Post by JAYD on Oct 28, 2004 13:28:23 GMT -5
Match one: Danny Daniels d. Eddie Kingston with a low blow and a piledriver. Pretty blah opener, though Kingston had some good comedy and they played their characters well. Kingston works well with guys like Hero and in tag matches, but this was pretty blah. *1/2
Match two: MsChif d. Mickie Knuckles and Tracy Brooks: Hard hitting women's match, but also very sloppy. *1/4
Match three: Nate Webb d. B-Boy: Good match, these guys work well together. The crowd didn't get into it that much, though, which is fairly disappointing. They didn't even get into Nate's entrance that much. **1/2 or so.
Match four: Madman Pondo and Cash Flo d. Corporal Robinson and 2 Tuff Tony in an elimination tables match. Just horrible. The final bump was okay, and Flo coming off the top through a table was decent, but the rest was just horrible, awful, terrible stuff. DUD, bordering on negative stars. After the match, Ian sets up Corp/Ian vs. Pondo/Tony next month, because Tony turns on Corp in this match. The whole segment is weird, as Pondo keeps laughing and doesn't seem to be taking anything seriously. Nothing about this was good.
Match five: Steve Stone d. JC Bailey with the Whiteout, an especially sick version this time of his Flatliner finisher. Fairly short, probably 5-6 minutes or so, and nothing too special, but nothing bad, either. *1/4
Match six: Arik Cannon d. Roderick Strong: A good hard hitting match, but I was really disappointed that this only went a little over 8 minutes. Lots of suplexes and strikes, so if you like that stuff you'll love this match. I really wish they gave them 15 minutes or more, though. **1/2
Match seven: Claudio Castagnoli d. Alex Shelley with a variation sleeper hold: Double C comes out in an aqua blue sui and tie and black pants. Wrestling in a sleeveless dress shirt and tie can't be fun. This is just a great 11-12 minute match, with tons of fun mat work, non-stop wrestling and action, and good selling, psychology, and pacing. I wish they got more time, but since they only had 11-12 minutes they just go non stop the whole way through, with very little wrestling. This is a super fun match, it'll be fun to watch it again. ***3/4
Match eight: AJ Styles d. Matt Sydal with a Styles Clash on the third or fourth try to hit it. Really good junior heavyweight style match. If you saw their match at Simply the Best 5, this is a lot like that, so if you liked that don't even worry about any star ratings, I guarantee you'll love this. The pacing is very fast, the selling and psychology is rather minimal, but the action is very fun and hard hitting. Sydal's spiked rana on Styles here is absolutely sick. The crowd absolutely loved it, so they obviously did something right! ***1/2
Match nine: 2/3 falls, Bryan Danielson and Chris Hero wrestled to a draw at 1 fall apiece. They stretch the s**t out of each other to start. Danielson gets the first fall with a nice pinning combination at 15:00. It's a really different match from the Highland one, as Hero is in control a lot more, and isn't blatantly outwrestled by Dragon like in that match. For the second fall they start to bring the hard strikes. Dragon works over Hero's left arm. Cannon comes to ringside to taunt Hero. Hero gets the second fall with a Hero's Welcome at 24:30, after Dragon had fought out of the Hangman's Clutch. The third fall they both take more chances. We see Dragon superplex Hero, and both guys miss top rope moves. Hero counters the Cattle Mutilation to the Hangman's Clutch which Dragon fights out of to an Indian deathlock/bridging chinlock submission. They then go to a double hangman's neckbreaker submission, and both men tap at the same time at 29:00. Really, really, REALLY good match with a slightly goofy ending. I wish it was in front of a hotter crowd, too. But this is the match everyone expected them to do in Highland, I think. Great stuff. ****1/4
Ian tells Danielson after the match that the next time he wrestles Hero, it'll be in a 60-minute Ironman match. The weird thing is that Danielson and Cannon are suddenly friends, and Danielson is playing the "chickens**t" heel. They could really use some backstage vignettes here to explain things, as all Dragon says is "me and Cannon are friends now" and something about Cannon promising him something.
Match ten: Petey Williams d. CM Punk with the sharpshooter to retain the IWA title: This went 20 minutes, and something was just missing from it. There was little/no psychology, as Petey didn't really work over Punk's back or legs or anything leading up to the submission victory. Punk did some nice stuff, but after the previous matches this one wasn't that great. They did work hard for 20 minutes, though. **1/4-**1/2
Match two: MsChif d. Mickie Knuckles and Tracy Brooks: Hard hitting women's match, but also very sloppy. *1/4
Match three: Nate Webb d. B-Boy: Good match, these guys work well together. The crowd didn't get into it that much, though, which is fairly disappointing. They didn't even get into Nate's entrance that much. **1/2 or so.
Match four: Madman Pondo and Cash Flo d. Corporal Robinson and 2 Tuff Tony in an elimination tables match. Just horrible. The final bump was okay, and Flo coming off the top through a table was decent, but the rest was just horrible, awful, terrible stuff. DUD, bordering on negative stars. After the match, Ian sets up Corp/Ian vs. Pondo/Tony next month, because Tony turns on Corp in this match. The whole segment is weird, as Pondo keeps laughing and doesn't seem to be taking anything seriously. Nothing about this was good.
Match five: Steve Stone d. JC Bailey with the Whiteout, an especially sick version this time of his Flatliner finisher. Fairly short, probably 5-6 minutes or so, and nothing too special, but nothing bad, either. *1/4
Match six: Arik Cannon d. Roderick Strong: A good hard hitting match, but I was really disappointed that this only went a little over 8 minutes. Lots of suplexes and strikes, so if you like that stuff you'll love this match. I really wish they gave them 15 minutes or more, though. **1/2
Match seven: Claudio Castagnoli d. Alex Shelley with a variation sleeper hold: Double C comes out in an aqua blue sui and tie and black pants. Wrestling in a sleeveless dress shirt and tie can't be fun. This is just a great 11-12 minute match, with tons of fun mat work, non-stop wrestling and action, and good selling, psychology, and pacing. I wish they got more time, but since they only had 11-12 minutes they just go non stop the whole way through, with very little wrestling. This is a super fun match, it'll be fun to watch it again. ***3/4
Match eight: AJ Styles d. Matt Sydal with a Styles Clash on the third or fourth try to hit it. Really good junior heavyweight style match. If you saw their match at Simply the Best 5, this is a lot like that, so if you liked that don't even worry about any star ratings, I guarantee you'll love this. The pacing is very fast, the selling and psychology is rather minimal, but the action is very fun and hard hitting. Sydal's spiked rana on Styles here is absolutely sick. The crowd absolutely loved it, so they obviously did something right! ***1/2
Match nine: 2/3 falls, Bryan Danielson and Chris Hero wrestled to a draw at 1 fall apiece. They stretch the s**t out of each other to start. Danielson gets the first fall with a nice pinning combination at 15:00. It's a really different match from the Highland one, as Hero is in control a lot more, and isn't blatantly outwrestled by Dragon like in that match. For the second fall they start to bring the hard strikes. Dragon works over Hero's left arm. Cannon comes to ringside to taunt Hero. Hero gets the second fall with a Hero's Welcome at 24:30, after Dragon had fought out of the Hangman's Clutch. The third fall they both take more chances. We see Dragon superplex Hero, and both guys miss top rope moves. Hero counters the Cattle Mutilation to the Hangman's Clutch which Dragon fights out of to an Indian deathlock/bridging chinlock submission. They then go to a double hangman's neckbreaker submission, and both men tap at the same time at 29:00. Really, really, REALLY good match with a slightly goofy ending. I wish it was in front of a hotter crowd, too. But this is the match everyone expected them to do in Highland, I think. Great stuff. ****1/4
Ian tells Danielson after the match that the next time he wrestles Hero, it'll be in a 60-minute Ironman match. The weird thing is that Danielson and Cannon are suddenly friends, and Danielson is playing the "chickens**t" heel. They could really use some backstage vignettes here to explain things, as all Dragon says is "me and Cannon are friends now" and something about Cannon promising him something.
Match ten: Petey Williams d. CM Punk with the sharpshooter to retain the IWA title: This went 20 minutes, and something was just missing from it. There was little/no psychology, as Petey didn't really work over Punk's back or legs or anything leading up to the submission victory. Punk did some nice stuff, but after the previous matches this one wasn't that great. They did work hard for 20 minutes, though. **1/4-**1/2