4/6 WWN Mercury Rising in New Orleans, La.: Will Ospreay vs. Matt Riddle, plus Zack Sabre Jr., plus Keith Lee, Timothy Thatcher, AR Fox, DJZ

WWN MERCURY RISING
April 6, 2018 New Orleans, La. at The Pontchartrain Convention Center
Aired By WWN Live/Fite TV
Report by Jose Marrero (@jmarrrumbling)

Although WWN isn’t finished for the weekend after this, the bulk of their offerings climax with this show. Evolve 103 didn’t blow me away, but I’m hoping this show kind of lets Evolve go out with a bang for the weekend.

Trevin Adams opens up and welcomes the audience and said how this is the biggest night of the year for WWN and runs down the card.

(1) AR FOX & DJZ & TREY MIGUEL vs. AUSTIN THEORY & TRAVIS BANKS & ZACHARY WENZ

Three shows and three opening matches for Theory this weekend. Even winning the WWN Title earlier in the afternoon at Evolve 103 couldn’t get this man out of opening match status.This was lucha rules as it was a throwback to the Dragongate beginnings of WWN. It was mentioned how Banks missed Evolve 103 earlier due to a “bump on the head.” I wonder if WWN has talent undergo concussion protocol. Very indyriffic match with splashes and spots such as a quintuple scorpion death drop.  These guys did so much that even if I attempted to list it I couldn’t do it justice.

WINNERS: AR Fox & DJZ & Trey Miguel when DJZ hit Wenz with a cutter for the win. Afterwards DJZ had words with Theory since he beat him earlier this weekend, and that looks to be the direction they are going for a title challenger for Theory.

Jason Kincaid came out for a match but was once again attacked by Jarek 120 continuing the angle started earlier at Evolve 103 where Jarek attacked Kincaid to get his spot on the card. Jarek beat Kincaid down and handcuffed his hands and mouth to the guardrail. A handful of referees would break it up and help Kincaid to the back.

(2) MUNENORI SAWA vs. ZACK SABRE JR.

These two just battled. I don’t think I’ve ever seen two human being slap each other hard so much. This was a weekend where Sawa could just do no wrong. I don’t know if he came here and broke his retirement just to have a working vacation in New Orleans but someone book this guy again. ZSJ really has his working boots on the past few weeks too with his winning the New Japan Cup, his match with Okada, last nights match with Riddle and now this match with Sawa and is really cementing himself as one of the best in the world.

WINNER: ZSJ via a modified stretch muffler type submission that had Sawa in splits. I think I’ve figured out why ZSJ has really turned the corner for me. For years he just seemed so smooth in his submissions that it felt like an exhibition. Lately it seems as if he has developed a bit of meanness to him, and his moves don’t look as smooth and therefore feel more legit. As I said previously he really is one of the best in the world right now.

(3) NEW ORLEANS STREETFIGHT: TRACEY WILLIAMS & DOMINIC GARINI (w/Stokley Hathaway) vs. JAMES DRAKE & ANTHONY HENRY vs. ODINSON & PARROW (w/Drennen)

Hathaway recused himself and told his charges he was a national treasure and couldn’t be involved for risk of injury. It instantly broke down as one would expect. All these teams have history with each other. Parrow and Odinson have targeted all the members of Catchpoint since debuting in Evolve and Henry and Drake have feuded with both sides as well in their pursuits of the tag team championships.These men pummeled each other with ladders, chairs  and tables and even Drennen for involved with a billy club on the outside. Of course he would be taken out early by James and Henry.I liked this match but might have enjoyed it more if I didn’t see all of these men with the addition of Dickinson and Jaka in a crazy spot fest the night before. This match was basically the same thing except we subtracted the Evolve tag team champions for weapons.

WINNERS: Henry and Drake. The finish came when the Workhorsemen decided to stack Parrow on a table and Odinson under him and hit a foot stomp only for the table not to break and to pin Odinson who well shouldn’t have sold the finish since nothing hit him.

(4) HOLIDEAD vs. SHINE CHAMPION LUFISTO –  SHINE CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH

Holidead became the number one contender at SHINE 49 and Lufisto has been a domiant champion holding the title 15 months in what is the longest reign in SHINE history. This is the part where I’d love to tell you they had a fantastic match, only I can’t because that’s when my feed cut. It sucks as after watching so many mixed tag and intergender matches yesterday I was actually looking forward to a straight up woman’s match up.

WINNER: My feed came back in time to see Lufisto hit a burning hammer to retain her championship heading into SHINE 50.. Afterwards she cut a promo saying how she is the women’s revolution and promoting SHINE 50 and said she would have the title till she retired. She began to celebrate when Kimber Lee surprised her, so I’m guessing SHINE 50 will be Kimber Lee vs. Lufisto on April 28th.

(5) DAISUKE SEIKUMOTO vs. KEITH LEE

I wanted to write this was a battle of two bears, except I have never known a bear to be as agile as Keith Lee who actually did a running hurricarana at one point in this match. Lee may be the most agile big man of this generation and everytime I see him I just see dollar signs in his future.Seikumoto made a great accounting of himself this weekend too as he has more than carried his weight in several matches this weekend, and I hope he comes back to the U.S again soon.

WINNER: Daisuke Seikumuto who hit Lee with a german suplex with a bridge for the pin after Lee missed a moonsault. The post match saw Nick Gage attack Lee and everyone else who ran in to set up his match with Lee for tomorrow nights Style Battle finale. After the beating Gage cut a promo called Lee a couple of suggestive terms and used those same terms to describe the locker room and plugged his match one more time. He also said if anyone had a problem with him he would be in the parking lot and would fight anyone. Lee got up and said he was getting his ass kicked all day long and is pretty pissed off about it, and said how tomorrow at Style Battle Gage would bask in his glory.

(6) EVOLVE TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS CHRIS DICKINSON & JAKA (w/Stokley Hathaway) vs. WALTER & TIMOTHY THATCHER – EVOLVE TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH

It’s not very often you get to see the team of Ringkampf compete in the U.S it’s extremely unique to see them compete twice in one weekend. WWN made the most of it and gave them two high quality teams to take on. I guess my main issue with the match is one that the finish was never in doubt as you knew the champs were retaining. I know we are in an era where everything is a dream match, and is supposed to be all about just enjoying performances but I still like the idea of somewhat suspending belief and when I can’t even make a case for the champions to lose the titles it does sort of ruin the match for me a bit. If I would’ve removed the titles from this equation I think I’d of enjoyed the maychnmore as it really was a good match.

WINNERS: Dickinson and Jaka with the death trap to pin Thatcher and retain their titles.Post match saw Tracey Williams come out and congratulate the champions. He said how they showed what Catchpoint was all about, but that they needed to address the elephant in the room. He said how ever since they hired Stokley Hathaway to manage their business all he has done is run it into the ground. He then proceeded to wish Stokley the best in his future endeavors. Stokley told Tracey he owned Catchpoint and he couldn’t be fired since he owned it, and fired Tracey Williams from Catchpoint leading Garini to low blow Williams and the rest of Catchpoint to turn on Williams. It’ll be interesting to see what’s next in the next era of Catchpoint as Williams was the last original member left.

(7) WILL OSPREAY vs. EVOLVE CHAMPION MATT RIDDLE – EVOLVE CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH

I’ll say this much, Riddle hasn’t even been champion 24 hours and they are sure going out of their way to pad his resume with high profile defenses. Matt already defeated Daisuke Seikumoto earlier this afternoon on Evolve 103 and now he is here defending against arguably the best junior heavyweight in the world. All the respect in the world to Ospreay who almost pulled out of all his Wrestlemania appearances and has had one strong showing after another. As with the previous match my only issue was that once again we all knew Riddle would retain as Ospreay is only working with WWN for the weekend. Other than that it was a strong main event as both these men worked real hard and even used Ospreays injury to kind of tell a story in the match. It just happened to be a story that we knew the end to before we ever picked up the book to read. Still, when Ospreay took a scary bump on his neck I almost thought he was dead for a minute and felt as if Riddle turned heel in how he handled the rest of the match.

WINNER: Matt Riddle retained  with a bromission that he caught off of an os cutter attempt. Riddle our over Ospreay in his post match promo and the crowd to close out the show.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I hope this heelish side of Matt Riddle is something we could explore more of going forward as I’d like to see more than the King of Bros that we have seen already. I’m also hoping that going forward we continue to see the elevation of Austin Theory as after this weekend he is the most decorated title holder in WWN. The drama surrounding Catchpoint is sure to continue and is Keith Lee finishing up? A good show to hopefully lead to more good shows. Watch it if you can.

NOW CHECK OUT THIS RECENT REPORT: 4/6 Beyond Wrestling & Women’s Wrestling Revolution “Lit Up” in Kenner, La.: Intergender Matches including Riddle vs. Perazzo, Toni Storm vs. William Thatcher