Random stuff #4!
This is it for the night, I think. I'll try to cross post things to the blog more often. It is why we have it, after all!
ROH - Reborn Again
This was an interesting show. Obviously booked as a complete filler show the night before the first PPV taping, I ended up liking it more than most shows, because it didn't have that stupid "every match is going to be a MOTYC!' feel that the worst ROH shows do. A laid back ROH would be so much better that I can't even comprehend it.
(I'm typically unusual when it comes to my ROH fandom. I like the shows that the fanboys hate and usually dislike the heavily hyped shows. Their product just isn't booked with someone like me in mind. Still some great wrestling to be found if you're willing to st through a lot of filler that just pretends to be great wrestling...)
-Haze/Nikki Roxx was pretty awful. The SHIMMER showcases so rarely provide us with something other than minutes filled on a disc. Not sure why they're still done on the main show.
-Steen/Generico had a really fun extended squash versus Blade/Edwards. Steen is like the perfect ROH guy. He has a ton of huge spots that just kill guys and yeah...he's not afraid to use them. He's not always the best at making stuff work in any sort of context, but he doesn't have to be with that crowd. Generico picks up the slack at making everything work and he's certainly not afraid to kill guys, either.
-Who's Bobby Fish? I know he's worked NOAH, but where is he from? Is he a Harley Race guy? He didn't seem too bad.
-I was on board with Danielson's return right up until I had to watch the NRC wrestle. Ugh. The finish of this match was so blown that it was downright laughable. It made Matt Cross look like a complete moron and Davey didn't look much better, standing there waiting for him to get into position.
-Tank Toland delivers the goods once again. He hits a *sick* waterwheel slam here, then follows up with the most vicious looking BT Bomb (actually, he flips it more into a Dominator) I've ever seen. They pretty much need to scrape Mitch Franklin up at the end.
-Marufuji/Sydal was what you'd expect, just at 3/4 speed. I wouldn't say that they "phoned it in," but they were obviously saving themselves for the PPV taping. Still a fun match, but nothing that'll blow you away.
-I had a lot of hope for Delirious vs KENTA, but that went unfulfilled. KENTA looked bored and didn't sell a thing. He worked as if he were Vader in '92 going through a job guy. Don't get me wrong, Delirious got to hit all of his stuff and, on the surface at least, it was worked as a competitive match, but KENTA just bulled his way through most of this.
-Briscoes vs. Morishima/Whitmer was pretty much just Briscoes-style overkill from start to finish. If you like that, then you'll be right at home here. It was certainly never boring, at the very least.
-Jimmy Jacobs presents "Love to Spare." Great stuff. Loved the Office style cutaway promos with both of them through the night and you have to love how ever suffering Jacobs is rewarded for defending Lacey's honor...with a *wave* goodnight. God, how I love this angle.
(I have a total man crush on Jimmy Jacobs and I haven't even reached the Age of the Fall shows yet. Pretty much the perfect pro wrestler, as far as I'm concerned. For what I'm into, anyway.)
-Finally finished up the New Japan 1/4 Dome show. Pretty solid throughout, but I wasn't really overwhelmed by anything on the show. Probably the most notable moment was Scotty Steiner practically killing Bernard trying to get him over for an Exploder. Bernard comes down at a sick angle and I was shocked that he got back up.
I thought the IWGP title match was good, but if Tanahashi had dicked it up and went after the shoulder from the start it probably would have helped the match, since it didn't really kick into gear until he did so.
At any rate, there's some tremendous camera work here. Easily the best produced show outside of what WWE puts out. They manage to build emotion just through camera angles (I'm specifically thinking of the great shot during Tanahashi's intro where we see him coming out, all smiles, while there's a tight shot of a solemn Nakamura in the foreground), which is no small feat.
(I don't follow puro closely at all, but I really enjoyed this show. Can't wait to pick up this year's G1 shows. Just so many great names that I don't think I can pass it up. I should also point out that Togi Makabe is the best heel in the world right now.)
CHIKARA - Deuces Wild
-Fun opener between the Osirian Portal and the Colony. The chick that Ophidian terrifies before the match was pretty cute. Err...standard CHIKARA opener otherwise.
-I was kinda hoping for a little more shtick from the Ellis/Ice Cream match. It didn't bring as much funny as I thought it would. But really? How can you be disappointed by a Robbie Ellis match? He does take a ridiculously stiff powerbomb for a guy his age, though, so there is that.
-The Bull Pain angle was great, because Bull can lay in a beating that looks legit and he absolutely murders Worker Ant here. He also lets some foul language slip, which is possibly the easiest way to draw heat in CHIKARA. Heh.
-Am I the only person left who digs Icarus? He was great in this match. He wasn't all angry Icarus like normal, though. He seemed like he was trying to out-shtick Chuck Taylor. Not going to happen, but fun to watch nevertheless. I don't like Uno much, but CAW actually looked pretty good in this match. Wonders never cease!
-Lince blows a bunch of spots in the match with Helios. In other news, the sun rose today. He tried to pull off a quebrada that had been completely blown (because he missed the ropes) and ended up spiking himself headfirst. Not a bad flippy match overall, but yeah...not a great night for Lince.
-Akuma manages to majorly blow a springboard spot as well. Not a good night to be a flyer for anyone, apparently. Why did I never notice how good Jimmy Olsen is? He looks like he's banged up after delivering a German, but up until that point he looks pretty great. Also good on commentary, for what it's worth.
-UMB/Donst is a fun match. Also the start of the big angle, as Donst is concussed after a particularly sick Praying Mantis Bomb. Mantis leads him to the back as Donst tries to figure out where he is.
-Brodie Lee friggin' ANNIHILATES Shane Storm and I loved every single second of it. The big boot at the end just looks fatal, even by Brodie standards.
-Mitch/Hawke put on a heel clinic, figuring out 1001 different ways to cheat in the match with Cheech & Cloudy. Really simple, old school stuff, but the crowd (and me!) was eating it up. This is where I would interject the rant about how wrestling has gotten too complicated, but I don't have the energy for it right now.
-Quack/Pantera was awesome. Just an exhibition of Lucha matwork, with both guys just busting out hold after hold. Not much story to speak of (Pantera busts out a bunch of Quack's holds, but they never really follow up and even the announcers barely mention it), but in terms of just a flat out technical match, this was aces. Looked like Bryce blew the finish, as Quack had Pantera in the CHIKARA Special. Pantera started banging on the mat to get the crowd behind him and Bryce called for the bell. Quack just glared at him for a few seconds before selling it as being surprised about getting the submission out of nowhere. I'm sure that conversation in the locker room was humorous.
CHIKARA - Passion & Persistence
Don't know if it's just because I haven't been sleeping well this week or if it really is just a lackluster show, but I just couldn't get into this at all. Took me a few days to get through it and I had to rewatch a bunch of stuff because I kept zonking out. It was a typical CHIKARA funfest, but that just wasn't clicking for me this time.
-The opener with Vin & Bull killing the Colony was all sorts of fun, but I'm a really big Bull Pain fan, so I'm predisposed to digging his stuff.
-Chucky T versus Hydra was every bit as goofy as it sounds. Hydra swallows the grenade! Bryce has to perform the Heimlich and, luckily, tragedy is averted. You can certainly ignore this in terms of the wrestling, though.
-Young Timothy Donst CHEATS TO WIN! Really loving this angle so far.
-This is where the show just died for me, as the Amasis/Helios put me to sleep *twice*. I adore the Portal, but this match was definitely a reminder of how inexperienced Amasis is.
-The Fab 4 8-man wasn't all that great outside of the last minute or two and the postmatch shenanigans w/Sweeney and Mitch (and Shayne Hawke stirring up crap the entire time).
-Pantera/Sabian was just flat out bad. They didn't mesh well at all.
-Show picked up a bit with the first Claudio/Brodie match, but the finish was pretty crappy. At least Brodie makes up for it by kicking Claudio's face clean off after the match.
-The Incoherence/F.I.S.T. match was...off. That most of the match is worked around Icarus' fanny pack tells you all you need to know. Not a bad match, but Delirious, in particular, looked like he was a half stap slower than everyone else in the ring for some reason. I also wasn't a fan of Delirious being killed, but being magically revived by 'Wicked ringing the bell spot. There was some cool stuff in this one, though. Delirious chops Akuma in the back of the head, HARD, and Akuma doesn't look like he was expecting it. He looked a bit miffed and proceeded to take it out on 'Wicked, who was the legal man.
Speaking of 'Wicked, he must be in a big boot competition with Brodie, because he lays in a shot to Icarus, I think, that was wince inducing.
CHIKARA - Cafe Culture
Guess I'm back into the CHIKARA groove, because this was a fantastic show.
-In any other promotion, Louden Noxious would be tremendously friggin' annoying, but he somehow just fits into the CHIKARA family. I mean...that's exactly the sort of ring announcing that you'd expect a company like this to have. I wish he wouldn't talk over the music quite as much (though the sound system was dead through most of this show), but that's my only gripe.
-I love Shayne Hawke as he slowly morphs into Mitch Ryder's shadow. He has a great line during the ONST match where he's talking about Donst's facepaint and says that if Mantis asked him, he'd wear paint too...but he'd have to clear it with Mitch first. You don't think of Mitch as a shit kicker or anything, but Hawke just stands behind him and needles the crowd/opponents/whoever with total confidence that Mitch will save his ass. It's great.
-The crowd sure loves them some Bobby Dempsey. He's not very good, but he connects with the crowd and works some decent fat guy spots. He also smears Ophidian in the corner after a somersault splash.
-Hallowicked/Amasis was better than expected. I prefer Amasis in tags at this point. Nothing against him, as he's pretty much still a rookie, but I do think he sort of meanders from time to time in singles, as if he's not sure how to fill an entire match on his own.
-Pelle, as always, is a great underdog babyface. That doesn't necessarily work versus Icarus, who isn't the guy to lay in the beating that you need to work from underneath, but this was still a fun match. Icarus has been awesome this year. People always talk about guys who you couldn't turn heel because the fans love them so much. Icarus is pretty much the exact opposite of that. I don't think people would like him even if they went the Money Mayweather route and had him throw cash into the crowd. I think people would toss it back at him. Heh.
-First Rey De Voladores 4-way (Helios, TJ Cannon, Lince & PSYCHO) was pretty decent. Just nonstop action and all sorts of interesting flippy spots. Not sure why they brought in PSYCHO, as he barely got to do anything before being eliminated. I don't recall Lince blowing any spots, so huzzah for him.
-Kingston returns here, telling us that he's not booked for the show. If he was, he probably wouldn't have shown up. He lays out an open challenge, which sets up him killing Storm for the second time. Or so I'm hoping, at any rate.
-ONST vs Pantera/Colony was fun, with Donst and Hydra jockeying for position as Mantis' golden child. Donst shoves Hydra out of the way and steals one of his spots. At any rate, everyone leaves without him and he's all bummed. We get a Vin Gerard run in here as well. And to show how dedicated he is, he actually sits in the crowd with his Spider-Man mask on for the entire show and no one even realizes that it's him until he hits the ring. Good stuff. Who knew that *anyone* would give two craps about friggin' EQUINOX, of all people?
-F.I.S.T vs QuackenStorm is mostly shtick, but it's fun shtick. Not really any foreshadowing of the Storm turn at this point
-Skayde vs. Claudio was AWESOME. Just a ton of tricked out matwork by both guys. There wasn't much of Claudio as base, but I guess they wanted to leave the flying to the Voladores tourney. At any rate, if you dig the llave style, you'll probably like this.
-Main event 4-way (Stupefied/Sonjay/Turbo/Incognito) was pretty much the low point for me. Turbo didn't kill any cameramen and Sonjay didn't do much but Fargo strut through the entire match. Incognito looked okay, but Stupefied was the only real standout. So, of course, Incognito won...
ROH - Reborn Again
This was an interesting show. Obviously booked as a complete filler show the night before the first PPV taping, I ended up liking it more than most shows, because it didn't have that stupid "every match is going to be a MOTYC!' feel that the worst ROH shows do. A laid back ROH would be so much better that I can't even comprehend it.
(I'm typically unusual when it comes to my ROH fandom. I like the shows that the fanboys hate and usually dislike the heavily hyped shows. Their product just isn't booked with someone like me in mind. Still some great wrestling to be found if you're willing to st through a lot of filler that just pretends to be great wrestling...)
-Haze/Nikki Roxx was pretty awful. The SHIMMER showcases so rarely provide us with something other than minutes filled on a disc. Not sure why they're still done on the main show.
-Steen/Generico had a really fun extended squash versus Blade/Edwards. Steen is like the perfect ROH guy. He has a ton of huge spots that just kill guys and yeah...he's not afraid to use them. He's not always the best at making stuff work in any sort of context, but he doesn't have to be with that crowd. Generico picks up the slack at making everything work and he's certainly not afraid to kill guys, either.
-Who's Bobby Fish? I know he's worked NOAH, but where is he from? Is he a Harley Race guy? He didn't seem too bad.
-I was on board with Danielson's return right up until I had to watch the NRC wrestle. Ugh. The finish of this match was so blown that it was downright laughable. It made Matt Cross look like a complete moron and Davey didn't look much better, standing there waiting for him to get into position.
-Tank Toland delivers the goods once again. He hits a *sick* waterwheel slam here, then follows up with the most vicious looking BT Bomb (actually, he flips it more into a Dominator) I've ever seen. They pretty much need to scrape Mitch Franklin up at the end.
-Marufuji/Sydal was what you'd expect, just at 3/4 speed. I wouldn't say that they "phoned it in," but they were obviously saving themselves for the PPV taping. Still a fun match, but nothing that'll blow you away.
-I had a lot of hope for Delirious vs KENTA, but that went unfulfilled. KENTA looked bored and didn't sell a thing. He worked as if he were Vader in '92 going through a job guy. Don't get me wrong, Delirious got to hit all of his stuff and, on the surface at least, it was worked as a competitive match, but KENTA just bulled his way through most of this.
-Briscoes vs. Morishima/Whitmer was pretty much just Briscoes-style overkill from start to finish. If you like that, then you'll be right at home here. It was certainly never boring, at the very least.
-Jimmy Jacobs presents "Love to Spare." Great stuff. Loved the Office style cutaway promos with both of them through the night and you have to love how ever suffering Jacobs is rewarded for defending Lacey's honor...with a *wave* goodnight. God, how I love this angle.
(I have a total man crush on Jimmy Jacobs and I haven't even reached the Age of the Fall shows yet. Pretty much the perfect pro wrestler, as far as I'm concerned. For what I'm into, anyway.)
-Finally finished up the New Japan 1/4 Dome show. Pretty solid throughout, but I wasn't really overwhelmed by anything on the show. Probably the most notable moment was Scotty Steiner practically killing Bernard trying to get him over for an Exploder. Bernard comes down at a sick angle and I was shocked that he got back up.
I thought the IWGP title match was good, but if Tanahashi had dicked it up and went after the shoulder from the start it probably would have helped the match, since it didn't really kick into gear until he did so.
At any rate, there's some tremendous camera work here. Easily the best produced show outside of what WWE puts out. They manage to build emotion just through camera angles (I'm specifically thinking of the great shot during Tanahashi's intro where we see him coming out, all smiles, while there's a tight shot of a solemn Nakamura in the foreground), which is no small feat.
(I don't follow puro closely at all, but I really enjoyed this show. Can't wait to pick up this year's G1 shows. Just so many great names that I don't think I can pass it up. I should also point out that Togi Makabe is the best heel in the world right now.)
CHIKARA - Deuces Wild
-Fun opener between the Osirian Portal and the Colony. The chick that Ophidian terrifies before the match was pretty cute. Err...standard CHIKARA opener otherwise.
-I was kinda hoping for a little more shtick from the Ellis/Ice Cream match. It didn't bring as much funny as I thought it would. But really? How can you be disappointed by a Robbie Ellis match? He does take a ridiculously stiff powerbomb for a guy his age, though, so there is that.
-The Bull Pain angle was great, because Bull can lay in a beating that looks legit and he absolutely murders Worker Ant here. He also lets some foul language slip, which is possibly the easiest way to draw heat in CHIKARA. Heh.
-Am I the only person left who digs Icarus? He was great in this match. He wasn't all angry Icarus like normal, though. He seemed like he was trying to out-shtick Chuck Taylor. Not going to happen, but fun to watch nevertheless. I don't like Uno much, but CAW actually looked pretty good in this match. Wonders never cease!
-Lince blows a bunch of spots in the match with Helios. In other news, the sun rose today. He tried to pull off a quebrada that had been completely blown (because he missed the ropes) and ended up spiking himself headfirst. Not a bad flippy match overall, but yeah...not a great night for Lince.
-Akuma manages to majorly blow a springboard spot as well. Not a good night to be a flyer for anyone, apparently. Why did I never notice how good Jimmy Olsen is? He looks like he's banged up after delivering a German, but up until that point he looks pretty great. Also good on commentary, for what it's worth.
-UMB/Donst is a fun match. Also the start of the big angle, as Donst is concussed after a particularly sick Praying Mantis Bomb. Mantis leads him to the back as Donst tries to figure out where he is.
-Brodie Lee friggin' ANNIHILATES Shane Storm and I loved every single second of it. The big boot at the end just looks fatal, even by Brodie standards.
-Mitch/Hawke put on a heel clinic, figuring out 1001 different ways to cheat in the match with Cheech & Cloudy. Really simple, old school stuff, but the crowd (and me!) was eating it up. This is where I would interject the rant about how wrestling has gotten too complicated, but I don't have the energy for it right now.
-Quack/Pantera was awesome. Just an exhibition of Lucha matwork, with both guys just busting out hold after hold. Not much story to speak of (Pantera busts out a bunch of Quack's holds, but they never really follow up and even the announcers barely mention it), but in terms of just a flat out technical match, this was aces. Looked like Bryce blew the finish, as Quack had Pantera in the CHIKARA Special. Pantera started banging on the mat to get the crowd behind him and Bryce called for the bell. Quack just glared at him for a few seconds before selling it as being surprised about getting the submission out of nowhere. I'm sure that conversation in the locker room was humorous.
CHIKARA - Passion & Persistence
Don't know if it's just because I haven't been sleeping well this week or if it really is just a lackluster show, but I just couldn't get into this at all. Took me a few days to get through it and I had to rewatch a bunch of stuff because I kept zonking out. It was a typical CHIKARA funfest, but that just wasn't clicking for me this time.
-The opener with Vin & Bull killing the Colony was all sorts of fun, but I'm a really big Bull Pain fan, so I'm predisposed to digging his stuff.
-Chucky T versus Hydra was every bit as goofy as it sounds. Hydra swallows the grenade! Bryce has to perform the Heimlich and, luckily, tragedy is averted. You can certainly ignore this in terms of the wrestling, though.
-Young Timothy Donst CHEATS TO WIN! Really loving this angle so far.
-This is where the show just died for me, as the Amasis/Helios put me to sleep *twice*. I adore the Portal, but this match was definitely a reminder of how inexperienced Amasis is.
-The Fab 4 8-man wasn't all that great outside of the last minute or two and the postmatch shenanigans w/Sweeney and Mitch (and Shayne Hawke stirring up crap the entire time).
-Pantera/Sabian was just flat out bad. They didn't mesh well at all.
-Show picked up a bit with the first Claudio/Brodie match, but the finish was pretty crappy. At least Brodie makes up for it by kicking Claudio's face clean off after the match.
-The Incoherence/F.I.S.T. match was...off. That most of the match is worked around Icarus' fanny pack tells you all you need to know. Not a bad match, but Delirious, in particular, looked like he was a half stap slower than everyone else in the ring for some reason. I also wasn't a fan of Delirious being killed, but being magically revived by 'Wicked ringing the bell spot. There was some cool stuff in this one, though. Delirious chops Akuma in the back of the head, HARD, and Akuma doesn't look like he was expecting it. He looked a bit miffed and proceeded to take it out on 'Wicked, who was the legal man.
Speaking of 'Wicked, he must be in a big boot competition with Brodie, because he lays in a shot to Icarus, I think, that was wince inducing.
CHIKARA - Cafe Culture
Guess I'm back into the CHIKARA groove, because this was a fantastic show.
-In any other promotion, Louden Noxious would be tremendously friggin' annoying, but he somehow just fits into the CHIKARA family. I mean...that's exactly the sort of ring announcing that you'd expect a company like this to have. I wish he wouldn't talk over the music quite as much (though the sound system was dead through most of this show), but that's my only gripe.
-I love Shayne Hawke as he slowly morphs into Mitch Ryder's shadow. He has a great line during the ONST match where he's talking about Donst's facepaint and says that if Mantis asked him, he'd wear paint too...but he'd have to clear it with Mitch first. You don't think of Mitch as a shit kicker or anything, but Hawke just stands behind him and needles the crowd/opponents/whoever with total confidence that Mitch will save his ass. It's great.
-The crowd sure loves them some Bobby Dempsey. He's not very good, but he connects with the crowd and works some decent fat guy spots. He also smears Ophidian in the corner after a somersault splash.
-Hallowicked/Amasis was better than expected. I prefer Amasis in tags at this point. Nothing against him, as he's pretty much still a rookie, but I do think he sort of meanders from time to time in singles, as if he's not sure how to fill an entire match on his own.
-Pelle, as always, is a great underdog babyface. That doesn't necessarily work versus Icarus, who isn't the guy to lay in the beating that you need to work from underneath, but this was still a fun match. Icarus has been awesome this year. People always talk about guys who you couldn't turn heel because the fans love them so much. Icarus is pretty much the exact opposite of that. I don't think people would like him even if they went the Money Mayweather route and had him throw cash into the crowd. I think people would toss it back at him. Heh.
-First Rey De Voladores 4-way (Helios, TJ Cannon, Lince & PSYCHO) was pretty decent. Just nonstop action and all sorts of interesting flippy spots. Not sure why they brought in PSYCHO, as he barely got to do anything before being eliminated. I don't recall Lince blowing any spots, so huzzah for him.
-Kingston returns here, telling us that he's not booked for the show. If he was, he probably wouldn't have shown up. He lays out an open challenge, which sets up him killing Storm for the second time. Or so I'm hoping, at any rate.
-ONST vs Pantera/Colony was fun, with Donst and Hydra jockeying for position as Mantis' golden child. Donst shoves Hydra out of the way and steals one of his spots. At any rate, everyone leaves without him and he's all bummed. We get a Vin Gerard run in here as well. And to show how dedicated he is, he actually sits in the crowd with his Spider-Man mask on for the entire show and no one even realizes that it's him until he hits the ring. Good stuff. Who knew that *anyone* would give two craps about friggin' EQUINOX, of all people?
-F.I.S.T vs QuackenStorm is mostly shtick, but it's fun shtick. Not really any foreshadowing of the Storm turn at this point
-Skayde vs. Claudio was AWESOME. Just a ton of tricked out matwork by both guys. There wasn't much of Claudio as base, but I guess they wanted to leave the flying to the Voladores tourney. At any rate, if you dig the llave style, you'll probably like this.
-Main event 4-way (Stupefied/Sonjay/Turbo/Incognito) was pretty much the low point for me. Turbo didn't kill any cameramen and Sonjay didn't do much but Fargo strut through the entire match. Incognito looked okay, but Stupefied was the only real standout. So, of course, Incognito won...
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