wrestling / Columns
Stevenson’s EVOLVE 61 Thoughts: TNA Invading Evolve > Global Force Invading TNA
Loading...If Evolve didn’t have your attention before, it may well do now. Evolve 61 was not the greatest event in the company’s history in terms of match quality, but the angle which ended the show is perhaps the most noteworthy plot twist in U.S indy wrestling since that time Chikara pretended to have closed down for almost a year. An enjoyable grudge match between Drew Galloway and Johnny Gargano was brought to a screeching halt when Ethan Carter III hit the ring and attacked Gargano, before joining with his fellow TNA talent Galloway to cut a scathing anti WWE and NXT promo. I’m generally sceptical of any attempts Evolve make to run major angles, since their strongest suit has always been the diversity and quality of their wrestling action, rather than their storylines, but the prospect of a WWE vs. TNA feud of sorts taking place in an Evolve ring is so baffling and weird that you can’t help but get excited by it. Carter is a superb talent of course, but having spent the last few years being comfortably the brightest spark in an otherwise lacklustre TNA product, it will be fascinating to see how he fares in a promotion that boasts some of the best wrestlers in the world and has been putting on consistently excellent shows for a couple of years now. His volcanic promo was a fine start, and his in ring debut on June 10th will be one of the most anticipated in the company’s history.
Elsewhere, the relationship between Evolve and WWE that Galloway and Carter are so opposed to was strengthened by two excellent Cruiserweight Classic qualifiers. The pick of them saw the Evolve Tag Team Champions go one on one, Drew Gulak and Tracy Williams beginning the match with their usual fine grappling before exploding into a startling series of red hot nearfalls. In fact, there were probably a couple too many of them; it felt like they reached their peak but then just kept on going in a bid to impress. Still, they very much did impress overall, both with the quality of their matwork and then the ferocity of the finishing stretch, and as much as it’s a cliché, it really is a pity there isn’t room for both men in the Classic. It’s also a pity that bits of the match were blighted by streaming issues; the middle portion in particular got choppy to watch and while it didn’t affect my enjoyment too much, and I still feel I got a good enough look at the match to give it a fair star rating, it was disappointing to see Twitter ignite with frustration once again. Thankfully, the problems were sorted in time for Sabre-Scurll. Just before Gulak-Williams, fellow Catch Point members TJP and Fred Yehi squared off in another impressive qualifier, albeit a shade below the once that followed it. Both men are such fluid wrestlers and, again, it’s a shame both men can’t be in the tournament. With all the announced qualifiers now completed it’s clear that, no matter what Drew Galloway says, everyone involved has made the most of their big chance- all the matches have been really good and featured highly motivated up and comers who seem delighted to have been handed the opportunity. The host companies haven’t had to compromise their identity either, outside of appealing for their fans not to chant sweary things during the matches. Gulak and Williams spent as much time scrapping it out on the mat as they ordinarily would, barely altering their style at all to make it more WWE friendly. It remains to be seen whether it will merely turn out to be a fun diversion or have a long term positive impact on the participating promotions, but if it’s the former… well, it was a very fun diversion.
There were only six matches on this card, which as I mentioned in the last review is definitely the right length for an Evolve show. Of the three remaining matches, the best was Zack Sabre Jr’s tussle with long time friend and some time tag partner, Marty Scurll. There wasn’t much friendship on display in this one with Scurll fully embracing his villainous persona, taunting Sabre as much as he would any other opponent. The match was really good but stopped short of being great, as the action got a little repetitive in places and spots like a lengthy exchange of roll-ups felt like they were just there to kill time. Having known each other for so long though Sabre and Scurll have fantastic chemistry with each other and I don’t think they can have a bad match. They strung together some great counters in places, and I liked the fact that it felt like both men badly needed a win, having both suffered defeats the night before and in danger of slipping out of title contention with consecutive losses. It added a tension to the near falls and made the match that bit more compelling.
The other two bouts were forgettable, for slightly different reasons. Lio Rush vs. Matt Riddle sounded very appealing on paper, a battle of two of the hottest up and comers on the indy scene and an intriguing styles clash. As it happened, the match opened the show and went just four minutes. In a respect I think this worked well, since they packed a lot of action into the truncated run time and it’s good to have the odd match that doesn’t go the way you expect it to; it keeps you on your toes as a fan and makes the whole promotion feel a bit more unpredictable. Having said that, it’s a shame we didn’t get to see a full length bout between Rush and Riddle- hopefully they’ll meet again somewhere down the line. The Bravado Brothers took on the makeshift team of Ethan Page and Chris Dickinson in a competent tag match that suffered from the fact that it was never really meant to exist. Page and Dickinson were originally scheduled for singles competition with one another before the Bravados’ opponents, Milk Chocolate, were ruled out with injury. Thus, the card was reshuffled, and we got a match that felt quite thrown together. It had a lot of action though and was probably a little better than the Bravados-Devastation Corporation match the night before; credit to Page and Dickinson for looking a credible tandem on such short notice.
STAR RATINGS
Lio Rush vs. Matt Riddle- ** 3/4
The Bravado Brothers vs. Ethan Page & Chris Dickinson- ** 3/4
TJ Perkins vs. Fred Yehi- *** 1/2
Drew Gulak vs. Tracy Williams- ****
Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Marty Scurll- *** 3/4
Drew Galloway vs. Johnny Gargano- *** 1/2
