wrestling / TV Reports
Csonka’s Evolve 48 iPPV Review 8.18.15
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Evolve 48 iPPV Review 8.16.15
OFFICIAL RESULTS
– Anthony Nese defeated Ethan Page @ 13:30 via pin [**½]
– Rich Swann defeated Johnny Gargano @ 15:00 via pin [**¾]
– Caleb Konley defeated Trent Baretta @ 17:00 via pin [***]
– Drew Gulak & Tracy Williams defeated Mike Bailey & Rey Horus @ 21:15 via pin [½*]
– Chris Hero defeated Zack Sabre Jr @ 24:30 via pin [****]
– Timothy Thatcher defeated Biff Busick @ 13:41 via submission [****]
Anthony Nese w/So Cal Val vs. Ethan Page w/Rich Swann: Page is out with the retired Open the Freedom Gate Title, and the newly minted heel Rich Swann. This is a heel vs. heel match, but with Nese being from New York, he’s getting fan support. After some stalling from page, Nese controlled for a while until they went to the floor, and Page got the advantage with the back suplex on the apron to Nese. Page is trying to work the post Shingo “insincere Gargano gimmick,” noting that “he’s learned everything he knows from Gargano.” Nese made the comeback; they had a good stretch of back and forth action, with teases of their finishes and near falls. Nese then connected with the 450 to score the victory. This was a good match, but I felt it lacked something. The work was good; Nese’s selling was outstanding and they even had some good near falls but I never felt it got past good. The crowd was rough here, in it sometimes but largely out of it, which may have a lot to do with the heel vs. heel match more than anything. The booking is also very questionable, as Page is in this big feud with Gargano, and ace of the company, and he gets the win (with help) last night, and then loses here clean. It seems to contradict the momentum that they were building with him.
* They tried to save this by doing a mockery of one of Gargano’s post match speeches, which led to Gargano hitting the ring. Swann would stop Gargano from attacking Page. Gargano then told Swann he could forgive him and didn’t want to fight, but Swann attacked and we went right into our second match.
Johnny Gargano vs. Rich Swann: So Swann attacked before the match actually started, and laid the boots to Gargano. Gargano then tried to grapple with Swann and talk him out of things. You know, between last night and tonight’s attack, all bets would be off. Instead, Gargano would just try to wrestle Swann and even held up on kicking him in the face. Swan would take control and slap Gargano around, and they kept playing up the story that Gargano didn’t want to fight his friend. They teased and teased Gargano not hitting Swann, and Page would even mock him from the floor. Gargano finally snapped at about seven-minutes in after the mocking and Swann spitting on him. He worked over Swann and then hit dives onto Page and Swann a she was finally full of fire. Swann tried to leave, which led to Page distracting Gargano long enough for Swann to hit a superkick. Page tried to hold Gargano, but Gargano moved and Swann laid out Page with a right. Gargano countered the springboard cutter into the Gargano-escape, which was slick but Swann escaped. We then had a ref bump as Swann pulled the ref into the Gargano superkick. Gargano got the phantom pin. Page failed at a belt shot on Gargano, and then Swann superkicked the belt into Gargano, laid it on him and then hit a frog splash. He ditched the belt and covered for the win. The work overall was good, and I liked the story, but too much shenanigans for my tastes. Also, while Swann looked good and played the heel role well, Page comes across as completely incompetent.
* Page cut a solid post match promo, saying he accomplished everything he wanted to and since Gargano and the title are dead, they can be buried together. He than laid the title on Gargano’s fallen body. I get what they are going for, but I am having a hard time buying into Page as this dastardly heel when he came off so poorly tonight. But that’s just my opinion.
Caleb Konley w/So Cal Val vs. Trent Baretta: This is follow up to Baretta’s separation from the PAB and last night’s tag match, where the PAB defeated Baretta and Rey Horus. So there is all of this drama; Val fired Baretta/Baretta claims he quit, and then was fucked in a tag match last night, so of course they come out here and have a perfectly regular wrestling match with some clean breaks and grappling. I really expected more heat and hate from these guys. Baretta posted himself on a spear attempt, and then Konley worked the garden-variety heat segment. It’s not bad, but it just feels like the wrong type of match to be having. Swann and Gargano had a story I could buy, the friend not wanting to fight the former friend, but this didn’t even have the story of former partners countering each other because they knew each other so well. If you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t even know that these guys were former partners or had an issue. It had the feeling of a good back and forth match between two guys. They exchanged a bunch of near falls late, and while they were executed well, it didn’t exactly get the crowd biting and reacting big on any of them. It was then that the match started feeling long. Val distracted Baretta late, Konley crotched him and then hit the Michinoku driver off the second rope for the win. In the end it felt too long, and I think that they really missed the mark tonally for the match. I think that they could have worked a shorter, more heated sprint and even done a non-finish/double countout with them brawling around the building to set up a stipulation match down the line instead of what they did here. Technically they did some really good work at times, but the feeling that it went way too long (I thought this thing went well over 25 and was shocked that it was only 17) and the wrong vibe really holds this back for me. Your mileage may vary.
Drew Gulak & Tracy Williams vs. Mike Bailey & Rey Horus: This will be a very interesting match stylistically; Gulak and Williams are the catch wrestling guys, while Horus is a lucha guy and Bailey works a ton of strikes with the martial arts gimmick. Gulak and Williams controlled Horus early, grounding him pretty effectively until he was able to tag in Bailey. Horus and Bailey would find limited success, but Gulak and Williams would constantly cut them off to maintain the advantage. Gulak and Williams basically grapplefucked their opponents FOREVER. We’re 13-minutes in and Gulak and Williams have been on offense for like, 12:25 of that. Horus got what was supposed to be the hot tag, but he got about zero reaction because the “heat” went way too long. Horus and Bailey made a comeback, actually falling on each other at one point, which is never good. They then hit some dives and I was reminded that we had a crowd there because they made some noise. And then this just kept going, with Gulak and Williams back to dominating. This was like the longest squash match I have ever seen. Bailey finally missed his shooting star knee drop, ate a piledriver and was pinned. I love Gulak and Williams, I love the grappling style and I think that Horus and Bailey are very fun performers. But there was nothing redeeming about this match. This was officially the longest squash match I have ever watched, it just kept going and going and going and the longer it went, the less I cared. This was a long match for the sake of having a long match; it was poorly laid out, and completely neutered any momentum that Bailey earned from his outstanding effort against Hero the night before. Gulak and Williams call themselves “Catch Point,” maybe after tonight we should call them “Watch Paint”. It’s not a DUD, because it wasn’t “bad wrestling” so to speak, the actually technical execution was fine, but it was far from anything resembling a good wrestling match.
Chris Hero vs. Zack Sabre Jr.: These two guys are so good at what they do, and are both coming off of great matches at Evolve 47. So they obviously worked the grappling early, lots of back and forth with some slick escapes and counters. The crowd got invested early, not hot, but more invested than earlier in the show. ZSJ got a little too cute with Hero in a counter exchange, so Hero just snatched him up and destroyed him with a piledriver to get the heat. Hero was talking smack as he slowly worked over ZSJ, leading to thigh kicks from a grounded ZSJ. Hero then jumped up and landed with a boot to the face to end that. ZSJ started to make a comeback, including a hanging kimura, which eventually got Hero down to the mat. ZSJ kept working the arm, looking for the armbar, and then went after the RIGHT arm of Hero as well, which is his elbow of death throwing arm. Hero would battle back and hit a Memphis style jumping piledriver for a near fall. They had a tremendous home stretch, some great near falls and submissions as well as counters; but this crowd was taken out of the show earlier and it was a struggle for these guys to get them to react to anything. ZSJ countered a Gotch piledriver into another hanging kimura, but Hero was able to suplex out of that. These poor bastards were doing anything and everything to make this crowd care and got almost no reaction. Put this in front of last night’s crowd and it comes across like a completely different match. They worked hard and the work was top notch, but the crowd was so dead at times (most of the match) that it really took away from the match. Part of working a great match is working the crowd into the match, so for as much as I loved the work they did not do that here. My best guess is that the previous match destroyed the crowd, but they weren’t that vocal tonight anyway.
No Holds Barred – Non-Title – The Final Showdown: Timothy Thatcher vs. Biff Busick: Commentary did a nice job of putting over the history of the feud in the early minutes of the match, which was appreciated. Busick attempted to attack during Thatcher’s announcement, but Thatcher cut him off and we brawled early. Thatcher worked over Busick on the floor, slammed him to the apron and then hit a series of suplexes before going after the taped up hand of Busick. One of the things in the feud has been Busick calling Thatcher a pussy repeatedly (seriously) so Thatcher vowed to break Busick’s thumb again, which is why he’s trying to remove the tape. Busick made his comeback and posted Thatcher, to play off of Thatcher’s ear injury following the WM weekend. Thatcher got busted open, and from there Busick relentlessly went after the ear with repeated elbow strikes. Between the callbacks to the injuries, the work that made it appear as if they were trying to kill each other and the work on commentary, this felt like a grudge match between guys that hated each other. The finish saw them battle for position with head butts, and then Thatcher “rebroke” Busick’s thumb and made him tap to an arm bar. They worked the right match and it had the right vibe; commentary also did very well. The crowd was dead again.
* Thatcher offered Davey Richards a title shot any time he wants it, due to Richards being undefeated since his return. Gulak and Williams came to the ring and Gulak said that Thatcher has never defeated him, and that the champion would fall to the Catch Point. Chris Hero then arrived and knocked out Gulak and Williams. He tried to KO Thatcher, failed the first time and then was able to take him down on the second try. Hero then vowed to return to “his ring” is any ring he steps into. Chris Hero ain’t nuthin to fuck with.
* End scene.
* Thanks for reading.
* Evolve returns to Florida on October 17th and 18th for Evolve 49 and 50.
* You can order Evolve on iPPV and VOD here.
“Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye Felicia!”
