Dave Borchardt and Chris Gogh are back on commentary. BOOOOO! Why must I listen to these two adolescent frenemies bicker for the whole show when there’s a perfectly good Midnight Guthrie available?
Metro Pro Championship: Derek Stone (c) vs. Trevor Murdoch
We open the show with a title match between two old-school World League Wrestling brawlers. Trevor has changed the last letter of his name from “k” back to “h” because WWE doesn’t care anymore, I guess.
There’s a tentative handshake at the beginning, but Stone tries to attack from behind. Trevor anticipates and avoids it. There are punches, and then Trevor takes off one of the top turnbuckle pads. Stone does the same, and pretty soon, all four top turnbuckles are naked. They brawl a bit, go outside the ring, and try unsuccessfully to get a crowd member involved. The referee doesn’t administer a count, so this is essentially a no DQ match. It’s during the outside brawl that the announcers point out former wrestler and commissioner Matt Murphy at ringside handling timekeeper duties. (Last we saw him, he looked to be started a heel stable of crazy people like Stone and Iceman, but then he disappeared and was only briefly mentioned again until now.)
Back in the ring, they brawl some more. The exposed turnbuckles don’t really come into play. Trevor finally gets the advantage and hits a flying bulldog from the top rope (ala Rick Steiner), and looks to have the champ dead to rights. But then the bell rings before the ref can even count to two. Matt Murphy tells the ring announcer that the time limit has expired, so Stone keeps the belt. Trevor protests, saying there was a 60-minute time limit, but to no avail. Thus, for the first time ever, I must declare that this match ended on a fake time limit draw.
Winner – Fake Time Limit Draw
Rating – OK
It’s an okay match, not up to the level of their last man standing match that I covered before. I won’t be disappointed if I never see it again.
Stone tries to attack after the match, but Trevor hits him with a sky high powerbomb. Then he procures a pair of scissors and cuts off Stone’s beard. Rather unceremonious; they could’ve saved that for a hair vs. beard match or something. Stone must’ve really wanted to get it cut soon.
Rhino and Colt Cabana both appear in Metro Pro plugs. Even though this episode’s footage is a year old and Rhino didn’t appear until last month or so…
Jeremy Wyatt and Bradley Charles vs. Mike Sydal and Mark Sterling w/ The King Brothers
Sterling and co. come out from the side door. The four of them look like they could be a killer heel stable, but…well, I’ll get to that.
Both Wyatt and Charles get the better of Sterling, and when Sydal tags in, he promptly runs away from Charles and tags Sterling again. The first time he really gets involved, he hits one move and tags right back out, then does a long headstand in the corner until Wyatt hits the ropes, causing him to fall and get crotched on the top rope. Not sure what the point of that was. The babyfaces control the match for quite a long time before Jake King finally interferes to help the heels gain the advantage. They both stretch Charles’ leg for a while. I guess they turned Sydal heel because his offense wasn’t as flashy as his brother’s, so they thought he’d be better being more methodical. Wyatt makes the hot tag and runs wild. He eventually dives onto all four heels. Charles ties Sydal in the tree of Joey Lawrence and says we’re going to see how much Sydal can stretch. He somehow pulls one of Sydal’s legs down to his head while the other is still trapped in the top rope. Sterling gets tossed outside onto the Kings and hits his head in the process, causing the back of his bald head to bleed. There’s actually a lot of time after the hot tag, including at least one more tag that isn’t that hot because Charles is still selling his leg. Wyatt actually gets hit with Sterling’s kettlebell, but he still kicks out of Sydal’s pin attempt. The match ends with the babyfaces hitting a toss-up powerbomb/neckbreaker on Sydal for the pin, and Wyatt hits Sterling with an Ace crusher for good measure.
Winners – Jeremy Wyatt and Bradley Charles
Rating – OK
I thought this match was a little too long, and the babyfaces controlled too much of it. Judging by the types of matches he’s in and the number of times he goes up against Wyatt, it seems like the booker(s) want(s) Sterling to be a top heel, if not the top heel. It’s pretty hard to buy that, however, when he’s constantly failing against Wyatt. Throughout this whole match, Sterling was made to look far inferior to Wyatt. He couldn’t even get the job done when using an illegal weapon. A couple episodes ago, Wyatt kicked out and went on to beat Matt Cage in a match after taking both Sterling’s and Cage’s finishers. I can’t remember any time when Sterling was made to look strong on his own. I know he’s a heel, but if you want to keep putting him in ladder matches and iron man matches with your top babyface, he needs to look like a threat. When Jeremy Wyatt can take you and your three stablemates all by himself (which he pretty much did at the end of this match)
So my big takeaway from this match was that Wyatt is Kansas City’s own Super Cena, Sterling and friends are a less ironic version of the Social Outcasts, and Charles is just kind of there. And my big takeaway from the opener was that it was all there for a wonky non-finish.
Metro Pro Wrestling – Bringing the worst aspects of WWE booking to your town!
I’m about to go find Midnight Guthrie and just review whatever he’s involved with.
Hook the Leg, Man! 