Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Best of HWA 2004 (Disc 2 of 2)

1) Shark Boy vs. Chad Collyer – 4
Collyer was working as the heel here and controlling the middle part of the bout. We get a BPW reference three minutes into the match by the announcer. Wow. That tells you how dated this is, that fed isn’t even around anymore. Collyer hit a hard clothesline in the corner and a nice spinebuster. The camera work is pretty shoddy, especially from the hard cam. Shark Boy had a rather lukewarm comeback with minimal crowd reaction (how much reaction can you really get though from a flea market crowd?) and the announcers just sort of ho-hum about the whole thing. Decently worked match but didn’t have that extra boost it needed to get to the next level.

2) Matt Stryker & Cody Hawk vs. Tracy Smothers & Chase Stevens – 4
Smothers was great in this match, just punching the shit out of both Hawk and Stryker. He even hit a nice leg lariat. Stryker got in a really nasty lungblower early in the bout. I can’t say much for Stevens as it seemed like he was just there to collect a check and didn’t put forth much effort. Stryker had a really good comeback towards the end for the face team but it just turned into a mess of legal man issues, ref distractions, and a botched pinfall .. none of which gel together efficiently. Fun match for Smothers’ involvement but aside from that, not much to see here.

3) Matt Dillenger vs. Rory Fox – 4
I was pretty surprised by this match. Mind you, it’s not a must see match but it’s been one of the better bouts on this entire set thus far. Dillenger’s offense looked good to start off with but it slowly fizzled out after he took a crazy belt shot and started bleeding. Right before said belt shot, Fox took a really nasty spill over the top rope. The one problem I had was that Dillenger’s comeback never really materialized. Granted, he did get a few moves in here and there but it wasn’t really a full-fledged comeback. Also, I didn’t buy the fact that this was a grudge match yet he tried a shooting star press in the middle of the bout. That felt really out of place. Beyond those quibbles, the match went along pretty well.

4) Rory Fox vs. Tack – 2
This was joined in progress and clipped so again I can only rate on what was shown, which was only about five minutes worth of what was probably a 15-20 minute match. The ref bump spot was completely and utterly telegraphed so bad that Ray Charles could have seen it coming. Tack did a crazy dive off a support beam to take out all the members of the Black Militia who were pounding on him. Finish was interference from Nigel, Cody Hawk, and another guy to give Tack the upset win.

5) A.J. Sparx vs. Madison – 2
The clipping continues with this bout. I hope this isn’t a recurring trend. Anyway, Madison I’ve never seen before but seemed to be pretty competent in the ring. I used to think A.J. Sparx was a decent wrestler but now I’ve changed my mind. Her forearms are really shitty and her offense is pretty bad as well. Not to mention, she came out with Hellena Heavenly who was dressed in pink pajama pants and looked like she literally just rolled out of bed. Not much to report here except for the fact that this seemed like a poor girls version of a WWE divas bout.

6) Hoss vs. Nigel McGuinness – 3
Didn’t seem like these two clicked very well in the ring together. Hoss looked like a shorter and fatter version of Matt Morgan in this bout. This also felt dirty. I mean really, two guys wrestling in t-shirts in a flea market on the main event of an indy show? Can’t get much lower than that. All the time Hoss was selling, it looked to me like he was trying to remember his next sequence. Nigel had to pretty much carry Hoss through the match which is more than likely the reason it came off flat. Crowd didn’t seem into it either nor did they pop for Hoss winning the title. Eh, pass on this one.

7) No DQ Match: Shaun Osbourne & Benjamin Kimera vs. Lotus & Crazy J (Special ref: Brock Guffman) – 3
Christ, the audio is completely fucked on this. It keeps skipping and the picture keeps freezing. The building is lighted like shit, which is terrible for when the camera is shooting the crowds brawls that were continually happening in this bout. At points, I couldn’t even make out who was fighting or what they were doing because the match was such a clusterfuck. As is the norm in indy hardcore bouts, chairs, trash cans, and guardrails were used at various points. When Lotus and Crazy J did their flippy moves, it was very out of place. Did I mention that Crazy J screwed up two moves in less than five minutes? The finish was dog shit with Guffman fast counting Kimera to give Lotus & Crazy J the win after Kimera was given a top-rope neckbreaker from a dude who looked much like T.J. Dalton with a face protector on.

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