Tag Archives: noam dar

Pro Wrestling

WCPW Loaded Episode 4: A Build to Destroy

Leave a comment

maxresdefault1

by Frank Lucci

WCPW returns with their fourth episode, the go-home show before their big “Built to Destroy” event next week; which seeks to  to crown the first WCPW Heavyweight Champion and the debut of former WWE Superstar Damien Sandow.

How will this installment fare with all the focus on next week? Let’s find out.

Episode four is the shortest yet, clocking in at a few minutes shy of 70. The show consists of only four segments; and as last week Adam Blampied is on commentary again with King Ross and the production continues to get better. They even have clips from the previous installment (it’s like I’m watching Raw from 1995!). All they need to do is speed up the entrances and they’ll have it all down.

Segment I: Gabriel Kidd vs. Drake

Adam Pacitti is out to make a few announcements, one of which is making a Primate vs. “Iron Man” Joe Coffey No Disqualification match for Built to Destroy.

Prince Ameen’s music plays for Gabriel Kidd’s entrance which is the most interesting thing he’s done so far. Drake is labeled as a “Gimmick Killer” who is here simply just to wrestle. Ameen begins the match by constantly shouting advice to Kidd, who eventually gets peeved at the Prince. Drake takes advantage of Kidd yelling at Ameen to win the short match that’s more about furthering the Ameen/Kidd storyline. Pacitti then comes out to declare a Built to Destroy match between the two where the loser becomes the winner’s slave. A decent way to kick things off.

Segment II: Prince Ameen vs. El Ligero vs. Martin Kirby

Pacitti makes this match at the end of the previous video. True story: El Ligero is billed from Los Santos, Mexico; which a) does not exist and b) is, in fact, the city from Grand Theft Auto 5. Kirby attacks his rival before Ameen tries to charge, being tossed outside for his efforts. Ligero’s in charge until Kirby trips him up and the heels team on up the babyface. Ligero botches a double-team suplex reversal, but recovers quickly – hitting a great enziguri. The masked luchador (whose name means “light” as in lightweight)  takes advantage of the heels bickering to regain control.

The finish comes when Ameen tries convincing Kidd to hit Ligero, only for Kidd to slap him (poorly) and Kirby to get a rollup pin. Kirby celebrates, but Ligero hits the tornado DDT and pins his rival to get the win. I’m guessing all Triple Threat matches in WCPW are elimination style, but the announcers forgot to mention that.

Kirby is once again upset with El Ligero and challenges him to a rematch with increasingly crazy stipulations. Examples include a Mask vs. Hair match (although Kirby looks like he has zero hair anywhere on his body), a Hog Pen match, and a pillow fight. Commissioner Pacitti (who really earns his paycheck this episode) makes the rematch official – with the loser either having to wear a dress (Kirby) or unmasking (El Ligero).

The first announcer segment of the night has King Ross and Adam Blampied do some decent albeit unmemorable banter to sell the recently made Built to Destroy matches.

Segment III: Noam Dar vs. Joseph Conners

Conners is out first and I really appreciate how snappy this episode is in terms of getting to the action. Gone are the dumb backstage segments with poor audio to slow things down. Everything takes place in the ring to Loaded’s benefit. Connors’ theme song is by Shattered Skies, an awesome Irish band (now based in London), which gets big points with the Spaceman. “Local Hero” Joe Hendry comes out to support his buddy and commentary play up how Hendry is stealing the spotlight from his tag team partner (I like the announcers being aware of wrestling tropes whereas the WWE announcers have to play dumb to stuff like this). Dar comes out to his Star Wars inspired entrance (I really hope he gets to show this much personality in the WWE Cruiserweight Classic, but I feel like they will just boil his personality down to “Israeli Badass”).

Technical wrestling begins the match, which the crowd appreciates and Blampied calls King Ross a troll (which I love). Dar is crisp as usual and Conners is… less so. Eventually the two men trade pin attempts before Dar gets his Kneebar in. Conners taps in a short match that nevertheless is a good change of pace from the usual style of wrestling we see in WCPW. Video ends with Drake promising to get vicious for manager James R. Kennedy.

Segment IV: Big Damo & “Iron Man” Joe Coffey vs. Rampage Brown & The Primate

Stealing a page out of WWE’s booking style has two impromptu tag teams formed from separate rivalries coming together. More hype from Blampied and Ross for the Built to Destroy special before Blampied leaves his co-commentator to be with his client Rampage. Each wrestler gets an entrance, which eats up a solid chunk of time in this 20-minute video.

This is one of my big pet peeves, I really wish they’d edit down the entrances and allowed for more wrestling, or just have shorter videos in general. Ross claims that Rampage “Just likes to eat people for a living” (never change, King). The big hoss fight starts between Coffey and Rampage, which ends from a surprisingly nimble dropkick from Coffey. Coffey later hits a triangle crossbody from the second turnbuckle, which surprised the hell out me (almost spilled rum and coke on my computer).

The heels take control of Coffey and Primate bites his rival while having him in a headlock (brilliant). The heels seem to be more on the same page than the faces as both Coffey and Damo want to attack their respective opponents for Built to Destroy rather than win the match. Blampied calls for a Piledriver, but since Rampage doesn’t want to get banned from WCPW he is slow to do so. This gives Coffey the chance to put Rampage in a big swing/catapult to the corner spot to get some breathing room. Each man tag in their partners but Damo is the one who gets control of the match.

All four men begin brawling and knock out the referee, which can only mean one thing: it’s time for a Dusty Finish. This leads to Blampied and Primate’s manager Suzie to team up on Jack the Jobber for the dreaded “big slap,” but Jack avoids it and Suzie accidentally hits Blampied – who goes flying. A squad of refs try to separate the wrestlers with no success. Prospect and Kirby come out, but instead of restoring order they attack Big Damo. This brings out more faces and in another charge of Grand Theft Booking we have a big old fracas around the ring. Damo powerbombs Gracie onto some of the wrestlers by the ramp to close out the show, while overall solid is an obvious go-home show to set up Built to Destroy.

Pro Wrestling

WCPW Loaded Episode 2: The Rampage Continues

3 Comments

maxresdefault1

by Frank Lucci

After a somewhat uneven debut episode, WCPW is back with their second edition of Loaded – featuring Ring of Honor Champion Jay Lethal.

Will the second episode top the first? Spaceman Frank is here with the answers.

Segment I: Intro/Adam Pacitti In-Ring Promo

Sadly, the previous episode’s audio problems still persist as the intro music is way too loud, commentators King Ross and Simon Miller are nearly perfect (albeit a little quiet) and backstage segments are…bad. It’s not the segments themselves, it’s the audio quality that make what could be great promos suffer.

Thankfully, WCPW keep to the Ross and Miller segment/match/backstage formula they used before so it is easy to skip ahead. In addition, some of the wrestler’s entrances can drag, especially when they take up precious minutes in these 15-30 minute videos.

Anyway, Pacitti informs everyone that due to the security guard’s neck being broken (receiving immediate smarky, “Bullshit” chants) by Rampage Brown last week that the piledriver is banned from WCPW. Pacitti hilariously adds that this is “just like other, less successful promotions,” drawing heavy cheers from the fans for the thinly veiled WWE reference. Backstage we get an Adam Blampied and Brown interview that does its job, but is forgettable.

Segment II: The Primate vs. Drake

King Ross has a piledriver protection helmet made of plastic (God, I love him).

Our first match features Drake (a generic looking wrestler with no hair and a beard) battling against The Primate (a larger generic looking wrestler with no hair and a larger beard). The Primate also has a female manager who is so forgettable I won’t mention her again. What we have here is a basic squash match that has The Primate throw Drake around until Drake gets a nasty cut behind the ear that bleeds quite a lot. One spear later and The Primate wins.

Afterwards we get multiple backstage interviews informing us that Prince Ameen will team with Gabriel Kidd tonight. Drake is enraged and encouraged to call out Big Damo by heel manager James R. Kennedy. In other seemingly unrelated news, both “Local Hero” Joe Hendry and Joseph Connors are also mad over their last week losses as well.

Segment III: Joe Hendry and Joseph Conners vs. Prince Ameen and Gabriel Kidd

Ross and Miller’s segment is cut short by another Conners/Hendry backstage segment where they talk about sticking together (which immediately makes me think one is turning on the other). If you watch this continuing from the previous video, that’s four interviews (including two in a row) from the same two people.

Going back to commentary, Ross accuses Miller of being a Trump supporter and a racist for not standing when Prince Ameen enters (which is way more entertaining than the previous four interviews). Hendry sings his own theme song and calls himself a “Global Hero.” Five stars.

We finally get this highly built tag team encounter nine minutes into the video. The faces work the crowd (making a big deal of tagging each other in and out when the crowd chants for it) and in general have a lot of spots concerning high-fives. This is fairly weird considering we got all those interviews about how serious each competitor was for this match. Conners gets worked over until Hendry gets the hot tag. The finish comes after the faces do a double backbreaker spot into Conners “Righteous Kill” DDT, but Hendry blind tags himself in to show dissension. While overall a nice match, this one gets bogged down by all the earlier interviews and it’s many comedy spots.

Segment IV: Ring Of Honor Champion Jay Lethal vs. El Ligero

Unlike the last video, Ross and Miller’s segment is mercifully short and we get to the match quickly – with the added intrigue of El Ligero receiving a future ROH title shot if victorious. El Ligero gets a good pop as does Lethal, who also gets “You are wrestling” chants from the crowd.

Opening with lots of fast-paced back and forth/feeling each other out spots that are pretty excellent, Lethal eventually takes over and mixes headlocks into some nice combination sequences; including a headlock takedown into a dropkick spot. It’s nice to see a champ enjoy himself and interact with the crowd, as Lethal gives several Macho Man “Oh yeahs” to the delight of the crowd.

El Ligero wrestles back control of the match with a quick reversal of a delayed vertical suplex into a hip-toss and cannonball spot on the apron to the floor. “Lucha Dragon” chants from some crass members of the crowd get boos from the respectful remainder. Several quick near-falls show how athletic both men are. The duty finish sees Martin Kirby attack both men, causing the match to end in no-contest.

Lethal puts over El Ligero and promises that regardless of the outcome, he will get a title shot at some point in the future. A great match with a disappointing finish that makes sense given Lethal’s status as a traveling champion from another promotion. This should have been the main event but there’s still the matter of crowning WCPW’s first world champion.

Another backstage interviews sees The Primate getting taunted by “Iron Man” Joe Coffey followed by more Rampage and Blampied bromance.

 

Segment V: Noam Dar vs. Rampage Brown

The main event sees the potential WCPW Champion versus the man who will be competing in the WWE Cruiserweight Classic (which is airing a “Bracketology” special tonight on the WWE Network).

The early portion of the match sees Brown imposing his will on Dar as he uses his speed to get out of potentially sticky situations, prompting the crowd to respond with several Star Wars inspired chants for the Israeli Icon. Brown gets firmer control of the match after pushing Dar off the apron into the security barrier. The crowd fires off some more creative chants before they get lazy and simply scream, “Fuck you, Rampage.”

Dar focuses on kicks to Rampage’s legs to try and take the big man down, but Brown manages to rally each time and beat the piss out of Dar. Dar begins laying into Brown pretty heavily and gets a kneebar/ankle lock style submission in, but Blampied causes a distraction so his man can break free. Blampied starts telling Rampage to hit the now-banned piledriver, but Dar turns it into a rollup for a near-fall. Rampage then powerbombs him into oblivion for the win. A solid match with good psychology and storytelling, but the Lethal/El Ligero match was more fun to watch. Big Damo and Jack the Jobber come out for a big brawl to end the episode.

This was an up and down episode of WCPW Loaded. The two big matches delivered, but the first few segments dragged with all the interviews and so-so matches. Hopefully in the future they balance out the segments better and fix those pesky audio problems.