BRM Reviews DGUSA Mercury Rising 2014

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews DGUSA Mercury Rising 2014

Post by Big Red Machine » Jul 25th, '20, 21:37

DGUSA Mercury Rising 2014 (4/5/2014)- New Orleans, LA


SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL MATCH: Chris Hero, Roderick Strong, & Masato Tanaka vs. A.R. Fox, Rich Swann, & Ricochet- 7.75/10
This went well over the twenty minutes and there was a lot of great stuff, but it started to drag a bit, and when the end came it still felt like they were just hitting big moves on each other like they had been for the previous ten minutes rather than feeling like a climatic moment that had been built up to.

CHUCK TAYLOR & MAXWELL CHICAGO SEGMENT- bad
Chuck comes out to cut a promo but he’s all depressed because Gulak turned on him last night and disbanded their stable. Maxwell Chicago comes out to cheer him up. Goofiness ensued. I found none of this funny. Maxwell eventually got Chuck to agree to a match, so we got…

CHUCK TAYLOR vs. MAXWELL CHICAGO- no rating, bad segment
This was an extension of the comedy from before, with Chuck Taylor basically doing what we know of now as the Orange Cassidy gimmick, except it made a tiny bit more sense since the idea is that he was depressed rather than just insanely lazy (and thus someone who no promotion should even want to hire). Chuck eventually got tired of this annoying dickwad attacking him, so he started to fight back, but he eventually stopped caring again.
Fortunately, the Premier Athlete Brand came out and beat up Chicago while Chuck was on the outside, ending this travesty. Su Yung told Taylor that her team was signed face the Gentlemen’s Club, and thus, if Chuck can’t find any partners tonight, he will have to forfeit the match. Chuck suddenly cares again, so we got what would eventually become a…

SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL MATCH: The Premier Athlete Brand (Trent Baretta, Anthony Nese, & Caleb Konley) (w/Su Yung & Mr. A) vs. the Gentlemen’s Club (Chuck Taylor, Biff Busick, & Teddy Hart) (w/Larry Dallas, “two hot chicks, and his cat”)- -4
Yup. Negative.
This started with Taylor fighting alone. He was eventually joined by Biff Busick, and then by Teddy Hart. I’m okay with people getting added in the middle of the match here because Chuck had no partners in the first place, so it’s not a replacement for someone who got injured during the match. That being said, neither Biff nor Teddy should really be considered members of the Gentlemen’s Club. I only have them listed like that because that’s how the team officially announced at the beginning of the match when it was just Chuck, and if they’re not considered Chuck’s partners from the moment the match started, then their interference should have technically been a DQ. This is how my mind works.
Chuck did a great job despite the disadvantage, but was undone by his desire to hug (and possibly recruit) Trent Baretta to his side. This resulted in him wasting a bunch of time, only to get attacked from behind and have Trent shrug and laugh at him.
Biff came out to help soon after, and when the two of them were in trouble Teddy Hart came in, with Larry Dallas making a big production of the entrance. Teddy hit a bunch of moves on the heels. He tried to hit a Panama Sunrise on Trent and botched it, so it looked like he did a sunset flip from the top that Trent rolled backwards with a countered into a pin, except that Trent went down selling his neck.
Teddy then got the cat and started celebrating with Larry and the hot chicks and his teammates INSIDE THE RING even though the match was still going on. Then Teddy turned on his teammates. The crowd chanted “THIS IS STUPID!” Teddy and pals left, and PAB picked up the pieces to get the win. This was apparently our pay-off for teasing Teddy coming into DGUSA four years ag this weekend. This was an absolutely terrible idea all around. Uch. Whatever good was done by Chuck Taylor in the beginning and by some of Busick’s stuff was completely obliterated by Chuck’s dumb hug spot and the Teddy Hart crap. This right here is proof that it was time for this company to die.

SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL MATCH: Moose & the Bravado Brothers vs. Lincé Dorado & the Colony (Fire Ant & Green Ant)- 7.75/10
The story here was the babyfaces having to overcome the power of Moose, and they found a way to do so. Green Ant pinned one of the Bravados, then cut a promo saying that the Colony wanted a title shot. One of the Bravados cut a promo accepting the challenge for the next EVOLVE weekend of shows in May. He then said that the Bravados were challenging Bad Influence to a match after the PPV goes off the air because they want to make sure they get their third win this weekend.

SHINE TITLE MATCH: Ivelisse(c) vs. Mercedes Martinez- 6.5/10
A good match, and a good show of sportsmanship afterwards.

PRE-MATCH SEGMENT- decent
Gargano is in complete and total denial about having lost the DGUSA Open The Freedom Gate Championship last night after holding it for almost two and a half years. He offers to put the belt on the line tonight, prompting the fans to chant “WHERE’S YOUR TITLE” and prompting Low Ki to cut a promo on him for being detached from reality. Unfortunately, due to the bad quality of the mic and one also who chanted “BORING!” until the other fans shut him up, we couldn’t hear most of what Ki said, but finishing it up with saying “and that’s coming from the NXT Season 2 winner” got a big laugh from the crowd. I usually don’t like the delusional heel angle, but considering how long Gargano held the belt for, I’m willing to give this one a pass if it doesn’t go on for too long.

LOW KI vs. JOHNNY GARGANO- 8.25/10
This certainly delivered. Gargano was an excellent heel and worked over Ki’s arm, while Ki was in full babyface Low Ki mode. This was tremendously fun and very easy to get into. I really wish we could have gotten a rematch of this at some point in the 2015-2017 range.

SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT ELIMINAITON FINALS: A.R. Fox, Rich Swann, & Ricochet vs. Lincé Dorado & the Colony (Fire Ant & Green Ant) vs. The Premier Athlete Brand (Trent Baretta, Anthony Nese, & Caleb Konley) (w/Su Yung & Mr. A)- 8.5/10
PAB jumped the bell on everyone else. This was a really fun main event. I’m not a fan of the spot where everyone keeps adding another submission onto the pile, but I did enjoy Nese having to break up each of the other five submissions in order to save Konley, who was stuck in the submission at the bottom.
Also… you know that grip the Colony does when they’re setting for the Ant-apult to give Fire Ant the boost on his dive? Well when they did in this match, I made a very interesting observation: IT’S THE F*CKING CATCHPOINT SYMBOL! That can’t be a coincidence, considering who the two guys usually giving Fire Ant the boost are.
The match was spotty until the first elimination (which was done in a way that was a nice culmination of the “big spots” part of the match), then settled down into a more traditional babyface in peril match with a hot tag and so forth. There were one of two spots that came off a little too forced to me, but the pacing was great, the match always felt like it was building, they did a lot of cool stuff, and the crowd at it all up.


This was an otherwise good show from DGUSA, with a big hole of dreadful crap after the opener. The Gargano vs. Low Ki match is a particular highlight, especially since it is the only one they’ve had so far, and I don’t see any happening in the future. As a send-off for DGUSA, it really feels more like a CHIKARA show and a WWN Supershow than it did a pure DGUSA show. I’m not sure if anyone knew this was going to be DGUSA’s final weekend, but the promotion certainly felt dead.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
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ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

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