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205 Live Results - July 16, 2019

Posted: 18 Jul 2019 01:11 AM PDT https://wrestlingrumors.net/tommyhall/205-live-results-july-16-2019/


205 Live

Date: July 16, 2019

Location: DCU Center, Worcester, Massachusetts

Commentators: Aiden English, Nigel McGuinness, Vic Joseph

Extreme Rules has come and gone and that means Drew Gulak is still the Cruiserweight Champion, having defeated Tony Nese to retain the title. That means we need to pick up the pace before we get to Summerslam in less than
four weeks. Gulak needs a fresh challenger and we might be on our way to finding one. Let’s get to it.

The opening video looks at Gulak vs. Nese from Sunday.

Gulak says Tony dared to doubt him but now there is no doubt. His name is
Drew Gulak and welcome to his 205 Live.

Opening sequence.
Akira Tozawa vs. Samir Singh

The Singhs want to give Tozawa the Bollywood Award for Best Comeback. Singh stomps him down into the corner to start and there are the swiveling hips. Tozawa stomps right back but a drop toehold sends him face first into the buckle. The chinlock goes on rather early but Tozawa is up in a hurry with
a fireman’s carry for a unique counter. Tozawa kicks him to the floor and cannonballs off the apron to drop Singh again. Back in and Sunil tries a distraction, only to have Tozawa catch Samir running in and grab a sunset
flip for the pin at 3:04.

Result: Akira Tozawa b. Samir Singh Sunset flip (3:04)

Post match the Brothers jump Tozawa but Brian Kendrick makes the save.
Tozawa takes the Bollywood Award with him.

Thats downright theft:

[This post contains video, click to play]
We get part two of the Humberto Carrillo interview, this time talking about
his first year in WWE. There have been a lot of changes in the last year
and one of his early goals was to keep the lucha libre tradition. Now he
wants the Cruiserweight Title.
Mike Kanellis vs. Jackson James

Mike is on his own here as Maria is watching in the back. A boot to the
face drops James at the bell and there’s a spinebuster to follow it up.
Mike hits a pair of hard clotheslines and the swinging neckbreaker
faceplant finishes James at 1:40.

Result: Mike Kanellis b. Jackson James Swinging neckbreaker faceplant
(1:40)

Post match Mike stomps away even more and says Drake Maverick can keep
bringing the fines because this isn’t changing. Drake comes out and says
Mike needs to take a look in the mirror because Mike is the one responsible
for his place here. Does he think he’s more deserving of a spot than the people who have built this brand?

Mike brings up Drake embarrassing himself in the hotel room with his wife
and all the time that Drake has spent chasing the 24/7 Title in his
underwear. Drake needs to go home and beg his wife for forgiveness because he’s not acting like a real man. A real man wouldn’t let Mike call their wife a filthy….and there’s a right hand to Mike’s face and a dropkick to send him to the floor. Mike smiles as he leaves.

This actually is personal:

[This post contains video, click to play]
We look back at last week’s wild Ariya Daivari vs. Oney Lorcan match with Lorcan superplexing him through some tables for the win.
Jack Gallagher vs. Chad Gable

Rematch from over a month ago where Gable won via countout (and maybe by accident). After a handshake, Gable takes him to the mat to start but
Gallagher is right back up with a wristlock. An early chinlock doesn’t do much for Gable as Gallagher gets up again and spins back into the second wristlock early on. More spins keep Gable confused.

We get the headlock takeover into the headscissors sequence a few times
until Gallagher snaps off a good armdrag to make Gable’s eyebrows go up. Gallagher is right back on the arm but Gable jumps for an armdrag of his
own into an armbar to put Gallagher down for a change. Another armbar from Gallagher is reversed with a British Bulldog deadlift and Gallagher bounces hard off the mat. One heck of a belly to belly gives Gable two more and
it’s time to start in on Gallagher’s knee.

A hard dragon screw legwhip sets up a standing leglock and Gallagher is in trouble. His leg is fine enough for a dropkick. The delayed vertical suplex gets two on Gable and Gallagher busts out a Kimura of all things. Gable
gets out so Gallagher sends him outside for a whip into the barricade. The suicide dive doesn’t work on Gable for some reason as Gallagher bounces off of him and gets suplexed on the floor, just like last time.

Gable doesn’t want it that way and throws Gallagher back inside, where it’s a small package to give Gallagher two. Gallagher is right back in trouble
with an ankle lock into a grapevine but he manages a rope. The rolling
Liger kick stuns Gallagher, who bounces back with a headbutt for two and they’re both down.

They slug it out with Gallagher getting the better of it (ignore the camera catching the tarped off side of the arena) but charging into a sitout
Dominator for two more. Gable’s moonsault hits raised feet and Gallagher’s running corner dropkick gets two as Gable gets a foot on the rope. Gable
goes up but Gallagher, with a big bruise on his upper thigh, tries a belly
to back superplex. That’s reversed into a crossbody to crush Gallagher and it’s Rolling Chaos Theory to finish Gallagher at 16:10.

Result: Chad Gable b. Jack Gallagher Rolling Chaos Theory (16:10)

Its an instant classic:

[This post contains video, click to play]
Post match Gable lets Gallagher have the ring for a bow to end the show.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen
over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since
2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his Amazon author page with 28
wrestling books. His latest book is the History Of In Your House.

Get the latest and greatest in professional wrestling news by signing up
for our daily email newsletter. Just look below for GET EXCLUSIVE UPDATES
to sign up. We are proud to offer our popular Wrestling Rumors app and encourage you to download it for an optimized user experience. It is
available for Android and also on iOS. Thank you for reading!

The post 205 Live Results July 16, 2019 appeared first on
WrestlingRumors.net.


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KBs Review: Beast Mode Is Back And Thats How It Should Be

Posted: 17 Jul 2019 11:11 PM PDT https://wrestlingrumors.net/tommyhall/kbs-review-beast-mode-back-thats/


Bear with me on this one. Earlier this week, Brock Lesnar cashed in his
Money in the Bank briefcase to win the Universal Title for the third time. Given that there have been eight champions, that’s quite a bit of
dominance, especially when the title is only about three years old and
Lesnar has held the title for about five hundred days more than anyone
else. All that being said, Lesnar winning the title back at Extreme Rules
was the right call and the only one the company could have realistically
made.

Let’s get one thing out of the way first: I don’t like this either. Lesnar winning the title back feels like going with the safe route that we’ve been down for years now. It’s annoying, it doesn’t help get us anywhere new and it’s another case where the stars that have been built up are shoved to the back for the sake of going with another old school star. Oh and how
awesome is it going to be to have an absentee champion again after just
three months of a full time one?

At the end of the day though, it makes the most sense to put the title back
on him. Lesnar has certain attributes that make it hard to go with someone else and while that might not be the best thing for the hardcore fan, it
makes a lot of sense from the company, which is going to make the decision
that works for them business wise. That’s what we’re going to take a look at today: why Lesnar is champion again and some of the positives that come
from it.

First and foremost, Lesnar is one of the few real stars that the company
has left. You can point to whatever reasons you want (and there are a ton
of them) about how WWE needs to create more stars and how this doesn’t make the problem any better, but there is little denying Lesnar’s status. He comes off as one of the biggest deals the company has to offer for all
kinds of reasons.

How can you not dig this guy:
[This post contains video, click to play]


You can attribute it to his UFC background, his size and power, his look,
the way he’s been protected, his history or whatever else, but Lesnar feels more important than anyone else. You know as soon as that music hits that something is about to go down and it isn’t likely to be good. That
reaction when the music hits is what makes fans want to see what Lesnar is doing and it’s severely lacking from almost anyone else (Maybe they need better music?) and Lesnar has that quality in spades.

To tie into that, and probably top it in a lot of ways, WWE needs something
to give them a shot in the arm. I know Lesnar feels like the safe bet, but what they were doing with Seth Rollins pretty clearly was not working. You
can blame that on a lot of things (pick any two of the following: Baron
Corbin feud, Rollins not being all that interesting, the Becky Lynch story,
a lack of good heels, having Lesnar looming over him less than two months
after beating him, BURN IT DOWN having no meaning and still being called
the Beastslayer when the Beast is right there) but there isn’t much of a
way around it.

Lesnar is just a bigger deal and someone that is going to draw more
interest than anyone else they can focus on. Now that he has the title
again, WWE can go about taking the title from him and building up the next
big thing as a result. Now given their track record so far, I don’t see
that as going well, but it’s a blueprint they’re familiar with and they can at least give it a good shot. Assuming they don’t go with Rollins or Roman Reigns again (This time for EXTRA sure!), they might be able to make a new
star so they don’t have to focus so much on Lesnar and we can finally break this cycle once and for all.

That’s what it really comes back to: WWE needs the star power to get fans interested again, as they seem to have either given up on or are incapable
of drawing in an audience with interesting stories and quality
storytelling. Instead it’s the usual quick fix of showing off older stars (like with next week’s Raw Reunion, because the idea works) and that’s where Lesnar fits in as both a current and former star.

At the same time, remember that the FOX move is coming a lot sooner than
you might have realized. There isn’t much time left to cover things as we move closer to the October 4 start date and WWE had to do something.
SmackDown Live’s ratings, as well as Monday Night Raw’s, are down and if you put interest in the Monday show, the Tuesday one is likely to follow.
WWE needed to do something to calm down the FOX and USA executives and this probably their best bet in the mid range term.

Maybe he could be a star:
[This post contains video, click to play]


The other major reason to put the title back on Lesnar is the anticipation
of him showing up. With the roster being as huge as it is and with as much television time as they have to fill every week, there are only so many
people who haven’t been seen to death. That certainly isn’t the case with Lesnar, who wrestles a handful of times a year. He still feels like a
special attraction, which just goes back to the star power deal all over
again: Lesnar feels different because he is different in so many ways, including not having been run into the ground by trotting him out there for
a match every single week.

On a more personal note, the move gets rid of the eternally annoying Money
in the Bank briefcase only about two months after it was put into action in
the first place. Now that everyone else doesn’t have Lesnar hovering over them with the briefcase, it might actually seem like some of them matter a little bit more and aren’t just the middle management villain of the month.

Consider Corbin (I know, I know). How much of a threat was he when it was
all about who won the title and got to deal with Lesnar and the briefcase? You’re not going to get very far with that as your main selling point. “When I win the title, I can come up with all new ways to cower before
Lesnar and avoid him cashing in on me!.” That doesn’t quite the have best ring in the world but at least now people can come after the title instead
of having it and then treating Lesnar like the monster in their closet at night. If you have someone who feels like a top villain, they could go somewhere, but that wasn’t working with the briefcase around.

You cant see this enough:
[This post contains video, click to play]


Finally, you now have the easy layup of a rematch between Lesnar and
Rollins at Summerslam. Since there is so little time between Extreme Rules
and Summerslam and the regimes are changing anyway, there is a lot of logic
to going with a rematch for the title instead of trying to put in some big match that hasn’t had the time to be fleshed out. As has been the case
with a lot of the issues with the whole situation, this might not be the
most interesting choice in the world (I wasn’t exactly thrilled with it either) but it makes the most sense given the situation that everyone is currently in.

Overall, Lesnar winning the title again might not be the most fun thing in
the world, but it’s what makes the most sense considering where we are at
the moment. You can list off probably a dozen reasons why that is a major problem for WWE (and it certainly is), but there is little denying that
Lesnar is the biggest star they have at the moment. Putting the title back
on him isn’t going to fix all of their problems, but it’s going to be the safest pick they can have. Until WWE fixes their long term issues, get
used to being in Beast Mode.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen
over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his Amazon author page with 28
wrestling books. His latest book is the History Of In Your House.

Get the latest and greatest in professional wrestling news by signing up
for our daily email newsletter. Just look below for GET EXCLUSIVE UPDATES
to sign up. We are proud to offer our popular Wrestling Rumors app and encourage you to download it for an optimized user experience. It is
available for Android and also on iOS. Thank you for reading!

The post KBs Review: Beast Mode Is Back And Thats How It Should Be appeared first on WrestlingRumors.net.


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REVIEW: Major League Wrestling One Shot: How To Start A New Company Which
Is Old But New Again

Posted: 17 Jul 2019 11:01 PM PDT https://wrestlingrumors.net/tommyhall/review-major-league-wrestling-one-shot-start-new-company-old-new/


Welcome to KB’s Old School (and New School) Reviews. I’ve been reviewing wrestling shows for over ten years now and have reviewed over 5,000 shows. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I’ll be posting a new review here on Wrestlingrumors.net, starting today. It could be anything from modern WWE
to old school to indies to anything in between. Note that I rate using
letters instead of stars and I don’t rate matches under three minutes as really, how good or bad can something that short be?
MLW One Shot

Date: October 5, 2017

Location: Gilt Nightclub, Orlando, Florida

Attendance: 200

Commentators: Rich Bocchini, Tony Schiavone
So every week, I’ve been covering the MLW TV show called Fusion. The thing is, the TV show wasn’t the first iteration of the (reincarnated version of the) promotion as they also had a bunch of stand alone events. I might as
well knock off that handful of shows as well, starting here with their
return event. Let’s get to it.
Opening sequence, which is just a bunch of clips.
Tama Tonga vs. Martin Stone
Stone is NXT’s Danny Burch. Tonga (of Bullet Club) jumps him during the referee’s weapons check (points for having one of those) and pounds away, only to have Stone come back with a quick suplex. Tony mentions Stone
mocking the Bullet Club with some hand gestures, which just makes me
confused about Tony knowing what the Bullet Club is. An armdrag gets Tonga
out of trouble and he pulls Stone off the apron to make things even worse.
Some forearms to the face put Stone on the floor where Tonga grabs a fan’s beer for some refreshment.
Back in and Stone gets driven hard into the corner but comes right back out with a middle rope dropkick. Stone starts striking away as well but makes
the mistake of headbutting a Tongan. Something like a reverse Cross Rhodes gives Tonga two and they botch what looked to be a lawn dart into the
corner. An Alabama Slam gets two more (shades of Cody for a nice touch) and
the Gun Stun (RKO) finishes Stone at 6:48.
Rating: C-. Not much to see here as it’s really just a match between two international guys that you might have heard of. Stone is an NXT guy but it makes sense to have the New Japan guy win here. The Bullet Club is the
biggest deal outside of WWE in wrestling at the moment and giving them a
win, even if it’s just in a one off appearance, it makes sense.
Stone gets a nice ovation.
Mike Parrow/Saieve Al Sabah vs. Seth Petruzelli/Rhett Giddins
Parrow is a monster, Petruzelli is the NXT striking coach and a former MMA fighter and the others are unknowns. Giddins, a big old guy in his own
right, stares Parrow down to start and punches him in the jaw for good
measure. Parrow tells him to bring it and we’ve got an old fashioned hoss fight. A Rough Ryder puts Parrow down so he German suplexes Giddins near
the ropes in a crash that could have looked better. Al Sabah comes in and
gets hit in the face as well, meaning it’s off to Seth (Like I’m typing that last name over and over.) for a running knee to the face.
Parrow isn’t cool with this standing still and powerbombs Seth into the corner to take over. The heels keep working Seth over as the announcers are trying to find something to talk about here as there’s no story and we don’t really know anything about anyone in the match. Seth kicks Al Sabah away and hits something like a Sliced Bread on Parrow, allowing the
hot(ish) tag to Giddins. A cutter gets two on Al Sabah and everything
breaks down. Al Sabah misses a moonsault and gets pulled into a cross armbreaker to give Seth the submission at 5:35.
Rating: D+. All four looked fine but there was no chemistry and not much of
a story going on. In other words, it felt like a tag match that was thrown
onto the card as a way to get everyone on the card and there’s nothing
wrong with that. The four of them could be fine with some better direction
but there’s only so much you can get when no one has a character or any
sort of a character.
Post match Parrow powerbombs Al Sabah for a great looking bounce.
The announcers plug the MLW Radio network.
Maxwell Jacob Friedman vs. Jimmy Yuta
Friedman is a less toned and tanned EC3. Before the match, he has a speech
for us in case we’re deaf, dumb blind or poor. I’m not sure what the point of this is if they’re deaf but wrestling heels have a tendency to be
stupid. Yuta, a pretty standard looking cruiserweight, grabs a rollup for
an early two and they wrestle to the mat for a standoff. That’s enough to make Friedman want a handshake but Yuta is smart enough to be ready for the kick to the ribs. Friedman: “PUT THE FOOT DOWN!”
Yuta obliges and goes with a springboard armdrag instead. The nitwited
referee gets in Yuta’s way though and Friedman forearms him in the face to take over. Friedman starts in on the arm with an armdrag of his own but
stops to yell at the fans a bit. Yuta fights up for a nice high crossbody
and a double springboard hurricanrana sends Friedman face first into the
middle buckle in a good looking crash.
They head to the corner but Yuta’s arm gives out again, allowing Friedman
to come off with a hard stomp to bang it up even further. A pumphandle
driver (ala Pentagon) gets two and Friedman freaks at the kickout. Yuta
takes him down for some terrible right hands so Friedman claims a broken
jaw. The goldbricking allows a low blow and the small package gives
Friedman the pin at 6:41.
Rating: D. Friedman is a good heel character but everything else about him
is kind of a stretch. He doesn’t have a great look and while his talking is fine, it’s not exactly a complete package. Then again, anything would be better than more of Yuta’s right hands, which really did look terrible. I mean, not Shane McMahon but still not exactly acceptable.
UFC fighter Tom Lawlor is ready to face Olympic wrestler Jeff Cobb. As
usual, Lawlor is a rather solid talker.
Barrington Hughes vs. Markos Espada
Hughes is well over 400lbs and barely fits in his singlet. A corner splash before the bell is good for the pin on Espada at 7 seconds.
We see the replay of the full match multiple times.
Ricochet knows Shane Strickland is good, but he’s not Ricochet good. Strickland doesn’t like the lack of respect from Ricochet, who he’s known for a long time. Ricochet said “who” when asked about Strickland on Twitter and Strickland wants to kick him in the mouth. Not bad for an angle for a
one off show actually.
Darby Allin vs. Jason Cade
Allin has half of his face painted white for a demonic look. He sits in the corner ala Raven before the bell but pulls himself up ala Diamond Dallas
Page to start things off. A springboard out of a lockup (that’s a new one) takes Cade down so he hits Allin in the face instead. Allin takes him down
by the arm and flips over into a Fujiwara armbar. Back up and a high angle springboard armdrag keeps Cade in trouble as Allin is doing some nice high flying to start.
Cade’s comeback puts Allin on the floor and there’s the required big flip dive. Back in and we hear about Norman Smiley’s amazing training abilities, unfortunately with the hardcore stuff included. Allin shows off again with
a springboard off the bottom rope into a crossbody to a seated Cade. A Codebreaker gets Cade out of trouble but Allin just dives at him to knock
Cade off the apron in a big crash.
Tony brings up the apron being the hardest part of the ring, but this is different: theirs is EVEN HARDER than most aprons! Well what in the world
are they supposed to do now? How could they possibly survive??? Back in and Cade gets two off a fisherman’s buster and a Death Valley Driver into the corner gets the same. Those are some big moves to only get two each. Cade’s Five Star hits knees and Allin grabs something like a twisted Figure Four
but spins around and lays back on Cade (the Last Supper) for the pin at
8:33.
Rating: C+. Allin felt like someone who is trying to be revolutionary and
does have a bunch of unique looking stuff but it wasn’t anything that blew
me away. The face paint made me think more “another one of these guys” than anything else, which isn’t the best thing in the world. Cade was a fine
high flier but I’ve seen him do far better than this.
Video of Ricochet….shopping? He’s a big shoe fan and apparently this show is a fan of vignettes instead of more wrestling. Strickland on the other
hand is training more and more.
Larry Zbyszko is in the crowd.
Mia Yim vs. Santana Garrett
Santana is in the Wonder Woman style gear, which is starting to lose some
of its charm. A headlock takeover is countered into a headscissors to give
Mia some control for a good two seconds. Some rollups get one each as it’s
a fast paced technical start. Double nipups give us a standoff and Mia is looking impressed for the first time. A Russian legsweep gives Garrett two
but Mia cranks it up a bit with a kick to the head.
Mia goes full heel here, despite the fans seemingly being behind her, by
raking the eyes and then kicking Garrett in the back. Garrett gets in some forearms but another kick to the back puts her down all over again. Yim
slaps on a surfboard for some painful looking stretching and Garrett can
barely sit up after the hold is broken. The cockiness sets in though and
it’s Garrett getting back up, with stereo kicks to the face giving us a double knockdown.
Back up and Garrett wins a slugout, followed by a tornado DDT for a pretty close two. A handspring elbow into a horrible bulldog gets two more with commentary acknowledging that it wasn’t going to be enough. Yim is right
back up with a German suplex but Garrett pulls her off the top. A
handspring moonsault is enough to give Garrett the pin at 12:28.
Rating: C. Both of them are very talented and that made for a good match
here. Yim going heel here was the better way to go as she can play the role naturally, even if the fans were read to cheer for her. Garrett is someone
who could be a big star in one of the major promotions but for some reason
it has never quite clicked. It’s not like she doesn’t have a lot of time to go somewhere though.
We look at Hughes’ win again, this time with a clock. That’s a gimmick that has worked before and it can work again here.
MLW will be back with Never Say Never.
Tom Lawlor vs. Jeff Cobb
Lawlor is a former UFC fighter and has a pair of goons with him. Cobb
(better known as Lucha Underground’s Matanza) on the other hand was an Olympic wrestler who has put on about 70lbs of muscle since his amateur
days. They go to the mat to start with Lawlor being outwrestled, which
seems to come as quite the surprise.
Cobb takes him to the mat again but this time Lawlor reverses into a front facelock. They get up and Lawlor starts boxing, which is way beyond Cobb’s abilities and a rather smart idea. Cobb goes back to what works with a heck
of a suplex and then puts Lawlor on top for an impressive dropkick. A very delayed superplex gets an also delayed two on Lawlor so Cobb hits a
moonsault but his standing shooting star is pulled down into a guillotine. Lawlor switches into a cross armbreaker but Cobb is too close to the ropes.
A suplex puts Lawlor down as Cobb is bleeding from the nose. They both get
up and it’s Lawlor winning a slugout before trying the cross armbreaker again. Cobb powers out again, but Lawlor reverses into a rollup for the pin
at 9:27.
Rating: C+. The more I watch this promotion, the more I’m getting behind
the concept of their TV show. The show is called Fusion, with the name
talking about all the different styles coming together. That’s what we saw here, with a wrestler against an MMA fighter, which made for a fun match. Lawlor has been the highlight of the promotion since it came back and this
was a great starting point. Cobb is a talented guy who hasn’t gotten the
big break yet, at least outside of Lucha Underground.
A replay shows Lawlor either raking the eyes or rubbing something on Cobb’s face like a good cheater should. Post match, Team Filthy gets in the ring
to hold up a poster of Lawlor’s sponsors, including a condom company.
Lawlor says that he won the match so the fans can keep their mouths shut. He’ll be looking for the top challengers and wants to face the top UFC name around here in Matt Riddle.
Sami Callihan has no comment. The interviewer acts like it’s a surprise to see Callihan, even though the announcers said we were going to him. Eh
chalk it up to a first show mistake.
Sami Callihan vs. MVP
Sami is in jeans and throws some chairs into the ring to start. During
MVP’s entrance, Callihan sits in a chair at ringside and throws a beer at him. Sami tries a cheap shot during the entrances so MVP kicks him to the
floor and hits a dive. So he doesn’t respond well to being jumped from behind.
Back in and MVP crossfaces him a few times but Sami gets in a clothesline
to take it back outside. The required suicide dive takes MVP down again and Sami buries him underneath a pile of chairs. They both have a seat in some
of the chairs and slug it out for a little twist on the trope. A suplex
puts MVP onto the chairs and Sami shouts a lot, followed by a pull of the
ear.
MVP is back up fast enough to send him head first into a chair and boots
him in the face for good measure. Another boot with Sami in a chair has him down as I wonder how high the referee’s count should be at so far. Sami
pulls the referee in front of another kick and gets in a chair shot….before telling the referee to start counting. There’s something funny about
counting after they’ve been brawling for five minutes.
MVP rolls back in so Callihan tries a Ballin splash but hits knees. Another slugout goes to MVP and now the Ballin elbow connects. Callihan’s knee to
the head looks to set up the Stretch Muffler but MVP is next to the ropes.
MVP slaps away and grabs a fisherman’s suplex for the pin at 11:59.
Rating: C. The ending was a little flat with such a simple wrestling move ending the brawl but the intensity on the way to the finish makes up for
the problems. It makes sense to have Callihan stick with the brawling
instead of trying to have a match and this was very well suited to his
style. Not a great match, but a good fight.
Post match MVP is in the back being happy with his win when a woman comes
up and offers him a business card.
One more video on Ricochet vs. Shane Strickland, including some praise for Ricochet from Dave Meltzer. They both want to push each other but they
might not be friends after this match.
Ricochet vs. Shane Strickland
I know Ricochet is the bigger star but Strickland carries himself like a
star in his own right and that makes for a special feeling. We get the Big Match Intros and the announcer actually gives a description of their appearance. Good idea if the people don’t know these guys. Ricochet takes
him into the corner for a friendly slap to the chest, suggesting that they
have a lot of time to work with here.
Strickland tries to do the same thing but Ricochet slips out to the apron
in a pretty smart move. Back in and Shane takes it to the mat by tying up Shane’s legs. That’s reversed into an armbar as Tony talks about JR teaching him to strive to be the best, which is true of wrestlers as well. Ricochet pulls him by the long hair (not the best feature for a wrestler to have) and they get up, with Shane untying his hair.
The tie is flicked at Ricochet and you KNOW it’s on now. They hit the “you can’t touch me” sequence with a series of flips and misses, including the Benadryller (fireman’s carry into a kick to the head) being dodged off a
nip up. Ricochet is stunned so Shane sits down and tells him to bring it.
Back up and Shane punches him in the face as the match shifts gears in a
hurry.
Ricochet accidentally rolls into an armbar and Shane goes even harder by pulling Ricochet’s arm back with his leg. A stomp to the arm gives us a cringe inducing sound and we hit a modified Rings of Saturn. Ricochet gets
up and grabs the rope so Shane kicks him in the bad arm to cut him off
again. One heck of a running dropkick knocks Shane into the ropes, earning Ricochet a nice round of applause. A springboard flip splash crushes Shane
and Ricochet bends him around his back for another painful looking hold. Ricochet scores with a spinebuster and the People’s Moonsault (exactly what it sounds like) as Tony gives a good explanation of why Ricochet isn’t annoyed at the kickout (mind games instead of going for an actual pin). A
short DDT sends Shane flopping around on the mat for two more but he’s
right back up with the rolling cutter. Shane suplexes him into the corner
for two but misses a 619 to the ribs.

[continued in next message]

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