EVOLVE 74 Live Blog

I figured the return of Segunda Caida legend Dick Togo is enough for me to give FloSlam a shot and live blog EVOLVE 74. Hoping for the best!!

Jaka v. Drew Gulak

Really good opener, way more competitive then I was expecting. Gulak is on his way out and he really tried to make Jaka. Really violent shots by both guys, Jaka is at his best as an indy Haku, and parts of this felt like a nifty Haku v. Benoit Thunder match. I also thought Jaka looked pretty solid on the mat, never looked out of place rolling, and when they stood up he was really laying in the head butts and chops. Really liked this finish too, Gulak is really good at snatching his Dragon sleeper out of nowhere, and while Jaka escaped it once, he wasn't going to escape it twice.

Larry Dallas who was a mediocre manager for this fed a while back, returns as a truth telling interviewer and they do a back and forth with Tracy Williams and Gulak. Excited about this as a match, but they aren't going to talk anyone into the building.

DUSTIN v. Chris Dickinson

Weird match, they keep booking Dickenson, who is a great loathsome heel, as a plucky babyface. Here he beats the shit out of DUSTIN, nasty chops, kicks, suplexes, with DUSTIN throwing in a bit of his weak looking shit, I have no idea why you would throw such pillows if Dickenson is throwing heat. This was basically poor man's Low-Ki v. poor man's Elax the Exploited child, with Elax working heel and going over.

Darby Allin v. Brian Cage

This was pretty much perfectly worked, Cage has a tendency in Lucha Underground to work 50/50 with littler dudes, but here he was just brutalizing Allin. Allin jumps him in the aisle with two cool dives and then he just gets smashed. Huge powerboms, suplexes and a awesome finish where Cage hurls Allin from the ring to the stage, totally holy fuck bump. I was excited about this match on paper, and it totally delivered.

Cody Rhodes v. Ethan Page

Jesus this Ethan Page push is killing me. Again he gets all of the shortcuts, ref bumps, interference, a long visual pin over the high dollar ex-WWE import. Every show feels like Page is a Make-a-Wish kid working a match at a fundraiser for him. There was an amusing spot where Page gets a portly Page fan to hold Rhodes for a chop and then gives him the finger instead of a high five, enraging the husky gentleman. Most of the rest was lots of terrible looking Page elbows and Rhodes kind of mailing it in. Not good. Poor Dick Togo has his work cut out for him.

Jeff Cobb v. Matt Riddle

Really fun match, I don't think either of their singles matches against each other have been the classics they have in them, but I really enjoyed this. They feel like a big deal whenever they get into the ring it feels like two big stars are locking up.  The match made a lot of sense Riddle was hitting Cobb with strikes and Cobb getting close and throwing him. I really loved Cobb having too thick of a neck to put on the Twister, and the catch into the tour of the islands was awesome. With Cobb going over, I figure this will get run back, and I am excited to watch it.

Fred Yehi/Tracey Williams v. Ricochet/Peter Kaasa

This was your big workrate tag, and it didn't do a ton for me. The Ricochet and Yehi have some really awesome fast exchanges, almost Red v. Ki speed, but outside of that this wasn't good. Kassa looks totally lost much of the time, he has some cool spots but he is basically indy Tom Magee, Williams is on a run of not doing much for me, he looked lost a couple of times, and some of his stuff looked weak. Would love to see Yehi v. Ricochet in a singles though, I wonder if Mr. Hughes ran that in his fed at one point.

Dick Togo v. Chris Hero

My stream died in the middle of this for a bit, so I am going to have to rewatch it, on first glance, I liked parts of this, but thought Hero was spamming piledrivers a bit, and it felt a little like they working an indy dream match, rather then a match with a real story. Might feel different on a rewatch without the stream death, but initially it was a bit disappointing. I did love Togo faking out Hero's mind games early and some of the big right hands by Hero.