WrestleCON 04.05.13 EVOLVE 19 Results

Welcome to PWPonderings’ coverage of EVOLVE 19. The show is available on iPPV from WWNLive.com for those who can’t be there in person tonight. The promotion’s first ever champion will be crowned after a one night tournament, and there will also be a non-tournament main event in the form of The Super Smash Brothers vs. The Young Bucks. Keep up with @PWPonderings on twitter for all your Wrestlecon needs, and myself (@BarryLadTweets) for more on the show.

Some minor technical issues have the show running a few minutes late. On twitter, Gabe noted it would just be a few minutes and Evolve would start soon. Lots of buzz surrounding the show, and supposedly a lot of orders, so this type of hiccup was always a possibility. Hopefully things even out once the show commences.

15 minutes past the hour, still no show. The stream played some video packages momentarily, but has since gone back to silence. Most people remaining optimistic, this is most likely due to a huge amount of traffic.

30 minutes in, the show is apparently starting, but I’m afraid your PWP scribe here is trying to watch on iPPV so I’m at the mercy of WWNLive. I guess you have to keep the live audience there. Stream is still start-stop-start-stop with the video packages.

The stream FINALLY starts, with the first match already under way. Still a bit of choppiness on the feed.

Sami Callihan vs. Samuray Del Sol vs. Jigsaw vs. Rich Swann – Four-way Tournament Match

Feed is gone again. I’ve seen about 40 seconds of stuff. This is probably going to be a pretty bare bones report folks. Can’t comment on the action like this. The stream sorted itself out again in time for the finish. A great exchange that culminated in Sami tapping out Del Sol with the Stretch Muffler. He advances to face  Chuck Taylor in the next round. There were some awful audio glitches when Callihan’s music was playing. Hopefully that’s the end of the issues tonight.

Winner: Sami Callihan

Lenny Lenard introduced Tony Nese as a new WWN signing. He came out in a suit and cut a generic heel promo, teasing the formation of some kind of heel stable. The audio is way too loud on the PA, so everything is a little bit garbled.

AR Fox vs. Jon Davis

Colt Cabana joins Mr. Lenard on commentary. The audio is awful on this show. I could barely hear either man’s entrance theme, the crowd are muffled, but whenever anyone speaks into a live mic, everything is way too loud. Davis dominated early with his usual big bruiser spots. He hit a sick hip toss on the apron early. Fox fired back and they had some fun back and forth exchanges. Fox actually kicked out of ‘Three Seconds Around The World’ which caused Davis to set up a table outside the ring, teasing the Awesome Bomb, as he did with Gargano. Yes in this TITLE TOURNAMENT. He got Fox up for the powerbomb but the referee made the save by pulling Fox down. Everyone booed. Davis accidentally knocked out the referee which got cheered. The ref called for the DQ, which means Fox advances. There was then an angle, which I didn’t see much of because the stream began to suck again. Basically, Davis teased beating up the ref but was told by another that he’d be suspended if he did (WWN Alerts pushed the idea that there’d be strict, MMA/Boxing like rules on such behaviour). Davis said he wanted to kill the referee, which got cheered, but it wasn’t worth it. AR Fox was announced as advancing via DQ, which of course, was booed. This was a complete disaster in a couple of ways. The actual match was fine, maybe even good, before that mess. The idea of Fox, a super talented babyface, advancing like that was just eye-rolling.

Winner: Fox via DQ

Johnny Gargano & Brian Kendrick vs. Orange Cassidy & Drew Gulak

The usual light hearted fun and games of the Gentlemen’s Club. More stream issues. Freezing and stuttering early on. It was really hard to get into this, especially with… well, either no heat or little heat, poorly mic’d.  Way, way, way too long for a strictly average match. Gargano worked as hard as he always does. Kendrick scored the win with Sliced Bread Number 2.

Winners: Gargano & Kendrick

Sami Callihan vs. Chuck Taylor – Tournament Semi-Final

Callihan “injured” his leg, springing into the ring during his entrance. Taylor, obviously, targets the leg as the match gets under way. Solid bout, but the injured leg gimmick was totally unneeded, and on a show with such dubious booking as we saw in the AR Fox match, I groaned when this happened. Taylor worked the leg on the floor early, and had Callihan tangled in the ringside barricade within the first five minutes. The referee’s count was at 18 and Taylor said “not that way” and threw Callihan back in the ring, which was another head-scratcher. Some more minor stuttering on the stream as Taylor kept beating on Callihan, who wouldn’t stay down or quit. Sami eventually got the tap out victory, somewhat out of nowhere. Disappointing but not bad. This show is really, really, REALLY not clicking. The remaining bouts need to knock it out of the park.

Winner: Sami Callihan

AR Fox vs. Ricochet – Tournament Semi-Final

This was a much needed injection of fun. They had some great exchanges early, the usual Ricochet fun, backflipping over a sweeping leg kick and similar spots. Lots of big dives, with both men trying to outdo each other. They woke the crowd up with that, and also when Ricochet took a spill to the floor, over the barricade, followed by a huge AR Fox dive, which also cleared the steel. By the half-way point, the crowd were actually way into it, which was a saving grace for the show. They hit a million big moves but also kept fans guessing with some fun counters. The highlight was a huge release back-suplex from Ricochet on Fox. Ricochet went for his 630, missed, and was cradled by Fox for the win. Great stuff. These two guys deserve some major kudos.

Winner: AR Fox

Arik Cannon vs. Scott Reed – No DQ

“Interesting match” – Colt Cabana. That was him being nice, I think. They were having a generic grappling match when Konley and Larry Dallas ran in, doing a heel beat down on Cannon. The people couldn’t have cared less, except one polite dude chanting “boo” over and over again. The heels beat on Cannon forever, to total disinterest. As Cannon started a comeback, Trina Michaels got in the ring and, basically, suggested to him that she would give him felatio. She got on her knees and like a fool he stood there and smiled, as Larry Dallas clipped him from behind. UHAA NATION ran in to a decent reaction. It’s not like the roof came off the building, but the diehards reacted big for it. He cleared house until MARTI BELLE ran in to take on Trina. They had an absolutely horrendous exchange. Post-Uhaa run-in, people stopped caring. Cannon eventually won, and then bailed post match to avoid getting laid out by Uhaa. This was right back to square one. Completely sucked. Thanks for having a woman tease a blow job in a wrestling ring though, I wasn’t sure if I’d get to say that sentence in 2013, but I like that I can. Takes me back to the glory days of Vince Russo booked TNA.

Winner: Arik Cannon

Super Smash Bros vs. Young Bucks

They were working hard early, slowly but surely seemed to be getting the crowd into it and then the feed died again. This was unbelievably frustrating – especially half way through a potential show stealer. According to PWP staff in the building, Super Smash Bros won with the Fatality (Gory-Special into a Cutter, double team). This was the moment I decided to opt for a refund rather than the make good VOD offer.

Winners: Super Smash Bros.

AR Fox vs. Sami Callihan – Finals of the EVOLVE Title Tournament, winner is the first ever EVOLVE champion

Sami interview before the match. This was bizarre. Having wrestled two matches previously, one with a bum knee and clearly positioned as the babyface, he heeled big time on the crowd, swearing at them and talking about how they didn’t support him. I have no clue what this was supposed to be. Fox cut a face promo, with the same awful audio from before.

The story of the match, following that, was that Sami was now the vicious heel trying to brutalize AR Fox. Fox, to his credit, worked as hard as he always does, which is to say – he had a death wish here. A nasty bump on the floor continued the story that he had an injured head and neck, which lead to Sami hitting a BRUTAL saito suplex into the barricade. Callihan, not selling his injury by the way, also slammed Fox on the concrete repeatedly. Crowd didn’t care. They were somewhat into Fox’ comeback. Callihan blocked Low Mein Pain and hit a HUGE release German suplex off the top rope to a big reaction. He then locked on the stretch muffler which genuinely had everyone reacting. A second attempt at Low Mein Pain was a success and AR Fox got the pin! These guys are awesome, and with the exception of Sami not selling his leg injury, and the goofy booking of the heel/face dynamic, they were able to put together a hell of a match and actually get a pop at the finish. Fox took so much punishment and some wince-inducing bumps. Callihan hugged him post match.

Winner: AR Fox, first ever EVOLVE champion.

Fox rubbed the title in Ricochet’s face post match, because why not? He then put over Evolve but was interrupted by the Young Bucks. They got in his face about their upcoming tag title match in DGUSA. Yeah, I’m really hyped to see that now. What a flat ending.

This show was a disaster, and hopefully not an omen for things to come with regards to Wrestlecon. Apparently the window for a refund is already closed, but in my personal opinion, I’d think twice before telling angered customers that. I was so disappointed, and I’ll feel really screwed if I can’t get my money back.

Thanks for reading folks! I hope you’ve enjoyed. I can only apologize for not being able to cover the show as well as I would have hoped thanks to the iPPV issues. We hope you’ll stick with PWP for live coverage of ROH, CZW, and all the other events this weekend.