Lorcan & Burch vs. Ever-Rise: The COVID Clash Continues!

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Ever-Rise (Chase Parker/Matt Martel) 205 Live 8/28/20

ER: This is a pairing that we've gotten several looks at over the past year, and it's a match I always look forward to. They've had tags, there's a good Lorcan/Parker singles, there's a good trios, it's a fun pairing. This falls apart for no reason down the final minute or so, plagued with weird timing, and that kind of dampens what had been a typically engaging tag. Things were going well until the flat finish, and we were getting a couple extra beats that we haven't gotten in their prior tags. It was going longer, and the format was expanding. We get a babyface start, then a nice simple heel control segment from Ever-Rise. I'm a fan of Ever-Rise, love the throwback nature of their style and the improbability that they would be a pair hired as a tag team in 2020 WWE. They feel like a C show WCW 90s tag team, if instead of Disorderly Conduct there had a heel Fantastics. They gloat just a little too much on armdrags, Martel makes wild eyed grimacing faces that would kill at an Orlando tourist taping, Martel drops a nice elbow, nice journeyman heel control. Their few double teams are good, with the best being Parker vaulting off Martel's back with a big elbowdrop, but their samoan drop blockbuster is a good nearfall.

Lorcan's hot tag was obviously good. He threw chops that sounded twice as loud as any other strike in the match, knocked into Martel with a horizontal uppercut, then hits a top rope cannonball to take out Parker. In prior matches I could have seen Parker not kicking out of the cannonball. Late in the match Martel holds Lorcan's feet on a apron to ring suplex, allowing Parker to shift his weight for a pin - tell me that finish doesn't sound straight out of WCW TV - but the ref notices Martel holding the legs. Those are the welcome beats we get added to their formula, but the finish falls apart a bit. Burch is gone from the match an exceptional amount of time, and it starts to feel weird, and things suddenly feel super inorganic and all the timing felt a bit derailed. They're doing some kind of weird conspiracy theory angle where Ever-Rise blame the refs for their losing, and it takes everyone unnecessarily out of their comfort zones at the finish. Disorderly Conduct didn't need reasons to lose, they just got beat. Except that one time they beat the Armstrongs. Don't blame the refs Ever-Rise. Just look for your Armstrongs.


Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Ever-Rise 205 Live 9/4/20

ER: This is more of an Ever-Rise controlled match with the Burch/Lorcan roles reversed. Ever-Rise are more aggressive and work over Lorcan, leading to the fired up Burch hot tag. My eyes were blinded to most of this match, as Ever-Rise hit a dual fistdrop early on and my brain understands that nothing that comes after will matter, because this match automatically is great. A double fistdrop in 2020 is enough to make something work, and I think that rule applies to any era. I like Parker's elbowdrop vaulting off Martel's back, like his snap suplex, and like how he knocks Burch off the apron (leaving Burch barely enough time to break up a pin). Something goes a little sideways on Burch's hot tag, where he kind of whiffs on a middle rope dropkick after booting Martel in the face, but his German suplex is a nice save. The match ends when Legado de Fantasma comes out and wrecks everyone, so I'm not sure where that leaves us. I'm sure they'll just make is a 3 way tag match with Santos Escobar interfering from the floor, but it would be interesting if they made Lorcan/Burch/Ever-Rise a team and got a 4th for LdF. I'd like to see Ever-Rise in a forced babyface role, see how they respond to it.