Sonny Kiss vs RJ City
This starts hot, with City sneak attacking before the bell.
Kiss is able to come back, moving really nicely around the ring, but gets hit
with a slingshot belly-to-back suplex. Fun spot where City slaps Kiss in the
face, but takes too long posing afterwards and gets sent into a corner where
Kiss repays the favour with a handspring slap. City has a kind of goofy
charisma and Kiss is an exotico, so their personalities mesh really well in
this match. City tries to steal a win with a ludicrously over-the-top tight
pull, which gets caught by the ref, but he does end up picking up the win after
rolling through a crossbody, again with a handful of tights. Fun opener.
Anthony Greene vs Brent Banks vs Josh Alexander vs Kobe
Durst vs Seleziya Sparx
This was a decent spotfest, feels like everyone brought
something to the match. Fun spot with Sparx early doors, as she shows off her
leg strength by getting into a handstand and using a headscissors to ram opponents
headfirst into her muscular glutes (and a move that Alexander powers out of, via
highlighting to the crowd that he’s married). Sparx continues to impress with a
big crossbody to the floor and a nice Widow’s Peak on Durst. This didn’t have
much substance, but the big moves were fun: nice mid-ring leaping rana by
Greene, Alexander avoiding a pump kick and hoisting up Greene for a big slam,
Greene grabbing Banks by the feet in the corner and lifting him into a
powerslam in one fluid motion, before Durst hits a piledriver on Greene for the
win. Fun fast food of a bout.
Jock Samson vs Puf
I hated this. Really overlong, uninteresting comedy match.
Samson is a portly guy in jeans and a too short t-shirt, whilst Puf is an obese
chap who dances to the ring. They do some basic comedy wrestling which is
executed well enough, before we get a dance off. I did appreciate Samson using
it as a lure to attack Puf from behind, and him hitting a back elbow into a dab
raised a smile. Puf’s offense is unbelievably bad, with his punches looking
soft and choreographed. He felt like one of the worst wrestlers I’ve ever seen.
Puf only gets 2 on a splash as I beg for this to end. Samson gets a low blow,
before some bloke comes out and leads the crowd through a rendition of the
Canadian national anthem, distracting Samson enough to allow Puf to roll him up
for three. Shite.
Josh Briggs vs Trent Gibson
The only Gibson match I’ve seen before was a three-way tag
match from Smash where he’d impressed, so I was looking forward to seeing what
he could do in a singles match. Thought this was a really good match, they
played up the size difference between Gibson and the larger Briggs really well.
Gibson attacks to try and get an early advantage, but he gets caught on a
suicide dive and chokeslammed onto the apron. Briggs easily controls as they
fight on the floor, but back inside Gibson slips out of a reverse Razor’s Edge
and clips the knee to give him an opening. Gibson hits a successful dive to the
floor, sending Briggs flying, and I loved him rushing into the ring, imploring
the ref to start counting Briggs out. Briggs just about beats it, so Gibson
attacks him as he enters, slingshotting him into the ringpost on the floor, and
goes for another countout attempt. This again only gets to a 9 count. Gibson
rolls the dice for two and tries to hit Briggs with a cricket bat. The ref
stops this, but the distraction allows Gibson to hit a low blow for two. I
liked Gibson selling his frustration and goes to the top rope in desperation.
However, he only meets a big boot and Briggs hits a chokeslam into the backbreaker
to win. Really nicely worked, they told the story really well.
Alexia Nicole vs Kris Statlander
Bits of this were really good, but there were also bits of
this that weren’t very good. Statlander has been getting a lot of praise
recently, but I’ve not quite seen that performance from her yet. Here, I
thought she was pretty solid, she did the lions share of the entertaining
stuff. I liked her early cartwheels after escaping an armbar, which lured
Nicole into missing a kick to give Kris an opening. Nicole misses a
double-knees to the corner and I really liked how Statlander focused her
offence on the legs, felt like an organic gameplan. She works the leg with a
dragon screw and some kicks before locking in a nice bridging leglock and a
reverse figure four. Nicole comes back with a really slow victory roll, then
does a load of offence totally ignoring all the work done to her legs, running
around with no ill effects and even standing up with Statlander on her shoulders. Just makes the preceding
minutes pointless. Nicole hits a terrible looking spear to really compound the
horror, before they brawl to the floor for a double count out.
John Atlas & Space Monkey vs MJF & Stokely Hathaway
This was enjoyable stuff, felt like a classic old school tag
with a heel manager on one side and a plucky undersized babyface on the other.
The heels sneak attack before the match starts, hiding either side of the
entrance, and we get a brawl on the floor. Space Monkey is quickly the face in
peril, and Stokely hits some good looking offence, with a big kneedrop and a
great DDT that Space Monkey sells like death. MJF works over Space Monkey’s tail
for no reason other than to be a dick, yanking it to keep Monkey in their
corner. We build to the hot tag, and Atlas seems decent enough. Good press slam
into a powerslam. I liked him no selling Stokely’s spear and hitting a huge
powerbomb. Monkey comes back in, but MJF hits him with a burning hammer.
However, Stokely tags himself back in, giving Space Monkey to opportunity to
reverse a fireman’s carry into a small package for three.
Channing Decker vs Chris Dickinson vs Kobe Durst
This started well, but turned into a bit of a mess by the
end. Decker was Trent Gibson’s partner in the Fraternity, but here he’s working
solo with a hardcore gimmick. This start 1 vs 1 with Decker and Gibson, and
these parts are really good. Dickinson is really good at working people into
his kind of match, whilst also letting them shine. He’s a really fun mat worker,
using his size and strength to overwhelm Decker on the mat. Dickinson batters
Decker with some strikes, but Decker gets a sudden Finlay roll and moonsault to
gain control, and then just hurls himself with reckless abandon through the
ropes with a cannonball. Absolutely insane dive. We get a ref bump as Decker
sets up a door in the ring corner, and he hits a DVD on Dickinson through it,
causing the table to just explode. Great visual. Here’s where things start
getting messy. We get a new ref and suddenly Kobe Durst arrives, attacking both
and the match becomes a triple threat. All structure goes out of the window and
we just get a few big spots. Durst piledrives Decker off the apron through
another door on the floor, which in a sensible match would put him out for
good. Durst tries to open a step ladder on the floor, but is unable to do so,
resulting in an embarrassing scene of officials trying to open the ladder for
what feels like ages. Decker is somehow back on his feet, climbing the ladder
to the balcony as the rest of the roster appear as if on cue to allow him to
moonsault onto the pile and pin Durst on the floor. Dickinson basically became
a non-factor by the end, which feel ridiculous.
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