Big Time Wrestling TV 9/2/16

Here are the the semi-finals of the Damsels in Distress 2 show, which is awesome of them to show.

1. Katie Lea vs. Beatrice Domino (7/15/16)

Katie Lea is the former Katie Burchill, and she still looks exactly the same as she did 5 years ago, which would have been the last time I saw her wrestle. The match itself didn't accomplish a whole lot in the 8 minute run time. Lea was the heel, and worked over Domino with various chokes. I don't mind an entire match based around chokes, but this really didn't have the playfulness of the best hide the chain matches or other cheating heel matches. In fact it was never really played up as cheating, more just Katie Lea choking Domino, breaking before 5, and then resetting before doing it again. There wasn't a ton of playing to the crowd, not a lot of build to the chokes, just ended up feeling like a heel occupying time before the comeback. Domino's comeback is very brief but looked great, with Kaite coming off the ropes and going for a rana, but Domino catches her, holds her, and plants her with a great sit out powerbomb. Finish looked great, both looked fine throughout, just never went anywhere too compelling. Plus Renner and Dave always leer and drool over the women which just comes off badly.

2. Raze vs. Dementia D'Rose (7/15/16)

D'Rose has that ever tough wrestling gimmick of "crazy", which never seems to come off very well. Dragon Dave suggests she may eat the title if she wins it. You know, because she's crazy. You would think the suggestion of eating a belt would lead to some crazy ring antics, but we mostly just get some teased hair. I like Raze and the parts with her controlling were good, really liked her hard knees in the corner and in the ropes, and she really plants her Saito suplex finisher. D'Rose is pretty new I think, and she ends up out of place a couple times, but I like her bombs away and I'm sure she'll continue to improve.

3. Sara Del Rey & Davina Rose vs. Amber O'Neal & Sassy Stephanie (5/21/11)

Aw man I miss seeing Sara Del Rey wrestling. I'm absolutely positive her current gig is much better, but she had grown into a real favorite of mine. So, it was fun to see this, and it went exactly as you likely guessed: Rey controls early, heels cut off the ring with Rose as FIP, leading to Rey eventually coming in and going monster on everyone. Rose was a good FIP at this point (and she's obviously only gotten better) and Del Rey knew how to work like a real brute. Never seen Stephanie before and I don't think I'll be rushing out to see more, but O'Neal is currently married to Luke Gallows and she runs most of the heel team. She was good with the taunts and doing great annoying things like lock Rose's arms behind her and doing sit-ups with Rose trapped. The eventual hot tag to Del Rey is fun, especially dug her rolling kappo kick in the corner, really making sure that leg swung accurate. So an overall fun match, but they already featured Rose/Bayley in their throwback match segment, just a few weeks ago. They have over a decade of shows to pull from, I wish they'd choose to show what they thought were the best matches in the promotion's history, instead of a Nasty Boys match. Show me the best BTW has to offer!

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Big Time Wrestling 7/29/16 TV

1. Christopher Black vs. Andre LeVeaux

Hosts Dragon Dave and Hank Renner Jr. keep telling us that the debuting (?) Christopher Black has a "worldwide reputation for violence" which, well...seems like a dubious claim. But I liked him, so that counts for something. Match was only 5 minutes but they accomplished enough to make the short time worthwhile. I've never seen Black before and only seen a little LeVeaux. They start with some amusing twisting wristlock reversals, silly but I liked the outcome. Black gains advantage by yanking LeVeaux to the mat by his dreads, which seems like an appropriate thing for a mean bald dude to do to gain an advantage over a guy with dreads. We get a couple of moments where Black transitions away from LeVeaux by yanking the dreadlocks, which is a great thing for a heel to do, but rarely has an opportunity to do so. I really liked LeVeaux's big comeback down the stretch, hitting a nice lariat and a really hard back elbow, then spiking Black with a dropkick in the corner. Black hits a big boot with nice follow through to end it in satisfying fashion, with LeVeaux going limp on contact, making me buy it. I'd really like to see more of these two, or shoot just know more about where they came from, how long they've been working, etc. (**Apparently they just debuted in April, which is really impressive**)

2. Victor Sterling & Jack Madison vs. Rik Luxury & Will Roberts

Man Hank Renner Jr. sure does say the word "kisser" a lot. Nobody can be punched in the face, it's always gotta be his "kisser". "Take a look at Rik Luxury's kisser." There's no way he just naturally talks like this. His shtick is...tiresome. You can also count on hearing "well-oiled machine" many times during every tag match. And this tag match was really good. Really, really good. But woefully short. They go 7, and I easily could have been down for 17. What we got was really good, but so cruel to have it taken away so quickly. Roberts and Luxury are a fun team (I dig teams with size differences) who kind of do a reverse Ricky Morton, with Roberts being in the ring more often but as a heel. It never went full heel-in-peril but it was an interesting layout. Sterling and Madison have some polished double teams and Sterling in particular had some of his best move execution all throughout. A simple Madison drop toe hold into a seated Sterling dropkick looks real great when executed so well and timed so nicely. Sterling throws some nice knees and Roberts makes offense look even better, I dug Luxury doing a sort of fisherman's suplex on Roberts to flip him onto Sterling, and the finish stretch was real good and excellently timed. But again, so cruel to keep this so short. Easily could have gone twice as long.

3. Christina Von Eerie vs. Davina Rose (6/26/09)

Davina Rose is obviously now Bayley, and this is a smart move by BTW to unearth a couple of her matches and showcase them. Eerie ambushes Rose to start and I don't know how Renner thinks it's ok to keep saying "Pearl Harbor job" over and over to describe what happened. When a really large wrestler gets knocked over does he call it "a realll 9/11"? He has an extreme problem just calling objects what they actually are, always has to have some quaint colloquialism for every damn thing. Von Eerie's boots are called "stompers". Good grief. yet he doesn't seem to know what any actual moves are called. "Guy who likes Gorilla Monsoon commentary and adds shitty changes to it" is never going to sound good. This is really early into Bayley's career, she probably had less than 10 matches at this point, and it shows. She's decent at selling and can get over vulnerability, but she doesn't know how to land when doing offense and doesn't really know how to take moves. She gets confused a couple times one time falling out of a bodyslam in a way I've never seen anybody fall out of a bodyslam before. Eerie looked better here than I think she presently looks, seemed like someone who got to a certain level and stopped trying as hard. Announcer Dragon Dave is a creep in this as he keeps bringing up Eerie's ass crack and complimenting the camera man on his nice work. We also cut to the crowd to see someone with a Quagmire sign saying "Alright Ladies". Yuck. Good move to show this match and let a new audience see Bayley's beginnings, and a terrible idea to not redo the commentary.

This was another good, tight episode. I know I keep saying they're good at filling their time, but it really is important when you only have 30 minutes to work with every week. Both new matches they showed were good, and while the final match was not good it's totally understandable and smart that they would show a Bayley match.

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