1. Vin Gerard vs. Virus – 2
2. Mary Elizabeth Monroe vs. Ashley Lane vs. Naveah – 1
3. Pick Your Poison Battle Royal – 2
4. Jon Moxley vs. Chris Hero – 4
5. The Osirian Portal vs. Scotty Vortekz & Diehard Dustin Lee vs. The GP Code – 4
6. Nigel McGuinness vs. B.J. Whitmer – 4
This particular event was held in the rather large Sports Plus venue just outside of Cincinnati. It’s actually quite a strange sight to see a ring in the middle of an inline skating rink and about 30 or so people sitting around it with ads and small scale rides visible in the background. Glancing at the crowd during some dead spots in the show, I noticed a lot of the usual southwest Ohio folks who come to a lot of these shows, most notably the one lady who insists on dressing like Paul Heyman. Not sure was possessed her to do that and it’s definitely not a look to be proud of.
Right out of the gate we get CHIKARA undercard heel Vin Gerard up against Virus, a guy in a mask and a multi-colored outfit that he only wears because he thinks it looks cool. Gerard was in control the whole match, jawing with the fans while attempting to pull Virus’ mask off. I was really digging his antics, even though I’ve seen him do roughly the same moves in CHIKARA on numerous occasions. Virus came across as an unschooled, generic masked face who can’t work. I don’t think he pulled off three moves in a row successfully, even though he somehow won the bout with a roll-up much to nobody’s delight after getting the crap kicked out of him for eight minutes.
The women’s match was a disaster. Lane, who can be seen weekly in TNA as Madison Rayne, was the ring general in this one. Monroe doesn’t belong in a ring as her offense was weaker than the acting in that shitty Transylmania flick that was out in theatres for about five days last fall. The majority of the bout was fought with Lane and Naveah with Monroe popping in occasionally. The match didn’t work at all and got a mercy point just because Lane helped it have a bit of direction.
The battle royal was a mess of epic porportions. It was fought under Rumble-style rules with a new person coming out every minute. The most notable competitors in the match were Kimera, Drake Younger, Aaron Williams, Jake Crist, Gregory Iron, Dustin Rayz, and Dick Rick, with the rest of it was laden with low level people I’ve never heard of or seen before or since. The big problem was a lot of these guys looked almost the same and every guy came out to some type of thrash metal music. The highlight of the entire thing was the stuff between Kimera and Drake early in the bout where they threw some good punches and did a brawl down the aisle with a chair. The rest of the bout was just the guys throwing weak forearms to each others back which I got tired of really quick.
Next bout was one that I was looking forward to. This was Moxley just as he was starting to come in to his crazy character he is today. Really weird to see Hero sporting the bell bottoms here. Moxley’s vocals were great, just vocalizing everything either on selling or on offense. Really nice to see that. Hero just cruised through this aside from one big bump over the corner to the floor. I wonder what his logic was in doing that crazy bump in front of only a few dozen people? Match started to pick up near the end with a few good near fall spots, including one where Hero kicked out an Mox yelled something along the lines of “I’m going to break your neck” but it was hard to decipher. I thought the match ended too quick once the pace started quickening but overall I thought it was a decent bout. Probably could’ve benefitied from a louder crowd, though, as during the majority of the match, you could hear a mouse fart the crowd was so quiet.
Three way tag was pretty fun. I still don’t understand why HWA can afford a custom heavyweight title belt but then has crappy WCW world title replica belts masquerading as tag team titles. The crowd woke up a bit for this one as a few people tried to get a chant for the Naptown Dragons going. Osirian Portal is always a favorite team of mine to watch, especially since I’ve been getting into CHIKARA and Ophidian is just so damn good in character. Speaking of Ophidian, he was just bumping around for everyone like crazy and was probably the saving grace of the whole match. He made Vu’s tolerable offense acceptable and Lee’s awful offense tolerable. There was the typical indy spot where all the small guys dove onto everybody. Scotty’s moonsault looked acceptable but the thing that bugged me was that when he landed on his feet, he tried to excite the crowd by yelling for them to cheer. Finish was a good lung blower/backwards slam combo from the GP Code. Nothing too out of the ordinary here.
Main was Nigel and Whitmer for the HWA Title. Whitmer was the default heel because he was managed by SW Ohio indy fed troll Brock Guffman, who was sporting a goofy shirt, gym shorts, and crocs. Really dog? You’ve made a career of jumping from fed to fed in Cincinnati and that’s the best shit you can afford? Nigel and B.J. worked a decent 13-minute bout with Nigel doing all his regular spots and B.J. wrestling as if he would rather be anywhere else than in the ring. I thought the nearfall where Nigel hit one of his finishers and B.J. got his foot on the ropes was really good, probably the best nearfall of the match. I hated the end with a ref bump and a goofy Dusty finish where Nigel got the pin but then suddenly the original ref woke up and acted like he saw Nigel hit B.J. with the belt. Really bad way to end a pretty bland show.
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