IPW:UK Supershow V

JOSPEH CONNERS vs. TOM DAWKINS - 5.75/10

Solid opener.

MATCH FOR THE VACANT IPW:UK WOMEN'S TITLE:
Pollyanna vs. Tennessee Honey - 6/10

A fun little match where they really managed to make the finish feel like a huge moment for Pollyanna's first time winning the IPW:UK Women's Title.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Amazon shows up and presents some very logical arguments for why she deserves a title shot, so Pollyanna dives onto her as a way of saying she can have that title shot right now, so we get another…

IPW:UK WOMEN'S TITLE MATCH:
Pollyanna(c) vs. Amazon - no rating, good segment.

Pollyanna puts in her best effort, but loses in a short match because she left everything in the ring in the last one.

ALL-ENGLAND TITLE MATCH:
Scott Star(c) vs. Zack Gibson - 5.5/10

A decent match, but I REALLY disliked the finish. Don't have a guy miss the closest thing your set-up allows to a crazy dive, then have him win by roll-up when the other guy tries to pick him up.

WILL OSPREAY vs. CODY RHODES - 6.75/10

My excitement for this match definitely took a hit when they started talking it up during the introductions as CHAOS vs. Bullet Club, especially when it was clear that Ospreay was supposed to be the heel and Cody was supposed to be the babyface.

The match itself was underwhelming (especially with all of that stalling in the beginning), but I guess we can maybe excuse that because Ospreay has to wrestle again tonight. I'd like to see these two wrestle again, and that Ospreay's dastardly post-match actions seem to indicate that such a thing will happen.

SEGMENT WITH SOME HEELS AND SANTA CLAUS - the audio was really bad so I didn't understand anything that happened. Santa wound up getting beaten up.

ZACK SABRE JR. vs. MATT RIDDLE- 7.25/10

Matt Riddle is wearing a Batman hat. This is odd because Riddle and Batman are two completely different types of badass (I think the middle ground between them is Minoru Suzuki).

This was another match I was hoping for more out of, specifically more limb-work. Zack has unfortunatey started to do his own version of the stupid Shibata "I'll sit here and let you kick me" spot, which, while not as bad as Shibata's because at least Zack sells before popping back up, is still stupid.

WILL OSPREAY PROMO - Ospreay comes out and says that he is subbing for Scotty Wainwright in this match. He was clearly a heel here, and Amazon was clearly a heel earlier, but Ospreay was kind of a jerk to her here, and both of them are now wrestling for the second time tonight, which puts them at a disadvantage, which is inherently babyface-ish. I'm SO confused!

IPW:UK BRITISH TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH:
The Swords of Essex (Will Ospreay & Amazon)(c) vs. The London Riots vs. DND (Cieran Donnelly & Danny Duggan)- 6.5/10

Well… at the least the Ospreay-Amazon thing kind of wound up leading to something on the finish, so that was good. Other than that the match was fine, but not really better than "fine," either.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT - good. We've got a ladder match for the tag titles coming up.

I QUIT MATCH FOR THE IPW: UK WORLD TITLE:
Jimmy Havoc(c) vs. Sammy Smooth- a PERFECT 10/10!

Let me start off by saying that I am pretty squeamish. I don't have a problem with blood, but I do have a problem with poking holes in bodies, so staples and thumbtacks are both things I abhor, and I was extremely uncomfortable watching parts of this match.

That being said, I am also a believer in pro wrestling as an art form, and for the first 98% of this match, these two men told an amazing story. That story was asking whether or not Sammy Smooth was truly in over his head facing Jimmy Havoc in this sort of environment. The answer to that story was an emphatic "NO!"

Sammy brought nothing to the ring with him, but Havoc brought his whole bag of weapons. At first Havoc was the one to introduce the weapons, but Sammy would always pay him back in kind with the same weapon. Then we got to the point where Havoc would be the one to get the weapon on and Sammy would cut him off because he could use it, then show no compunction about using it himself. Then we got to the point where it was Sammy himself getting the weapons. Anything Jimmy did to Sammy, Sammy would never give up, and he would demonstrate his willingness to do back to Jimmy.

Then, when Sammy was about to win, the interference started, and Sammy proved that he was willing to even take a two-on-one beating. Finally he appeared to be getting some help from Scott Star and Zack Sabre Jr., but Zack turned on Star and Smooth. Now Sammy was given the option of quitting or watching his friend being tortured. When Star was ordered to tell Sammy to quit, he instead urged Sammy not to. Sammy didn't quit, and Star paid the price.

While Star was being helped away by security for his own safety, Tennessee Honey came out to check on Sammy, and she herself got pulled into the ring. Faced with the prospect of Tennessee eating a curb-stomp into a chair with a pile of thumbtacks on it, Sammy finally quit, not willing to risk the safety of his female friend. And then Tennessee Honey got up and hugged Jimmy Havoc. Was this a Russo-swerve? Yes. In fact, I will admit that when Zack and Star first came out and had their face-off with Havoc and Conners I was expecting some sort of Russo swerve and preparing to hate it, but once Sammy kept fighting on afterwards, I was intrigued. By doing this, they deflated the issue because there was no way in hell they were going to do two Russo swerves in one match, right?

Well, they did. And the key to it all was that it came off as Jimmy Havoc outsmarting all of us rather than the bookers saying "hahaha we swerved you!," which is a very rare feat in wrestling nowadays. So Sammy Smooth proved not only that he wasn't in over his head against Jimmy Havoc in an ultra-violent environment, but that he was even Jimmy Havoc's better… and yet he still got outsmarted and lost the match.

Aside from the above, there were also a lot of little thing that they did that I really liked. I think my favorite moment in the entire match was Smooth being asked if he would quit, and a mere second after he refused, Havoc was back at him with the staple-gun, doing a beautiful job of saying "okay… if you won't quit then I'll keep torturing you."

As I said above, there was a lot of stuff in this match that I was very uncomfortable watching, but I am also a big believer in pro wrestling as an art form. This is almost certainly the only match I will ever give a 10/10 to that I can tell you with absolute certainty that I will NEVER watch again, but it deserves the 10/10 nonetheless.

A good show from IPW:UK, topped off by a perfect main event. I'm not sure if I'll tune in for the next show, but I'm definitely now leaning yes, as opposed to before when I never would have given IPW:UK the time of day.