BRM Reviews Style Battle Season 1 Finale (very disappointing)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews Style Battle Season 1 Finale (very disappointing)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 23rd, '18, 19:55

Style Battle Season 1 Finale (4/7/2018)- Kenner, LA

We start off being told that Season 1, Episode 1 winner Dave Crist is “unable to compete” on today’s show (read as: he’s working elsewhere) so he is being replaced by Snoop Strikes. Other replacements include Keith Lee, Nick Gage, and A.R. Fox, who are replacing Jon Davis, Fred Yehi, and the just injured yesterday Darby Allin. Not having four of your eight winners in what is supposed to be tournament of tournament winners is not a good start (and even ignoring Darby’s injury, missing three guys is still a lot).

FIRST ROUND MATCH: A.R. Fox vs. Tracer X- 6.75/10
They had a good, athletic match, but I really didn’t like Fox wining just because he was a replacement in the tournament. I’m sure there might have been booking reasons that made a Fox win necessary (especially if Tracer X isn’t working for WWN anymore, which he doesn’t appear to be doing), but that doesn’t make it feel a little odd that the guy who was a replacement gets booked to beat the guy who was actually won a tournament in this “tournament of tournament winners” concept show.

A.R. FOX PROMO- good

FIRST ROUND MATCH: Anthony Henry vs. Jason Kincaid- 8/10
Henry won a hell of hybrid wrestling match/brawl.

ANTHONY HENRY PROMO- good

FIRST ROUND MATCH: Snoop Strikes vs. Matt Riddle- 6.5/10
The announcers noted that this was Riddle’s NINTH MATCH THIS WEEKEND. I’m sure there are others who are around that number, and have been in past years), but I don’t ever remember the announcers making a big deal out of it as a kayfabe point… which it makes even more sense than usual to do here because if he wants to win this tournament he’ll have to wrestle even more tonight (well… I guess it’s possible that both the other bracket’s semifinal and the Lee vs. Gage match could go to a draw or some other form of double elimination, but I think that’s highly unlikely).
Snoop took it to Riddle right away, hoping to catch him off guard. It worked for a bit but Riddle was able to catch him with a German Suplex, cutting him off. These guys had a great little “established star vs. hungry underdog” match that was excellent for the time it got and did a good job of raising Snoop Strikes’ standing in my eyes even in defeat.

MATT RIDDLE PROMO- very good

FIRST ROUND MATCH: Keith Lee vs. Nick Gage- 4/10
Gage jumped Lee from behind while Lee was taking his jacket off. He then tried to bite Lee’s ear. They had a brawl that, while intense, also managed to feel kind of drab. They had a “did he get the shoulder up in time” nearfall, then did one on the finish as well, resulting in Gage getting upset and assaulting Lee with a chair. He Pillmanizered Lee’s ankle and was about to continue stomping on it when the state athletic commissioner came out and told Gage that if he didn’t leave the ring immediately his license would be suspended. Gage thought about it for a moment and then left, spitting on Lee and flipping off the commissioner on his way out.

AC MACK vs. ALAN ANGELS vs. JAMES BANDY vs. ADRIAN ALANIS vs. KAVRON KANYON vs. SHAWN DEAN- 5/10
This was the now-customary WWA4 school show on each Style Battle show. A.R. Fox himself came out to tell us that this was a showcase for his wrestling school and plug it. The match was just a bunch of spots.

SEMIFINAL MATCH: A.R. Fox vs. Anthony Henry- 6.25/10
Fox tried the same sort of thing on Henry that Snoop Strikes tried on Riddle but Henry was ready for it and moved out of the way of his attempted bicycle kick. The match was fine for the time it got, with Henry working over Fox’s head. The one blemish on the match was a fighting spirit spot that I thought went way overboard. First Henry hit Fox with a bunch of kicks to the head, then some sort of head move for a nearfall. Then he hit a brainbuster and Fox kicked out at one (if not before). Fox got to his knees and did the primal scream of fighting spirit, at which point Henry hit him in the head with a bunch of kicks again then picked him up to go for a brainbuster… but it was FOX that lifted Henry up for a brainbuster instead. That was just too much for me.
Henry won by rolling over on a small package attempt of Fox’s so he was now the one pinning Fox and Fox couldn’t extract himself.

ANTHONY HENRY PROMO- fine

SEMIFINAL MATCH: Matt Riddle vs. Keith Lee- no rating, eh segment
Lee managed to hobble his way out to the ring for this match. I personally think a Pillmanizer should be an automatic “out for several weeks” type of spot so I wasn’t thrilled with this. Surely they could have achieved the same thing with Gage only hitting Lee in the ankle with the chair a few times.
They traded a strike or two, with Lee’s leg hurting him every time he tried to move. He decided to try a pounce for some stupid reason and collapsed. Riddle then kneed him in the face and got the pin. It seemed like the entire point of this (aside from making Lee look tough, but we already knew he was) was so the announcers could push the idea that “Nick Gage ruined this match” by preventing us from seeing another Lee vs. Riddle “classic” (Riddle being fresher than Henry could have been achieved by merely having Lee be unable to wrestle).

LUCHA RULES TAG TEAM SHOWCASE: Matt Knicks & Stevie Fierce vs. Blake Wilder & Purple Haze vs. Crazy Boy & Aero Boy vs. Jimmy Lloyd & Tony Deppen vs. vs. The Pump Patrol (Curt Matthews & Jared Wayne) vs. Chance Champion & Omar Amir (w/Skinny Vinny)- 3.75/10
No, this Purple Haze is not Mark Lewin. In fact, this guy seems to be the polar opposite of everything Mark Lewin was as The Purple Haze.
Amir and Champion had their manager get into the ring so they could pick him up and throw him onto all of the other teams on the outside. That is clearly a premeditated plan to use an outside individual to make physical contact with other wrestlers with the intent of hurting them and thus really should be a DQ. This match was yet another random collection of spots.

BLANCO LOCO vs. FRANCISCO CIATSO vs. ANDREW JACKSON vs. JOEY OZBOURNE vs. LOGAN CREED (w/Brooklyn)- 2/10
Oh my G-d stop it with these stupid geek matches! This was another random, short match. Ciatso got pinned by Creed because he was an idiot and went to grope Brooklyn’s butt when she distracted him by hopping up on the apron to wiggle it at him. No one got over in this match, and Ciatso looked like a moron.

STYLE BATTLE SEASON 1 FINALE TOURNAMENT FINALS: Anthony Henry vs. Matt Riddle- 6.75/10
Both guys cut promos before the match that felt totally redundant at this point. They told a decent story about Henry wanting to prove he was at Riddle’s level, but the finish totally flew in the face of that. The match was good while it lasted, but it didn’t last anywhere near long enough. I sat through eight other eight-man tournaments all to build up to this eight-man tournament, and the finals doesn’t even go eight minutes! COME ON, GABE!
And all for what? Just to put over Matt Riddle? He isn’t a big enough star already? He just won the Evolve World Title, he was the first WWN Champion, what more does he need? This seemed like an opportunity to make Anthony Henry (especially with how much work they did with his journey to finally win a Style Battle tournament at Season 1 Episode 5) with a the win over Riddle also setting him up for a future Evolve World Title shot which would make a fine early defense for Riddle on an EVOLVE show. But no. It was just another random tournament and Matt Riddle won. He didn’t even get some special reward for winning it like a shot at the WWN Family belt of his choice, or even a million dollars or something like that. This was a special tournament intended to be only for guys who won qualifying tournaments, and there wasn’t even anything on the line other than bragging rights, which, as I’ve already established, Riddle really didn’t even need. I feel like I wasted my time not only with this show (Henry vs. Kincaid aside), but also with the rest of the Style Battle shows aside from Season 1, Episode 3, which was the tournament where the winner also qualified for the match to crown the first ever WWN Champion. And that’s sad because I was quite invested into the quests of Anthony Henry and Fred Yehi to win a Style Battle Tournament, and I did think Jason Kincaid’s victory provided him with a valuable accolade to hang his hat on when he was in sore need of one… but the whole thing feels like it was for nothing.

As you probably gleaned from the previous few paragraphs, I was quite disappointed with this show. The idea of a series of eight tournaments to set up a tournament of all of the winners was a cool idea, and it was certainly unfortunate that things ran so long that by the time the finals came around the situations of a large number of the winners had changed to situations in which they were either unwilling or unable to work the big final tournament, but that is a risk you take you spread something like this out over such a long time (fifteen months!). But even if everyone had been able to work the show and whatever original plan Gabe had in mind was able to go off without a hitch, the fact that there was nothing on the line in the end really killed the concept for me. I wouldn’t object to someone trying this idea again, but I would want it to be ROH, New Japan, Dragon Gate, wXw, or some other company that would have an easier time ensuring that all of the winners were able to be at the final show (loyalty and contracts in the first three cases, and the combination of loyalty and the speed with which I think they’d be able to pump the whole thing out in in wXw’s case), and with a real prize on the line.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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