BRM Reviews OTT ScrapperMania IV

[Big Red Machine]

OTT ScrapperMania IV (5/12/2018)- Dublin, Ireland

KNOW YOUR ENEMY GOLDEN CONTRACT QUALIFYING SIX-MAN TAG TEAM MATCH: David Starr, LJ Cleary, & Shane Strickland vs. Tyler Bate, Mark Haskins, & Scotty Davis- 6.25/10
A fun opening spotfest.

KNOW YOUR ENEMY GOLDEN CONTRACT THREE-WAY MATCH: Mark Haskins vs. Tyler Bate vs. Scotty Davis- no rating
This started right as the previous match ended. It was short, but good for the time it got. I think the best way to rate it would be to combine it with the previous match and call the whole package a 7/10

ADAM BROOKS & AUSSIE OPEN vs. THE KINGS OF THE NORTH (Bonesaw, Damien Corvin, & Dunkan Disorderly)- 7.25/10
A great, action-packed six-man tag. Unsurprisingly, Brooks had trouble getting along with his partners, who got tired of his sh*t after the match and responded to him shoving and yelling at them with by taking him out with a combination punch and superkick.

MATT RIDDLE vs. WILL OSPREAY- 9/10
AMAZING MATCH! They told the now-standard story of Ospreay’s injured neck being worked over and, as usual, Ospreay’s selling made it work. One thing I really liked is that they subtly established this early on by taking the now cliché fighting spirit spot where guys exchange German Suplexes and pop right back up and instead of having both guys pop back up they had Riddle pop back up, but rather than having Ospreay no-sell the German Riddle gave him, they just had him reverse it by landing on his feet. Then, not long afterwards, Riddle cut Ospreay off by reversing one of his high-flying moves by catching him and hitting a German Suplex, and that was how they began Ospreay’s big sell. The message was clear: the neck is a major weak point for Ospreay, but it isn’t for Riddle.
They kept their story up, with Riddle targeting Osreapy’s head and neck, and each time Riddle would either hit something and Ospreay would sell it as being devastating, or Ospreay would desperately manage to struggle free. Ospreay avoiding Riddle’s moves would usually lead to his own offense, that tended to come in fast spurts (usually because the pain in his neck became too much for him to keep up the pressure), which worked for most of the match, but the finish felt a little too abrupt for me. It almost felt like the story was building up for Ospreay to win after some more prolonged spurt of offense rather than just the Stormbreaker. I think it would have worked a lot better if he had just pulled Riddle up after the Rainmaker and then hit the Stormbreaker rather than Riddle getting those kicks in in between and Ospreay reversing whatever Riddle was trying to do after those kicks into the Stormbreaker.

OTT WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Sammii Jayne(c) vs. Valkyrie- 4.75/10
Decent babyface vs. heel stuff, but if you’re going to shove the referee into the ropes to knock your opponent off balance, you really do need to make it look like an accident or else it looks completely hokey that you don’t get disqualified.

TOMOHIRO ISHII vs. JEFF COBB- 7.75/10
A REALLY great hoss-fight!

OTT TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Charlie Sterling & Zack Gibson(c) vs. The Angel Cruzers (Angel Cruz & B. Cool)- 4/10
This whole match was just a cartoonish series of over the top babyface vs. heel spots. For example, the following happened:
At one point in the match, Zack Gibson grabbed a KATANA from under the ring. Angel Cruz then responded by rolling out of the ring, picking up the ring skirt, and pulling out AN ASSAULT RIFLE. At no point did anyone seemed concerned that the lives of Zack Gibson and basically anyone in the crowd on that side of building were in serious danger. Cruz then ordered Gibson AT GUN POINT to lie down, then ordered his partner, B. Cool, who was also reluctant, who make the pin. He did, but Sterling pulled him off at two. The gun-wielding Cruz went after Sterling but Sterling used B. Cool as a human shield, and Gibson dove onto the gunman to knock the firearm out of his hand. I hated this… but credit where it’s due: it did make some manner of sense. What didn’t make sense was Gibson then just returning the gun to under the ring rather than picking it up and using it himself to secure a victory at gunpoint.
And then they went back to trying submission holds and stuff. Basically this was a cartoon. I didn’t like it at all, but the crowd was into it and it did have something of your usual tag team structure to it. Your mileage may vary.

MINORU SUZUKI vs. KEITH LEE- 6.75/10
They started off by telling the story of Suzuki working over Lee’s arm. This included Suzuki hitting Lee in the arm with a chair on the outside, right in front of the referee, which was not a DQ. Neither, apparently, is putting your hands on the referee and threatening to put him in a submission hold. Suzuki went back to work on Lee’s arm and they did some good stuff based on that before shifting to the story of the second half of the match, which was the usual “Minoru Suzuki is obsessed with trying to hit his Gotch-Style Piledriver.” They build it up and teased it and kept on teasing it until he finally hit it and yes it felt big and important, but the shift was so abrupt and so sudden, with Lee’s arm all but forgotten, to the point where it felt like I was watching the second half of some other match.

OTT WORLD TITLE MATCH: Jordan Devlin(c) vs. Zack Sabre Jr.- 8.5/10
An excellent technical match, with some good work on the arm by Zack, but the thing that really made this match for me was the series of flash pins that they did, with each one not only being so close, but also feeling like there was such a struggle to get out at the last moment. Those were some WONDERFUL false finishes. Also great was the actually finish, which saw Devlin hitting Zack with one hell of a violent-looking Package Piledriver for the pin.

This was a pretty good show from OTT, with a hot crowd and some great matches, but the atmosphere of the company doesn’t feel like it’s right for me, and the home-grown talent did not particularly impress me. Most of the guys who delivered tonight are guys who I can see in many other places. I encourage you to check the promotion out for yourself, but I probably won’t be checking out another one.