Cero Reviews GCW The Wrld On GCW 2022

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cero2k
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Cero Reviews GCW The Wrld On GCW 2022

Post by cero2k » Jan 24th, '22, 13:19

GCW The Wrld On GCW 2022
January 23, 2022
Hammerstein Ballroom, NYC, NY

Opening video - It was the same commercial they had to reveal the venue, where the wrestlers repeated comments about themselves, with a big atmosphere of delusion.

Of all the promotions that I've seen run the Hammerstein, GCW seems to have a setup that makes the place look less impressive. The new paintjob sucks, but the setup makes it seem like it's bigger, but not packed. Last thing I wanna see from a Hammerstein show are the entrance doors shining in the back.

Grab The Brass Ring Ladder Match
PCO vs. Alex Colon vs. G-Raver vs. Tony Deppen vs. Jimmy Lloyd vs. AJ Gray vs. Jordan Oliver - 3/10
AJ Gray made his entrance after the match was starting, but since Gray's match fell out, he joined this one.

Even for a spots match, this was pretty bad, PCO stole the show and that should tell you something. Deppen was good, but he was nowhere to be seen, he only had like 3 spots all match.
A lot of the spots were sloppy, Gray almost killed himself with a dive off the ladder, Oliver and Lloyd are pretty bad, and at one point, G-Raver had a stupid spot where he dove on Colon from a ladder, with an empty ring, and he literally touched the ring with his hand, but instead, he dove. Gray won at the end while everyone sat and watch.

Team Bandido (ASF, Bandido & Laredo Kid) vs. Team Gringo (Arez, Demonic Flamita & Gringo Loco) - 5/10
Steven Deangelis fucked up the introductions. He either doesn't recognize the wrestlers, or just straight up read the card without paying attention.

Fun match, a couple of cool spots, but given the talent, it could had been better. The ring was way to small for six luchadores trying to do spots together in the ring. My biggest gripe was that even for lucha, the spots looked planned since Bandido was always early to his spot. The finish got fucked when ASF failed to lock in Gringo on the dive, so Gringo just jumped behind with a plancha that he didn't connect, hit a piledriver and won. A minute later, ASF is running around the ring picking up money and celebrating with everyone.

Lio Rush vs. Blake Christian - 6.5/10
This was supposed to be a ROH title match versus Gresham, but Gresham had to miss the show due to COVID reasons. Christian cut a promo about wanting to wrestle and having an opponent ready. He sounded dick-ish telling ROH to call him because he wants his "fucking title shot". I hope he does so Gresham stretches him and humbles his ass. Anyway, Lio Rush was the replacement.

They took a year to start the match, I watched a couple of minutes waiting for it, then I noticed the battery on my laptop was running out, so I ran for the cord, came back, and the wrestling still hadn't started. They eventually started and the match was good, but I wasn't really hooked into the final 3 or so minutes. A couple of good looking spots towards the end until Christian

Cardona vs Janela Package - Awesome because Cardona is fantastic at this, and Janela is great at making videos.

Matt Cardona (w/Chelsea Green) vs. Joey Janela (w/Marko Stunt & Sam Stackhouse) - 7/10
This match was a tribute to WWECW's One Night Stands, both of them. Cardona came out to Enter Sandman, wearing a 'Fuck Mick Foley' vest, he made a "If Cardona Wins We Riot" banner for the fans to hang a la Cena vs RVD, and then made a tee to wear it to the ring with the same banner. That was just the entrance.

The story behind this feud was that Janela photoshopped himself into some Chelsea photos, making it seem like Chelsea was cheating on Cardona (See Macho/Liz/Flair feud from a century ago). So they had a good double cross spot where they pretended like Chelsea was turning on Cardona with a low blow, making Janela have a false sense of security, only to have Chelsea drop him balls first into the ropes. I liked the spot, but it came by somewhat early and it only made Janela look stupid for believing his own lie had worked. This led to nothing.

Mark Sterling at one point interrupted the match to say that Janela couldn't use weapons, he then pretended to have Vince McMahon with him, who was Vingil wearing a Vince McMahon mask, and then he left to the back before Virgil tried to steal the spotlight. This led to nothing.

Swoggle also came out and attacked Janela, only to have Sam Stackhouse take him out. I thought Stackhouse was a fan at first, he looks like a GCW fan. He almost killed himself trying a moonsault. Marko Stunt came out and took out Swoggle, only to get taken out by Cardona and Green with a destroyer.

Finish saw Brian Myers do the Edge spot from Cena vs RVD at ONS 2006, he was dressed with the motorcycle helmet and all. Cardona then hit Radio Silence through a door for the win. Cardona's shenanigans carried this match, it wouldn't had been anything without all that stuff.

Say what you will, Janela put GCW on the map, but Cardona made it credible. Cardona has been the best thing so far tonight.

Fans at one point chanted "Chelsea swallows", so I guess the GCW 'wokeness' ends at misogyny. I hope that it was the incels tho, I wouldn't understand men who have had sex shitting on someone for doing they probably want to be done to them.

Post-match - Sean Waltman of all people came out, looking really good, he took out both Cardona and Myers and saved Janela. I mean, sure.

Fuck Kevin Gill.

Mance Warner Return - Warner came back, he's been injured. He cut a generic babyface promo. Atticus Cogar interrupted him and talked shit to him and the GCW wrestlers. I started to like him. Matthew Justice made the save, but the rest of Cogar's crew came out until Sabu and Bill Alfonso came out and made the save. Meh nostalgia segment, but it ended with WALK by Pantera, so that was kinda cool.

Fuck Kevin Gill, there is no single reason why commentary should EVER refer to anyone as 'cocksucker' on a live mic. You're not edgy, just unprofessional.

Ruby Soho vs. Allie Katch - 5/10
This wasn't bad, but it was just kinda there, it was the shortest match so far and the ending was abrupt, to the point that not just because the homegirl lost, but the finish coming out of nowhere also provoked a bad reaction from the crowd.

This getting the planned shortest time really puts in perspective that the deprecation of women's wrestling is not something that just AEW and WWE do, unless you're watching Joshi, you sometimes gotta look at the promotions you fanboy. Kinda proves that GCW probably wouldn't have many women's matches if Katch wasn't part of the club.

"The Last Outlaw" Jeff Jarrett vs. Effy - 4/10
This is a big of a fan I'll ever be of Jeff Jarrett, and I actually like this new version of his TNA theme. Leave it to Effy to make Jarrett look like a credible serious wrestler.

Match wasn't good. It was also short, half of the time was spent with Jarrett attacking Effy with his leather belt, then Effy had a short comeback using the belt and setting up the guitar shot, but Jarrett took the guitar, hit Effy, who didn't sell it, so Jarrett hit a facebuster with the guitar on for the pin. Fans were mad, but it was more of a void reaction. Both Bussy members lost back to back, but it should be building towards an actual strap match.

GCW World Title Match
Jon Moxley (c) vs. Homicide - 6.5/10
First chant of the match as 'Fuck Bully Ray', a chant that I can get behind off.

Match was good, but they wasted a lot of time building up, if you consider how much they had. It was a Moxley fight with a couple of chair spots here and there. Finish saw Cide kickout of a Deathrider, only to take a second one on a chair for the pin.

There's an interesting comparison here when we consider that it took Mox only one more minute to put down Cide compared to Ethan Page, except this was a big title match in a weapons match against the Hall of Famer Homicide, and the Page match was just a Rampage opener. The worst of it all was that 2 days earlier, AEW sold it as "It took Mox 10 minutes against Page because he has ring rust", but here on GCW, it was a "big" main event.

Briscoes Open Challenge Package - They wasted all this time to feature a shitty song and unnecessary promo, time that could had gone to the LESS THAN 5 MINUTE MAIN EVENT!

GCW Tag Team Title Match
The Briscoes (Jay Briscoe & Mark Briscoe) (c) vs. The H8 Club (Matt Tremont & Nick Gage) (w/Dewey Donovan) - 3/10
Challengers were Tremont and a returning Gage, who used his time off to get himself in the heavyweight division. Between all three entrances, they took longer than the actual match was. Right before Gage came out, the whole crowd completely ignore the ring and turned their backs towards the ramp. It was a weird visual.

They had sold this match with the idea that it COULD be FTR, but once Tremont came out, people kinda knew it was gonna be Gage. I liked the pairing versus the Briscoes, but unfortunately, they had no time. It wasn't short enough to be a dud, but short enough to not really get much out of it.

The very first spot of the match was Gage spear Jay through a door, followed by some unprotected head shots, the rest were more head shots, a dive, and some more weapon spots.

Post-match - Jay argued that they had broken up the pin, but they also quickly let it go. The whole GCW roster came out to celebrate with Tremont and Gage, while the latter cut a promo about his gang. Gage hit the Chokebreaker and got the win.

The whole show had been somewhat quiet, I swear I've heard livelier crowds from the "clap only" era of Japan, but credit where credit is due, Gage popped the crowd hard.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Incredibly meh show, it may be a fault of the overhype, but this wasn't a good show. Not only was it terribly timed to the point that the main event lasted less than 6 minutes, but the whole show was carried on the backs of the 'outsiders', kinda proving that all those quotes from the opening video have something to them. I did find it interesting that the big GCW show saw a bunch of their sweethearts lose to people like Jarrett and Cardona, especially because a lot of this show was, and pardon my vocabulary, a big GCW circlejerk with Kevin Gill on commentary. My big conclusion is that unless you're already a big GCW fan that will like the show regardless of what they do, this show is not likely to sell you on another GCW show.

Kevin Gill is the worst at commentary. Unfortunate that on a night you have Prazak, Leonard, and Ricabonni, they had to have Gill on the table.

Best thing about this show was listening to all the music they used for entrances.

Lastly, imagine having Psycho Clown in your show and you only feature him as a random entrant in the pre-show. Facepalm.
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Big Red Machine
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Re: Cero Reviews GCW The Wrld On GCW 2022

Post by Big Red Machine » Jan 24th, '22, 13:26

cero2k wrote: Jan 24th, '22, 13:19
Matt Cardona (w/Chelsea Green) vs. Joey Janela (w/Marko Stunt & Sam Stackhouse) - 7/10
This match was a tribute to WWECW's One Night Stands, both of them. Cardona came out to Enter Sandman, wearing a 'Fuck Mick Foley' vest, he made a "If Cardona Wins We Riot" banner for the fans to hang a la Cena vs RVD, and then made a tee to wear it to the ring with the same banner. That was just the entrance.

The story behind this feud was that Janela photoshopped himself into some Chelsea photos, making it seem like Chelsea was cheating on Cardona.
These two things right next to each other are amazing, but they are the same sort of thing that compelled me to give Gage vs. Cardona the full 10/10. There is just something about the GCW atmosphere and the way Cardona carries himself in it that makes so many things that would otherwise be outright heelish douchiness feel justified against him.



Also, GCW getting to this first and using it for this is such an unfortunate waste. "Photoshopping pictures to make it look like your significant other is cheating on you" is a wonderful "before she was yours, she was mine" update for the 21st century. This is the sort of sh*t we need an Austin Aries to be doing.
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