NXT Cocoa Beach Road Report 6/26

My wife and I were down in Orlando for a week for our anniversary and some how I convinced Chelsea to tag along with me to an NXT house show. This is the first wrestling show I have been to in years (outside of a lucha show in DC which was more of an art instillation), last time was Sami Callihan v. Fit Finlay in EVOLVE, and in my return I got to see Sami versus a much lesser Irishman.

The show was in a tiny National Guard armory and as a whole it really felt like the old ECWA shows we went to en masse back in the early 2000s, some pretty good matches, some really green wrestlers trying some things and some shocking bush league gimmicks. No great matches, but most were at least entertaining, and everything moved pretty quickly.

Uhaa Nation v. Axel Dieter

Solidly worked opener, with Dieter working over Nations arm with some fun Euro holds, and Nation doing a fine job of timing some exciting comebacks. Dieter is a weird guy to get signed, kind of tubby, not very big or dynamic. He is a guy I have seen a handful of times before and never really stood out, not one of the WXW guys I would have guessed would move on. Nation was fine here, but he did really stand out. He is a guy who has main evented in front of some pretty big crowds in Japan, but he wasn't commanding the room like I expected him too. He felt like someone who is still aways away.

Devin Taylor/Charlotte v. Lina Fenene/Cassidy

Lina is the Rock's cousin and is really huge. She is clearly pretty green still, but did a nice job working a big brick wall which the faces were trying to knock dow. She looks like a taller Patty LaBelle and I imagine that Patty wouldn't sell very much either. Charlotte has really improved her chops, which is very important for a Flair scion.

Bull Dempsey v. Mike Rawlis

Bull Dempsey is basically working as 2009 Super Porky. Lots of comedy spots about being too fat to hit his moves. He had a really amusing spot where Rollins does a kip-up and Dempsey tries a bunch of times and fails, he also has a rope running spot where he loses his wind. Dempsey is a fine fake Super Porky, kind of like Brazo De Platino, and this seems like a gimmick with some actually legs. He was over, and amused Chelsea. I don't see why they just don't rehire Super Porky, but I enjoyed this. Rollins was terrible though, kind of reminded me of 1998 Tom Brandi. Nice hair, good body, sub Jim Powers in the ring.

Sasha Banks v. Blue Pants

Blue Pants is clearly an NXT inside joke I don't get. This was Banks working as arrogant heel champ who ends up wrestling someone they believe is beneath them. It is a classic wrestling match trope, and Banks is really good as Flair getting frustrated as Rocky King rolls him up. She totally gets her character, interacts with the audience well, and comes off vulnerable without hurting her character or looking weak. Banks felt big league in a way that most people on this show did not. Blue Pants isn't much and a better George South student would have made this a better match.

Hype Bros v. The Mechanics

Shocked at how much I enjoyed this, really thought Mojo Rawley felt like one of the most ready to go guys on this show. His execution wasn't perfect, but he brought a bunch of energy to the match and worked perfectly as a meathead tag partner to Zach Ryder. Great working the apron, great as a hot tag and the doomsday device leg lariat thing they did was pretty cool. The Mechanics were baffling to me, they were basically a short B- version of a southern heel tag team, a homeless Death and Destruction, a sawed off Bad Attitude. I have no idea how they ended up in a WWE feeder system. One guy had Captain Roughneck on his trunks, and fuck that noise. Match would have way better if Hype Bros had Damien Wayne and Preston Quinn to work against, instead of their scab replacements.

Marcus Louis v. Angelo Dawkins

This was the only absolute stinker match of the show. Dawkins is a black dude who kind of has the body of a pretty good high school football linebacker three years after graduation who eats like he still is doing 2 a days. He does the James Harden cooking pot motion, and I think Lil B cursed this match. Louis is a French guy who spends the whole match doing nerve holds and making crazy guy faces. Long, dull, poorly executed, boring, a failure in every way a match can fail.

They have a segment where Louis Valentine comes out and wants to dance with the ring announcer (who was getting sexually harassed by the scumbag fans all night). He get interrupted by Preston Cunningham Jr. who does the worst most implausible spoiled rich kid promo I have ever seen in wrestling (think about how much ground that covers). This would get laughed out of an ECWA Super 8 battle royal, I have no idea how something this yarder got past the curtain, just awful.

Finn Balor v. Solomon Crowe

It has been so long since I have seen Crowe actually get a chance to spread out and work a match. When Callihan was in the indies he was one of the best wrestlers in the world. Really happy I got to watch him actually do his thing a little bit. Balor isn't my cup of tea, but he can execute his moves, and did a pretty good job selling his knee, which Crowe worked over really viciously. This felt like a second round US Indy tourney match, worked pretty simple, nice execution, nothing anyone will remember in six months, but very exciting in the moment. Crowe is still really good, I hope he gets a shot to do something.

Vaudevillains vs. Blake and Murphy vs. Chad Gable/Jason Jordan

Last time I saw Blake and Murphy they were dull faces, but I really liked them here as a sleaze bag pretty boy heel tag team. They do Heavenly Bodies way better than the Mechanics do Anderson Brothers. Vaudevillains have some fun shtick, and worked your car crash workrate spots really well. Gable is still a little raw, but is clearly going to be great. It will be interesting to see an Olympic wrestler working as a junior (he wrestled at the Olympics at 185). Jordan is much bigger and already has a fun suplex based offense, he seems crazy strong as he was just deadlifting pretty big guys. Match had the most action of the night, and I enjoyed the pace after some slowly worked openers.

Fun overall show, missed going to live wrestling although I didn't miss wrestling crowds. Might actually be able to convince my wife to come to another show with me sometime.

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Evolve 37 1/10/15 Review

1. Shane Strickland vs. Anthony Nese

ER: So earlier in the week I watched a CZW show from late last year which had a Strickland match (vs. Flip Kendrick) that is one of the worst matches I've seen this decade, just a sloppy, poorly laid out mess. Both guys looked awful. Now Flip Kendrick is a guy I've always enjoyed, and had that been the first match I'd seen him in I would not be excited to see him again. So he had an off night. Maybe Strickland also had an off night and is usually somewhat better? Well, he's still not very good, but he didn't look nearly as bad as in that CZW match. He didn't look great, but better. He basically works like the worst version of CMLL wrestler Titan. Does a few of his spots, but worse. His front flip rana to the floor is impressive in theory, but it's set up a mile away and goes really slow. Some of his stuff can look good, but he's really really bad at going through planned sequences. He cannot make them look more rehearsed. His face just goes completely blank and you can practically see him mouthing the steps. None of the stuff comes off looking natural in the least. Nese is a guy with some polish and some good execution. The match didn't really go in a direction that interested me, but Nese has been around long enough that I can see him having good matches with better opponents.

2. Timothy Thatcher vs. Roderick Strong

PAS: Really enjoyed this, as this was a grittier more violent match then Thatcher often is involved in. The matwork was less trading holds and more really aggressive amateur rolling. They roll to the ground and Strong firemans carries Thatcher and smashes his head into the post. Then you have Strong throwing big bombs and Thatcher, glassy eyed trying to grab holds while he still had his wits about him. It actually felt a little like a Fujiwara performance, down to the cool flash finish.

ER: Really loved this match up. Strong is a guy who I like, who does a lot of stuff that I don't like, a guy who has always done good stuff, in between the stuff I hate. But this right here seems like the best possible version of Strong. He was a real ass kicker in this and I love that it brought out aggression in Thatcher. And as Phil said this was less about transitions and holds and reversals, this was two guys not wanting to let up position on the ground, like a spar that turned real nasty. At one point Strong as a can opener locked on while Thatcher is just forcing his elbow into Strong's jaw. Not elbowing him, put holding one side of Strong's head with his left hand, so he can dig into that jaw with his right elbow. And the whole time Strong kept yanking Thatcher's head more and more forward. Awesome spot. Strong had a few nice knee strikes that Thatcher leaned into, and I'm loving more and more the sudden finishes that can happen with Thatcher, Gulak and Busick. Here Thatcher grabs a sweet arm bar that I didn't see coming for the finish. Excited to see more 2015 Strong.

3. AR Fox vs. Trevor Lee

ER: This finished after just a few minutes because Trevor punts Fox right in the eyeball and legit KOs him, or at minimum concussed him. I was starting to think that Fox was just a real good salesman. Match before that was kind of dorky, but kind of amusing. Both guys do really questionable rope running/reversal/one step ahead of your opponent type of stuff, and sometimes that looks good and other times it looks ridiculous and mapped out for miles. I liked all of their cool early armdrag reversals, with a couple blocked armdrags (which is a spot I love) and some real neat variations. But with those cool spots come a lot of needless flips. One spot saw Fox go for a dive, Lee backflip off the apron while Fox does a Misawa feint to the apron, then Fox backflipping off the ring post to the floor which led to him getting his eye socket punted in by Lee. We also get plenty of ambitious strikes that whiff, and would probably look better if they didn't add a spin to everything. Announcers pushed real hard how Trevor Lee is real "over" in PWG but the fans haven't quite taken to him the same way here, saying they aren't sure what to make of how he acts and how he dresses. Wellllll….color me confused as I have never seen Lee before but he acts totally normal and he was wearing black trunks with black boots/kickpads. It's not like he was wearing crotchless chaps and wrestling on his hands or anything. Until they started babbling about how he looked I never would have thought he looked odd. Am I missing something?

4. Biff Busick vs. Uhaa Nation

ER: Well Uhaa has the best theme song in wrestling. And I loved the announcers going the full Kal Rudman while talking about him. "Just eat a cheeseburger why don't you, get up to 1% body fat. Muscle on top of muscle. Jacked." I love that they're just going for it, looking at Uhaa and getting choked up like John Boehner talking about America. Overall I liked this match, really liked Busick in this and Uhaa had some moments. Uhaa's problem seems to be that he really focuses on the "athletic" portion of his offense, even if the follow through of said offense suffers. You can't go 30 seconds in this match without hearing the dual Rudmanning of Uhaa's athleticism. Every time he left his feet was met with orgasmic moans, followed by more fawning over his abdominal muscles. But he seems way too inside of his athletic self. He'll leap up real high for an elbow drop, but the elbow drop doesn't look very good. He'll get an insane leap on a flying clothesline, but the clothesline itself won't look great. So it's obvious he has impressive leaping ability and looks very light on his feet in general, but when you look at his offense from the angle of what is actually being done to his opponent it does not seem as impressive. But it's very easy to get blinded with the athletic portion of the move and the actual impact portion gets kind of swept under as you're still reacting to "athleticism". I liked how the story began, with Busick working over his ribs, tossing out some of the nastiest knees you've seen (which led to a nice reversal by Uhaa when he did a forward roll over a knee for a roll up) and a nice abdominal stretch, followed by a cool half nelson suplex reversal (which Uhaa popped up for to hit a clothesline, blecch). Busick looked great throughout, always seems to have a good match planned for his opponent. I think he fed into Uhaa nicely, bumping big on suplexes and clotheslines, large bumps but appropriate for what was being done. I love his headlock takeover into a choke submission finisher, and while there were faults to the match this was plenty good.

5. Drew Galloway vs. Ricochet

PAS: Great match, the best I have seen from either guy. Galloway has grabbed the early pole position for wrestler of the year. We start out with some outside of the ring brawling which delivered a couple of crazy athletic spots by Ricochet, he gets thrown in the air, grabs a basketball hoop and twists his way into a rana, it is something Gerald Green and Juventud Guerrera should steal for the dunk contest. Ricochet then tries a wall walk moonsault, gets caught and thrown brutally into a concrete wall. When the match gets back into the ring, Ricochet goes after the finger Galloway injured in his Strong street fight, and Ricochet makes a surprisingly effective Fuchi. Finish was great, Galloways splint comes off and catches Ricochet in the eye, and after waiting a split second Galloway jumps him and hits a couple of big moves for the finish, fun subtle heel turn in the spirit of Tommy Rich v. Bill Dundee in early 80's Memphis.

ER: Well this match was great. I loved loved loved all of this. The early spots that Phil mentioned were insane. Ricochet getting tossed into the hoop and then fluidly swinging back with a rana is something that could easily come off like an overused winking Human Tornado kind of spot, but here it almost comes off organic, as if Galloway tossed him into a wall not knowing there was a hoop there and Ricochet pulled off the ultimate ad lib. It's like when a guy goes through a table that wasn't actually set up by his opponent, just so much more satisfying when you don't see the spot coming. The run-up-the-wall moonsault, caught by Galloway and ending with Galloway chucking him into the wall was flat out brutal, Ricochet's body splayed out in a fantastic thud. Back in and Ricochet gets all Finlay on us by ripping off Galloway's finger splint and ripping apart at his fingers. He even does amusing indy spots like a standing moonsault onto the bad hand. Ricochet bumps like wild on Drew's comebacks, not just that earlier spot getting tossed into a wall. He gets suplexed into the corner, leans into strikes, and then the spot of the match with Drew obliterating Rico with literally the greatest top top clothesline in the history of this great sport. I've wracked my brain trying to think of a better one. I remember Ikeda hitting a great one off the top in NOAH. But this one. This was the best. Drew's follow through was immaculate and the way Ricochet imploded was perfection. Wrestling spot of the year? Most possibly. They really could have done anything after that spot and I would have given it 8 stars, but the rest of the match is perfectly fine, and the finish is great as Drew accidentally catches Rico in the eye with his splint, and looks genuinely apologetic with the apologies. I bought them. Then sprints out of the corner to blast him with a kick for the pin. Awesome. Great match-up.

6. Johnny Gargano, Rich Swann & Chuck Taylor vs. The Bravado Brothers & Moose

ER: Well, this was...okay? But not really my cup of tea. One of those matches where for every thing I like about it, there's something that takes me out of it. None of these 6 are guys who I will actively seek out, or get excited about if they're an opponent of somebody I like. But 6 mans can be a kind of magic for average wrestlers, where they can hide all their flaws and come out the other end with a nice tidy 15 minutes of pro wrestling. And this wasn't not that...on a base level the match was fine. No silly overkill and plenty of fun moments. By the end it just didn't add up to much. It's the kind of match that seems fine if you're watching it with buddies, half paying attention to the match and half focusing on chatting about movies you've seen recently or how you can't believe you love Bates Motel as much as you do. But actually watching the match, you see cracks. Dives that whiff, eyeballs trying to remember sequences instead of looking natural, people timing out their steps tap dance style. Gargano is a guy who is pushed hard by Evolve, and even the announcers put over as "the face of Evolve", which just seems wild to me as there are few guys on the Evolve roster who I usually remember less about than Gargano. He's a guy I've rarely been offended by, and has rarely impressed me. Swann I probably like the most of these 6, he adds the most little details to his flash. He can throw in little struggles like he and Harlem fighting over a suplex that he ends up eventually reversing to a small package, and comes off the most natural in rope running exchanges. The Bravados have improved in the last few years and look good when working team spots, less so separately. Lance seems like the clear better one to me. I actually liked some of his punches during brawling portions, and Bravados were never guys I thought "nice punches!" about. Moose is your large Kofi Kingston, doing athletically impressive spots that don't really hit very well, or is dependent on big bumpers. His standing clothesline looked good, or was it Swann leaning into it? His duel fallaway slam/samoan drop looked impressive, but it also required Swann to find a plausible way to set it up. But none of this overstayed its welcome and that counts for a lot, finding the right time to end things is a big deal that a lot of indy wrestling doesn't understand. This match was all perfectly acceptable wrestling, just as equally as it was perfectly forgettable wrestling.


Overall this was a real good card. Two MOTYC on one card will do that. Outside of the excellent Drew/Ricochet and Thatcher/Strong, I dug the Busick match and nothing else was offensive. Definitely going to be doing more Evolve reviews. Linked below is our 2015 MOTY list, since both the Galloway and Thatcher matches were easy inclusions to that:


2015 MASTER LIST

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