Sunday, December 30, 2012

Darin Corbin Got Pantsed: St. Louis Anarchy Gateway to Danarchy Review

NOT SAFE FOR WORK! NOT SAFE FOR WORK!
Photo Credit: Texas Anarchy
In the splendorous TWB style:

Highlights:
  • Darin Childs inserted himself into the main event between Dan Walsh and Darin Corbin for the St. Louis Anarchy Championship.
  • In the opening contest, Gerald James, better known to most as Gary Jay, defeated Christian Rose with an Irish whip Michinoku Driver II. After the match, James attacked Rose, but Rose fended him off.
  • The Hooligans defeated the team of The Hornet and Mike Wave by hitting Wave with a casadora DDT combo.
  • Arik Cannon felled Bolt Brady in a hard-fought match with the Total Anarchy spinning brainbuster.
  • IN a fantastic battle for the Anarchy Championship, ACH caught TJ Perkins with a counter rolling clutch pin to retain his title.
  • Rachel Summerlyn bested Serenity with a bridging fisherman's neckbreaker. Post-match, Serenity shook off Summerlyn's sportswomanship and beat her down.
  • Using some illegal leverage from the ropes, Evan Gelistico scored the upset over Michael Elgin with a modified alligator clutch.
  • After some untimely interference from a guy whose name I didn't entirely catch (Greg Jovine?), Mat Fitchett and Davey Vega lost to Davey Richards and Kyle O'Reilly via ankle lock by Richards on Vega.
  • In the main event, Walsh got the final elimination on Childs after Gelistico clocked Childs with the St. Louis Anarchy Championship belt.

General Observations:
  • The show opened with a near-fifteen minute promo segment, and there were many references to a guy who was not there (Robert Evans). Sure we were watching St. Louis Anarchy and not RAW?
  • I was definitely taken aback when Gary Jay was introduced as Gerald James. IN fact, I thought that Gary Jay's "mom" was the one who was Gerald James at first.
  • Rose crotched Jay on his "mom," which was the first time I saw someone use another person as a stationary object.
  • Then Rose busted out his best PWG and dropped Jay on the apron with a back suplex. Is it weird that I now exclusively associate apron moves with PWG?
  • Speaking of weird associations, when it was announced that the Hooligans would be going up against a guy named The Hornet, all I could think about was the iconic CSWA e-fed character by the same name. HORNET WINS!!!!!!11!!!@1 (if you don't get it, that's okay, most of you won't)
  • Seriously, you don't know how much it warms my heart to see big fat guys doing flippy shit like the Hooligans do.
  • Mason Cutter spent an inordinate amount of time as the face-in-peril. I thought this match probably could have had that match segment cut in half, and it would've been better.
  • Kelly Kelly should not be thrusting her ass into the face of a cornered opponent as an offensive maneuver. You know who should though? Devin Cutter, that's who. And he does.
  • Evan Gelistico promo time! I don't want to accuse the guy of being on coke while cutting it, but let's just say I wouldn't be surprised.
  • Cannon, as the official Pabst Blue Ribbon Wrestler, pulled out his poison of choice. Brady pulled out a bigger can of energy drink. Luckily, Cannon had a PBR tallboy. Man, this beverage arms race...
  • Brady busted out a backflip leapfrog early on in this match, and I think I might have seen God. I'm pretty sure they need to get Delusions of Our Childish Days on VOD like right now so I can see him go up against ACH.
  • Cannon really upped his submission game in this match, segueing from a seated figure four into something that I don't think I can even describe. Of course, it was broken up by Cannon spewing PBR into Brady's face. C'mon Arik, PBR might not be Chimay, but that doesn't mean you should use it as an offensive weapon in a wrestling match.
  • Bronco Buster? I'll allow it, Brady. I'll allow it.
  • Mainly, because it set up Cannon countering the second Bronco Buster attempt with knees to the groin... ouch.
  • After the match, cheers! I'm not sure whether Brady had his energy drink or whether Cannon gave him a FourLoko. Either way though, good times!
  • You know when a wrestling match is good, it makes you pay attention to the feeling out process. ACH and Perkins doing wristlocks and mat wrestling is more exciting than some guys' comeback-offense segments.
  • I know that ACH is the guy who gets the maddest air, but Perkins put him in the tree of woe and showed he could get his own mad ups with a BOMBS AWAY dropkick.
  • ACH primed up to do his DragonBall Z thrusting palms, and just as soon as he made contact, Perkins uncorked this superkick that I'm not sure was humanly possible.
  • The match finished on a lightning quick rolling clutch, which is the way you should end a match if you're going to do a flash pin.
  • Serenity was all mouthy, but Summerlyn was having none of it, starting off the match with a precision boot to the chest.
  • A wild Mrs. Jay appeared for some reason!
  • I was even more impressed with Summerlyn's fisherman neckbreaker than normal here, mainly because she was able to segue it right into a cradle.
  • Announcer Mason Scheer described Elgin as a "hoss." I FEEL MY INFLUENCE GROWING AND SPREADING!
  • Gelistico, standing across the ring from Elgin, did squat thrusts to start the match. Sorry, but that doesn't impress the Unbreakable one.
  • Elgin shrugged off Gelistico's chop offerings, and straight up CHOP MURDERED in response. I felt bad for the former Champ's chest.
  • Gelistico used the "hey teammate, good game" butt slap as a form of mocking offensive maneuvering. The second time he did so, Elgin stared daggers through Gelistico, causing him to back off. It was funny, cuz Gelistico had the advantage at this point.
  • More apron hijinks! They were jousting with kicks on the apron, and then Gelistico booted Elgin in the gut and planted him with a sick DDT.
  • Elgin saw Gelistico on one knee, thought NBD, and proceeded to deadlift him up into a vertical suplex.
  • If Davey Richards were a style of hockey, he'd be the neutral zone trap. Seriously, the way his matches are generally paced, they make me sleepy. That isn't an indictment of his opponents at all. Even Kyle O'Reilly is good when out of DR's gravitational pull. But if you get Richards in an environment where he can be as obnoxious as he wants to be, and it's all over.
  • Man, Childs really doesn't like Corbin, does he? He didn't even wait for Walsh to get to the ring.
  • No, seriously, Walsh and Childs using Corbin as a ping pong ball, and then as the rope in their tug of war submission game was borderline ginger abuse.
  • Corbin got pantsed at one point, to which Scheer remarked that he saw penis. Glad I missed it.
  • Corbin's manager Joey Eastman was used to crotch Corbin. I wonder if this is something they do in SLA often...
  • Gelistico appeared again, presumably to clean Walsh's clock, but he hit Childs instead. What was his endgame?

Match of the Night: ACH (c) vs. TJ Perkins, Anarchy Championship Match - It's not that hard to make me like a match. Just throw me a few bones here and there, and I'm good. But how do you construct a match of the year candidate? How do you connect with everyone, whether live or watching on delay on tape? You make everything you do in the match seem important. You attack with urgency.

In this match, the main event of the first half of the card so to speak, ACH and Perkins made everything matter. You could see it in every motion, none of which were wasted. Most wrestlers take the feeling-out process to be garden variety, but not Perkins or ACH here. They went full bore from the beginning, and they had answers for each other throughout the match. It wasn't one of those trite, "hey, I kick you, you kick me" things that Davey Richards is famous for either. Everything made sense.

Whether it was Perkins answering ACH's DBZ thrust with a lightning fast superkick or the sequence at the end where ACH shrugged off another kick and was able to break out the pin, everything worked. It was visceral in its speed. It felt like they were really engaged in an athletic contest. That's the most you can ask for in any wrestling match.

Overall Thoughts: I came into this show expecting greatness. Hey, it's the ACW crew plus some choice additions like Michael Elgin, Darin Corbin, and the Hooligans. That being said, I was slightly disappointed. The show felt very uneven, although a lot of that to me was a large chunk of time devoted to the Davey Richards match. I thought the opening promo took way too long.

However, there was a lot of entertainment on the card as well. There was a stretch of three really great matches in the middle of the card, starting with ACH/Perkins. There was also bits and pieces of fun happening in various other matches. Maybe I set the bar too high with respect to their relationship with ACW, but at the same time, this show is well worth your money.