Reviews From The City of Orange: 2CW: Hot Action On A Cold December Night - December 29, 2007
Posted by Mike Campbell on 05.30.2009
The 2CW vs. NWA Upstate feud begins.
HOT ACTION ON A COLD DECEMBER NIGHT
December 29, 2007
In a lot of ways, 2007 was a huge year for 2CW, they’ve gone from simply another indy group in NY state to being legitimately one of the best indy groups in the state, and they try to end the year with a bang. Dizzie finally gets his comeuppance (sort of), the tension between 2CW and NWA Upstate finally boils over, the Loca/Love and Ajax/Springate feuds are settled, and the Jason Axe/Spike Dudley alliance crumbles.
Nikki Roxx . . . accomplishes more in about five minutes than a lot of wrestlers (men and women) can do in double the amount of time.
Max Bauer . . . tries to make an impact in his 2CW debut with his open challenge, but winds up with egg on his face.
Loca Vida . . . takes a huge beating in defense of his mask and asks for more, which makes his match mean more than any WCW mask match.
The show was supposed to start off with a rematch between The Olsen Twins and The Wyld Stallyns, but Colin is in Flair country on his WWE tryout. Brodie already had a match, so they drop a bombshell and bring out Hellcat, the owner of NWA Upstate, as Jimmy’s partner.
JIMMY OLSEN/HELLCAT vs. BILL S. PRESTON ESQ./TED “THEODORE” LOGAN
The previous tag matches involving the Upstate guys had all been fun, but they were all comedic affairs, but thanks to Hellcat that ends right now. Hellcat brings a very welcome sense of genuine anger and disdain with him, as though he’s above having to come to another promotion to defend his own. It’s like an angry coach getting fed up during practice when his team can’t get anything right and having to go out on the field to show them how it’s done, which they should already know. The main goal of the match is getting the fans riled up, which antics like their use of the NWA Upstate Title belt (Jimmy was still champion), Brodie’s interference, and tearing up signs more than accomplish, but this has the bonus of also being a fun wrestling match.
After a couple of disappointing tag efforts from the previous show in Rochester, this is quite the pick-me-up. Olsen and Hellcat’s control segment is a nice mixture of them working over Bill’s arm and doing all the fun stuff to get the crowd behind Bill. They false tag behind the ref’s back, they choke him with tag rope, and bait Ted into rushing in so the ref can put him out and they can keep cheating. After getting worked over so much, it seemed odd that it only took one thing to turn the tide, Bill countered Jimmy’s twisting head scissors into a face plant. Jimmy hadn’t taken much if any, punishment, so it’s strange that it only took one move to end the heat portion. Bill makes the tag, the match breaks down, Jimmy brings in the belt and gets thwarted, and Hellcat gets the belt and clocks Bill with it to give Upstate the win. Is there a bigger slap in the face to 2CW and fans that to steal the win like that? Not just by using a foreign object, but their choice of a foreign object. The combination of a nice surprise appearance, a fun formula tag match, and a very heated finish and aftermath makes for a great way to kick things off.
NIKKI ROXX vs. PORTIA PEREZ
Welcome to Wrestling 101 with professor Roxx. Like most of her matches, this is the Nikki Roxx show, she brings the usual heelish attitude and fun offense, and the result is the usual enjoyable match. Nothing against Portia, but Nikki may as well have been wrestling a broomstick in this match, Portia only gets in a few moves, and they’re not exactly consequential to the match nor the story. The idea is that Nikki has beaten everyone she’s wrestled in 2CW and she’s bored. Nikki clearly doesn’t treat Portia like a threat, but that doesn’t stop her from dishing out a beating either.
Nikki hits two big spots and the beginning and they both wind up playing a factor into the match long term (well, as long term as about five minutes can really get). She hits a backbreaker and flips her over into a gut buster, and then throws her Portia into the corner and rams her in the face with her hips and legs, causing Portia’s neck to whip back. Nikki keeps focused on the neck with an extended headlock on the ground, and it’s great (although not a shocker) to see Nikki being smart enough to remember to actually work the hold and not just use it to rest. Nikki also uses the gut buster to thwart her attempts to fight back, when Portia escapes the headlock and charges, Nikki catches her with a Mountain Bomb, and when Portia tries to throw forearms and fists, Nikki kicks her in the ribs to stop her (with Portia’s selling also helping tell the story). Portia does manage to pull out some offense of her own, like a nice running knee lift, a bulldog off the second rope, and the Complete Shot when she dodges Nikki’s lariat, but none of it was really needed and its only purpose seems to be to make sure that Portia gets in offense too. However, the finish is designed to be a fluke, when Nikki tries to cradle Portia and Portia counters into her own and gets the upset, which plays into the idea that Nikki’s ego got the better of her. Portia would have been just as well, if not better, served to let Nikki keep working her over or sell her injuries while Nikki gloats, it gets the exact same message across and also doesn’t make Portia’s spots mean basically nothing.
Nikki tries to attack her with a chair, but it doesn’t quite go right and Portia winds up with the chair. Portia challenges Nikki to a no disqualification match, more than a year later, we’re still waiting for it to happen. I try to stick to simply talking about the wrestling or the angles going on, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the production of this part of the DVD. To be blunt, it’s awful. They seemed to be trying a split screen deal with Portia in the ring and Nikki on the floor, but it didn’t work at all, the color was fading, it kept going to a black screen, and the little window was fading in and out. Plus, when Nikki left ringside the split screen was still there, only both of them showed Portia in the ring.
JOHN WALTERS vs. BRODIE LEE
If only Walters had stuck to the story they looked to be telling, this would have been perfectly fine. Brodie’s stooging is always welcome, his frequent calling out the phrase ‘all day’ gives the Syracuse fans some fun, and Walters is good when he sticks with the story. It’s a simple story that’s been done time and time again, the battle of Size vs. Technique. Brodie uses his size and strength to his advantage with things like knuckle locks, and his overhead choke throw, the two attempts at the Lygerbomb and even something relatively simple like plowing him down with a simple running elbow strike, combined with the usual chicanery such as choking and using the ropes. Walters combats that with his technical prowess, he gets Brodie reeling with armdrags and Brodie puts his arm in his tights to prevent it, but Walters does it to the other arm. Brodie thinks he’s outsmarted him and tucks both arms, but that leaves him wide open for a chop. Walters nicely escapes an attempted chokeslam and takes Brodie to the ground and tries for the sharpshooter, and when Brodie goes for a lariat, Walters dodges it and gets a surprise backslide for the win. A perfectly good story, with some stooging and fun from Brodie to prevent it from seeming too formulaic.
Walters doesn’t always want to stick with the story though, he keeps trying to fight power with power, despite getting his early advantage from his technical abilities and being able to pull off the win the same way. It’s not bad at first, Walters gets in trouble when he telegraphs a chop and Brodie hotshots him. Walters tries to fight back with more chops and charges for a lariat, but Brodie easily drops him. You’d think that he’d have learned his lesson at that point, but he doesn’t, he keeps trying to stand up to Brodie. The funny thing is that it never works out for him for very long, the only time it does is when he finally gets Brodie reeling after some chops and a lariat, and Walters hits a diving lariat to finally take him off his feet. But once Brodie is on his feet he easily reverses a whip to the corner and Walters eats a boot. Walters using the sunset flip powerbomb is more forgivable since Brodie gave him the opening for it with the missed charge into the corner, but the missile dropkick afterwards was more or less wasted. It was another case of Brodie easily regaining control shortly afterwards. I can understand their idea of wanting to veer away from the story a bit, if, for no other reason, than to not make it seem so obvious what they’re going for, but this just seemed like too much when they could have either let Brodie keep beating on him, or had Walters going back to the technical route. This is actually like a longer version of the last match, it was going fine when the aggressor was keeping things going, but then the underdog (and eventual winner) went a little too far and dragged it down a little bit.
STEVE McKENZIE/STEVE KRUZ vs. ANTONIO THOMAS/ISYS EPHEX
This isn’t so much good or exciting as it is amusing. The Steves are a good team and Isys and Thomas are good singles wrestlers, and they have a nice way of showing how good all four are, but it’s almost subtle in its way. If one wasn’t examining this closely, it’d probably not even be noticed. The Steves show their proficiency in teamwork, they manage to keep Isys, and later Thomas, at bay with simple work on the arm and quickly tagging in and out. The work itself isn’t that exciting, it’s a lot of stuff with arm twisting and then tagging out so the new legal man can come off the top rope and hit the arm on the way down. The best thing they do is challenge Thomas to come into the ring, and when he obliges, they drop him with a double hip toss.
As good as the Steves show they are at teamwork, Thomas and Isys are just as good at cheating and bending the rules. McKenzie winds up in trouble thanks to a cheap shot from Thomas and a rail ride on the floor, and once it’s back in the ring, it’s a complete 180. Just as Isys and Thomas couldn’t get anything going thanks to the Steves’ superior teamwork, McKenzie can’t get anything going because of their ability to bend the rules and keep things in their favor. Isys gives Thomas a hand with a head scissors to add pressure, they show off their own double teaming skills in the form of a monkey flip from Thomas and a splash off the top from Isys, which is actually a takeoff of the Steves’ own double team finisher. They use the pants Thomas wore to the ring over his tights to clothesline him, and a there’s a great blind tag spot where McKenzie does a sunset flip to Thomas, but Isys is now legal and continues the assault. It’s reminiscent of the better Steves/AMIL matches, only it’s missing the comedy involving Kruz showing his ass (thankfully). Isys and Thomas go too far with the cheating and it backfires when a second attempt to use Thomas’ pants winds up with them colliding and it allows McKenzie to tag Kruz. It seems like the match will continue as expected, with the Steves cleaning house, but the Wyld Stallyns show up to play air guitars and the distraction allows Isys to roll up Kruz for the win. It’s a nice twist that was certainly not expected and it plays into the story of Isys/Thomas only getting ahead by cheating. But it just seems like such a random time to show that it’s not the Steves under the masks. There was obviously speculation about it (the Stallyns debuted shortly after the Steves left), but it hadn’t ever been played up to any great degree. ***
ZAQUARY SPRINGATE III vs. AJAX 820 (TLC Match)
As easy as it is to respect Springate and Ajax for being willing to take the bumps that they do from the ladders and the tables, that’s all that this has to offer at the core. Despite Springate’s attempts, this doesn’t seem to have the hateful vibe that the blowoff match to a fairly long, and hateful, feud like this should have. Springate goes into the match with taped fists and wearing street clothes, seemingly ready to fight. He’s far ahead of Ajax, but Springate doesn’t show the brutal edge you’d expect the guy who lost his hair three months previous to have. He’s got a couple of nice moments when he uses the ladder to punish Ajax, but a lot of the match the typical spots you’d see in any WWE ladder or TLC match, they both get thrown into and onto a ladder propped up across the ring and guardrail. You can’t fault them a whole lot for doing it, the letters “TLC” have come to represent a crazy spotfest of a match, and that’s what the fans want to see. But it’s disappointing to see opportunities for storytelling being ignored.
Both of them also make sure to incorporate their signature stuff into the match, Ajax’s is the worst because it happens far too early for anyone to think that it’ll work and there’s virtually no reason for it to happen, he grabs a chair and tries to do a Gran Naniwa crab walk elbow off the ropes, and Springate moves. Springate’s moment is much better because it made perfect sense for him to do it. Ajax telegraphed it a bit by climbing a ladder while facing away from Springate and, to nobody’s shock, Springate hit him from behind and hung Ajax by his knees from the ladder. Springate grabbed a chair and hit a coast to coast dropkick. Had Ajax not telegraphed it so blatantly, it’d have looked like Springate essentially lucked into one his favorite moves. Springate makes the same mistake later though, when he props up a table between the apron and guardrail and then climbs a ladder with his back to Ajax, conveniently facing the table. Once again, to the surprise of nobody, Ajax waffles him with a chair and tips over the ladder and sends Springate through the table. The one big thing in their favor though, is that they don’t overdo things and both devalue them and desensitize the fans to them. Ajax takes a relatively simple table bump from a Springate powerbomb, and Springate’s delay in the cover explains the kick out, and Springate’s fall from the ladder through the propped up table is enough to give Ajax the pin. The sad thing is that winning four out of five matches, three of them via pin, over Springate should have elevated Ajax up the card, but instead this wound up being the peak of his 2CW career.
MAX BAUER vs. BRYAN FURY/FRANKIE ARION
2CW learns the first lesson of doing live commentary, make sure the announcers know the names of the talent. They spend the whole match calling Bauer ‘Matt Bauer.” This is just odd to watch, it’s one thing for Bauer to run his mouth, issue an open challenge and then get beat due to being overly confident. But this is Bauer bouncing like a pinball for someone nearly half his size (Frankie) *and* another guy, it almost makes him look sympathetic for having the deck stacked against him. It’s impressive that Bauer bumps and sells so well, but it’s downright odd that he does it so much against two guys so much smaller.
Bauer gets in a few offensive spots, such as catching Arion in a scoop slam position and then booting Fury in the face, and a few shots to Fury before the end, but it seems to be just token offense so he’s not entirely squashed. Fury and Arion can rock him and take him right off his feet with a simple forearm strike, and Fury’s superkick and jumping neckbreaker both wind up as close near falls. They get a nice blind tag spot that allows Arion to hit a leaping swinging DDT, and they hit dual frog splashes to finish him off. I’m not sure exactly what the message is that this match is supposed to send. The obvious one seems to be to not underestimate the small guy, but Bauer didn’t do that. He issued an open challenge, was goaded into accepting it, and paid the price. In the end, the main purpose seemed to simply be to indicate what to expect from 2008, as far as Bauer struggling and Fury and Arion both going places.
SPIKE DUDLEY/GORDY WALLACE vs. K-PUSHA/K-MURDA (First Blood Match)
After the woefully disappointing table match, this is a huge improvement. It not a surprise, nor a coincidence, to me that it coincides with Spike’s participation. Like most of the matches in this feud, the match isn’t much more than a backdrop to a big angle. Also, like many of the other matches, it’s mostly a crazy brawl all over ringside, and the clear highlights are the sadistic bumps from Spike. He takes three or four various bumps into a ladder propped up against the ring ropes (leftover from the TLC match), and also goes headfirst into a chair in the corner. They try to make things look bleak for AMIL with a couple of big chair shots, the Acid Drop, and Axe’s interference. But, with the main focus being dissension between Axe and Spike (Axe was supposed to be wrestling but forced Spike to replace him), it’s clear who’s actually going to be bleeding. Indeed, Spike is opened up quickly after the chair bump and a brass knucks shot, and Spike accidentally hits Gordy with a chair to cost them the match. The ending was obviously designed to set the stage for the big angle (which it does perfectly), but it also gives AMIL the shaft. They win the match and the feud and it really doesn’t matter, it’s all about Axe and Spike.
As has been the trend, the match is over but the action continues. Axe berates Spike for losing and fires him from his little stable. Spike gets on the microphone and proceeds to spend three minutes trying to undo five months of booking and promos by saying that he teamed with Axe simply so he could continue to wrestle for 2CW because it’s the only company that took care of him. Spike also takes a minute to chew out a guy in the crowd who didn’t seem to like the promo. Spike tries to attack Axe, but Axe and Gordy beat him down and leave him laying.
J.D. LOVE vs. LOCA VIDA (Mask vs. Hair)
The term “spotfest” can be misleading at times. It’s taken on a negative connotation of being a bad match where the only concern is doing a bunch of big moves and not having any underlying theme or story. However, a match like this is proof positive (to me at least) that a match can have all the big moves of a typical spotfest, without having any of the negatives that are associated with it. It’d be hard to label this as anything other than a spotfest. The match is mostly made up of J.D. opening up a huge can of the ass-whip onto Loca with metric tons of high impact moves. But the match isn’t devoid of story by any means at all, Loca’s performance shows the simplest and most basic story of all, the desire to win. He takes an absolutely hellish bump, looks all but dead, and finds the power to get the shoulder up. Just about all of their previous matches that J.D. has won has been with only one or two big moves, the rest the match is comedy and J.D. lighting him up with chops, but this isn’t just any match for Loca, and he makes that come through with his selling and the way he valiantly keeps fighting. It’s not like J.D. is doing these in a half-assed manner, the bulk of them are done almost perfectly, and that’s part of why it’s so incredible that Loca is surviving. It’d be easy to knock J.D. for relying so heavily on them, but again, look at their track record, Loca has a history of going down rather easily after taking a big bump, so why would J.D. not try to beat the man in a manner he knows he can be beaten in? . It gets to the point when J.D. runs of his own offense and starts stealing other people’s moves. He uses the hanging DDT and RKO, Sky High, The Five Star Frog Splash, and his attempt at the Razor’s Edge leads to his undoing.
There’s quite a few other nice touches to the match as well. They drop almost all of their usual comedy stuff, like the dance off, and keep the focus on the match, showing how important it is to both of them. Loca does a good job scouting, and avoiding, J.D.’s attempted chops in the corner. J.D. gets in his own nice moment like that a little later when he avoids Loca’s springboard back elbow and plows him down with a lariat. Familiarity is an obvious theme of the match, and it plays a part in why J.D. is able to put such a big hurt on Loca. The size factor is an obvious reason, but another reason is that J.D. is able to surprise Loca with a block or counter, such as Loca’s crucifix attempt that ended up as a sort of neckbreaker, or Loca’s attempted Code Red that J.D. blocked and turned into a Jig ‘n’ Tonic. It’s ironic in a way, because after a few killer counters from J.D. Loca only needed one, when he turned the attempted charging Razor’s Edge into a Code Red, after J.D. had already blocked his previous attempt at the move.
Despite having saved the best for last, they’re not totally spot-on with everything. Their spot when Loca jumped off the top and got hit with a Sky High didn’t look all that good nor did the frog splash (although in defense of that, a legit splash off the top from J.D. would probably put him through the ring). And Loca’s pinning combination wasn’t great either, as J.D.’s shoulders weren’t down and at one point he rolled into the ropes. But it says a lot that the bulk of their problems in the match were technical, the only other odd thing was when Loca got hit with the RKO and jumped to his feet rather and did the bulldog. I almost didn’t believe that he did that, especially when, not long before, he’d been smart enough to grab the ropes for assistance in countering a powerbomb into a hurricanrana, so as to do his spot and keep the beating he’d taken in mind.
Prior to this, Loca’s two best outings were his match with Slyck Wagner Brown from April and the Pooh match with J.D. from July, and this favorably compare to both matches. Although not in a comedic way, it manages to be as entertaining to watch as the July match. And if Loca/Slyck was about Loca showing that he had it in him to move up the ladder, then this match featured Loca leap frogging over several other wrestlers on his way up to the top. ***1/2
As if the match wasn’t enough, they aren’t finished yet. Loca gets on the microphone and appears to tell J.D. that he respects him and doesn’t want him to cut his hair (I don’t speak fluent Spanish, but I know a word or two, and the announcers back me up). J.D. reciprocates the respect for Loca and they shake hands and share a hug. The feel good moment is ruined by NWA Upstate. Brodie kills Loca with a boot and Brodie, Jimmy, and Hellcat beat down J.D. and cut his hair, then they start going after Loca’s mask but John Walters makes the save. Hellcat challenges anyone from 2CW to show up on Rochester on 1/12.
The Eddie/Slyck portion is also quite good because it dawns on the both of them that Dizzie is gone and they’ve finally got a legitimate chance to win the title, and they both ‘wake up’ and the intensity of them both is turned way up. They’ve got a nice exchange where the boot each other in the face, and then Eddie starts to dodge Slyck’s attempts and creams him with a running kick. They both get their chances to try to get the win, Eddie gets his usual near falls with things like the backpack stunner, missile dropkick and the cross legged fisherman’s buster, and also a near fall from a Lionsault. Slyck appears to have the title won when he catches Eddie with a spin kick while he’s airborne for another missile dropkick (which actually takes them two tries to get right), and then hits the Appreciation Bomb, but things go downhill after that point. Dizzie returns and pulls out the ref and starts to attack Slyck, then Isys tries to attack to Eddie, but he gets thwarted. Slyck and Eddie fight the heels off on their own, culminating in a pair of dives. But alas no, Matt Patterson declares that the Dizzie and Isys run ins have caused Eddie and Slyck to be disqualified and the title is held up, and will be decided on 2/21 in Binghamton in a tag team match. To say that’s not the most popular decision is a huge understatement, the fans don’t like it and the announcers (doing live commentary for the first time) aren’t thrilled either. Suffice to say, it ends what was a very good show on a huge sour note.
The 411: I still say 7/21 was the best show they’d put on up to that point, but this gives it a pretty good fun for its money. Plenty of good wrestling, a couple of hot angles, and some new faces to look for in 2008. The show ends on a bad note, but it’s strictly the booking, not the wrestling itself, this show is still an easy recommendation to pick up.
