Reviews From the City of Orange: 2CW in Binghamton, NY - 6/8/07

Posted by Mike Campbell on 01.05.2009

Dizzie's first title defense and Spike gets one last shot at Axe.

2CW IN BINGHAMTON, NY
June 8, 2007

It’s 2CW’s debut in Binghamton! The tournament may be over, but there’s still plenty of excitement going on. Spike and Axe end the feud in a loser leaves town match! J.D. and Loca are still going at it, the debut of a former Heartthrob, and Dizzie’s first title defense!

John Walters . . . puts on another impressive performance, and he also gets a satisfying victory to boot.
Steve Kruz . . . may have nearly gotten decimated in the tables match, but he gets the last laugh on AMIL.
Dizzie . . . shows why he’s the champion by giving Ajax 820 the match of his career (in spite of Ajax).

GORDY WALLACE vs. ANTONIO THOMAS
To call this a bad match would be too harsh, it’s certainly not great, or even very good, but they’ve got enough good ideas to keep it at least watchable. What keeps this from being any more than that is the fact that it’s a huge clash of styles, and neither of them seems to know exactly how to work around that. So they just let each other do their own thing rather than finding some kind of happy medium. Thomas works a technical style while Gordy is a brawler. When Gordy gets to unload on Thomas, his drunken selling is nice, but he’s basically just letting Gordy tee off on him. When Thomas has control, he’s stretching out Gordy with various submissions which is fun to watch, but he’s not taking the match anyplace, he’s mostly doing it to show that he can. And while it’s more than he ever showed in the WWE as half of the Heartthrobs, it’s still not very engaging. It’s honestly similar to the idea that the former WWE guys come to ROH to ‘work without limitations.’ It sounds and looks nice, but in reality, it doesn’t mean much if they’re not doing anything meaningful. The ‘Promise Bomb’ (Code Red, Yoshitonic, etc.) that Thomas uses ends the match on a good visual, but ending the match like that negates the idea that he was building to anything with his matwork and holds. Antonio Thomas was certainly a nice coup for 2CW, both due to his talent and his name, but they’d have been better off by debuting him against someone who could work with him better.

J.D. LOVE vs. LOCA VIDA
While taking a break from each other certainly helped out in the freshness department, especially with the matches that Loca had with other wrestlers. It also have hurt them in the short term because this is a step down from what they were doing before. Instead of the usual David vs. Goliath story they’d been working and adding to, Loca and J.D. both just sort of do stuff without any real reason. Really, the only storytelling element was when J.D. countered the wheelbarrow bulldog, only for Loca to hit it from a different position to score the upset. Other than that, there are some funny moments here, but there’s nothing else special. The delayed Flair Flop after Loca’s ten count spot in the corner was nice, and the announcers naming the stinkface that J.D. does ‘The Flavor of Love’ was funny. But that’s just about the extent of it. It’s watchable, like the first match, but it’s a clear step down from what they’d been doing since January.

JOHN WALTERS vs. ISYS EPHEX
At first, this also seems like it’s going to be a step down from their previous match, but by the end, they manage to make this another good effort from them. It’s fun to watch them exchange holds and counters early on, but we’d already seen that last time. So while it may be fun to watch, it’s nothing especially fresh (with the exception of Walters’ sick Cobra stretch). They wind up finding the freshness in the form of playing off their previous match, specifically the way that Walters lost (telegraphing an attempted elbow strike) and going from there in a new direction. They go back and fourth for a bit with the technical stuff, and then Walters once again calls for, and misses, his elbow, allowing Isys to get a near fall from a German suplex. From there, both Isys and Walters mostly forgo the technical route in the form of high impact spots, aside from Isys’ Emerald Frozian, they’re nothing especially huge, so it’s not like they’re throwing out bombs and wasting them. And the Frozian itself wasn’t entirely wasted, they’d been exchanging forearm shots and then started struggling over a backslide, Isys caught Walters trying to reverse the momentum and scooped him up and hit the Frozian. One could argue about Walters’ sunset flip powerbomb to the floor as a wasted spot, but again, it had purpose. Walters caught Isys sleeping on the top rope (actually it was Isys selling his fatigue and showing how worn down he was), and sprang to action and surprised Isys (and also avenged the Frozian in his own way).
They’re also smart enough to not make the finish negate what they’d been doing, unlike the first match. While the use of the high impact stuff makes for a good visual treat, it also happens to wear down the midsection and back area of the wrestlers, which plays into Walters’ sharpshooter. And again, they make the finish a fun little ride by playing off the previous match. Walters, yet again, calls for the elbow and Isys ducks it, and this time he attempts a Control Thunder Bomb (which beat Walters last time), only this time Walters is ready, and rolls through it to put on the sharpshooter and scores the submission, which is just about the perfect way to end things. It gives a conclusion that the fans like, and at the same time it makes everything they did in the match count. ***1/4

K-MURDA/K-PUSHA vs. OMAN TORTUGA/DIABLO SANTIAGO
Thank God that Steve Kruz was the referee, he was pretty much the only thing amusing here. The idea is that he’s blatantly favoring the Outcast Killas, but until the last minute or so, it never really comes out. He’s out of position a few times, and it was funny when he missed a pin because he was talking on his phone, but he mostly stayed out of the way. AMIL and their flashy offense is always welcome, even without the usual comedy that the Steves can always be counted on to play off, but they don’t get much time on offense. Oman and Diablo are the kiss of death though, they spend far too long on offense and don’t do anything interesting, the only good spot from them was an Exploder suplex from Diablo. The Steves may not have been Tully and Arn, but you could at least count on them to keep the heat portion interesting. With how bad the Outcast Killas were, they’d have been better off just letting AMIL carry the action and then have Kruz suffer from various arm injuries to prevent him from finishing a count. It’d make sense in the context of the angle, and also spare the fans the horror of watching the Outcast Killas.

The match breaks down after the hot tag, and AMIL throwing out their spots was never such a welcome sight, because at least AMIL showed they had something to do, even if it was just thrown out there to throw it out there. At least the Killas do a decent job of selling, even when Pusha’s Dead Presidents on Oman looked bad. Kruz gets something in his eye before he can give a three count, and misses the Killas use a couple of chairs, but recovers enough to score count the pin. When the fans are chanting the name of the ref during the heat portion, you’re doing something wrong. And it’s not like Steve was overshadowing them, he stayed out of the way and made sure to purposely be accidentally out of position to count any AMIL pin attempts.

ZAQUARY SPRINGATE III vs. SLYCK WAGNER BROWN (#1 Contender’s match for the 2CW Heavyweight Title)
Although the work itself was just filler to the angle that led to the finish to continue Slyck’s feud with Dizzie, Springate and Slyck were both able to make it fun filler. The best part of the match was when Springate was working over Slyck’s arm (which he hurt after missing the corner charge). Springate didn’t have the mean streak you’d probably expect him to have, but he was good with working the holds, especially the Fujiwara armbar with his feet on the ropes. Slyck’s selling was very good as well, his selling after he hit the chop was excellent, and when he was finally able to rattle off some offense, he remembered to sell his arm after Springate would kick out of a pin.

Aside from Springate working over the arm, there were a few other nice exchanges as well. The best one being Slycks’ transition to offense after his arm was worked over a bit, Springate whipped him into the ropes, and Slyck came back with a leap frog, then a baseball slide between Springate’s legs, and then hitting his leg lariat to kick off his own offensive run, and tried to put away Springate with some high impact offense, culminating with a near fall form the cross armed powerbomb (with Slyck not forgetting about his arm). Slyck seemed to have the match won when Springate missed the swanton, and Slyck locked in the Boston crab, only for Dizzie to distract Slyck, and allow Springate to get a school boy, with his feet on the ropes and with Dizzie giving him the assist, for the upset. Again, the match and the wrestling took a backseat to the angle, but they both came off very well, and it would have been just as easy for Springate and Slyck to just fart around and kill time until Dizzie’s run in.

DIZZIE © vs. AJAX 820 (2CW Heavyweight Title)
Foley’s intro of Dizzie is great. “He weighs in at 245 lbs, that’s 230 plus the fifteen pounds of gold!” This is easily Ajax’s best match in 2CW, although Ajax doesn’t have a whole lot to do with it. Dizzie, sells and stooges for him so well, that it really looks like Ajax is a hair away from scoring the upset of the year and winning the 2CW Title. All Ajax himself does in that regard is the moves, but it’s the way Dizzie sells and puts them over that makes it all work so well. It looks like your average Spike Dudley in ECW match, where Ajax has to stick and move, which he does very well. When Dizzie misses the corner charge, Ajax stuns him with a kick and hits the springboard blockbuster for a near fall, Dizzie tries to bail and Ajax follows him with a pescado rana, when they get into the ring, Ajax gets several close near falls over Dizzie with various flash cradles. And Dizzie’s facials and reaction to all this is priceless.

Ajax tries for too much and Dizzie catches him when he attempts a cross body press and gives him two backbreakers and a big fall away slam. Dizzie keeps his focus on Ajax’s back, and while he’s not as inventive as Springate was with Slyck’s arm, he shows the mean streak that Springate was lacking. Instead of wearing it down with submissions, Dizzie elects to continuously slam him in various ways, including a nice sequence where Dizzie would bodyslam Ajax, and then roll him to his feet to do it again. Ajax adds his own smart touch, when he tries to mount some offense and misses a somersault legdrop and sells his back after he hits the mat. But aside from that it works so well because of Dizzie being so vicious, Ajax really doesn’t add any personality or over the top selling to the mix. Dizzie makes the same mistake that Ajax did and tries too much, when he attempts some sort of slam (maybe a Jackhammer or Fisherman’s bomb) off top and gets countered and taken over with a rana, Ajax tries to follow up with a Tornado DDT, but gets blocked, he tries again and gets atomic dropped, and Dizzie takes advantage of his stunned state and hits the Fisherman’s bomb to finally put him away. Granted, nobody gave Ajax a prayer of winning, not just because Dizzie was feuding with Slyck, but because he’s always been an undercard guy, but that didn’t stop Dizzie from going all out to make him look like a real contender. It’s just too bad that Ajax didn’t think to follow suit. ***

BROTHER RUNT vs. JASON AXE (No Rules Loser Leaves Town Match)
“This is the moment of truth, when a man shows what he’s really made of. Crap.” That sums up the perception of Axe after this was over. This was easily the biggest match of his career and a real opportunity to make a name for himself, but this was hardly any different than their other matches. Spike treats him like he owns him (including a sick spot where Spike hip tosses Axe into about the seventh row), and Axe once again gets the win on a lucky break. That was acceptable in their first match, and maybe even their second. But after five months and four matches, Axe should have been able, or allowed, to show something, and instead he got nothing.

The only thing that separates this from any of their other matches is that Axe actually got control for a decent length of time, but all he got to do with it is hit Spike with a chair over and over again. Yes, it’s a hardcore match, but Axe is a talented wrestler and using wrestling to defeat the hardcore veteran would go a long way to him getting that boost, but Spike felt the need to pay homage to Cactus and Funk in ECW, and fill the ring with chairs, so there wasn’t much else for Axe to do. Other than his chair shots he gets a low blow to turn the tide, and the Acid Drop counter that everyone uses is what finishes off Spike when he takes the bump badly (thanks to all those chairs in the ring). There’s nothing wrong with Spike thrashing him early on, it’s what the fans want to see, but after three straight matches where Axe wins by sheer luck, he needed the decisive win here and it didn’t happen. Toward the end, Axe sets up a table but it never gets used, Axe sending Spike out of 2CW by chucking him through a table would certainly have made a good finish, but it didn’t. This was the last chance for Spike and Axe to do something special, and (although possibly not intentionally) it wasn’t any different than last time. But at least Spike leaving 2CW gives Axe the opportunity to work with some other guys, and judging by the results of Axe vs. Ajax, Axe vs. Isys, and Axe vs. Dizzie, that can only be a good thing.

The 411: From a strictly in-ring standpoint, this isn’t as good as the last few shows, but what they lack there, they make up for with some very good storyline stuff, which I think is just as important as good matches. For that reason alone, it’s a show worth checking out, but the good matches from some of the usual suspects don’t hurt either.

Final Score:  7.8   [ Good ]