Championship Wrestling From Hollywood Episode 301 Review

On this episode, Tito Escondido vs. Brody King, Scorpio Sky vs. Tyler Bateman, and the return of SoCal’s biggest scumbag.

To watch this episode of Championship Wrestling From Hollywood, or to check out shows from promotions such as ROH, check out the Fite TV app. On an unrelated note, ROH 15h Anniversary PPV was really good and I highly recommend checking it out on the Fite TV app.

The episode opens up with the commentators standing in front of the audience and welcoming people to the show. They go over what’s going on with Peter Avalon and the fake Marquez son, and hype a United Wrestling Network TV Championship rematch between Scorpio Sky and Tyler Bateman. The outdated intro is played.

Scorpio Sky entered the ring and waited for Bateman. After Bateman’s music is played for a while without him coming out, everyone starts to wonder what’s up. Turns out he was attacked by Jarek 1:20 in the back. Jarek also jacked Tyler’s hat, which was pretty fucked up. Dave Marquez could be seen in the background being very indifferent to Tyler Bateman being attacked. Nobody in the ring or the crowd knew what was going on. Bateman ended up crawling to ringside the way Sky did when he was attacked before one of their previous matches while Jarek 1:20 stood around at ringside.

United Wrestling Network Television Championship Match: Scorpio Sky (c) vs. Tyler Bateman

Bateman was wobbly on his feet to start the match to sell Jarek’s beating prior to the match while still throwing strikes at Sky. The match consisted mostly of strikes before Sky finished off Bateman quickly with a flying knee. There really wasn’t anything to write about this match, as it felt like a throwaway match. It advanced a storyline, but it could’ve been done way better.

Backstage, the chick is interviewing effeminate Yuma. He stumbled over his opening line. He wanted to face Dicky Maier because he was a former PP3 Cup winner. He sounded like a total fucking dork in this promo. So he invites Dicky Maier over from off camera, and of course the rest of the Pac 3 are with him. They acted obnoxiously, and Yuma challenged Dicky to “friendly competition” and sounded like an even bigger dork than he did moments before. Dicky accepted the challenge. Yuma thankfully leaves and Pac 3 talk about being in a match for the #1 contender spot for the tag team titles. Pac 3 neglect Dicky when they eat cupcakes. There was so much cringe in this one segment.

After a commercial, they show footage of Jarek 1:20 attacking Bateman during the break with Sky making the save. This was a nice touch.

Big Duke vs. Nick Cutler

You may recognize Nick Cutler as a guy who was squashed on Monday Night Raw once last year. He got some offense in on Duke, including a fisherman suplex. Duke made a comeback and got the win with a running knee strike. Sky won with this same move in the first match, so that sorta watered down this finish. Over the match was pretty boring and pointless.

Post match shenanigans: Toasterdork Grant interviews Duke at ringside. He wants to win the Hollywood Heritage title.

After a commercial, Jervis Cottonbelly is in the ring. Ugh. He says he’s issuing an open challenge to any one of his students for an exhibition match. Out comes Koto Hiro. He says he’s from Japan and wants to become an America. He asks Jervis if he could help him. The fuck?

Jervis Cottonbelly vs. Koto Hiro

The commentary guys gave a story of how Guy Cool saved Koto Hiro from drowning in the ocean or something on his boat, and it might’ve been the only time these guys ever said anything funny. The match itself wasn’t bad. Koto Hiro got a decent showcase of offense in, including a swinging fisherman’s neck breaker that caused Jervis to land on his head. They did a spot with an invisible sword, and then Jervis won after countering a sunset flip pin attempt. I shit on Jervis a lot (and for good reasons) but he was ok here. Plus I’d much rather watch a decent Jervis match than see a shitty Kevin Condron angle.

Inside the ring after a commercial break, the fake Marquez son introduces Peter Avalon. Peter comes out in a suit and cuts a promo.He says if Tito Escondido interrupted the promo, he’d be suspended by Marquez’s fake son. Fans started turning their backs on Peter. During his promo, some cheaply made dance music plays, and SoCal’s biggest scumbag Ray Rosas made his long awaited return to CWFH. Nice to see CWFH upgrading their main event scene from fake Russians who suck to guys who are actually good, even if they’re scumbags. He tries to reason with Peter and asks him what got into him. Peter simply calls Ray a failure in so many ways. A non-title match between the two for next week is made. Peter leaves and we go to commercial with Ray standing alone in the ring.

Backstage, Josh Shibata is interviewing Astro Viajero and Espiritu cut a promo about the main event. Astro said he traveled the galaxy and found the best partner. Yes, the perfect partner who was the one took the fall in a match where he teamed with Yuma against the Classic Connection. Awesome logic and booking foresight by CWFH here. Espiritu talked more and it was lame.

Brody King vs. Tito Escondido

This was the best match of the show even though it was really short and was in front of a shitty crowd. It was a really good modern heavyweight style match that had some nice spots and flowed really well. The pacing was pretty good and things were pretty even between the two. Tito got the win in this one. Good stuff overall, but it would’ve been better if it were longer and didn’t have the distracting fake crowd noise in the background. That shit really needs to fucking go.

Pac 3 (Dylan Bostic and Dan Joseph w/ Dicky Maier and Coach Flexo) vs. Astro Viajero and Espiritu

There was a bunch of stalling and heel work by Bostic to start, and a bunch of basic shit from Espiritu. Viajero (Adrian Quest) hit a nice tope onto Pac 3, and the fake crowd noise began to get even more fucking annoying than usual. Dan Joseph hit a nice german suplex on Espiritu that he set up after jumping over the top rope to get into the ring from the apron. Dan Joseph has been doing a better job lately at being less basic and forgettable. Like before I couldn’t tell him apart from Todd Chandler. Pac 3 worked over Espiritu for a while before getting the standard hot tag spot to Viajero, who ended up doing the standard babyface fire spot where he got a bunch of offense in. Viajero hit a nice running shooting star press. Viajero and Espiritu got the win and earn a tag team title match at “Coastline Clash,” whenever the fuck that is. This match was pretty uneventful and very formulaic until Astro Viajero did his hot tag spot.

Post match shenanigans: Pac 3 were all upset while the babyface team celebrated.

Final Thoughts

This episode of CWFH felt like it was thrown together sloppily and not planned out very well. On one hand, they went back to doing good things again with the way they were able to get TV time for their angles like the Sky/Bateman/Jarek 1:20 story, Peter Avalon’s rise to power, following up on Big Duke after he won a major feud, and building up a tag team title match. Still though, the booking and format issues continue to hinder this show. There were five matches, FIVE FUCKING MATCHES, on a one hour program. When you factor in things like commercial breaks, there’s only about 45-48 minutes of TV time this show can utilize. On top of that, there were two pre match angles, three interviews/promos, and a long angle. Cutting pointless matches (like Duke/Cutler and Jervis/Koto Hiro) and adding more time to the Sky/Bateman segment and Tito/Brody would’ve benefitted this show and the workers more. It was a good match for what it was, but the lack of time and importance hurt what could’ve been a standout match for this program.

The Sky/Bateman rematch felt like a pointless throwaway match that only served to advance a storyline. Repetitive matches are going to do nothing for either Sky, Bateman, or Jarek 1:20. The angle at the beginning of this episode isn’t going to draw heat for the angle because of because CWFH did nothing to make a championship rematch between two of its top stars seem important. It also makes Sky’s title matches look very unimportant when the audience just sees he’s in a match with no build up. This also applies to the way other champions are booked on this program.

Another problem with the booking lately is that Tito Escondido has had his character ruined by not having his character running around being a pissed off babyface looking revenge. The way the show worked Peter saying the fake Marquez would suspend Tito if he interrupted Peter was smart, but done in the wrong way. A simple suspension threat shouldn’t be enough to sell the fact that these heels screwed over a (now) babyface who would destroy them if he got his hands on them. The least they should’ve done was have Tito come out, get cut off by security, and then threatened to be suspended if he didn’t leave before Ray Rosas came out moments later in the promo.

Again, this episode overall felt thrown together sloppily. It lacked flow and excitement. The fake crowd noise continues to be the most annoying aspect of this show.

Check out the Fite TV app to see this and more episodes of CWFH.