Reviews From the City of Orange: 2CW in Syracuse – February 23, 2007

The fun never stops when Squared Circle Wrestling puts on a show. Jason Axe finally gets a match with Brother Runt! Gordy and Springate lock up again, in the craziest match that you’ll ever see. Loca and J.D. are as good as they’ve ever been, and Edwards gives Isys a rematch!

Jason Axe . . . gets some revenge on Brother Runt and begins to garner some “Main Event” credibility.
Zachary Springate III . . . has quite the amusing comedy/hardcore match with his arch nemesis Gordy.
Isys Ephex . . . tears down the house with Eddie Edwards one more time and looks to get his win back.

AJAX 820 vs. KEVIN GRACE
For his 2CW debut, this could have gone eons better for poor Grace. In the plus column, he has the best ring gear this side of Dragon Gate’s Dr. Muscle. It’s not overtly bad, but it’s very short and the two big blunders wind up overshadowing what they’d done before. It starts with a typical feeling out process while they work a wrist lock and each show off some counters and escapes. Then they hit blunder number one, with Grace’s dive to the floor and busting open his head on the guardrail stand. When it gets back into the ring Ajax grabs a chinlock and any momentum dies right down. To their credit, they try to build it back up with Ajax doing his own dive to the floor, but when Ajax throws Grace into the ring, they hit their second roadblock when Ajax doesn’t hit the springboard blockbuster right and winds up hurting his ribs (and looking like he almost broke his neck). They end things right afterwards with Ajax using a Final Cut backbreaker. Not the best debut for Grace, not the best night for Ajax, and not the best match to give someone a first impression of 2CW, thankfully, things would improve later in the night.

LOCA VIDA vs. J.D. LOVE
The fifth time is apparently the charm, their four previous matches had all been good in their own way, but this is clearly a step above all of their past encounters. The big thing that works here is how everything they do is kept realistic looking. J.D. obviously uses his size and his chopping to put the hurt on Loca, but when Loca scores something of his own, like an armdrag counter or a surprise head scissors, J.D. puts it over in an appropriate way. There are only two instances of anything J.D. does looking close to being over the top. The first is the Flair Flop after Loca’s cuenta diez spot in the corner, and the other being his selling of the 315, and that was more due to Loca’s lack of momentum that anything J.D. was doing.

Along with J.D. keeping things believable comes Loca selling his ass off whenever he can. He’s always been good with the chops, and the way J.D. chops there’s probably not much actual selling involved, but when J.D. hits a big power move like his Michinoku Driver, the Alabama Slam counter, or the powerbomb that finishes off Loca, Loca puts it over like he’s all but dead. The Alabama Slam alone looked like it could have finished off Loca, even if J.D. hadn’t gotten in a speck of offense beforehand. Hell, even J.D. doing a simple boot rake has Loca going above and beyond to sell. And of course, it’s not a match with these two without any comedy. The early stuff makes for fun filler, like Loca flipping out of the wrist lock, and J.D. falling on his ass when he tries to follow suit. There’s also Loca moving out of the way when J.D. charges to do the stinkface and Loca gives him a taste of his own medicine. I really didn’t need to see his naked ass, and the boos following the spot echo my sentiment. As always they’re able to end the match on a smart note, while Loca was getting booed for mooning Syracuse, he tries for a springboard body press, but he’d not worn down J.D. nearly enough and he gets caught and spiked with a Michinoku Driver. J.D. follows up with a big powerbomb, and then muscles him up for a second one and pins him. As disappointing as it was to see the crowd favorite lose again, it’s not without merit. J.D. won their last Syracuse match by finding counters to Loca’s big moves, and trying that same strategy caused him to lose in Rochester. This makes it clear that J.D. knows how to beat Loca, which makes their feud somewhat more even sided now. ***

Jason Axe was supposed to wrestle Dynamite Derek tonight, he declares that if he didn’t have a match he’d wrestle Brother Runt in a hardcore match. Dynamite apparently didn’t make it to the show (and hasn’t been seen since), because Runt hits the ring, runs down Axe as a nobody, and accepts the challenge.

BROTHER RUNT vs. JASON AXE (Hardcore Match)
Now this is the way that Runt should be utilized, using his name value and his talent to help elevate a younger wrestler. Sure, it helps that Axe already has the talent (as shown by his matches with Ajax), and already has a good look and is good with promos, but working with Runt will certainly help him in the credibility department. The first half of this looks like the beginning of the Isys/Runt Iron Man Match. Runt has his way with Axe, but uses straight up wrestling to do so. It embarrasses Axe much like it did Isys. Isys was claiming that Runt was nothing more than a hardcore wrestler with no talent and was proven wrong. Axe wanted a hardcore match, but he’s in enough trouble without Runt needing to get hardcore.

Runt gets a near fall with a simple backslide. He uses simple take downs and cradles to keep him at back. All that Axe can do is to keep going to the floor to regroup. Axe finally starts trying to fight back but one headbutt to the gut is all it takes to kill his momentum. Axe winds up outsmarting Runt though, which leads him to victory. Axe seemingly heads to the back, knowing that Runt will follow him. When Runt does so, Axe clobbers him with a chair. Axe takes him back to the ring and pounds him again and again with the chair. Axe finally hits his Fisherman’s driver onto the chair and pins Runt. The actual way it was done doesn’t seem to say much, but the result speaks for itself: Jason Axe pinned Brother Runt. And doing it the way it was done makes it so a rematch makes perfect sense and everyone hopes/thinks/knows that next time things will be different, and Axe will be in serious pain.

STEVE McKENZIE/STEVE KRUZ vs. K-PUSHA/K-MURDA vs. OMAN TORTUGA/DIABLO SANTIAGO
The addition of the Outkast Killaz to match certainly seems to freshen up the tag team scene in 2CW, but it doesn’t detract the trend at all. Whenever the Steves/AMIL matches strayed from the traditional tag team format the match quality decreased, and this follows suit. At first it seems like things will be interesting. The Killaz clean house on both AMIL and the Steves, forcing them to work together. McKenzie and Pusha work over Tortuga, Kruz and Murda work over Santiago. They double team a bit, start slapping five and the fans love it, two seconds later AMIL starts attacking the Steves and the crowd still loves it. Things go downhill once things settle down and they try to work a regular match. The Steves get a quick control segment over Murda and it’s the usual fun, AMIL works over the Steves with their usually fun comedy stuff, but there’s no real drama, because any attempt at a pinfall is broken up at one by the Outkast Killaz.

The Outkast Killaz also get the only real extended control segment of the match, it’s fine in theory since it’s their first night in the company and the fans aren’t too familiar with them. But they’re just painfully boring. They’ll do the occasional cool spot, like Oman’s cannonball in the corner, but for the most part it’s just dull and plodding. Again, the one-fall rules also hurt the drama because most of the pin attempts are broken up at one by the team not involved. Things pick up slightly for the finish, but not nearly enough, AMIL and the Steves start fighting with each other, and Murda winds up chasing them around ringside. This leaves nobody to save Pusha from Oman and Diablo and they finish him off to win. After being mostly uninspiring during the body of the match, their finish also looks bad. Diablo picks up Pusha in a wheel barrow (sort of like the setup to Dead Presidents), and Oman hits a dropkick, yes, just a simple dropkick. The booking makes enough sense, it doesn’t settle anything between AMIL and the Steves, it’s just too bad that once again, straying from the norm didn’t yield very good results.

ZACHARY SPRINGATE III vs. GORDY WALLACE (Fans Bring The Weapons Match)
It’s too bad 2CW opted to not name this show, after this match the name is obvious: Rubber Chicken Shots! After their last few matches had been hindered by gimmicks/stipulations, they knocked one out of the park this time. No, it’s not a classic wrestling match, but it’s damn entertaining as a comedy match. The weapons are a crutch of sorts, they rely on the use of the weapons instead of doing much wrestling (and the reciprocal is also true, one of their weapons is a crutch), but they both manage to be entertaining while doing so. It’s clear that they’re both having a good time out there, and it just makes everything that much more fun to watch. The weapons range form oddly amusing (rocking horse, VCR, ironing board, oar), to ridiculous (box of Little Debbie brownies, chocolate bunny, rubber chicken).

The match isn’t solely comprised of them just standing there hitting each other, they do attempt some wrestling now and then and use the weapons to add to the spots. At one point Springate locks in a head scissors and beats on Gordy with a space heater, and yelling out “Gordy finally got some heat!” Gordy even goes after Springate’s knee for a bit early on, escaping a headlock by bashing his kneecap with a frying pan, and working it over with a toy hammer. As always, Springate bumps like a fiend for Gordy’s piledriver, and they both make good use of a trash can. Gordy using it to assist him in a big splash, and Springate using it for a Coast to Coast dropkick and doing a Briton bomb to Gordy while the can is on him to finish him off. Mere words cannot do this match justice, it’s something that absolutely must be seen.

DIZZIE vs. SLYCK WAGNER BROWN
They were able to pick things up a bit toward the end, but at first this wasn’t looking much different from their previous match, or Dizzie’s match with Eddie Edwards. The wrestling itself was fine, but it was sorely lacking in the personality department, and with the lack of storytelling (until about halfway through) and no real face/heel structure, the fans didn’t have much reason to cheer one over the other, so they split the difference and were mostly silent. Things pick up when Dizzie starts to show his frustration. It starts simple with Dizzie getting a near fall and yelling ‘Damn!’ when Slyck kicks out. But as the match wears on, Dizzie starts to dig out his big moves, and he’s still unable to get the job done. In almost quick succession, he uses the Rat Trap, a Kudo Driver variation and the Checkmate (his name for the electric chair gutbuster).That’s what sets this apart from their last match, there’s actually a logical reason for Dizzie to be bringing out the big guns one after another.

Slyck smartly plays off Dizzie’s frustrations with a few dickish things, but nothing outright heelish. He plays to the crowd by throwing Dizzie into the guardrail and lighting him up with chops, and motioning for the fans to be silent so it’s as loud as possible. Slyck also targets Dizzie’s knee when Dizzie lands wrong coming off the top rope. Again, it’s nothing overly heelish, just sort of a dickish thing to do. With Dizzie trying to protect his knee, Slyck plants him with the Haterbreaker (crucifix facebuster) and gets the win. It took a bit of time for them to get going, but when they did the message was loud and clear. With a totally level playing field, Dizzie couldn’t put away Slyck, even when throwing everything he had at him. But it only took one big move from Slyck to finish off Dizzie.

EDDIE EDWARDS vs. ISYS EPHEX
After their match at the last show, a rematch was inevitable. Thankfully, this doesn’t disappoint the way that the second Isys/Slyck match did. There are a few throwbacks to the last match, but they mostly leave the past behind and put on a new match. Not to say that the last match doesn’t have any bearing on this match, Isys certainly wants to avenge his prior loss, but one doesn’t need to have seen their first match in order to enjoy this, it’s just a bit more enjoyable when you’ve got the benefit of having seen their last match.

One thing that Isys seems to have over a lot of guys on the indy scene is the way he uses big spots in a match, he’s generally very smart with the way he uses them, when he does have to dig one out, there’s a perfectly good reason for it, and it’s not just to get a big pop. Isys has a simple strategy here and he implements it very well. He learned from the last match that he can’t expect to out wrestle Edwards, so he uses big bombs to wear him down. Isys is very smart with how and when he uses the big moves though. He only digs them out when Edwards gives him a clear opening for one. The first one is the butterfly backbreaker, which he scores when Edwards drops his head too early. From there they go to the floor, and have a quick strike exchange before Isys tries to send Edwards to the guardrail, Edwards puts on the break and charges at Isys, who counters with an overhead belly to belly on the floor. There’s only one real exception to Isys not doing something for kicks, and it fittingly backfires on him and winds up working for Eddie. Isys gets cocky and calls for a suplex off the apron to the floor, but Edwards escapes and they have a scuffle on the apron, Isys charges Edwards, who catches him and plants him with a DVD off the apron.