Well, I turn on KDOC at midnight hoping to see a better quality show, but then they show this. The production was even worse than last week, if that’s possible. There’s a tracking line at the top of the screen. Nice! Doc Marley and Big Schwag opened the show on their new “set.” Actually, it’s just them standing in front of an animated gif of some fire. Very advanced.
Defination of Pain (Bad Boy Basil & Al Katrazz w/Rio Storm) vs “Outlaw” Mike Knox w/Savvy
Man, this is gonna be bad. Doc asks if Knox is insane for coming out alone; as I ponder if I’m insane for not fast forwarding this match. Knox takes a beating for the first part of the match. All of a sudden, it cuts off into a commercial for Marilyn Monroe. Nice editing. After the commercial DOP hits Knox with the Kronik Knightmare. DOP only steals moves from the best. Samoa Joe suddenly runs in to be Knox’s partner. Ok. Let me try to figure this out. Joe turns heel last week. He then comes out this week, and teams with a face. I’m expecting Vince Russo to run out at anytime. Joe’s run in finally turns the tide of the match, and Knox gets in some offense. Schwag calls Knox a “dirty dumb hick,” yet Schwag is the one wearing the Confederate doo rag. Good one Schwag! DOP does this horribly mistimed double team on Knox. The picture freezes during the move, I guess for added effect. Although, the more likely reason is Doc must have gotten an instant message while he was encoding the show on his Quicktime, and his shit froze. Anyway, Knox comes back and throws a fantastic dropkick that caught Katrazz at about the thigh level. Joe gets the hot tag and throws some really horrible punches. He then dropkicks Knox in the face and walks out. So Joe has turned heel two weeks in a row now. Marty the Booker rules. I think though that he should be downgraded to just Marty the Referee, or better yet, Marty the Shift Leader at McDonald’s. DOP does the same horribly mistimed double team for the finish, but it was even worse this time. Thank God it’s over. Watching this match sure was the Definition of Pain.
The show goes back to the hosts. Schwag is mad for some reason and walks off the set. They then show a segment on Chris Daniels. The quality on this is worse than the previous stuff. They actually show footage of him botching the moonsault in his WCW match from earlier this year. Daniels says that he was hired anyway after the match. Daniels would never wrestle another WCW match. They cut to a commercial after this segment which might have been the cleanest cut they’ve done thus far. They show a commercial for Saved by the Bell. AC Slater does a choke in one of the clips that looked stiffer than anything from the first match.
Rob Van Dam w/Bill Alphonso vs “Fallen Angel” Christopher Daniels
Big Schwag is doing commentary on this, eventhough he walked off the set in the previous segment. I can see sequence of events means little to UPW production. The quality on this match is absolutely horrible, and looks to be filmed on a camcorder. The camera was all over the place. They showed a nice shot of the disco ball on the ceiling. The ring breaks a couple minutes into the match. That’s two weeks in a row now. One of the cameras has a big fingerprint smear on the lense which is really distracting. Both Daniels and RVD do some outside brawling while the ring is being fixed. We get a wonderful timestamp on the camera during this. Wow, that was professional. Big Schwag keeps doing this really annoying cackle, which sounds like his Wicked Witch of the West impression or something. Just horrible stuff. Back in the ring, RVD does some kind of highspot. I couldn’t tell since the camera zoomed in on the canvas. The match cuts off out of nowhere, and we get a commercial for America’s Greatest Hits. I guess no more Anne Murray commercials in this time of patriotism. Daniels and RVD finally do a nice sequence in the ring after a bunch of messy spots. The camera all of a sudden veers sideways as the guy moves. Ok, if you can’t hold a camera still while you are walking, chances are you shouldn’t be doing this in the first place. RVD does some over choreographed highspots. The announcers try to sell this match like it’s some kind of classic. Daniels does his no hands moonsault, which looked really nice. At this point the sound becomes out of synch like last week. The sound is a full second behind, which makes this absolutely hilarious. RVD does a gorilla press slam and Doc marks out. WHAT POWER! RVD sets up Daniels for the Van Terminator, but Samoa Joe runs in and attacks both men. I dunno when UPW Live became the Samoa Joe Show. Both end up double teaming Joe. Daniels does his moonsault, and RVD hits him with the Frogsplash. The show then cuts to a commercial for 1-800-We-Are-18! This was the best part of the hour so far.
The show returns with Doc on the set. He introduces Todd Keneley, who looks like he just walked out of a frat house party and onto the set. The animated gif somehow overtakes the hosts. It appears that Keneley has some kind of forcefield around him while Doc’s hair seems to be on fire. They then cut to some twenty second clip of Ms. Delicious on the beach. Ok. The hosts introduce the main. If you watch this on mute their body language suggests that they’re setting up some kind of drug deal.
The Ballard Brothers & Lexy Fife vs The Hardy Boyz & Lita
I’m excited for this one as Lexa Power gets to wrestle her idol Lita. Shit, it’s Lexy, not Lexa. Nevermind. Schwag starts the match by cutting another inane promo. He says the Hardy Boyz are from “North Cakalaki.” Schwag should just quit wrestling and take his stand-up routine on tour. It should be illegal to be that witty. The screen turns black and cuts to a commercial for ITT Tech. After the break, there’s still a fucking tracking line at the top of the screen! Did Doc lose the remote to his $69 Funai mono VCR or something. This is ridiculous. This match was pretty entertaining if you could look past all the annoying production glitches. There was some good action at the end, which saw the Ballards score a nearfall with the Double Minor. The Hardyz came back though and scored the win with the Swanton. Best match of show.
Overall, the production on this show was absolutely craptacular. It’s really pathetic that this is months old footage and it still looks like crap. They had nine months to edit it and make clean cuts but they didn’t do anything. This show makes UPW look really, really bad since they always have bragged about their high standards of production. The match quality also needs to change. Why a Bad Boy Basil match was show I have no idea. They have plenty of good matches in their library. If you’re gonna show old stuff, why not show Daniels vs Kurt Angle, or Mikey Henderson vs Taka Michinoku from last year? At least people could walk away after the show saying they’d seen some good wrestling. We will see if anything changes next week.
