So, I was browsing Youtube for some wrestling to watch, and came across this full show from the promotion Fight Club Finland, which I thought might be an interesting watch. I had no idea what the Finnish wrestling scene was like, despite Mrs NotJayTabb being from Finland, so it was interesting to try something new. The Youtube link is included at the bottom for those who want to watch along
King Kong Karhula vs Johnny McMetal
“Johnny McMetal” sounds like an uninspired background character
from a Bill & Ted film. Karhula appears to be your Finnish version of Rhino
or Wild Boar. He shows some condescension towards McMetal after a few shows of
power, so it was nice to see some real fire from McMetal on his fightback,
hitting some decent punches from a mounted positon and a dive from the apron.
Karhula takes over after shoving McMetal into a ringpost, and works him over
with some basic offence. For a decent sized guy, his offence is a little milky,
with a clothesline looking particularly poor. McMetal fires back with a full
Nelson slam (barely getting any air on Karhula) and an odd top rope dropkick,
where he goes down almost vertically like an arrow. Karhula bumps big for a
DDT, before McMetal oddly bumps for a phantom boot to the head. He escapes a
Karhula powerbomb and nails a Diamond Cutter for the win. This was kept simple,
but it was effective.
Vili & Jake Luupaa vs Murskaaja Mieto & Ricky
Vendetta
The Luupaas are faces, a pair of skinny, scrappy punk rock
kids. Vili seems a little better, with some better executed offence. Dug his
flip senton and cannonball into the corner. They use a few fun double-teams to
keep the advantage over their bigger opponents, loved Vili hitting a bulldog
across Jake’s knees. The heels cheat to take over, with Jake face-in-peril. The
heel team is bulkier, so their offence looks pretty effective on a lightweight
opponent. The heat section is pretty short, with Vili a fun hot tag, but he’s
soon caught with a big powerbomb by Vendetta. Things break down, and it ends
with Vendetta putting Jake in the Rings of Saturn for the win. Vendetta really
worked the hold too, looked sufficiently vicious enough to earn the win.
Enjoyed this.
Mikko Maestro vs Pyoveli Petrov
Odd one here. This is played off as speed (Maestro) vs
strength (Petrov),with the early spots establishing this. The problem is that
Petrov doesn’t seem particularly strong. He’s better built than Maestro, who is
pretty lean, but I first have my doubts when he awkwardly bundles Maestro from
the ring, then has trouble throwing him back in over the top rope. They build
up nicely to a Maestro slam spot, as he twice fails to get Petrov up, but it
doesn’t feel like Petrov is suitably big to be hard to slam. Like watching Cody
Rhodes struggling to slam Wade Barrett. Petrov hits a Bossman Slam, barely
getting Maestro off the ground. Maestro weakly escapes a bearhug, finally hits
the slam and a legdrop, but the ref is distracted by Petrov’s manager. Maestro
avoiding a shot with a foreign object and getting disqualified when he uses it
himself right in front of the ref only makes him look like an idiot and makes
Petrov look weak. Not good at all.
Heimo Ukonselka & Aurora vs Sly Sebastian & Sara
Elektra
Heimo seems to be working a Viking gimmick, but the booking
of this match really undercuts his gimmick. It’s booked as an intergender,
rather than mixed, tag match, which means the men can wrestle the women.
However, it soon becomes clear that they CAN’T actually have then men wrestling
the women. Thus, every time Heimo is in the ring with the face-in-peril
Elektra, he has to stand there looking tough, threaten to hit her, then get
taken out by an Elektra attack to prompt Aurora back into the ring. Makes this
big, tough, untamed barbarian look like a fool. That aside, I thought this was
pretty fun. The faces worked well on offence, making some quick tags to work an
early control, and hitting some fun double teams like Sebastian press-slamming
Elektra over the top rope onto the heels. Sebastian also hits a tope that gets
totally missed by the camera. Things do break down a bit towards the end where
they all seem a bit confused, but Aurora quickly picks up the win with a
Kryptonite Krunch on Elektra.
Valentine vs Conny Mejsel
Imagine former Tottenham midfielder Darren Caskey cosplaying
as Tommy End, and you’ve essentially got Mejsel. Valentine is the champion,
looks like Glacier in lovely pink trunks, and he cuts a pre-match promo, the
gist of which seems to be saying his heel manager will be the referee for the
match. Mejsel throws some terrible strikes to start and manages to nearly fall
over doing a hiptoss, which sets a bad tone. They brawl outside the ring, and
it stand out as they’re the only match to do this all show. Smart booking.
Loved the ref taking a selfie of himself and Valentine over the downed Mejsel.
The problem with having a heel ref is it makes the face look like an idiot if
he keeps trying pins, which he does. Valentine looks good throughout here, his
offence is crisp (dug the tilt-a-whirl into a crossface) and he does some nice
heel stuff like grinding his crotch over a downed Mejsel. Mejsel tries a
package piledriver, and Valentine wisely escapes it (no way I’d let a guy who
falls over doing a hiptoss give me a package piledriver), though he does hit it
later for another ref slow count. Valentine ends up winning after nailing
Mejsel with brass knucks, and this ended up pretty decent, almost entirely
thanks to Valentine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2R5b8JRhBY
No comments:
Post a Comment