Paragon Pro Wrestling 10/10/15 Review

1. The Amerikan Gunz (Ethan HD & Mike Santiago), Hammerstone & Chamberlain vs. The Whirlwind Gentlemen, Gangrel & Mikey O'Shea

Well this is strange and/or pointless. This was set up as Amerikan Gunz (ugh. spelling.) vs. Whirlwind Gentlemen for the #1 sontendership to the tag titles, and then Hammerstone & Chamberlain run in, and then Gangrel and O'Shea, and the commissioner makes it an 8 man, still for the #1 contender spot on the line....but....the tag champs are now IN the match. Gangrel and O'Shea have teamed up one time, so I'm not really sure what place they have in a #1 contender match. Ethan HD has teamed with O'Shea as many times as Gangrel has. So right out of the gate this is a pretty terribly conceived idea for a match. You would think Ethan HD or Santiago would never tag out, as it wouldn't benefit them if H&C get the pin for their team. The only way to get the #1 contender is to get the pinfall so why would you tag someone who wasn't your partner? Match itself is basically good until it wasn't. It's hard for a match to be good when the general psychology of the whole thing makes no sense. Manley was a fine FIP, liked his comeback top rope clothesline and he hit a whip fast fivearm. Of course the announcers put over every Manley comeback as a "desperation move". I'd love an explanation on how a guy going to the top rope to do a clothesline is desperate in any way. Anyway, I was enjoying this with the heels cutting off the ring, but then they did that lame telegraphed ending where 6 guys all fall to the floor at the same time, guaranteeing the match will end moments later. So now we're going Whirlwind Gentlemen vs. H&C round 4. I really hope H&C continue to retain by cheating against stupid, stupid babyfaces.

2. Caleb Konley vs. Gentleman Brawler Eric Right

I like how these two match up, and here we get an actual match where both guys aren't equally talented, we have Right fighting admirably until just plain getting beat. It's important to actually establish a hierarchy in this kind of weekly episodic TV. This was one of the more satisfying PPW matches they've aired, with some nice engaging mat stuff to start before Konley starts dishing some nice short elbows, and Right is a guy who's now shown he has no problems leaning into a beating. Right's comebacks are always good and I like his strikes too, and then lo and behold, Konley wins because he's better (and yeah there might have been a weapon involved, but thems the breaks). It's weird that such a result is shocking, but I'm so used to everybody in this fed treading water around each other that this felt like an important step (so I fully expect Right to just get a random unannounced title shot in like two weeks).

3. Kevin Kross vs. Mercurio Jr.

I really liked this too. Kross looked like a beast throughout, tossing Mercurio with a couple deadlift suplexes, doing nasty things like stomping Mercurio's calf and ankle, kicking him in the back of the neck while lying prone on the apron. Mercurio goes for an ill-advised Asai moonsault and Kross posts him for his troubles. Mercurio hits a tornado DDT on the floor that Kross doesn't really do justice to, taking it really gingerly. But he does threaten an old man by staring him down for way too long. The old man played along, but also deserved to be smacked. Back in and Kross catches a rana attempt and dishes more beating. I like Kross not caring about getting the pin over some scrub like Mercurio and instead locking a nasty can opener on him in the ropes until he gets DQ'd. This show hasn't been too shabby.

4. Joey Ryan vs. Jessy Sorensen

You'd be shocked to know, that both men are "excellent mat grapplers". Jessy holds a loose north-south choke and does some gator rolls, and that looks pretty silly. Joey takes it to the mat and that looks better. And this really doesn't go long, but that's for the best . Sorensen is just the blandest, while also not being good. A real double threat! Brisco is bad but at least he has the whole rapist without remorse vibe to set him apart. Ryan hits a great close fist hidden weapon punch on Sorensen and gets the pin as the announcers moan "Noooooo not like thisssssss". And we get an excited unexpected title change.....until the we get a second ref down to explain what happened so Jessy could retain his title. Maaaaan I hate second referees. It's such a lazy crutch.

But I still can't complain much as I liked Kross in his match, and liked Konley/Right. That's a decent episode of TV.

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Paragon Pro Wrestling 10/3/15 Review

Okay so I fell a bit behind on this once I lost my man Dean's support, and also because of all the Wes Brisco eyeball assault that was happening weekly.

1. Mikey O'Shea vs. Kevin Kross

"O'Shea could be the Harvestor of Sorrows for Kross" and "It's all about for Whom the Bell Tolls for Kross".....okay? Apparently the two announcers just got their first taste of speed metal and gotta shoehorn it into conversations? Neither man has any sort of connection to Metallica that I can see. I mean shit I love Ride the Lightning as much as the next guy but this just came off like Awful Announcing and two guys pulling each other's puds. O'Shea is finally starting to work MORE FAT with senton attempts and corner avalanches and belly to belly slams. Also dug O'Shea's corner body blows and big chops. Kross usually comes off better and he seemed to be holding back a bit on O'Shea. Wasn't expecting O'Shea to come away with the clean pin here, but this fed has also backed themselves into an annoying little win trade/parity corner.

2. Ethan HD vs. Mercurio Jr.

The announcers have a real annoying habit of pushing every single wrestler in the fed as a "real student of the game" and saying things like "Mercurio has a proclivity to start fast". They use just so many unnecessary words, really filling every single bit of empty space with just WORDS. Every single guy is a "student of the game" or a "ring general" or a "technician" with no regard to what those words mean. Mercurio can just be the resident luchador, he doesn't need to also be a student of the game who is a technician who is in the middle of having a phenomenal see-saw match up. Every goddamn match is a "incredible match up" or a "phenomenal match up". This got called both of those things within the first three minutes. They are just so terrible. HD is a guy I like, always leans into offense, and Mercurio doesn't have great offense so he really works hard to make Mercurio look somewhat competitive. YES that's problematic because not every worker deserves to look competitive, but again this fed is obsessed with every worker splitting every match 50-50, every win getting paid back, every guy looking like he has a shot in every match, so HD fits the fed's needs. He also takes a real nice delayed bump over the top to the floor. Mercurio has lousy faux lucha (faucha?) offense, dropkicks that don't land flush, slow arm drags. They do a silly rolling cradle section with a bunch of nearfalls counted despite nobody's shoulders ever being down, and then the match terribly ends in a double KO, despite neither taking anything that should keep either down for a dual ten count. This was just all around poorly conceived. But sometimes that's what happens with real students of the game.

3. Gangrel vs. Darin Corbin

We get an amusing pre-match vignette of Darin Corbin celebrating out on the town with his American Title, eating dinner with it and dancing down the streets with it. Tim Sylvia would wear his UFC belt to the grocery store, so this seems more believable by comparison. This match furthered Corbin as a guy who keeps his title by either fluke or nefarious means, as Gangrel controlled the whole match until Corbin bailed, looked at his shiny belt with adoration, and clocked Gangrel with it for the DQ. Corbin looked good bumping around for Gangrel, and Gangrel threw some nice punches and was able to do non-stop offense for a few minutes without gassing out or taking a chinlock break. That sounds backhanded, but it's important. Gangrel has been a guy with decent offense but no perfect way to tie it together, so really this was a fine use of his structure. And I am starting to dig Corbin as goofus who knows how to keep a belt.

4. Jessy Sorensen & Wes Brisco vs. Hammerstone & Chamberlain

I keep getting scared they're gonna load Sorensen and Brisco up with title belts, and yet H&C keep awesomely retaining the belts by cheating! I love it. It provides actual drama for me, since I don't want Brisco walking around as a champ, and they regularly have authority call out H&C for cheating (actually had a funny pre-match promo where the Paragon president or CEO or GM or booker or whomever calls them out on how they win matches, and they sheepishly say they do it through hard work, watching tape, etc.). A key to why their cheating works so well for me, is that they aren't really portrayed as guys who cheat because it's their only way to win, they clearly cheat because they just like to cheat. The other week there was a No DQ match where they tried to cheat, and then it threw them when cheating wasn't called out by the refs. It seemed stupid at the time, but seeing how much they love to win by cheating, it kind of works within their characters. Nobody in the match is necessarily GOOD, though Hammerstone has potential. I liked his low clothesline on Brisco and an even cooler deadlift pumphandle fallaway slam. Brisco has a lousy crossbody block. But I just kinda love H&C controlling a lot of the match, and the first moment things start going wrong they just hit a guy with a belt or - in this case - hold down Brisco's legs so he can't kick out of a pin. What will the federation do to stop it?? It's weird and good that I actually care about the answer to that.

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Paragon Pro Wrestling 8/22/15 Review

1. Hammerstone & Chamberlain vs. Mercurio Jr. & Ethan HD

H&C are now being called Murder By Muscle which I don't think they've been called before. The announcers are smartly and casually acting like that's always been their name. Man is this fed generous with title shots. Not really sure what Mercurio/HD did to earn a title shot, other than be a part of a fed who needs to have three title matches every episode. HD hits the cool old Erin O'Grady apron flip rana into the ring, and Chamberlain does a nice little SUWA bump off a Mercurio rana. Buuuuut this overall wasn't very good. It doesn't help the ending has some time standing still moments thanks to Mercurio. Hammerstone tries to save it the moment by just kneeing Mercurio in the balls. And I can't unsee H&C's weird matching/not matching trunks ever since Dean pointed them out.

2. Espiritu vs. Suede Thompson

This is Suede's debut and I dug him. He had a couple nice go behinds, some weird southpaw jabs, high cradles. He keeps things moving too and doesn't seem to get lost like some of these guys. Espiritu kinda stinks and is officially the worst and least subtle guy in the fed when it comes to getting into position for moves, but Suede drug this one out and made it work. I wouldn't mind seeing more of him.

3. Crash Test Cody vs. The Challenger

So, I'm not sure how good Cody is, but he's a guy I want to like. He's got a weird milky eye, looks like an old young guy, and his name is Cody. You'd think with the Crash Test moniker he would be a reckless bumper or something but you'd be a disappointed human if you thought that. Watch as he grabs a chinlock on the tubby masked Challenger. But CTC has nice running forearms and you just can't underestimate the character depth that one, weird, pigment-free milky eye brings to things. Challenger wins and will certainly challenge other challengers in the coming weeks. It's a shame his backdrop finisher is not called The Challenger Disaster*.

4. Tyshaun Prince, Caleb Konley, Kevin Kross vs. Gangrel, Gentleman Brawler Eric Right & Mikey O'Shea

This coulda been so much more, but I guess it didn't overstay its welcome. Kross is the guy I wanted to see most in the match, so naturally he didn't get any time in the ring. We're building more Tyshaun/Gangrel long term PLANS which does not excite me. Konley is a perfectly fine chest out/butt out modern indie worker and I like Right more every match I see him. He leans into things and bumps big and throws a couple nice punches. That'll get you far with me. O'Shea finally does one cool thing with his fat by doing a pensive-but-still-fat cannonball off the apron into everybody. Fat being fat is always a win.


*Feels like a joke I've used before. If so, apologies, and feel free to tinker around with some joke-in-progress where Challenger ducks a clothesline, and how together we can call it a Dodge Challenger.

Warmest Regards, Eric.

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Paragon Pro Wrestling 8/1/15 Review

Looks like they're finally selling some ad time for this program. Every episode up until now had zero commercials. This one was filled with hair restoration products and "Rainbow Logs" which are yule logs that make your campfire various shades of green, blue, and purple. They even said "Build a lifetime of memories with Rainbow Logs". That would be the weirdest thing to have a memory about.

1. Darin Corbin vs. Mercurio Jr.

This match is for the "American Title" which....I have honestly no idea what that means. This is the inaugural match for the American Title, and it's between a guy who has only had one televised match so far (a loss to Gangrel) and another guy who is Mexican (or at least billed as a Mexican). There was no explanation of what the American Title is, or what being the American Champion will bring you. The announcers don't even really talk about the title during the match, just talk about how excited they are for the debut of Wes Brisco, and what an incredible athlete Mercurio is. Now, two things: 1. Nobody should be excited for the debut of Wes Brisco, and 2. Nothing Mercurio does in the ring will make you think he's a tremendous athlete. They are regularly putting over his speed, and his agility, but he always seems tentative and rarely moves quickly. No quicker than Darin Corbin, at least. Corbin fits into this fed nicely. He's good at showing personality to the crowd which counts a lot more than doing neat moves in front of a tiny crowd like this. He knows how to clown for Mercurio in a satisfying way, taking some goofy bumps that make Mercurio look pretty dangerous (loved his bump off a mule kick), and knows when to kill momentum by stooging on the floor. Mercurio throws a nice corner dropkick but that's about it. Still surprised to see Corbin go over clean here, since he's not been featured at all and Mercurio is a guy they always praise. I look forward to GREAT things during the ongoing battles of the illustrious AMERICAN TITLE.

2. Kevin Kross & The Challenger vs. The Whirlwind Gentlemen

Challenger is a short chubby generic masked guy who appears to be doing a throwback to how Ray Traylor looked as War Machine (except he's only 5'9"). He looks like a classic Memphis worker doing a double shot on a TV taping. They push him as a man with size and strength who's an accomplished mat wrestler. I just hope they make Challenger disaster puns when he crashes and burns. Kross is awesome and maybe the best guy in the fed. He has a bunch of cool throws and knows how to land a kick, and does a bunch of stuff I dig like shake his fist out after big punches. This is three WG matches now where they get dominated the whole time, only to suddenly turn it on and win during their 30 seconds of offense. It's a weird strategy for the guys being booked as the faces of the tag division, to regularly get shown up by thrown together tag teams. Manley is an okays FIP, but we rarely get to see them on offense so I'm having a real hard time judging them. I want Kross to keep showing up on TV though.

Yuck. We get a horrible super rehearsed Wes Brisco sit down promo, where he describes his style of wrestling as "extreme sports style, laid back, bungee jumping, shark cage diving". I have zero fucking clue what that means. That reads WAY more like he set his Tinder profile to "generic surf douche". A blind person would have been able to guess that his hair was tied up in a bun.

3. Espiritu vs. Wes Brisco

Oh GOD the tattoos! Oh my lord those are horrible! Wes Brisco has so so so much of his body covered in horrible same-blue-color tattoos. I have no idea what any of this was supposed to be. Brisco blows up super early, he appears to be working heel even though Espiritu has always worked heel, Brisco seems to be out of position for every move he does, and then at the end he throws in a worked knee injury for no reason whatsoever. Brisco just looks like rape. During a post match promo he now starts selling his other knee. God these leg tattoos are one of the more horrifying things I've ever seen. They look just impossibly gross. He looks like an extra from the beach football scene in Point Break, whose scenes had to be removed because he icked out preview audiences.

4. Caleb Konley vs. Wes Brisco

Oh god we get to double down on our Brisco matches. Brisco looks like Ray Wise's rapist alter ego from Twin Peaks, but like an early rough draft, before Lynch decided to scale back and not make Bob so blatantly rapey. "Bob's a horrible person, but if we make him look like this it's just too on the nose." We get 10 full minutes of Konley working over Brisco's knee, while Brisco is just the least sympathetic babyface in wrestling history. He's a sympathetic babyface the same way that a guy who doesn't show up to his child custody trial is a sympathetic babyface. So 10 minutes of leg work, then Brisco turns the tables with a flapjack miscommunication. Konley bumped it like a backdrop, so he must have been surprised midway through when Brisco slammed him to the mat in mid air. So Konley gets dumped on his head and folded in half. And then moments later Konley wins by holding the tights.

I cannot think of a less likable face than Brisco. And I mean that as both "not a likable babyface" and "his actual fucking face is horrible".

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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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