Paragon Pro Wrestling 10/31/15 Review

1. Espiritu vs. Crash Test Cody

"You talk about integrity, Crash Test Cody has a LOT of integrity. He's a guy who is very respected in the locker room." Why does everybody have to have a thing? He's a wild guy working a crash test dummy gimmick, why are we talking about locker room respect? It's like when Jim Ross would talk about how Rico Constantino used to be a cop. Who could possibly care, and how is it helping his character? Cody has had better showings before, he's usually one of the guys I look forward to seeing. But this was designed to showcase Espiritu for some reason. And that doesn't start as a terrible thing. Cody guides him through some decent mat stuff, Espiritu hits a real nice dive, and things are going great! But then Espiritu goes on a run of offense and it's just kinda sloppy, falling a little short on a senton, setting things up awkwardly. Cody got dragged down a bit too and both guys did those kind of moves where both men fall and you're not totally sure who was supposed to be taking the worse end of the bump.

2. The Bonus Boys (Sugar Brown & Clutch) vs. The Whirlwind Gentlemen

This is the first match here for Clutch, but I'm stoked to see Sugar Brown back on my TV! Both are billed from The U, wearing gold and black U letterman jackets. And this match is good. This may have actually been the best tag that PPW has shown. Bonus Boys are clearly the best team in the fed, but neither guy makes TV much and usually only as enhancement. But their control segments over WG were good, and each guy's offense complements the others. Clutch worked an old linebacker gimmick, so had some nice shoulderblocks and a big cool standing Thesz press, looked like Vader's old bear attack. Manley is a good FIP and pinballed around for the Boys, and WG's little comebacks were all good (they sent Brown flying with a really great tandem dropkick). Every time I see it I like Manley's top rope clothesline more, and I bought it as a nice way to get a flash pin here. Fun match.

3. Darin Corbin & Huggy Cub vs. Gentleman Brawler Eric Right

Huggy Cub is a little person, whom they refer to as a "micro" which seems infinitely more insulting than calling someone a midget. This was supposed to be a mixed tag but the cowboy "micro" was medically unavailable. And this whole thing was pretty short. I did not intend that as a pun but recognized it as soon as I wrote it. Right goes for the tonic just a minute in, not much happens until Right locks on the sleeper. This was really thee definition of time filler.

4. Mikey O'Shea vs. Tyshaun Prince

Pre-match we get a long, awkward, uncomfortable sit down interview with O'Shea where he stumbles over all his words, talks about how his father ruined their family with his addictions and when he gets in the ring he takes out that aggression (but also said his father "wasn't a bad guy"). I'm not sure who this Pat Kelley interviewer is but he's a weird creep sometimes.

Also, I kept track throughout the show, and the announcers stated that this match was going to be "absolutely incredible" five different times. One of them also said it was going to be unbelievable. They also said the previous match, the two minute handicap match, was going to be "incredible". These guys are a restaurant owner's Yelp review dream team right here. There is nothing that does not impress them.

Tyshaun Prince has his standard slow, plodding brawl. O'Shea tries some new offense that doesn't look great (sliding clothesline to a seated Prince, low dropkick to the knee), but I'll give him credit for trying out something new. Prince's manager Christian Cole interferes at one point and jabs O'Shea in the head with his vape pen, which I have to say is a pretty great modern update of the spike to the head. O'Shea hits a pretty awesome crossbody off the top and something gets messed up and it looks like a 3 count, the fans chant that it was a three count, the announcers try to ignore it. Finish looks good though, as O'Shea goes up to hit the crossbody again, but Prince grabs him by the throat with both hands and turns it into a giant sitout powerbomb. So that looked cool.

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Paragon Pro Wrestling 10/24/15 Review

1. Espiritu vs. Remy Marcel

This worked as a fun 5 minute Marcel showcase, who normally just gets a scant amount of time as the Whirlwind Gentlemen hot tag. Espiritu doesn't really do tons here, locking on two separate chinlocks. For a guy who hasn't been on TV for 2 months you'd think he'd try to go out of his way to impress. I liked his missed senton? Anyway, the beginning was real cool with all their standing wristlock exchanges. I especially liked Espiritu rolling through the wristlock, but Marcel rolling with him at the same time so both ended up back on their feet where they started. Looked cool. Espiritu hits an okay vertical suplex, Marcel hits an okay crossbody, really liked Marcel's out of control frog splash. Marcel looked good in this, and that was the point.

2. Greg Romero vs. Jack Manley

Now Manley gets his 5 minute showcase, and it's also fine. Other WG showcase match was better, but this was good enough. The important thing is the fed is actually establishing hierarchy, showing two members of one of their top tag teams easily beating two guys who aren't on TV that much. That seems like a super obvious thing, but this fed is obsessed with presenting every worker as a very accomplished mat grappler who is one step away from the title! Romero works a Danny Zuko gimmick in 2015 which is...pretty annoying and very pointless. He's also not that good, throwing slo mo punches, attempting complicated roll-ups he saw on TV once, taking slow back bumps, just a pretty big bleh. Manley works better as a FIP and here he was more aggressor, but I like his back elbow so that's something. This was what it was.

3. Mike Santiago vs. Mikey O'Shea

It's weird that the fed pushes every single match as if it's going to be an incredible match. Seriously, before every match starts they'll say something like "this is going to be an incredible match", or one minute into a match they'll talk about what an amazing match we're experiencing. But they never ever put guys into position to actually have an "amazing match". Matches usually run 4-7 minutes, most of them are worked in a vacuum, and things usually just don't stand out. But they keep talking about how incredible the matches are, and they say it during almost every match. Here they talk about what an amazing match this 3 minute match was, and then talk about the main event which is "sure to be an incredible high stakes match". Everything is super important, everything is super incredible, it's just misguided and tiresome. O'Shea is morphing into a Bigelow rip-off, and Santiago tries bumping around for him but O'Shea just isn't that interesting. Incredible match though.

4. Tyshaun Prince & Caleb Konley vs. Gangrel & Exile

Hey, I liked this! It was probably the best I've seen Prince look. Gangrel matched up nicely with Konley, Prince was a good bully and did a good job trapping and punching Gangrel in the corner, the announcers kept referring to Exile as "mysterious" but really how mysterious can a guy wearing pleather pants be? Konley adds speed to the match that would have otherwise been completely absent. I kinda like Gangrel's short straight right hands, and Exile/Gangrel make a good team. This whole thing didn't really have the "high stakes" the announcers promised, and I am beyond tired of Prince matching up with Gangrel, but this worked.

And after the match we get a huge pull apart brawl with the boys from the back all separating Hammerston, Chamberlain and the Whirlwind Gentlemen. WG each do big running dives off the entranceway ramp into the big schmoz of people, and the far away shot of it looked really cool.

Also, Joey Ryan - new champion - is missing.

And I found out this show is getting bumped off Pop! in favor of TNA (blecch) so we'll just ride the rest of these shows out (4 more?) and then sit in satisfaction that I wrote up every PPW broadcast. Maybe we'll do some kind of rundown of the best matches or something? I don't know.

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Paragon Pro Wrestling 10/17/15 Review

Show starts off with the commissioner announcing one of the most dangerous matches IN PRO WRESTLING HISTORY, to punish Joey Ryan for using the brass knux last week. And what is the most dangerous match? A Coal Miner's Glove match!!! He takes this white glove sloooooowly out of his suit jacket and explains how there's a metal bar IN THE GLOVE and this glove will be hung OVER THE RING and whomever gets to it first can USE IT. I mean, Joey Ryan used brass knuckles just last week. I'm failing to see how this glove will be more dangerous than that.

1. The Whirlwind Gentlemen vs. Hammerstone & Chamberlain

They did it again!! I love it! I keep thinking the fed is going to put the belts on the Whirlwind Gentlemen, and they never ever do! They've gotten so many chances!! As in, from the first episode of television they've been built up as the rightful holders of the belts, and they keep failing! Because Hammerstone & Chamberlain just love cheating too much and it is glorious. Match itself was decent enough. Hammerstone and Manley work well together and Manley is a guy I'm finally digging as a FIP. Hammerstone was nice tossing around Manley, and had a cool moment where he faked right and then back elbowed Marcel off the apron. Marcel's hot tag offense leaves a lot to be desired as he just does roll up type stuff instead of fiery ass kicking. The WG are building to the inevitable title win, when suddenly the bell rings! Everything stops in confusion, and then the camera cuts to Chamberlain ringing the bell, which then allows Hammerstone to get the win! Hammerstone and Chamberlain love cheating to win SO MUCH! It's become my favorite thing on the program now that Joe Graves stopped showing up occasionally. A combo of H&C cheating to win every single week, while The WG keep failing over and over just tickles me.

2. Mike Santiago vs. Wes Brisco

"We're hoping for a good clean match here" well, sadly you're going to have to wipe all of that Brisco film off the mat after this one. Although I gotta say, Brisco was not the problem in this one. There were times he didn't look great (man does he take a wimpy header into the turnbuckles) but Santiago was disappointing here. He's been one of the more consistently solid guys in the fed, but he just didn't have it here. He kept winding up out of place, trying to toss Brisco into the corners but being lined up wrong, so there were a few awkward physics defying rope running moments that always look obnoxious. For his part, Brisco's mat stuff looked really good, and I liked him going for quick armbars a couple times. He had a quick, strong fireman's carry, grapevined the arm in a cool way during one of the armbar attempts, and I'd actually prefer he stayed on the mat in his matches. It all kinda goes to pot once he's up running around.

3. Tyshaun Prince vs. Exile

Exile: The worst single word name in wrestling (tied: Neville)! He's even announced as being from the Pacific Northwest. Is that where he's exiled from? There are several other Paragon workers from the PNW, why is Exile the only one feeling exiled? I challenge you to find a dumber single word wrestler name. UPDATE: Turns out he is from Richmond, VA. So has he been exiled from VA, and then Oregon? I am normally a fan of big hoss battles, but Prince really isn't a very interesting hoss. They do some fun hoss shoulderblocks and clotheslines where neither man goes down, Exile does a nice front kick, we kinda brawl around a bit with neither guy's strikes looking very good. Tyshaun goes into slo-mo mode so much. Eventually Konley runs in for the DQ, and then of course Gangrel runs in as well because THE GANGREL PRINCE FEUD OF 2015 CAN NEVER END!!! The worst thing that happened to this fed was decades ago when that Gangrel boy played a prank on that Prince girl, and both families brothers got involved and things escalated into a kidnapping and now decades later the families are still feuding, all over a simple misunderstanding about some land rights borders, with the Princes feeling they owned the rights to all the huckleberries right down to the edge of Burke's Glenn, and the Gangrel's thinking THEY owned the rights to all the bramble thickets right up to the pass of Willow's Craw. A simple misunderstanding being played out mercilessly on cable television and in front of Nevada tourists. Shame.

4. THE MOST DANGEROUS MATCH IN PRO WRESTLING HISTORY

Okay, it wasn't dangerous at any point, other than that general danger we as humans all experience every moment of our lives. Each man could have been struck down by an aneurysm at any moment, after all. It also, at times, wasn't that good at all. Since it was a pole match you got a lot of focus on guys yanking on legs to pull someone away from the pole. Matches advertised as violent should have a focus on violence, not a focus on literal leg yanking. We get leg yanking away from the pole, and then when the coal miner's glove is pulled down we get yanking away from the grounded glove. In between yanks, the match had its moments. Sorensen tightened up some of his strikes for the violent match. At least one out of every three punches he threw looked actively good. This is an improvement. Joey threw some lousy clubbing forearms, but threw nice punches. Joey at least attempted some pole match strategy, leading Sorensen away from the ring and slamming him on the entrance, trying to create some distance so he could climb for the GLOVE. Joey eventually does get that deadly glove, and then Sorensen steals it and the announcers squeal (even though the Commissioner clearly stated that whomever takes the glove down from the pole gets to use it), but it doesn't matter as Sorensen elbows the ref wresting the glove away from Ryan, because he is a boob, which allows Joey Ryan to POP Sorensen with his brass knux! Joey wins the title, the announcers weep, no lame 2nd ref runs out, I'm sure there will be shenanigans.

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Paragon Pro Wrestling 9/26/15 Review

Tonight, we apparently have "Championship Action"...well, of course we do. This fed has multiple title matches on every single show.

1. Joey Ryan vs. Wes Brisco

Tons of Wes Brisco fans near the entrance ramp, all in the same handwriting. One of them is held by a sweet little girl who then has to be touched by Brisco due to her losing the "who gets to hold the Brisco sign" lottery. That girl will look back on this day as the day she was forced to prematurely grow up. I think Brisco somehow has more tattoos. Maybe he thinks that if he keeps getting more that he'll look like less of a nightmare? Maybe it's the same logic people use when they have a baby to save their marriage? Ewwww. Brisco does a flapjack and one of the announcers yells "put some syrup on him!" Wes Brisco: No stranger to putting syrup or some sort of jelly on men. Match wasn't much. Ryan controlled a lot with headlocks and a decent cravate. The problem with that is you're building babyface sympathy for a man who I believe is actually sponsored by Megan's Law. Brisco threw a decent spinebuster, so that's something. He wins with a schoolboy and then celebrates after like 123 Kid beating Razor Ramon. That's...weird.

2. Gentleman Brawler Eric Right vs. Darin Corbin

This is for Corbin's AMERICAN title, which Right won but then had the decision reversed as apparently a sleeperhold is an illegal choke. And here Corbin gets a clean win over Right. It's kind of strange to establish Corbin as a guy barely holding onto his title, only winning matches by cheating or fluke reverse decisions, and then have him dominate a rematch with the guy who previously beat him. Right got very little here, as it was mostly Corbin working over the leg, Right eventually fighting back and going to the miracle tonic, but then Corbin just slips out of the airplane spin and hits the Ginger Snap. No shenanigans, just put Right down.

3. Mike Santiago vs. Crash Test Cody

So many promotion-made signs in the crowd. Must have been a new set of tapings or something. And this was disappointing. I like these two more than most people in the fed, but they have a real short match, CTC does a spit take a full two seconds after taking an elbow, match is kind of oddly constructed with Santiago playing underdog face until Ethan HD interference, and it was just all disappointing. Nobody looked bad, just a weird structure and no time to do anything.

4. Caleb Konley vs. "The Man They Call" Exile

Eesh. Exile is a big tall shaved head guy ("completely stacked" according to the announcers), with one of the worst pro wrestling names I've heard. I don't understand it. Edge isn't a good name, but at least you can justify it with some sort of "he's on the..." or "he lives life on the...". Exile is just...I don't get it. Where is he exiled from? Was he a political criminal on the run? It would be like a member of a Border Patrol stable being just called "Deport". They say he is playing "judge, jury and executioner", but don't try and make any statements like "He just exiled Konley from the ring" when he tossed Konley to the floor, or "Konley has been exiled from his equilibrium". Nope, just talking about Exile as if his name was Scott or something. And Exile goes over Konley real clean here, with Konley only getting a tiny bit of offense. Exile didn't look bad, I liked his northern lights, his kick combos could use some work. But it's weird seeing Konley go down clean without much fight, as he's been previously established as a title contender. This was clearly a new set of tapings as a lot of guys have new gear, but it's weird that they've also seemed to treat them like a bit of a restart for the fed.

5. Tyshaun Prince vs. Gangrel

Kiiiiinda ready for this feud to just end. Prince is not good and somehow keeps getting long matches, the longest on the show. The longer his matches go the more things go wrong. Here he showed he has no clue how to take a bulldog, uncomfortably taking a back bump, so you get the hilarious visual of both men running and taking back bumps at the same time. Earlier there was a moment where Gangrel took a bump after running the ropes. Nothing happened to him. Not sure what was supposed to happen. But he ran into the ropes, took a couple steps and then just fell over. There...seemed to be some miscommunication throughout. Gangrel threw several nice right hands, cool straight shots to Prince's jaw. So that's something. Prince wins after Gangrel gets distracted by interference, meaning this feud probably will not end.

This fed is really, really bad about building feuds and setting up long term rivalries. Matches happen because matches happen. Gangrel and Prince feuded, they had a "pine box" match because...well apparently Tyshaun is deathly afraid of having a wooden lid shut on him. But here they are, two weeks later, back to fighting in regular singles matches. The way this fed builds matches is just...lazy.

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Paragon Pro Wrestling 8/29/15 Review

1. Tyshaun Prince vs. "The Gentleman Brawler" Eric Right

So Tyshaun Prince got a pretty long TV match, and it wasn't actually that bad! This felt like the best possible singles match to have against Prince. Right outruns him for a bit, and it actually gets good when Prince gets ahold of him. Prince threw some cool body shots in the corner, loved him holding up Right's arm before dealing a shot to the ribs. Then Prince does some elbow drops and while he doesn't drop the best elbow, he lands close to the body and that's at least half the look. He loses the point of the elbow as maybe he's scared of the landing or something, but it's a big body smashing into another body so it looks fine. Right fought out of a backbreaker with some knees to the side of the heard, and this was fine! It was fine. It was a long Tyshaun Prince match and it was fine.

2. Fruit Loops vs. Hammerstone

Ohhhhhhh boy we got Fruit Loops. Fruit Loops is a chubby masked guy in pajama pants and tie dye shirt, billed from the Haight Ashbury district. Ugh. But we can't just have a character named after a cereal, because REAL sports has to be integrated. Marvel as the announcers put over Fruit Loops' STRONG amateur wrestling background, and really Fruit Loops does not come off as somebody who has done anything athletic in his life. It's like when Jim Ross would talk about Rico Constantino being a cop. Who could possibly care? Are we trying to get a guy named Fruit Loops over as a game competitor? I'm not the one who decided to throw a chubster in tie dye. Your company is the ones who chose to use this character. It's like they did this and went "You know I'm getting worried people aren't going to take the guy with a handmade necklace made out of the cereal he's named after seriously enough...adding in some amateur credentials will surely make people realize that Hammerstone has his hands full." Hammerstone proceeded to have plenty of room on his hands. Match is notable for seeing Fruit Loops take a clothesline bump for the first time in his career (presumably. I hope that wasn't something he had actually practiced).

3. Mike Santiago vs. Gangrel

Surprisingly competitive match for (Portland area worker) Santiago's debut. The announcers talk about how Gangrel is "fangin' and bangin'" and how fangin' and bangin' is apparently a 24/7 lifestyle. Yeesh. Santiago doesn't bring anything noteworthy to the proceedings, but he has polish and knows where he needs to be in the ring and that goes a long way in this fed. Gangrel does his cool corkscrew elbow (including an even nicer bump for a missed one), and there's some satisfying little things in this like a nice back elbow from Santiago, and Santiago going up a bit early on the Impaler but Gangrel recognizing that and delaying a bit, making it looked like Santiago was really fighting it. The whole match they keep building to a casket match between Gangrel and Tyshaun, but WWE must own the rights to "casket match" as they have to call it a "Pine Box" match here. They said the words "Pine Box" so many damn times during this match.

4. Caleb Konley vs. Mikey O'Shea

O'Shea needs some fat guy offense. He's tall and fat (or "stacked" as the announcers refer to him. Yuck.) but always ends up working FIP during his matches, no matter the size of his opponent. I liked all of Konley's knees to work over O'Shea's back, liked O'Shea's missed somersault senton, but I just need more fat guy. I mean O'Shea won with a fucking schoolboy. A guy billed as 350 lb winning with a roll up? This is a problem. O'Shea needs to start working fat and stop working like babyface Torie Wilson.

5. Jessy Sorensen vs. Joey Ryan

I literally remember nothing about this. Watched it, remembered nothing writer afterwards. It was short. Jessy Sorensen was most likely one of the guys in it...that's the most information I can comfortably recollect.

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Paragon Pro Wrestling 9/5/15 Review

We start with a...not good...Hammerstone LIVE interview, who suggests Wes Brisco is only getting his opportunities because of that last name of his. That Gerald Brisco name carries some mean heft at Sam's Town Casino, I suppose. Was Hammerstone making a vague dig at Native Americans and casinos? I'll keep you posted.

1. Hammerstone vs. Wes Brisco

Good ol' clean cut babyface Wes Brisco. This man seems like somebody who - after sexually assaulting somebody - starts red face screaming about how his victim just main evented Weslemania. He also throws the worst body blows you've seen, and that's before you get a chance to see his awful stomach kicks! The announcers inform me that "Wes Brisco is working on a whole 'nother level" and I assume that means he has already conquered Sexual Assault Level 1 and is looking to graduate to Level 2 or maybe even Level 3 (Level 4 is presumably maiming your victim while also having full leg tattoos). This stunk.

2. Ethan HD vs. Darin Corbin

This probably should have been a bit better. It went on longer than it needed. Corbin knows how to jaw with Vegas tourist crowds. But he also has lousy clubbing forearms. But he also knows how to bump for Ethan HD's offense. HD comes out to arguably the greatest Prince song, Controversy. That shows some good taste. Working in Vegas he should know that the only Prince song that every girl digs is Raspberry Beret, but he cuts a little deeper and delves into the early funk side of Prince, the panties and high heels Prince, and it guarantees that nothing else in his matches will be as good as his entrance music.

3. Mikey O'Shea vs. Kevin Kross

Easily the best O'Shea match, even though he still showed he has no idea how to work fat, trying to end the match with a freaking sunset flip. What 300+ pounder is going to use a sunset flip?? You can just FALL on your opponent. USE YOUR FAT. But the rest of this was good, sometimes really good. O'Shea starts with nice body shots and chops in the corner, and then Kross shows off his own nice body shots (including shaking out his fist after, which is a quick way to my heart) and does neat little things like hold on to neckbreakers until impact. The back and forth in this was good, O'Shea hits an awesome fat guy spinebuster (that I don't remember him using before) with a nice sloppy roll through that kinda steamrolls Kross. Kross works over the body mostly with nice knees and slams. Kross is good, probably the best regular in the fed. But man that finish was stupid. O'Shea, large fat guy, tries a sunset flip from the apron, Kross blocks by holding the ropes and gets the pin. Last week O'Shea won with a roll up, now he's building to sunset flips? This is a misguided fat wrestler right here.

4. PINE BOX MATCH: Tyshaun Prince vs. Gangrel

Fidel Sierra comes out and says this won't be a pine box match, but then Interim Commissioner Matt Striker comes out in his wide leg jeans and says it WILL be. Well. That was easy. The rules are weird, as you have to pin or submit your opponent, and that gives you the right to place your opponent into the pine box. Tyshaun acts very scared of that box, regularly running away from it when he happens to wander close. And I mean...it's a box. I wasn't aware that being afraid of boxes was a black person stereotype. We can't just go inventing new stereotypes for black people. This is not a very intimidating box. It would make just as much sense for Tyshaun to be afraid of desks or clawfoot bathtubs. The whole match the announcers talk about Prince needing to face his fears. I'm just having a hard time getting too scared about a generously sized wooden box inside of a very well lit and well attended room. Outside of the silliness I actually enjoyed the match. Prince worked over Gangrel's body (lot of decent body work in this match) including bending him around the ringpost in a nasty way and dishing out a rough uranage on the metal entrance ramp while a guy in a wheelchair right next to the ramp tried to stay out of the way. For his part Gangrel took a nice bump on the wood floor.  Fidel Sierra gets tossed in the box, Prince cannot save him due to his fear of wood.

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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 8/8/15 Review

1. Joey Ryan vs. Jessy Sorensen

Leading off the show with a title match! This fed is kind of weird with title matches as guys defend the belts CONSTANTLY but they never really announce them the week before and sometimes there really isn't a reason for a guy to be getting a title shot. We just get title matches. I swear the might make up a new belt every single week to just give us more title matches. This one starts off good with the ref repeatedly tapping his earpiece and then wiggling it around and then giving a "it's not working!" hand signal to the back, which also happens to be stationed right behind the camera. This match got surprisingly good for awhile there, but in the end Sorensen really isn't good. I really liked Ryan in this though, thought he drug Sorensen nicely into position for things, he took a real fast bump to the unpadded floor, threw a variety of nice punches, looked real good. I really liked Ryan's scrambling around before locking up a pumphandle throw. It looked all quirky and Johnny Saint-ish, and was executed shockingly well. Sorensen threw some punches that tried really hard and aren't THAT far away from being decent, but they leave a bit too much light. His form is nice though, so they seem like they can be teachable. Ryan occasionally hilariously no sells them, as if he's never taken one of HHH's "Whip Your Hair and Say OOF" correspondence courses on how to take bad punches. Sorensen does throw a real great swinging neckbreaker so that counts for something. But he just looks bland and sorta lost in there.

2. "Big Money" Tyshaun Prince vs. Mikey O'Shea

Well, this was dull as dirt. Two big guys who don't know how to use their size, just gently clubbing each other for 6-7 minutes. O'Shea is so disappointing. He's a big fat guy with the softest fat guy offense you've seen. Baby soft shoulderblocks, sad corner clotheslines, confusing punches that constantly morph from left hooks to weird little forearms to the chest. Tyshaun is disappointing in a different way as he just slowwwwly stalks his opponents, has really bad missed offense (his missed elbow drops and clotheslines will never threaten to come near an opponent) and is just boring. O'Shea is probably more disappointing overall though. He throws southpaw punches which for whatever reason just ALWAYS look cool from a fat guy. Makes me think of a fat Memphis jobber with a bleached blonde bowl cut and pink tights. But his punches are just bleh. Again, though, oddly good form. Feels like a couple people in this fed are just a weekend lesson with Preston Quinn away from having great punches.

3. Caleb Konley vs. Wes Brisco

"A rematch we have waited one week for!" the announcer seriously states. A father lets Wes Brisco touch his young daughter's hands on his way to ring, showing the future custody courts recorded evidence of just how awful his parental instincts are.

But hey, I actually dug this match. They do some shockingly good stuff on the mat with both guys wrestling over a single leg in cool ways, and Brisco having a cool floatover from a pin at another point. Konley attempts to match Brisco's ick factor by slyly touching Brisco's buns a couple times while working the mat. Brisco also puts over Konley's leg work nicely, and I especially liked one moment where Brisco was on the mat and kept lunging forward on his belly trying to strike Konley in the stomach. Brisco is really bad at calling spots, you can constantly see him leaning in and whispering into Konley's ear. I have to assume this is just a bad habit carrying over from his home life, as he leans in to whisper in his victim's ear the next deviant sex act she's going to be subjected to.  Brisco manages to not break Konley's neck this week, the leg work was nice, I enjoyed myself. Then the awful figurehead of the promotion ruins my morning by setting up a triple threat next week with Brisco/Konley/Sorensen. That...will not be good.

Side note: This may have been the fattest wrestling audience I have ever seen. And this being pro wrestling, you know that covers some ground. Everybody in the crowd looked like a former Poison Idea bassist.

4. Whirlwind Gentlemen vs. Hammerstone & Chamberlain

Okay, so I'm kinda loving Hammerstone & Chamberlain immediately beating up the ref at the first sign of trouble. I was positive WG were going to win the titles here but I was realllllly hoping H&C would do the exact same thing they did in their first match against WG. I just want WG to keep getting title shots, H&C to keep cheating, and the fed to keep just shrugging. It's a problem in that there's not really any large babyface they can insert as the special guest ref to prevent them from attacking the ref, H&C are larger than every face in the fed. I kept expecting the figurehead to come out and announce some sort of stip match to give WG a fair shake, but he didn't. So I kinda just want this to keep happening every single H&C title match. This was probably WG's best showing so far, as they worked even but competently. Manley threw a nice low dropkick and Marcel has nice short rights. H&C can be a little too tentative and I really want them to play up their dickhead side more. I love the idea of them being among the biggest guys in the fed, who also cheat and bail at the first side of trouble, like meatheads who sign out of XBox Live when they start losing. More dickhead, less grunting-through-teeth.

This was probably the best show the fed has put on. Good work, gang!

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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 7/18/15 Review

We start with a real clunky backstage segment with a guy who is the owner? Management? Authority? Chubby guy in a suit? talking with his hands a LOT about how he needed to be here because with a main event like Gangrel vs. Tyshaun Prince, "a LOT of people are here". He then cuts to a video of Hammerstone & Chamberlain winning the tag titles, and then comes back and talks with his hands a lot while missing his cues and trying not to look at the camera.

1. Mikey O'Shea & Ethan HD vs. Hammerstone & Chamberlain

I had never seen any of these guys before. O'Shea is a large bald Irish fat guy, like Will Sasso with Smashmouth facial hair. I wish his fat guy offense had more heft. For some reason fat guys throwing chops looks weird. Like...just club them with your giant fat body. He also worked from under too much. I wanted to see him steamroll. Ethan HD is your indy workrate guy, doing flipping slingshot ranas and kickpad offense. As most of these modern workrate guys he bumps a clothesline well and occasionally has decent strikes. The flipping rana did look nice, and keenly set up Hammerstone catching him with a powerbomb from it later. Hammerstone mostly looked bad. He's a Thor looking guy who has the lamest missed strikes you've seen. He worked HD a lot (who is smaller) so it was a lot of cat mouse with Hammerstone having to miss a lot of strikes, and all of them would have missed by a mile even if HD hadn't been dodging. They all looked horrible. Chamberlain really didn't get in much but ironically was my favorite in the match. Threw a nice falling clothesline and did some real nice apron work. At one point he choked out HD behind the refs back and it was a glorious cheat to win from the apron choke. It was pro wrestling. Match was fine, meant to put over tag champs Hammerstone and Chamberlain.

2. Joey Ryan vs. "The Gentleman Brawler" Eric Right

Right gives out a fake handlebar mustache to a child at ringside. That's actually a nice little touch. This match was a nice little TV match. Right is a little schticky but makes it work better than I would have guessed. He throws nice uppercut punches, works in moves I miss like atomic drops and a good aggressive headlock (say 0.5 on the Dundee scale). Joey Ryan is a good guy for this fed, comes off so much better on TV than a lot of the waxed/oiled short brown hair WWE types. This was simply worked with Ryan controlling with stomps and decent punches, feeding into Right's comebacks. Ryan won with a spear, which was odd. I'm not a big fan of that as a finish, let alone with two guys the same size.

3. Nick Price & Kevin Kross vs. The Whirlwind Gentleman (Remy Marcel & Jack Manley)

A lot of gentlemen in this fed, apparently. Whirlwind Gentlemen are basically your Vegas LMFAO types with bad suits and bad big hair and colorful sunglasses, coming out to Peter Gabriel's "Steam" (which admittedly fits great with douchebag babyface charisma, almost like the FBI coming out to that BeeGees remix). They aren't very good, and it's a bummer they're being pushed as a big deal when a guy like Kevin Kross is cooler in every way. This was really strange as they've been hyping the Gentlemen with 3 weeks of video packages, and then the match was worked with Price and Kross dominating the whole match, and WG only winning by banana peel roll up after Lisa Marie's botched interference. I mean, if you want to push a team, actually DO IT. Don't make them look like total weenies in their first televised match. All the match made me want was more Kross throwing dudes at awkward angles.

4. Gangrel vs. Tyshaun Prince

Disappointing match that ends in a DQ. Instead of doing a heavyweight brawl they worked it cat and mouse with Gangrel dodging the larger Tyshaun's attacks. Except Gangrel is not very fast, so it was a very lethargic cat and very tired chubby mouse, with a hands on the ref finish. Bleh.

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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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