After recently debuting RevPro TV on Youtube, this show was the first show to benefit from having the build of a weekly show leading into it for RevPro. It has worked for me at least, as I’m usually not that excited for these non-York Hall offerings from RPW, but this is the exception. There’s four matches out of the six that I’m looking forward to, so let’s see if it lives up to these higher than usual expectations.
Revolution Pro Wrestling
At Our Best
April 5, 2015
Hertfordshire, England
Broxbourne Civic Hall
The show opens up with owner and storyline matchmaker Andy Quildan in the ring, performing his announcing duties. His voice is shot, poor guy, so you can barely hear him. While the Revolutionists make their entrance the usual announce team of Oliver Bennett and Andy Boy Simmonz introduce themselves on commentary, and we’re off and running.
The Revolutionists (Samuels, Bodom & Castle) vs. Jake McCluskey, Owen Phoenix & Jonny Storm: The Jake McCluskey feud against the Revolutionists, and in particular James Castle, is one that’s been going on for quite a while now, and has been one of the featured programs focused on in the early episodes of their new youtube show. As a result, I’m considerably more hyped for this match than I would be otherwise, so RevPro TV is clearly doing its job. McCluskey is leading a team comprised of Owen Phoenix who may be best known for doing a bit of work with Michinoku Pro, and Jonny Storm who is a British wrestling veteran who you may remember for wrestling a couple of times with ROH, PWG and CZW during the early 2000s along with Jody Fleish.
This was a fun six man tag opener, well-structured to build up to the eventual finish. Every participant got their moment to shine, and they did a good job of heating the crowd up for the rest of the show, although the lack of keeping track of who was legal did irk me. James Castle stole the win against McCluskey (while neither of them were the legal men) with a double leg takedown stacked pin while his feet were on the second rope. This feud will likely continue, and this achieved its purpose of furthering it while also making the Revolutionists look strong as a unit b picking up a win against two non-regulars. **3/4
Andy Boy Simmonz took over for Quildan on ring announcing duties at this point.
Matt Classic vs. Rishi Ghosh: If you’re at all interested in following a Colt Cabana comedy feud, then I’d recommend checking out the recap of the Cabana/Classic-Grey/Ghosh feud on RevPro TV recently. Before the match the Legion of Lords cut some entertaining promos riling up the crowd and saying they were going to unmask Matt Classic after this match to reveal Colt Cabana and thus have him banned from RPW due to the prior stipulation of Colt Cabana being banned from the company.
This was your standard Matt Classic match, with the highlight for me being finding out that Rishi’s finisher is called the Ghoshbuster. After Classic picked up the win, Lord Gideon challenged Classic to a tag match at the York Hall, pitting the Legion of Lords (Grey and Ghosh) against Cabana and Classic, and Matt Classic accepted. This isn’t my cup of tea, but I know Cabana has his following that love his shtick. *1/2
Open the Freedom Gate/EVOLVE and ICW Championship Match – Drew Galloway (c) vs. Doug Williams: Galloway threw all three of his belts on the line here, making the result of this match a foregone conclusion. Despite that, this is still very much a match I’m looking forward to. Sadly, because the ICW title is on the line, this had to be a hardcore match, and that’s really not playing to the strengths of either guy.
That proved to be the bane of this match, as they clearly wanted to do a technical wrestling match, but every couple of minutes they rolled to the outside and half-heartedly did some brawling with and around chairs. They also through a meaningless ref bump in there for good measure, presumably to allow James Castle to run in and hit a running knee against Williams, although it’s a hardcore match so there was still no need for the ref bump. This allowed Galloway to hit a second Future Shock DDT, and pick up the victory retaining his titles. Incredibly disappointing. **3/4
After the match, Galloway gets on the mic and says he doesn’t like the way things went down in that one, and hopes that he’ll be able to face Doug again at a future date for RPW. I hope so too, but only if it’s not overbooked and under hardcore rules like it was this occasion.
2 Unlimited vs. Psycho & The Beast: The latest team to be brought in to face 2 Unlimited is the newly formed team of Psycho & The Beast, composed of Big Damo who had an unimpressive debut a few months back and his debuting partner Psycho Phillips. This was a far better showing than Big Damo’s debut, which contained a nine minute heat segment where nothing much happened, but this was a far more dynamic offering. The two teams worked really well together, with the two big men throwing around their high flying counterparts and the Sammons doing everything they could to stay in the match and steal a quick victory. After an early heat segment, in which Patrick’s knee got injured which later played into the finish, it turned into a great back and forth contest. But when the dust settled, ‘Psycho & The Beast’ stood dominant after the 300lbs Damo hit an assisted back senton onto both his opponents.
This match did a great job of making ‘Psycho & The Beast’ look really dominant, but also made 2 Unlimited look valiant in defeat. This was a really fun ten minute sprint of a tag team match, and the first truly good match of the show. I’m very much looking forward to see what this new team can do going forward in RPW. ***1/4
Undisputed British Cruiserweight Championship – Will Ospreay (c) vs. Jimmy Havoc: Jimmy Havoc earned this title shot of the first episode of RevPro TV by stealing the win in a six man scramble match from Josh Bodom, while Ospreay confirmed he would be making up the other half of this championship match by successfully retaining his championship against Rocky Romero in the main event of the second episode. These two have had a storied and critically acclaimed feud over in PROGRESS wrestling, and I’m very excited to see what these two will be doing under the RPW banner.
Jimmy Havoc was a great ground based foil for Ospreay’s spectacular high flying in this one, using his grimy veteran-ness to keep up with the prodigal youngster. The finishing stretch started when Ospreay spectacularly countered an Alabama Slam into a flipping Piledriver. Ospreay then slowly ascended to the top, but Havoc managed to push the ref into the ropes, which caused Ospreay to lose his balance on the top rope and crash all the way down to the floor. This lead to Chris Roberts, the ref for this bout, going out to check on Ospreay, and this allowed Josh Bodom to run out from the back and hit Havoc in the ring with a powerbomb onto his knees, presumably in retribution for stealing the pin from him in the six man scramble to decide the number one contendership. Sha Samuels, Bodom’s senior in the Revolutionists, then ran out and dragged Bodom away, berating him on the way back. The commentators then put over the fact that Samuels is a long standing friend of Havoc, and that Bodom must have acted out on his own here without consulting with his senior stablemates. Ospreay then climbed back onto the apron and up onto the top rope, before putting Jimmy away with a beautiful Shooting Star Press to retain his title.
This was a very good showcase of what these two can do together, but you definitely got the feeling they were holding a little back for a future more spotlighted encounter with a more definitive outcome. This was still a great match in its own right though, and did a really good job of keeping Havoc looking strong so soon after his debut while keeping the title on Ospreay, and also setting up a logical feud between Bodom and Havoc. ***1/2
Undisputed British Heavyweight Championship – Davey Richards vs. Marty Scurll (c): As his reign has gone on, it has become pretty clear that Marty has a very formulaic stock defence. Grapple to start, and then get the advantage and thoroughly work over the arm to set up for the Crossface Chickenwing. After that his opponent will make a comeback, only to get cut off by a feint superkick-knee superkick combo. He’ll then lose control again, and his opponent will run through their moveset, leading to the finish where Scurll will either win by a quick roll-up or the Revolutionists will interfere and allow Marty to lock on the Crossface Chickenwing for the submission victory. Don’t get me wrong, he’s very good at the formula, and it produces good matches, but it’d be nice if he changed it up every now and again because after a year of said matches it’s getting a bit predictable.
This defence followed the aforementioned formula to the tee, and took the extra hit quality wise due to Richards completely ignoring the arm work after a while, rendering the entire first half of the match pointless. Now don’t get me wrong, that probably all sounds like I didn’t enjoy the match, but I thought it was a good match. But it’s just not a great match, especially if you’ve seen a couple of Scurll’s other defences (or all of them as I have). I’d place it just a shade below the Havoc-Ospreay match. ***1/2
Scurll adds Richards to his prestigious list of people who have fallen in his yearlong and counting reign as champion, adding his name next to Colt Cabana, Kevin Steen, Ricochet, Martin Stone, Kris Travis, Rocky Romero and Doug Williams. This win has confirmed that this Summer he will be facing his biggest test yet, defending his belt against AJ Styles at Summer Sizzler 2015, and we close the show with Scurll cutting a promo calling out the Phenomenal One as overrated, and saying he better be ready to face a real Champion in the York Hall. At this point Scurll’s reign is basically played out, so I totally wouldn’t be against Styles taking the belt at Summer Sizzler.
Final Thoughts: This wasn’t a great show all in all. The second half was definitely enjoyable, but lacked any standout match to really make it worth a recommendation. If you’re loaded and don’t mind dropping $9.99 on the last hour of this show then it’d worth your time, but it’s hardly what I’d call good value.
Revolution Pro Wrestling “At Our Best” available now at http://www.revolutionprowrestling.com/on-demand
