By Devin Dindyall
Two minutes before bell time. The announcer came out to hype us up. He got a GLOBAL FORCE chant going. Then there was some merchandise shilling. All the merch here is GFW branded stuff, from t-shirts to backpacks; no wrestler merch, unfortunately. He name dropped Bullet Club, even though they are not here.
90% of the crowd was on the TV side, so arena was half empty. Stage set up was a giant black curtain with some lights around the entrance tunnel. Nothing spectacular.
First match is PJ Black v. Sanada. Next-Gen tourney match. Great opener. Lots of flippy spots. Got the crowd hyped. Black won with a springboard 450.
Bobby Roode is out next. Came out to a huge ovation. He is using his TNA theme. Hyped us up and said he’s not a GFW guy, he’s a TNA guy. This warranted a DIXIE SUCKS chants so I guess Roode is working as a heel. Said he’s the longest reigning TNA champ ever, holding the title longer than Sting, Kurt Angle, and Jeff Hardy and Jeff Jarrett. He said he’s mad because JJ came back to TNA, which is Roode’s house, and took the KOTM title from him. So now, Roode has come to Vegas for Global Force Wrestling to take the GFW world title in the tournament.
Nick Aldis interrupts. He says this isn’t TNA and this is GFW and he has joined the force along with the rest of the fans here at the Orleans. He’s yelling at Roode and then Kongo Kong comes from behind to give Aldis a modified Samoan Drop looking move. Gets major heat from the crowd and then Roode comes back in the ring and locks Aldis in a cross face. Refs come to force him to break it.
The GFW intermission is some kind of dubstep music. Reminds me Blake & Murphy’s theme.
Lucha 6 man tag is next Misterioso, Zokre and Phoenix Star vs. Blood Eagle, Steve Pain, and Bestia 666. Heels wore black and red masks and faces (Zokre’s team( wore all bright colored artire. Faces all looked like Sin Cara. Lots of LUCHA chants before and during the match. Crowd was red hot for a spot where all of the men in the match did consecutive outside dives. Bunch of cool high flying spots in this match. Team Sin Cara won. Everyone was happy.
This guy named Henry Maxwell comes out next. Lots of who are you chants. Comes out & sings the Star Spangled Banner, major heat. These two Arab wrestlers, reminding me of Muhammad Hassan, faces covered and veiled, come out and beat down Maxwell. Suddenly after the crowd booed the Star Spangled Banner we got USA chants. They say they are called The Akbars and they are here for the GFW Tag titles.
Bollywood Boyz come out with two dancers and a decent pop. I guess they’re just good looking Indian men who dance. That’s their gimmick. So this inevitably leads to a tag team match. Tag Championship Tourney match. Arabs vs. Indians.
Match was okay to below average. Bollywood chants. Akbars did a lot of prototypical heel tag team spots, double teams with ref wasn’t looking, made sure ref wasn’t looking when the hot tag was made so it didn’t count. Finish was one Bollywood Boy hitting a top rope elbow on a standing Akbar and then another one hitting an elbow on the same dude once he fell. Good pop.
Kushida vs. Virgil Flynn is next. I can’t tell if Flynn is really small or Kushida is really big. Kushida has the IWGP junior heavyweight championship belt with him.
My favorite match of the night. I’ve never seen Kushida in singles action but it wasn’t much different than his stuff with the Time Splitters. Virgil Flynn was excellent as well. You know that Trevor Lee spot where two wrestlers run from two different sides of the ring off the ropes and he does that flip cross body thing in the middle of the ring? Flynn did that. That was amazing to see in person. Flynn hits a 450. Kushida kicks out. More back and forth. Kushida eventually won via submission.
Karen Jarrett comes out. Thanks the crowd for coming out and then she says she’s wants to make sure the ladies weren’t slighted tonight. This promo was somewhat reminiscent of Stephanie coming out on RAW two weeks ago without the UFC Soccer and Tennis name dropping. They would have a tournament match for the GFW Women’s Title in the main event. Someone screams “we love puppies.”
Lei’D Tapa comes out. Her manager comes out and says something about business and how Mickie James is in all the advertisements for GFW but Tapa is not. Karen calls out Tapa and says unlike her, she doesn’t need her husband to speak for her. So we learn her manager is her husband.
Triple threat match with Tapa and Christina Von Eerie and Mickie James. Women’s Title tourney match. Eerie got the biggest pop as she is from Reno, even though that is a 6 hour car drive away. Both girls double teamed Tapa and then wrestled each other. Tapa came back, attacked both, they came back, took her out, made it 1v1, repeat. Tapa did not look that good. Ending was Eerie pinning Tapa with Dead Raising from the middle rope.
Intermission. Announcer plugs merch again. Says they have Bullet Club shirts. I go check. They do not.
2nd episode
Jigsaw v Sonjay Dutt. Next Gen tourney match More flippy shit and cool spots but not as much as the Kushida or Black match. Match was alright. Both men got mild receptions, Jigsaw was hotter, who won with Jig N’ Tonic.
Chael Sonnen out next. Tells everyone to shut up. Boos. Tells everyone to shut up some more. Introduces Virgil Flynn. Says Flynn will be in the Nextgen Championship Tourney. PJ Black comes out and congratulates Flynn for taking Kushida to the limit and shakes his hand and raises his arm up. Then superkicks him. He leaves and Sonnin follows, stepped over a downed Flynn.
I looked up Virgil Flynn and he is not well known at all; only has about 300 Twitter followers so with the opportunities he was given, with the MOTN with Kushida and this segment with Chael and Gabriel, he looks to be key building block for the NexGen Division.
Chris Mordetzky v Brian Myers next. World title tourney match. Mordetzky is working heel. Decent match. Myers hit a wicked spear but Mordetzky immediately rolled to the outside. Mordetzky won with the Masterlock. Myers got a nice ovation post-match.
Reno Scum vs. Los Luchas is next. Tag title tourney match. Big ovation for Reno Scum. They were super impressive in this match. They also won. I do not know what their finishing sequence is called but it is awesome.
Roode beat Kevin Kross, a local guy. World title tourney match. Roode got major heat from most of the crowd. There was a LET’S GO BOBBY/BOBBY SUCKS chant. At one point he screamed THIS IS THE BEST YOU GOT? at the crowd, in reference to Kross. Roode won with the crossface. Match was okay, Kross wasn’t that good.
Double J came out to a big ovation. He called someone in the crowd slapnuts which got a big pop. Loud THANK YOU JEFF chant. Thanked the Orleans for their partnership with GFW. Thanked the wrestlers in the back and thanked the fans. Says we are just getting started; at the next taping we will see Shelton Benjamin, the Killer Elite Squad, and Bullet Club (Gallows and Anderson). BC for the biggest ovation out of the three. Booby Roode then comes out. He buries the entire roster and called GFW a “two-cent company”. Says no one gives a crap about Benjamin or the KES and certainly no one gives a crap about the Bullet Club. Big SHIT FACTOR chant. Jarrett says look, the crowd knows Roode’s real name! That got a pop. JJ says here at GFW they’re looking for talent willing to take things to the next level. So to continue the tournament at the next taping, Roode will face “Showtime” Eric Young!
Maxwell came out again. He seems like a major heel so I don’t know why they had the Akbars beat him up in the last episode. He says he’s here to introduce a sophisticated man who is also his best friend, Kongo Kong.
Kong v Aldis is the main event. Maxwell stole the show here, at some points taking the crowd’s attention away from the match and placed it on himself. At one point he took off his blazer and got on the guardrail and started swinging it around and yelling. Kong hit a clothesline to Aldis at the turnbuckle at one point and Maxwell yelled BOOM SHAKA LAKA. Inevitably, we got a HENRY MAXWELL chant.
Match was solid though. Kong really impressed me; for a big guy who looks out of shape he’s incredibly athletic with expected strength for a big man. Aldis came back and dropped the elbow and got a 2. Maxwell got on the apron and Aldis punched him. Kong attacked him in the corner and hit a cannonball. Close 2 count. He went to the top rope and missed a moonsault. Aldis then won with a spinning out powerbomb. The one that Cena hits before he sets up the 5 Knuckle Shuffle.
Overall it was a good show. I went in expecting a TNA show and got something better than that. Announcing Eric Young was a surprise to me. It seems like all the big TNA names are going to jump ship from TNA if the company indeed sinks.