BRM Reviews Evolve 37

[Big Red Machine]

Evolve 37 (1/10/2015)- Winter Park, FL

OPENING SEGMENT- good
Anthony Nese announces that he has decided to accept SoCal Val’s offer from last night and Val will now be the new “Director of PR” for the Premier Athlete Brand. He tells Su Yung that she is being demoted to Val’s assistant and must do everything Val says. Su is obviously unhappy with this.

SHANE STRICKLAND vs. ANTHONY NESE (w/Su Yung, Caleb Konley & SoCal Val)- 6.5/10
On commentary, Ron Niemi is already pitching ideas for vignettes of Val and Su. Nese wins a good, athletic, 99.9% clean match. Val’s abuse of Su Yung on the outside was very entertaining (which sounds terrible now that I say it out loud).

RODERICK STRONG vs. TIMOTHY THATCHER- 7.25/10
On his way to the ring, Roddy was “nice” enough to check on Heather Lynn, who accidentally ate a Drew Galloway boot last night when Roddy moved out of the way. “Nice” is in quotes because Lenny Leonard made it perfectly clear that Roddy was being disingenuous. Said boot resulted in Heather having both a shiner and a concussion, which are preventing her from doing her job as ring announcer. Thankfully, Joanna Rose from the UK just happened to be around this weekend, so we’ve got the ring announcing covered.
Roddy also explained to us that EVOLVE officials have told him and Drew McIntyre that if they touch each other tonight they will both be fined their entire weekend’s pay. He said he doesn’t want that to happen because, unlike Drew, Roddy doesn’t wrestle for free. Roddy then said he would show Thatcher what a great pro wrestler looks like tossed the mic at Thatcher’s chest. This was all pretty good, and I thought that Roddy handled the heckling crowd extremely well, especially considered that he’s… you know… Roddy.
They had a great technical match with Roddy working the back, as is his custom. Thatcher picked up the submission victory via armbar in a finish that felt like it came pretty much out of nowhere.

TIMOTHY THATCHER PROMO- last time EVOLVE was in Florida, Thatcher won the Style Battle Tournament, but then got jumped by Chris Hero, so he wants EVOLVE to book him against Hero at one of the WrestleMania weekend shows.

AR FOX vs. TREVOR LEE- no rating.
The match ended pretty quickly due to Fox suffering an injury. It wasn’t apparent what it was (Lenny Leonard told us it was an eye injury), but he was bleeding pretty badly from someone on his face.

UHAA NATION vs. BIFF BUSICK- 6.25/10
This was pretty all over the place. If there was a really story here, it was pretty incoherent. It didn’t help that right before the finish they did one of my all-time least favorite spots (where one guy hits a superplex but the guy who got superplexed immediately snags his legs with his own and rolls into a small package. It makes the superplex worse than pointless), so I wasn’t at all into it once they went to the finish.

BIFF BUSICK PROMO- a nice follow-up to Thatcher’s promo.
He notes that while Hero laid Thatcher out the last time they were in an EVOLVE ring together, the last time Hero and Busick were in an EVOLVE ring together, Hero turned tail and ran. Now Biff says that he wants to one-up Thatcher. He is challenging Hero to a match WrestleMania weekend, but unlike Thatcher, he is going to beat Hero.

EVOLVE TITLE MATCH: Drew Galloway(c) vs. Ricochet- 7.5/10
Ricochet jumped Drew with kick to the head at the beginning of the match, trying to steal a quick win. This not-so-clean tactic resulted in the match being quite heated, including a good brawl on the outside and then Ricochet focusing on Drew’s injured finger. The finish saw Drew take a swing at Ricochet which caught him in the eye (apparently with the splint o Drew’s finger, too). Drew swore it wasn’t intentional, but that didn’t stop him from following up on it with both a Claymore and the Future Shock DDT. Ricochet wanted no part of any post-match handshake.

LOSING TEAM CAN NEVER TEAM AGAIN: Moose & The Bravado Brothers vs. Ronin (Johnny Gargano, Rich Swann, & Chuck Taylor)- 6.75/10
Pretty underwhelming, considering the circumstances.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Gargano cut a promo in which he revised his promo from last night. Last night he claimed that he was the “Face of the WWN,” but now he has come to realize that all of the hard-working wrestlers are the face of the WWN.
Then he said that he would do whatever he could to ensure that his DGUSA Open the Freedom Gate Title was viewed as the most prestigious in the world, so he was going to make an open challenge for WrestleMania weekend. EVOLVE Champion Drew Galloway came out and said that he agreed with everything Johnny said except that it’s the EVOLVE Title that is the really the top title in the WWN because DGUSA is dead.

An okay show from EVOLVE. In the ring it was quite below the usual standard for EVOLVE (especially what they would go on to do the rest of the year and into 2016), but there were quite a few important storyline developments, so it is worth checking out for that reason, although I will say that if you are already familiar with the EVOLVE product and are looking for past shows to watch, none of these storyline developments are things that you really need to see for yourself. They’re more just things it is important to be aware of.