Posted August 21, 201015 yr comment_5454784 Tracy Smothers v. Chris Chetti I figured this had a chance to end the streak of entertaining FBI matches, but nope, it was awesome. Pre-match Smothers gets on the mic and talks up Chetti's amateur athletic background and then says tonight they are going to see if he can "shoot" if he can "fight." Then he says if hears "where's my pizza" he's gonna slap everyone in the audience and that he will kill everyone. FBI mic work is always worth documenting not only because it is so good but because it consistently results in them getting real heel heat in a promotion where the heels were often times cheered. Anyway this match is all kinds of awesome. Early on they do a mat exchange and when Tracy bails Guido comes in and being the Sicilian Shooter he punks Chetti before Chetti explodes onto him with a huge single leg. Guido shoots to the floor and Chetti whips the Big Don into the rail, then Guido, then splashes everyone. When Tracy goes back on the attack he dumps Chetti out ON HIS HEAD and rich and Guido give him a beatdown. This actually happens a couple of times, and there are several really well done heel distraction spots, an ab stretch cheating spot, et. Smothers really was leaning into Chetti's kicks and making them look a thousand times better than they normally do and was also delivering some big blows himself. Smothers also did a great job covering for the multiple and inevitable blown Chetti spots as he just steps in and throws punches and takes advantage of the shit Chetti fucks up. I thought the stretch run of this was very entertaining as they did some good teased nerfalls and some pretty cool counters of big moves. At this point I've had to sit through a fuckload of terrible Chetti matches and performances and he was bad here, but that makes this match all the more impressive to me. Ulf Herman v. John Kronus There were some bad whiffs in this and a comical botch where Kronus went up for a powerbomb that Herman bailed on. On the other hand I actually liked the crowd brawling here and the ddt onto the seat of an open chair was a cool spot. Still a shitty match, but their was a silver lining I guess. Tommy Rogers v. Lance Storm I got all excited when Rogers came out then Storm came out and my heart sank and then Storm mic work and a quick flash pin assisted by the ropes for Storm really pissed me off. Nothing to see here. Axl Rotten/Balls Mahoney v. Mike Lozansky/Danny Doring This was a good tag match. Early on there were several spots playing off the homophobia of the crowd with Axl egging them on and Doring and Lozansky's schtick being pretty good. I have been very underwhelmed by Lozansky up to this point, but Axl and Balls really leaned into his dropkicks here and I thought the heat section on Axl was really well done. He also took a brutal bump off of a Axl/Balls double team that I can't even really describe. Not quite nomination worthy, but Balls and Axl are emerging as one of the more underrated tag units of the 90's as I go through this stuff. Jerry Lynn/Masato Tanaka v. Mike Awesome/Justin Credible This is sort of the Tiger Mask v. Dynamite Kid dilemma for me, as this is the sort of match that I'm sure was loved at the time, but I can't imagine anyone really liking it that much now. I thought Lynn was the best guy in this and he did some cool stuff - hell they all did some cool stuff - but it's not put together well at all and ten plus years later I can't imagine anyone thinking this was essential viewing. Bam Bam Bigelow/Chris Candido v. Super Nova/Blue Meanie Pre-match Meanie dances with Francine who teases interest and decks him in the balls. From their the heels just beat the shit out of of Nova, with Bam Bam destroying him with powerbombs and press slams and Candido murdering him with his lengthy vertical suplex. Bammer having to sell for and bump big for Meanie off the hot tag just seems wrong. Finishing run was kind of fun as Nova hit his splash, took a crazy bump through a table, Meanie missed a moonsault, Candido missed a rocket launcher splash and then Meanie took the Greeting From Asbury Park after fucking it up for the first time. Post-match is a really awesome Arena brawl with Taz and Bigelow. Spike Dudley v. Rob Van Dam The early part of this was really awesome as Spike letting Van Dam cream him with kicks, was taking super bumps on the floor and his offensive hope spot was really cool and ended with him trying to beat the shit out of Fonzy which is something we can all sympathize with. After this there is a long period of standard RVD spots which are executed well enough, but they are just so fucking stupid that you can't help but get annoyed - especially given all the stalling he does inbetween them. Spike's mini-comeback is cool, but RVD catches him on an acid drop which sets up the Alfonzo assisted leaping chair kick. Then Sabu runs out and steals RVD's thunder by putting Spike through a table for the finish. Spike was great in this but there is not it can go through. Sabu v. Mikey Whipwreck I thought this was a fairly entertaining car crash match. There were spots that were well done and spots that weren't well done, but everything looked like it hurt. If you are a fan of smooth highspots you are going to like this, but no fan of smooth highspots should be watching either of these guys. Fun. Sandman/Tommy Dreamer v. D-Von Dudley/Bubba Dudley This was just utterly ridiculous. Tons of shitty camera work, stupid ass beer spots, heel ref spots, blowup dolls getting piledrivers, D-Von spouting catchphrases on the house mic mid-match, Big Dick running in and almost killing Sandman, a Jack Victory run-in, et.
