Karl Fredricks and Clark Connors vs. CCK (Chris Brooks and Jonathan Gresham)
Karl and Clark are “Young Lions” from the LA dujo so they’re unknown and sporting the plain black tights. And they wrestled like they were Young Lions as well. They were hungry and gave an amazing effort. I really enjoyed everything about this. CCK defied the modern trend in wrestling and worked a smart match. Connors was the smaller man and his leg gets taken out half way through. CCK isolates him as much as they can and work the leg. They cut the ring in half, break up tags, they work like a real team.
Fredrick was the big man and powerhouse of the team, which made him a good hot tag when it gets made. He did a good job showing that the could throw both members of CCK around without dominating them. He looked like he had a lot of raw talent and could become something soon. He was a great Young Lion. The Young Lions get closer to winning then you would ever expect from them. Connors shows heart and Fredricks raw potential. CCK were an efficient machine.
I also want to give them credit for working a match like this on Wrestlemania weekend. It’s a marathon weekend that I’ve experienced as a fine many times. It’s always a blast but the crowds can be quiet sometimes. It’s not anyone’s fault it’s just that fans have to pace themselves. If I’ve got tickets to three shows I can’t go insane all day. So a lot of the times you get matches that are just spot after spot to get a reaction. These guys took their time, worked a good match, and got the reactions that they wanted. Really good match.
***½
Carlos Romo vs. A-Kid vs. Flamita vs. Kid Lykos
Every Wrestlemania weekend has a lot of independent wrestling shows. And every independent wrestling show over the weekend has a match like this. You book some high fliers in a multiman match. It was on par with the other matches. They do some cool spots, some other cards had better spots and some didn’t. I did like that Romo and A-Kid were a tag team and there was that dynamic in play. The commentators were talking about how someone was trying to split the team and take one guy away so you had a tag team with some tension. The ending will keep that story going. Good for them for putting a match together that advanced a storyline and still got to have some fresh faces doing cool flips.
*¾
Michael Oku vs. Brian Cage
I loved the idea of the match but not the execution. In a cruel twist of fate, based on everything I usually complain, I’m going to have to type this and say that Cage sold too much. Oku is small and the commentators said that he was skipping the “Contender” division and going straight to the main roster. The whole idea is that he’s overmatched and he’s expected to be squashed. And Oku does a great job taking offense from Cage. He ragdolls all over the place and looks like someone that’s in a lot of trouble in the ring.
The problem is his offense. It doesn’t look strong at all and one kick will have Cage crumbling and falling down. And some of the moves look like Cage is just doing that to himself. There was a Canadian Destroyer from Oku to Cage and it just looks like Cage doing an impressive flip. I like the story with the guy who’s supposed to be squashed giving the monster a run for his money. I loved the offense from Cage and I loved how Oku sold it. But they really missed on the parts of the match where Oku was getting in offense. Which is a shame because this could have really worked out well.
**
Will Ospreay and Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Zack Sabre Jr. and Minoru Suzuki
I liked it but I didn’t love it. It was too one sided in favor of Suzuki-gun for my liking. Granted, they are amazing when they control a match. Ospreay is bleeding from his nose in the first couple of minutes and whenever they have the chance they claw at, pull on, or hit him there. In fact, the offense from Suzuki-gun ruled, whenever there was a body part they could grab and twist they did.
Ospreay and Tanahashi were OK. Ospreay sold some beat downs well and his offense was desperate, which I liked. But what I didn’t like was challenging Suzuki to go blow for blow with him multiple times. Look, do that once, look tough/crazy, but why do it again? After getting almost knocked out the first time he shouldn’t be trying to do that. Tanahashi is a good hot tag when he gets one but I felt like he wasn’t in there too much. And Suzuki gun kept maintaining control of the match. Honestly, this match was worked closer to what I was thinking the match with Young Lions was going to be. Good but not great.
***¼
Rocky Romero vs. Ryusuke Taguchi
I’ve got a real bias against Taguchi. I can’t stand his gimmick. So the best way to sum it up is that he has a super ass. So there’s lots of ass based offense. He hits people with it, he jumps into them with it… you get the idea. The best way to sum the the gimmick up is that at one point Romero did some Kawada kicks, Taguchi doesn’t sell them, and follows up with his own version of them where he rapidly hits Romero’s head into his ass. I LOVE comedy wrestling. So this isn’t me shitting on the idea of doing funny things in the match. Taguchi isn’t funny with his offense though, the spots with his ass are serious moments worked into the match.
OK so now that I got that out of the way it’s a perfectable passabe New Japan Junior style match. If you can get past all ass based offense it’s fine. They build up the intensity and keep a nice pass. They’re both veterans and have been working in New Japan for a long time so they know how to do this. I imagine this is quite a but higher if you're a Taguchi fan.
**
David Starr vs. Tomohiro Ishii
I feel like Starr kind of looked like an idiot. The match starts and it looks like Starr has an advantage if he stays locked up with Ishii. Well he hits Ishii with strikes a few times and they’re no sold. OK, you’ve got the dynamic about what will and won’t work against Ishii. They proceed to have a good match. Nice pacing, Ishii is a tank, Starr shows some fire, and it works. And then the finish is Starr headbutts Ishii, it has no effect, Starr stuns himself, and takes a few moves before he gets pinned. I liked the match but man did Starr seem like an idiot for doing that.
***
Aussie Open vs. Roppongi 3K
You’ve got two very different types of matches here. The first half is Aussie Open working well as a team and trying to contain the explosive Shoh and Yoh. I liked it. Davis was a good big man who was exciting to watch but was still trying to bottle up his opponents from doing anything too flashy.
The second half is where they stop making tags and you’ve got the bigger spots. It was fine. The crowd was dead so that made it come across as a little flat. I also don’t feel like they really kicked it into the next level on this one. I don’t think this belonged as the main event. Not to knock any of the guys but these four were not the ones that people came to see, I noticed empty chairs during this that were not empty earlier in the show. It’s a good match with a flat crowd.
***
Good but flat is probably how I would describe most of this card. It’s unfortunately a trend that I’ve really started to notice with Wrestlemania weekend shows. If you’re not a premier show the fans hold back their energy.
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