BRM Reviews FIP Unfinished Business (boring)

[Big Red Machine]

FIP Unfinished Business (1/8/2005)- Tampa, FL

OPENING SEGMENT- Roddy comes out in his street clothes and demands that Joe give him a rematch from last night. Joe comes out, also in his street clothes, slaps Roddy, and says yes. This was kind of awkward. Why not just have Roddy be in his gear and do the match now. It would start the show out with a hot match and not have Joe vs. Roddy in the same exact position on this show that it was on last night’s show.

THE HEARTBREAK EXPRESS vs. SCOOT ANDREWS & KAHAGAS- 4/10

STEVE MADISON vs. SAL RINAURO- 4/10

Prazak does a slightly-comedic intro for his newest signee, who it turns out is LaDuke Jakes. While Jakes is a big guy (337 lbs), he had been in FIP for around ten months at this point and had more losses than wins… which makes Mark Nutly’s reaction on commentary (like they were some jobbers sent out to face badass 1998 Kane) seem obnoxiously over dramatic (I was half expecting Nutly to just start screaming “OH THE HUMANITY!”

HANDICAP MATCH: Jaison Moore & Aaron Epic vs. LaDuke Jakes (w/Dave Prazak)-DUD!
This big monster of Prazak’s tries to use a fork but gets it taken away from him and the jobbers make the big monster bleed a lot. The monster fights back a bit, but still needs Prazak to hold back one of the jobbers so he can pin the other one. This might well be the single worst debut of a monster heel ever. It’s the easiest thing in the world to book! Just send the monster out there a do a squash! Seriously! How did you screw this up?


PUMA vs. Gibson is up next but the New Dawn jump PUMA. Gibson comes out to make the save. Punk then cuts a promo setting up…

JAMES GIBSON vs. AZRIEAL (w/CM Punk)- 5.25/10
A decent match that ends when Punk blatantly interferes (which apparently makes it a no contest rather than a DQ for some reason), attacking Gibson and beating him down until Homicide makes the save, setting up tonight’s main event.

WINNER GETS AN FIP TITLE SHOT AT ROH DO OR DIE IV: Antonio Banks vs. Mike Shane (w/Ron Niemi)- 5/10

ERICK STEVENS vs. SETH DELAY- 4.5/10

JERRELLE CLARK vs. “FAST” EDDIE VEGAS (w/Dave Prazak)- 7/10
After the match, LaDuke Jakes (looking a lot less intimidating with a big bandage across his forehead) comes out and attacks Jerrelle.

SAMOA JOE vs. RODERICK STRONG- 6/10
Joe’s low blow felt very out of place, and even worse, it didn’t add to the match at all. The level of intensity was the same before the low blow and after it. In fact, despite the angle at the beginning of the show, the intensity here felt no different than last night. Nulty also miscalled a bunch of moves this match, including calling an Atomic Drop a spinebuster. Just a disappointing match on all fronts.

ANYTHING GOES MATCH: James Gibson & Homicide vs. The New Dawn (CM Punk & Azrieal)- 6.5/10
This was just a regular tag team match for the first fifteen minutes, then they all of a sudden just decided to go outside and start brawling. There was no real escalation that gradually built to the action spilling out of the ring… it felt like they just arbitrarily decided to go brawl outside. After throwing each other into walls and cars (this “Anything Goes match” didn’t actually contain any weapons use, low blows, or other things that are usually illegal), they go back inside to set up for the finish. An extremely disappointing main event that, despite being twenty-five minutes long, barely felt like it had gotten going by the time the finish rolled around.

This was just a horrible show from FIP. Even at just two hours and change, this show was hard to sit through. I can’t ever remember being more bored while watching a wrestling show. In addition to barely having any exciting wrestling, they were also at an absolutely horrible venue. Not only is the crowd capacity small (I doubt they can fit more than a hundred people in there), but you can’t even see them on the hard cam! This small, quiet crowd combines with a very loud ring-mic to make it the crowd feel almost non-existent during matches (and everything else is almost painfully loud). Watching this show was just an all-around bad experience.