Wednesday, 25 February 2015

Pro Wrestling Chaos 6: To Crown A King


Pro Wrestling Chaos are a company who run shows down in the Bristol area, and have a roster that features quite a few of my favourite British wrestlers. Seeing as how I live a good 2 hours+ from Bristol, I decided the easiest way to check them out would be by DVD instead. This show is based around a four-man tournament to crown the King of Chaos champion, and is a really fun show from start to finish.
 
JD Knight vs Dave Mercy
This is the first semi-final tournament match. Given that I've only seen him before as an amusingly perverted heel, the one thing I wasn’t expecting is to see Dave Mercy as a fired-up, white-meat babyface. It really suits him too, he looked really good at working over Knight in the early going. Knight takes over after snapping Mercy’s neck over the top rope and starts grounding Mercy. His covers looks pretty nonchalant, which allows Mercy to make a comeback with a flurry of blows and a swank looking Northern Lights suplex. Knight hits a chokebomb, which only gets two, and he seems frustrated at this, going outside to grab the ringbell. The ref stops him, but it turns out to be a distraction, as Knight instead nailed Mercy with a wrench from his tights to get the win. Or so it seemed, as the ref raises his hand before he has a chance to hide the wrench, which leads to it’s discovery. The ref restarts the match, and Mercy hits a quick RKO to win. Fun opener.
 
Mike Bird vs Wild Boar
I really like both guys, so I had high expectations for this one. Boar is working face here, and it’s nice to see that he’s still plenty vicious on the mat in this role, working the fingers of Bird. I liked Boar’s punches in the corner, pummelling Bird to the ground, then picking him up to deliver more punches. There was a lovely little sequence to change the momentum, as Bird avoids a charge, and rolls Boar up with a schoolboy, then hits a double-stomp right away. Bird starts slapping Boar around the head, which seems a foolish thing to do to rile up his opponent, but then he brilliantly follows it up by running the ropes at the same time as Boar to hit a big clothesline from the side, which looked great. Boar’s corner senton looks great as ever, but Bird picks up the win with another big clothesline and a cradle piledriver. Really great match.

Dick Morgan, Alex Steele & Eddie Dennis vs The Doomsday Killers (Gideon, KillBane & Ian Williams)
This starts off as a singles match between Gideon and Morgan, before Williams attacks Morgan from behind. This leads to Steele and Dennis making the save and proposing this six-man tag. I quite like the initial structure of this match where, despite an initial flurry of offence by the faces, the Doomsday Killers are able to take over following a big Gideon kick to Morgan, capitalising on his still being groggy from the pre-match assault. I thought Gideon looked terrific in this match, with just nasty, vicious looking blows that looked convincingly painful. I also dug his offence on Steele following a hot tag, with him holding Steele in a standing chokehold which he then turned into an overhead butterfly suplex, which looked ace. Things break down after another hot tag to Dennis, and things get a little sloppy until they head to a hot end sequence. A big series of dives by Steele, Williams and Gideon culminates in a big flip dive by Dennis. The action returns to the ring with a series of moves, before Morgan finishes Williams off with a Northern Lights suplex, which he rolls through with into a brainbuster. Decent match, really made me want to see more of Gideon.

Big Grizzly vs Rampage Brown
The box has this match down as “Steve Griffiths vs Rampage Brown”, but it wasn’t until I got to the menu screen that I realised “Steve Griffith” is blog favourite Big Grizzly, and this became a match I was super excited to see. This was a really good big man bout, with a fun story. Rampage Brown is a big bruiser of a man, but for once he’s out-sized by his opponent. Rampage tries a couple of shoulderblocks without shifting Grizzly, and Grizzly meets him with a running knee as he hits the ropes for the third try. They trade some big blows on the outside of the ring, and back inside Rampage tries to pick up Grizzly onto his shoulders with no joy. This is teased a few times in the match, and I like that, strong as Rampage is, he isn’t able to just lift Grizzly on the first try. Grizzly can move for a guy his size, and I really like the way that he uses this size as a weapon, smashing into Rampage like a demolition ball with a running shoulderblock. Grizzly gets a two count off a big sideslam, before Rampage hits a big lariat and finally hoists Griz onto his shoulders for a running Samoan drop, which gives him the victory. Loved this.

Chris Masters vs Jeckel
Masters is quite a regular on these shores nowadays, and it’s fun to see how he matches up with different opponents, and if he works a heel or face. Here, he was working as a face, which involved him overpowering Jeckel, until receiving a poke to the eye. He managed to catch Jeckel on a pescado attempt, but ended up getting rammed into the ring post. Jeckel looks to be a decent size, just not as big as Masters, so it made sense for him to use these little shortcuts. Jeckel heeled it up a storm when in control, with chokes and boot scrapes to wear down Masters. Jeckel gets a bit too over confident and spends ages going for a top rope legdrop, which he somewhat inevitably misses, and Masters gets him with a lovely Sky High powerbomb. Masters locks in the Masterlock, but Jeckel pulls the ref to him to hide him giving Masters a low blow, which allows Jeckel to pick up the cheap roll up victory. This was fun.

Mike Bird vs Dave Mercy
This is the final of the King of Chaos title tournament, and the other wrestlers comes out onto the stage to watch the match, which is a nice touch. I liked Bird pre-bell trying to wind up Mercy and get under his skin, which leads to Mercy attacking him with a flourish at the bell. They brawl outside  the ring and through the crowd to the stage, before getting back to the ring, where Mercy misses a top rope splash. Bird takes over, and hits a really cool looking running legdrop in the corner. Mercy tries firing back with some really great looking punches, but telegraphs one which gives Bird time to block it. Bird misses a top rope moonsault, giving Mercy enough time to get his second wind, hitting a Northern Lights suplex and a Michinoku Driver for two. Bird is able to hit a fucking Dragon suplex on Mercy, which sends him from the ring, and Bird follows him out with two suicide dives onto the dazed Mercy. Bird is fully in the ascendancy here, but is caught diving into the ring by a RKO from Mercy, and only getting his foot on the ropes prevents Bird getting pinned. They battle on the top rope, and Bird tries for a top rope cradle piledriver (which it really looked like he was going to hit) before Mercy breaks free. This does lead to a really great end sequence. They fight on the ring apron, and Bird DOES get to hit the cradle piledriver on the ring apron. Mercy is pretty much out, but does just about get back into the ring before the 10 count…only for Bird to immediately hit another cradle piledriver for the clean victory. Really loved this,  both guys managed to look stronger coming out than going in, which is surely the aim of matches like this.

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