Lol I hear ya, blown head gaskets will usually still hold enough compression to feel through the rope, that's why those cause leaned out cylinders, because nobody notices until it's fubar, meanwhile it'll be running too lean the whole time.

Recoil is another one that can throw people for a loop, but that is legit no resistance at all, in this case you can still feel the weight of the flywheel. I know hindsight is 20/20 and mostly irrelevant but this info will help save hours of diagnoses, there's really only those scenarios for a lack of compression. Hopefully there is no next time but if so you can start grieving right away and not have to break your back on a tear down lol.