BRM Reviews FIP Southern Justice

[Big Red Machine]

FIP Southern Justice (10/14/2006)- Bushnell, FL


Hello and welcome to BRM’s Monthly “This Day in Wrestling History” Review Series! I enjoyed last month’s ROH show so much that I figured for this month we’ll stay in 2006 and check out the other promotion Gabe Sapolsky was booking at the time. Join me in hoping that the show itself is better than the lame name while watching FIP Southern Justice!

CANADIAN COUGAR vs. JAISON MOORE- 4.5/10
On commentary, Prazak is doing the stupid gimmick where he insists that Canadian Cougar is someone who he obviously isn’t under the mask. Said Cougar won a short but fine opener cleanly via submission.

YRR PROMO- terrible
If YRR stands for “Young, rich, & ready for action,” shouldn’t it be YRRFA?
Anyway, this was really bad. This was two geeks trying to play wrestling bad-guy. Erick Stevens came out and attacked them to try to get at his former tag team partner, Steve Madison. He grabbed the mic, and the contrast between them was glaring. And it’s not like Erick Stevens was really known for his promos, either. In this case, though, simply coming out and not feeling like someone who was just playing a character was all it took.
Stevens was ready to wrestle them in a handicap match, but Sal Rinauro came out to join him, so instead we got…

ERICK STEVENS & SAL RINAURO vs. THE YRR (Steve Madison & Chasyn Rance)- no rating, meh segment
We started off with WAY too much gaga before the heels finally got some heat on Stevens. That went on for a bit until Stevens finally made the tag. Rinauro called Stevens in to try a double-team move soon after, at which point he turned on Stevens. Sal dragged Stevens to the corner to make a tag so Stevens was legal, then Sal and the YRR hit Stevens with a double Spike Piledriver. If Sal was going to turn on Stevens, why did he wait so long? Why not just start attacking him the moment the bell rang?

POST-MATCH SEGMENT #1- meh
The heels beat on Stevens until Seth Delay came out with a chair to chase them off. Sal grabbed a mic and told Stevens that he turned on him because he was tired of carrying Stevens.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT #2- passable set-up for the next match
DP Associates came out so Prazak could laugh at Erick Stevens, and make fun of Delay, too. He ordered Delay to leave, but Delay wouldn’t, so Prazak sent Cyber Kong after him. Cyber Kong was carrying a pineapple around for some reason.


SETH DELAY vs. CYBER KONG (w/Shingo Takagi & Mr. Milo Beasley)- 3.5/10
They did some big vs. small stuff. Delay started making his comeback, but then Cyber Kong got himself DQed for throwing a pineapple at Delay’s head. I’ve never had a pineapple thrown at my head, but this didn’t look like it made anywhere near enough contact to knock Delay down like it did here.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
On commentary, Dave Prazak was laughing about Delay getting hit in the head with the pineapple, but then he realized it meant a DQ, so he got cartoonishly upset. Then he left commentary and went and did the exact same thing in front of the live crowd (yes, I know that commentary was done in post-production many months later, but how the hell do you not go back and re-do the commentary for the end of the match once you realize that you’re doing the same exact gag twice in a row.
Prazak plugged Bryan Danielson’s title defense in the main event, then told Milo Beasley not to screw up the plan in the next match like he did in the previous one. Prazak then made an open challenge on Shingo’s behalf, resulting in…

JERRELLE CLARK vs. SHINGO TAKAGI (w/Mr. Milo Beasley & Cyber Kong)- 7.25/10
Great stuff here, with stories going about the interference from the outside, Jerrelle’s head getting worked over, and “power vs. speed.” There were some excellent nearfalls towards the end, a few really cool counters spaced throughout, and the match was paced very well. And after everything that has come before it, it was quite refreshing to see something that was actually good on this show.
In terms of storyline stuff, Mr. Milo Beasley was, in fact, able to execute a plan correctly this time, pleasing Dave Prazak greatly.

HEARTBREAK EXPRESS- and now we’re back to sh*t
Sean Davis’ voice sounds like he’s whining no matter what he’s saying, but in this promo, he was fake-crying (I mean as in kayfabe crying, but doing it exceedingly poorly), and that made it infinitely worse. Apparently Black Market kidnapped SoCal Val last night, so the Heartbreak Express will be rooting for Black Market to beat the Briscoes tonight so that they can get the chance to get their hands on them later.

#1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: The Briscoe Brothers vs. Black Market-5.75/10
The Briscoes won a solid but relatively short match.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Heartbreak Express came out so Davis could cry/whine some more. He said that they were so angry at the Briscoes for beating Black Market for the #1 contendership that they would give the Briscoes a title shot right now.

FIP TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Heartbreak Express(c) (w/SoCal Val) vs. the Briscoes- 2/10
I feel kind of bad rating this because it was so short, it was an impromptu match, and because I’m assuming that the booking logic behind doing this title change this way was to shake the division up while still keeping the Heartbreak Express vs. Black Market feud alive, but at the same time, it’s still a title match, and this being so short was disappointing simply because I assumed the reason the previous match was short was so the winners could save themselves for this one, so I’m still rating it as a match, but it certainly wasn’t bad for the time it got.

ERICK STEVENS CALLS OUT SAL RINAURO- fine
Sal came out and they brawled for a while. Eventually the YRR ran in to help Sal, so Seth Delay and Roderick Strong made the save. Roddy then called out Matt Sydal for the…

#1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: Matt Sydal vs. Roderick Strong- 7.75/10
2006 Roderick Strong worked over the back of the smaller wrestler. Try not to be too shocked. Roddy won a GREAT match, and a promo declaring that he would be the next FIP Heavyweight Champion, no matter who won tonight’s…

FIP HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Bryan Danielson(c) (w/Dave Prazak & Mr. Milo Beasley) vs. Davey Richards- 8.25/10
It was really funny to see Davey try to be INTENSE DAVEY RICHARDS in the ring before the match while Danielson and Prazak spent several minutes on the outside doing gaga with the small children in the crowd. Then the gaga went on for WAY too long and I started to get annoyed.
This was awesome, as you’d expect from these two, but due to being in front of a FIP crowd, it was much different from the striking and grapplef*ck fest you’d expect from these two. It was much more of a traditional “PRO WRESTLING” style of match. In-keeping with that, Danielson cheated to win.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Roderick Strong came out to get in Dragon’s face. Danielson left, so Roddy went to check on Davey, but Dragon came back and pushed Roddy into Davey, causing Davey to get upset at Roddy.


This was a tale of two shows, with the two thirds of the show being mostly not very good, but finishing out with a relatively strong top two matches (especially by the standards of FIP in this era). Next month… I have no idea what show I’ll be covering, but hopefully it will be at least this good.