PREMIER XII 3/6/16 Review

PAS: Premier is one of my favorite promotions in the world, it is kind of a NorCal EVOLVE focusing on a grappling heavy style and using Jeff Cobb and a bunch of lesser known but really talented guys

ER: Premier really seems to be the place where NorCal guys I like go to have their best matches. Definitely my favorite fed around my area (albeit with an annoying habit of running Sunday night shows 2+ hours away from me. Selfish.) and I love that they put their full shows up online (well, all except for that awesome show I saw last year with a great Thatcher/Graves match). Happy they made it to 3 years, hope they put in many more.

PREMIER XII FULL BROADCAST


1. Douglas James vs. Manny Mars

PAS: This was a opening juniors match, worked very much in the style of 2016 opening juniors matches. Pretty well executed, some cool if not unique spots, doesn't outstay it's welcome. I liked James a fair amount, he didn't have anything flashy which stood out, but his stuff looked really crisp and he hit a nasty corner dropkick after doing a World of sport style one foot turnbuckle climb in the other corner. Liked the finish a bunch too, with Mars putting on a guillotine choke and James lifted him into a vertical drop cutter.

ER: Well paced juniors bout with some well done if emotionless stuff in it, and some nitpicky annoying stuff. But pace, build and spot on the card are important factors, and it did well considering all of those things. There were little things that bugged me, like James not ducking at all when rope running past Mars, requiring Mars to miss clotheslines at an obnoxious 3/4 arm slot; but I liked that they didn't approach overkill, loved some of the moments (though the ones I loved that most were the dropkick and vertical suplex out of the guillotine that Phil already mentioned), and you get the sense that these two will be able to acclimate nicely to most opponents.

2. Buddy Royal vs. Marcus Lewis

PAS: I really liked this too Lewis is pretty green but has a lot of explosiveness. He had a nice looking pele kick, double stomp and has a really high leapfrog. This was the first time I have seen Royal and he was great. He has really simple but brutal offense, lots of stiff chops and violent attacks on Lewis's knee. At one point Lewis grabs Royal by the throat and Royal responds by stomping him right on the side of Lewis's knee. Finish was super cool with Royal pinning Lewis on a roll up by torqueing his bad knee so he couldn't power out.

ER: Killer little match with Buddy breaking out some things I haven't seen from him and Lewis showing himself to be a game underdog. I've enjoyed Buddy in his team with Levi Shapiro (The Classic Connection), but haven't seen him in many - if any - singles matches, so this was a nice treat. His attacks on Lewis' knee were great, and that short standing kick to the inside of his ankle/knee was sick, felt like something you'd see some lumpy Russian break out in RINGS. I loved how Lewis peppered in comebacks (though the deadlift fireman's carry was a bit much considering the story of the match), like Royal working the leg close to the ropes and getting kicked over the top to the floor (a sort of trademark Royal spot). All of those stomps to Lewis' knee while it was hung on the ropes were rough, and that finish was one of the coolest I've ever seen. I expect tons of guys to steal that it word ever gets out: Royal has Lewis' legs cradled the way you would after a victory roll, and while pinning him he twists Lewis' bad knee in an ankle lock. Just a nasty exclamation point on a super fun match.

3. Dalton Frost vs. Gabriel Gallo

PAS: This was a big guy slugfest match and was technically fine, however if you are going to work this kind of Hansen v. Vader match you really have to hit harder. Frost had a nice clothesline and senton and Gallo had one potatoish punch, but most of this was a little too loose to really pull off what they were trying to do.

ER: Boy I did not get any of the looseness that Phil mentions, and can't really figure out what parts he thought were loose. For a big part of the match we mainly get the stationary camera set up at the back of the building, which might have taken away from how hard they were hitting each other (no clue why we didn't get the ringside camera for some of these shots), but these two totally hit each other hard for 6 minutes. Frost clotheslining Gallo to the floor was really impressive, like a big dirt mover going up a hill. Gallo's big powerslam later was just as impressive. But I dug both guy's shots, the big clubbing blows from Frost, the huge chops from Gallo that made Frost's chest glow an impressive shade of red (again, those chops and the clothesline to the floor were all shown from far away camera, on the far side of the ring, maybe that played into the perception). And yeah, the shots that looked the best were when they were actually using the ringside cam, with Frost landing his awesome falling lariat and splatting him with a senton, and that punch to Frost's eye in the corner was nasty and I love how it lead to the finish. Seriously, this match was not loose in the least.

4. Tyler Bateman vs. Jeff Cobb

PAS: This was totally awesome, maybe my favorite non-Matanza Cobb singles match ever. Bateman is woking one of the dozens of old-timey Sasparilla Brooklyn bartender gimmicks, but is a pretty skilled grappler and is willing to take a huge beating. He tries to keep Cobb at bay by ripping at his fingers and landing sharp 12 to 6 elbows,  but Cobb keeps hurling him with nasty suplexes, especially loved Cobb chucking him neck first into the turnbuckle, finish was really great too.

ER: Super fun match, Bateman is one of my favorite local guys at this point, someone who I think could get over anywhere in the country. When we first saw him live a year ago nobody knew what to think, and he totally won us all over in a really good match against Thatcher. He always plays a kind of conniving underdog, never really controlling a match but always one sly move away from doing damage and capable of surprising opponents. I loved him picking apart Cobb's arm here, and all the ways Cobb would punish him for doing so. Cobb does one of the all time great European uppercuts here, really looking like it would dislocate Bateman's head from his body. And Bateman does an all time great sell of a Cobb snap suplex, really nailing all the feelings. Most guys just do a dazed loopy sell, but Bateman walks you through everything he could possibly be feeling: hot fire shooting through his lower back, tailbone aching, fingertips tingling. Cobb launches him with a nasty delayed German, and then another into the buckles. Bateman comes back with a couple of big knees, and I loved how he would pounce onto Cobb after felling him, using his whole body to gain any advantage over a fallen beast. We get a great slick elbow pad removal, finish was a fun surprise, and I'd love to see these two continue to match up.

5. Shayna Baszler vs. Colleen Schneider

PAS: This is actually a rematch from the qualifiers for the Rousey v. Tate season of the Ultimate Fighter. Bayzler got on the show and had several UFC fights while Schneider (no relation) has been fighting in Invictus. Fun shootstyle match especially from two girls who are pro-wrestling rookies (this was Schneider's debut). Schneider actually may have looked a little better, he knees were especially nasty including one in the corner which looked like it cracked Bayzlers ribs. Bayzler had some very cool armwork and was able to make it two straight armbar submissions over Schneider.

ER: I really liked this, can't believe it was Schneider's first match and Baszler herself is under 10 matches. There were several cool moments and the whole thing really impressed me. I dig Schneider's look, she's like an anime bounty hunter. Her knees looked great and then she would break out something totally unexpected, like that axe kick while holding Baszler's arm, flipping Baszler into a prone armbar position. Then that awesome missed high kick spot in the corner, leaving Schneider's leg draped over the top rope so Baszler could pull off an awesome high angle powerbomb. Loved some of Baszler's little things, like kneeling on Schneider's stomach to secure a wristlock, and the grappling and scrambling looked expectedly great from both. Again, a really impressive debut, but it would have been a match I dug no matter what the experience level was.

6. Raze vs. Nicole Savoy

PAS: This is for the Premier women's title, and was a match with some very good stuff, and some fun ideas which I am not sure really came together. Raze is a big girl, and puts some girth behind her shots mostly, there was some stuff that looked off (her spear is more Edge then Goldberg), but I liked her and am excited to see what she does with Bayzler. Savoy had some good intentions, she was working this like a Premier style grappler, and had a nice counter from an armbar into a LaBell lock, but she tried some things she couldn't pull off, including a series of German suplexes where she couldn't clear Raze and a back handspring out of nowhere which existed solely to get countered. Not great, but I like what they are trying to do with their women's division.

ER: I liked this more than Phil, but also thought that Savoy's Germans looked good and didn't see the problem with her not clearing Raze. She is smaller than Raze, it would have looked weird anyway for her to be chucking her around. But I thought they looked good. The handspring on the other hand needs to just not be used by any wrestler anymore. Just drop it. Everybody. The only guy who does a cool one is Stuka Jr. with his crazy no hands "hand"spring, and even he does it more as a celebratory taunt, not to set up offense. Let's put a moratorium on the handspring! I felt a bigger problem with the match was working several full extension armbar spots right after a match that featured an immediate tap after an armbar, by two actual pro fighters. You could argue it didn't end this match immediately because Savoy is not a pro MMA fighter, so the application wasn't as strong, but you could also do the counterpoint of that and wonder why Raze's arm was able to stay hyperextended so much longer. Either way, unfortunate decision on this card, right after that match. But overall I really liked the match. I've seen Raze work a comedy slip and fall artist, and seen her as a bully, and seen her as a combo of both. Here she's all bully and it's good. She has some nice powerful thrust kicks to Savoy's chest that are really brutal. I think Savoy is a real good babyface, and I love that her presence on a card brings in some young kids who then get to also see other awesome pro wrestling. She's a good "quality pro graps" ambassador :) I like how Savoy set up her rope walk armdrag by getting caught with it earlier, liked some of Raze's big overhand chops, and loved the crossface ending, with Savoy locking it on tight and Raze making it look great. Good match.

7. Joe Graves vs. JR Kratos

PAS: Great, great match, pretty different from much I have seen in wrestling before, almost like if Yoshiaki Fujiwara got a chance to work Brock Lesnar in a shootstyle match. Graves was desperate to grab a limb and twist, while Kratos was attempting to pound his head in with some of the most brutal looking ground and pound I have seen in a pro wrestling match. We also go some very cool shoot throws including Kratos nestea plunging with Graves on his back. At one point Kratos throws a shoot piledriver which didn't look smooth at all, but looked like how you piledrive someone in a streetfight.  There was a running bulldog and top rope back elbow by Graves near the end of the match, which was really out of place for what they were doing before, but that was my only complaint, loved the finish, really perfect flash submission. Such good stuff, Graves is the best wrestler no one talks about.

ER: Man what a fight, totally different than any other Kratos match I've seen. This was all about Graves staying tight and trying to smother him, trying to rip his arm off, not wanting to put space between them so he could avoid any Kratos bombs. You can see the frustration building on Kratos' face, not being able to shake this guy, and Graves is like a giant squid in all the ways he stays attached to his prey. Kratos shakes him in several different nasty ways, the nestea plunge, blasting him insanely hard to the cerebellum with a forearm, trying to slam him a couple times, trying to choke him, and it seemed like no matter what he would do Graves would just latch on. Graves would fight for that arm, throw body shots, throw shots at random parts of Kratos' body that he wasn't expecting, in an effort to get that arm. And all that is why that shoot piledriver spot is so perfect: It works as a desperation move, it works as a move to get dominance, it works as a surprise to your opponent, it works as a game changer.  One of my favorite wrestling moments I've ever seen (and I'm sure I'm far from the only one) is the finish to the Arn Anderson/Alex Wright match at Slamboree '95.  Arn fakes a left, Wright ducks, Arn nails the ducking Wright with the DDT. Ingenius pro wrestling spot. So when Kratos threw a right, Graves ducked and Kratos didn't hesitate to immediately plant him with that piledriver, I flipped out. New twist on a great moment. Phil is entirely correct that Graves is the best wrestler than no one talks about. He doesn't make tape much, doesn't work east coast, yet is never short of awesome whenever he turns out. Kratos is one of the hardest working guys I know, and he keeps improving, keeps trying new things, keeps looking for ways to get better. It's exciting to see. These two really meshed for something special, can't wait to see how they continue to improve.


ER: Well this was just another typical great Premier show, the guys really ramp things up when they work this fed. It's really something to see, and I can't wait for more. Cobb/Bateman and Graves/Kratos were both awesome enough to land on our 2016 ONGOING MOTY LIST and I have no doubts that we'll see other Premier matches show up on that list before the year is out.

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PREMIER XI: Embrace the Grind Tourney 11/28/15

PAS: I reviewed the Tetsujin Shoot style tourney from England earlier this year and this is sort of the US version of it. A promotion in Northern California ran a three man round robin tourney focusing on grappling, the matches were in rounds and had three judges giving scores. I like all three guys and thought it would be worth checking out.

ER: Premier always has grappling based matches, but this was their first actual time addressing the style as such. It also has arguably the worst name ever for a wrestling show. PRIDE Man Fest might actually be dethroned. I didn't even want to risk googling Embrace the Grind. But the Premier show I went to last year in September (PREMIER X, sadly not online as it had a cracking Graves/Thatcher match that would certainly make the 2015 MOTY List) was one of the most fun shows I've been to in a couple years. I wish I could attend them more but their shows are *just* far enough away from me to make it inconvenient to attend. But I do love their product, and I love how into it the crowd gets when it's easily a style that a traditional pro wrestling crowd could turn on.

Joe Graves v. Jeff Cobb

PAS: This was really fun. Graves looked great his transition between leg locks are arm locks were really cool, at one point he put one a totally plausible looking shoot figure four leg lock. There was much more of an amateur wrestling base then a Jujitsu base in the grappling which makes sense as Cobb was an Olympic wrestler. Cobb is at his best as kind of an athletic freak suplex machine, sort of a lost Polynesian Steiner brother this kind of real mat based match tamps down what makes him special a bit. Last round was especially exciting with Cobb smacking Graves with his big headbutt he rushes him to finish Graves off and gets clipped in the knee, which Graves jumps on. Loved that Graves move, such a great out of nowhere transition. Match goes to the judges which I didn't like, it didn't really have a finish, and even though the mentioned a ten point must system, we never got scorecards. Don't think this tourney needed this gimmick, and if you are going to do it, you should at least have countdowns, time clocks and scorecards.

ER: Joe Graves is legit, and Cobb gets to show off some of his incredible amateur based throws. I think the rounds really hurt this one as almost every round ended moments after a neat twist had happened and some drama was starting to build, and the end of rounds killed it each time. First round ended with a hot kneebar reversal that looked to be going somewhere, and the third ended with an awesome battle of wills as Graves maneuvers somehow into a plausible shoot figure 4 (was excited to mention that right when it happened and saw it was the first thing Phil jumped on as well) while Cobb suffered through it but also lock on a heel hook. So you had two guys in an awesome Frye/Shamrock battle where one has a rough figure 4 on his hurt knee but it may get dropped due to the heel hook...but then the bell rings. With no countdowns or anything it was impossible to build to any natural excitement, they just always acted like an immediate match cooldown. Still both guys are awesome and the great spots were there. I love Cobb's pro wrestling suplexes, but his amateur takedowns and throws are even better. Watching Graves try to do a go behind and seeing Cobb just pop his hips into a mean belly to back takedown, or seeing Graves try to tie up and Cobb just grabs him in a head and arm butterfly suplex, really makes you appreciate Cobb's close range power. Graves is a guy I know little about, don't know who trained him, where he started, where he typically calls home. I first saw him in Premier against Thatcher and instantly dug him, later saw him pop up occasionally on that weird Paragon fed out of Vegas, but really haven't seen him a lot outside his work in Premier. He's strong and always seems to know exactly where he's headed during a mat scramble. All his work on Cobb's knee built nicely and it felt like that joint was just going to pop when he was bending Cobb's calf back against his thigh. It feels like only a matter of time before Graves is recruited by Evolve/WWE.

Jeff Cobb v. Timothy Thatcher

PAS: These guys had a fun match against each other a couple of years ago, and a match I found from Utah, but otherwise they have been circling each other without matching up. They missed each other in the APW KOI last year, and unfortunately this is more of a tease then a great match. Cobb comes in limping from the previous match, and they have a first round of solid but unspectacular rolling, it was fine, but felt very much like a warm up. Early in the second round Thatcher gets a scissor take down and twists the leg for a tap out. Felt abrupt which is fine for this kind of match, but I still want to see Cobb and Thatcher really go at it.

ER: This really was a cruel tease. The first round rolling was really good, I liked little things like Cobb kneeling on Thatcher's arm, but yeah the second Thatcher targets Cobb's knee the match ends. I know these two have wrestled plenty of times, but only a couple have made tape which is just inexcusable in 2016.

Joe Graves v. Timothy Thatcher

PAS: This was excellent stuff and well worthy of a final. The final went five rounds instead of three and they worked a nice pace right into the final round. Thatcher is so good at infighting, throwing kidney shots from the mat, cracking fingers, twisting ankles. Graves also looked very good he really does some interesting transitional things on the mat. I loved how the match got chippier with some shots thrown after the bell. Liked the finish too, with Graves countering an armbar, into a half nelson choke which Thatcher tried a bunch of different counters out of before finally tapping. Graves feels right on the level of Thatcher, Gulak ect. and really should get a shot at a bigger stage.

ER: Really good final that was longer and added more striking and heel dynamics than the previous matches. Graves comes off strong and does little things like neutralize guys in a sort of hogtied fetal position before pouncing into his next wear down hold. Both guys' grappling is on point and the struggle through some of this has to be exhausting. We get both trying to work the other's arm, and Thatcher starts to lean towards dickish by kneeling on certain parts of Graves while trying to work a hold. We see him kneel on his arm, even kneel on Graves face to maneuver into a go behind into a crossface. Graves starts taking apart the arm and Thatcher gets pissed, kicking Graves well after the bell. Things get more heated after that and we get some grounded knees to the chest, a standing exchange where Thatcher suckers Graves into a single leg, and both guys getting their arms bent behind them at angles that terrify my tennis elbow. Both guys move through reversals and counters so naturally, no guy has to dangle a limb out there for the other to pick up on a signal, felt like a gym sparring session that turned into something more serious, like Oliver Reed and Alan Bates' fight in "Women in Love" (but with much less penis). I think I preferred their fight at PREMIER X, as even though much shorter (about 11 minutes if memory serves) it had proper build and was go go go. But it's tough as I was there live which often can kick a match up several notches. Hopefully we get that one hitting YouTube eventually.

***Graves/Thatcher was good stuff, and an easy choice for our 2015 Ongoing MOTY List. Check out the tourney, and check out some other Premier stuff (they have a lot of their shows uploaded). ***

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2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

24. Timothy Thatcher v. Joe Graves PREMIER 11/29

PAS: Really great end to a stellar year from Thatcher. I hadn't seen or heard of Graves before, but he slotted right into the Thatcher style match great. He had some power moves including a great delayed Karelin throw, and it made it feel a little like a amateur wrestler versus a submission guy. Graves did a lot of controlling the back and getting hooks in too. Thatcher was nasty as usual, snapping fingers, uppercutting to the back of the neck, and even breaking out an Olympic hell, which made the Honda fanboy in me smile. Only real downside was the time limit draw, which kind of came out of nowhere without any real drama.

ER: I thought I had already watched this match, and the joke's on me for not diving onto this right away. This was killer and as I've gotten more familiar with local-ish fed Premier (they typically run 2 hours away from me) I've come to expect some pretty big things for them. They certainly have their own style, much more grappling and strike based than most feds, like Foxcatcher but if it were run by just some guy instead of a billionaire with mommy issues. And what's always exciting when I watch their stuff is how into it the crowd gets. I've been to a 2015 show that also had a Thatcher/Graves match (eventually to be written up for our 2015 MOTY list) and the crowd reacts to stuff like a real fight. There was even a guy behind us yelling out amateur wrestling advice throughout, and I mean actual wrestling coach, shouted advice. "Roll the shoulder! Duck under! Keep your hips in!" It was absurd, and also completely awesome and appropriate. Because these two are so convincing and so legit, my eyes are always glued to every single thing they're doing, and I find myself wanting to yell the same kind of things (no, there's not going to be a twist revealing that the weird guy yelling advice was actually me). The detail work is so damn impressive, the work seems to physically exhausting, and there's constant fear (from me) of ligaments getting torn, shoulders being dislocated, anything. That's how convincing they are. Thatcher fights over the arm like few, and I loved the various twists and horribly cramped positions he would get Graves into. Graves has some impressive strength, but really both men do. The struggle was real as they would fight over throws. At one point Graves reverses out of a hold by walking his feet up the ring ropes and pushing off a turnbuckle. At another point Thatcher locks in a brutal indian deathlock and starts holding down one of Graves' arms with a leg, and then starts bending the other back at an impossible angle. You can practically hear Stu Hart's creepy "heh heh heh" laugh while these two stretch each other. I loved every second of this, genuinely don't believe there was a single misstep in the whole thing. So what is TRAGIC, I mean just absolutely tragic, is the time limit draw. Before that this was well on its way to being a top 5 MOTY for me. But right in the middle of this struggle, right in the middle of seeing which one of these world class guys would break first, the ring bell just rings and some guy plainly says "Time!" Gutted. There was no build to a time limit, not guys scrambling to try and get the win, no mention that I noticed of a time limit (it's very possible it was mentioned in the opening intros, but I didn't notice it). With almost any sort of finish, really anything to actually give us a definitive ending, I think this lands in the top 10. As it is it feels like a friend made you a comp tape and this match was the last match on the tape, and the tape just runs out before the end. So you're just watching this awesome struggle,  and suddenly the tape automatically stops and begins rewinding. That would have been preferable. It is worse to know. As it stands, the work is excellent, and you couldn't even call the finish disgustingly bad. It's not like there was a goofy run-in or belt shot or something. This is more of a passively cruel finish. But, thank goodness it exists at all.


2014 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Paragon Pro Wrestling 7/25/15 Review

1. Joey Ryan vs. Ethan HD

One of the commentary guys refers to Ethan HD as "perhaps a quintuple threat" and does not explain what any of the actual 5 threats are. Singing, dancing...maybe an acquaintance taught him how to do some entry level welding? Match goes barely over two minutes and ends with a Ryan feet on ropes cradle. He at least hooked a nice high cradle. HD bumps a couple punches really nicely, buckling his legs and kinda going down forehead first. Looked nice. Ryan bumps a springboard roundhouse from HD nicely as well. Ryan seems to be maybe the only guy in the fed who knows how to bump to the hard camera. HD starts to get crossed up on a couple spots so it might have been for the best that the match ended when it did.

2. Tyshaun Prince & Graves vs. Gangrel & Mikey O'Shea

Another disappointingly short match ending with Caleb Konley running in for the DQ. O'Shea is a disappointing big fat guy, as none of his stuff has much impact. Tyshaun is a disappointing large black guy as he has these light little stomps but scowls like he'll be a monster. Graves is a really cool worker who was pretty wasted here, used as cannon fodder mostly. This seems to be setting up a 6 man adding Eric Right to one side and Konley to the other, so hopefully that gets some time as I could see that being good.

3. Espiritu vs. Mercurio Jr.

These two have already matched up on this show and I have no clue who they are, whether they are actually Mexican or not, or if they wrestle under other names. Espiritu bumps around in front of dozens of tourists, old white men sitting with legs crossed and packs fannied, one of them pumping a solitary fist as Mercurio Jr. hits a big splash.

4. Sugar Brown vs. Caleb Konley

Sugar Brown is officially my favorite jobber, and I'm glad Paragon is bringing back the jobber (even if it's only Sugar Brown). He's got nice little worked boxing punches, nice snap to his bumps, and easily the best 360 clothesline into the corner that I've seen. This doesn't get much time but Konley hits a big shoulderblock, puts Sugar's punches over, and shows nice professionalism. I wanna see more Sugar. He deserves better than this, with some of the chumps getting pushed in this fed.

5. La Rosa Negra vs. Riea Von Slasher

This was supposed to be Negra vs. Lisa Marie, but Marie came out and taunted her a bunch by calling her Mami in an exaggerated Rosie Perez voice, leading to Negra getting jumped by Slasher. Slasher and Negra clicked nicely here as Slasher's power offense worked much better here with Negra bumping for it. Negra can ragdoll really nicely, especially as she bumps a clothesline off the back of her head. I don't totally buy her comeback offense against Slasher, some combo of Slasher not taking offense very well, and Negra's impact not having enough oomph.

6. Hammerstone & Chamberlain vs. The Whirlwind Gentlemen (Jack Manley & Remy Marcel)

Well I would have bet on the WG winning the tag titles here, so I will applaud the promotion for showing a little restraint. For the first few weeks WG are the only team to get regular hype videos, promo time, clearly treated like the kingpins of the fed. And I'm not totally sure why as other than their appropriate Peter Gabriel entrance they don't bring a whole lot to the table. They work long extended FIP segments and work as undersized RnR types, even though they haven't appeared to be smaller than any of their opponents. So their matches come off like them getting dominated and then just winning in the end anyway. So for the bulk of this match we get Chamberlain taking apart Manley, keeping him confined to their corner (the commentary made me smile with a line at one point, where they go "now the rings is actually twice the size of what we're seeing right now, you'll have to take our word for it as we've only seen half of it."), adding a few mocking touches like holding Manley in a pumphandle slam, walking him over to Marcel and letting him allllmost tag out but throwing him overhead. After this long FIP we get Marcel's hot tag, they do a nice double team where Marcel goes for the Code Red and Manley boots Hammerstone in the face to send him over. Hammerstone takes an awkward bulldog by taking it with a somersault bump. That's dangerous. I thought the title switch was projected with how how much they've been hyping WG, so I was fully expecting the win after Marcel's nice frog splash...and didn't actually see Chamberlain pulling the ref out of the ring and decking him. So I could see people not liking that finish but I really think it was for the best. WG got to power back against a tough team, get a visual win, Hammerstone/Chamberlain get to establish that they'll stop at nothing to keep their titles, and we eventually get to build to some sort of blowoff match. So this really felt like the best finish they could have done.

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Paragon Pro Wrestling 7/4/15 Review

Came across this show almost completely by accident. It airs on the Pop! network, which I only knew about because we recently watched a TV show called Schitt's Creek on the network. I checked yesterday on the off chance they were showing repeats of the show, and saw the next morning they were airing a pro wrestling show. Looked it up, and as fate would be it is the first show that has aired.

This fed runs out of Las Vegas and does shows at the Sam's Town Casino. This may be the first time that Casino wrestling has aired on TV since death days AWA. The crowd looks awesomely touristy. There really does not appear to be many actual wrestling fans out there. It's all older white men in golf shirts, fanny packs and cameras around their necks. This truly looks like a 1996 WorldWide audience and it's glorious.

1. #1 Contender Battle Royal

Woof. First match of your first episode of TV, and you start with a battle royal. And it determines the #1 contender to the title, no less! During most of the entrances they show how Jessy Sorensen won the title from Caleb Konley in a lumberjack match, so then we get back to the ring and suddenly 15 nameless guys are standing around. I recognize Gangrel, Joey Ryan, Konley, Darin Corbin, nobody else. There is a large black guy they call Tyshaun Prince, he threw a nice punch at one point, big overhand right. There's a big fat white guy wearing a neon green singlet, but he gets effortlessly tossed to my eternal disappointment. There is another guy with a handlebar mustache who I assume is working some sort of babyface mixologist gimmick. Konley ends up winning this thing. I guess it got all of the talent on TV, but pretty pointless since nobody gets to look good in a battle royal, and everybody got eliminated too fast to learn many names. That was a rough start to your first episode of TV.

2. Darin Corbin vs. Crash Test Cody

The announcers inform me that "we are STILL reeling over that epic battle royal". I mean, it was a 6 minute long battle royal. Cody has a weird milky right eye. His left eye is brown, and then the right eye appears to be reallllly light blue. It looks creepy. Now, when a guy comes out working a crash test gimmick, I would expect him to be a wild and reckless bumper, but Cody hardly bumped at all. He did throw some ugly forearms, though! Corbin is a guy you know. He's a guy you've seen turning up on indy cards for over a decade. And he still isn't a guy you get excited about seeing. He didn't look offensive at all, but outside of his finisher amusingly being called the Ginger Snap, he offers nothing. CTC misses a nice cannonball into the corner. That was the most interesting thing that happened here.  Naw I take that back, Corbin took a drop toe hold into the bottom turnbuckle really nicely, really went mouth first into it. So two interesting things.

We get a bad Jessy Sorensen promo and then an amusing Joey Ryan interview where he grooms his impossibly lush beard and talks to himself in a mirror and then gets a towel delivery from room service.

3. Espiritu vs. Mercurio Jr.

This is clearly not CMLL's Mercurio, nor is it AAA's Espiritu. I have no idea who either man is. I do know, however, that the ring audio is off and appears to be about 3 seconds ahead of what's actually happening in the ring. The commentary is synced up properly, but yeah you can hear crowd reactions and them thumping around on the mat when nothing is going on. Espiritu looked fine here, I wouldn't mind seeing more of him. Mecurio did some slow mo lucha-ish spots and looked pretty low rent. Espiritu at least knew how to engage a crowd and had some polish.

Lisa Marie Varon does an in ring promo to hype up Kevin Kross, calling him the most vicious shooter and that anybody who faces him will DIE.

4. Kevin Kross vs. Sugar Brown

Sugar Brown looks like Bad News Allen and wears boxing shorts with fringe so I'm already liking Sugar Brown. Kross has some size and works some nice strikes, threw a good running knee, really great deep scoop overhead belly to belly, nasty Saito suplex to end the match. Sugar was here more to put over Kross, but got to do a fun tornado avalanche in the corner (that got no sold, but whatever). This at least established Kross as a tough dude, and made him look good in the process. He's really the first guy this whole show who actually came off as important.

5. Joe Graves vs. Jessy Sorensen

Graves is a guy I really like, and Sorensen is a guy who broke his neck in TNA, got told they would pay his medical bills, and then never paid his medical bills because TNA. If I had serious medical bills to pay I'm pretty sure "continuing to professionally wrestle" would not be one of the ways I would choose to pay them off. Graves looked really good in this, throwing some real fine knee variations, like his nice knees from the clinch and an even better sliding knee. Sorensen looked okay, threw a nice neckbreaker, seemed to be in position for everything. I loved Graves working him over with knees, and choking him out with his wrist tape. To my surprise, Graves wins the title with a choke....ohhhhh but then another ref comes out and reverses the decision to give the title back to Sorensen. Well. Nothing like having your babyface champ get dominated and lose the title on your first show, only to get it back on a technicality.

Well, okay. First show. Things moved along at a quick pace, so that's a plus. The wrestling was not inoffensive. The production was surprisingly slick. They aren't really bringing anything unique to the table, but there were a couple guys I dug. This is a strange show to be on TV in 2015.

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PREMIER IX 6/7/15 Review

https://youtu.be/s20uk0Fnflk?t=1h24m24s

These guys run a couple hours away from me, but I've never checked them out live. I saw they put up a live stream of their most recent show so figured I would check out the goods.

1. Dom "The Bomb" Vitalli vs. Will Cuevas

Had never seen Vitalli before and mostly liked what I saw. I've also never been too impressed by Cuevas, but he had some nice stuff here, including some tight knees to the ribs and some mean right hands. He does get kind of lost when doing any sort of 360. That seems to be a Bay Area wrestling thing, doing some tornado Misawa elbow and getting lost halfway through your spin. Jeckles always does the same damn thing. Vitalli was really impressive about misses, really committed to a big missed elbow off the top and some charges. I like that kind of detail. Things kinda fall apart at the end with too many moves requiring one guy shoving another guy into ropes, but I'm game to see more of these two.

2. Buddy Royal vs. Joe Graves

Feed must have cut off during this one as most of the match is completely skipped over. Too bad, I was excited to see more Graves. Loved his quick cartwheel to avoid a low Royal dropkick, but that was sadly all I saw of the match :(

3. Gabriel Gallo vs. Sledge

Man I really dug this. I had seen Sledge once before, but he was more used as Cobb fodder. I had never seen Gallo and left really impressed. Both threw some nice bombs (Sledge had better punches, but the rest of Gallo's game seemed stronger) and worked stiff throughout. I loved Gallo's half camel clutch variations, wrenching back on one of Sledge's arms while he forearmed his jaw, pulled back on his nose and neck, really locked in. Both guys went hard on standing clotheslines (including Gallo's brutal match finishing one to the back of Sledge's neck) and Gallo keeps doing things I love like hard kneedrops to the chest. I want to see more of both of these guys, but especially Gallo.

4. Timothy Thatcher vs. Marcus Lewis

Well this was awesome. I had high expectations for it and it totally lived up to them. Lewis has been doing this for just a couple years, is a really nice guy and is improving really fast. One of my favorite local guys that I get to see on a regular basis. Thatcher has had an incredible last year and is now known nationally (I have to imagine his WM weekend EVOLVE matches were star making, the building was in love with him during the Hero match). I've never seen these two match up and it's been one of my little Bay Area "dream matches". The mat stuff is as good as expected, and Lewis brings more than I anticipated. At one point he does a mean scrambly boot scrape to avoid a Thatcher ankle pick, and Thatcher naturally works tons of tight cravates (one of them ripping out one of Lewis' dreadlocks, which Thatcher graciously hangs over a turnbuckle for him), and I like how aggressive Lewis is at fighting out of Thatcher's holds. My favorite little sequence was Lewis hitting a couple nice stomps, then a tight short knee to Thatcher's chin followed by a sick double knee drop to his stomach. After kicking out Thatcher dumps Lewis with a big release German and immediately pounces with a rough half nelson while scraping Lewis face with his wrist and forearm. Thatcher is always great at taking spills and he really made a lot of Lewis' strikes look great, leaning into uppercuts and kicks and doing nice Kawada falls for them. Really I like everything they do in this. Lewis hit one of the best missile dropkicks of recent memory, Thatcher does his badass floatover chickenwing into the Fujiwara (which was a nice nearfall since I've seen that sub beat tons of guys), some nasty stomps and elbows, his impressive deadlift Karelin suplex, really it's kind of crazy how much great stuff they cram into 12 minutes without ever making it seem like overkill. They just matched up incredibly well. I was even buying the upset finish, with Lewis throwing all of his weight into strikes and a big time shoulderblock, but then missing his 450 and bouncing his head off the mat. Thatcher's finish is gross as he does a headlock takeover (between he and Busick, maybe my favorite move of 2015) locks Lewis' arm and then traps Lewis' neck between his knees!! Great finish.

5. "Mr. Athletic" Jeff Cobb vs. Kaimana

When I first became aware of Cobb he was working a lot of dominant matches, working like young Lesnar or Scott Steiner; a hyper athletic guy with freakish strength who just steamrolled people. But the last several times I've seen him he's mostly worked from the bottom, with his opponent getting an early advantage and him making more of a late fast break. This match was similar, but Cobb's comeback was much longer than in other recent matches. I had never seen Kaimana before and my luck was really great with this show as every single guy I hadn't seen before, made me want to see them more. I don't remember a time where that has ever happened. Northern CA went through a dry patch in the mid 2000s but certainly seems like it's heating right back up. Kaimana is a stocky Hawaiian guy, Cobb is a stocky Guamanian (is that right? I wanted to not say "guy from Guam". Guamanian? That has to be it), we got a battle of the islands! I love it. Kaimana has some solid kicks that Cobb takes to his back and chest, including one brutal dropkick to a seated Cobb that noticeably scoots Cobb a few feet across the mat. Cobb's comeback is as impressive as you would want, with him doing several cool throws from positions he just happens to catch Kaimana in. I loved the tease to the Tour of the Islands and when he hits it it's epic. Such a freakish physical move. We also had a brutal callback spot where Cobb had hit his impressive standing shooting star, and went to hit it later in the match and Kaimana got his knee up right into Cobb's jaw. It looked like Sabu moonsaulting into a table leg. Cobb's head snaps back and my god it's just a sick spot. Finishing run is great as Kaimana starts decking Cobb with hard elbows (including a sick back elbow) but Cobb catches him with the Tour of the Islands. Awesome match.

6. JR Kratos vs. Dylan Drake

I wasn't looking forward to a 20 minute Dylan Drake match, but damn did this end up delivering. This was probably the best match I've seen from both guys, especially impressed by Kratos and his dedication to putting over Drake's legwork. Kratos starts things off with an awesome headlock takeover, and it's official, I'm declaring the headlock takeover the HIGHSPOT OF 2015! Luckily I'm a notary, nobody can ever question this declaration. I've never really seen Kratos go on the mat, and I really liked what I saw. I've also never seen Drake this interesting on the mat, really going right after Kratos' leg. It's usually dangerous to work over a limb so early in a match as that puts tons of pressure on somebody to sell the rest of the way, but Kratos did so with gusto. The guy looked like he had a believable quad injury here, and it set up some fun spots like Kratos missing his trademark running kick due to being too slow. Drake still takes too long to set up some things, and can be kinda clunky, and moves like a powerbomb onto his own knee just seem too indy, but the rest of his game was tighter than I've ever seen before. His elbows and kicks were great (really loved a yakuza kick to a seated Kratos), he also bumps big for all of Kratos' throws (including a big one that rolls him off his head) and leans into some rough strikes (loved Kratos' jumping knee from a clinch). His attacks to the knee were on point, the legwork looked painful, and Kratos finishing with mounted elbows worked as the elbows looked nasty. Really good match, different than I've seen Kratos work before and the best I've seen Drake.

PREMIER seems to be the (ahem) premier northern CA fed from the stuff I've seen. Everybody seems to really work up to the atmosphere as the really good guys continue to look really good, and the lesser guys really kick things up a notch. I was legitimately impressed by everybody on this show, and I can't remember a time where I've ever said that before. Looks like I gotta start making the trek to Gilroy whenever they run next. (NOTE** the above linked feed has no sound, and sometimes matches have abrupt cuts, but I would highly recommend watching the show. Really good stuff)

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