After a good debut show Ground Zero was back on February 3, 2018 with Phase 2. Headlining the show was the debut of Brody King and Killer Kross to the promotion.
The crowd for Phase 2 seemed like it was larger than for the debut show, with quite a few people standing. With OWA running a few blocks away, the crowd actually grew bigger throughout the first few matches as the OWA show ended.
Before the show was a quick awards ceremony for the 2017 Southern California wrestling award winners. After that was over the show started about 15 minutes after the scheduled bell time.
Corey Jackson over Dominick Kubrick [6’27]
Corey Jackson came out and was upset he didn’t win any year end awards. He then claimed that he was the Most Awesome and Most Iconic Wrestler of the Year. A big trophy was then brought out. This was a lot better than Corey Jackson versus SoCal Crazy from Ground Zero’s debut show. In that match Jackson and Crazy never seemed to get on the same page. Dominick Kubrick is really solid for his experience level, and his character work is more developed than a lot of wrestlers who have been around years. This was short, but fairly solid.
Rating: ** 1/2
Ray Rosas over Mike Camden [12’20]
This was the battle of the beards. I’m not sure if it was planned, or an accident but the two wrestlers even wore matching gear. Both wrestlers looked really good technically but there wasn’t a lot of emotion in this and they had trouble drawing the crowd in. The pace they wrestled at was a lot faster than the match before it (or after) which really made it stand out. This will probably be one of those matches that come out better on video than it did live.
Rating: ** 3/4
Ruby Raze, Delilah Doom, & Terex over Azrael, Donnie Suarez, & Biagio Crescenzo [8’12]
Delilah Doom has so much charisma and her enthusiasm is so infectious when she comes out. This was the first time the crowd really came alive. Unfortunately the match was the weakest on the card. Delilah Doom and Raze looked good when they were paired with Donnie Suarez, who looked great in this, but the other three wrestlers didn’t have a strong showing. Both Terex and Biagio Crescenzo seemed like they were out of position at times and forgot what they were going to do. Azrael didn’t look good in this at all, which is a shame because he had a really good match with D’Marco Wilson recently at FIST. He was actually replacing Jacob Diez, who was out with injury. Diez was ringside with Lois Grain but didn’t really have any impact on the match. Doom got Azrael to tap to end it.
Rating: ** 1/4
B-Boy over Chris Bey [16’16]
Starting with this match the show really took a turn towards being really good. The crowd was really hot too. B-Boy delivered lots of strikes that would wobble Bey but Bey countered with his speed and high flying. He did a tope con giro that not only cleared the top rope but almost completely cleared B-Boy who was in the crowd as well. The back and forth in this was great. Bey’s personality really comes through as well. There was a point where they braked that seemed to throw the pacing a bit off, but other than that this was really good. B-Boy won with his chickenwing piledriver.
Rating: *** 3/4
Eli Everfly over Suede Thompson [14’15]
Right now it seems like every Eli Everfly match on any show is at a different level as far as the speed and just the craziness of the stuff he does. This was no different. Suede Thompson went all out in this too, and did a great job of matching Everfly’s level. Thompson will occasionally interrupt the flow of his matches to do some comedy, but there was none of that here. This was just a great performance by both guys. They did a Spanish Fly off the apron to the floor that looked nuts. Everfly won this with a sort of chickenwing destroyer. This was as good as Eli Everfly versus Andy Brown from Ground Zero’s first show and a strong early match of the month contender.
Rating: **** 1/4
Aerial Instinct (Jake Atlas & Lucas Riley) over AK Rambe (Michael Hopkins & KC Douglas) [11’23]
It’s hard having to follow that last match, but this was still a good match. Atlas and Riley work really good as a team. Douglas took a lot of punishment before Hopkins was able to get tagged in. There was some really good selling by Douglas. Hopkins flew almost across the entire ring to deliver an upper cut. Hopkins has been looking really good lately. The match was good, but they had a hard time recapturing the crowd after the last match.
Rating: ***
Tyler Bateman over Peter Avalon [11’11]
I thought this was good, and they worked a different match than anything else. There were lots of stiff strikes in this, with Avalon taking a lot of punishment. I wish they had a little more time to build this up. Bateman won with the Death from Above.
Rating: *** 1/4
Killer Kross over Brody King in a knockout match [6’44]
Killer Kross came out to the ring and said that the audience had already seen every type of match, except a heavyweight knockout match Brody King agreed to the match, and now we have a match that could only be won by a 10 count knockout. I applaud them for trying something completely different than anything else, but in 2018 this type of match is hard to pull off. First, every time a wrestler goes down the ref breaks them up and starts a 10 count. That really kills the flow of the action and leads to lots of dead spots. Second, everyone has seen MMA and the quick knockouts there making the 10 count knockout seem dated. Plus it is a weird stipulation for a first meeting and something like that should be saved for the end of a feud.
With all that being said, when they matched up it was great. Brody King can work any style and had no problem looking great here. Killer Kross has some pretty strong looking offense and looked great too. The flow was completely thrown off by the 10 counts, and the match was really short however, which really took away from it. Kross was able to get the KO on King was almost to his feet when the ref counted 10. Based on the parts in between the 10 counts I would like to see a rematch between the two.
Rating: ** 1/2
This was a pretty strong show for Ground Zero’s second show. Overall I thought it was better than the debut show. So far the promotion has done a great job of putting together interesting matches while they start to build their storylines, allowing the storylines to develop in a natural way rather than forcing them.
The second half of the show is definitely worth checking out when the video gets released on YouTube, with B-Boy versus Chris Bey and Eli Everfly versus Suede Thompson worth going out of your way to watch.
Ground Zero returns on March 31 with Douglas James making his debut in the promotion to face Andy Brown in the main event.
