BRM Reviews RevPro At Our Best 2018 (very disappointing)

[Big Red Machine]

RPW At Our Best 2018 (2/15/2018)- Portsmouth, UK


TYLER BATE vs. EL PHANTASMO- 5.75/10
They started off with some comedy that really hurt the match, IMO, because it then colored the stuff they did next, which was that borderline stuff that would probably otherwise come off as stuff we’d usually write off as being a little goofy but otherwise fine because “it’s pro wrestling,” but with them having already created this comedic mindset, it came off as more comedy, and thus made the transition to serious wrestling feel even more stark than usual, and was thus off-putting and made the match harder to get into. The last few minutes were very good, but the match as a whole would have been a lot better if they hadn’t done those comedy spots in the beginning, or if they had come up with a better way to transition out of “comedy mode.”

KYLE FLETCHER vs. “SPEEDBALL” MIKE BAILEY- 6.25/10
See… now that’s the sort of thing Bate and Phantasmo should have done.

DAVID STARR PROMO- He whines and claims that the people in power have been conspiring against him even though the much more logical, reasonable, and evidence-based explanation is simply that he hasn’t earned the things he thinks he deserves. Then he called himself “the Bernie Sanders of professional wrestling.” I’m not sure why he felt the need to be redundant.

RPW BRITISH CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Kurtis Chapman(c) vs. David Starr- 2/10
Starr worked over Chapman’s ankle by smashing it into the barricade a lot. Chapman then proceeded to forget to sell it for the rest of the match. He eventually managed to hit Starr with his finisher but Starr rolled to the outside. The idea here was that Chapman could have won by count-out but he didn’t want to win that way because he felt the need to prove himself so he broke up the count and tried to roll Starr back into the ring so he could pin him. Starr took over and got a false finish in but then Chapman managed to reverse Starr’s brainbuster with a small package for the win, so Chapman’s pride wound up not being his undoing anyway. Starr claimed it was a fast count.

MARK DAVIS vs. PETE DUNNE- 7.25/10
This was a great match- part slugfest, and part classic babyface vs. heel American style stuff- which felt like it was intended to get Davis over as a singles guy while still having Dunne get the win, and that’s exactly what it did. The Pedigree makes for a great false finish, but that’s in large part because I’m shocked that uses it as one. He’s got to know that his boss probably doesn’t want guys kicking out of that move right?

VEDA SCOTT vs. CHARLI EVANS- 5/10
A fine babyface vs. heel match. The fact that WWE has not signed Veda Scott yet- either to wrestle, commentate, or to be an on-screen authority figure- continues to baffle me.

RPW BRITISH HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Zack Sabre Jr.(c) vs. Trent Seven- 6.75/10
Yes, this was intense, but the match was short and there wasn’t much of a coherent story here. The stuff they did with Zack always rolling out of the ring whenever Trent managed to hit something big onto his head was done in such a way that it didn’t feel like a story being told so much as an excuse to do the move but not have to have it kicked out of, and Trent never really clicked with ne as a babyface here. Throw in the most of the stuff they did early on targeting the arms seemed to be totally irrelevant by the end and you have a match that, while still very good, was not of main event quality. Your opinion may vastly differ.

This was a very disappointing show from the usually solid RevPro. The show was very short (just over one hour and fifty minutes), and some of the matches I was most expecting to deliver suffered from a combination of short time and too much comedy. Despite what the title says, this was definitely not RevPro at their best.