Kassius Ohno vs Matt Riddle
So, obviously a full match would have been preferable, but
they smartly didn’t promote this as a scheduled match, so you can’t be too
disappointed by Riddle knocking Ohno out in 6 seconds. Riddle is a can’t miss
star, putting him over strong makes complete sense.
Kairi Sane vs Shayna Baszler
This went by too quickly, especially given the 2/3 falls
stipulation, but what they cram in is really good. Liked the gameplan by Sane
to blitz Shayna from the off, not giving her a second to recover. Loved the
sliding clothesline against the ropes, before Baszler’s Four Horsewomen
comrades attack Sane, allowing Baszler to lock in the Kirifuda Clutch for the
first fall. Loved her trying to lock it on again quickly at the start of the
second, and her stomping violently on Kairi’s face looked nasty. Sane trying a
series of roll-ups and quick pinfalls as she tries to recover makes nice sense
and I really liked the insane looking DDT on the apron – it looked like a real
gamechanger, made it realistic that Sane could use that as her opening after
the beating she’d taken. The insane elbow makes it one fall apiece. Loved Sane
now hitting three consecutive spears, with Baszler selling the combined damage
to her ribs. We get some fun hoopla outside the ring with Dakota Kai and Io
Shirai evening the odds against the Horsewomen, before Baszler counters the
insane elbow by rolling Sane into a crucifix to win. Not their best match, but
these two match up so well that it’s still really great.
Johnny Gargano vs Aleister Black
I liked a lot of this, but there was definitely a lot of
melodramatic overacting that took away from my enjoyment. Gargano ducking and
bobbing to avoid Black’s strikes was really cool, especially as it built up the
moment that Gargano ducks and eats a big kick to the face as a big moment.
Gargano managing to stay one step ahead of Black was really effective, made him
look like a smart performer, especially as a lot of this was built up as Black’s
revenge. Loved the Gargano tope to a DDT on the floor. But the bad stuff starts
creeping up too. The Riddle match had shown how to build someone up as a great
striker, but here the “Striking Man from Amsterdam” (piss off Mauro) hit
Gargano with a load of strikes, most of which were getting no sold or were
having little effect as they roll from one sequence to another. The bits where
both guys try luring the other in to hit big moves by emotively yelling at them
was terrible, hurt the pacing of the match and added nothing. Gargano getting a
roll up by ducking Black Mass was a nice wrinkle, and I dug Black hitting two
consecutive Blass Mass to ensure Gargano wouldn’t kick out, but a little bit
too much of this was actively bad.
Tommaso Ciampa vs Velveteen Dream
So during the match, I realised who Dream reminds me off.
While I can see the comparisons to Rick Rude or Hulk Hogan (which Dream was
happy to play up here), I felt like I was watching an androgynous Sting. Tall,
in great shape, terrific athlete who, whilst a little green in places, is
having good matches and is able to push through by sheer force of personality.
Yeah, just like early Sting, and this played out like a great Sting vs crafty
heel bout. Dream puts in a great shift here, bumping big when Ciampa shoves him
to the floor on a springboard attempt and hitting a big dive on an evasive
Ciampa. For his part, Ciampa is really nasty, smashing Dream in the corner with
a running knee using his knee brace that Dream sells as a knockout blow. He
does horrible stuff like making Dream drool by locking him in a submission,
then rubbing the spit in Velveteen’s face just to be a dick. Dream goes for
Ciampa’s knee with a figure four around the post and then in the centre of the
ring, and though it doesn’t get the win, it gets paid off after Project Ciampa
is hit, but the pain to the knee means Ciampa can’t cover right away and Dream
is able to kick out. Some really convincing nearfalls, none more so than when
Dream hits a rolling DVD on the floor and immediately rolls Ciampa in for a
Purple Rainmaker for two. Genuinely believed that was it. An attempt on the
ring apron sees Dream crash and burn to the floor. Ciampa hits the draping DDT
on the metal grid separating the two Wargames rings, and that’s enough to put
Dream down. I very much enjoyed this, thought this was Dream’s best performance
to date.
Pete Dunne, Ricochet & the War Raiders vs The Undisputed
Era (Adam Cole, Bobby Fish, Kyle O’Reilly & Roderick Strong)
This match seems to have split opinion online, with maybe
two-thirds of comments being against this match for bloat, for bad structure or
for not feeling like a real Wargames. For my part, I loved this, and it kept me
wide awake at gone 2.30am. Yes, it’s very long, but watching it in real time, I
found that I felt it flew by.
I’m going to try and avoid just basic play-by-play here,
because they fit so much stuff in here. You can get away with having big bombs
not ending the match because there’s lot of guys there to make the save, and
you need to hit big moves to put down as many of your opponents as possible in
order to leave no-one who can prevent victory. Here, a lot of big stuff was
hit, but for the most part it wasn’t kicked out of. Yes, Pete Dunne survived a
lengthy chain-and-chair assisted submission, but finding extra reserves in such
a big war against your hated enemies feels acceptable. I enjoyed the opening
stages of the match, and I think the natural structure of the bout helps keep
the match fresh. A new face every few minutes changes the match, with the
arrival of members of the face team feeling like a hot tag every time. The
tactic of the Undisputed Era to lock Pete Dunne in his cage to allow them to
destroy the opposition 4-on-3, then have Dunne at a 4-on-1 disadvantage to
dismantle him. The fact that Pete was able to fend them off with weapons,
keeping them occupied while his partners recovered, made sense to me and set up
the second half of the match well. Yeah, there was a West Side Story-esque bit
of nonsense that saw a shaky confined brawl between the two rings, but I was
able to enjoy it as a big, dumb spotfest. War Raiders in particular looked
great here, maybe the best Hanson has looked in NXT, with his joint powerbomb
on Strong/World’s Strongest Slam on O’Reilly being a great power spot. The
overly complicated tower of doom spot leading to Ricochet’s double moonsault was
a bit hokey, but Pete hitting the Bitter End and Ricochet hitting the 630 on
Cole felt like a nice, final, full stop on the bout. I’m an outlier here, but I
thoroughly enjoyed this.
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