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RADICAN’S BEYOND WRESTLING “PARTY ANIMALS” REPORT
DEC. 29, 2016
PROVIDENCE, RI
TAPED FOR RELEASE ON BEYONDEMAND.COM
BY SEAN RADICAN, PWTORCH COLUMNIST
This show was held at Aurora in downtown Providence, RI. The venue was packed with 250 plus fans, which gave Beyond Wrestling a sellout going head-to-head with a WWE house show in Boston on the same night.
(1) Chris Hero beat Keith Lee. This was a red hot opener. These two felt each other out before the match turned into the typical hard-hitting Hero match. Lee is an untapped talent that has shined in EVOLVE this year while at the same time rising through the ranks as a tag team with Shane Taylor in Ring of Honor. The back and forth chants for Taylor and Hero were crazy during this match. Hero eventually finished off Taylor with a series of huge elbows. He teased cutting a post-match promo, but said the fans don’t deserve it.
Check out some of the Hero vs. Lee action here and this crazy exchange here
(2) BroSteel (Matt Riddle & Chuck O’Neil) beat Team Tremendous (Bill Carr & Dan Barry). The crowd was hot for the return of Team Tremendous to Beyond Wrestling. This was a good match, but it had a hard time competing with the previous match. O’Neil got the win when he tapped out Carr with an arm bar.
(3) Pinkie Sanchez beat Tracy Williams. I wasn’t keeping track of the time for this match, but these two put together a match that went on for way too long. They eventually built to a spot where Williams began selling his knee after he landed on it awkwardly. Sanchez got the win with a psycho driver.
(4) Da Hit Squad (Dan Maff & Monsta Mack) beat Doom Patrol (Chris Dickinson & Jaka) in a Tag Team War. The match started hot and they went to a long heat segment on Dickinson. The crowd fizzled out for the hot tag to Jaka. The action was fine, but the finish wasn’t very satisfying with Maff pinning Jaka after a low blow.
The Unbreakable F’n Machines (Michael Elgin & Brian Cage were announced for 1/28 in Summerville, Mass. and 1/29 in Worcester, Mass.
(5) Kimber Lee beat Donovan Dijak. This match was a good hard-hitting back and forth match with Lee doing her best to use her quickness to counter Dijak’s huge size advantage. Lee can definitely go toe-to-toe with the men and she’s made a name for herself in Beyond doing intergender matches. Lee ended up getting the win with a bridging pin out of feast your eyes in Kimber’s last match with the company.
To see some of the Lee vs. Dijak action click here
After the match, Lee, who is set to report to WWE in January, was about to give her farewell speech to Beyond Wrestling when J.T. Dunn, who no longer works for the company ran into the ring and jumped her from behind. Hero ended up helping him, but Dijak and Mikey Webb made the save. Death By Elbow and The American Destroyers were about to go outside for a street fight when Beyond Wrestling Owner Drew Cordeiro told them not to do it and he sanctioned Death By Elbow vs. The American Destroyers as the new main event of the show.
(6)Veda Scott & Sonya Strong beat Jordynne Grace & Karen Q. This match went on for a long time and didn’t have a lot of heat. The action was fine, but the crowd wasn’t into it. They did a spot where it appeared Sonya Q had been pinned and the bell rang, but the match continued. The fans booed and Scott eventually got the win over Q after outside interference. Scott ended up tossing Strong out of the ring after the match, as the idea was she wanted the glory of the win to herself.
(7) John Silver beat Joey Janella (w/Penelope Ford). This was an entertaining match with Janella saying he was going to do technical wrestling so that EVOLVE booker Gabe Sapolsky would sign him, but he used much stronger language to make his statement than I’m using in this report. This was a nice mix of some comedy and action. Silver went for a dive at one point and Janella caught him in a Fujiwara arm bar on the floor. Ford, who is very attractive, interfered a couple of times on Janella’s behalf. Silver, who is one of the most underrated wrestlers on the indies in my opinion, won after monkey flipping himself into a crazy Canadian destroyer. This was one of the better matches on the show in my opinion.
(8) WXW Shotgun Champion David Starr beat Jonathan Gresham to retain his title. This was the wrong style of match to go on when it did. It seemed like they technical wrestling spots on the mat for a long time, but they couldn’t get the crowd into the match. Neither man seemed to pick a limb and work on it to establish a hook for the crowd. Starr hit some insanely hard chops once the action picked up later in the match, but it seemed like Gresham just couldn’t return fire and the crowd didn’t get into both men trying to outdo each other with hard chops as a result. For the second time on the show it appeared there was a three count that wasn’t a three count, as it looked like Starr had the win. He won a short time later with a straight jacket German.
After the match, Ford distracted Starr and Janella attack him. Silver then ran in to attack Janella and they did a big pull-apart brawl with everyone going back and forth. This seemed to set up Starr vs. Silver and Janella against both of them at some point down the line. Starr and Silver argued once they turned the tide and didn’t want to take turns working over Janella.
(9) The American Destroyers (Donovan Dijak and Mikey Webb) beat Death By Elbow. This was the second best match on the show. It’s a credit to the Beyond Wrestling fans that they provided a great atmosphere for this match which went well into the fifth hour of the show past midnight. Dijak was down and out for a long period of time and Webb took a beating. They eventually built to Dijak getting the hot tag and running wild. The match featured Hero and Dunn beating up officials left and right after they failed to get the win. This would normally be overkill given some of the other finishes on the show, but it perfectly set up Lee to run down and get revenge on DBE with a double low blow. She then decimated Dunn before after Lee ran down and got revenge on DBE to help Dijak and Webb get the win.
After the match, Kimber Lee was given the stage to say goodbye to Beyond Wrestling. She said she considered Beyond Wrestling her home and thanked owner Drew Cordeiro for giving her the platform. Cordeiro ended up surprising her with a framed picture of Lee in a Beyond Wrestling ring to send her off to WWE.
Click here to see Lee’s Beyond Farewell
Overall thoughts: There was some good and bad on this show, but overall, the show was enjoyable. The big issue was that many of the matches went over 15 minutes and some of them really overstayed their welcome. The Beyond Wrestling crowd is a really good crowd and they were silent during the matches they didn’t like, but they really responded well to the matches that were good. Beyond Wrestling has some of the best fans on the planet and although several of the matches went long and had questionable finishes, the fans stuck with it until the end.
The Hero vs. Lee match was easily the best match on the show. They had an incredible match and I’m excited about Lee’s future. Hero teased a speech, but never delivered one, so perhaps he will exit Beyond as a heel if this turns out to be his last show before heading to WWE.
The thing that really worked well on this show was the setup for Lee to have her sendoff after a great main event. DBE vs. The American Destroyers was a lot of fun and Lee getting her revenge on Hero and Dunn was a great way to send her off. Hero vs. Lee, Lee vs. Dijak, BroSteel vs. Team Tremendous, Janella vs. Silver, and DBE vs. The American Destroyers are all worth a watch once this show is uploaded onto their subscription service at YouTube.com/BeyonDemand in the near future.
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Contact Sean at pwtorchsean@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/SeanRadican. Like his Facebook page at Facebook.com/SeanRadicanRWC.
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