* I have some insider info regarding Volga's partner and all I will say is 'There Will Be Blood.' As for the rest of his promo, I am glad to see Jakob Volga is making sure every single fan is amped for his title challenge at Ringu Faia and not allowing Andrew Davis to step on his toes.
* 2 things stand out immediately when I read "The Eddie Christian Experience" segment:
a) Is everyone going to be puffing cigars on this edition of OTC?
b) A tag team that can't find the time to tape a promo TOGETHER = not on the same page, in my book at least.
As for Eddie C's own promo, I thought it was decent - nothing immediately jumped out at me. But I'm sure the more I read his work, the more I will see what he is all about.
* I'll give Spooky and Colt the comedy award of the night right off the bat for putting Serena Black in an insane outfit that like the segment said is best suited for Carnival in Rio or the West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn, NY. Aside from that, Colt Montana reminds me of El Generico from Ring of Honor but unfortunately, Spooky Doom is no Kevin Steen.
* Nice approach at the joint promo from the CCG. I definitely see alot of similarity between those two and what The Red Devils were back in the day. Maybe history WILL repeat itself...maybe it won't. We'll have to wait and see.
* Davis & Kennedy most certainly have a common mindset and that right there is easily the catalyst for possibly our next SPW Tag Team champions.
* Victor Frost with his typical "a-hole" routine and it works so well. And Ryan Bradley...man I can't wait to see him get his hands on 2nd Generation Viper (especially after what 1st Gen VVV did to Bradley back in TSWF).
* Frank Ewiak is a prick so I get that he wouldn't be up for cutting a promo TOGETHER with James O'Connor. As for James' segment, good stuff and I definitely want to see Kennedy and O'Connor duke it out during the course of the match (since it never happened while TSWF was open).
* Real Xtreme promo -- No Comment
* Eden Brothers promo -- Nice to see that The Edens are finally hanging it up for good and taking backstage roles in SPW. But what happens if they win the tag titles? Hmmm...
* Sheesh... all I heard from The Hype is a bunch of nonsense. Those boys didn't even take the time to address their opponents. Not cool.
* Satan's Disciples -- big and bad but not very good with scheduling because they are going to Japan when the event is supposed to be in China.
* Fighter's U and JDM not quite on the same page. I sense more to come from this but in the meantime, F.U. is gonna kill some people, that's for sure.
* Nice to see Amjad and Egor back. I sort of dig his anti-American shtick now because it definitely is an interesting perspective.
* Team EGO - very entertaining promo from those two blowhards. And Miss Jasmine to me is like Marissa Monet all over again.
I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed that only a few guys took the time to use China as a setting for their RP. This tour is an opportunity for a lively backdrop or just a change of scenery so you shouldn't just sit in hotel rooms or locker rooms (or fly all the way back to L.A. to drive through the night ).
That's just a nit-pick, though. There were some really good flashes and the Knight / Vincent composition of "colliding" flashes was very compelling and original, at least to me.
SpookyDoom
Hall of Famer
Posts: 325
Registered: Mar 2009
Quote: VFrost wrote:
I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed that only a few guys took the time to use China as a setting for their RP. This tour is an opportunity for a lively backdrop or just a change of scenery so you shouldn't just sit in hotel rooms or locker rooms (or fly all the way back to L.A. to drive through the night ).
In all honesty, this works a lot better for heels then it does for faces. Being respectful towards a culture is much harder then getting heat off it.
HJV: Finally an RP... but not a very substantial one. More concerned with hyping the RF main event and the mystery opponent then the tag titles and the immediate match. Don't think he'll win!
Mystery opponent? I'm guessing my uncle's half-brother. He's always the mystery opponent.
ECX: Lamont the manager wrestles? Welp, I guess we know who taking the big bumps tonight, even though these should really be reserved for trained professionals. As for the RP in question... Well the true wrestling greats never made their career through achieving "realistic goals", so I gotta call that line a mistake.
Deadbeats: So am I really the only one who'll acknowledge the elephants in the room known as Wild & Starring? Feels like an element most people missed, especially with the heavy promoting of their team.
In retrospect, I really should've called my team, the Lucha-brothers of Destruction. Eh? The L.O.D.? Deadbeats was a name passing through my mind for a long while that I wanted to use, but man... The Lucha-brothers of Destruction....
SK&BV: Told Sammy on AIM he should've advertised his team name better prior to OTC. That way he could've had the spiffy header for the team like I got for my team.
Undoubtedly the best effort made across the board leading up to this tournament, quality was especially there, but could you have made the promo more wrestling-related then all the shit your guys went through in life? I will vouch that this is one case where "colliding" joint promos made for better reading then "inclusive" joint promos
VVF: I like the dead whale dig. The insalubrity of it all. Ryan Bradley was practically a non-presence in the promo, but the rest of it holds up well. It got the best "theme" of all the 2nd match promos.
FE and JC: And now we understand why even the handler himself didn't think he would win. I remember the FE character from WILD, yeah, he's gonna have a hard mountain to climb here. At least it established the characters well and I'm sure the two (if they stay) will come off better for it. Bonus points if they do it at the expense of Big Screamer and Cobra Commander 2!
E-Bros: Man, I really hate this nostagia trip e-wrestlers are going through for their characters. Wrestling fans (even imaginary ones) should be looking towards the future of wrestling, not it's past! Just because you're unsatisfied with the current product doesn't mean all wrestling fans should be looking towards the "good old days". From a writing standpoint, looking towards the oldies is creative lazyness: rather then innovate, you use the already writen.
That was my rant. As a promo, it was extremely well-writen, probably even better than the Satan's Disciples. It defines the character extremely well. I guess it's a personal preference thing which makes me see them not winning it.
Hype: Good descriptions that are evocative without being overwhelming. Is Nash being Andrew Davis-light? Competing movie stars in the federation? But Davis pretty much dropped the movie star appeal of his character, so it's all good.
SD: More a listing of the characteristics and accomplishments of the tag team then a true promo. Guilty of breaking the rule of show, don't tell. The "images" as they are, should lead toward building to the sheer size of the disciples rather then... otherwise.
Team Ego: Promote your shirts by saying they're in the marketing section of the site: that's not obvious yet. Henpecked (and outbuffed) by a girl Shane Diamond was probably not a good idea. High pitched voice too? Oh God self-sabotage.
FU: Well done, but the snubbing of the titles must be a turn-off towards getting to advance through the tourny.
To be fair, the reason why I wasn't picking my team was that I knew that the other teams had performers who were well established and damn good at what they do. The RPs (at least those who did them) bear this out. I'll admit I've done much better RPs, but it's not like I was thinking "wow, I really suck, I have no chance whatsoever."
Frost - I always get a little titchy about doing on-location shoots unless they're places that are a) made up, b) essential to what I'm doing or c) some place I've been before. I can never get things like the spacing and atmosphere the way I want. It is a great idea, but that's just why I didn't do it.
Ill share quick thoughts on the rest when I'm not at work, but there were some damn good ones here.
For a brighter tomorrow...
SpookyDoom
Hall of Famer
Posts: 325
Registered: Mar 2009
I'll say right away that a good thing about this fed is that even the unpopular characters receive a lot of love in the match. Lucha Glory were the main characters in their match, JPC got a whole lot of nearfalls and of course, Spooky Doom got a big part of his own match.
So yeah, the oncards. Nothing that could've been used in the promos themselves, nothing new being promoted... Oh yeah, and Deathknell get's a "name". Yeah, lemme tell you a lil' something: Goldberg didn't benefit from backstage comedy sketches.
So... HJV is teaming up with Awesome Kong? To form team "Eat a salad, fatty"? Yeah, that'll work for me. Wish I'd won it but Sammy and Vincent truly made a team effort amongst handlers, so I'm not sore. Liked the modified Eeerie-canrana, even though it's just a rope walk diving rana... Went for a good segue of moves. Manager gets pinned and all is right with the world.
Followed by a short match: fair enough. Not mad at all that SD won it, if we can get John as a regular handler I'm all for it too (but how to squeeze in a single handler e-fed in here?) Could feud well against the Hype.
I think JPC took Davis's role as chickenshit heel in this match: since the handler only gave an oncard, I suppose it could work well. No one really stood up to DK this time, and everytime someone does so it pushes their character. I was expecting this role to be filled by Clyde Kennedy but... no go. VVF got the best from this match, he's the one who got the best rub from all this.
Last match... Well Lucha Glory got to be stars and were spared from the finish, so good for them. Team Ego got the win, which surprised me because Shane Diamond took such a backseat to Miss Jasmine during their promo. Great line about the foreign heels having to contend with Mexicans and Canadians... This was practically all heels save for LG and their promo didn't do them much good.
Keepin' it short as I have little time. Til' 2nd half.
* Hahaha - JDM burns his feet on hot coals, no thanks to Deathknell. And then Avatar finds out he didn't get the REAL Triple V. As if that wasn't enough, DK's name is BERNIE?!? Classic~! Oh hell, the whole thing was comedic classicism!
* No surprise with Monet returning to be Volga's partner. Although it definitely doesn't bode well for the other teams in the match to be facing the former Tag champs.
* Wow, Cali Connect Gang advanced - nice. And an homage to the Red Devils...very cool.
* Hmm... I don't get what was going on with Kieran Rae and the Mysterious Chinese Woman but I'm interested to see more.
* Ewiak and O'Connor still not on the same page...hope that corrects itself by belltime.
* Honestly, Satan's Disciples were the odds on favorite now that I think about it. RX and Edens were in as fodder and The Hype haven't shown much yet to warrant advancing to the semi-finals. All in all, nice tag match with some great spots from almost all the teams (sorry, Hype).
* I loved the cowardice shown by Clyde Kennedy everytime Deathknell was an issue in the match. Great match overall with a terrific finish.
* Call me a smark but it's obvious someone is playing both Knight and Volga against each other. First a mysterious attack with a red hoodie as a clue last week and now one with a axehandle as a clue. Somebody call Matlock!
* Ahh... NOW the bloody white hat makes sense.
* I skimmed the last match due to time constraints (and not wanting to edit this post a 2nd time) so nice win for Team EGO. And I'm sure we'll see more between F.U. and Colt Montana (now sided w/ Spooky Doom) going into Ringu Faia.
(Edited by shaunsindelman)
* Man, Knight is pissed. If he wasn't dead (and didnt reconcile with Knight back at the last PPV), I would've bet The Biz was behind these attacks and mind games.
* I love the "new" Ryan Bradley and seeing Sammy Knight as a mentally unstable competitor driven to violent and aggressive means. Good character development with both. In the end, the logical team won (for storyline purposes). But this is most certainly not the last we'll see of Vincent and Knight as a tag team.
* Immediately you have to see how much of an advantage Satan's Disciples have over Team EGO and it was certainly conveyed in the opening moments of their match. But in an AMAZING show of strategy (and usage of the tag title belts), they cut the big men down and got the victory. I for one am predicting that Team EGO may actually walk out as the Tag champs if they can keep their luck up against Frost and Bradley.
* WOW! And the Women's title changes hands AGAIN! That gold belt has flip flopped more times as of late than John Kerry during the 2004 Election season.
* Nice match for the finals -- definitely give it up to both teams. In the end, the more established team needs to be wearing the gold to break the pattern of singles guys trying to work the tag division.
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