BRM Reviews RPW Live in Bristol (bad)
Posted: Feb 19th, '19, 18:27
RPW Live in Bristol (1/27/2019)- Bristol, UK
OPENING SEGMENT- passable
Will Ospreay comes out and tells everyone that he is injured with a broken toe (like, pointing the wrong way” broken) so he can’t wrestle tonight as scheduled, but he promises to be ready in time for his match against PAC at High Stakes 2019. Chris Brookes came out and attacked Ospreay is a chair, then called the fans dumb for believing Ospreay’s story, instead saying that Ospreay simply doesn’t want to wrestle tonight. Brookes blames Ospreay for not having a match for High Stakes, and says that he is going to break Ospreay’s leg so Ospreay won’t have a match for High Stakes, either. El Phantasmo came out and made the save for Ospreay, then MK McKinnan, who is scheduled to face Brookes tonight, came out and suggested that their match tonight should become a three-way. Then he suggested that they make it Falls Count Anywhere just because this is RevPro’s debut here in Bristol. Everyone just seemed to accept this as fact even though Brookes did not appear to agree to any of it.
JOSH BODOM vs. DAN MAGEE- 5.5/10
These guys had a very good match for the time they got. Magee got the surprise victory with a flash pin.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Bodom attacks Magee and beats him up. Sha Samuels comes out to show Bodom the right way to beat the sh*t out of Dan Magee. They both worked Magee over for what felt like several minutes with no one coming out to stop them. They started whipping him with belts, which finally brought out someone: young Michael Oku. Oku tried to make the save, but got laid out with Bodom’s finisher. Samuels then cut a promo warning us that “this is only the beginning” and “everything’s about to change.”
ASH DRAVEN vs. KURTIS CHAPMAN- 6.25/10
I don’t like this Ash Draven fellow. He comes off to me like someone we eventually learn is an alternate-reality version of Dalton Castle who has escaped from his much darker timeline. The hair is the same and faces seem a bit similar, and both do weird things with their knees and posture, but Draven has the opposite of Dalton’s fashion sense, and instead of Dalton’s babyface quirkiness Draven comes off as weird and bites people. If you’re wondering where his Boys (or perhaps Girls in his dimension) are, I assume he cruelly used them as a fuel source to power whatever technological contraption or occult ritual allowed him to cross over from his dimension into ours.
Draven beat Chapman, who really does need to win every once in a while tom make sure he doesn’t start feeling like a Contender whose main roster push totally failed and is stuck in the undercard forever.
DAVID STARR & ROB LIAS vs. AUSSIE OPEN- 7/10
I’m a huge mark for the Roode/Warrior WrestleMania finish, so I popped HUGE when Davis kicked out of it. This was a great tag team match. Starr and Lias worked very well together which was a little surprising because this was just the second time they had ever teamed, and the first they had done so in a standard two-on-two tag team match. Unfortunately, Starr’s cowardice at the end of this match makes them continuing to team together seem a little unlikely.
SHIGEHIRO IRIE vs. THE GREAT O-KHARN (w/Lord Gideon Grey)- 7/10
O-Kharn stalled a bunch early on. Other than that and the fact that they brawled all over the place without getting counted out, this was a really great match. This was the first time they really made me think “tonight is the night The Great O-Kharn’s undefeated streak ends.” Then those cheating bastards pulled the rug out from under me. GRRR!
ZOE LUCAS & CHARDONAY vs. SAMII JAYNE & CHARLI EVANS- 6.75/10
A solid exciting match for the time it was given. RevPro’s women’s division has a lot of good talent, but really seems to lack direction (and has since it was created). Samii Jayne pinning Zoe Lucas to earn herself a title match is definitely a step in the right direction, though.
FALLS COUNT ANYWHERE MATCH: El Phantasmo vs. MK McKinnan vs. Chris Brookes- DUD!
This match was SUCH A MESS. The first ten minutes consisted mostly of them just walking around the building and throwing each other into walls and occasionally teasing throwing each other off of balconies even though we all knew it would never actually happen, with very few actual pinfall attempts on the outside. Making matters worse, their camera crew did not appear adequately prepared to film a Falls Count Anywhere Match. I don’t know if this was an issue with equipment or ability, and I don’t care. What I care about is the fact that I spent most of the first half of this match staring at fans’ backs.
They eventually made their way back to the ring and had a big, dull spotfest. Eventually Brookes kicked both of his opponents in the nuts and grabbed a chair. We were apparently supposed to find this heelish as Will Ospreay felt the moral imperative to come out and prevent this, even though this is a no DQs match and thus Brookes did nothing wrong.
Ospreay removed Brookes from the match, leaving us down to MK McKinnan vs. El Phantasmo. McKinnan appeared to have the match won but Lord Gideon Grey pulled the referee out of the ring and The Great O-Kharn attacked McKinnan. The babyfaces teamed up to fight them off, but the fact of the matter is that this overbooking resulted in El Phantasmo- the guy they have spent the past year building up as their top babyface- wound up getting a tainted win because McKinnan already had the match won.
Half of this match didn’t use the gimmick, and the half that did was boring as hell. It was overbooked to death, over-choreographed, had very little story, and we spent half of it staring the fans’ backs or missing the action by several seconds. CRAP.
This was a meh show brought down to being bad by a terrible main event. Its biggest strength was in advancing storylines, but when I look at RevPro’s next bunch of upcoming cards, I’m not seeing anything that looks like THE big show that this is all leading to… and that’s including High Stakes, which has been their biggest show of the year for the past few years.
OPENING SEGMENT- passable
Will Ospreay comes out and tells everyone that he is injured with a broken toe (like, pointing the wrong way” broken) so he can’t wrestle tonight as scheduled, but he promises to be ready in time for his match against PAC at High Stakes 2019. Chris Brookes came out and attacked Ospreay is a chair, then called the fans dumb for believing Ospreay’s story, instead saying that Ospreay simply doesn’t want to wrestle tonight. Brookes blames Ospreay for not having a match for High Stakes, and says that he is going to break Ospreay’s leg so Ospreay won’t have a match for High Stakes, either. El Phantasmo came out and made the save for Ospreay, then MK McKinnan, who is scheduled to face Brookes tonight, came out and suggested that their match tonight should become a three-way. Then he suggested that they make it Falls Count Anywhere just because this is RevPro’s debut here in Bristol. Everyone just seemed to accept this as fact even though Brookes did not appear to agree to any of it.
JOSH BODOM vs. DAN MAGEE- 5.5/10
These guys had a very good match for the time they got. Magee got the surprise victory with a flash pin.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Bodom attacks Magee and beats him up. Sha Samuels comes out to show Bodom the right way to beat the sh*t out of Dan Magee. They both worked Magee over for what felt like several minutes with no one coming out to stop them. They started whipping him with belts, which finally brought out someone: young Michael Oku. Oku tried to make the save, but got laid out with Bodom’s finisher. Samuels then cut a promo warning us that “this is only the beginning” and “everything’s about to change.”
ASH DRAVEN vs. KURTIS CHAPMAN- 6.25/10
I don’t like this Ash Draven fellow. He comes off to me like someone we eventually learn is an alternate-reality version of Dalton Castle who has escaped from his much darker timeline. The hair is the same and faces seem a bit similar, and both do weird things with their knees and posture, but Draven has the opposite of Dalton’s fashion sense, and instead of Dalton’s babyface quirkiness Draven comes off as weird and bites people. If you’re wondering where his Boys (or perhaps Girls in his dimension) are, I assume he cruelly used them as a fuel source to power whatever technological contraption or occult ritual allowed him to cross over from his dimension into ours.
Draven beat Chapman, who really does need to win every once in a while tom make sure he doesn’t start feeling like a Contender whose main roster push totally failed and is stuck in the undercard forever.
DAVID STARR & ROB LIAS vs. AUSSIE OPEN- 7/10
I’m a huge mark for the Roode/Warrior WrestleMania finish, so I popped HUGE when Davis kicked out of it. This was a great tag team match. Starr and Lias worked very well together which was a little surprising because this was just the second time they had ever teamed, and the first they had done so in a standard two-on-two tag team match. Unfortunately, Starr’s cowardice at the end of this match makes them continuing to team together seem a little unlikely.
SHIGEHIRO IRIE vs. THE GREAT O-KHARN (w/Lord Gideon Grey)- 7/10
O-Kharn stalled a bunch early on. Other than that and the fact that they brawled all over the place without getting counted out, this was a really great match. This was the first time they really made me think “tonight is the night The Great O-Kharn’s undefeated streak ends.” Then those cheating bastards pulled the rug out from under me. GRRR!
ZOE LUCAS & CHARDONAY vs. SAMII JAYNE & CHARLI EVANS- 6.75/10
A solid exciting match for the time it was given. RevPro’s women’s division has a lot of good talent, but really seems to lack direction (and has since it was created). Samii Jayne pinning Zoe Lucas to earn herself a title match is definitely a step in the right direction, though.
FALLS COUNT ANYWHERE MATCH: El Phantasmo vs. MK McKinnan vs. Chris Brookes- DUD!
This match was SUCH A MESS. The first ten minutes consisted mostly of them just walking around the building and throwing each other into walls and occasionally teasing throwing each other off of balconies even though we all knew it would never actually happen, with very few actual pinfall attempts on the outside. Making matters worse, their camera crew did not appear adequately prepared to film a Falls Count Anywhere Match. I don’t know if this was an issue with equipment or ability, and I don’t care. What I care about is the fact that I spent most of the first half of this match staring at fans’ backs.
They eventually made their way back to the ring and had a big, dull spotfest. Eventually Brookes kicked both of his opponents in the nuts and grabbed a chair. We were apparently supposed to find this heelish as Will Ospreay felt the moral imperative to come out and prevent this, even though this is a no DQs match and thus Brookes did nothing wrong.
Ospreay removed Brookes from the match, leaving us down to MK McKinnan vs. El Phantasmo. McKinnan appeared to have the match won but Lord Gideon Grey pulled the referee out of the ring and The Great O-Kharn attacked McKinnan. The babyfaces teamed up to fight them off, but the fact of the matter is that this overbooking resulted in El Phantasmo- the guy they have spent the past year building up as their top babyface- wound up getting a tainted win because McKinnan already had the match won.
Half of this match didn’t use the gimmick, and the half that did was boring as hell. It was overbooked to death, over-choreographed, had very little story, and we spent half of it staring the fans’ backs or missing the action by several seconds. CRAP.
This was a meh show brought down to being bad by a terrible main event. Its biggest strength was in advancing storylines, but when I look at RevPro’s next bunch of upcoming cards, I’m not seeing anything that looks like THE big show that this is all leading to… and that’s including High Stakes, which has been their biggest show of the year for the past few years.