Cewsh: Alright, so we start off with a little graphic, and then we’re moved to the ring where everything looks EXACTLY like Ring of Honor, aside from some dancing girls in front of a few monitors that Vice would be ashamed to have on his computer desk. Then Dawn Marie introduces the first match, and I become spontaneously confused as to what the fuck she is doing there. Is Dawn Marie still relevant? That smells heavily like Gabe having had a huge crush as a lad and bringing her in despite her relative obscurity.
But be that as it may, we’re keeping an open mind here…
Vice: DAWN MARIE is the ring announcer. She’s not very good, but it is Dawn Marie.
Lenny Leonard is doing commentary for this show, which is quite awesome. I really like him. Yeah, he’s not the best commentator, but I think he has a really good voice for the job and a great way of putting his thoughts into words. I approve of him.
Segment 2 – BxB (Disco Marufuji) Hulk vs. YAMATO (Wears Shawn Michaels Shirts)
Cewsh: This match, and the show itself generally, starts off in the best way possible. With BxB Hulk and two ladies (one of whom Vice assures me is Daizee Haze of Ring of Honor fame), comes out to awesome music and does a little dance for awhile. Which is awesome and adorable, and momentarily makes me feel better about this show as a whole. Any show where adorable Japanese men get to dance to techno pop music is at the very least open minded to the idea of not sucking.
Then out comes YAMATO wearing one of those shirts Shawn Michaels wears that can only be called a shirt because its too big to be called a scarf. They get started in the ring, and I have to tell you that a process began the likes of which I have never experienced. The match begins with them stiffing each other and brawling all around ringside as the fans massively support BxB Hulk as their fan favorite. They get back in the ring, and YAMATO instantly takes the advantage, repeatedly trying to hit his finisher, which is basically a Tombstone Piledriver from a Running Powerslam position. He can’t ever quite get it, and BxB Hulk uses some fantastically fun offense to fight back and win the upper hand.
Then we lapse into the part of the match where I start to seriously enjoy myself. Hulk is doing some really fun, athletic moves, like standing flips and unique counters, and I’m having a fantastic time cheering him on. YAMATO is pretty much just there, and is frankly rather forgettable throughout as Hulk steals the match, but he does his best to keep up, and I find myself drawn in, despite my reservations about the promotion as a whole. Its exciting, its fun, and its fresh, and we’ll call it minutes 11-15. Unfortunately, however, the match does not conclude during minutes 11-15. It unfortunately strays on into further minutes, during which each man drops the other directly on his neck and head probably upwards of 10 times each.
Now look, I know that head drops have been a huge part of Japanese wrestling for as long as there has been Japanese wrestling, really. Stiffness and realism lend themselves graciously to dropping a motherfucker on his head to put him away. But somewhere along the line, 1 neck drop stopped being sufficient, and that leads us to a match like this, where we are subjected to so many horrifically dangerous looking moves, that they cease to have any meaning. There’s neck drop after neck drop, and then the finisher is, get this, a fucking neck drop! Why should we believe that just because one neck drop is this guy’s finisher, its more deadly than, say, the much more sick looking German Suplex he JUST hit on the guy that barely got a 2 count?
Gabe fucking Sapolsky, you inbred streak of piss, you once again gave two guys 20 fucking minutes to open a show of yours in a match that means nothing for no reason. There is absolutely no fucking reason that this match could not have been 5 minutes shorter except, perhaps, for the fact that you wouldn’t have been able to finish beating off by then. Do you even understand that maybe people tune in for main events, and would be pleased to not be exhausted of wrestling by the time they reached them? Do you remember what main events are? Well you’d better, or else you’ll kill yet another hot promotion that had no means of defending itself from you.
Fucking ridiculous.
60 out of 100.
Vice: From massive stoner to Nitro Girl, Daizee Haze comes out with another chick to dance during BxB Hulk’s entrance. Daizee is so adorable.
BxB is pretty fly, and this is a great way to kick off the show. Fun music, energetic entrance, dancing girls.. can’t go wrong. Yamato comes out with some really depressing attire. You know those really fucking dumb shirts that Shawn Michaels and Cody Rhodes wear? Like, the ones that have no sleeves or sides or anything? Yeah. Imagine shorts in the same vein. Just flaps over the front of his legs. He’s obviously wearing trunks as well, but still. Shit is getting stupid. I feel like I should know who Yamato is, as his name is very familiar, but he doesn’t look familiar at all.
This match has one of my favorite spots in all of wrestling. After tons of leg work from the heel to the plucky face, the heel whips the face towards the corner of the ring, but the face’s leg completely gives out and he falls to the canvas. Of course this is completely brushed aside half a second later after the heel goes for it again and he does a cartwheel to avoid it. Then runs around the ring doing flips off the top rope and all kinds of moonsaults and stuff. BUT, and here’s a big BUT... at the end of it all, he does shake his leg. Yes, it was a technique that John Cena used in his Wrestlemania match against Shawn Michaels. After four minutes of leg work and being in agonizing pain, he fires back with lots of running attacks, to which he shakes the leg to show that he was in pain during that entire sequence. Since John Cena can get away with it while working against Mr. Wrestlemania AT Wrestlemania in the main event, then of course BxB Hulk is going to get away with it in the opening match of Dragon Gate USA. The leg shake. Fantastic selling, it is.
Oh, did Cewsh mention that Gabe Sapolsky, the life giver and harbinger of death of Ring of Honor, is booking this show? This is very important to know, because the first match’s booking reeks of him. Why? Well, the match was like 15 minutes long for starters. It was full of all kinds of near falls, false finishes, transition moves six times more lethal than any actual finisher needs to be and every motherfucking thing in the fucking universe being kicked out of. You know how we feel about this, especially when it comes to the opening fucking match. Yeah it was fast and fun, and I found myself enjoying it a lot more than I really should have, but this gives me a sour taste in my mouth for this promotion and reminds me of why I hated Gabe so much towards the end of his ROH days, and a lot of indy wrestling in general. As a standalone match this would probably be pretty awesome, but I see this as an omen. And not a very good one.
This is Dragon Gate and this is booked by Gabe. Clearly we knew what kind of shenanigans we were going to get ourselves into with this show.
This show looks like Ring of Honor.
It sounds like Ring of Honor.
It’s full of Ring of Honor fans.
It’s being booked like Ring of Sapolsky.
So, basically, ROH version 2. Now with more Japanese. I don’t want to alarm any of you guys, but I can almost assure you that Gabe Sapolsky is watching himself jerk off in the mirror right now. And there are thousands of people jerking off to the thought of Gabe watching himself jerk off. In a way, it’s good knowing that Gabe still has his few thousand fans willing to jerk off to anything Gabe-related, ‘cause they’re at least happy.. but Gabe needs to realize that his booking is not good anymore. He needs to realize that he needs to control the talent more. They need restrictions. Sometimes simpler is, in fact, better. Gabe is not a genius. Everything is so overdone that nothing means anything anymore, and that is sad. Wrestling lives and dies through meaningful booking, matches and moments.
YAMATO Over BxB Hulk Following A Head Drop.
Segment 3 – National Geographic Presents…
Cewsh: We go backstage, as an announcer using the cheesiest impersonation of a documentary narrator imaginable talks about the two combatants in tonight’s main event, Naruki Doi and Shingo. He hypes up their rivalry, and opposition for the Open the Dream Gate title (Dragon Gate’s World Heavyweight Championship) and the “Ace” or top star status in Dragon Gate. If it weren’t for the absurdly overacted cheesiness of the narration, this would actually be compelling, but I can’t get over the idea that a used car salesman is trying to sell me these two Japanese men for no money down and zero percent interest.
Too good to be true, man. Too good to be true.
Segment 4 – Team Random (Amasis, Gran Akuma, Icarus and Hallowicked) vs. The Colony (Fire Ant, Soldier Ant, Mike Quakenbush and Jigsaw.)
Cewsh: Alright now, this is definitely going to be something different. Essentially what we have here is the best of the promotion known as Chikara on display for us. Why this promotion is promoting another promotion? I’m not sure, but at the very least we’re going to be free of Japanese guys kicking each other for a few minutes.
So this match gets started and right off the bat, its becomes a clusterfuck, and never really stops being a clusterfuck. When you get this many high fliers in a match together, inevitably the shit is going to get buck wild, so to speak, and this is far from the exception. Motherfuckers leaping all over the ring, doing crazy ridiculous flips everywhere, the Ants doing fantastically fun tag team moves, and Amasis generally being one amusing motherfucker, halfway between the Rock and MC Hammer in a lucha mask. Just an amazing collection of characters, moves, and fun all rolled into a little ball to promote Chikara.
…for the first 15 minutes at least. I accept that I’m conditioned by the WWE and the other bigger companies to accept and anticipate shorter matches, and this is why I don’t understand the true burning soul of the indy fan or wrestlers, but 20 minutes is just too goddamn long to have these guys endlessly arm drag each other. I was so into this that my eyes were riveted to the screen, but around the 15 minute mark, with no end in sight, my attention started to waver. I couldn’t help it, there was just no real change in the action, and every wrestler in the match (except for Amasis) was overexposed here, leading to me not really caring about any of them at the conclusion of the match. There were a lot of good performances, and a lot of stuff that made me excited for when we review a Chikara show, but the length of this match did a serious disservice to everyone in it.
Still though, fun is fun, and its here to be had. Dig in, me hearties, yo ho.
68 out of 100.
Vice: Amasis – Fucking awesome guy. He’s in an Egyptian stable and they’re all awesome. Unfortunately he’s the only one present here, but he does what he does best and that is to be AWESOME. He dances, he flips, he does all kinds of groovy stuff. So entertaining. He has a bright future.
Gran Akuma – Looks like a penis without his mask. Very good wrestler from what I’ve seen of him a few years ago. He’s still pretty crisp and good here, but since there were 8 people he didn’t really have a heck of a lot of time to really shine.
Icarus – He looks like the most generic indy wrestler now that he has short brown hair. He was much cooler with long blond hair. He also looked a bit more like “Icarus” with the hair, but if I had to guess, he probably lost his hair in a match or something. If that’s the case, it was a dumb decision. Either way, he looks like an idiot. Pretty versatile worker and is able to be carried/have his weaknesses covered by others quite well.
Hallowicked – Solid as can be. Fun in short bursts, but his entertainment drops quickly as time goes on. Glad he still has his mask, otherwise he’d be a nobody.
Jigsaw – Was a really underrated talent a few years back and had a ton of potential. Gabe got a hold of him, pushed him too hard in the wrong direction and exposed every weakness of his that there was to expose, and hasn’t fully recovered since. Glad to know that Gabe is booking this show as well. Still though, he’s a solid wrestler.
Mike Quackenbush – Indy god of wrestling. I probably sucked his dick in the last ROH review, but it’s for good reason. He knows 60,000 holds, 60,000 reversals, 60,000 counters, 60,000 arm drags.. everything. I’ve seen a ton of Quack and he always manages to do a ton of new stuff every time I see him. He’s definitely one of those guys that will never make it big, but at the same time he doesn’t really care, because he does what he loves and is one of the best at what he does.
Fire Ant & Soldier Ant – The only two people in this match that I knew absolutely nothing about. Well, they have ant masks and wrestle like their gimmicks suggest they should. Fire Ant is small and fierce and soldier ant is much bigger and does a lot of salutes. Neither got a ton of time to shine, but I really enjoyed what I saw of them. They worked well together as a team and worked well with everyone else.
This was a really fun match, though it did go on for far too long. That’s basically the problem with the “Chikara style”. It’s amazingly energetic and great, but everything is an arm drag. Arm drags look awesome, especially the crazy ones they do, but they don’t really do any damage of any kind. They don’t even really work the arm from a psychological standpoint. They’re just kind of there. So, matches tend to go on for a hell of a long time. Then you have to consider that the matches usually involve a bunch of people, so there are plenty of people ready to jump in and break up a pin.
I do really like the tag rules, being that one does not need to actually make a tag to another person. If you exit the ring, a partner can come in. These guys make good use of these rules, willing to take a nasty crash to the outside of the ring so that a fresh partner can come in. Yeah, they sacrifice their bodies a bit, but it helps the match in the long run from a kayfabe standpoint.
If this was 5-8 minutes shorter, I think it would have benefitted a lot since nothing huge ever really happened. Still, for what it was, it was pretty great. Amasis stole the spotlight and my heart. I love him. Two matches down, and two very very different wrestling styles. This is good. Variety is good.
The Colony Over Team Random Following A Jig And Tonic (Yes, I Know) From Jigsaw To Icarus.
Segment 5 – Hey Quackenbush, Your Indy is Showing.
Cewsh: Mike Quakenbush stays in the ring, post match, to deliver a promo challenging any Dragon gate wrestler to take on any Chikara wrestler. YAMATO answers, despite his having been beaten the fuck up about 1 match ago, and takes Quack up on that challenge by smacking him upside his goofy head. This touches off a HUGE rbrawl where like every member of Chikara comes to Quack’s aid, until Akuma and Icarus turn against THEM and side with YAMATO, leaving with him hand in hand. In a totally macho way of course.
Of course.
This segment is essentially what you would get if Gabe Sapolsky and Vince Russo sat down and tried to think up what would draw money.
Gabe: What if we had an underappreciated indy guy cut a promo with a Japanese guy?
Vince: Can the Japanese guy speak English?
Gabe: Nope, not at all. Is that important?
Vince: And they just talk?
Gabe: Yep, just talk.
Vince: No turns at all?
Gabe: Well we could have ONE I guess.
Vince: Fantastic, one turn and 3 run ins.
Gabe: Wait, 3? Isn’t that a bit much? Don’t people dislike tons of run ins?
Vince: I dunno. I’ve never listened to any complaints about them.
Segment 6 – Masato (Jacked To The Gills So Much He Might Be A Fish) Yoshino vs. Dragon (Note: Not Actual Dragon) Kid.
Cewsh: So here we have Masato Yoshino, one half of the tag team that first got me interested in Dragon Gate in the first place and, I thought, the good half. As it turns out, he pretty much became the Marty Jannety of he and Doi when they split up amicably, and now he’s wrestling in the middle of the card here, while his former partner is in the main event looking like a star. Oh how the times keep a changin’ Dragon Kid, on the other hand, is someone who I have heard an extremely large amount about without every having actually managed to watch him wrestle. So this will be a fun introduction for me, against I guy I think very highly of. Excitement.
The match gets started, and the high flying shenanigans start right off the bat. See Kid’s deal is that he’s basically the Asian Rey Mysterio, and he is the king of the hurracanrana. Now unlike medieval kings who would become the king of something and then spend their whole life trying to become the king of everything else also, Kid is content to just do hurracanrana after hurracanrana until even I start to get a little motion sickness watching him. The action is fast and furious for awhile, as Kid pulls every flip and jump in his repertoire out in an attempt to win this match for his friend Shingo, but Yoshino, just as fast and more powerful, seems to thwart him at every turn.
Finally, the balance of power starts to shift, some moves happen, and suddenly the match is over. Now little old me, who is looking for somebody to get spiked off the top rope like a basketball or something, found it entirely shocking for such a seemingly delicate maneuver to end this match. Vice assures me that it’s the guy’s finishing move, but compared to everything else, it just seems kind of ridiculous and weak by comparison. I guess I shouldn’t be complaining, since this match really did what I wished the first match had done (cut out the seemingly dangerous bits, and shorten the match), but I feel even more confused. Do they not see any difference between a hurracanrana and a spike brainbuster? That’s intensely worrying to me, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. It’s a shame too, because this kind of clouded me from being able to enjoy what was otherwise an absolutely fine match, with more than a few fun moments.
The match was good, not great, and I’m not sorry I saw it. But like most other things so far tonight, it just felt…off, in some significant way that I can’t fully explain. I’m still hoping they can turn it around by the end of the show.
61 out of 100.
Vice: It’s at this point that I’m starting to really dislike Dawn Marie’s announcing. Instead of the usual “Coming to the ring from [location], weighing in at [pounds]… [NAME!!!!]”, she basically just stands there until the guy is about to enter the ring and simply says the name of the wrestler. Give her some cue cards or something please. I’m also reminded why I absolutely hate female ring announcers. People like FINK and Bobby Cruise should always be the top dogs. Fuck people like Lillian and Justin Roberts or whatever his name is. Yes, his name. He’s a guy. But he’s stupid enough to be considered a female.
This match is basically an exhibition match of sorts. Yeah, apparently there’s some backstory about something and someone and chocolate milk and cell phone bills, but really it’s just “hey, this dude is ridiculously fast and so is that other guy… hmmmmmmmm….”. Pow. Match of the insanely fast people. And these guys really are insanely fast. Yoshino running the ropes is just epic. He’s that fucking fast. Dragon Kid is like a 1996 Rey Mysterio, but modernized. Does that make any sense? Probably not, but whatever.
So, you have two of the fastest wrestlers on the planet.. so you’ve got to wonder—how long will this match be?
15 minutes. Hi, Gabe.
It was entertaining, but it’s more of the same.
Dragon Kid Over Masato Yoshino Following The Dragoncanrana.
Segment 7 – The (Only The Good Die) Young Bucks vs. CIM(s Like You Should Have Retired By Now)A and Susumu (Dr. McRadpants) Yokosuka.
Cewsh: Yes, this is Officer Cewsh with the Cewsh Reviews Police Department, and we need to put an APB out on the following suspects. The fantastic high fliers, the Young Bucks who we have here are heavily favored to be the tag team of the year this year, and also on two men, Japaense by birth it says here, going by the names of CIMA and Susumu Yokosuka. These men are formally charged with trespassing on a terrible show that they clearly don’t belong on, and will be done up for larceny, for stealing the entire show, worth an estimated $26.
This right here is the cure to what ails me. I’ve been having a decent to bad time watching this entire show, and it got to the point where I was filled with cynicism about this match, as I assumed that not even the Young Bucks could cheer me up now. Boy was I wrong. From their first seamless and fluid tag move, to the final show of athleticism and chemistry, I was hooked in 100%. We all pretty much know at this point how I feel about them Bucks, so I won’t pontificate over much on their terrific terrificness, and instead I’ll focus on the other half of what made this a good match. CIMA and Yokosuka. They were fantabulous. Its funny as well, because I generally think very little of both men, but here they brought out everything good that either had to offer and played a great foil for the Bucks as they went about the business of impressing the beejesus out of me.
I know I’m neglecting the play by play to tell you all what brilliance lies beyond the clouds, but I’m just so incredibly happy to be able to be positive about something, that I’m practically bursting with it. But this is a credible journalistic institution, and gods damn it, you deserve some play by play. So here goes.
The Young Bucks: Double Team Move.
CIMA and Yokosuka: Double Team Move.
TYB: Babyface in Peril.
CaY: Cocky posing.
TYB: Double Team Move.
CaY: Ridiculous moves from every angle.
TYB and CaY: Ridiculous clusterfuck of awesome.
Cewsh: Cries one single tear of joy.
Fin.
80 out of 100.
Cewsh’s Download Seal of Approval
Vice: The Young Bucks are a wonderful young tag team for sure. It’s safe to say that they’re the indy Hardy Boyz of this generation, and I mean that in a good way. These two guys are just so fun to watch. Every match of theirs is pretty much exactly the same formula, but they sure as hell picked a good one. I’d like to see them switch it up a bit in the future, but what they’re doing works for right now.
That said, this was a very fun match to watch. Tons of high flying, ridiculous spots and insane bumps. Definitely fun as hell, even if pretty much nothing meant anything and got way, way, way too much time. Like, 20-25 minutes here I think. So, again, this was more of the same as the rest of the show.
Find some Young Bucks matches if you want to see some ridiculous tag team work. I still dream of a Young Bucks/Motor City Machine Guns match
The Young Bucks Over CIMA and Yokosuka Following A Moonsault From Matt To Yokosuka.
Segment 8 – They’re Baaaaack…
Cewsh: So there Shingo and Doi are, in the locker room, innocently trying to prepare for their all important match, when the same guy from earlier starts sticking cameras with zoom lens so far into these guy’s faces, I’m fairly certain that on a clear day I could have read their minds. He runs down his spiel about how important they are with his “I’m a gameshow host on Youtube” voice, and it actually makes the match seem LESS important.
Nice to know that Shingo wears no underwear though. Thanks guys.
Segment 9 – Naruki (If He Was Born A Blonde I’ll Eat My Penguin Hat) Doi © vs. Shing(les Are An Important Consideration For Any Home Improvement Project)o.
Cewsh: We have reached the main event for the very first show in the history of Dragon Gate USA. This is the centerpiece for their debut show, and, conceivably, the match they’re holding up to represent the product from the get go. That’s a helluva lot to stand up to. Will these two be able to carry the load?
Out first in the Shingo Warrior himself, sporting, as always, the most ridiculous hair I have ever seen in the history of professional wrestling. A Mohawk on top, with kind of a topknot, completely shaved on the sides into snazzy patterns, and a full on mullet in the back. It’s a tacky work of art, but make no mistake, despite his questionable hair stylings, this guy has it, whatever “it” is. Then out comes Naruki Doi, and, well, he doesn’t. He’s come light years since I saw him last, which wasn’t even all that long ago, but he still looks like he doesn’t belong here. Maybe I just haven’t seen enough of his meteoric ascent this past year, but it just doesn’t feel entirely right.
These two guys start out with some chain wrestling, and then some more chain wrestling, and then they start breakdancing to the musical stylings of Rick Astley, and then Doi definitively serves Shingo, sending him into a rage, resulting in Doi getting the ever loving shit clubbed out of him. God how I wish that description was entirely accurate. Accurate or not, the match quickly dissolves into an exhibition of counters and submission moves, as both men try to get the upper hand up front. Then begins the period that I will refer to as “Shingo Is Fucking Strong”. Exhibit 1 is Shingo sitting on the ground in the turnbuckle, Doi charges him with a front flip and Shingo CATCHES HIM IN MID AIR and powerbombs his ass to the mat. Astonishing. Then they do the typical thing where the smaller guy tries to knock the bigger man down, and Shingo steps out of the way and gives Doi the most effortless and casual Death Valley Driver ever executed. Then, as an encore, he holds Doi up in a suplex for a count of fucking 30. 30 fucking seconds. I could have left the room, made a sandwich, taken a piss, come back and it still would have been fucking going on! Absolutely incorrigible.
All good things must come to an end, however, and Doi starts firing up with his comeback, doing the classic babyface fire routine that is as time tested in Japan as sushi and sexy women. Then we get about 10 minutes of just completely mind numbingly insane maneuvers piled one on top of the other. Head bumps, top rope moves, death defying flips, kick so hard they knock sweat into the fifth row. The lose their everloving minds for this stretch and the match speeds downhill to the ending. Then its slows down a little. Then a little more. Finally, after the 32nd or so kick out at two, this match becomes a parody so fast I almost didn’t notice the switchover. Things go crazy and eventually, finally, mercifully, they come to an end.
I couldn’t possibly say it half as well as Vice did, so I’ll just say this about this match. It was good. It wasn’t really good, it wasn’t even the best match on this show, but it was good, and nothing for Dragon Gate USA to be particularly ashamed of. I’m sure they all thought this was going to be download seal worthy, and they certainly busted their asses to get there. But sometimes less is more, and nothing represents that better than Gabe Sapolsky. The less Gabe, the more likely you are to get the seal.
72 out of 100.
Vice: Ah, the main event. Now, if you don’t know the style of main events (and, well, I guess any sort of indy match these days..), it’s kind of like this. Now, let’s use John Cena against Triple H for example. If it was wrestled in the same way as these indy main events, it’d be a catastrophe. For example, John Cena would hit Triple H with an FU. Triple H kicks out at 2. Not the biggest deal ever, right? Yeah. So, within two minutes, John Cena would hit Triple H with another FU. Triple H would kick out at 2 once again. Then he’d hit Cena with a pedigree for a 2 count. They’d both get right back to their feet and run around, then Cena would FU Triple H off the top rope. Triple H would kick out at 2. They’d battle back and forth before Triple H hits a pedigree off the top rope for a two count. As Cena kicks out, though, he’d somehow slip Triple H into the STFU and lock it in for about 3 minutes. Triple H would fight through the pain until he could fight no more. He goes limp. Hand goes down once. Hand goes down twice. Hand goes down th—NO! Triple H battles back! He’s in the hold for another 4 minutes as he’s trying to get to the ropes!! How does he do it!? TRIPLE HAS GOTTEN TO THE ROPES.
Wait, what?
Triple H is back on his feet and pedigrees Cena off the top rope and down onto the floor. HOLY SHIT. Triple H rolls a dead Cena in to the middle of the ring. One.. two.. thr—NOOOOO! Cena kicks out. Cena hulks up! He hits the FU on Triple H! HUH!? Triple H stands right back up! PEDIGREE! Holy shit, ANOTHER PEDIGREE! ANOTHER PEDIGREE! He gets the thre—NO HE DOESN’T!! WHAT MADNESS IS THIS! Cena starts fighting back! DEAR GOD! Triple H low blows Cena and hits a 630 off the top rope! One.. two.. th—STFU!!!! Triple H, while in the STFU, stands up (!?) and pedigrees Cena!! One.. two.. three! He’s done it! What an epic way to cap off a 30 minute match!
Now imagine that for every main event.
Fuck you, Gabe.
It was still a good, fun match, but I’m so sick of the formula.
Naruki Doi Over Shingo Following The Muscular Wonton. Note: May Not Be Actual Move Name.
--------------------------------
Cewsh’s Conclusions:
Cewsh: Last week we reviewed a show that was so entertaining, that I would heartily recommend it, despite the relatively low score it earned through the matches on display. This show was exactly the opposite. It wound up getting a surprisingly good score, because nothing was really bad. However, since there wasn’t much that was really GOOD either, its hard to call this show a success. They could win me over more in the future, but its going to take more than this to get it done.
Good luck, Gabe. You have your work cut out for you.
Cewsh’s Final Score: 68.3 out of 100.
Vice’s Verdict:
Vice: Overall I’d be lying if I didn’t say this was a pretty enjoyable show, but there was so much wrong with it at the same time. All the matches were basically the same, with nothing really standing out. Same with the wrestlers; nobody reaaaally stood out for me. This was a two hour show and 85% of it was wrestling. It’s simply too much, especially when it’s all so similar in structure. Yeah it sucks when WWE dicks a match over with time because they’re running a silly skit, but at the same time those segments are essential. Yes, my friends, too much wrestling can be a very bad thing. You need breaks in between matches, otherwise you run out of fuel very quickly, and the rest of the show becomes more of a test to see if you can sit through it all without going insane.
Outside of Dawn Marie, everyone brought their A-game to this show and put a ton of heart into it. That said, this was pretty much exactly what was to be expected in terms of the wrestling style and booking, which is a bit of a problem. Gabe books the same way he did, which is one of the reasons why Ring of Honor is in the shape it’s currently in. Every show tends to be exactly the same as the last, with very few things that stand out. Every match is wrestled like it’s attempting to be match of the year, which is what kills independent wrestling. I’ll give Dragon Gate USA one more show. If it’s Gabe sucking himself off again, then there’s no reason to watch again.
Vice’s Final Score: 64 out of 100.
And just for kick's, because we're a little light on pictures this week and many of you have likely never seen these guys before, a friend of Cewsh Reviews has prepared a helpful primer for you. Chot, take it away.
]
BxB Hulk. I don't think he's amazing, but fuck me I love his entrance.
Masato Yoshino. So ridiculously fast. Just unbelievable. So fucking quick.
Dragon Kid. Cool the first time you see him, but diminishing returns.
SHINGO. You can kind of see his weird hair here. It's really weird but he makes it work.
Naruki Doi. I don't understand why he is the Ace, but he isn't really offensive.
Alright, that'll do it for us this week boys and girls. We hope you enjoyed yourself, and aren't dissapointed that we gave you this review instead of the advertised WCW Superbrawl 2000. Fear not, that sweet Russo goodness is ever so close, but first we're going to head back to the big leagues to cover the first PPV built around submission matches, WWE's Breaking Point! Will this show prove itself to be a gimmick qorth keeping? Or will John Cena vs. Randy Orton cause Vice to reach his Breaking Point? Only one way to find out. In the meantime, as always, keep right on reading, and be good to one another.
