Style Battle S01E03

Style Battle S01E03Style Battle S01E03

By Big Red Machine
From March 12, 2017
Discussion

They're in the Orpheum tonight like WWN usually is as opposed to that weird place across the street with the indoor palm trees and weird roof that would constantly make me do a double take because it looked like the show was taking place outside.

FIRST ROUND MATCH:
Jason Cade vs. Kyle Matthews - 6.5/10


The match was fine. They had a bit of a story with Matthews working over Cade's midsection, but that was it. I don't really have any impression of either guy right now other than that Cade looks like an African-American version of German wrestler Da Mack. Cade won the match and cut a decent promo afterwards.

FIRST ROUND MATCH:
Anthony Henry vs. Martin Stone - 7.5/10


They started off with the veteran Stone trying to use signs of disrespect to get into Henry's head but he abandoned this plan when it clearly wasn't working and then we had a straight wrestling match from there. They went for a very long time until Stone finally managed to hit the London Bridge but Henry got his foot on the ropes... but Stone was able to scoop it off between one and two before the referee noticed it so Henry gets screwed. Gabe is doing a great job of building up Henry as a babyface by making you feel so bad for him when circumstances deny him these big wins in Style Battle that he is definitely the guy I now most want to see win a future Style Battle.

MARTIN STONE PROMO - very good. He outs over his chances of winning and buries Anthony Henry.

FIRST ROUND MATCH:
Jon Davis vs. James Drake - 7.25/10


"Large, strong men hit each other very hard" is a story that always works, and these guys threw in some work on Drake's arm as icing on the cake. Davis came away with the very hard-fought victory and put Drake over in his post-match promo.

JON DAVIS PROMO - good.

FIRST ROUND MATCH:
Jon Cruz vs. Parrow- 4.75/10


Speaking of stories that always work, how about small babyface vs. monster heel? This was excellent for the short amount of time it got.

SEMIFINAL MATCH:
Jason Cade vs. Martin Stone- 4.5/10


They had a short but very action-packed match that culminated in a finish that played off of the finish of Stone's match in the first round. The winner cut a good promo afterwards.

SEMIFINAL MATCH:
Jon Davis vs. Parrow- 3/10


Well... that was extremely short. Big men hit each other until one pins the other. It wasn't bad or anything, but it was just so short that it didn't really feel like much. The winner cut a good promo afterwards.

FOUR CORNERS MATCH FOR THE ACW TAG TEAM TITLES:
The Lacey Twins(c) vs. Omar Amir & Chance Champion (w/Skinny Vinny) vs. The Dirty Blonds (Michael Patrick & Leo Brien) (w/Erik Essex) vs. The Kraken (Murder One & Chip Day) (w/Adrian Armour) - 4.75/10


I know what you're thinking, and no, the Lacey Twins are not, unfortunately, Jimmy Jacobs' main squeeze and her clone. Instead they are... well... imagine that Colin Cassady and Chris Hero had a child together, then cloned him, and then took the clone and shrunk him in a dryer.

This was another short match. This was my first exposure to everyone in this match aside from Murder One, who I haven't seen since about 2003. Everyone looked fine, with Omar Amir and Chip Day coming off as guys I might actually be tempted to seek out more of, but no one was overly impressive.

STYLE BATTLE 3 FINALS - 7.25/10


The match was good but the babyface-heel dynamics got kind of weird as I assumed the guy who tried to jump-start the match was the heel but that guy was also the smaller guy so when the other guy took over it didn't really feel like a babyface making his comeback so much as it did a large man tossing around a smaller man.

During this match they announced on commentary that the winner of this match (and thus of the whole tournament) would be entered into the match to crown the first ever WWN Live Champion on the WrestleMania weekend WWN Supershow. They kept stressing that neither of the competitors was aware of this, which was kind of a weird thing to stress. Like the wrestlers didn't know just how much was on the line so they weren't feeling as much pressure as they should have been.

When the winner was informed of this he was interrupted by someone else in the tournament who it was revealed this person would be facing at the Broken Tailgate Party on April 2nd. The confrontation was very good, as was the winner's promo.

Final Thoughts
This was a fine show in the ring, but like with the first show, I had a lot of trouble caring about most of these guys because I haven't really been given any reason to care about most of them. I'm not sure if I will continue to watch Style Battle. There is definitely something to the concept, but the shows are just too far apart for the payoff at show nine to feel like it is anywhere close to coming soon enough that I should keep paying attention. I'll probably tune in if there is talent I enjoy watching, but on a show like this where it's mostly FIP guys or random Southeast indy workers, I'll probably skip it.

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