Dark Pegasus Video Review: Full Impact Pro — Hot Summer Nights, Night Two

Posted by J.D. Dunn on 05.17.2008

The YRR's beach party continues as Erick Stevens and Roderick Strong put on solid title defenses.

Full Impact Pro: Hot Summer Nights – Night Two
by J.D. Dunn

June 30, 2007

From Crystal River, Fla.

Your hosts are Dave Prazak and Lenny Leonard.

Larry Sweeney arrives on the scene to tell the fans how lucky they are to see him wrestle (and to get into an argument with a bunch of 8-year-old kids).

Opening Match: Larry Sweeney vs. Gran Akuma.
Did you know Sweeney's entrance music, "More, More, More," is sung by a porno actress? VH1 is good for something. The fans are all over Sweeney and give Akuma a good pop. Akuma jumps on top early, hitting a tope to the floor. Sweeney cheats to come back, though, and kills some time with a chinlock to get the crowd good and angry. A gourdbuster gets two. You can tell Akuma is going to job because he's not wasting his good offensive moves. He comes back with a rana, but Sweeney hits him in the back of the head with the flying fist. That sets up the elbowdrop at 9:48. Sweeney is a great heat-getter, and his in-ring style walks that fine line between comedy and realistic. Akuma didn't put up much of a fight. *3/4

After the match, DP Associates congratulates Sweeney.

Jimmy Rave (w/Dave Prazak & Mr. Milo Beasley) vs. Hallowicked.
Rave stalls a lot after Hallowicked has some early success. Hallowicked gets in a few rollups but spills to the floor off a blind charge. That allows Mr. Milo Beasley to get out of his wheelchair and drop an elbow off the apron. Rave takes over, but he doesn't do anything particularly interesting. Hallowicked blocks a superplex and hits a swanton to come back. He gets two off a press kick to the gut, but Rave spears him for two. Hallowicked hits Sky High, but Prazak has the ref distracted. Milo Beasley's interference backfires, but Hallowicked goes after Prazak. That allows Rave to recover and lock in the Heel Hook for the submission at 11:17. Rave was actually the least interesting person in the ring. No wonder he always gets stuck in tag teams. Prince Nana was a miracle worker to get him over in Ring of Honor. **1/4

The YRR hold a beach party in the middle of the National Guard Armory and generally make obnoxious asses of themselves.

The Irish Airborne vs. Damien Wayne & Rex Sterling.
Damien Wayne and Rex Sterling do the "tough guy heel who can't believe he's stuck with a goof" act. Wayne is okay, but Test ruined leather pants in wrestling for me. The Crists blitz Sterling with doubleteam moves, but the fans are distracted by the YRR's beach ball game. Then again, with Becky Bayless and So Cal Val hopping up and down with squirt guns, I can't really fault them. Dave Crist goes for a tope, but Wayne cuts him off from the outside. Wayne tags in, thus giving the heels some offense. He tries to rip Dave's eyeball out. That's some good heelery. The heels tie Dave up in the tree-of-woe and abuse him. Jake does his best Robert Gibson impression by distracting the ref with his protests. Dave avoids a charge and rolls into the hot tag. Jake cleans house and hits Rex with a flying enzuigiri. The YRR's ball keeps winding up in the ring, but Bryce Remsberg is Johnny-on-the-spot. The Airborne finish with the Irish Air Raid (Double Stomp out of a Fireman's Carry into an FU on the knees) at 10:52. It was an average formula tag match, but the YRR's antics were a distraction. **

"Cool" Seth Delay vs. Jason Blade.
Delay is upset that he wasn't invited to the beach party, so he challenges any member of the YRR to get in the ring with him. Blade eventually steps up. Delay steals his inflatable guitar and rips it up. Prazak starts in on his "Delay has a metal plate in his arm" routine. Delay goes to work on Blade's arm as Leonard talks about Prazak getting them sued for calling Sean Waltman "X-Pac." Delay clotheslines Blade to the floor but gets yanked off the apron. We get a lot of cutaways to the YRR partying. Blade works the back and slaps Delay around. Blade powerslams him and then hits a front powerslam. Rolling backdrop suplexes! That leads to a facebuster for two. They go all Brutus the Barber vs. Ted Dibiase as Blade comes off the top but gets punched in the gut and does a front flip to sell it. Delay hits a flying huracanrana and small packages Blade for two. He stops to play to the crowd and gets SUPERKICKED! ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Blade argues with the ref and gets rolled up. A small package gets two more, and Delay finishes with the Edge-o-Matic at 10:25. Not a big fan of Delay's finisher, but these two work the indy cruiserweight match well enough. **1/4

After the match, the YRR attack. You know it's a serious beatdown because Rinauro's wearing his inner tube and beach towel. The Heartbreak Express make the save, leading to…

The Heartbreak Express vs. Chasyn Rance & Sal Rinauro (w/the YRR).
The YRR has the numbers, and the ref doesn't bother to enforce the rules, so Sean and Phil have a hard time getting out of the blocks. Rinauro gets on the ropes to play to the fans, so Sean just punches him in the nuts. Sean avalanches Rance and Rinauro. He follows it up with a Broncobuster with his ass to Rance's face. King trips Sean up and hits him with a chairshot. Rance covers and picks up the win at 4:42. Rinauro deserves props for wrestling the entire match without breaking his inner tube. It was more of an extended beatdown disguised as a match, though. 1/2*

The beatdown continues until The Black Market makes the save.

SHIMMER Six-Woman Tag: Amazing Kong & The Minnesota Home-Wrecking Crew (w/the YRR) vs. Daizee Haze & The Dangerous Angels.
Lacey and Rain think they have this one in the bag because they have Kong in their corner. Rance's sexual attraction to Kong is both funny and disturbing. Kong pays dividends immediately, creating a wall between Alison Danger and the MHWC. The faces triple-team her, but Kong still fights them off and knocks Daizee down. Rain begs to be tagged in now, but Haze rolls her up. Danger low-bridges the ropes, sending a charging Kong to the floor, and they all take turns diving to the floor. Lacey cuts off Alison Danger with a spear. Danger plays face-in-peril. Kong gets in a few shots from the outside. A heel miscommunication allows Del Rey to get the hot tag. Del Rey smashes the Home-Wrecking Crew's heads together and hits a DOUBLE LA MAJESTRAL! Craziness. Kong gets the tag but gets headscissored by the Haze. Del Rey's German Suplex only gets two. Daizee and Del Rey blitz her with splashes. Kong just gets pissed and starts tearing through all the babyfaces. CONTSTRUCTICONS, MERGE FOR THE KILL! She knocks Del Rey loopy with a backfist and a clothesline and then powerbombs Daizee on top of her while she's trying to get up. Awesome! Lacey and Rain team up for the Tomikaze on Danger, and Kong adds the Amazing Press for the win at 12:17. Kong is kind of like the Andre the Giant of women wrestlers only she's a heel and kills everything in her path. She makes a perfect enforcer-type for Lacey and Rain's cowardly bitches. Good stuff here. ***1/4

Florida Heritage Title: Erick Stevens vs. Jigsaw.
Both guys are babyfaces. Jiggy is kind of the cool guy, though, while Stevens is the guy everyone knows is going to win. Jigsaw can't move Stevens because he's too damned bulky, so he trips him up and hits an over-the-top tope. Back in, Stevens steamrolls Jigsaw with a flying shoulderblock. Jigsaw blocks a charge and hits a crossbody, but he can't cover. He hits a series of kicks and a tilt-o-whirl DDT for two. A legdrop misses, though, and Stevens hits the Full Nelson Slam for two. A pump-handle bomb gets two. Stevens goes up but comes off right into a superkick. Huracanrana! Frogsplash! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Fans were buying the upset there. Jigsaw escapes a Full Nelson and hits an enzuigiri. Stevens catches Jiggy and presses him into a powerslam. ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Jigsaw reverses the Doctorbomb to a rana for two. Stevens misses a swing but catches Jigsaw again and drops him right on his head with the Sarasota Screwdriver at 13:12. Not a bad match at all, and the first where Jigsaw impressed me. This was one of those matches where *everyone* knew Jigsaw had no chance, but they still managed to get heat on the nearfalls. ***1/4

FIP World Heavyweight Title: Roderick Strong vs. Eddie Kingston.
Roddy is a babyface here, which I think fits him far better than the heel role he plays in ROH. Kingston attacks before the bell, but Roderick comes back with chops and dropkicks him to the floor. He whips Kingston to the floor, but Kingston starts biting him. Kingston gets two off a facelock suplex. A Northern Lights Suplex gets two. Strong roars back with chops and clubbing forearms, but Kingston cuts him off with a uranage. A full-rotation German Suplex gets two. Strong gets two off a high-crotch powerbomb, but Kingston tosses him back with a full-rotation Dragon Suplex. Kingston locks in a weak Full Nelson, and they tease the submission. Strong powers up and fires away. A flying kick sets up the Strong Edge (Razor's Edge) for two. Strong says, "Enough of this" and finishes with a Tiger Driver '91 at 11:38. It looks like Roderick might have meant to go with the regular Tiger Driver, because he looked a little nervous. Kingston doesn't move after the match, but he'd be okay. Strong works so much better as the underdog who finally gets pissed and beats the hell out of people. He's kind of like a mini-Benoit back when Benoit was a babyface in WCW. ***1/2

The YRR returns to ringside and promises to vanquish the Black Market. That brings out the Black Market to cuff the little kids around, but Pondo and Ares (the YRR's hired guns) come out for…

Crystal River Street Fight: The Black Market vs. Mad Man Pondo & Ares.
Ares (pronounced more like "arse" than "aries") is Claudio Castagnoli's old tag team partner. Ares pairs off with Murphy while Machete and Pondo go at it in the ring. Machete steals Pondo's stapler. Sadly, it's not a red Swingline stapler. Pondo brings in a cinderblock and a sledgehammer. Murphy bulls over Ares with a shoulderblock as Pondo breaks the cinderblock against Machete's crotch. He staples a dollar bill to Machete's head. They trade off, and Ares backdrops out of a piledriver on the floor. Pondo hits a cannonball onto Shawn through a chair. Pondo grabs a stop sign, but it backfires, and he gets smashed in the head. Ares pummels Machete in the corner, but Machete reverses a whip, and the Black Market finish with the sideslam/neckbreaker combo on the stop sign at 10:14. Too all over the place with too little rhyme and no reason. **

After the match, The Heartbreak Express chases off the YRR and offers to team up with their perennial foes, the Black Market, in order to get rid of their common foes. The Black Market agrees that they have a mutual respect now, so they lay out a Bunkhouse Brawl challenge to the YRR.

The 411: As Randy Jackson might say, "It was just okay for me, dawg." Roderick was a great babyface champion. It's kind of odd that many of the 2007 FIP shows had Strong defending on the undercard and finished with an anti-climactic brawl. Still, FIP continues to be a nice middle ground between super serious ROH and wacky Chikara or PWG. This show has a few good matches on it, but they're the kind of matches that came out of nowhere, and they're really just placeholders.

Thumbs in the middle, leaning up.

Final Score:  6.5   [ Average ]