BRM Reviews Evolve 39 (GREAT!)

[Big Red Machine]

Evolve 39 (3/26/2015)- San Jose, CA

DREW GULAK PROMO- he tells us that most wrestlers have lost sight of what wrestling is really about, which is winning matches. He also talks about find the “catchpoint,” which Lenny Leonard points out is something he also said at the last show, and Lenny says he hopes Drew will tell us more about “catchpoint” sometime soon so he can get a better understand of what it means.

TIMOTHY THATCHER vs. DREW GULAK- 7/10
These two have their usual excellent technical wrestling match. Thatcher seemed to get the upper hand towards the end but Gulak managed to get a flash pin on him, keeping his undefeated streak against Thatcher intact.

BIFF BUSICK vs. TOMMY END- 6.75/10
Tommy End is the “New Talent Initiative” wrestler being endorsed by Chris Hero, who Busick faces tomorrow night. They hit each other a lot and a very hard, mostly focusing on the head. Biff then choked Tommy out for the win.

BIFF BUSICK PROMO- A good promo to build up his match against Chris Hero tomorrow.

ETHAN PAGE PROMO- He lets everyone know how thankful he is to Johnny Gargano for endorsing him, saying he has “learned a lot” from watching Gargano in the WWN and says “I hope to make you proud” this weekend. Watching this promo with hindsight is a whole different experience than watching it when it first aired, so I’ll just refer to it as “momentous.”

CHRIS HERO vs. ETHAN PAGE- 7/10
Watching Page play the babyface is SOOOO weird and off-putting. Hero got the win by working over Page’s head to go for the KO and was his usual good heel bully self.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Hero cuts a promo on Biff Busick for once again using Hero’s name in a promo. In Biff’s defense, he’s building up a match against Hero. He calls Biff out, and Biff comes out. Biff again says that Hero is afraid of his choke. He offers Hero a free shot but Hero declines it, claiming that if he concusses Biff right now, he won’t get to have fun kicking his ass tomorrow. Hero goes to leave so Biff grabs his shoulder. Hero turns around with a headbutt to the chest (somehow), then goes for the Rollins Elbow but Biff avoids it and almost gets the choke locked in but Hero escapes to the floor, over the guardrail, and out the door. Biff declares that “Chris Hero is a dead man,” then also goes to leave. Timothy Thatcher has been watching this from the stage. I’m not sure why.

RICH SWANN, UHAA NATION & RICOCHET vs. TJ PERKINS & THE PREMIER ATHLETE BRAND (w/SoCal Val & Andrea)- 7.5/10
The entrances for this match felt like they took forever. The match was pretty great, but mostly action-packed. Nation getting the win here on his final weekend felt like a very strange decision.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Swann and Nation celebrated afterwards, but Andrea ran in and hit them both in the nuts from behind. Cage attacked Ricochet, and Konley laid Swann out with one of the DGUSA Open the United Gate Championship belts.
TJP didn’t approve of this so Val yelled at him and kept poking him in the chest. Eventually he got tired of this and grabbed her wrist, then gave her the “talk to the hand” gesture and walked off.

DGUSA OPEN THE FREEDOM GATE TITLE MATCH: Johnny Gargano(c) (w/Ethan Page) vs. A.R. Fox- 8.5/10
An excellent long world title match style of match. It felt A LOT longer than the twenty-one minutes it went, but in a good way. Fox’s neck got worked over and he sold it wonderfully… although there were one or two points where I wasn’t totally convinced that he was just selling. Some of those bumps looked pretty nasty.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- very good
We got a nice polite handshake between the competitors, which surprised Page. He talked some trash to Fox but Gargano quieted him down quickly.
LACEY then interviewed Johnny Gargano about his upcoming title match with Drew Galloway tomorrow night. Gargano said he would watch Drew’s match tonight to scout and said that he would be the one to “lead this company into the future.” He also did the big babyface “everyone here is here because they love professional wrestling” promo.

EVOLVE WORLD TITLE MATCH: Drew Galloway(c) vs. PJ Black- 7.5/10
This was kind of the opposite of the previous match. It was actually a little shorter but felt like it was also very long, but not in a good way. It was still a great match but not what it should have been, given the time it went and the talent involved.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- LOVED IT!
Lacey interviewed Drew and asked him about his match against Gargano tomorrow night, which is now a title vs. title match because Galloway retained his title tonight. Drew also cut the locker room leader company rah-rah “we all love pro wrestling” speech. Having both of them cut the typical top babyface promo was necessary to make both guys seem like potential winners.
Gargano eventually came out (still selling his leg from his match). They had a FANTASTIC confrontation. This was two alphas, neither on whom was willing to back down. Eventually the showing started, at which point Ethan Page came out and- shockingly- tried to separate them instead of jumping in on Johnny’s side. Rich Swann also came out to help hold Johnny back and clam him down.


This was a GREAT show from EVOLVE, with excellent wrestling all up and down the card, and some very good build segments. This is the wrestling that I love.