Decent little Owen showcase here. In many respects, this is
quite the feather in Owen’s cap as he manages to look good in victory, whilst
still having to compete against a guy who isn’t able to properly bump for a
monkey flip. Owen hits a lovely crisp knee drop early, whilst an enzuigiri
nearly beheads Austin. Missile dropkick and the Sharpshooter given Owen the
win.
Tatanka vs George South
You can tell South is veteran enhancement talent, as he
knows how to make a guy like Tatanka look good. South stooges about for
Tatanka, taking nice bumps and gurning to get reactions from the crowd. Tatanka
is still pretty green here, but he’s got good energy and hits a series of chops,
with the final top rope tomahawk chop getting him the victory.
Diesel vs Scott Powers
The pudgy Powers gets the briefest run of offence, hitting a
dropkick on Diesel, before getting beaten down the rest of the match. I liked
Diesel’s backbreaker here, dropping Powers suddenly onto his knee. The rest was
pretty by the numbers, as Diesel hits the big boot and an elbow drop to win.
Randy Savage vs IRS
Crush is on commentary, and given his lack of love for
Savage, you can predict that he might get involved here. They brawl pretty much
as soon as Savage is in the ring, and cut a surprisingly high tempo for an IRS
match. Huge bump by Savage, as he gets hurled over the top rope to the floor. Savage’s
comeback is cut off by the break, and we return to IRS still in control and
still showing actual aggression. Savage continues to bump big, hurling himself
chest first into the turnbuckles then, when he stupidly decides to confront
Crush on the floor, IRS flings him into a ring post. At this point, IRS does
slow things down a bit too much, with three chinlocks and an abdominal stretch
killing too much time. IRS is pretty good at cutting off Savage’s comebacks,
but one last comeback sees Savage going to the top rope for the elbow, before
the predicted Crush interference causes him to pick up the DQ win instead. A
big melee with Lex Luger, Yokozuna, Bret Hart and more sees us to the end of
the show.
So, when browsing free wrestling shows on YouTube, I came across this full 3 hour show from US indy Inspire Pro, a company I know very little about. Indeed, with the exception of knowing that the chap from the Uproxx.com wrestling section is their ring announcer (with a good wrestling voice to boot), I was going into this blind. The result was a pretty fun show....full video linked at the end
The Pump Patrol vs Reign or Shine
The Pump Patrol consist of AJ Summers and Jared Wayne, doing
a sort of Bodydonnas gimmick. The opposition consist of Moonshine Mantell and
Alex Reigns, two big hossy looking guys. Cute comedy bit to start as Wayne
wants to arm-wrestle Reigns, using Summers as a table, but cheapshots him
instead. Summers seems really fun, short and goofy like a pumped up Crash
Holly. Reigns is less impressive and soon proves himself to be the worst guy in
the match with a couple of clumsy looking roll ups. Pump Patrol spend much of
this match selling and stooging as the face team pretty much eat them up.
Mantell shows some nice agility for a big man, really nice looking springboard
senton. Pump Patrol finally get control after Mantell misses a corner splash,
and I dig their back-to-back monkey flips that ends with them flipping Mantell
onto his partner. Everything breaks down and Reigns hits a shitty full Nelson
into a GTS on Wayne, followed by a big frog splash by Mantell for the win. Would
have liked to have seen Pump Patrol get more offence in, but this was a decent
squash and a good showcase for Mantell.
Scotty Santiago vs Carson
This next segment is slightly confusing. Reign or Shine were
very much the face team in the previous match, but seem to be aligned here with
Carson, who’s pre-match promo portrays him as an arrogant heel. Carson is a big
lad, and the smaller Santiago spends the match getting beaten down with a few
hope spots thrown in for good measure. Santiago tries a few flash pins, but
keeps getting cut off by Carson, including a brutal looking superkick to the
throat. Even when Santiago catches him with a boot as he dives from the top
rope (hate that spot!), he still shakes it off and hits a big pump kick.
However, his overconfidence costs him, as Santiago gets a 3 count off a flash
backslide for the win. Effective enough.
Cherry Ramons vs Alexander Rudolph
Ramons looks like the love child of Chris Hero and Justin
“Hawk” Bradshaw, and does some unusual jiggling at the bell. Rudolph is billed
as the American Viking, and is a tall, rangy guy with long hair and beard. I
dug some of Rudolph’s early offence, hitting a big German suplex to start and
an impressive chokebomb. Some lad comes to the ring with a mic to run
distraction, and talks for the rest of the match. Problem is, nothing he says
is particularly clever or interesting, so he’s just irritating white noise. The
distraction lets Ramons attack with some milky looking blows. Rudolph keeps
making comebacks from Ramons’ offence, probably because it wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Rudolph uses the corner turnbuckle to hit an interesting pescado. Inside the
ring, he hits a chokeslam, but suddenly decides to confront the lad with the mic,
allowing himself to get rolled up like an idiot for the Ramons win.
The Great Depression vs “Cowboy” James Claxton
This is the second time in the show I’ve been confused by
the face/heel positioning of someone from the previous match. The Great
Depression is a big chap in a sack-like mask, whose ring music is a Golddiggers
of 1933-esque musical piece. He’s standing at table selling books at ringside,
not heading to the ring for his match, so Rudolph attacks him and throws him
into the ring. Claxton keeps assaulting Depression, but his blows are ignored
as Depression stares at Rudolph at ringside. After a few minutes of this,
Depression leaves the ring to attack Rudolph, and the match is thrown out. All
three guys start to fight each other, and I’ve no idea who is face anymore, and
who is heel. An utter mess.
Legion (Gregory James, Morbidus & Blasphemer) vs Danny
Chance, Erick Shadows & Downfall
Legion are rocking your basic freaky goth gimmick, with
James seemingly the leader of the group. This is a pretty fast-moving trios
match, which is pretty fun in spite of the fact a few guys here seem pretty
green or sloppy. Of the guys who looked good, I thought Morbidus stood out as
having nice execution on his moves. He hits a lovely looking crossbody over the
ropes and I thought the flapjack to Morbidus’ knees that James hits on Downfall
was really nasty looking. I thought the idea to have the match start with the
faces hitting dives was a smart way to get the crowd fired up and they worked a
decent formula match with first Chance, then Shadows working face-in-peril. Not
everything worked: James looked pretty milky with all his offence, and Downfall
hit a shockingly bad Eat Defeat, but things moved quickly enough for these to
be overlooked. The end saw things breakdown, with a few nearfalls, and the
faces all went to the top rope, only to be hit with three stereo mists for the
heel win.
The Dagger Brothers vs Sammy Guervera & Barret Brown
Guervera and Brown don’t seem to be friends, so it’s odd
that they’ve elected to be partners here. The Daggers hit a few nice
double-teams early doors on Guervera, and the initial story seems to be that he’s
always in trouble in the ring, whilst Brown is able to hold his own. Guervera
cheapshots a Dagger from the outside, to the chagrin of his partner, but they
still work him over for a bit to lead to the hot tag and a lovely German suplex
from the fresh Dagger. Guervera abandons Brown, leaving him prone to a combination
spinebuster/neckbreaker for the Daggers win. More angle than match, but it
served the purpose of getting Guervera some heat.
JT Lamotta vs Andy Dalton
This is a streetfight. Dalton
works the mic, and tries to get out of the match, which leads to Lamotta simply
hitting him with the mic. They brawl in the crowd, and I dug Lamotta playing
possum, only to hit Dalton with a camera. Really dug Dalton here, he bumped big
and had some meaty looking offence. Dalton pulls out a fork which somehow ends
up rammed into his gentleman sausage. A few things don’t quite work: there’s a
really awful, fake-looking slingshot that sends Lamotta from the ring to the floor
through a table, and I don’t get Lamotta hitting reverse rana’s in what is
supposed to be a streetfight. Still, there’s some nice violent touches in the
latter parts of the match: Dalton hitting a brainbuster on an open chair looks
sickening, especially as the chair warps. Lamotta seems to have it won with
three back suplexes, another reverse rana and a cradle DDT, but Jordan Jensen
runs interference, suffocating Lamotta with a plastic bag and allowing Dalton
to hit two piledrivers for the win.
Ray Rowe vs Mike Dell
First time I’ve seen Rowe, but he’s
a name I’ve heard of, and I thought he looked really impressive here. He hits a
few nice suplexes on Dell here, including a swank overhead belly-to-belly and
an even more impressive Northern lights, where he blocks a tornado DDT and just
holds Dell in the air before hitting it. Dell’s look and moveset screams “1998
WCW Saturday Night”, like he’d team up with Bobby Blaze to put over Disorderly
Conduct in a decent bout. He gets the odd period of offence here, but mainly
sells and puts over Rowe’s offence. Dell gets to hit his top rope elbow
(cringingly called the Dellbow), but can’t capitalize, instead getting sent
into the corner and nailed with Death Rowe for the win. Fun extended squash.
Robert Evans vs JoJo Bravo
I really was expecting to dislike
this match before it started. Between Evans’ CHIKARA background and Bravo being
a short guy seemingly working a delusional sumo gimmick, I was worried that
this would be a dreadful comedy match. Instead, it ended up being the match of
the night and both guys contributed heavily towards that. The early stages are
worked face-vs-face, with Bravo using his superior speed to confuddle Evans,
who uses his leverage advantage to try to ground him with holds. There’s a neat
spot where Bravo has Evans in the corner, and quickly springboards in-and-out
so Evans wont know where the eventual dropkick is coming from. They battle on
the top rope, from where Evans hits an Irish Curse backbreaker, which seems to
injure his knee. Refs pour into the ring to check out his knee, and the bout
appears to be over. Bravo holds the ropes open for him, only for Evans to kick
them into Bravo’s crotch, revealing there to be nothing wrong with his knee.
This gives the match an actual heel-vs-face dynamic, even if some fans still
cheer for Evans. Evans goes for a countout win, hoping the lowblow and repeated
blows to the head will be enough to keep Bravo out. With Bravo back in, Evans
hits repeated backbreakers with his “bad” knee, just to hammer home what a dick
he’s been. Bravo keeps trying to fire back, and is eventually successful,
hitting a 619 and a cross-legged driver for the win. Really pleasant surprise.
Scot Summers vs Jordan Jensen vs
Ricky Starks
The winner of this match will be
entered into the match to crown the first Inspire Pro champion at a future
show. I liked the dynamic of the two faces, Summers and Starks, trying to get
Jensen out of the ring early, with Summers nailing a German at the bell, and
Starks slamming Jensen on the floor. To be honest, I really wasn’t impressed
with Jensen or Starks here. Starks had this horrific comedy elbow spot with a
hanky, which caused his opponents to lie motionless for ages before hitting it.
Starks and Jensen both have feeble looking blows, which really contrasts with
the nice looking strikes dished out by Summers. A big, bald, bearded lad, he
was really impressive here, with nice kicks and a lovely spear where he just
rolled through his opponent. There’s also a fun, if utterly contrived, 3-way
superplex/top rope German spot that was fun. Despite being the best guy in the
match, Summers is the first one out, eliminated after being distracted and hit
with a Starks famousser. Summers gets furious and starts hitting the ringpost
with chairs, which in turn distracts Starks for nearly two minutes. Jensen
manages to take advantage of this, pulling down Starks’ trunks and hitting an
awful RKO to win.
