Finally got a few moments to myself to watch the first EVOLVE DVD, and it was about what I expected from a start-up indie fed with a concept such as EVOLVE's a lot of promise but a struggle to find their identity. The action had promise, but it felt like guys were trying too hard to be bad-ass in some matches that they threw some basic tenets of good wrestling out the window.
The DVD opened with Kyle O'Reilly training with Tony Kozina and Davey Richards in the locker room, and a comely young short-haired blonde chick walking in for "documentary" purposes. Richards got butthurt and demanded that she leave. This was about the only non-wrestling segment I watched because really, more than a few of the guys on the first show haven't come back, and I wasn't interested in retreading old territory. I just wanted to watch the matches.
Skipping ahead to our first match, it pitted the aforementioned O'Reilly against Bobby Fish. It was a very crisply-paced bout with some slick counters and nice moves, but it was lacking cohesion. It felt like both guys had forsaken selling anything the other one was doing just to show off how bad-ass they could be. That might be someone else's cup of tea, but I'll pass on it for realsies. It did have its moments, specifically when Fish countered a standard rear-waistlock switch with an elbow to the back of O'Reilly's head, but I just couldn't get past the lack of a good story being told here. O'Reilly won with his combo tornado DDT/brainbuster.
After the jump...Next match was a "Qualifying Match" between Chuck Taylor and Cheech of Up in Smoke/Cheech and Cloudy. The "win to get in" aspect was sold really well by announcers Leonard F. Chikarason and Lenny Leonard (TOO MUCH LEONARD!), who did an admirable job calling the action all night long. This was a considerably better match up than the previous one because they actually sold each others' moves for more than a second afterwards. IMAGINE THAT! There were a few botches early on which hurt the match a bit though, but they settled down fairly quickly. Cheech impressed me here as he worked in the flips and pseudo-athleticism that indie guys are usually made fun of for without them seeming superfluous. The best example of this was him cartwheeling while tightroping the top rope to get away from Taylor, which I thought was really slick. Both guys shone on the ground game, as they both had some nice submission hold work going. Submissions would be a HUGE part of nearly every match, which I liked. Taylor ended up winning with an Omega Driver/Awful Waffle to earn himself a spot on the EVOLVE roster. Post-match, Taylor cut a promo saying he's going to take out his embarrassment of having to earn a roster spot on everyone in the company.
Third match of the evening was Ricochet (Chikara's Helios unmasked) vs. Arik Cannon. This was your typical size vs. speed match-up that would be repeated at least once throughout the rest of the card. I thought it was hurt by Ricochet dancing and flipping around, but Cannon was pretty good. It was a match that could have benefitted from a bit more time to let Ricochet maybe spread his flippiness out without it seeming overkill. Anyway, Ricochet got the duke here with his breathtaking 630 senton. Afterwards, Taylor came out and challenged Ricochet for the next card, cutting an awesome promo about how he's from Kentucky and they don't believe in evolution down there, meaning he was in EVOLVE to create his own legacy. The unmasked Helios replied affirmatively and then demanded Taylor wrestle him right then, to which Taylor shrugged him off.
Match numbaaaaah 4 was our first tag match of the evening, pitting ROH favorites the Dark City Fight Club against Aeroform. This was a fun little match which was made by the stiff power moves of the DCFC and the exaggerated selling from both members of Aeroform. I think guys like O'Reilly could stand to watch how well Flip Kendrick and Louis Lyndon put over the Fight Club's offense and maybe copy them a bit. Aeroform got to show off a bit of their high-flying kung-fu tinged offense, but in the end, it was the DCFC getting the duke with an impressive looking back body drop into a powerbomb called Project Mayhem. After this, there was a women's "match" between Mercedes Martinez and Niya, which lasted like 30 seconds before Martinez got the squashy pin. She then cut a promo about how EVOLVE is just as much for the women as it is for the men. Okay.
Next up was Silas Young taking on Brad Allen in the worst match of the night. They started out overly serious, like they were culminating a major feud instead of meeting for the first time. I'm not sure if they feuded in the Midwest or not, but it seemed pretty tacky to me. This was Allen's first Northeast appearance, and apparently, he dedicates all his matches to his mother. How sweet. Anyway, this match was boring as fuck. Neither guy really knew how to pace a match, and we got an glut of rest-holds, slow-looking strikes, high spots that were out of place and then Young going for his combo finisher like three times and failing each time out. Allen ended up getting the duke with an elevated flapjack/Flatliner hybrid. Afterwards, he called out Chris Hero, which is funny seeing as EVOLVE 2 ended up being called Hero vs. Hidaka, not Hero vs. Allen.
Match 7 featured the massively over Jimmy Jacobs taking on Kenn Doane. This was Doane's second match under the Sapolsky-promoted banner, as he was at the first DGUSA card in a match which was liked by only me it seems against 2 Cold Scorpio. Anyway, Doane was the star of the match here, working really smart and taunting the crowd and camera with each resthold he put Jacobs in. Jacobs was game, although I don't see what everyone sees in him. Doane hit a leg drop from the top for the apparent pin, but Tommy Dreamer came out and claimed that Jacobs' foot was on the ropes. Apparently, Dreamer was the replay official for the card because the ref believed him sight unseen and restarted the match. Jacobs immediately hooked in the guillotine choke and Doane tapped out. Okay match marred by a dumb finish. I skipped over the promo at the end because I was getting a bit bored.
Match numbaaaaah 8 pitted relative newcomer to the East Coast scene Johnny Gargano against rookie-type Chris Dickinson. There were some good things about this match, but again with the questionable selling. It seems like the guys in EVOLVE are trying to make their own puroresu fed with this Fighting Spirit schtick, and it's pretty irritating. I mean, in Japan, it's barely tolerable because that's the style over there, everyone does it, so it's somewhat believable. However, over here, I've seen some of these guys sell for moves they're
The next match was the best of the night between TJP, whom you can see for a little bit longer on the Lucha Libre USA telecasts as Sykodelico, and Munenori Sawa. There was a little bit of the Fighting Spirit bullshit in this match, but it was far overshadowed by the general feel of the match. This match wasn't crisp or clean or seamless. It came off almost like a shootfight a little bit, with Sawa and TJP jostling for position, grappling, making uneasy counters that looked good but didn't look too good. I love this kind of wrestling because it looks real and it has a lot more tension to it than the extreme opposite, which would be guys looking like rhythmic gymnasts rather than guys fighting each other. There was a lot of good submission work too, which is the mark of great wrestling. Sawa tapped TJP with an octopus hold.
Two more matches to go after that one and the first affair was the Chikara trios match, featuring Team Frightning, which if you remember back to King of Trios consisted of Quack, Hallowicked and Frightmare, against Akuma's Army, which was basically Team FIST, only with Brodie Lee replacing Chuck Taylor. This was a pretty fun match, although it wasn't nearly as good as what I've come to expect from them on regular Chikara cards. Something seemed a bit off, but it was still better than most of the other matches on the card. It had all the requisite spots and everything, and it had the added bonus of Brodie Lee stomping around the ring, looking to throw any one of them little midget luchadores around like rag dolls. It's a match I'd like to see again, but probably won't now that Akuma's been turned on by the rest of FIST. Hallowicked got the duke on Icarus with the Sky High/Rydeen Bomb.
Finally, the titular main event, Davey Richards vs. Kota Ibushi, and yes, this match was the worst on the card when it came to the Fighting Spirit/no-sell/two guys trying to look badass without telling a story stuff. It's such a shame, because if Ibushi is not going to wrestle a real match, I'd rather see him do his flippy shit, because he's one of the best in the world at it. I don't want to say it was dreadful, because there were some good spots and some good action, but as a main event on a wrestling-centric card, it failed. You won't see guys in UFC, which is as real as it gets, no-selling the shit out of each other, so really, why would you incorporate all the Fighting Spirit at all in this? I don't know. Anyway, if you care, Richards won with a kimura here.
All in all, it was a decent first card, but it could have been a lot better. I'm a bit dismayed that the tone for the fed seems to be that of no-selling strikes, only slightly selling everything else, and putting on matches that are total wankfests rather than ones that tell stories. Maybe it was first card jitters? Maybe they're still trying to find an identity? I don't know, but it's going to take a big, big improvement on EVOLVE 2 for me to want to shell out cash for EVOLVE 3 and 4.
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography
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