Quintessential Pro Wrestling came around while I wasn’t watching pro wrestling, and in the time they were running, they were producing shows with wrestlers such as Kevin Steen (Kevin Owens in the WWE), Roderick Strong, Chris Hero, Michael Elgin, Paul London, the Young Bucks, Eddie Edwards, and other big name indy stars. QPro also featured tons of local talent, making it seem like a promotion following PWG’s early formula when it came to running shows by mixing local talent with big names and outside talent. They stopped running for awhile, but then came back with Quintapalooza last month, featuring Matthew Riddle challenging Adam Thornstowe, and a women’s tournament.
Quintappalooza is currently available to watch on Joey Ryan’s official Youtube channel. Shout out to him (like he fucking needs it) for uploading this show on his channel, and big ups to QPro owner Alan Denkenson for allowing him to post it. To watch the show on a continuous playlist, click the video below. Oh, and did you guys know that Alan Denkenson had a Vice article written about him? Interesting shit.
The Killer Baes (Laura James & Heather Monroe) vs. Buggy Nova & Sage Sin Supreme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNfEJshONFQ
So from what I gather, Laura James and Heather Monroe’s gimmicks are that they’re white girls who call themselves “Baes” and do White Girl Twerking. This match wasn’t very good. Heather Monroe had a good performance and was pretty much the lone bright spot of the match when she was on offense, but everything else felt so disjointed and very sloppy at times. Laura James threw the worst looking kicks ever. Holy shit they were bad. The finish was really stupid, mostly because it centered around shenanigans involving a legal woman being pinned and the referee not counting. I mean, it was nice to see that shit sorta mattered in the finish, but it didn’t matter earlier in the match when Monroe failed to tag Laura James and the referee didn’t do shit about it. If you’re gonna have matches where a story involves legal tags, the referee needs to make fucking sure they’re keeping track of that shit and take control during the entire match or else the finish is going to end up looking stupid like in this match. Buggy won. Again this wasn’t good, but it wasn’t outright horrible aside from some awful strikes from Laura James. Heather Monroe continues to show a lot of potential. Also, I know this might make me sound racist, but fuck it. White chicks shouldn’t “twerk” at all. It just looks awkward when they’re doing it.
Rating: *1/2
Joey Ryan vs. B-Boy
https://youtu.be/IJ9ACaqTWB8
Have you seen a Joey Ryan match recently? If you said yeah, you should know what to expect. Baby Oil shenanigans, shenanigans involving Joey’s dick, and other “sleazy” bullshit Joey does to try and get himself to go viral. Bless his heart for not caring about his art and caring about doing shit to sell t-shirts. If you’re into that kind of shit and want to see Joey pour Baby Oil on Hot Tub Shawn, you’ll get all that in the first five minutes of this. If you’re not into that shit, skip ahead as Joey and B-Boy don’t really wrestle till after all that, so you wouldn’t be missing much.
Even after that, there’s more dick-based comedy. As someone who loves comedy, I hated this. Some comedians can get by doing material about the same subject for extended periods of time, but sometimes a joke runs its course. I know people have arguments that back Joey’s shit, but I’m not buying into anything anyone says about it. It’s whack. Like I said about comedy, some comedians get by doing material on the same subject for extended amounts of time. Joey doesn’t have that sorta comedic skill. He seems like the same dude he was 10 years ago, but with a better haircut and lots of dick-based comedy. Everyone could use a change after a few years, and Joey seems like one of those people. As for the match itself, the wrestling portions were alright for what it was. I mean, the whole match revolved around Joey’s dick and shenanigans like B-Boy sodomizing Joey with a lollipop. I don’t know when that shit became part of the game, but I’m not with it. B-Boy got the win after hitting a Tiger Driver ’98. This was sorta ok. I mean, it wasn’t a bad match, but it just felt like it dragged for me since I didn’t find the comedy portions weren’t that funny. Sorry, I’m a comedy snob. After watching comics like Bill Burr, Joe Rogan, Joey Diaz, and Jim Jefferies, it’s gonna take a lot to make me laugh.
Rating: **
QPro Women’s Championship Tournament Semi-Finals: Christina Von Eerie (c) vs. Shayna Baszler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYXQeEByebA
So there was a Four-Woman title tournament for Von Eerie’s title. What I want to know is why the fuck was there a title tournament for a belt that already has a champion? That makes no sense. A title contender tournament, yeah I’d get, but this was dumb from a booking standpoint.
As for the match, it was sort of a mixed bag. On one hand, I really enjoyed Shayna Baszler’s work in this, as she displayed techniques that are used in grappling but aren’t used in pro wrestling, giving her matches a bit of realism to it. I mean, she actually knows how to work leg lock submissions such as heel hooks while 90% of pro wrestlers look like shit when working leg locks. On the other hand, there was a lot of sloppiness and several disjointed moments in the match, mainly from Von Eerie. She seemed like she didn’t know how to work with Baszler’s shoot-style based offense. Another thing I noticed was how Baszler seemed to be slightly better than Von Eerie in this, which surprised me as Von Eerie has been around way longer than Shayna has. Shayna Baszler got the win over the champion via an armbar submission. While the match was somewhat sloppy, Shayna Baszler did well and held things together it seemed, making it an average match. Nothing against Von Eerie, as I remember her being really good when I saw her in like 2009/2010 with Candice LeRae. Maybe she just didn’t mesh with Shayna. I would love to see more of Baszler’s work in the future though.
Rating: **3/4
QPro Women’s Championship Tournament Semi-Finals: Hudson Envy vs. Delilah Doom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW1N9o6PXJM
I’ve never seen Delilah Doom before, but she looks like Rainbow Brite if she went through a phase in her life where she spent her weekends dropping Molly at raves and EDM festivals. Her shtick was pretty entertaining and her look is pretty cool. The comedy in this match was funnier and better than Joey Ryan’s in his match with B-Boy, and the way Hudson and Delilah blended comedy and wrestling was really well done. I liked how Hudson would brush off Delilah’s strikes, only for Delilah to comeback and get the better of her before Hudson laid her out with a lariat. Hudson also had a nice curb stomp variation in this, and was really entertaining on offense where she just bullied Delilah around, sorta reminiscent of how Super Dragon would toy with his smaller opponents before they made their comebacks. Hudson’s leg kicks looked pretty bad though. Aside from that, she was pretty good here. Delilah, of course, had a comeback that was entertaining. Hudson Envy got the win after catching Delilah attempting to hit a splash in the corner, and delivering an Air Raid Crash on her. Really good stuff here from these two and the best match of the show up to this point.
Rating: ***1/4
Kevin Martenson & Johnny Yuma vs. H.A.T.E (Ray Rosas & Peter Avalon)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNtJfkMdxgs
So this started out with both teams trying to do dual-heel shit where they tried to sneak attack each other after a handshake. Then it turned into a basic formula tag match where H.A.T.E worked over Johnny Yuma for awhile, who is honestly the worst choice for a face-in-peril guy as he’s extremely unlikable. He got a hot tag and Kevin Martenson did the babyface cleans house spot before going into the finishing stretch that involved a cluster fuck of spots and shit. There were some mistimed spots involving Johnny Yuma. Aside from his shitty existence, this was an ok match. The finish was fucking stupid though, as there was a double pin finish even though Kevin Martenson had Razor Rizzotti’s biggest fan, Ray Rosas, pinned in a Sunset Flip before Peter had Yuma countered. On top of that, a double pin in a tag team match is fucking retarded. It’s like whoever booked, planned, and laid out the match didn’t realize that the referee either should’ve counted one pin fall, not both, as one pin fall isn’t going to have the legal man involved in it. Awful finish to a decent match. Whoever booked this show did a terrible job with the booking of the tag team matches.
Rating: **
Luster The Legend vs. Kenny Lush
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zewEr79_HaU
I’ve seen Luster The Legend before, but not Kenny Lush, so I didn’t know what to expect from this match. The match started out with both guys exchanging stiff chops and strikes, and then turned into an intense brawl around the building. There was a cool spot where Luster went for a headbutt off the second rope onto Lush, but Lush countered with a triangle choke attempt that transitioned into an armbar attempt. After that, the match never really picked up steam and seemed to go at a steady pace, which sorta disappointed me as the beginning of the match was really fun and intense. The finishing stretch would’ve been ok if it started off a series of near falls or submission attempts that ended in rope breaks, but the ending felt anticlimactic as Lush tapped to a Texas Clover Leaf by Luster The Legend after he teased it a few times. Still, I enjoyed this match for what it was. Good stuff here, but nothing mind-blowing.
Rating: **3/4
QPro Women’s Tournament Finals: Shayna Baszler (w/ Nicole Savoy) vs. Hudson Envy (w/ Christina Von Eerie)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc5ITJz7_a4
After watching the first few minutes of the match, I came to the conclusion that Shayna Baszler is a better pro wrestler than A LOT of men and women who have been training longer than her. Her head kick on Hudson was also better than anyone’s strikes in PWG this year. Yes, I said that. I say it because when she slapped her leg on the kick, it wasn’t so noticeable. Watch a Young Bucks’ match, and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. She should teach them how to throw kicks.
Von Eerie and Savoy being at ringside and talking shit to each other during the match added to this also. Hudson Envy had a good performance, but she looked like she was outclassed by Baszler inside the ring as far as work goes. The finish was fucking stupid. Nicole Savoy hit Hudson Envy with a crutch, then was chased around the ring by Christina Von Eerie, avoided a knee from Baszler, hit her with an elbow before an Air Raid Crash, and won. Very anticlimactic finish for what was a good much. Baszler really impressed me, and she seems like she could go really far in pro wrestling if she wanted to. Still, the finish was terribly planned out and booked. This show has been full of bad finishes up to this point. Whoever is running this company needs to reexamine their approach to their method of booking, as fan indifference to the finish of the finals of a tournament is the worst thing you could get in wrestling, and that’s what happened here.
Rating: ***
QPro Championship Match: Adam Thornstowe (w/ Christina Von Eerie) (c) vs. Matthew Riddle
https://youtu.be/cG2Ej-t5cbU
This started out with some hold-for-hold chain wrestling and scrambles for control, until Riddle took control of Thornstowe in the corner and began to control the match for awhile on offense. Riddle hit some nice gut-wrench slams and a nice Exploder T-Bone Suplex on Thornstowe. Riddle’s execution of various moves looked very good, and he had much better mechanics than a lot of pro wrestlers with more experience than him. Thornstowe made a comeback with various double stomp maneuvers. There was a sloppy moment in the match when Thornstowe slipped up while going for a running Tornado DDT. They recovered nicely though with Riddle hitting a Fisherman Buster shortly after the botch. Riddle and Thorwstone had a really cool striking exchange that ended with Riddle hitting a German Suplex for a near fall. There was a really cool spot where Thornstowe tried to hit a standing moonsault on Riddle, only to be caught with a great Triangle Choke counter by Riddle. Thornstowe got the win after hitting a Tombstone Piledriver on Riddle after catching him on a springboard attempt, followed by a double stomp from the top rope. Despite the sloppy moments, this was a really good match and the best on the show. The standing moonsault into a triangle choke spot was really awesome. Really good stuff here.
Rating: ***1/2
Final Thoughts
Overall this was a pretty average show. There wasn’t anything spectacular overall on the show, but Shayna Baszler really impressed here. She and Matthew Riddle were the best performers on the show, and as much as a lot of people will hate to read this, they looked better than a lot of wrestlers who have been around longer than they have. The booking of the show was pretty bad, but the bright side was that most of the matches seemed to drag on too long. Still, this show left a lot to be desired. If Quintessential Pro Wrestling runs again, they need to fix their booking approach. Running in a building that doesn’t have such a low ceiling would be a good idea too. This promotion has potential to be a good alternative for people who are either unable to attend PWG events or are looking for an alternative to what we already have here in SoCal.
