It’s just a blatantly false statement. Once the initial heel turn of Matt Riddle happened at EVOLVE 52, Thatcher missed time due to a staph infection and wasn’t back until EVOLVE 56. 

In that window, did enough time elapse with Thatcher not present that the company passed him by? There’s a non-0% chance of that, but I don’t discount that Gabe’s efforts to protect and build up Riddle during this time also harmed Thatcher’s reign and the perception of him. It also doesn’t help that in a period where there’s stand out matches like Heroes Eventually Die vs Zack Sabre Jr and Sami Callihan, Tracy Williams vs Matt Riddle, Chris Hero vs Matt Riddle, Zack Sabre Jr vs Drew Gulak, and a host of others as EVOLVE is starting peak as a promotion, that Thatcher is wrestling 25-minute matches with Caleb Konley. At some point, that’s at the feet of the booker for not putting his champion who missed time in a better position so he doesn’t become old news in a rapidly changing industry. At 2016 WrestleMania weekend, Gabe opted to tell this weekend’s long injury story with Thatcher. And there’s far worse people you could put in a position like that than one of the best sellers in the world, but it left room for Thatcher to be an afterthought at a time in which Kota Ibushi, Will Ospreay, Marty Scurll, and others are highlights of the weekend. 

For the most part, the 2016 use of Thatcher is quite frankly astonishing and borders on malpractice. Even with the great stuff that did happen like the Chris Hero and Tracy Williams title defenses from their June weekend shows, the Riddle no holds barred in Joppa, or the Squared Circle Survival with Gulak, there are things like the Gulak match at SummerSlam weekend that at the time felt like a complete fucking bomb. But instead of any discussions centered around that and pondering if maybe it wasn’t the right match for that crowd (running a new venue instead of LaBoom and doing such a match on a show where Cody Rhodes is the biggest story of the night), it’s all put on Thatcher being a flop. 

Eventually, Thatcher turns heel and finds a nice groove before putting on a career performance in the match where he drops the title to Zack Sabre Jr at EVOLVE 79. I won’t write this and pretend that Thatcher’s reign didn’t go too long, or that I wasn’t rooting for him to finally drop the belt to Zack. That match was one of the most intense viewing experiences I’ve ever had as a fan, watching it unfold with literal knots in my stomach because I was so invested in if it would be the night the reign ended. But in 596 days, Thatcher went from being beloved and ushering in a new era of EVOLVE to people practically begging for him to go somewhere else. Which he did, finding a home in Europe and becoming extremely popular there as well. Plenty of people saw this and opted to say that Thatcher had “improved” so much there and was much better in Europe. And it was hard to take any of it seriously because nothing about him changed. To this day it still frustrates me. I can understand thinking that Thatcher needed to go somewhere and start fresh, but the “when did he get so good?” of it all feels like those people never actually paid attention to him or were too stubborn to their side of the “grapplefuck” wars. He was always expressive, he always emoted, and he always did this. He was never some lifeless grapple-bot and I question the wrestling comprehension levels of anyone who thought this. Those things were just as core and defining characteristics of Thatcher as his being a fanboy for Billy Robinson and Yuki Ishikawa. 

Thatcher will be remembered as the clearest example of the stylistic divide during this time. He’s not as smooth as peers like ZSJ, Gulak or Gresham might have been. He wrestled slower. He could be awkward, can’t throw clotheslines, and looks weird running the ropes. But he believed in what he did, he believed in what he wanted to accomplish. The essence of Timothy Thatcher is struggle, it’s inextricable from his wrestling. And nothing displayed that or made it more clear just how special he is at that than Mercury Rising 2015, where a star was made.