Segunda Caida

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Monday, September 04, 2017

Mae Young Classic Episode 3

1. Ayesha Raymond vs. Toni Storm

ER: A good match with a flat, poorly executed finish. I thought all the early stuff was good, the taunts over hand shakes leading to Raymond booting Storm in the chest, Storm's hip attacks, and especially Raymond's nasty strikes to the chest and throat (two nasty palm thrusts to the throat and a killer chopblock). Raymond didn't always take moves great, but sometimes that made them look more effective, like that backcracker out of the ropes. The finish took too long to execute and everybody saw it a mile away, the long climb of the ropes, getting into it with the fans at the worst time, really rote stuff. But overall I thought the match delivered.

PAS: I didn't really like this, Toni Storm was super try hard, with her wacky faces, stupid hat, eye black, it almost felt like Anne Hathaway trying to be an energetic women's wrestler. Raymond had some nice crowbar moments (at some point she raised a nasty bump on Storm's forehead), but I didn't care for Storm's offense and the finish was a mess.

2. Dakota Kai vs. Kavita Devi

ER: I was really digging the slow burn on this one, and was disappointed that they went to the finish immediately after Kai's comeback. The double stomp finish and kick looked fine, but it ended up feeling like a Randy Savage 5 minute Nitro match, where he just sells for 4.5 minutes and then hits the elbow for the win. Devi is clearly green but I liked her simple wrist control stuff, even the rope climbing armdrags that have seemed played out for years in cruisers had a nice thump to them; With her size advantage it made it more plausible she'd be able to pull off that kind of leverage move. She fully won me over with the press slam as I love press slams. I wish we could have had even just one more brief Devi control segment and maybe a reversal by Kai, but I liked the bulk of this.

PAS: I completely disagree about the finish, I really liked the pacing of this with Devi dominating with power moves, those rope walk armdrags looked awesome and violent, which those moves rarely are, it really looked like she was dislocating Kai's shoulder and Kai did a nice job selling the pain. I loved the idea of the veteran Kai getting over powered but capitalizing on the one mistake to hit a couple of big moves and get her out of there. The running kick and the double stomp were both big KO moves and I really liked that they ended the match. Thought this whole thing was great.

3. Sage Beckett vs. Bianca Belair

ER: Belair looks like she's cosplaying as the singer from Culture Beat's "Mr. Vain" video, but her braid is insane. That things is gonna get stepped on. This had some clunky moments but enough stuff that I liked. Although I HATED how they essentially did the exact same finish as the prior match. Who's the agent for this? Two matches in a row where someone slowwwwly climbs up top, poses a bunch, then misses their move and immediately eats the pin. Beckett has some nice power stuff although I always come away wanting her to be better than she is. She seems to get lost a little, but then will do something cool like that shotgun dropkick. Belair has to be pretty new, but she has some potential. I liked that she actually uses the braid as a whip. That's ridiculous. It would be better when she's a heel and uses it to choke.

PAS: This had some ups and downs, I liked the roughness of the early parts of the match, both ladies were throwing fast balls, and I really loved Beckett's body shot. Belair is clearly a great athlete and has some real explosion in her moves, but she is a rookie and parts of this felt rookish. Beckett has been around forever and probably should have been able to pull this together more. I agree the braid whip is an awesome move.

4. Piper Niven vs. Santana Garrett

ER: This was pretty easily the best match of episode 3, but I also probably liked it more because I was REALLY rooting for Niven and didn't think she was actually going to win. So my reactions to it were really similar to Brian Kendrick vs. Tony Nese in the CWC where I was positive Nese would advance but I wanted Kendrick to win so bad. That match was epic to me. This was not quite there, but it was real good. I was convinced Santana was going to advance and Piper was too easy to root for. Garrett has a lot of polish but doesn't totally do enough to interest me. She wrestles like someone who grew up watching Trish Stratus, which is fine, but something we have no shortage of. So Garrett would do her 2006 offense (including oddly hitting Mia Yim's finisher as a move just meant to knock Niven into the corner), but the money is whenever Niven would take over. She breaks out a couple of great low crossbody blocks, good clothesline, works a nice cravate (while JR wouldn't shut the fuck up about British cuisine), but the prior matches' sloppy agent work starts getting me nervous, because Niven climbs to the top. In the last 20 minutes we've already seen two bigger ladies lose matches when going up to the top, so I fully bought that Garrett's headscissors was the end. But Niven hits a great senton and a falling slam and I am happy. Really fun match.

PAS: I think I am going to be the low voter on this match. I liked all of Niven's big splash offense, loved her Mike Knox memorial diving bodypress, but I didn't like the way she took offense. She would do really big flips and rolls on Garrett's headscissors and rolling DDT's and it took all of the impact out of the moves. Garrett has been around forever (she worked a bi-sexual gimmick with Orlando Jordan in TNA) and knows what she should do in the ring, but I was pretty unexcited by her offense. It was fine, but I liked Kai v. Devi a lot better.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Yerfuneral said...

1) Instagram seems to like Toni Storm since besides the Pirate Princess; she is probably comes up the most in my recommended wall. Cockiness doesn't work for me when a person is first introduced and that cockiness played to much into the wrestling style so that didn't work for me either. I've liked the mix of styles all the ladies have brought to the tournament and for the most part they been playing well off each other but this reminded me of some of the Asuka/Kana Japan matches I have seen on YouTube that left me scratching my head. With all these talk of 4 women teams and the Aussie presence in this tournie could the Iconic Duo add some folks?

2) Loved the ground work of the promo. I am expecting power vs kick and I exactly got that from the match. Dakota Kai I had seen in the background of many an Instagram post from NXT superstars, and I always questioned her strength. Will be interesting to see Kai against someone less green but I found her believable in this match.
Alexa Bliss works for me knowing her body building background so a being bit more judgmental at this point when it comes to Kai who is I think average height but no weight to her frame. Always looking to be surprised.
They played everything well in this match and probably wouldn't have said that if I hadn't been watching NJPW because it has gotten me to have the patience for the slow stuff.

3) I liked how the promo for the match played more off persona rather than their fighting background. That is one of the reasons why the 'women revolution' brought me back in wrestling because you had more colorful characters within the realism of the production. I didn't know what to expect and that made stuff like the hair whip stand out so much more.

4) I was worried for this match and surprised it took this long for someones intro promo to come off as a GLOW/WOW style girl. Santana had me worried especially when one of her earliest moves was the pull down headlock with a stomp.
This match and the last showed me what both ladies could do and left me guessing through out the match how it may go so hard to turn my attention elsewhere.

Overall this was a pretty good episode. I had an idea about good chunk of the talent (forgot to mentionhad seen Belair a time or two on NXT and if I recall had a good showing) and all three of them advanced unsurprisingly but still I was invested in the matches and they weren't doing things to take me out it.

3:58 PM  

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