We're into the end of June and they're saying Wiskowski is out with an injury so 24 year old Rip Rogers is subbed in as the Hustler. I like Ed but I've always liked Rip too, so I'm not complaining. Rip brings a different energy then Wiskowski. Early on, we get a pretty frantic shine with lots of arm drags and Buddy getting clotheslined over one rope and then the other. Babyfaces look good. Rip can stooge already and we get heel miscommunications and comedy setting up a first fall from a spinning toe-hold. All faces in the first fall.
Second fall has Buddy being amazing pretending to be the one who was hurt instead of Rip. There's so much stooging here. Starr holds Rogers' leg out and Adonis hits a top rope elbow drop on it. Then Adonis holds it down and Starr hits a top rope splash on it. They're just dismantling poor Rip. Adonis does a leap frog over his partner onto the leg. Adonis gets kicked off RIGHT into Buddy's corner though. Great transition as Buddy keeps slamming his arm into the pole from outside letting Rip make the tag and immediately start on the arm. Buddy's so scummy that he can grab the tights on a hammerlock and you think logically that it really wouldn't make that much of a difference, that bit of extra leverage, but the fans hate it since it's Buddy. Adonis is pretty good at working babyface spots in and making them look good. The story here is that every time he does, the heels are able to get a quick tag and go right back to the arm. Rip is definitely not as polished with is armwork but in this framework it still does its job. They even explain it a little that Buddy is teaching Rip to be a crippler too. They do the hope/tag spot three times to really ratchet up the heat with Starr and the crowd getting more and more frustrated. Then they start doing the more dirty southern tag stuff to ratchet it up more. Adonis finally fights back with one arm, gets overwhelmed and tossed into the corner, but Starr does the ol' "jump in the way to protect your partner" move and the fans go nuts as we get one of the hottest tags I've seen in Portland.
Starr's offense looks really good with a hip attack and a nice butterfly suplex, but Rose comes out of nowhere to break up the russian legsweep. The heels keep swarming back though and it basically breaks down here. Heels finally hit a double clothesline in the chaos to take the fall. It was all a bit of a mess at the end there. There was good stuff after the hot tag but it all could have used a little more space and focus.
Third fall starts with a fairly long Rogers chinlock and they go back to the face escapes/heels tag heat set up. Buddy hits a nice neckbreaker (the old "Tony Borne hold"). Rose is a great cut off guy, just when it comes to timing and in giving the face enough to make it a real hope spot. One problem with current WWE tag wrestling is that you can tell when something's going to happen just by seeing where it is in the match and a few visual clues. It's all paint by numbers. There were hope spots here that I would have sworn would lead to the hot tag but Rose bore down believably and effectively. When the hot tag finally comes it's awesome with Star crawling backwards on his back at hyper speed to make the tag. Adonis comes in with a lot of fire and it breaks down again. Rogers tosses Rose the time keepers chair but Starr gets it and nails Buddy causing the heels in front of the ref. They give the belts to the heels despite the DQ and Dutch Savage comes to argue about this. The fans are irate in the face of the confusion until the faces attack them and Barr takes the belts back away. Barr, at the end DQs both teams and holds the belts up. There's this great moment where Buddy forces himself into the foreground and looks pissed off but the VQ is too poor and it's too quick to get a good screencap of it.
The heat segment on Adonis was super as was the stooging in the first fall. The whole thing doesn't entirely hold together out of context, but in context to set up the belts being held up it works well.
No comments:
Post a Comment