EVOLVE 20: Fox vs Jackson

JOHNNY GARGANO vs. MATT JACKSON - 8/10

All action, all awesome. Hell of a way to start off a show. After the match Gargano cut a promo to get over his new sarcastic, smarmy "insincere babyface" heel gimmick.

CHUCK TAYLOR vs. BRIAN CAGE (w/Trina Michaels & Larry Dallas) - 6/10

I wish Trina would take that goofy top hat off and put it on Brian Cage's head so I wouldn't have to look at this stupid red fauxhawk. The match was pretty solid until the finish, which could have looked better. I can get behind this new "serious babyface" Chuck Taylor.

SIX-WAY FRAY:
Caleb Konley vs. Jon Davis vs. Andrew Everett vs. Lince Dorado vs. Shane Strickland vs. Tommy Taylor - 6.75/10

A Fray is basically a Royal Rumble with pinfall and submission elimination rules rather than over the top rope. Strickland and Konley started out and did their thing until it was time for Jon Davis to come out, and when he came out there was a definite sense of "business is about to pick up" reverberating through the crowd. From that point on the story was based around the powerful Davis dominating the smaller guys. The last entrant, Tommy Taylor, looked like he was decently close to Davis' size but Davis dominated him the same way. Davis got the first two eliminations but was then eliminated himself after taking a combination of moves and being pig-piled on by Dorado and Taylor. Taylor then took on the role of big man among the smaller men, eliminating Konley and then having a very good little mini-match based on the speed vs. power dynamic against Dorado until we finally got a winner.

TOMAHAWK T.T. vs. EITA - 7.75/10

They did their Dragon Gate stuff. It was all very impressive and often exciting, but lacked any real sense of a story to tie it together other than "I'm trying to beat you."

POST-MATCH SEGMENT - Good. DGUSA Open The United Gate Champions the Young Bucks come out and congratulate these two guys on their match and wish them good luck in their match together at Evolve 22. They offer a handshake, which the Dragon Gate guys take… and of course they wind up getting superkicked. The Bucks keep reigning down the superkicks so some referees run out and tell them to stop, then tell them that "this is EVOLVE. You can't do that here. You're fined and suspended." The Bucks tried to call their bluff, basically saying "you won't suspend us because we're the draws and you won't punish us by stripping us of the titles because that will make them worthless." They also threatened to respond to being stripped of the titles by taking the belts to another promotion and throwing them in the trash.

This was all very good, and the interaction between the Young Bucks and the EVOLVE officials is exactly the sort of thing that was missing from the angle ROH did last year where they wouldn't suspended Bullet Club despite doing things that had been expressly stated in other storylines to be automatic suspensions because Bullet Club sold a lot of merch and tickets. The segment we got here, with EVOLVE officials trying to punish the Bucks but then having the Bucks respond with threats makes it come off like EVOLVE management is trying to stand up for its principles but they are backed into a corner by the power the Bucks hold. What we got in ROH, which was the announcers just telling us what amounts to "we know we should punish them, but they make us a lot of money by selling t-shirts so we're going to let all of their morally reprehensible actions and clear violations of company policy slide," makes it sound like ROH management's policy is "they bring in so much money that we're not going to bother even trying to punish them." The company comes out powerless to stop the heels in both cases, but in EVOLVE it feels like they tried but the financial considerations forced them to reconsider while in ROH it feels like they didn't even want to try because they were happy with the money the heels were making for them. EVOLVE is a kindly businessman being bullied by the villains financial power, while ROH comes off like greedy corporate executives who don't care about anything as long as they are making money. EVOLVE management comes off like babyfaces, ROH management comes off like heels.

Speaking of EVOLVE management and booking, for some reason Gabe came out to ringside during this in order to record the Bucks' promo on his phone. That was odd.

THE BRAVADO BROTHERS vs. MAXWELL CHICAGO & SUGAR DUNKERTON - no rating, bad comedy match

Lenny Leonard introduces this match with what was basically an announcement that "we're doing a comedy match now, okay everyone? See? We're doing a comedy match to prove to you that we're have some variety and are not just super totally serious all the time." It reminded me of those big clusterf*ck Scramble Matches in the early days of ROH with Special K and the like where the announcers would say the equivalent of "this is just going to be a spotfest so if you're looking for mat-work and psychology and stuff just skip to the next match. This match is for people who like spotfests." Nowadays, of course, instead of the commentators giving us a verbal warning before the match, the "giant spotfest" and/or "comedy" disclaimer usually comes in the form of a picture of a gorilla on the cover of the DVD (ZING!).

For those of us who do like our wrestling serious, DGUSA Open The Freedom Gate Champion Johnny Gargano joined Lenny Leonard on commentary to help get Johnny's new heel persona over. Unfortunately, their chatting prevents the viewer from hearing what the guys in the ring are saying, which seems like it was supposed to be part of their comedy, so Johnny's presence on commentary is probably detracting from the enjoyment of anyone who is excited for this comedy match.

As for the match itself, the shin-kicking stuff was hilarious, but that was one minute out of an eleven-minute match that almost all comedy.

ANTHONY NESE vs. SAMURAY DEL SOL - 8/10

Good, clean, athletic Lucha Libre. Actually, "good" isn't a strong enough word. This was AWESOME. Nese steps up and proves himself in his highest-profile opportunity so far in EVOLVE and Samuray Del Sol showed us exactly why WWE had offered him a contract early this very week.

EVOVLE TITLE MATCH:
A.R. Fox(c) vs. Nick Jackson (w/Matt Jackson) - 8/10

A good babyface vs. heel match between high flyers. Matt's interference was a great way to show the Bucks disrespecting EVOLVE's rules and traditions, and Gargano's commentary did a good job of starting the build to himself vs. A.R. Fox.

Final Thoughts
A GREAT show from EVOLVE! The action, on the whole, was awesome, and the storylines all feel like they are progressing at a steady rate. I also enjoy it whenever I get to see the Bucks work as singles simply because it is a break from the usual Young Bucks' fast-paced tag match, and, watching this in 2017, I cannot help but comment on how much more enjoyable the Bucks are when they just have their superkicks and don't have any of the stupid 90's rip-off Attitude Era wanna-be bullsh*t invading every freakin' second of their matches. So yeah… WATCH THIS SHOW!