BRM Reviews RPW PAC Is Back

[Big Red Machine]

RPW PAC Is Back (11/22/2018)- Portsmouth, UK


DARIUS LOCKHART vs. DAVID STARR- 6.75/10
A great way to open the show. Lockhart made a heck of a first impression on me tonight. He’s an excellent babyface and did a great job of complementing Starr’s heelishness.

SHANE TAYLOR vs. THE GREAT O-KHARN (w/Lord Gideon Grey)- 5.5/10
Lord Gideon interfered to cost Taylor his match against The Great O-Kharn two weeks ago at Uprising 2018 so Taylor starts this match off by immediately going after His Lordship on the outside. After scaring Lord Gideon off Taylor had his match with O-Kharn, with the finish this time being Lord Gideon tried to interfere but Taylor neutralized him, but in doing so he caused the referee to become distracted, and O-Kharn capitalized off that distraction to hit Taylor in the nuts and then beat him with the Iron Fingers Slam. A good match for what it was, moving the story along well.

JOSH BODOM vs. CARLOS ROMO- 6.5/10
Romo looked better than I’ve seen him in my previous experiences. Bodom worked his head over and beat him with a SICK finishing sequence.

A-KID vs. EL PHANTASMO- 8/10
This was an awesome high-flying match, although one or two of the Lucha spots they did drove me nuts. It was the pointlessly showy, stupid Lucha. Please explain to me why the guy getting his arm grabbed is completely incapable of using his other arm (or any other part of his body) to knock the opponent off the top rope at any point when he walks around three different sides of the ring.
That being said, I thought everything else here was awesome (aside from the referee doing the cartwheel, obviously). It was a well-paced mixed of high-flying styles from all over North America, and was quite exciting. Even their foray into Strong Style stuff didn’t come off as too forced, as random strong style spots inserted into matches often do.

MICHAEL OKU vs. CHRIS BROOKES- 6.5/10
Oku is a new member of the Contenders division (RevPro’s Young Lions). He is wearing a Kurtis Chapman t-shirt, which I thought was a good choice for a young, hopeful new Contender. I was expecting a semi-squash here, but Oku had one hell of a showing, even kicking out of Brookes’ brainbuster the first time he hit it. This kid seems to have quite the future as a babyface.

AUSSIE OPEN vs. HxC (Dan Head & James Castle)- 7/10
Very good babyface vs. heel stuff.

PAC vs. “SPEEDBALL” MIKE BAILEY- 8/10
This was an awesome babyface vs. heel match… but I just can’t get over the fact that someone thought it was a good idea to have PAC be a heel! The guy is coming off of walking out of WWE and giving up their big money for artistic reasons even though he was the WWE Cruiserweight Champion (so it wasn’t an ego thing) and now he is coming back to the UK as an independent wrestler for the first time since leaving WWE. People don’t want to boo the guy, and he’s a ready-made top babyface in a promotion with all heel champions. Why would you ever make the guy a heel?

A very solid show from RevPro. I’d even say it was great. It was certainly one of the most consistent shows they’ve booked all year. It was easy to sit through, and very enjoyable in the ring. If you’ve got two hours and six minutes free, this show is well worth your time.

[cero2k]

PAC vs. “SPEEDBALL” MIKE BAILEY- 8/10
This was an awesome babyface vs. heel match… but I just can’t get over the fact that someone thought it was a good idea to have PAC be a heel! The guy is coming off of walking out of WWE and giving up their big money for artistic reasons even though he was the WWE Cruiserweight Champion (so it wasn’t an ego thing) and now he is coming back to the UK as an independent wrestler for the first time since leaving WWE. People don’t want to boo the guy, and he’s a ready-made top babyface in a promotion with all heel champions. Why would you ever make the guy a heel?

that would be PAC himself, he's a heel everywhere he is going, he's The BASTARD

[Big Red Machine]

PAC vs. “SPEEDBALL” MIKE BAILEY- 8/10
This was an awesome babyface vs. heel match… but I just can’t get over the fact that someone thought it was a good idea to have PAC be a heel! The guy is coming off of walking out of WWE and giving up their big money for artistic reasons even though he was the WWE Cruiserweight Champion (so it wasn’t an ego thing) and now he is coming back to the UK as an independent wrestler for the first time since leaving WWE. People don’t want to boo the guy, and he’s a ready-made top babyface in a promotion with all heel champions. Why would you ever make the guy a heel?

that would be PAC himself, he's a heel everywhere he is going, he's The BASTARD

It's... weird. And it's certainly not what RevPro needs.

[cero2k]

It's... weird. And it's certainly not what RevPro needs.

I thought the same with OTT since WALTER is the champ, but I think he's just hitting all indies at the same time with no stories, so he's just going with his Dragon Gate alignment. I'm guessing if he starts getting into storylines, he'll develop separately from promotion to promotion.