RAW review 08/02/2001 -- Maritime Pro Wrestling Forum

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Date Posted: 08:11:21 08/03/01 Fri
Author: BMN
Subject: RAW review 08/02/2001

Real Action Wrestling at the North Sydney Forum
August 3, 2001

Cathy plays her third role in a row: from valet to ringside judge to working the door. Me, I like working the merch table, it's the best way to get free stuff.....oh wait, I'm stuck talking about music.

Where's BW? Where's S-Man? Where's Col. Carlos? Where's the Greatest? Well, OK, I know where two of them were, but even still: it felt quieter than usual. I should also point out that the R.A.W. merch table looks as though it exploded. New shirts aplenty. I didn't see the new Joe E shirt promised by the promoter, though. Next time.

Well, once again, a previous recapper has given me leeway to cut some stuff out.

Kardinal Sinners do their weekly "start the show" promo sans Acadian Giant (selling the suspension, I assume). Mike Hughes shows off his newly won gold. Chi Chi Cruz and Gary Williams storm the ring demanding a tables match to avenge the VICIOUS HEEL BEATDOWN from the last show. Crowd was notably lackluster despite the furious buildup last show. The first sign that the heat in the building was going to affect things.

1. Corporal Chaos vs. Custom Made Man (* 3/4)

The CCM song in question is "You Can Do It" by Ice Cube with Ms. Toi and Mack 10. It can be found on the "Next Friday" soundtrack. Match was a slight-step-above-average jobber match. Remember how Curt Hennig used to let someone like Pez Whatley get the better of him for about a minute on a "Superstars" taping? Kind of the same thing. Some good selling by Chaos and a fantastic frog splash by CCM to finish the match. I'll call it * 3/4 which is actually a damn good ranking for squash. If Chaos keeps improving, he might see the **+ zone yet, but I have a feeling he's just going to kept as the "Bangor Bruiser" of this promotion. Well, at least brec7 will know what I mean when I say that.

2. Flesh Gordon vs. Eddy Watts (** 1/4)

I personally find that restholds don't work in succession. But I do have to give full props to these guys for taking a dead crowd and livening them up. Eddy Watts is the master of indy promotion heel schtick. Flesh looked to be pretty much a lump of muscle and nothing more at first but he showed a lot of promise here. Duke MacIssac comes along to distract Mr. Gordon, and Watts wins with the dastardly foot on the ropes trick. Cathy says nothing and she's sitting in practically the same spot as last week! Tut-tut. They mustn't be paying ringside judge fees anymore :).

3. Hardcore match: Duke MacIssac vs. Massive Damage (**)

Hardcore matches are generally a bore but this one was fairly good in a comparative light. Gordon distracts Duke for retribution, Damage wins and leaves to get his donuts from Nick and Jesse. This eventually leads to Watts challenging the faces to a Watts/MacIssac-Gordon/CCM match, as CCM is left to come to Gordon's rescue. Gordon accepts. I actually found Flesh to be not bad on the stick. The mid card action is getting fun to watch.

Watts' temper tantrum was fantastic, as he broke up half of the barricades in the place. Call matches 2 & 3 **** on the "indy card sports entertainment" scale.

4. Joe E Legend vs. Kingman (** 3/4)

Match loses 1/2 * for a boring double-DQ ending, something similar to which we've already seen. But Joe E was ON FIRE tonight, keeping the flow and hitting the Joeysault. The post match brawl was fantastic, highlighted by a dynamite Joe E tope as the workers tried to keep he and Kingman apart. Joe E had everyone eating out of his hand by the end of this match despite the overwhelming (literal) heat in the arena, he appears to have solidified himself as the top face in the company without too much doubt.

The only problem is that this leads to yet another Kingman-Joe E match, and I'd much rather see Joe ply his trade against Bobby Rude for a while. But they sure got people interested in a rematch this time around. An eight-man tag would also be interesting.

5. Tables Match: Chi Chi Cruz/Gary Williams vs. Bobby Rude/Mike Hughes (**)

Underwhelming finish as Rude/Hughes "kinda" go through the table for the face win. Cruz and Williams leave almost immediately basically giving us the first "that is that" finish to a RAW show in awhile. I do think the humidity sapped from what could have been a ***-**** match. There was some good action but the match was kept very short.

Highest match ranking: ** 3/4 (Legend v Kingman)
Lowest match ranking: * 3/4 (CCM v Chaos)
Avg. match ranking: between ** and ** 1/2
Event ranking: ** 3/4

Call this the "Joe E show" as he was energized and put on a hell of a show. This isn't to say that anyone else was actively bad (a ** 3/4 ranking is pretty good), it's just that he and possibly Watts seemed to be the only ones who didn't seem the slightest bit bothered by the heat-rendering rink that is the North Sydney Forum. But I thought the booking was great, especially the setup for workers outside of the "Big 7" (Cruz/Williams/Joe/Sinners). It was disheartening to see the fantastic heel beatdown from two weeks ago lead to a fairly middling payoff but the circumstances seemed to dictate nothing better could happen. But, unlike other situations I've seen in the past, it wasn't the fault of the booking. There WAS a payoff, thank you very much.

I suspect that Joe E is going to take centre stage very soon- finally knocking off Kingman at the next show and pointing his aim squarely at Hughes and his belt. But Cruz will go for it first. See how easy it is to set up proper booking?

And now for Sunday nights at the Forum- as it should be.

BMN

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Replies:

Re: RAW review 08/02/2001 -- brec7, 23:33:11 08/03/01 Fri
Stuff -- Cathy, 21:54:52 08/05/01 Sun
- Re: Stuff -- brec7, 23:48:40 08/05/01 Sun