AIW Death Rowe 1/19/18

Shane Mercer vs. Matt Justice

ER: Mercer is like if Sheamus mated with Petey Williams, and Justice is like if Drew Galloway mated with Baron Corbin. And both of those things have their benefits. There are a couple drawbacks of the Sheamus/Petey Williams mixture. If your water has over 10 Petey Williams parts per billion, your wrestling DNA is going to be at least somewhat tainted. But he's a compact guy with genuine power, but also gets a bit too married to a sequence. He hit an awesome press slam spot that saw him holding Justice up with one arm, but there was also a clunky planned sequence where he got suplexed into the ropes upside down, and was supposed to hold on, but he didn't catch the turnbuckles properly. So then he stayed "stuck" in the turnbuckles as he scrambled to go through with the planned spot while people groaned. But he's pale so his chest turned bright red on chops, and Justice throws a lot of chops (and some great headbutts). Justice hits a nice shotgun kick and the finish looks big time, with Justice hitting a flying kneedrop to the back of Mercer's head while Mercer is bent at the waist. It was like a modern indy version of a Cattle Branding, looked cool.

Parker Pierce/Big Twan Tucker vs. Weird World (Alex Kellar/"Weird Body" Evan Adams)

ER: Weird Body is probably my favorite wrestler who isn't actually very good, but I'll always watch him! Match was okay and had some surprises. Kellar has gotten better and while he isn't as funny as White Mike, he hits harder. Late in the match he hits a tope that's ugly when compared to the oldest luchador tope, but points for hurling your belly and dirty tights through the ropes onto another human. Pierce and Tucker work a frat gimmick, and Pierce has a good potentially hateable charisma, like a Chris Dickinson ceiling. He's not there, but his potential for improvement is big, and he did things I liked: drops a big leg (in tandem with a Big Twan splash to Weird Body), bullied Adams around, dropped him with some indy "I drop your face on my knee", and as Adams is sitting upright and stunned Pierce shoves him over to pin. The shove was a nice, Finlay-esque move, those kind of things are good signs. Weird Body beatdowns aren't ever really as good in practice as they seem like they would be on paper. He does get tossed with a fallaway slam and eats a splash/legdrop, but you almost expect the beating on him to be more violent and it usually isn't. He has no meat on his bones to absorb bumps, I wouldn't want to get tossed around much either.

Frankie Flynn/Magnum CK vs. Chase Oliver/Tre Lamar

ER: Good match, I liked what all four guys brought. Flynn is a good Jimmy Jacobs lite, sells really well, took a kneeling rana really cool and made it look like he lawndarted himself into the mat, a guy worth going out of your way to watch. Magnum CK is this big oaf-y Davey Boy Smith Jr./Matthew Rhys on the Americans looking guy, who apparently had been out of wrestling for 8 years (his comeback promo made it sound like he was dealing with alcoholism?), and has an all time great ring entrance: He comes out in his show cape, arms extended, and he proceeds to walk all around ringside with arms fully extended, which means his outer hand is just lightly slapping and pie-facing everybody in the front row. He wrestles like Bret Hart with a dash of John Tatum, so he'll hit a nice diving elbow off the middle rope and hit a legsweep, but he'll also pinball between punches and flop face first hard to the mat. Oliver and Lamar are a cut above your typical timed sexy dance fighters, they throw decent punches and have cool tandem offense (loved Lamar armdragging Oliver into a a slumped-in-the-corner Flynn), and they peak with each hitting tandem dives, Oliver moonsaulting to the floor while Lamar crosses paths with him diving diagonally past the ringpost. I mean holy crap, crossing paths on a dive is just flat out crazy. They weren't operating with a ton of space, like the fucking Blue Angels of wrestling. Everyone added to this, went a nice length, real satisfying tag.

Johnathan Wolf vs. Malcolm Monroe III

ER: My, this went on for quite awhile, didn't it? Both guys have some ideas, and both guys want to use every single one of their ideas smack dab in the middle of an 8 match card. I thought Wolf had some neat things, especially liked his aloof dickhead habit of tying his hair back in a loose bun whenever he had some down time, including kicking and stomping at Monroe while doing so. Monroe slips up on a couple of the dancier spots, but breaks out some crazy ideas, even hits a big moonsault off the top into the crowd and takes a huge running powerbomb into the guardrail. But he relies on Wolf's recklessness, and seeming willingness to get dumped on his head by stupid flipping piledrivers. We had a lot of piledrivers in this match that didn't mean a whole lot. Monroe did a lot of annoying death sell, only to be up hopping around moments later. We had an amusing moment of both landing kicks and strikes at the same time and both falling on their face. And we also had a freaking flip piledriver off the top, that then left Wolf standing on his feet swaying back and forth, waiting to take another flip piledriver variation, like he's waiting to take a Fatality in Mortal Kombat. They both had good ideas, they both had bad tendencies. I'd like to see them reigned in.

Colby Redd/Derek Director/Eddy Only vs. Garrison King/AJ Gray/Joshua Bishop

ER: AIW seems to be able to just throw guys together in a multiman and have it deliver, and this delivered. The former team is the rest of The Production, and the latter team we saw in the great 2017 AIW 10 man. A trios like this can play to everyone's strengths, and I thought this mostly did. Director was maybe exposed too much, but his good stuff was good. Eddy Only has a great dirtbag look, he could be the roadie for Ugly Ducklings (if the Ugly Ducklings were a Banana Splits style band and went out on tour). He looks like someone in an action movie, where our hero gets into a big fight with a bunch of truckers at the bar, and Only is a tiny scrappy trucker who our hero laughs off before realizing Only is the crazy trucker who overindulges on speed cut with bleach. He bumps big and moves quick, and I like how people somewhat used him as a weapon, like Bishop powerbombing him to the floor onto everyone. King also bumps big and moves quick, loved how he took a Colby Redd suplex, loved the section with The Production beating him down. AJ Gray is a Wee Willie Mack and hits a big tope at one point, a crazy tornillo to the floor. Throwing together a roster for a fun 15 minute 6 man is one of my favorite things in wrestling; I love 2000-2007 NOAH trios, obviously WAR trios, it's just a cool easy always fun match if you have the depth. And AIW has rarely disappointed me in that department.

Dominic Garrini vs. Juice Robinson

PAS: New Japan and NXT are two of my biggest wrestling blindspots, so I had seen hardly any Juice Robinson, but I will watch pretty much any Garrini match, and this was a ton of fun. Robinson comes in crowbarishly and it forces Garrini to throw big shots too. I liked the story of this match with Garrini scouting the bigger star and having counters, while Juice doesn't know anything about Dominic. It felt like Garrini had answers to all of Robinson big moves, he countered his big senton to a cross armbreaker, avoided his kicks and countered the Pulp Friction into a wastelock throw and nasty armbar for the tap. Robinson really hit hard here, big chops, and a couple of huge clotheslines, basically working this like a dominant guy, that dominance really made the upset victory work. Dom has started out 2018 on fire, and I imagine he is going to have a big year.

ER: I'm a big Juice fan. Juice is a guy I really liked in NXT. Easily one of the best workers there, and he really made his condescending dirty hippie heel character work, and I’ve always like his wrestling style. He doesn’t skimp on little things like stomach kicks, he throws a variety of nice punches, he hits way harder than you might guess by looking at him, has some weird offense that he makes look better than others (his standing spin kick doesn’t seem like it should land effectively, but he always makes it look like a kill shot), he’s just a quality guy. Garrini is someone who I think will be good, and has obviously been a major contributor to some great stuff already. I do think he has a tendency to look a little robotic during strike exchanges, and some of his set ups feel like something I would be more critical of if they were done by someone I didn’t like. But I like Garrini, and I like the skillset he brings to a match, and I think these two are good dance partners who I had never actually pictured dancing together. Juice has kind of a cocky style without always being overtly cocky, which is the perfect kind of guy to go up against someone with legit submission skills. Every time Juice would leave a limb out there or go into guard for a pinfall I kept waiting for Garrini to snap the bear trap. Juice bumps big on lariats but dishes nice jabs, that big spin kick, a nice powerbomb out of the corner, and they work some cool stuff like Garrini locking on a standing guillotine but eventually getting slammed by Juice. I love those moments in Riddle or Garrini matches, where their opponent leaps into something only to get caught in a sub, and they’re even better when they actually incorporate the opponent’s regular offense. I rarely see them used as “trying to sunset flip Rikishi” or “trying to powerbomb Kidman”, they’re usually pretty smart. Juice has a nice senton so it makes sense when Garrini gets his knees up and locks in an armbar. The finish is the same and it’s satisfying, Juice getting caught in another armbar and immediately tapping. Fun match that solidified what I like about both guys.

43. To Infinity and Beyond (Cheech/Colin Delaney) vs. Philly Marino Experience (Philly Collins/Marino Tenaglia) vs. Young Studs (Bobby Beverly/Eric Ryan) vs. Excellence Personified (Dr. Daniel C. Rockingham/Brian Carson)

PAS: AIW has mastered these multi man tag matches, and I really think To Infinity and Beyond are the glue that holds them together. This is really early PME, they have really developed in a great team, but this match was 18 months ago and they are still pretty seamlessly integrated into the match. This is the most I have enjoyed Dr. Dan, as he cuts out the comedy and just takes bumps. I think TIAB are just conducting a complex amount of traffic. Philly Collins's fat boy moonsault to the floor is one of the more impressive highspots around, he gets great height and lands with tubby force. Brian Carson has a crazy bump to the floor where he cracks his head on the top of the metal post, we get a bunch of cool double teams, and some really well timed cut offs. Just such an enjoyable bit of craziness.

ER: Yep, this ruled, easily my favorite match of the show. I'm never going to know/remember why I didn't watch this match with the rest of the show. AIW has my favorite tag scene in wrestling, and they do these wild action multi mans SO much better than anyone else, and Delaney/Cheech really do seem to be the consistent denominator in all of them. But this match was filled with star performances. Yes, Cheech and Delaney are constantly a part of that, and seem to trigger each new momentum change, while looking explosive as hell. Delaney runs into guys faster and with harder elbows than anyone in this thing, he has gotten so good in the past couple years. PME looked great too, with Marino dropping a great underdog babyface performance. Every time he would come in it lead to something exciting. Philly built to his big moments nicely, and that moonsault to the floor was like a strike that sends every single pin exploding backwards. But my favorite thing he did might have been when he got accidentally tied up in the ropes, to set up Delaney's sliding German. I'm a big fan of guys finding cool ways to set up someone else's trademark offense, anything other than just standing there and waiting. Brian Carson takes the bump of the match, missing an avalanche and hitting the ringpost, and then continuing to tumble over the top and off the ring steps to the floor. Young Studs looked good as ever, Beverly delivers his slams super fast and Ryan threw the best punches of the match, and threw them often. This whole thing was 8 guys running hard and running into each other, taking big bumps, finding fun ways to break up pins, just the best, most thoroughly mapped out tag. These matches are the best versions of those Dragons Gate scrambles that got acclaim over a decade ago.

Keith Lee vs. Raymond Rowe

ER: This was Rowe's final indy match before going to NXT, so I figured I should check it out as I like him and obviously like Lee, and they went for an epic, and several big parts of the epic worked, but it also dragged something fierce. The match was a little over 25 minutes and felt about 45. To somebody who has somehow not seen either of these guys work before, both move like you would not expect them to move. They both have explosive speed and both hit hard, so you get this neat mix of quick bursts ending in meaty thumps. This takes awhile to get going, as they really milked the opening, milked the first lockup, milked all of it. By the time Rowe went for a handshake and decked Lee (which Lee sold in the ropes with a nice amusing cross-eyed sell) and they started trading their big moves, every move was a peak, and the wait time until the next move was a big valley. I don't want to sound like I expect go go go highspots in every match, but these two both have impressive gas tanks for their size and probably could have crushed a 13 minute sprint, but we ended up with a lot of lying around and a lot of shocked reactions at the referee when a move did not get the 3 count.

But I like how both guys move so there's a lot of pleasure just seeing them interact, seeing a big Lee leapfrog/dropdown/dropkick, seeing Rowe superman punch Lee around ringside, seeing these giant dudes throw each other. We got tons of elbows and knees, and some cool blocking of those moves: Rowe starts blocking Lee elbows with his head and then clunks him in the chest with a headbutt, Lee starts blocking Rowe's knees with his forearms and sinks a few nasty knees to the gut himself. Rowe hits Lee with a mammoth uranage, and I liked Lee screaming on the way down. Rowe starts dishing huge running knee's to Lee's face, almost winding up like he's hitting a short arm clothesline, but nailing a kneeling Lee in the jaw. We even get Rowe hitting a flipping piledriver on Lee for a 2 count, which looked spectacular and really should have ended the match. But we kind of drag out the nearfalls and the finish is a kinda fun twist, as Rowe hits the Death Rowe knee to the back of Lee's head and hits a tornado elbow...only to have Lee timberrrrrrr down on top of him for the 3 count. I like the use of "man trying to reach for one last free snack from the vending machine, ending with the vending machine crushing him" parable. The match had some weird moments, like Lee stopping the match to tell the ringside fans to feast their eyes on the specimen of Keith Lee, and Rowe stopping the match to tell the crowd "Let me feed off your energy". And the proceedings just dragged on too long, though I understand them wanting to go big on Rowe's last show. An enjoyable match, but not as big as I hoped.


ER: Really fun show. The AIW roster is really awesome, cool mix of guys, definitely a crew I'm going to keep seeking out. Even when the matches aren't "MOTY" level, they still deliver. There's a bunch of match-ups I want to see with these guys. Juice/Garrini is an easy choice for our 2018 MOTY list though, totally delivering on a match that I hadn't thought of as happening. You will certainly see more AIW stuff written up here, that's for sure.

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AIW Double Dare Tournament Night 1 11/4/16

After really loving AIW Absolution show this year, I got pretty excited that Powerbomb.tv was going to start putting up AIW shows. They didn't have anything from 2017 up yet, but this was a super intriguing set of shows from 2016 a big tag tourney full of fun teams.

Space Justice (Space Monkey/Supercop Dick Justice) v. To Infinity and Beyond (Cheech/Colin Delaney

PAS: Space Justice had their Chikara shit they had to shoehorn in, and it was pretty groan worthy. When this wasn't half assed junior college improv troupe stuff, the wrestling was pretty good. Justice is a really fat dude, he looks like a less athletic Ron Jeremy, but he looked pretty good doing some lucha exchanges with Colin Delaney, he also took a great looking bump on a Delaney dive. The finishing run had some nice fancy stuff, and ended with a double team Kudo driver on Space Monkey which seemed like way too mean of a finish for a comedy guy to have to take.

ER: I showed up to this party mostly to watch my boy Weird Body, but caught the end of this one, and Phil is right, that Kudo driver is WAY too nasty to use against freaking Space Monkey. They practically dropped him vertically, seconds after he was doing comedy Baba chops (and some surprisingly nice headbutts to the midsection). Dick Justice is fat enough that I probably need to seek out more of him.

Jollyville Fuck-Its (T-Money/Dirty Russ) v. Weird World (Worldwide Alex Kellar/ Weird Body Evan Adams)

PAS: One of the reasons I was most excited to dig into this show was to see more Fuck-Its, and they didn't disappoint. Weird Body is one of the oddest looking wrestlers in the world, he has this hesher hair and a famine victim physique, but being such a tiny guy he takes a huge impressive beating. Worldwide is a big dude who kind of looks and wrestles like a young Bugsy McGraw, and he basically uses Weird Body as a weapon. Meat of the match is the Fuck-Its laying a beating on Weird Body which is exactly what I want. T-Money does multiple violent bodyslams that feel like they might break him in half, at one point T-Money hits the pounce and Weird Body flies violently into the ropes. Really fun beating, great first round match from the Boys from Jollyville.

ER: This was really fun, Weird Body is just totally entertaining to me, for reasons I can't explain. Maybe it's because his body looks like the David Cross acid bath character in the Mr. Show Titannica sketch, probably more because I've always been drawn to the weirdos and the chubsters and the freaks in my pro wrestling. Now that Ellsworth is out of WWE, I can't think of anybody more worthy of a strange Gowen/Delaney/Ellsworth contract. I guarantee you Weird Body would get over in WWE. Bring him in, sell a few t-shirts, send him to 205 Live, quietly release him. Then someday Chikara will bring in Delaney/Weird Body/Ellsworth for their trios tourney. And yes, this match is what I wanted it to be. I have absolutely no clue how long Adam's weird body will actually be able to hold up to pro wrestling bumps. He has absolutely nothing except his skeleton to absorb the shock. I imagine there is a finite amount of brutal T-Money bodyslams he'll be able to take before his skeleton just shatters apart, ruining the lives of everyone in attendance. But until then, we get to see him getting pounced violently into the ropes and getting suplexed while atop another man's shoulders. Alex Kellar has preposterously small "over trunks", as if he stole them from Adams. He borrows his boy's trunks, he needs to do a better job of protecting him from savages like T-Money! T-Money really did look awesome, and I don't think it was because he mostly matched up with a guy smaller than any female wrestler. Money has a Chris Dickinson aggressive jerk vibe, smashing headbutts and full force. Weird Body has some fun offense, most of it ineffective due to his size, so you see him hit a crossbody with his opponent draped over the ropes and instinctively go OH! and then immediately realize oh wait he's 85 pounds. But no matter, this was a blast. Finish is great as Russ drops a huge elbow/senton off the top (like Izu's old falling meteor)on Kellar, and Weird Body bursts in with the save!! Which is a huge mistake, as T-Money then wastes him, and Kellar gets pinned anyway.

Massage NV (Dorian Graves/VSK) v. Twerk Time (Marti Belle/Ray Lynn)

PAS: Ick. Massage NV's gimmick is that they give unwanted massages to their opponents to unnerve them, so watching them work a team of women was basically Harvey Weinstein the wrestling match. Even worse, Twerk Time are part of Gregory Iron and Alex Daniels crew, so team inappropriate touch were the baby faces. No one in this match seemed particularly good at straight wrestling (Marti Belle was famously the worst part of the MYC) so the parts of this that were a standard match weren't good either. This was gross and I wish the OCD completist part of my brain allowed me to tap out after the first minute or so.

FBI (Tracy Smothers/Little Guido) v. Team IOU (Nick Iggy/Kerry Awful)

PAS: Lots of pre-match horseshit with Smothers coming out with a Cubs shirt and Cubs flag to taunt the Cleveland audience. Smothers is a master of cheap heat, and it feels like he is beneath baseball team cheap heat, he wasn't bringing his best. Smothers is clearly in the no bumps portion of his career, which is fine his chops and karate thrusts still looked good. Not sure why Guido isn't booked all over the place, he still looked really good and the initial takedown and grappling section with Iggy was the highlight of the match for sure. Match itself was about half as long as the pre game stuff, and was a fine but unmemorable use of all four guys. Looking forward to seeing what IOU/Carnies did for the rest of the tourney.

Tracy Williams/Matt Riddle v. EYFBO (Mike Draztik/Angel Ortiz)

PAS: This was an enjoyable tag. I was really impressed how good EYFBO looked when they were doing some grappling early, you would expect them to get smoked, but they both looked good. There was a longish beatdown section on Riddle with a bunch of fun double teams, including an insanely high cannonball by Draztik. There was some SAT memorial silly double teams, including a goofus looking romero special on one guy, camel clutch another guy which definitely was the result of some stoned late night brainstorming. Finish run was exciting including a brutal tombstone right into a German finish by the Catch point team. Didn't out stay it's welcome and had some real exciting moments. Good stuff.

ER: I really liked this, and liked how it kind of evolved out of a semi-joking around atmosphere (fitting in with the rest of the card) into violence, big risks and some big nearfalls. I thought the early wrestling was really good, haven't seen anything close to this interesting from them during their entire Impact run. And during the opening half we get a nice look at what a solid underdog babyface Riddle is. He's an amazing athlete but his athleticism can cause him to go overboard on offense sometimes. Here we get to see his athleticism putting over the attacks from EYFBO and it makes them look like credible threats. The (brief) comedy moments are kept during the moments where EYFBO is cutting off the ring, so the match never stopped for everybody to work a bit, it was instead worked in as heel taunting: Ortiz posing while throwing weak mocking stomps to Riddle, or breaking out several backrakes while isolating him in their corner (though on a show where Weird Body already did an electric chair backrake, we had already reached peak backrake). It all lead to a super hot tag to Williams (perhaps Fiery Hot Sauce?) that sees him sprint across the ring to boot Draztik in the face, then kicking at him until he's off the apron, and hitting a nasty back elbow on Ortiz. We get hot nearfalls, some awesome BroSauce double teams, a dope Ortiz tope con giro through the ropes that smashes Williams into the guardrail, Riddle's big splat senton, just a super hot finish. The match built nice and really exploded.

Crime Tyme (JTG/Shad Gaspard) v. Brian Carson/Dr. Daniel C. Rockingham

PAS: I am too old to get any nostalgic thrill out of semi-crappy early 2000s racist WWE gimmicks. This was fine, but if you are going to book the Gangstas, book the Gangstas not some ripoff team aimed squarely at the Trump voter inside of Vince. This had some amusing shtick from the student team who cheated a bunch, until Crime Tyme got pissed and smacked Carson with the hoverboard in front of the ref. I did like the part where they blew a leapfrog and JTG started potatoing Dr. Dan, outside of that it was very skippable.

Crazy Pain (Steve Pain/Gringo Loco) v. NES (Facade/Flip Kendrick)

PAS: Always happy to see Segunda Caida favorite Flip Kendrick, having two great rudo bases like Pain and Loco is a perfect fit for all of Kendricks fancy shit. Liked the early lucha rope running section, both Pain and Loco are crazy agile for portly dudes. We had a rudo beatdown, which including Loco hurling Kendrick in the air into a Loco cutter. Cool dive section with a nutso multi spin dive by Flip and a fun finish run, with the rudos really winning convincingly with Pain hitting the painkiller and slamming Facade hard on Kendrick. This probably maxed out as a fun IWRG opening tag, but I really like IWRG opening tags.

ER: This was a perfect vehicle for the super impressive lucha stylings of Loco and Pain. Both have big bellies and seem like they have only grown since buying their ring gear, but damn are they just as quick as any tiny flier out there. The rope running and armdragging to start was maybe my favorite I've seen all year, just gorgeous stuff and the kind of flippery I love. Facade is a guy I always forget that I like, as I see him on sight and immediately go "ugh look at this guy" but he brings big strkes from weird angles, really feels more complete than a lot of juniors. Also, tagging people's signs during his ring entrance is a genuinely cool touch. The flying in this had a nice dangerous feel to it, as after we get past the super fast armdrags and quick exchanges, we get into some daredevil flying, quick ranas (Pain and Loco take fast ranas perfectly) big power moves (that alley oop into the cutter Phil mentioned was insane), the whole thing was tons of fun.

Headhunters v. Lucky 13/Eric Ryan

PAS: Pretty shocked that the Headhunters have all four of their feet at this point, much less actually moving around pretty good. Lucky 13 and Ryan are deathmatch guys brought in to eat the bumps for the Headhunters and both guys get killed and bleed all over the place. Headhunters really weren't taking bumps, but they were getting hit hard with chairs, and one of them even takes a Van Daminator from 13. Hunters are still flying, with each Hunter hitting a tope rope splash and one of them hitting a splash off the ring apron crushing a plastic table. I have no idea where the Headhunters had been for the last 20 or so years, but for nostalgia guys they looked pretty good.

PAS: Nothing blow away from the first night, but all of the right teams advanced for the most part, and I dug the Fuck-Its beating of Weird World, lucha tag, Catch Point and the Headhunters. Very excited for night 2.

ER: I greatly enjoyed the matches I watched , and we decided that the BroSauce and Pain/Loco AND the Weird World tags deserved a spot on our 2016 Ongoing MOTY List. AIW delivers the goods, again.

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CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide Episode 119

Episode 119

1. Aspyn Rose vs. Kaci Lennox

ER: I really like Aspyn Rose's look, but she probably works best as a second at this point. This was just about the most not ready for prime time performance I recall seeing. She's new to this, things will get better. But this was rougher than rough. She threw a nice running knee in the corner. That's not nothing. But literally every other moment just shouldn't have been on TV. That kick combo didn't help either gal, as Rose threw bad kicks and Lennox didn't help much on her end, and from there it just looked like Rose had no clue what to do next. We got bad bumps, stumbling moves, and a finisher sub that looked like she wasn't sure how to lock on. For her part, Lennox hit some nice shoulderblocks in the corner, but couldn't do a whole lot with Rose. I like seeing new talent, but I don't think we need to see talent that's THIS new.

PAS: This was the worst match they have put on the show by far. You don't need to air everything you tape. Rose looked first day of wrestling camp bad, that kick combo was cringe comedy. After that the whole thing fell apart badly, I imagine Rose and Lennox drove up with Aaron Epic and there is nothing wrong with giving them a chance, but this should have been left on the cutting room floor

2. Frankie Flynn/Brian Carson/Evan Adams vs. Cain Justice/Dirty Daddy/Movie Myk

ER: I was hoping for more from this one, as I love the inter-promotion feuding dojo grads angle. But it wasn't given a lot of time, and it never got much momentum. Flynn's section with Daddy looked good, really liked Flynn surprising him with fast strikes. Justice looked good the one time he was in, exactly the kind of cocky badass you want in an inter-promotion feud, the kind of guy who just reacts without thinking of consequences. He goes after Flynn's eye a couple times, even reaching in for an eyepoke to break up a pin. "Weird Body" Evan Adams ("built like Angus Young"~Cecil Scott) doesn't seem very good, but with his super tiny build and Toki Wartooth appearance I couldn't help but enjoy him. Carson's over the shoulder backbreaker looked good, Myk had a really nice pinfall save, Cain takes a big (barefoot!) bump to the floor, but I wanted more of a match.

PAS: I enjoyed this, it wasn't at the level of WAR v. New Japan or anything, but I did enjoy Cain bringing out the nastiness with the eye gouges. Most of the match was built around heating up Daddy v. Justice again, and I am excited for another round of that feud. Flynn is a guy I have seen a couple times before and was underwhelmed by, he was nasty here, sharp shots, which were sold especially well by Dirty Daddy, he has gotten so good, and I can't think of a better sympathetic babyface tag worker in wrestling right now.

3. AC Hawkes/Carlos Gabriel vs. Sandwich Squad

ER: Oh man, once these two came out with an open challenge I KNEW we were getting the always hungry Sandwich Squad. Biggs hits a big Samoan drop and then a stiff arm right clothesline on Gabriel that bounces him vertically on his head. Let's get a GIF of that, someone! Ever generous, Biggs and Mecha both gift Hawkes with lariats later, so he can understand what Gabriel went through. We get a big Mecha assisted elbow drop, and I like how Hawkes and Gabriel are at least bringing action to the Squad, not just setting up their offense. I really love the Sandwich Squad.

PAS: Sandwich Squad squashes are one of the most fun things in wrestling. Got to give the pair of rookies credit for really taking the appropriate amount of beating necessary to get over. Gabriel trying the clothesline bump that killed Oro seemed a little much for a internet TV show, but do you. That assisted elbow drop was grimey. They should have either a Squad or Donnie Dollars squash on every show.

ER: I don't know much about Michael McCallister pre-HIM, so I'm not sure what to think of his redemption, as I'm not sure what he needs redemption from, what lead him to put on a mask, I don't even have much of an opinion on him as a worker as his team with SIS always felt like more of a SIS show. So we'll see where this goes.

4. Aric Andrews vs. Cam Carter

ER: I really liked how this was handled. liked Cam Carter in it, and liked the use of interference. I was bummed Carter didn't get more of a showing in the Weaver Cup, and he's a guy who shakes his fist out after punches so I'm automatically on Team Carter. The opening nearfall was really well done, with Andrews' second Lee Valiant hitting a great accidental spear on Andrews (aiming for Carter) and I totally would have bought a title change off it. I like Andrews needing his bacon saved throughout this, the guy came off a tough match with Lee a couple weeks back, needs his boy out there so he can defend his title at 70%. Carter gets run into the post nicely and even with the loss in a 4 minute match I thought he had a nice showing.

PAS: This was one of the more exciting Andrews TV title matches, Carter really brought the energy and we had some really close nearfalls with Andrews doing a good job of stumbling into two counts. Andrews and Valient are a great sleazeball duo, they look like a couple of guys who ended up in county jail for siphoning gas.

5. Logan Easton Laroux vs. Alex Daniels

ER: Daniels cuts the shit and comes out with no Affleck shtick and just jumps Laroux. THAT is a pleasant surprise. This whole thing was a nice hot 6 minute sprint that went some nice directions. I loved Laroux getting surprised and playing catch up, and Daniels was good as an aggressive punk. Once Laroux attacked the knee I liked that direction, his stomp to Daniels' inner knee was especially nasty, and he had several great mocking and condescending attacks to a hurt Daniels. Daniels had some nice nearfalls and kept that aggression up the whole match, really illustrating how much better aggressive Daniels is than chuckle hut Daniels. The misdirection ending worked well, loved Laroux hitting the surprise cutter. This was a real quality Velocity match.

PAS: Daniels is best at these kind of sprints, he has good execution and ideas for a spotfest, and is too busy to try to shoehorn in his hack jokes. The kick to the knee by Laroux was really nasty looking and I liked how focused his attack was. Finish was really great with Daniels going for his finisher, almost getting thrown into the ref and getting caught with a cutter. I liked Laroux as the contemptuous prick who is such a dick that he can even turn the second biggest dick in the fed face.

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