Matches from EVOLVE 127 5/10/19

Josh Briggs vs. Adrian Jaoude

ER: This was fun, as it felt like a modern version of a good Sunday Night Heat Test/Steve Blackman match. It's a brisk 5 minutes, and even 2 minutes in it felt like they had done a ton. Jaoude (later Arturo Ruas) is a guy I like who might not have been good at this point, plus I don't think capoeira ever works very well in a wrestling setting. The timing of the strikes almost always makes opponents look kind of silly while waiting to be hit. But I think this might have been the match where his strikes started looking good, and there was an awesome sequence where he blocked two big Briggs strikes and countered with two of the best strikes I've seen from him. What helped is that it all looked way less sequenced than normal - even though it was - with Briggs throwing to hit instead of throwing to be blocked. That's a super important difference between modern wrestling done effectively and modern wrestling looking terrible. Jaoude was fun going after Briggs' hip, arm, hand, grabbing a choke, and Briggs had some nice quick power stuff to counter. I'm not sure I remember the last time someone got a reaction from me just grabbing for a chokeslam, but Briggs violently reaching out for that choke ruled.

Babatunde vs. Adrian Alanis

ER: Babatunde is the current Commander Azeez in WWE, getting actual ring time in Evolve. I liked Babatunde as a green Evolve giant because it's cool seeing huge guys wrestle, no matter their development level. I don't need to see him as a fake underground fighter, don't need to see him as a non-wrestling military dictator, just let me see a wrestling giant. Here he is wearing preposterous checkered tights (one leg black, one leg checkered) and he looks like the world's largest tallest ska saxophonist. Throw him together with prime pork pie hat Mr. Hughes and call them Skankin Muscle. This is only about 3 minutes, a Babatunde showcase. Alanis hits three hard rolling lariats that barely budge Babatunde, then Babatunde gets to show off his big man speed. He doesn't have a lot of stuff that looks great at this point, but it's fine because he's near 7' tall so just making connection with a guy is going to have something behind it. But I like his sloppy standing splashes and the way he catches Alanis with a choke. On commentary we learn that apparently the WWE trainers think Babatunde is the most explosive and powerful guy in developmental, so that explains why we've gotten to see him wrestle on TV twice since this show 28 months ago. 

Anthony Henry vs. Juntai

ER: This was only a couple years ago and I gotta say, Juntai is pretty far under my radar. I did not remember a Juntai wrestling on three Evolve shows in 2019, and it feels like Evolve was one of the indies I watched most. This was his only Evolve singles match and I liked it quite a bit. It was a mostly vicious Henry match with Juntai able to show a lot of cool tricks. The match had probably a couple too many tricks, but much more good than bad. Part of the problem is the layout, as Henry knocks Juntai out of the match a couple minutes in, and it's always kind of annoying when a guy is nearly taken out of a match and commentary is yelling about how the match may not even continue, but Juntai still had to get all of his cool offense in. I think you can shift the events of the match around into a much more palatable order and get to a great match, but we're still left with a cool match as is. 

Henry was working really mean with Juntai, and the match almost needing to be stopped came when Henry double stomped Juntai in the chest while the latter was bent back over the apron. Henry followed it up with a double stomp to the chest off the apron, then hit a brutal running kick all the way from the entrance. It was a believable enough series of moves to take a guy out of a match. But I'm glad we got to see Juntai get some shine. We don't get a ton of martial arts monk gimmicks. Low Ki and Jinsei Shinzaki kind of bullseyed the vibe of that gimmick for the past 30 years ago and nobody else gave it a shot. But Juntai does it really well. He has a ton of super slick movement, hits a cool spinning heel kick with his hands clasped behind his back, pays Henry back with his own flying kick to the jaw, and finds a ton of cool ways to roll and flip into position, and has some real precise kicks. Henry dished out a stiff beating and Juntai leaned into all of it, and was a strong salesman. Things eventually veered into some trading that I didn't love, but this was a cool presentation. 

Kassius Ohno/Harlem Bravado vs. AR Fox/Leon Ruff 

ER: I'm going to watch any Ohno match I've never seen before, but this tag match was inexplicably 30 minutes long and I have absolutely zero idea why. Ohno teaming with Bravado is like that one show every All Japan tour where Stan Hansen would team with the weakest gaijin on that tour on a gymnasium show, a man who everyone in the building knows is getting pinned. And because this thing is a half hour long, we get far too much Harlem Bravado, a man with almost exclusively terrible strikes teaming with a man with among the best strikes in wrestling. I suppose that makes them complementary partners? AR Fox doesn't have good strikes either, and 30 minutes allows for a TON of time for Bravado and Fox to get several sections of terrible strikes. Ohno mocking Ruff and cutting him off any time the kid made headway was what kept this match bearable, and after seeing Bravado and Fox make timing mistakes for a half hour, seeing Ohno always exactly where the match needs him to be is a marvel. Ruff getting cut off from Fox was satisfying but Fox can't deliver the payoff the hot tag needs. There were great big moments, because any single Ohno/Hero match in existence is capable of having some great big moments. I loved him hitting a tope con giro onto AR Fox and the rest of the Skulk, Ruff hitting a rolling plancha off Bravado's shoulder and right into an Ohno crane kick, or just the sheer that comes with a series of fat Ohno sentons. This could have easily been a compelling 15 minute match with Ruff separated from Fox and showing on his own, but dragging this all the way out to 30 was completely unnecessary and did favors for nobody. Sometimes you accidentally watch a 30 minute Harlem Bravado match and at the end are left only with memories of the person you were before you knew such a thing existed. 

Eddie Kingston vs. Curt Stallion

ER: Stallion really didn't work for me in this match, and I hated his lack of transitions when going on offense. The match really felt like Kingston trying to gamely fill time (and occupying time with some cool stuff), Stallion nearly being put away several times, and then merely deciding to go back on offense when it suited him. Stallion's big plus in this match was having skin that gets nice shades of red and purple in response to Kingston chopping his chest, throwing palms at his back, or slapping Stallion in the stomach. Stallion jumped Kingston the second he got into the ring, and I like how Kingston kept rolling out to compose himself whenever he was disadvantaged, knowing Stallion would take the bait and roll out, giving Kingston the advantage. Kingston's brawling looked good, but it was like he kept trying to play off an energy that Stallion kept refusing to give. For a guy who came rushing into the match, Stallion gave this whole match a pretty sleepy vibe. He wasn't putting anything into kickouts and again, kept lazily going back to offense after close kickouts, and I don't buy a lot of his signature offense against Kingston. A good wrestler should be able to switch up his moveset depending on opponent, and the foot stomp/pull opponent into suplex doesn't work as well with a larger guy like King. I liked the way Kingston would annoyingly nudge Stallion into position with his knees, loved his heavy throws and big chops, but I could not get into Stallion's approach to this match. 

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Matches from EVOLVE 142 12/7/19

Full Show

Colby Corino vs. Sean Maluta

ER: It always felt like the best possible Colby Corino ceiling was going to be "peak Jimmy Jacobs" and he's clearly working strongly in that direction. This was a straight match worked like a street fight, both guys working aggressively. There are some things that can still be tightened up, but he works quick and has a lot of strong ideas, and already feels really good at thinking on his feet and running through a deep bag of size appropriate offense. The two had a real nice brawl with Maluta hitting hard with chops and Corino throwing stiff kicks and nice punches, executing everything snug. These two craft interesting, engaging sequences around thing that should be treated that way. We get an awesome struggle over a vertical suplex, and a few sequences that don't wind up where I think they're going to. Corino has a nice whipping kick, cool standing cannonball, and his brawling looked good. He's definitely a guy worth seeking out at this point.


117. Eddie Kingston vs. Anthony Gutierrez

PAS: I love Eddie Kingston beating on guys. Gutierrez is an MMA guy, and pretty fun when he sticks to that, although he will delve into bad topes and questionable standing shooting stars. But Sharkbait is a great bumper, and he dies like Pat Tanaka on clotheslines and German suplexes. There was a fun near fall on a tight triangle which Eddie breaks by biting, and an incredible body shot combo in the corner by Eddie which he flows right into an STO. These guys had a couple of other matches which I need to get my hands on, it's a fun match up.

ER: I thought this was awesome, a terrific Kingston-as-Hashimoto performance, giving Sharkbait tons of paths to victory while absolutely killing him with his shots. Kingston hit some real monstrous stuff here, and some of the best moments came when Gutierrez would catch him unexpectedly. Kingston is such a perfect opponent for someone like Sharkbait, and I would have been entertained if this was just several minutes of Kingston eating leg kicks. Kingston is a guy who clearly has a ton of material at his disposal *just* for selling leg kicks, really feels like a guy who can have a compelling match even if you gave three restrictive challenges within a match. I loved seeing Gutierrez land kicks and the occasional knee, and the way Kingston raked his eyes to get back to control and land big chops. Every big move Kingston landed looked like death, from that big time STO, to a nasty 1-2 combo (that could have easily finished the match) northern lights bomb and DDT. Gutierrez took both of those moves as painfully as possible, really stuffing his neck on the DDT. I actually liked Sharkbait's tope, even if it didn't land hard I think the point was that Kingston was not expecting a tope and so it at least threw him back into the guardrail. So Sharkbait stuns him by throwing his whole body at him and then immediately lands one of his hardest strikes of the match, an elbow that shifts Kingston's jaw. It felt like a smart way to set up a big strike. Reversing a big cocky King powerbomb into a triangle was a smart play, but once he did a light slingblade I wanted Kingston to murder him with a backfist, and he did! I loved how these two paired off, Kingston really feels like the obvious best guy in wrestling to do modern Different Fight matches.


106. Timothy Thatcher vs. Arturo Ruas

PAS: Ruas is an amateur wrestler and ju-jitsu black belt who is a WWE signee. I have no idea how he will do in the WWE system but he is pretty fun working an Ambition/Bloodsport style worked shoot match with Thatcher. There was some pretty slick grappling here, I loved Thatcher stacking Ruas guard and going for a kneebar, only to get countered with kimura. There was some really powerful thumping body shots, and Ruas had a cool upkick and german suplex. It reminded me a lot of the Thatcher vs. Ishikawa series. Ruas isn't close to Ishikawa's level as a wrestler, but he is clearly a high level grappler and it was fun to watch Thatcher craft a wrestling match around that.

ER: This was definitely the most I've seen Ruas on the mat, and I think the match benefitted from that. I have a love/hate relationship with his capoeira, as some of the strikes can look cool and land from weird angles, but those same strikes can often force time to stand still a little bit while his opponent figures out where exactly they're supposed to stand to take this strike. I guess you could say that some of his strikes need to get to the point a little quicker. This is almost entirely on the mat and cooler for it, and yes it really does come off exactly like something on an Ambition or Bloodsport show. Thatcher really goes for that kimura, and we get the kind of grappling that just comes off absolutely exhausting. I appreciate that they weren't going for flash, but instead showing all of the effort that goes into just neutralizing your opponent. I loved when Thatcher was slowly making progress up Ruas's body, had his legs tangled in a grapevine and was pushing past Ruas's torso like he was going for a Regal stretch, and we get that slight shifting of body weight that allows Ruas to sweep immediately into guard and roll into an armbar. They kept the striking brief, limited to some Thatcher uppercuts and a big slap, and I liked Ruas popping up on his shoulders from the mat and hitting Thatcher with an upkick enziguiri. Ruas took advantage with a nice German (though I preferred Thatcher's big hip pivot belly to belly earlier in the match) and thought that Thatcher immediately reversing into a kimura was super logical considering the format. The finish felt a bit too jittery and Ruas left a few too many seams exposed, but the bulk of this was really cool.


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Matches from EVOLVE 140 11/10/19

Colby Corino/Sean Maluta vs. Kekoa/Mike Verna

ER: I was into this one because I really like Corino and Maluta has made a lot of jumps since teaming with Kingston, and this was those two against two guys who recently impressed at an Evolve tryout. So I was expected The Unwanted to just destroy them and instead they basically worked a competitive 50/50 match with two guys who worked like they had recently won a tryout competition. I was surprised to see both Kekoa and Verna have close to a decade of experience because both looked tentative and felt like rookies who were figuring things out. Verna is a muscle guy who they played off as a BIG muscle guy, and he does big muscle guy Brian Cage offense, but he's clearly Candido size. So you have a 5'9" 220 lb. guy out there doing slingshot suplexes walking to all sides of the ring and getting Maluta and Corino placed on him for tandem powerslams, but he barely looks like the biggest guy in the match. It was weird. Kekoa had a couple of nice strike combos, but had a hesitance to a lot of it and it felt like Corino and Maluta were waiting around longer than they should have been. I loved all the parts of The Unwanted on offense, so that's what makes the match worth watching. Maluta has some strikes that I wished he would use even more, because he really knows how to punch through an elbow strike, great form, and I like a lot of his double teams with Corino. 

Corino is wisely looking at Jimmy Jacobs as his ceiling, and I think he's a really good Jimmy Jacobs. He makes the most of his size and throws himself hard into every piece of offense, the way Spike Dudley would throw his whole body into his battering ram headbutt. Corino looks like a guy who shouldn't hit hard, but he's got great elbows and kicks and is awesome at recklessly throwing his body around. There's one sequence that kept threatening to turn into the kind of indy wrestling sequence that I hate, where Corino and Verna kept running across the ring hitting each other. So Corino would hit him and take off across the ring, followed immediately by Verna who hits him and takes off, followed immediately by Corino, etc. Those sequences are almost always trash, but Corino decks him with an elbow, mixes it up with a wicked yakuza kick, and instead of continuing the sequence he flings himself over the ropes into Kekoa, doing a sloppily effective tope con hilo. It always feels like Corino is throwing as much of himself as possible into his offense, and it makes everything he does read so much better.


Babatunde vs. Brandon Taggart

ER: Well this wasn't very good, filled with tons of moments I wouldn't want from a hoss fight (as they called it on commentary). I've seen Taggart around but its always in scramble matches, feels like a good time to really see what he can bring is in a match like this. And I did not like most of what he brought. He's got a look that really screams Backyard, with super distressed jeans and Murderface hair. I know he was in IWA Mid-South a lot and he wrestles like the only training he got there was "How to have the precisely exact bad body as Ian Rotten", just a pale pinkish lumpy bod. He looks like his entrance theme should be Also Sprach Keratosis Pilaris. There are several sections of really shitty "reversal striking" where they go through these tedious block dance sequences. Taggart throws a blocked back elbow which spins him around into a blocked forearm smash which spins him back around into a mule kick, which spins him back the other way into a tornado clothesline. It all looks awful, and they need to take that shit back to their Wednesday night square dancing class and keep it the fuck away from a hoss fight. Taggart also clearly struggles to get himself up to the 2nd set of turnbuckles. Babatunde has workable tools, like how his missed big splashes land where the opponent actually was, forcing Taggart to really roll far out of the way or still get hit. Babatunde also had a series of running shoulderblocks in the corner, first ramming Taggart in the guy, then backing up, running into his body, backing up farther and running in harder, etc. Babatunde feels like a guy who Shinya Hashimoto could have had a great match against. Brandon Taggart felt like a guy who paid to be on an Evolve show.


Anthony Gutierrez vs. Donovan

ER: This was literally one minute long, but it was a good minute. Donovan throws a bunch of strikes, rushes in and gets got by Sharkbait's one man Spanish Fly, and then immediately tapped with an armbar. But Donovan showed me a lot with his strikes, throwing great body shots and a couple nice elbow smashes, definitely seems like a cool guy to have as the flunky in Eddie Kingston's stable.


120. Eddie Kingston vs. Arturo Ruas

PAS: Kingston's run as the modern day Inoki continues as he takes on Ruas, a Capoeira and BJJ fighter who is in the WWE system for some reason. Ruas has some fun body shots and kicks and Kingston is a guy who can work a match around body shots and kicks. I really liked Ruas's scissors kick takedown and it was a fun precursor to Kingston banging him in the eye with a wrench for the DQ. Seemed a bit weird for Kingston to look for the way out, when he was more than competitive,  and it was a bit of a flat finish. But I really enjoy these minor key Eddie matches and I grabbed a WWN Live sub just to watch him work green Performance Center guys.

ER: Kingston really is great as a modern Inoki, and I'm sure there isn't anyone currently as good at being totally overwhelmed by someone's fighting style, getting his bearings, and storming through with his own style. That's what makes Kingston so great, right? His stubborn hardheadedness that allows him to rush into attacks, eat shots that could have been avoided with a stronger game plan, and still come out the other side swinging. Kingston makes the best befuddled faces as Ruas is picking him apart, getting King to bite on one strike before sneaking in hard body shots, and nobody is better than Kingston at selling a stitch in his side. I don't love Ruas's offense, and maybe it's happened but I don't think we've seen someone make capoeira work in a pro wrestling setting, but Kingston is really the perfect foil for all of it. He's great at bumbling and getting his timing thrown off while Ruas is dinking around in a handstand or something. Kingston really laces into Ruas when he finally gets hold of him, my favorite shot when King just grabs him by the dome and clonks him with a headbutt. I liked the DQ finish, but it's a disappointing finish that Kingston can do really well. Even though he was clearly landing as many shots as Ruas, I like him just bashing a guy in the eye with a wrench because "fuck it this ain't worth it". Ruas catching that flying body scissors and requiring Kingston to quickly work for a rope break was the line Ruas caught, Kingston deciding this guy is too problematic so let's find the quickest way to leave this party.


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Matches from EVOLVE 139 11/9/19

Colby Corino vs. AR Fox

ER: This had some problems, but it also had some things that made it very much worth my time. A lot of the problems I had were with Fox, because he's one of the flat out most uninteresting salesman in Evolve. He sells almost every move he takes the same way he sells moves that he delivers, and it makes his matches look like we're all just waiting around for something serious to happen. Delivers a cutter, stands up and does a little hyphy dance; takes a cutter, stands up and sells like a later step in that same hyphy dance. He sells "about to deliver a move" and "just got kicked" like a guy who is just figuring out he ate some bad whitefish. Oh, until the end, where instead of selling indifference, he sold being knocked out cold on a kick that looked like it missed. So he either sells a couple of kicks to the face by doing handstands a moment later, or he sells a kick near his face like Kurisu was his debut match opponent. But that's cool, because after that KO and great false finish he managed to get up and hit a 450 just fine. So Fox worked a match where Corino was competitive the whole time and genuinely looked like he might pull off an upset, and the way he shrugged through every part of the match really lessened the impact of Corino's performance. Corino had a couple off moments, but way more strong as hell moments. He looked like he flinched on that missed kick at the end, and I get it because he probably didn't want to cave in Fox's face (spot was Fox leaping off the top by Corino sidestepping and upkicking like he was Kawada). But he does so many little things well, like not skimping on less severe kicks (his kicks to the stomach are straight thrusts, and his super kicks have great full extension and actually look like he slides into it to increase impact), and he starts the match with my favorite lock up I've seen in months. He really goes in hard on the lock up, keeping low to shore up his gravity, and believably bulls the larger Fox across the ring. He has a couple of great logical reversals out of sequences, like a really nice ace crusher that came out of a fine battle over a vertical suplex, or the way he just starts punching Fox in the back of the head immediately after a Fox kickout, or how he snapmares Fox into a turnbuckle. This didn't need a ton to be a really good match, really all it would have taken was some extra effort from Fox, but this is just more proof of how good Corino is getting.


97. Sean Maluta/Joe Gacy vs. Anthony Gutierrez/Arturo Ruas

ER: Great way to work a match like this, just have the two different fight guys come in and do their tricks, have the heel team cheat like assholes, have both teams work funky double teams with a couple of stiff pinfall saves, and get the hell out of there before it all blows up. Gutierrez is great in matches like these, all fast kicks that land heel to gallbladder, a willingness to take some nasty spills, and a surprise tope con hilo onto both The Unwanted. Non-pro wrestler athletes are a glorious goldmine early on in their wrestling career, and if Gutierrez sticks to this I seriously doubt we'll see him trying loose but effective (and dangerous) stuff like that tope. It doesn't have any of the slickness that someone like Ricochet brings to the move, and it benefits from that, as it just looks like a guy winging his body best he can into two men larger than him. Maluta has great chops and a nice right, and uses both of those effectively here. Gacy cuts out BS handspring offense and instead sticks to lariating Ruas in the back of the head (to set up a Maluta chestbreaker), and his 360 lariat is perfectly used as the final killshot after Maluta punts Gutierrez in the balls FROM BEHIND! Everyone moved quick and didn't linger on anything, Gacy and Maluta constantly either getting overwhelmed by weird fighting styles while also finding fun ways to stay ahead of those fighting styles. Not everything is going to land (I still don't love Gutierrez's corkscrew shooting star that never quite lands, and some of Ruas's strikes can look silly), but this was a kick ass style clash.

PAS: This was fun stuff. Maluta and Gacy are a really good hard hitting team, and they make the beat down look good and really let the face team shine. I liked all of the double teams in this match, they all made sense, and looked good. I am all in on Gacy if he is going to limit his offense to hard clubs and nasty lariats. The announcers said that "Joe Gacy can do anything" but I really want him to just do one thing. Gutierrez is two steps forward, one step back, but the steps forward are fun steps, and I love wrestlers going to the body. Unwanted versus the Performance Center is a fun feud, and pretty much always delivers.


32. Eddie Kingston vs. Babatunde

ER: We wanted to watch Kingston against green Performance Center guys, and we are getting just that. Kingston vs. Giant isn't a match we get a lot, and there's a ton of joy to be had watching Kingston get ragdolled around while trying to rip a man's ear off. There's a Burt Reynolds movie I really love called Heat, and in it he gets hired to teach self defense to Peter MacNicol. Burt immediately takes things up to 10 and suggests in his first lesson that his go to move is ripping a man's ear off. "It's surprisingly easy to do, only held on by a little cartilage. Showing a man his own ear is a good way to get his attention." Kingston as down and out Las Vegas degenerate bouncer going after the ears of tough guys is my kind of Kingston. We're starting to get a real glut of "Big Man Launching Tiny Man" matches, what with AEW running at least two per week, so watching a big man try and throw someone who can land with actual size and sell those throws in unique ways, gives us a welcome twist. We get the old Vader/Cactus Jack spot where Kingston is hanging off Babatunde like a backpack, and Babatunde just takes a back bump to crush Kingston. Kingston's outstretched, frozen arm is a great sell for someone afraid to move because of damage incurred. Kingston keeps going to the ear, even after eating a big vertical suplex he rolls over and just grabs that damn ear. I like how Kingston takes big power offense, like the torture rack neckbreaker, or the pop up chop, but I like even more when Kingston just kicks Babatunde right in the balls. The match was "Relaxed Rules" and really outside of that ball shot and Kingston stealing and attempting to use the ref's belt, there wasn't much done that wouldn't have been allowed under Agitated Rules. But Kingston brought a ton of color to a big man battle, and scanning the Evolve roster I don't see anyone who could have given him a more fun match than the King.

PAS: I thought this was totally awesome, loved every second of it. Babatunde is aways away, but Eddie made all of his offense look great and really went after him with unhinged viciousness. There are so many great flavors of Eddie Kingston, nasty unprofessional asshole is one of them, this felt like him beating on Shane Storm. All of the ear attacks looked great, were really simple and made a ton of sense fighting a huge guy like Babatunde. Eric made a good point about how great Eddie is at taking huge power throws. He doesn't bounce, he thuds. I also loved his big German suplex, you could really see him using all of his leverage and strength to get Babatunde over. I can't imagine this match being worked better, what a performance by the King.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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EVOLVE 131: 10th Anniversary Special 7/13/19 Live Blog!

This is weird! But I'm home alone on a Saturday night, and there's no way I'm going to miss Eddie Damn Kingston's debut on the WWE Network.

Josh Briggs vs. Anthony Greene

ER: I've gone out of my way a couple times to watch Greene, because he's been getting talked up a lot lately, but I watched him have a lame match with Stevie Richards and I pretty much wrote him off at that point. I dug Briggs/Chris Dickinson from earlier this year, but even in that match Briggs came off like "Test on an above average night". And this match started off plenty fun, but it was really same-y and started to feel like 2 minutes for every 1 minute that passed. Greene has a nice straight right hand that he used several times (and even a nice straight left that he used once), and I think his offense looks good but a lot of it is tied together with combos, which I kind of hate. I liked the stuff worked on the apron, thought it was cool when Briggs got knocked down to a knee and to the floor, dug Briggs catching a tope and chokeslamming Greene on the apron. They work some fun stuff out of the corner, with Briggs getting caught with a kick charging in, but kicking Greene in the chest anyway and then hitting a follow up yakuza, and plenty of things looked cool (Briggs' chokeslam into a powerbomb was killer, his release suplex looked dangerous but was safe), but around the 7 minute mark they started going into the "He can't believe it!" shocked pinfall faces and more learned behavior stuff, and then I just wanted it to stop. This wasn't bad, though with the tools each guy brings they could have laid this out in a more interesting way.


We get an Eddie Kingston promo on the Network, and I'm a happy man. There is nobody in modern wrestling close to Kingston when it comes to promos, no clear second place.

Sean Maluta vs. Curt Stallion vs. Stephen Wolf vs. Harlem Bravado

ER: Harlem Bravado is such a goofy dude, like if Adam Driver lost 30 pounds and got a tech job. And I thought this mostly stunk. We got a dive train spot where Wolf shot a couple feet past everyone on a tope con giro, then Maluta shot only one foot past everyone with his tope con giro, then Stallion at least hit a decent Fosbury Flop. Bravado is bad at setting up offense, doing some silly bad missed clotheslines; Maluta threw a bunch of superkicks, and some of them looked good; Stallion would throw a nice big boot and then do a blatant thigh slap knee. It boiled down to a fairly dumb strike exchange between Wolf and Stallion that had a total of one nice strike (a cool rolling elbow by Wolf). The brief finishing run was hot and had a couple finishers chained together nicely, but I couldn't wait for this one to end.

Arturo Ruas vs. Anthony Henry

ER: I've never actually seen Ruas before, and this is kind of exciting! I don't actually know if his amateur credentials are a work or not, but he's a guy my age doing cool body scissor takedowns on WWE TV so I'm ready to buy in. And this match was a really great change of pace after that last clunker. It comes out of the gates looking like it's going to be a 4 minute match, worked like something off that awesome Tetsujin Shoot Style show from 2015. And I think this would have benefitted from being 4 minutes. It was a good 10 minute match, but it felt like it could have been a classic 4 minute match. Ruas brings some unique takedowns and strikes, coming off like a capoeira guy trying jiu jitsu, going for scissor takedowns and armbars, throwing kicks at ankles and chest, a fun replacement for my boy Jaka (who disappeared in January). I'll typically be into any Evolve guy who would fit into Check Point. Henry is a pro, and I liked how these guys scrambled, though again I do wish we cut the time and kept some of the mystery. Once it crept past 6 minutes or so it got a lot more pro style, which I didn't find as interesting. But that still had some gold, like Henry trying to burst Ruas's gallbladder with a gross stomp off the top, and the finish was great with Ruas surprising Henry with a gorgeous sweeping high kick. I dug this and would love to see more Ruas. Hell, tell Ruas to cut a few pounds so I can see Gallagher/Ruas, or bring back Gulak as a special challenge opponent.

No DQ: Brandi Lauren vs. Shotzi Blackheart

ER: Really it didn't matter what happened in this one, as Shotzi wound up hitting one of the nastier crazier bumps we've seen, and this alone is going to be GIFed to eternity. She had several crazy moments, but this was another match that felt too long at 10 minutes. Since this was No DQ Lauren had Natalia Markova work this like a handicap match, but Shotzi did away with her in barely 2 minutes, which is odd as I'm not sure why Markova bailed. Shotzi appeared to bust open her nose delivering a missile dropkick, and she comes off as a kind of unathletic Darby Allin, willing to take some absolutely dumb reckless bumps, but without Allin's landing ability. Lauren hits a killer baseball slide dropkick to the floor, sending a hard chairshot into Shotzi's face, and you'd think that would end up being the most violent spot in the match. Ha. Shotzi sets up a bunch of chairs, Lauren and Greene wind up in them, but by the time Shotzi's tope gets to them nobody is home. Shotzi crashed so damn ugly through several set up chairs, looking like 6 different chair backs hit her in 6 painful spots before she hit the ground. Absolutely nutso spot, in a match where she had already fallen onto the apron and floor. I liked Lauren beating her senseless with a kendo stick for the finish, but this felt like it would be more effective as a short wild violent brawl.

Colby Corino vs. Babatunde

ER: Hell yes. Gimme that absolute Reis/Juventud energy baby. I've not seen Babatunde (probably not going back to check out the Greatest Royal Rumble), but I'm down for any new 350 pounder. Colby at least actually looks like a wrestler now and not like a little kid (which he did as of like 2 years ago), and really he just looks the same as his dad in the late 90s. Babatunde doesn't have tons to offer yet besides size and presence, but that's fine. We get a couple great spots in this one, the best being Corino hitting a springboard swanton right onto the back of the kneeling Babatunde, but close second was Corino getting caught off the top with a huge chokeslam. This was only a couple minutes, but a welcome breather.

Eddie Kingston/Joe Gacy vs. AR Fox/Leon Ruff

ER: This was a ton of fun, starting with a ton of dives and not really letting up. Fox and Ruff hit dives to start (Fox flying into the front row) and then do it again on different sides of the ring, Gacy accidentally hits Kingston with a dive, letting Ruff hit another. Good god guys. Fox does his wild inverted cannonball to the floor and basically crashes right through everyone to pavement. And I think this got pretty great once we moved into Kingston and Gacy's double teams, as they have a bunch of mean stuff. Gacy hits a hard elbow while Kingston dumps Fox on his head with a back suplex, Kingston hits a superplex into a Gacy powerbomb on Ruff, a big damn time Gacy lariat into Kingston german suplexing Ruff across the ring, Kingston hits a great powerslam off the middle rope, they both throw big chops, they're a team I'd love to see do more of their thing. They really packed some cool stuff into the run time, thought Ruff hitting a tope con giro over the turnbuckles to put Gacy threw a table looked spectacular, thought Fox's pop up Spanish Fly on Kingston was suitably crazy. I obviously didn't want to see Kingston lose, and it felt like Ruff took too much of a beating to instantly come back from, but these guys were fun opposite each other.

PAS: I didn’t like this as much as Eric. I am a Kingston super fan, and this kind of spotfest isn’t really going to use him to his best. This felt like a 12 minute match jammed into 5, and we never got to see Kingston and Gacy really take it to anyone outside of some work on Ruff which he kind of shrugged off. Gacy also had some of the worst “ONLY TWOOOOOOO” faces I have seen in a long while. Fox and Ruff really looked dancey when they were stringing spots together, I have been watching a lot of AIW tag spotfests and that set a bar Fox and Ruff couldn’t live up to. There were some cool dives, and I did like some of the Unwanted’s double teams, but I was hoping for more from the Mad King on the Network.

Matt Riddle vs. Drew Gulak

ER: Gulak gets Catch Point druids!!! As a match I think this underperformed and never felt like anything new. This felt like kind of a greatest hits collection from both guys without some of the drama that their best matches have. It felt like a slightly sanitized version of a match they would have had a couple years ago. The good news is that I happen to love the greatest hits from these two. We get a pair of cool belly to belly superplexes (Riddle getting the worst of it), both guys throw hard shots to the body (which were weirdly maybe my favorite thing about this), big Riddle senton, both throw hard uppercuts, Gulak always cutting in for single legs, it's them doing things that I like to watch them do. But this kind of felt like the recent run of 205 Live main events, where good workers are given 20 minutes to do their thing and it doesn't totally live up to the time. There were obviously hot stretches of this, and the Riddle corkscrew senton into Gulak's rear naked choke felt like a cool spot to end things. They didn't end it there, with Riddle simply picking Gulak up and hitting Bro Derek that didn't look finisher worthy. It really just looked like Gulak taking a heavier than normal slam, didn't read as a piledriver at all. This match was going to have a high floor - both guys are great - but it felt like we only bumped our head against their ceiling a couple times.


So I'm pretty in the dark on large patches of Evolve, but Leonard says that Bryan Idol was involved in "maybe the most important match in Evolve history"? Did I mishear that? Is that correct? Was there a really important Earl Cooter match that I need to see?

Austin Theory vs. JD Drake

ER: Well hey, this had some good moments in the first half and hit nothing but "this isn't wrestling I enjoy" down the back stretch. They would do cool things and not go back to them at all, like Theory cracking his elbow on the ringpost really early on, then never once hesitating to throw elbows the entire match. I hate when they burn a cool spot like that when the match would otherwise be the same. Theory is a guy who works like a dickhead Finn Balor, and that's not something I wanted. He has stuff I like: his elbows in the corner to Drake looked really good, and that running elbow to Drake's kidneys was really great. I need more of that guy. That guy rules. The guy doing a doofy pose before hitting a very normal standing moonsault? I don't want that guy. Drake is super hard for me to pin down. Half the time he's a fat guy doing things I enjoy fat guys doing, the other half he's working like a 50 year old never was doing recognizable spots on a minor league baseball show. And to be clear, written out that probably sounds something that I would actually write a couple themed posts about, but Drake would be the bad version of that. Sometimes he's throwing hands, throwing clubbing blows, landing a great fat guy dropkick, great second rope leg lariat, hitting a Vader bomb, making me go "oh yeah I do like this guy" and then before long he's doing a derpy Stunner (and you know Theory is a guy who is going to take a Stunner like a real bouncy idiot), and overshooting a rickety moonsault the exact same way he always overshoots his moonsault, and I'm like "THAT'S why I don't like that guy!" They're doing the "exhausted and holding each other up" just 12 minutes in, and the back stretch has a dumb on our knees elbow exchange. Drake gets hit and plainly says "You can't hit me harder than life has," came off like a pretty flimsy line. Eddie Kingston could make that line work. JD Drake couldn't. They knew exactly what kind of cherry I wanted on this sundae, too, because Theory did some hilarious overblown pump handle slam finisher that landed Drake 100% on top of Theory. I am not familiar with Theory's signature offense, so I genuinely thought Drake had reversed something. Nope! Austin Theory won the title by strategically throwing a larger man onto his own chest. Hey WWE Network, This Is Indy Wrestling!

Akira Tozawa vs. Adam Cole

ER: I wound up enjoying this a lot more than I thought I would, and I gotta give a lot of that credit to Tozawa. Tozawa has always been a guy I've liked, but this year I really realized I had been underrating him. I don't think he's wrestling any differently this year than he did last year or the year before, I just now appreciate him the correct amount. He really turned an interesting match out of a guy I don't like. I didn't think Cole was as annoying in this one as he is in his interminable NXT main events that I now dread. You read it here: Tozawa is good enough that he takes the dread out of Adam Cole main events. I really like what he throws behind his strikes, they look good and they look his own. He comes off like a guy who takes cool risks, and his matches benefit from that. Cole, for his part, worked an actual good side headlock. That might sound like a putdown, but a good side headlock is a pretty important thing to me. His was better than I thought it would be. Tozawa's offense is always explosive, his dive always looks like it's going to punch both guys through the barricade, he throws a great spinning heel kick, great low dropkick, bumps big and fast, etc. He's a 1999 Taka Michinoku in 2019 and that's great. I think Tozawa winning would have actually been good for NXT, interject a new and credible opponent into the mix, wouldn't seem like a demotion. Really the only thing I didn't like about this was the finish, and that's because Adam Cole has arguably my least favorite finish in wrestling. That bunny hop flipping piledriver looks so damn silly, and then he pulls his kneepad off his scrawny little knee and hits a low end "2002 indy guy working a shining wizard he just saw on a tape into his moveset" vibe to it, more like a sliding leg lariat to the back of the head which is...well it just didn't do it for me.


ER: No breakout classics on this one, and it wasn't one of the better Evolve shows I've seen - and there are a lot of great Evolve shows - but there was plenty of stuff I enjoyed. I liked several individual performances, thought the Kingston tag was a fun style clash, and I dug seeing Ruas for the first time. Plus, that Shotzi bump made me jump forward in my seat, and seat jumping moments are always special.

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