BRM Reviews RPW Live in Cardiff
Posted: Nov 24th, '17, 14:30
RPW Live in Cardiff (10/15/2017)- Cardiff, UK
AUSSIE OPEN (Mark Davis & Kyle Fletcher) vs. THE LEGION OF LORDS (Lord Gideon Grey & No Fun Dunne)- 4.5/10
I’m not sure when Dunne became a lord, but if Lord Gideon vouches for him then I’ll believe him. Lord Gideon also said that Dunne was his best friend, and the announcers speculated on how Rishi Ghosh might react to hearing this news.
These was an okay babyface vs. heel match with a decent heel finish.
JINNY vs. VEDA SCOTT vs. CHARLI EVANS- 4.5/10
Jinny does an excellent job of coming off as a total piece of sh*t, but a really, really tough piece of sh*t. You want to see someone beat her, but you know it won’t be easy and thus it makes any babyface who steps in the ring with her feel like she’s on an insurmountable quest, so when that win finally does come, it will feel like a big deal for the woman that beats her. It almost feels like RevPro’s women’s division doesn’t need a belt right now because ending Jinny’s undefeated streak essentially is the belt. That’s the thing we fans want to see someone do. The streak continued here, as Jinny stole Charli’s pin on Veda after Charli had laid Veda out with her finisher.
EDDIE DENNIS vs. CHRIS BROOKES (w/CCK)-5.5/10
This match was originally scheduled for Live at the Cockpit 19 back in August but the card had to be shifted around due to an injury to Kid Lykos so now we’re finally getting the promised match. Is this match really that big a deal? No. But I do like the sports-like kayfabe approach that it shows RevPro having: if RevPro management thought this was a good enough match-up to book before and the match had to get cancelled and nothing has happened that should change their feelings on it, why wouldn’t they book it again?
Eddie is in his home town, plus he’s Eddie Dennis, so you know he’s going to be a babyface, but aren’t CCK babyfaces, too? If so, why did Kid Lykos start punching and kicking Eddie when was on the outside? And then, when Eddie was going to do something about it, hold up his injured arm (still in its cast) as if to say “hey! You can’t hit me! I’m injured!” like a heel would? And why did all of this happen right in front of the referee without a disqualification?
Now Lykos is grabbing at Eddie from the outside to try to trip him up? Did CCK turn heel while I wasn’t looking or something? Eddie seemed to have the match won several times but could never quite put Brookes away. A large part of this was due to CCK’s interference. Despite suspecting- and sometimes outright seeing- CCK interfere in the match, the referee didn’t even eject them from ringside, never mind call for a DQ. You’d think that with Eddie overcoming all of this cheating and this being Eddie’s home town and all that this would be the night that he’d finally get his first win in RevPro (something that they have been building up for quite a while), but no. Brookes just pinned him with a roll-up, with Eddie kicking out at 3.1. The first ten minutes or so of this match was pretty good, but after that it just went downhill in a ridiculous snowball of “WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?”
EL PHANTASMO vs. RYAN SMILE vs. KURTIS CHAPMAN- 5.75/10
This was spotty and felt very choreographed, and as I said in my review of Takeover: War Games, that’s not a bad thing if you can make it look fluid and natural. These guys didn’t do that for their first set of big spots, and as a result that feeling permeated most of the match, making things that otherwise wouldn’t feel quite so choreographed start to feel choreographed. It felt like they were working together to put on a cool performance, not having a professional fight, and them all raising each other’s hands at the end put an exclamation point on it.
RPW BRITISH CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Josh Bodom(c) vs. “Flash” Morgan Webster- 7/10
Webster started off really hot and dominated the first part of the match until Bodom hit one big reversal to cut him off and sold for a bit before going on offense. Webster made his comeback and was dominating again and you could tell that he was getting closer and closer to victory until Bodom got himself DQed to save his title. A great match for the time it got.
“SPEEDBALL” MIKE BAILEY vs. TRAVIS BANKS- 7/10
Banks gets revenge on Bailey for knocking him out of WCPW’s World Cup of Wrestling.
A fun little show from RevPro and it seemed a lot more important than a show that went only an hour and forty-two minutes with no major names should have felt, but that CCK turn was so confusing that I don’t know what to make of it.
AUSSIE OPEN (Mark Davis & Kyle Fletcher) vs. THE LEGION OF LORDS (Lord Gideon Grey & No Fun Dunne)- 4.5/10
I’m not sure when Dunne became a lord, but if Lord Gideon vouches for him then I’ll believe him. Lord Gideon also said that Dunne was his best friend, and the announcers speculated on how Rishi Ghosh might react to hearing this news.
These was an okay babyface vs. heel match with a decent heel finish.
JINNY vs. VEDA SCOTT vs. CHARLI EVANS- 4.5/10
Jinny does an excellent job of coming off as a total piece of sh*t, but a really, really tough piece of sh*t. You want to see someone beat her, but you know it won’t be easy and thus it makes any babyface who steps in the ring with her feel like she’s on an insurmountable quest, so when that win finally does come, it will feel like a big deal for the woman that beats her. It almost feels like RevPro’s women’s division doesn’t need a belt right now because ending Jinny’s undefeated streak essentially is the belt. That’s the thing we fans want to see someone do. The streak continued here, as Jinny stole Charli’s pin on Veda after Charli had laid Veda out with her finisher.
EDDIE DENNIS vs. CHRIS BROOKES (w/CCK)-5.5/10
This match was originally scheduled for Live at the Cockpit 19 back in August but the card had to be shifted around due to an injury to Kid Lykos so now we’re finally getting the promised match. Is this match really that big a deal? No. But I do like the sports-like kayfabe approach that it shows RevPro having: if RevPro management thought this was a good enough match-up to book before and the match had to get cancelled and nothing has happened that should change their feelings on it, why wouldn’t they book it again?
Eddie is in his home town, plus he’s Eddie Dennis, so you know he’s going to be a babyface, but aren’t CCK babyfaces, too? If so, why did Kid Lykos start punching and kicking Eddie when was on the outside? And then, when Eddie was going to do something about it, hold up his injured arm (still in its cast) as if to say “hey! You can’t hit me! I’m injured!” like a heel would? And why did all of this happen right in front of the referee without a disqualification?
Now Lykos is grabbing at Eddie from the outside to try to trip him up? Did CCK turn heel while I wasn’t looking or something? Eddie seemed to have the match won several times but could never quite put Brookes away. A large part of this was due to CCK’s interference. Despite suspecting- and sometimes outright seeing- CCK interfere in the match, the referee didn’t even eject them from ringside, never mind call for a DQ. You’d think that with Eddie overcoming all of this cheating and this being Eddie’s home town and all that this would be the night that he’d finally get his first win in RevPro (something that they have been building up for quite a while), but no. Brookes just pinned him with a roll-up, with Eddie kicking out at 3.1. The first ten minutes or so of this match was pretty good, but after that it just went downhill in a ridiculous snowball of “WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?”
EL PHANTASMO vs. RYAN SMILE vs. KURTIS CHAPMAN- 5.75/10
This was spotty and felt very choreographed, and as I said in my review of Takeover: War Games, that’s not a bad thing if you can make it look fluid and natural. These guys didn’t do that for their first set of big spots, and as a result that feeling permeated most of the match, making things that otherwise wouldn’t feel quite so choreographed start to feel choreographed. It felt like they were working together to put on a cool performance, not having a professional fight, and them all raising each other’s hands at the end put an exclamation point on it.
RPW BRITISH CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Josh Bodom(c) vs. “Flash” Morgan Webster- 7/10
Webster started off really hot and dominated the first part of the match until Bodom hit one big reversal to cut him off and sold for a bit before going on offense. Webster made his comeback and was dominating again and you could tell that he was getting closer and closer to victory until Bodom got himself DQed to save his title. A great match for the time it got.
“SPEEDBALL” MIKE BAILEY vs. TRAVIS BANKS- 7/10
Banks gets revenge on Bailey for knocking him out of WCPW’s World Cup of Wrestling.
A fun little show from RevPro and it seemed a lot more important than a show that went only an hour and forty-two minutes with no major names should have felt, but that CCK turn was so confusing that I don’t know what to make of it.