BRM Reviews the 9/19/2015 Paragon Pro Wrestling
Posted: Sep 21st, '15, 14:23
I found this in my cable package, so I decided to give it a try.
Tod Keneley of brief TNA fame is on commentary. Their entrance video included just two people I recognized. The first was Joey Ryan and the second was Gangrel, which was a pleasant surprise to me because I was almost certain that Gangrel was dead.
The first match they are advertising is a No DQs tag team in which the champions, Hammerstone & Chamberlain, will face… Jesse Sorensen and Wes Brisco. Uh-oh.
LEATHER STRAP MATCH: Whirlwind Gentleman vs. Amerikan Gunz (Ethan HD & Mike Santiago) (w/Christian Cole)- 3.75/10
The ring announcer is an old dude with no enthusiasm. He also interviews the manager on his way down to the ring. The manager explains that this match came about because last week he had his guys whip the other team with his belt, so Matt Striker added this stip to the match. Makes sense.
Cole went on to claim that this was his plan all along. And by “all along” he apparently means from before the company had even started running events. Apparently Cole is also supposed to be handcuffed during this match, but he says no one will be able to force him into handcuffs. A referee immediately comes out and does so. Then the babyfaces run out and the match starts.
So they are doing the “touch all four corners consecutively to win” rule, but they are doing it as a tag match. This will either be very interesting or very bad. They hit each and choked each other a lot until the finish. They did a ref bump which allowed the heel manager to get the key to the handcuffs, but his attempt to interfere backfired and the babyfaces capitalized for the win.
KEVIN KROSS vs. ERIC RIGHT- no rating. Decent squash.
Right’s gimmick is that he is “the Gentleman Brawler.” He looks like Simon Gotch wearing one of Damien Sandow’s robes. He also apparently does ODB’s gimmick where she hulks up after drinking from her flask.
Kross dominated the match and got to show off his strength, but they wrestled a lot of the match (especially the very brief attempted comeback) like they would have if Right was a lot smaller than he actually was. They wrestled like this was Cesaro vs. Rey Mysterio, but size-wise, but it was really Cesaro vs. Christian, so it felt a bit awkward.
Kross was beating Right up in the corner and the referee ordered him to break. Cross grabbed the ref by the shirt and that was enough to cause a DQ. I was really surprised that Kross didn’t keep the beating on after the match.
THE INTERVIEWER INTERVIEWS CALEB KONLEY & LISA MARIE (VARON) BACKSTAGE- Good
People I know! They claim there is a conspiracy. Konley cut a promo swearing vengeance upon someone named “Crash Test Cody” for putting his hands on F.K.A. Victoria. He claimed that he would “knock the one good eye right out of your skull.”
Based on the whole “conspiracy” thing, I assume these two are actually heels, but either way this was pretty good. Victoria has always been at her best when playing a slightly unbalanced heel.
CRASH TEST CODY vs. CALEB KONLEY (w/Lisa Marie)- 5.75/10
A video package provides some clarification. Lisa Marie and Konley are, in fact, heels. Crash Test Cody “putting his hands on” Lisa Marie entailed him merely grabbing her arm after she had interfered in a match, and Konley immediately blind-sided him and beat him viciously for it.
Keneley declared this match to be the best performance they had seen out of Crash Test Cody. I could have sworn the other guy (I think his name is Jeff Aiken) said that Crash Test Cody was the first Paragon Pro Wrestling Champion. So he was the first ever champion and the best performance you’ve seen out of him was getting dominated by Caleb Konley? What does that say about your title? Or about this guy?
The match actually was pretty good for what it was, which was a heel dominating but a babyface fighting from underneath and not giving up.
WES BRISCO VIDEO PACKAGE- this actually started off really well. Then he started talking about being the “Extreme Athlete” and talked out how he liked to do things like bungee jumping and shark-cage diving and it occurred to me that this is exactly the sort of thing that Jim Cornette probably wanted to get vignettes of the Thrillseekers doing but couldn’t because it would have been WAY too expensive.
NO DISQUALIFICATION MATCH: Jesse Sorensen & Wes Brisco vs. Hammerstone & Chamberlain- 5.75/10
Apparently Sorensen is the Paragon Pro Wrestling Champion, so this actually is a f*cking huge match.
This was a perfectly fine, standard tag team match… which is a problem when it’s supposed to be No DQs! For the first ten minutes all of the regular old heel double team tactics happened, and they all happened behind the ref’s back while the Sorensen was unwilling to push past the ref to go help Wes, even though he couldn’t have been DQed for doing so.
Then we got a hot tag and then one quick weapon shot (a title belt to Wes’ head, which wasn’t executed particularly well). Then Sorensen started yelling at the ref to DQ the heels, which made him look like an idiot for not knowing the rules. Then, even after the ref had said that he couldn’t do anything about the weapon shot, the heel went over to go argue with the referee anyway, allowing Sorensen to roll him up for the pin. That was stupid as hell. Keneley tried to sell it to us afterwards as the heels realized that they couldn’t beat the babyfaces and thus WANTED to be DQed, and that was what the argument was over, but that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever considering that they were in control most of the match, including after the aforementioned weapon shot.
This was very southern-style, and not always in a good way. I particular, the first match and the manager’s promo just came off as very goofy and outdated. Like someone trying to do early eighties wrestling from a small southern territory here in the year 2015. If you’ve ever seen any of the Memphis-based promotions from the nineties, it’s kind of like that. I’ll probably give it a few more weeks to see how things go.
On the bright side, at least we know Wes Brisco has improved.
Tod Keneley of brief TNA fame is on commentary. Their entrance video included just two people I recognized. The first was Joey Ryan and the second was Gangrel, which was a pleasant surprise to me because I was almost certain that Gangrel was dead.
The first match they are advertising is a No DQs tag team in which the champions, Hammerstone & Chamberlain, will face… Jesse Sorensen and Wes Brisco. Uh-oh.
LEATHER STRAP MATCH: Whirlwind Gentleman vs. Amerikan Gunz (Ethan HD & Mike Santiago) (w/Christian Cole)- 3.75/10
The ring announcer is an old dude with no enthusiasm. He also interviews the manager on his way down to the ring. The manager explains that this match came about because last week he had his guys whip the other team with his belt, so Matt Striker added this stip to the match. Makes sense.
Cole went on to claim that this was his plan all along. And by “all along” he apparently means from before the company had even started running events. Apparently Cole is also supposed to be handcuffed during this match, but he says no one will be able to force him into handcuffs. A referee immediately comes out and does so. Then the babyfaces run out and the match starts.
So they are doing the “touch all four corners consecutively to win” rule, but they are doing it as a tag match. This will either be very interesting or very bad. They hit each and choked each other a lot until the finish. They did a ref bump which allowed the heel manager to get the key to the handcuffs, but his attempt to interfere backfired and the babyfaces capitalized for the win.
KEVIN KROSS vs. ERIC RIGHT- no rating. Decent squash.
Right’s gimmick is that he is “the Gentleman Brawler.” He looks like Simon Gotch wearing one of Damien Sandow’s robes. He also apparently does ODB’s gimmick where she hulks up after drinking from her flask.
Kross dominated the match and got to show off his strength, but they wrestled a lot of the match (especially the very brief attempted comeback) like they would have if Right was a lot smaller than he actually was. They wrestled like this was Cesaro vs. Rey Mysterio, but size-wise, but it was really Cesaro vs. Christian, so it felt a bit awkward.
Kross was beating Right up in the corner and the referee ordered him to break. Cross grabbed the ref by the shirt and that was enough to cause a DQ. I was really surprised that Kross didn’t keep the beating on after the match.
THE INTERVIEWER INTERVIEWS CALEB KONLEY & LISA MARIE (VARON) BACKSTAGE- Good
People I know! They claim there is a conspiracy. Konley cut a promo swearing vengeance upon someone named “Crash Test Cody” for putting his hands on F.K.A. Victoria. He claimed that he would “knock the one good eye right out of your skull.”
Based on the whole “conspiracy” thing, I assume these two are actually heels, but either way this was pretty good. Victoria has always been at her best when playing a slightly unbalanced heel.
CRASH TEST CODY vs. CALEB KONLEY (w/Lisa Marie)- 5.75/10
A video package provides some clarification. Lisa Marie and Konley are, in fact, heels. Crash Test Cody “putting his hands on” Lisa Marie entailed him merely grabbing her arm after she had interfered in a match, and Konley immediately blind-sided him and beat him viciously for it.
Keneley declared this match to be the best performance they had seen out of Crash Test Cody. I could have sworn the other guy (I think his name is Jeff Aiken) said that Crash Test Cody was the first Paragon Pro Wrestling Champion. So he was the first ever champion and the best performance you’ve seen out of him was getting dominated by Caleb Konley? What does that say about your title? Or about this guy?
The match actually was pretty good for what it was, which was a heel dominating but a babyface fighting from underneath and not giving up.
WES BRISCO VIDEO PACKAGE- this actually started off really well. Then he started talking about being the “Extreme Athlete” and talked out how he liked to do things like bungee jumping and shark-cage diving and it occurred to me that this is exactly the sort of thing that Jim Cornette probably wanted to get vignettes of the Thrillseekers doing but couldn’t because it would have been WAY too expensive.
NO DISQUALIFICATION MATCH: Jesse Sorensen & Wes Brisco vs. Hammerstone & Chamberlain- 5.75/10
Apparently Sorensen is the Paragon Pro Wrestling Champion, so this actually is a f*cking huge match.
This was a perfectly fine, standard tag team match… which is a problem when it’s supposed to be No DQs! For the first ten minutes all of the regular old heel double team tactics happened, and they all happened behind the ref’s back while the Sorensen was unwilling to push past the ref to go help Wes, even though he couldn’t have been DQed for doing so.
Then we got a hot tag and then one quick weapon shot (a title belt to Wes’ head, which wasn’t executed particularly well). Then Sorensen started yelling at the ref to DQ the heels, which made him look like an idiot for not knowing the rules. Then, even after the ref had said that he couldn’t do anything about the weapon shot, the heel went over to go argue with the referee anyway, allowing Sorensen to roll him up for the pin. That was stupid as hell. Keneley tried to sell it to us afterwards as the heels realized that they couldn’t beat the babyfaces and thus WANTED to be DQed, and that was what the argument was over, but that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever considering that they were in control most of the match, including after the aforementioned weapon shot.
This was very southern-style, and not always in a good way. I particular, the first match and the manager’s promo just came off as very goofy and outdated. Like someone trying to do early eighties wrestling from a small southern territory here in the year 2015. If you’ve ever seen any of the Memphis-based promotions from the nineties, it’s kind of like that. I’ll probably give it a few more weeks to see how things go.
On the bright side, at least we know Wes Brisco has improved.