The Benson Brothers vs The Punk Relics
Sloppy, but quite enjoyable stuff here. Not everything hits
cleanly, but it’s high energy, ambitious stuff. The early stages establish both
teams as being pretty even, with only the size and strength of CJ Benson being
an outlier. Ugo of the Relics really works a headlock on CJ to nullify this,
but to no avail. The Relics get a little more luck in isolating Brad Benson,
with a Valo back elbow looking nasty. The Relics make a tactical mistake by
ignoring this control to try and take out CJ on the apron, which causes
everything to breakdown. Brad hits a nice cannonball from the apron, though an
Ugo top rope moonsault to the floor sees him just graze the crowd below. His
top half basically crashes into the apron, which must have hurt. Nice ending as
CJ pulls Brad out of a frogsplash/neckbreaker combo, causing the Relics to take
each other out, before CJ flips Brad into a moonsault for the win.
Johnny Radke vs Teddy Hart vs Blake Morris
This is for Radke’s Fusion title. This match is basically
the Teddy Hart show, as he controls the majority of the bout. Morris gets to
hit some nice looking punches in the corner, before his attempt at choking Hart
with his boot sees him taken to the mat with a leglock in a fun spot. From
here, Teddy runs wild, taking both men out at once with a simultaneous draping piledriver/DDT
over the ropes. Hart continues just casually hitting moves on both guys,
nailing a huge tornado DDT on Morris and an electric chair backstabber on
Radke. However, Morris throws Hart out and steals the pin and the title. A bit
disappointing, this did nothing for Radke or Morris.
Willow Nightingale vs Mike Mondo
This is for Nightingale’s Starlets title, which is the women’s
belt. Not sure how the very male Mondo got a title match, but hey-ho. Mondo
works this as a slightly dismissive chauvinist, confident that he can
out-wrestle Willow. He’s the veteran, so manages to lure Willow into attempted
shoulderblocks that he laughs off, before suddenly putting his force into a
block to send her down. Willow’s ability to comeback fits in with her
established character, that being that she’s got a lot of heart. Despite being
worn down by Mondo, she wont stay down and this enables her to get up and
crotch him as he climbs to the top rope. She hits a series of kicks and gets a
German suplex for two. Mondo locks her in a sleeper, but Willow again wont go
down and climbs up the ropes for the Bret Hart pin to win the match. Effective
match, as Willow looked the best I’ve seen her, confident and with some nice
execution to her strikes. The overconfident male vs spirited female is an
overused trope in intergender matches, but they worked this really well.
Bull James vs Alex Reynolds
I had high hopes for this match, but this was bitterly
disappointing. Bull is a guy I really like, but his title run has been full of
underwhelming matches that I don’t think have been his fault – facing the worst
regular roster member King Mega, full on comedy mode Joey Ryan and
past-his-prime Scott Norton along the way. Reynolds is someone I often enjoy,
and the John Silver match on the previous show was maybe the best NYWC match I’ve
seen, so I really thought this would be James’ best title defence to date. That
it wasn’t isn’t down to the wrestlers, but the booking.
This is fought under “High Society” rules, which seems to
mean it’s 2/3 falls with a round system. The rounds seem to mess with their
timing, as rather than have a straight match, they have to break the match into
sections. So for example, the first round sees them exchange some basic matwork
until they realise it’s time for the end of the fall, with James suddenly
hitting a clothesline and a buttsplash, only to have his pinfall halted by the
round ending. James then wins the first fall in R2 with a cradle. The overbooking
starts to kick in in R3 as Reynolds sneak attacks before the bell, controlling
and hitting a second rope codebreaker for 2. Rick Cataldo runs interference,
allowing Reynolds to hit a brass knuckles loaded punch, also for two. A really
nice touch I didn’t notice at first was Reynolds putting the knuckles into
James’ s tights. There’s a ref bump and James hits a butt splash for what
appears to be the match winning three count, but the High Society members tell
the ref about the knuckles in his tights, drawing a DQ and evening the scores
to 1 fall each. R4 is sadly the sloppiest of all the rounds, with a terrible
looking chokeslam by King Mega onto the apron and James barely getting Reynolds
up as he tries to boost him into the post with his legs. Finally, a face full
of powder and a belt shot wrap the mess up, giving Reynolds the win and the
title. As I said, I like both men, but there was only so much they could do
with this booking.
The Awakening (Matt Tremont, G-Raver, Terra Calaway,
Stockade & Devon Moore) vs The Extricated (Jeff Cannonball, Mouse, Aidan
Baal, Victoria Von Black & Bam Sullivan)
This match also has a lot of booking, but given that this is
the Psycho Circus match, you expect and want a big spectacular of a match. The
rules take in bits of WarGames, Survivor Series and Cage of Death, as the two
teams fight in a ring with walls round two sides, in this case a cage wall and
a barbed wire wall, with two men starting the match. Team members join each
team alternately, and there’s also elimination rules. This rule really allows
for more big spots, as you don’t have to worry about wasting it – there’s
generally nine pinfalls in the bout, so you can use 9 big spots and have them
all result in pins.
So yeah, this ended up being really fun. I like the way the
spots were built to, incrementally increasing in carnage and spectacle. I assumed
that the ladies would be the final two entrants for both teams, but I was
pleasantly surprised to see Calaway enter first and even the heel Von Black
didn’t enter last. Indeed, her entrance saw her blast Moore with a frankly
vicious looking weapon that seemed to have plastic cutlery just jutting out of
every side. I was pleased to see Baal getting some shine in the match, he’s
been really good during this feud and he looked great here from the get-go,
hurling himself into the ring as a weapon on his entry. He’s basically the iron
man for his team, and gets the pinfalls on Calaway and Moore (who ends the match
a blood-soaked mess). They even address the fact that Calaway and Cannonball
are a real-life couple for his elimination by having him pretend to play nice
at the end, attempt a double-cross and get speared by his partner into a door with
tin cans sticking out of it. In terms of big spots, we got a few crackers – G-Raver
being eliminated by being pushed off the cage through a large wooden box at
ringside, Mouse getting powerbombed violently onto a bin by Tremont, and
Stockade pinning Baal after a Death Valley Driver through a barbed wire board. There’s
a nice throwback to last year as Stockade eats a big spinebuster on a pile of
breezeblocks, which saw him eliminated last year, but he's able to kick out at two this time. Even the overbooked nonsense
is fun, as the lights go out, bringing out a returning Boo Sullivan, only for
Mikey Whipwreck to also return and take him out. By the time Stockade wins the
match (powerbombing Bam Sullivan through a shitload of lightbulbs, through the
stage), nearly 50 minutes have passed that haven’t dragged or overstayed their
welcome. Really, really fun match.
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