BRM Reviews CZW Any Questions?

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews CZW Any Questions?

Post by Big Red Machine » Apr 4th, '18, 20:59

CZW Any Questions? (4/15/2006)- Philadelphia, PA

We start off with a promo from Zandig and some other CZW guys burying ROH. The production here was embarrassing. There was glare so bad you could only see one guy’s face out of about four. Zandig was only identifiable y his voice and his disconnect with reality about the popularity of his product. He claimed that ROH started on CZW’s coattails, which is a ridiculous statement when you realize that the entire concept of ROH and its Code of Honor was to be the exact opposite of CZW. Meanwhile, Zandig’s own company was, in fact, started by riding ECW’s coattails. Then he said that ROH was still riding CZW’s coattails in 2006, which is ridiculous when you realize that ROH had been regularly outdrawing them for the past year, often by large margins. At one point Zandig called Gabe dumb, at which point I got this visual in my head of Gabe sitting there, watching this, and giggling, and rolling around in all of the money he has convinced Zandig’s fans to pay to come to ROH shows during this feud.
Some other guy said the ROH show was boring and joked that he fell asleep during it several times. They had the audacity to say this line, then have their DVD start with OVER THIRTY STRAIGHT MINUTES OF PROMOS, which I am not going to recap here because I did, in fact, legitimately fall asleep in the middle of them.

THREE-WAY DANCE: Ravage vs. Andy Sumner vs. Drew Gulak- 4.5/10
Ravage argued with some ROH students (including a very, very young-looking Shane Hagadorn) on his way to the ring. And speaking of young… oh my G-d Drew Gulak looks like he’s not even out of high school yet.
This was a pretty good match for the time it got. There was a lot of work on the heads… mostly in the form of head-drops (it’s an indy opener, what do you expect?), but at least they were consistent with it. There was one extremely scary and unintentional bit of work on the head where Sumner press-slammed Gulak over the top rope and onto Ravage who was out on the floor, and while Ravage managed to catch Gulak perfectly, he slammed the back of his head on the guardrail while falling backwards, and it was a miracle he wasn’t knocked out.
On commentary, Eric Gargiulo claimed that the ROH vs. CZW feud had been going on since the first few ROH shows (although that seems specious because I know they were working together by late 2002) and said that it started to due to an incident involving himself and The Briscoes. I have no idea what he’s talking about. He also claims that he stopped doing commentary for ROH after their first two shows because they stiffed him on pay.

HANDICAP ELIMINATION MATCH: Chris Hero vs. ROH Students (Matt Franco, Pelle Primeau, & Shane Hagadorn)- As a match this was a bout a 5/10, but as a segment it was pretty perfect.
Hero challenged the three ROH students to fight him right here and right now. Unlike most CZW guys, he was smart enough to give these three some offense so that he would have something to come back from and understands that getting beaten up three-on-one doesn’t make you look bad, and especially not if you come back and win cleanly.
As a DVD product, though, this was hampered by a clear lack of communication between the booker and the announcers, as the announcers had no idea that this was supposed to be an elimination match (they first thought it was a just a regular handicap match, then, after the first elimination, assumed it was a gauntlet). It also would have been better if they had immediately been able to point out to us the finishers that Hero used to put the students away were the finishers of the three men who would represent ROH against Hero, Super Dragon, & Necro Butcher at ROH’s 100th Show next week. They figured it out after the second of the three moves, but it would have been better to have it out there right away. It also would have been better if the announcers hadn’t spent so much time burying CM Punk’s tattoos. It made them look clueless; like they didn’t realize that Punk had signed with WWE the previous summer.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Hero cut a promo saying that CZW would show ROH who rules the Philly wrestling scene. He vowed not to fail CZW like certain “supposed champions of CZW who fail each and every time.” This line brought Ruckus and the BLKOUT and they were not happy. Kingston pushed past Ruckus in the aisle to try to get at Hero. By the time BLKOUT hit the ring, Hero had fled, of course, because he is the ultimate chickensh*t.
Hero and Ruckus traded promos that I had trouble understanding due to the audio quality. Hero claimed that he only lost to Danielson at ROH Hell Freezes Over because he had wrestled earlier that day (at CZW’s own An Afternoon of Main Events. Maybe they explicitly said this and I didn’t hear it or maybe it was mean to be subtle, but either way, this does seem to be laying some groundwork for what would happen between these two men at CWZ’s next show.
Hero left, but Lobo and Zandig came out. He said something to BLKOUT about Ruckus getting Hero so they left. Then het cut a promo I had trouble understanding, but it seemed to be him cutting a promo on ROH. Eric Gargiulo translated for me that Zandig was announcing that Christopher Daniels and some other ROH guys would be competing in next month’s Best of the Best tournament.
Then Larry Sweeney came out and said a bunch of stuff I didn’t understand. Zandig’s reply was equally unintelligible, but they shook hands and Sweeney left happily.

BEST OF THE BEST VI QUALIFIER: El Generico vs. Jigsaw vs. Hallowicked- 6.75/10
A fun combination of impressive Lucha and the indy-riffic big spots style.

ALTAR BOY LUKE & THE MESSIAH vs. PANDORA’S BOX (Adam Flash & B-Boy) (w/Pandora)- 6.75/10
These guys had a really solid tag team match that ended when Pandora distracted Messiah via seduction that that he wouldn’t save Luke when Flash & B-Boy hit him with a bunch of moves in a row and then pinned him. Flash didn’t notice this, either, and so when he turned around after his victory and saw his gal chatting up his opponent, he got pissed. He grabbed her by the hair, and the announcers saw fit to make Savage/Elizabeth jokes, including claiming to have seen Flash lock Pandora in a closet backstage. Well… it’s CZW. I really shouldn’t have expected any better.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Flash & B-Boy left Pandora in the ring. Then LuFisto made her CZW debut by coming out and attacking Pandora from behind and laying her out with a Sit-out Side Powerslam. Adam Flash came back and made the save, then held LuFisto up so B-Boy could hit her with a Shining Wizard. They left, then Necro Butcher came out, mussed up LuFisto’s hair like she was his little buddy, and encouraged the crowd to give her a nice round of applause, which they did. That was nice of him.

TABLES MATCH: Danny Havoc vs. DJ Hyde- 4.5/10
Larry Sweeney asked if this Tables Match meant that the first person to go through a table would lose, or if it only mean that the use of tables was legal and encouraged. Eric Gargiulo, THE LEAD ANNOUNCER FOR THE PROMOTION, said that he did not know. This is the second time this has happened on a show that is barely an hour old. How the f*ck do these idiots possibly think they have a better product than ROH when they come off so completely rinky-dink and amateurish.
It turns out that you win simply by putting someone through a table (which is what makes the most sense anyway, because all CZW matches are no DQs and this tables would be legal anyway). They went about five minutes and succinctly told the story of Havoc being the young skinny kid who wants to prove he’s tough like the big veteran. DJ Hyde won in about five minutes. As DJ headed off, Havoc got on the mic and asked DJ to come back so they could restart the match because “I’m going to beat you or I’m going to die trying.” DJ obliged, so the match was restarted. He beat the sh*t out of Havoc all around the arena, the chokeslammed him over the top rope, through a table on the floor.
Havoc got a mic and again asked for the match to be restarted. It was, and this time, Havoc got in basically all of the offense. I assume he was supposed to win with a Frankensteiner through the table but the cruel whims of fate intervened and DJ Hyde just bounced off of the table rather than it breaking. So they tried for something more surefire by having Havoc set Hyde up on the table, presumably for a diving move, but the table collapsed as soon as DJ was on it… but still didn’t break. It was just barely being propped up in the corner, so Havoc’s attempt to break it via double-stomp to DJ didn’t work, either. They tried it again, and this time referee Derek Sabato just kind of gave up and inspected the table and pretended he had found some sort of major break that hadn’t been there before. While this unfortunate mishap on the finish definitely hurt the match, I think it would have been a lot better if rather than having DJ destroy Havoc the entire second fall and then doing the reverse for most of the third, they would have had Havoc get more and more offense in each time so that it really felt like he was coming closer rather than “this is the part where he is booked to win.”

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- DJ Hyde attacked Havoc after the match and dragged him up to the balcony, then press-slammed him through a table. The kid nearly dies… and of course everyone is chanting “CZW! CZW! CZW!” while Gargiulo basically says that the kid deserved to die because he “had it coming.” Then the fans, who just cheered when DJ Hyde assaulted this kid after a match and tried to murder him, are now all cheering for “DANNY! DANNY!”

BJ WHITMER & KEVIN STEEN vs. NECRO BUTCHER & SUPER DRAGON- 9/10
Steen distracted the CZW guys with his entrance so that BJ could come through the crowd and attack them from behind. This caused Eric Gargiulo to go on a rant about how everyone who works for ROH is “dirty; from the management to the office staff.” That’s quite the wide variety of people you’ve got there. It’s also ironic to hear a criticism about the dishonesty of someone else’s management from a promotion that literally stole one of Big Japan’s championship belts after also screwing them over on a deal where each was supposed to carry the others DVDs but CZW never held up to their end of the bargain.
This was an absolutely EPIC brawl. These guys BEAT THE ABSOLUTE SH*T OUT OF EACH OTHER for almost sixteen minutes. This captured the hatred of the ROH vs. CZW feud better than anything else that CZW booked on their side.

NECRO BUTCHER PROMO- a very good patriotic promo for CZW going into the interpromotional match at ROH’s 100th Show next week.

CZW JR. HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE #1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: Cheech vs. Cloudy vs. Derek Frazier- 7.75/10
This was an excellent, action-packed Jr. Heavyweight match that was GREAT for the time it got. CZW Jr. Heavyweight Champion Niles Young and his girlfriend Noel Harlow came out to ringside and strutted around during the match. They had no effect on anything, so I have no idea why they even came out here in the first place.

BLK OUT (Eddie Kingston, Joker, Ruckus, & Sabian) vs. LIONEL KNIGHT, CHRISTOPHER BISHOP, JUSTICE PAIN, & NICK GAGE (w/Larry Sweeney)- 8/10
BLK OUT won when Bishop and Knight turned on Nick Gage and Justice Pain because Gage and Pain apparently don’t like Canadians. The match itself was your standard craziness with lots of spots and weapons, but at a slower pace than you’d see nowadays. At over twenty-five minutes I wouldn’t quite say it dragged, but I was definitely ready for it to end when the finish came.
On commentary, Eric Gargiulo literally wished for Gabe to die. This is one of those comments that just shows you that CZW had absolutely no idea how to handle this feud. They didn’t say things like “Grrr… I hate Adam Pearce!” or “that Samoa Joe isn’t so tough” or “ROH and their fans are such snobs.” They insulted backstage personnel in extreme terms.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad.
Justice Pain cut a profanity-laced promo on the Canadians. The Canadians came out and got beaten up by Gage, Pain, Zandig, and Lobo, so there goes all of the heat they just got. Then BLK OUT came back out and everyone brawled for no real reason.

A pretty good show from CZW, but due purely to the efforts of the wrestlers rather than anything going on in the booking. There are talented workers in this company, but that final segment is exactly an example of the kind of thing that was holding the company back. Comparing what ROH did with their half of the feud to what CZW did with theirs shows the difference between the two companies, and why ROH would continue to rise while CZW would continue to fall.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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