411’s Wrestlicious Report 06.02.10

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Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to 411mania’s report on Episode 9 of Wrestlicious.

Before we begin the recap proper, I should probably point out this bit of news for those of you who may have missed it. Wrestlicious is going on hiatus again. Some of you may recall that Wrestlicious stopped airing new episodes for a couple of weeks recently, and the explanation was that several new stations had started airing the shows in syndication mid-season, with the promotion wanting to give them time to “catch up” so that new episodes would be airing at the same time on all channels that run the program.

There’s been no indication of how long this second hiatus will actually last, but there will supposedly be four more episodes of the first season once the show returns. We’ll see how long it takes me to remember that the promotion actually exists before I find and recap them.

With that said, on to Episode 9!

Previously on Wrestlicious: Glory (Christie Ricci) and Felony (Rain) co-won a battle royale to earn the right to wrestle a singles match at a later date for the first Wrestlicious championship.

This week on Wrestlicious: A video recap of the two women having a pull-apart brawl after the match looks really weird set to the Wrestlicious rap song.

This week, Wrestlicious is being hosted by Jimmy Hart and Savannah the Southern Belle (a model), who for no apparent reason is replacing Brooke Lynn (Becky Bayless). That’s a shame – and I’m not being sarcastic – because Becky was actually doing a decent job with the character, and, aside from the put-on accent, was somewhat of a series heel character as opposed to being a wacky stereotype like a lot of other wrestlers of the roster.

Speaking of Brooke, she’s with the doctor, whose name is a sexual pun that I can’t remember. He wants to cover her mouth with a soft cervical collar.

Felony is in CGI prison, and an off-camera inmate asks her what she’s in for. The answer? Opening a safe deposit box that wasn’t hers. ba-dum-ksssssh.

Glory and Felony are featured in Wrestlicious heroines, a wrestling angle presented in comic book format. Felony is handcuffed, and Glory makes fun of her. How heroic . . . and how poorly drawn.

Match Numero Uno: Felony vs. Glory for the Wrestlicious Championship

Glory makes her entrance by sliding in under the bottom rope, but Felony puts the boots to her immediately. It doesn’t do that much good, though, as they’re soon trading punches. Felony grabs a headlock . . . YEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHH~! Good to see that her new character didn’t get rid of that trademark spot from her Rain days. A top wristlock from the con takes Felony down to the mat, but Glory bridges up and hits a series of armdrags that takes the Homewrecker out to the floor. Felony manages to catch Glory in the gut with her shoulder as she reenters the ring, and that sets up a unique reverse neckbreaker that slams Glory’s head across the middle rope as she goes down. The Mr. Perfect running neck snap connects for Felony, and that sets up a variation on Jinsei Shinzaki’s Heavenly Lock. Ricci regains a vertical base and starts to fire off more rights, but a single punch from Felony takes the babyface back down. The black-and-white striped brawler begins with blatant choking and eye gouging at this point, followed by a big running knee to the back as Glory is standing in the corner. A second attempt at the same move sees Felony run in to Glory’s outstretched boot . . . but a clothesline from the bad girl cuts off any momentum that Glory may have had. Rain’s next trick is a swinging neckbreaker, and she IMMEDIATELY floats over in to a guillotine choke. That looked pretty damn sweet. The crowd begins rallying behind Glory, who stands up and escapes the hold with a kneelift, only to be cut off again with a back elbow for two.

Glory is whipped into the ropes but ducks a lariat and hits a cross body block that sets up the double KO spot. Both women reach their feet at roughly the same time, and Glory unloads with a series of punches, a lariat, and a jumping back elbow. A dropkick also connects for the female Jim Duggan, and there’s a big tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. Felony kicks out of the ensuing pin attempt at two and grabs Ricci’s leg off a kick, turning it into a DDT for two as Glory BARELY gets her shoulder up off the canvas. A second DDT attempt is blocked and reversed into a northern lights suplex in one of my favorite counters of all time, and then Glory heads to the corner. She waits for Rain to return to her feet and hits a leg lariat, followed up by a Hulk Hogan legdrop off of the ropes to earn the three count and the first Wrestlicious Championship.

Making his first in-arena appearance at this point is JV Rich, who owns the show. He’s got the ring, he’s got the bling, and he’s got the dough. He presents the championship belt tiara to Glory, who gets on the microphone and indicates that she will defend the title against all comers . . . which brings out Toni the Top (New York Knockout). Toni, despite not carrying or wearing a mic, cuts a promo staking her claim to being the number one contender based on her dominant victory over Maui and her status as runner up in the battle royale.

Glory says that she’ll accept the challenge, and JV Rich makes the match for . . . later tonight? Well, that’s certainly not what I expected.

Bandita (a model) is serving food at her restaurant. Her customer wants some spicy food, and Bandita says she wants a spicy man.

Malibu Mackenzie (Lana Kinnear, formerly Lana Starr in David McLane’s WOW promotion) is in our Wrestlicious spotlight. This breaks absolutely no new ground aside from the fact that, this week, the bikini shots are interspersed with clips from a Mackenzie match that I don’t believe has even aired in full yet.

The Young and the Wrestlers is up next. For those of you who don’t recall, this is the story of three women who were kidnapped by Boot Camp Bailey (a model) and forced to train to be professional wrestlers. This week, a trainee doesn’t want to get into the ring, so “trainer” Felony kicks her in the gut and hair beals her before hitting a DDT. Later in the day, Bailey makes the trainees sleep in the ring for the evening. This is quite literally the exact same segment every week.

We are told by our voiceless announcer that trainee number two was the only “survivor” of the Young and the Wrestlers and will be debuting soon under the name Emo Leigh (A HREF=”http://twitter.com/wrestlingleva”>Leva Bates). That was sudden, but I guess it’s one way to get rid of these obnoxious segments.

Match Numero Dos: Glory (c) vs. Toni the Top for the Wrestlicious Championship

Glory gets attacked as she’s entering the ring again, this time getting hit with a PHAT tope suicida as she stands at ringside. Toni stays on her with numerous boots and forearms, and the referee calls for the bell to throw this match out before it even technically began. Trainers, EMTs, and referees are down to break up the champion and the number one contender.

And, on that note, the show closes.

Overall

There were some stupid, stupid skits on this show . . . but it’s not as though we’re not expecting it from Wrestlicious at this point and it’s not as though they last any more than sixty seconds at a time. If you’re able to ignore the skits and strip all of the wacky gimmicks off of the girls, this was actually a pretty damn fun straight up professional wrestling show. It started off with Felony and Glory having what was, bar none, the best match in the history of the promotion to date. Granted, it wasn’t a five star classic, but, if you grade on a curve and compare it only to the rest of the product from this company, it was EXCELLENT. I would legitimately consider it to be roughly a *** bout, and I probably would have gone higher if it were before an actual, heated crowd and not the studio audience that it was presented in front of. The fact that we got this very good match was especially important given that it was for the company’s inaugural championship and championship matches always seem more important when they’re of a higher quality than what the rest of the promotion presents.

Though the decision to have the title match in the middle of the show and followed immediately by an angle was a little bit unorthodox, I do like the fact that they immediately transitioned in to a new champion program and actually did it with a fairly strong angle. The brawl between Toni and Glory was just as good as any you’ll see between two women in a national wrestling promotion these days, in large part thanks to Toni’s great dive and the intensity in her strikes. I never thought that anything presented by Wrestlicious would actually get me to say this, but I am now officially interested in seeing a match between the two, especially if they work it with relaxed rules to give us more brawling like what we saw here.

Despite the goofy comedy and the atrocious Young and the Wrestling spot, this episode of Wrestlicious gets a huge thumbs up. This would be my favorite promotion if all of their shows managed to be a bit more like this one.