Views from the Hawke’s Nest: Revolution Pro High Stakes 2016

January 16, 2016
Bethnal Green, Greater London, England

 

Pete Dunne(c) vs. Morgan Webster [RPW British Cruiserweight Championship]

This was a solid and surprisingly ambitious match. Dunne used his size and strength advantage to keep control for the majority of the affair. Webster kept trying to fight back, and it seemed like he finally evened things. He ended up coming up empty on a 630 though, and the champ then put him away right after that. Solid stuff. (***)

 

Mike Bailey vs. Big Damo

Speedball is one of my favorite wrestlers in the world. Damo is one of my favorite European wrestlers. They got to the do the big-man/small-man dynamic, which is probably my favorite in-ring dynamic ever. Somehow though, this just did not come across well to me at all.

There was something incredibly “off” about this one. The pace seemed a step slow but without the necessary selling to make that meaningful. The extended back-and-forth sequence to end the match felt unearned and like overkill. I just watched the whole thing thinking, “This should be better.”

Damo really seemed to get potentially exposed here, as he was missing the brutality required to really make this match click. I’m not sure why a big man would not insist on overwhelming his much smaller opponent. This matchup clearly called for it, and both men would have come out the better for it. (See Speedball’s match with Drew Galloway from BOLA 2015 as proof of that. Needless to say, Damo is no Drew Galloway.)

Overall, I was clearly disappointed in this one, and I would not even consider it much good at all. Keep your expectations low.  Damo won cleanly with a spiked, reverse Bloody Sunday. (**1/2)

 

Colt Cabana vs. Doug Williams

Colt suggesting one way in which you could better use your time than watch this match.

I would say this was pretty underwhelming, but I did not have high expectations for this one. It was not offensive or anything of course (unless you really hate Colt). It was just pretty uninspired from two guys who could have potentially had a solid mat battle together. Colt won with a pinning combo. (**)

 

Will Ospreay vs. Marty Scurll

The winner gets a shot at the RPW British Openweight Championship and gets their own action figure made for distribution.

They were so fucking close.

They were so goddamn fucking close.

The story in the match was brilliant and initially brilliantly executed. Ospreay obviously had the athletic advantage. Scurll was trying to get the better of him by legitimate means at the start. That predictably failed though, and Scurll had to start to get crafty to get the advantage. Throughout the rest of the match, Scurll continuously went back to some shifty tactics and clever maneuvers in order to overcome the incredible feats of gravity-defying stunts from Ospreay. I was loving it. They seemed to be on their way to delivering a genuinely great match (which would have been a pleasant surprise to an Ospreay skeptic and a Scurll detractor like myself).

Then they kept going. And going. And going. And I slowly got more and more deflated, as I realized this was going to be yet another indie match (or Kevin Owens vs. John Cena match) where the guys just did not know when enough was enough. They just did not know that they were clearly peaking, and something, something, Law of Diminishing Returns.

When I read all the hype for this match, I assumed it was a nonsensical movez-fest with a hot crowd. There would be nothing wrong with the fans having a great time of course (cue up videos of me watching AR Fox live now). It just probably would not have been a match that I would have especially cared about on tape. Instead, this was the slow knife. The knife that cuts deep and patiently builds up my enjoyment only to disappoint me in the end anyway.

There was a lot of positive to take from this. (More positive than negative in fact.) I just left the match feeling disappointed though, and that is in some ways the worst feeling to have after a match is over. Scurll won with the Chickenwing. (***)

 

Jay Lethal(c) vs. Mark Haskins [ROH World Championship]

Why oh why did they make this for the ROH World Championship? The odds of a Haskins vs. Lethal match working are so small as it is; there is a near impossibly low margin of error! You gotta show better judgement than that. You just cannot tell a group of informed fans that there is no chance that the babyface is winning right before the match starts. Make it for a future ROH World Championship match. Something. Anything. You cannot do what yo did here unless you’re positive that the wrestlers can overcome the predictability of the outcome. (And if you think these two could overcome that, well, you’re being awfully naive.)

This was boring and came off incredibly flat. They did nothing in the match to compensate for that. They then topped off this chore with the lazy low blow finish that Lethal apparently needed to defeat this guy who is not even in the company. He can beat AJ Styles cleanly no problem. Mark Haskins though. Time to bust out the dirty finish. Garbage. (DUD)

 

 

Bram, Jimmy Havoc & T-Bone vs. The Revolutionists (James Castle, Josh Bodom & Sha Samuels) [No Disqualification]

A match that contains Bram showing up as a surprise, plunder shots to the head, and cringe-inducing deathmatch weaponry is never going to be for me. It never got truly offensive though, but it also never really entertained me. Team Bram won after Havoc hit Bodem with the Rainmaker. (**)

 

AJ Styles(c) vs. Zack Sabre Jr. [RPW British Openweight Championship]

This was AJ’s final indie match before starting with the WWE. It was a part of his UK tour that saw him take on Rey Mysterio, John Morrison, and Jay Lethal.

This was a lot of fun and a fine way for AJ to end his independent wrestling career.

Zack vs. AJ was a first-time matchup, and the match predictably started off in a manner that displeases me (though it’s forgivable, I suppose). They spent probably a bit too long in the early goings doing the masturbatory feeling-out process stuff. They did switch gears quickly enough though to prevent me from getting properly bored/annoyed.

They moved on to targeting each other’s limbs to set up their submission finishers after that. I would have preferred some more focused and brutal work during this time period, but it set up the finishing stretch well enough. In the final quarter of the match, Zack really started going after the arm, and he ended up applying the Jim Breaks Armbar to force AJ to submit.

On top of the solid (if not spectacular) in-ring story, this was just fun to watch in general. The matchup was super fresh, the great majority of the action in the second half was well done/crowd-pleasing, and the fact that it was AJ’s final indie date before finally going to the WWE added some charm to the proceedings. This was not the MOTYC that some were probably hoping for, but I enjoyed it a bit more than I anticipated. It’s well worth the time/effort required to go out of your way to see it. (***1/2)

 

Read 28 RPW match reviews!

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Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Zack Sabre Jr.

Matt Sydal vs. Will Ospreay

El Generico vs. Big Van Walter

Karl Anderson vs. Dave Mastiff

Tommy End vs. Josh Bodom

6.0

The final score: review Average

The 411

Despite some underwhelming matches, RPW continues their habit of making their big shows very watchable with several unique matches that seemingly cannot happen anywhere else. It was far from a great show, but it was solid enough to leave me with positive feelings. Buy it if you are so inclined.