411’s FCW TV Report 11.01.08

The views and opinions expressed herein are those solely of the author and may not necessarily reflect those of the rest of the human race.

Hey hey and welcome back again. This may be out a little earlier than usual and that may become the norm. FCW now apparently airs on Saturdays and not Sundays. That gives me a look at one Sheamus O’Shaunessey a day early.

I’ve gotten an e-mail (Thanks again, Aidan) as well as a comment or two about the guy and, save for a quick match against Ricky Ortiz a couple weeks ago, I haven’t seen a lot of his work. Been curious as hell, though, as he’s a decent talker. We’ll find out more today as he defends the FCW Title in our main event…

FCW – 11.01.08

Clips (old and new) welcome us to the FCW Arena. Josh Matthews hypes our main event of Sheamus O’Shaunessey vs. Eric Escobar for what Matthews calls the “16 pounds of gold” and what Dusty Rhodes says should be, in the words of Gordon Solie, a “pier six brawl”.

Lawrence Knight vs. Primo Colon

By now, everyone’s familiar with Primo…except me. I haven’t seen a full episode of SmackDown since the Eddie Guerrero tribute and the one time I saw him on Raw, he was interrupted by something to do with John Cena.

Primo’s working with a size disadvantage and Knight lets him know it early on, but Primo cuts that advantage down in a hurry with his quick hit-and-move game. After weakening Knight a bit, his tenacity shows as he almost refuses to let go of a headlock. Knight shows some smarts of his own, though, as he escapes that but placing Primo on the apron and then kicking him down to the apron to regain an advantage. Once he does, his power speaks for him as he pulverizes Colon’s back from pillar to post. Nothing fancy, but a sound game – to the point that Primo, once in a position to reverse a suplex, can’t because his back is too weak. Knight, though, makes the mistake of telegraphing another big kick – a move he’s already hit once – and Primo escapes the second one. Once free, Colon sacrifices his own back to deliver a missile dropkick off the top in an effort to shorten the gap between the two in a hurry. That aerial attack becomes the difference maker…

Finish comes when Primo is sent outside, but springboards off the top rope to hit a (rather pretty) cross-body block for the pinfall victory. Nothing too flashy or fancy here – just a solid effort by both guys in a perfectly serviceable match.

Clips of Eric Escobar winning the #1 Contendership last week and his post-match promo take us to commercial.

Back to

Black Pain (with Brian Kelly) vs. Trent Beretta

The running gags between Matthews and Rhodes seem to involve Wikipedia and Liza Minelli. No, I don’t understand it, either.

This is my first real look at Black Pain, also. And this dude is huge. He has a partial mask on; they look to be going for the “monster” vibe with him. You can guess that he has a size + power advantage over Beretta, and you can also probably guess that’s the strategy he works with here. Beretta gets in a moment or two of offense, but not much – and certainly not enough…

Finish comes when Black Pain hits the Black Hole Slam (obviously not called as such, but you get the idea) for the pinfall victory. Pain looks to be another worker in the “monster” mold and does a decent job of it so far.

Post-match, Umaga (!) is out to confront Black Pain. You’re already threatening my spot, punk! Black Pain backs off and Beretta is up, so Umaga takes whatever frustration he has out on Beretta instead as we go to commercial.

Back to Matthews and Rhodes putting over the importance of the FCW Title, past and present.

Tyrone Jones vs. Lupe Martinez

Jones is a pretty big dude and looks to be cut from the Monty Brown Marcus Cor Von mold. This almost resembles a boxing match at first, but Martinez resorts to trying to tie up Jones. Jones escapes that and overpowers Martinez with relative ease. This becomes the pattern throughout the match as Jones is looking to knock Martinez down for the count, but Martinez, surprisingly resilient, keeps coming back to tie Jones up for the victory. However, Jones has a reputation for a hard right hand…

Finish comes when Martinez comes off the ropes only to Jones simply knock him out with the hard right hand for the pinfall victory. Nothing special here, but nothing really terrible, either. I can live with that.

Post-match, Jones cuts a promo about how dangerous he is when he strikes you and will take that all the way to the FCW Title as we go to commercial.

Back to

Drew McIntyre, Kafu, and Brian Kelly vs. TJ. Wilson, Ricky Ortiz, and Johnny Prime

Yes, this is the same Brian Kelly that seconded Black Pain as his manager. And JR says that there are no more managers…

McIntyre and Wilson start out and McIntyre overpowers him early. Wilson decides to negate that by trying to take his legs out from under him with a good degree of success once his speed is employed. McIntyre has enough of that and brings in Kafu, prompting Wilson to tag in Ortiz to even up the size game. Kafu slams Ortiz and brings in…Kelly. Funny moment as Kelly talks trash, but the moment Ortiz pops back up, Kelly flops back to his corner in terror and tags McIntyre back in. Yeah, we’ve seen it before, but Kelly’s reactions make it all the better.

McIntyre opts for playing a bit of head games, and it’s all a ruse to bring in Prime so the heels can distract the referee while McIntyre scores the early advantage over the freshest man on the opposing team. Both McIntyre and Kafu keep the heat on Prime’s back and head, working in quick tags and power offense.

With Prime worn way down, Kelly comes in to try his hand it again. Kelly lands a few punches – and poses – and feels good about himself, but Prime is given more than enough time to recover and turn the tide. As the proverbial “pier six brawl” breaks out, Prime makes quick work of the manager…

Finish comes when Prime hits a cross-body block for the pinfall victory (seems to be the Move Of The Night~!…been a while since I used that one). Not bad, even though I’m not a huge fan of six-man matches with no real point or purpose other than get more bodies on TV. Kelly helped this one quite a bit; his reactions and overall performance were both terrific. Faces celebrate as we go to commercial.

Back to

Roucka & Alicia Fox vs. Wesley Holiday & Kelly Kelly

Joy. I get to see Kelly Kelly wrestle. My day is now complete. Yes, yes, o yay. Apparently this is revenge from last week as Roucka beat Holiday, so Holiday went and enlisted help in a tag match now.

Fox and Holiday start and Fox spends the opening moments just plain being out-wrestled. Fox strikes her way out and brings in Roucka. Roucka fares no better as Holiday switches up her game long enough to bring in Kelly. Double-team elbow takes the wind out of Roucka but not enough for a pin. Kelly goes after the arm (with, seriously, the weakest shots I have ever seen…and that’s overlooking the fact that they don’t even visibly connect) and uses some acrobatics to press the lead.

Holiday back in, but the heels have figured that a little cheating won’t hurt at this point. That coupled with a little viciousness as well help them work over the head/face of Holiday to try and pin her and take Kelly out of the equation while simultaneously elevating their stock by beating a team with a real-life WWE Diva. Kelly does eventually make it back in to even the odds and the match breaks down into a four-way melee with Kelly taking advantage of the chaos…

Finish comes when Kelly hits the Fameasser for the pinfall victory. You know, I wouldn’t have a problem with the “FCW Girl can’t do it on her own, so she brings in a much-more-capable WWE Diva to help her win” angle…if it weren’t for the fact that they chose Kelly as the Diva in question. Granted, she’s not as terrible as she was when she started out, but Holiday still looked like the better wrestler! Faces celebrate as we go to commercial.

Back to

FCW Heavyweight Championship Match – Sheamus O’Shaunessey (c) vs. Eric Escobar

Okay, I don’t think it’s any secret that Escobar has utterly failed to impress me as of yet. And we discussed O’Shaunessey at the top of the report. Let’s see what happens here…

The match starts as a back-and-forth exhibition of O’Shaunessey’s power matched against Escobar’s athleticism. The two are in a dead heat until O’Shaunessey slows down the pace a little bit by heading for the apron, and then taking advantage of the referee’s position to guillotine Escobar on the top rope.

Once he has the lead, O’Shaunessey lets his power and savagery do the talking. The strategy is nothing complex – beat Escobar half to death en route to keeping the Title. Escobar, however, is durable and crafty enough to take a little bit of punishment before wrestling O’Shaunessey to the ground and try for the win there. O’Shaunessey seems to have an experience advantage over Escobar, and uses it to take advantage of a telegraphed move and go back to work on Escobar with more of the same as before, but this time with a focus on the neck. Escobar escapes the second volley with a leg lariat and both men are down as we start from scratch.

Escobar gets his second wind and uses his agility to bewilder O’Shaunessey long enough to keep his shoulders down. O’Shaunessey is tough enough, though, to keep trying to fight his way out as he escapes a couple close calls once Escobar pours on the offense (including a clever escape of the Latino Temper) and works his way into ending this once and for all…

Finish comes when O’Shaunessey hits the Big Red Hand (one-handed choke/powerbomb slam) for the pinfall victory. Okay, Escobar still sucks and that dragged this down pretty well. O’Shaunessey, however, was perfectly capable in there, carrying the match well and making Escobar look like a threat. Overall, it was serviceable and a good effort from O’Shaunessey, at least. He looked pretty good as a performer, although I’m still more excited about the tag division at this point. O’Shaunessey celebrates to end the show.

Six matches in a one hour timeframe is just a little much for my tastes. Quantity has a tendency to drag down quality, and this was certainly the case. I prefer shows like last week, where fewer matches means a better look at all involved and more quality work for the FCW/WWE crew to evaluate in making their decisions on who to bring up and who to leave behind.

L8. Thanks again for reading.

For more interesting (?) reading, click here. Haaahahahaha, priceless. And people want this rube(ette) to be our second-in-command? Are you kidding me?