EVOLVE 9 Road Report

One of the advantages of making your own work schedule is that you can do crazy shit like take a bus to NYC for a Tuesday wrestling show. Didn't want to miss Finlay back in the ring especially against a guy like Sami who will take a Finlay sized beating and fire back. Met my buddy Anthony at Penn Station and headed down to the show. BB Kings is a weird venue for wrestling, maybe the only wrestling arena in the world with bathroom attendants. Those guys were lucky to walk with $10 this night

Stockade/Apollyon v. Ryan Rush/MC Kenny Royal

Man was the heel team pretty awesome. They have the goofy wrestling name of "The Order of the Black" and are pro-wrestling as fuck. Two big fat guys with sloppy face paint who smash people with forearms and crowbarish clotheslines. Apollyon had a nice rolling senton and top rope splash, but I may have liked Stockade kicks to the face and forearm to the back even better. Ryan Rush took some big bumps, and the little guys stuck and moved before they got smushed. I would much rather watch indy guys try to approximate Rockers v. Twin Towers then Kobashi v. Misawa. My second favorite match of the night.

Greek God Papadon v. Alex Reynolds v. Kieran

I realized I have way too much background information about Greek God Papadon, I was able to list half a dozen facts about him to Anthony, I need to go to grad school. This was an indy three way, they have a low ceiling on how good they can be, and this didn't scrape that ceiling.

Eric Ryan v. Bobby Beverly

These guys are EVOLVEish guys having an EVOLVish match. 5'6 jacked guys doing indy reversal sections. One guy had a nice tope. Suplexes appear not to hurt them. This goes about five minutes before Kevin Steen comes in and hits a bunch of headrops. For some reason they didn't jump right up and scream when Steen hit them with suplexes. Steen shakes their unconscious hands and tells them "great match" which did make me laugh. He shoots for a bit, threatening to mouth rape Rob Naylor if he interrupts. Bobby Fish comes out and tells him that EVOLVE has rules, and he had better learn to color in the lines. Problem with running this angle, is that EVOLVE runs so sporadically, and is so goofily booked that am not sure they have any actual fans. People go to the show to watch wrestlers they like, but I can't imagine there are actual EVOLVE fans, the way ROH has fans or CZW has fans. When Steen talked about how stupid EVOLVE is, and how he is going to destroy it, folks seemed totally on board with that.

Super Smash Brothers v. Facade/Jason Gory

I usually judge these kind of tag spotfest with an almost Tim Noel mathematical formula. You have to have twice as many cool spots to stupid spots for me to tolerate it. This was right on the cusp of that, but I think it just cleared that bar. I liked Facade and Gory's hug each other quebrada, and Player Dos is pretty athletic and amazingly Canadian looking.

Sugar Dunkerton v. Silas Young

One thing I noticed while watching all of the indy wrestling TV a couple of weeks ago, is that there is a guy working 2011 Pez Whatley in pretty much every promotion out there. I am not sure if Sugar Dunkington is better then the Alabama Ebony Diamond or the Nevada Ebony Diamond, and I know he isn't as good as Dinamic Black, but I enjoy that gimmick. Silas Young is a seedy looking guy with Metal hair and there is a bunch of amusing shit talking in the match. Young worked him over and yelled "This is wrestling not the stupid shit you do." I am not sure if Young is working a "Chikara is retarded" gimmick, but if he is, he will finish way too high on the Segunda Caida 500. Post match Young calls out Johnny Gargano. Gargano comes out and apologizes for pressuring Silas to have a drink, thus causing him to fall off the wagon and go on a bender. Gargano then says he has never drunk alcohol so he doesn't know how it effects you. I am not sure in what world "Straight Edge asshole taunts a recovering addict into relapse" is a babyface gimmick. My attempts to start the Serenity Prayer as a wrestling chant fail. "ACCEPT THE THINGS I CAN NOT CHANGE, CHANGE THE THINGS I CAN"

Pinkie Sanchez v. Lince Dorado

Dorado has a couple of nice armdrags early, but the match really fell apart. Both guys were really dainty with their stuff. EVOLVE is a fed were folks stiff each other, it makes stuff like Sanchez and Dorado were throwing look even worse. Lince tries a shooting star press with the low ceiling and I get worried. Sanchez has been wrestling for a while, but I bet he can't improv as well as Mitch Ryder.

Larry Dallas comes out wearing the same shiny shirt as Lenny Leonard. If your gimmick is a rich guy throwing money around, it looks really bad to be wearing the same Express teal dress shirt as the schlubby T-Rex armed announcer. Also Dallas is way too tall to work as a manager in a fed like EVOLVE. Although to be fair Jimmy Hart would probably be too tall to work as a manager in EVOLVE. Dallas is two inches taller then his bodyguard and five inches taller then his new tag team. He introduces his new team, The Scene, Scott Reed and Caleb Konley. If you are going to have a tag team named "The Scene" they have to look like they belong to the same scene. Doesn't matter what the scene is. Konley and Reed look like they would never hang out if they weren't shoehorned into a makeshit tag team. Reed had a topknot, shitty dojo queen tats and roid belly, Konley looked like a Mormon Missionary.

The Scene v. Up in Smoke

Cheech and Cloudy are always solid, but the Scene were really bland and didn't bring a ton to the match. Cloudy did take some big bumps and a really nice dive. Not much of a match though.

Post match Leonard asks Cheech about the loss and he turns on Cloudy and hits his finisher on him. Now Cheech and Cloudy have been teaming together for like 8 years, they are one of the longest running tag teams in the last two decades. If you are going to break them up shouldn't it mean something? Cheech hitting a goofy GTS variation after a throw away mid card tag to utter crowd indifference is Russo terrible. Is anyone in the world excited about Cheech v. Cloudy? Especially after that wet fart of an angle?

Jon Davis v. Bobby Fish

Steen had been at ringside doing commentary for the last couple of matches. 30 seconds into this match he runs in and forearms Fish causing a DQ. We get a bunch of back and forth on the mike setting up a 3-way. Davis obliterates the ref with a great lariat and says he wants to fight both guys.

Jon Davis v. Bobby Fish v. Kevin Steen

Steen was supposedly at EVOLVE to cut a promo not wrestle, and he kind of wrestled like a guy who didn't show up planning to wrestle. I have liked Fish before, but didn't think he looked good here, his kicks were more flash then substance and he didn't convey the anger he was supposed to have for Steen. I did like Davis, although he wasn't the focus of the match (although he did get the win). Felt like any combination of these guys in a singles match would have been way better.

John Silver v. Tony Nese

I just hated this match. Pretty much a microcosm of all that is wrong with 2011 professional wrestling. One of the things that the death of territories mean is that there aren't way fewer guys making their living on professional wrestling. I am sure most people on this card are wrestling as a hobby. No one wants to play the bit part in community theatre, everyone wants to be Henry Hill. This was the match after intermission, we still had two main events to go, there was no reason for these two guys to go out and try to do some amalgamation of Beniot v. Sasuke and Misawa v. Kobashi. This was about the most bog standard indy showcase match you can imagine, two guys who trained with each other checking off every box on the "This is Awesome" checklist. Missed moves, armdrags, double dropkick, kip up, wait for applause CHECK. Forearm exchange while making intense faces at each other CHECK!! Taking a headrop selling like you are unconscious for a second, only to get up and start hitting moves like nothing happened CHECK, CHECK CHECK CHECK!!! It's like Gabe watched some dreck like Davey Richards v. Eddie Edwards and thought, I could do that with two guys even shorter, that the crowd doesn't know, and stick it in the midcard.This was the Boehner Plan as a wrestling match, it is News of the World hacking dead soldiers cellphones, Amy Winehouse's last shot of dope, the wrestling match Andrers Brevik dreams of when he goes to sleep.

Sami Callihan v. Fit Finlay

This is why I took a bus to NYC and it delivered everything I wanted it to. Finlay was rocking orange and white gear, I am not sure whether that means he has converted to Protestantism, but I would really be into Apostate Finlay vs. soon to be released Mistico. Man does Finlay look like the baddest fucker in the world live, Barrel chest, thick forearms. He looks like a guy who owns a Belfast bar and once split a mouthy British soldiers head open with a pool cue. Sami comes right at him at the bell and he runs directly into the hardest forearm I have ever seen live. I thought that Finlay knocked him out cold, I would have been a little bummed to take a four hour bus ride for a seven second match, but it might have been worth it. The match goes from there with Sami getting in Finlay's face and paying for it. There is a great moment early when he slaps Finlay and Fit responds with a no hands bar fight headbutt. Sami fired back the best he could, he just blistered Finlay with chops to the throat, and hit a couple of big running kicks and his running forearm. Really cool story here with Callihan trying to earn Finlay's respect and Finlay making him earn it by kicking the shit out of him. There was this point where Callihan has Finlay in the corner, Finlay calls for the break and as the ref gets between them Fit kick Sami in the kneecap. Callihan responds by screaming something like "forget the cheapshots, lets go strike for strike and see who is toughest." Finlay responds by cheap shotting him in the knee again which was such a great "fuck your fake puro fighting spirit" moment. Finlay is here to kick ass and cash a check, he doesn't have shit to prove to anyone.

Finish run was perfect, Sami gets him to the floor and goes for his tope, Finlay dismissively walks away leaving Sami to fly throat first into the guard rail. He is fucked, but still sharp enough to trip Finlay when he was trying to get into the ring. Sami goes to the top, but gets swept off taking a big fall into the ring. Finlay hits a Celtic Cross, which Sami kicks out of. He is beaten but still flips Fit off, Finlay hits him with another Celtic Cross for two again. Sami can barely lift his body off the mat, but still flips the double bird to Finlay. At this point Sami looks like Patricia Arquette at the motel room in True Romance. Finlay finally lifts him up and absolutely plants Callihan with his awesome jumping tombstone for the three count. Fuck I had forgotten how beautiful Finlay's tombstone was. Just a great match, which I can't wait to watch again. Callihan has spent much of this year having good matches with chumps, I am glad he got to get in with someone above his level. Finlay is fucking back, which is the most exciting thing in wrestling in 2011, I want to watch every time he steps into a ring.

Post match Finlay gets on the mic and puts over Callihan as one of the toughest guys he has been in the ring with, with a raspy Lawrence Tierney voice which he attributes to Callihan's chops. Anthony and I decide to bail on Chuck Taylor v. Johnny Gargano and go eat some Bon Chon Chicken. It was a one match show for me, and that match totally delivered so no complaints for me. If EVOLVE books a rematch, they sell a ticket to me.