The Muscle vs Sebastian Suave
Perfectly functional opener. The commentary suggests this is
Muscle’s first singles match, and it’s fair to say he looks competent, if a
little awkward at times. Just a few moments of timing that look off, but if he
really is as early in his career as suggested, then it’s stuff that’ll get
worked out. Suave spends most of the match on defence, but his Arn Anderson
spinebuster is pretty good. The Muscle’s tag partner Big Tank causes a
distraction to allow Muscle to hit a TKO for the win.
Scotty O’Shea vs Brent Banks
Wasn’t too taken with this one. Opening sequence seemed a
bit overly choreographed, though Banks ends it by taking a big bump to the
floor. Both guys seem to do some good things and some egregiously bad things.
Banks is very agile, but he does things like these weak looking rolling chops
that don’t impress to much. O’Shea seems to have better offence – liked his
double-footstomp to the back of a standing Banks, and he followed it with a draped
spinning neckbreaker from the top rope. Sadly, he needs to drop all his kicks,
as his enzuigiris looked bad and he hit too many light flipping kicks. They
both hit some big bombs that looked good, but maybe shouldn’t have been kicked
out of: a top rope Sliced Bread by Banks and a top rope cutter by O’Shea. Banks
gets the win with a cannonball.
Kevin Bennett vs Tyson Dux
Bennett is accompanied by an entourage of The Muscle and Big
Tank, and are known as the Kevin Bennett Experience. This doesn’t do anything
to distract from the fact that Bennett feels very early-Miz. Smug, arsehole
heel with not much offence. Dux gets beaten 3-1 before the bell, but soon gets
the upper hand after Bennett hits an Asai moonsault that only takes out his
entourage. Dux is fun here, nothing fancy but all his execution is good. His
forearms looks especially meaty. Dux hits a great looking sliding elbow after
rolling through a sunset flip attempt. Dux looks great in control, hitting a
deadlift superplex and rolling Bennett to the floor to hit a suplex out there.
However, the recovered Experience interfere to turn the tide and Bennett hits a
swinging neckbreaker for two and a top rope version for the win.
Rosemary vs Allie
This is no-DQ, and to be fair they make the most of the
stipulation. Lots of big spots here, even if they don’t really do a good job of
filling the space. I hadn’t seen Allie work heel before, and she’s very good,
really coming across as someone obnoxious slowly realising they’re out of their
depth. Both women take big bumps, as Allie gets thrown through a few rows of
chairs whilst Rosemary takes a big ladder dropkicked to the face. They
introduce some tacks, and I like that they build up to the tack bump, with
Allie really selling her fear of them. They both tease getting bumped into them
with both fighting to escape, before Rosemary takes a big superplex into the
tacks. Like the fact it only gets two because Allie’s fear of touching the
tacks means she only goes for a light, barely touching cover. Allie also hits a
chair-assisted codebreaker, but the landing causes her to land on some tacks,
which again delays the cover. Really dug Allie trying a stomp into the tacks,
missing, but realising this gave her a boot coated in tacks to hit a superkick
with. She tries another, but gets misted and Rosemary spears her through a
table to win. First half dragged a bit, but it picked up when the tacks were
introduced.
John Greed vs Jesse Amato
Two big ugly lads here. Amato is portrayed as the underdog
here, and Greed seems to spend the match taking him lightly, even though Amato
injures his arm early with a ringpost bump. Greed has a nice big elbow drop,
but he’s soon downed into a crossface by Amato. He escapes, but Amato hits a
Diamond Dust and locks in another crossface for the tapout. Not much to write
home about.
The Fraternity (Channing Decker & Trent Gibson) vs Well
Oiled Machines (Braxton Sutter & Mike Rollins) vs Chavo Guerrero &
Gabriel Fuerza
Really enjoyed this, thought everyone came out of this
looking good. Guerrero definitely came to work here, keeping up with everyone
(his sequence with Sutter was especially smooth) and also enhancing his partner
in the process. Really liked Decker from the Fraternity, seemed to have a good
look and worked a really fast fluid sequence with an impressive Fuerza. Fuerza
was really good as breaking down the larger Rollins in order to take him down
with a rana. The Fraternity take out the Well Oiled Machines with a nice stereo
dive and we end up with a goofy, but fun Fraternity Paddle vs Pepe the horse
stand-off. Chavo does the old Guerrero trick of feigning being hurt from a
weapon shot in order to gets a sneaky roll-up on Decker for two. Fuerza hits a
diving moonsault to the Fraternity outside the ring, and inside Chavo takes out
both WOM members with the Three Amigos. Chavo and Fuerza hit stereo frog
splashes for the win. Good, fast-paced fun
Mark Haskins vs TARIK
This is for Haskins’ Smash title, which he’d won the
previous month at a Progress show. Loved Haskins gameplan here, working quickly
to try and grab TARIK’s arm, managing to control him on the mat on a few occasions.
Loved him grabbing TARIK’s arm on a sunset flip attempt, and stamping it to the
mat. Haskins suffers a big spill to the floor to give TARIK control and he’s
decent on offence. Really liked his diving elbow from the second rope, with
Haskins draped backward on the rope. Some of his blows look a bit loose, but he’s
fine. Haskins times his comeback nicely, deliberately taking his time to get to
his feet and, having been on the floor for a while, it made sense that he’d be
suitably recovered to explode from the corner with a dropkick. Rolling through
to pick TARIK off the canvas and hit Made In Japan looked really slick. The end
sees them both hit some big moves, albeit ones that you’d buy them being able
to kick out of. Haskins is able to hit a few bigger moves in a row and rolls
through a flying headscissors to lock in the bridging armbar to win. Good main
event, went 20 minutes without ever dragging.
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