Best Of US Wrestling 2007 Disc 1

Best Of US Wrestling Jan-April 2007

I’ve been wanting to review this for quite a while. This is a fan made comp, which cover all the best wrestling from Raw, Smackdown, ECW and Impact during the first four months of 2007. It is in four parts, and then from May onwards the comp splits into discs for each separate shows. Like them or not, WWE and TNA produced lots of good televised wrestling in 2007, in particular WWE who after a poor year in 2005 and bad parts in 2006 were stronger than ever from a wrestling standpoint.

I also plan to cover the 2008 version of this comp which highlights all the best action from the four shows during that year. Please note however that this comp doesn’t cover PPV matches.

Match 1 (Smackdown, 19th January)
United States Championship, No DQ Match- Chris Benoit (c) vs Chavo Guerrero
I thought this was a good match, although I felt it was lacking a little in terms of structure at times. Guerrero cheated blatantly here, which was completely legal, and also made use of a chair to work over Benoit’s shoulder. Benoit on the other hand went for straight wrestling, using a lot of German Suplexes, and going for the Crossface as often as possible (even outside the ring). Benoit locked in the Sharpshooter, and Chavo tapped before he could reach the chair- ***

Match 2 (Impact, 18th January)
Kurt Angle vs AJ Styles
Not a bad match, but it was simply far too short to really be anything special. It was also a little too one sided for my liking, with AJ taking a beating for the majority, and there was an annoying commercial in the middle. Angle won it with an Angle Slam on a chair, when Tomko had the ref distracted- *1/2

Match 3 (Raw, 22nd January)
Street Fight- Edge vs Shawn Michaels
A wild match, with lots of weapons put to use including chairs, garbage cans, the steel steps, a ladder, a steel chain, and many others. Michaels was completely bloodied from a shot from hitting the steel steps. There was little actual wrestling, with the majority of the match consisting of punches and weapon shots. Randy Orton interfered, giving Shawn Michaels the RKO which got three. Great stuff other than a sloppy spot or two, but that didn’t hurt the match- ***1/2

Match 4 (Smackdown, January 26th)
6 Man Over The Top Rope Challenge- King Booker vs Chris Benoit vs Finlay vs Kane vs MVP vs The Miz
Solid enough battle royal type match, which had some decent wrestling in it as opposed to the punchfest these type of matches usually are. The Undertaker randomly interfered in the match, cleaning house on everyone, and then eliminating everyone. So it was decent while it lasted.
Kane eliminated by Finlay
Miz eliminated by Finlay
Undertaker destroys and eliminates everyone else- *3/4

Match 5 (Impact, 25th January)
Christian vs Christopher Daniels
A good match, with some solid wrestling from both Christian and Daniels. It was a little bizarre to have an interview mid-match with Samoa Joe, who came to ringside to counteract Tomko. But the match was solid and a little longer than the usual Impact match, and Daniels got a lot of offense in. Christian used a Low Blow on Daniels when the ref was distracted, and then used the Unprettier for three- **1/2

Match 6 (Smackdown, 2nd February)
United States Championship- Chris Benoit (c) vs Finlay
These two of course know each other well from matches they had in WCW and Japan. The match was billed as a battle of two carbon copies of each other, due to both men’s similar style, and I would have to agree that they were very evenly matched, both in terms of mat skills and in terms of hard hitting. Finlay worked on the leg of Benoit for much of the match, while Benoit just went for that hard hitting offense, along with the occasional high risk move. The ending kind of ruined the match, with Boogeyman interfering, distracting Finlay and that allowed Benoit to get the rollup for three- ***1/4

Match 7 (Raw, 5th February)
Shawn Michaels vs Randy Orton vs Edge
A solid match, with the tension being played up between Team RKO, despite this supposedly being set out as a Handicap match. The early part of the match saw Michaels get beaten down by Edge and Orton, but the occasional miscommunication started to see Team RKO disintegrate. After Orton got the RKO on Michaels, Edge and Orton started fighting each other. Michaels went on to pin Orton after Edge Speared Orton, and Michael Superkicked Edge- ***

Match 8 (Smackdown, February 9th)
Matt Hardy vs Joey Mercury
This is shortly after Mercury broke his nose in the TLC match at No Way Out. Obviously Hardy had a ready made strategy for this match, which was to work over the face of Mercury, which he did with a series of strikes. Mercury went after the knee of Hardy with a variety of submissions and hard hitting moves. It was a good match, although a little slower than I expected, but that would be expected with Mercury’s injury. Mercury rolled out of the Side Effect into a pinning combination for three- ***

Match 9 (ECW, 6th February)
Bobby Lashley vs Hardcore Holly
This match didn’t really look all that special on paper, but it turned into a surprisingly good, hard hitting match. It also helped that the match was under Extreme Rules, allowing weapons to be used. Lashley went for more of a power style, using his size advantage to his advantage, while Holly was more tenacious, cheating as much as he could and making use of a chair. Lashley won with a Running Powerslam on a chair (although to be honest, he missed the chair completely)- **1/2

Overall, there’s some good matches here, in particular the Street Fight involving Edge and Shawn Michaels. Clearly Shawn was the only person really producing the goods in the ring on Raw at this time. Smackdown had the majority of the matches here, with some great stuff. ECW only had the one match, but there are plenty more good one’s to come. Impact’s matches were too short for the most part to mean anything. So there’s some good stuff on this comp, beside some questionable choices for a Best Of compilation (the Battle Royal for example).

8/10

PWG All Star Weekend III Night 1

Sorry for the lack of new reviews lately, but I’ve been busy with a lot of stuff. I’m going to have a lot more free time from next week onwards, so you can expect some more new stuff coming up soon. For now, here’s another review from the 411 archive. This is an early one so it’s not quite to the same standard as current reviews, so apologies for any repetition or excessive detail.

Dino Winwood comes out to start us off, first of all shooting on someone in the crowd (in a fun way), then telling us that they have a great show in store for tonight.

Match 1
Top Gun Talwar and Bino Gambino vs Alex Koslov and Ronin
This sort of seems thrown together, but maybe they’ve been feuding since I’m not up on the lower card storylines at this time. This match was decent, a fairly fun match with good comedy and solid enough wrestling, but like I said I feel it was a little thrown together, and nobody stood out as being anything that special (other than Alex Koslov, he was the best of the four in this match). But as far as an opener, I was a decent way to start the show. Bino Gambino got the pinfall on Koslov with a Spinning Butterfly Suplex- **

Match 2
M-Dogg 20 vs TJ Perkins
An enjoyable match between two top indy wrestling talents. There was some solid mat wrestling early on, then M-Dogg used his usual repertoire of high flying moves while Perkins managed to keep up with him as well as try to ground M-Dogg with submissions and hard hitting moves. These two seemed to click although there was some sloppiness and the occasional botched spot, but I really enjoyed some of the wrestling sequences so that made up for it in some aspects. But in the end I think the botches took too much away from the match. M-Dogg 20 won this with a Shooting Star Press- **1/2

Match 3
The Kings Of Wrestling (Chris Hero and ‘Double C’ Claudio Castagnoli) vs Disco Machine and Nemesis
This apparently is happening on Night 1 because the Briscoes pulled a no-show (which they did several times throughout the year). While I enjoyed the match, I far prefer the Kings Of Wrestling as heels, and I didn’t enjoy them as much when they play to the crowd and not doing all the little things that I like seeing them do. The match was good and fun, but there were some moments of sloppiness and I don’t think was as good as it could have been, perhaps because it was slightly too long. But still a very decent match overall. The Kings Of Wrestling, who were fairly dominant in this match, won it with I believe the KRS-1 (I may be wrong since Excalibur didn’t call the move by it’s proper name)- **1/2

Before I go any further, the next match is the first of four matches in a number one contenders tournament. The four winners meet on Night 2 to determine the Number One Contender to the PWG Title.

Match 4
PWG Title No 1 Contenders Tournament Match- ‘The New Age Punisher’ B-Boy vs Excalibur
There’s no commentary for this match, and that is an extremely nice touch since Excalibur was doing commentary alone but isn’t doing it now since he’s wrestling. This was a match that topped my expectations, and ended up being quite a good and fun, hard hitting match overall. Weapons were put to use in this one (mainly chairs), and that was something I didn’t expect, but it worked and added to the match. When the match actually got in the ring, it turned into a good, hard hitting match with B-Boy hitting hard and using submissions, while Excalibur fought back with some high flying, hard hitting moves of his own. B-Boy would win the title shot via pinfall with the Go 2 Sleep. This pleasantly surprised me- ***

Match 5
PWG Title Number One Contenders Tournament Match- Kevin Steen vs Matt Sydal
It seems strange to me seeing Steen with his shirt and trunks combo after seeing him in his new gear in ROH. To the match itself, and I enjoyed this as much as I thought I would, as it ended up being a good, crisp match between two of my favourite wrestlers. Sydal used his speed to out-quicken Steen, while Steen would use hard hitting, high impact moves to control Sydal, but I didn’t like it when he tried to use high flying moves since he can’t do them that well (besides his top rope moves). My only real complaint is that maybe it was a bit too long, but besides that it was a really good match that flowed quite well. After some very close near falls at the end, Steen would win this match when he pinned Sydal with the Package Piledriver- ***1/2

After the match, Steen says that he has wrestled some of the very best in the world, and says that Sydal is an amazing wrestler and should come back in the future.

Scorpio Sky cuts a promo before his match, saying the fans should respect him because he ended the Human Torando’s career. Jade Chung (Scorpio Sky’s manager), cut a quick promo basically putting over Scorpio’s abs.

Match 6
PWG Title Number One Contenders Tournament Match- Chris Sabin vs Scorpio Sky w/Jade Chung
A fan got right up in Jade Chung’s face, and Chris Sabin encouraged her as she was eventually held back by security. The match was good, a solid encounter with the interaction with the woman in the crowd being a funny little running theme throughout the match. Sabin wrestled his usual high impact, high flying wrestling style, with some submissions used as well. Scorpio on the other hand wrestled a slower, more sports entertainment style with constant interference by his manager and cheating, but also used some nice submissions and high impact moves. Scorpio Sky nearly got the win when Jade Chung interfered and Scorpio hat an Implant DDT, but the referee was distracted by helping Chung who Sabin had thrown to the mat, then Sabin won with the Cradle Shock- ***1/4

Match 7
PWG Number One Contenders Tournament Match- ‘The Future’ Frankie Kazarian vs Jimmy Yang
A meeting of two (at this point) former WWE and TNA wrestlers in this match. The match was good, feeling much like a longer and more fun version of a WWE cruiserweight match. Both men had some nice high flying, high impact moves, but Kazarian used several submissions as well and Yang also used a few kicks to go alongside his pretty much all high flying style offense. Again though, it was missing something overall to take it to the next level. Kazarian won it with the Wave of the Future- **3/4

Match 8
Cape Fear (El Generico and Quicksilver) vs Los Luchas (Phoenix Star and Zokre)
Two of my favourite teams are in this match so I expect I’ll enjoy it. I really enjoyed this match, although it wasn’t quite on the insane levels of some of the other Cape Feat tag matches I’ve seen. This however is match of the night on this occasion. The match was maybe a bit slow early on, but picked up steam quickly, and both teams used some impressive double team moves and amazing, innovative high flying offense. Generico once again was a standout in this match and never fails to impress me. An insane end sequence saw Phoenix Star get kicked by Generico in the head while doing a headstand in the corner, but only got two, then Generico used a sick Half Nelson Suplex and Big Boot, then Quicksilver pinned him with a Piledriver- ***3/4

Joey Ryan cuts a pre-match promo where he lights a cigarette, and well, I didn’t hear a lot of what he said (but the crowd were chanting Boring so it couldn’t have been that interesting), but he did throw some insults at ring announcer Jon Ian.

Match 9
PWG Title Match- Joey Ryan (c) vs Super Dragon vs Chris Bosh
This match was pretty much a mess, and as a result it was a massive disappointment. Early on the match was decent enough, with some solid wrestling from all three men, and was shaping up to be a great main event. Then things completely fell apart. Dragon forearms Bosh, and it seems to knock him out, as when Dragon tries to pick him up he’s motionless. Dragon pulls Bosh up when going for the three but Disco and Taro treat it like he kicked out. Ryan and Dragon continue to wrestle, and Dragon decides he should psycho Driver Ryan on the concrete, and Dragon seems to have no idea what to do, so he rolls Bosh back into the ring. Then Ryan superkicks him and pins Bosh. What a disappointing main event, a complete mess after Bosh got knocked out- *

After the match, Dragon goes nuts at ringside throwing chairs into the ring, as Ryan heads for the locker room, and Dragon angrily smashes a chair into the turnbuckle from frustration.

The main event left a sour taste in my mouth, but I don’t think it took too much away from the event. However, this was not up to the standard of the previous All Star Weekends. The only matches that was up there as excellent would be the Cape Fear/Los Luchas and Steen/Sydal matches, but even then they couldn’t hold a candle to the best matches from the two previous ASW’s. A mild recommendation for this show, but not a show that’s critical to add to your collection.