Finest City Wrestling held their latest show on October 15th, titled Guess Who’s Next. The show was setup like a PWG Mystery Vortex show with no lineup or matches announced ahead of time (other than announcing all three champions would be there). There was also a big announcement of some sort being teased as well.
The show was on a Sunday, which is rare for FCW, bVisit Siteut they still managed to draw a decent sized crowd. It looked like they actually had to put more chairs out because of the draw. That’s a pretty good for a show with no matches or lineup announced.
Alonzo Alvarez defeated Lucas Riley in 10:00
Both of these wrestlers are out of Santino Bros. and both are likely 2017 rookie of the year candidates. I thought this was good. Both guys have a ton of potential, and while I’m sure they’ve worked and trained together a bunch, that doesn’t take away from the nice match they had. Alonzo Alvarez won by submission.
Rating: ***
K.C. Douglas defeated Michael Hopkins in 9:03
KC Douglas and Michael Hopkins came out as their tag-team, AK Rambe, but FCW promoter came to the ring and told them they were having a singles match. They faced each other in their pro-wrestling debuts, which Michael Hopkins won. There were a few moments in this where it didn’t come off very crisp, but for the most part the match was technically solid. I think one of the biggest things for both of these guys is just to get more matches in which will help them pick up the tempo. KC Douglas won, evening their series at one win each. It wasn’t announced but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a third match at some point.
Rating: ** 1/4
Corey Jackson defeated Jake Atlas in 11:26
This was pretty good, but was hampered by a few sloppy moments and the pacing being off. Still, this was pretty good. It’s great to see Cory Jackson getting a nice variety of opponents too. His match with Joe Heiken earlier in the year is still one of the top 5 matches in FCW for 2017. It’s looking like we are going to get a heel turn for Jake Atlas, with him refusing to shake Jackson’s hand after the match.
Rating: ** 1/2
B-Boy defeated Ray Rosas, Andy Brown, and Adrian Quest in a Four Corners Match in 12:05
This was first announced as a triple threat with Ray Rosas, Adrian Quest, and Andy Brown, but then B-Boy was added to the match. Ray and B-Boy start brawling before B-Boy was even in the ring. As they fought back towards the ring Quest and Brown hit topes on them both. I thought this was good with parts of it bordering on excellent. The biggest thing I didn’t like about the match was in a four-way like this there shouldn’t be a lull in the action, and twice everyone was laid out and nothing was going on. Ray Rosas was saved by Damian Arsenick from getting destroyed by the other three wrestlers and they left the match. B-Boy hit a chickenwing piledriver on Quest to get the pin. This was good.
Rating: *** 1/4
Dirty Ron McDonald, Matt Twizted, and Mike Gotch defeated Darwin Finch, Jacob Diez, and Donnie Suarez in 15:05
This was bad. For starters the teams were pretty uneven. Diez, Finch, Suarez, and Dirty Ron can all put in a good performance, but when three of the four are on one side unless Dirty Ron was going to do the lion’s share of the wrestling things could get ugly. Things got ugly. Neither Twizted nor Gotch were very good in this. On top of that there really was no structure to the match. Just lots of poor looking brawling and comedy with people making Darwin Finch scream. I’m not sure if Donnie Suarez is injured, but he didn’t do a lot in the match. Diez and Dirty Ron looked good when they were in together, which gives hope for their eventual singles match.
Rating: 3/4 *
D’Marco Wilson defeated Mariachi Loco in 18:10
This was announced as a no-DQ match with a 15 minute time limit. I’m not sure why they bothered with the no-DQ part, as nothing was done in the match that would have gotten anyone DQ’d from any other match. The pacing wasn’t good on this and the match really drug at times. It felt almost like they planned out a 10 minute match that was going to be really good and drug it out to 20 minutes without adding anything. It was still a decent match, but it could have really benefitted from being more compact.
Rating: ** 1/4
After the match D’Marco Wilson demanded a shot at some gold, and said it didn’t have to be FCW gold. Gus Parsons came to the ring and announced Douglas James would be returning to FCW on November 18th and Wilson would face him for the PCW Light Heavyweight title.
Eli Everfly defeated Peter Avalon via Disqualification at 13:04 to retain the FCW Lightweight Championship
This is a pairing I never knew we needed until it was announced. Eli and Peter matched up really well. Early on there was a pretty crazy spot where Eli did a Sliced Bread #2 on Avalon on the ring apron. They kept up a pretty fast pace throughout the match and everything looked good. Eli was about to get Peter to tap, when Damian pulled him from the ring causing a disqualification. This was really good, and the best match of the three San Diego area shows over the weekend.
Rating: *** 1/2
After the match the rest of H.A.T.E came out and beat Eli down, leading right into the next match.
Tito Escondido defeated Brody King in 7:06 to retain the FCW Heavyweight Championship
Early on in this Tito and Brody were brawling near the concession stand and Tito hit Brody with a full order of nachos. Brody had cheese covering half his face and all over his body. He looked like a cheese version of Two Face. You could smell the nacho cheese for the rest of the match as well. Both guys looked great in this. Brody just gets better and better. For his size he can really fly. This was really developing into a pretty good match but it felt like it didn’t have enough time and ended somewhat abruptly. Still, this was good.
Rating: ***
This was a good show from FCW with everything aside from one match being above average to really good. They haven’t really established anyone for Tito yet, outside of maybe B-Boy, but other than that the show also did a good job of building towards the next show.
FCW will be back on November 18th with Douglas James versus D’Marco Wilson scheduled as well as Eli Everfly versus Tito Escondido in a no-DQ non-title match.
