Ground Zero held their fifth show this past Saturday, June 2nd in Imperial Beach. The show was set to feature a match between Douglas James and Tito Escondido that had been built up online for several months with the two wrestlers trash talking each other.
I meant to get a review of the show up earlier, but there were some light switches that needed to be changed. Having somehow made it my entire life without changing a light switch before, I ended up shocking myself and slicing my thumb on this first attempt. In the end my bathroom has new light switches, but I felt my performance wasn’t great and if there was a LightSwitchUncensored.com they would certainly give me a bad rating.
Onto the show itself.
The crowd seemed to be bigger than most previous Ground Zero shows, and likely more than FCW ever drew in the same building. It is a good sign that the crowds continue to increase, and shows Ground Zero is doing something right.
Dicky Mayer defeated Max McManus via submission. (10:15)
This match was an odd choice to start the show with, as normally promotions will start with something faced paced that has lots of high spots to get the crowd going. Instead this was more technical with lots of mat work. This also featured a lot of hard strikes, with McManus taking quite a bit of punishment. I dug this, but it felt like they lost the crowd at times. Mayer got McManus to tap with a choke.
AK Rambe (KC Douglas & Michael Hopkins) defeated True Grit (Jesse James & Hoss Hogg). (15:02)
The first two matches probably should have been switched around in the order, as this was everything you’d want from an opener. They did the typical speed versus power match, but this was a lot of fun. AK Rambe is starting to get more comfortable working outside of their circle and have gotten a lot smoother. The match could have had a few minutes cut off and been a lot tighter, but it was good and who knew the marathon the show would later turn into.
Ju Dizz defeated Fidel Bravo. (11:54)
I’m not sure what happened to Fidel Bravo’s hair. It felt like he lost a bet. Bravo has had a really good run the last year plus, especially in EWF where his heel work has been fantastic and Ju Dizz is pretty under rated and should be getting more exposure. With that being said, I didn’t feel like there was a whole lot to this match. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good. It just was.
B-Boy & Andy Brown defeated Chris Bey & Suede Thompson. (20:35)
This was billed as the promotion’s first Stand Your Ground match, where two Southern California representatives would defend their turf from two invaders from Las Vegas. It hasn’t been made clear what they are fighting for though. Is it just pride or are their bigger consequences? The match itself was really good whatever the reason for the territorial warfare. Suede Thompson and Chris Bey did a really crazy move where Thompson suplexed Bey into a 450 for a pin attempt. The match went over 20 minutes but it never felt like it was long and was really well put together. Brown hit a package piledriver on Thompson to get the pin.
Eli Everfly defeated Jake Atlas. (20:50)
There was an intermission before this match. This was originally supposed to be a three-way with SoCal Crazy but he couldn’t be at the show for some reason. So we got last year’s SoCal Wrestler of the Year versus last year’s SoCal Rookie of the Year. There were a lot of dives to the outside in this. At one point Atlas lifted up the padding around the ring and later Everfly took a bump in that area that sounded crazy from where I was at, but I couldn’t see it. His back was all cut up after, but I’m not sure what happened or if it happened at that moment. As you’d expect there were a lot of high risk spots in this. The match was a lot of fun, but could have been shorter.
Tyler Bateman defeated Owen Travers via pinfall (Death From Above). (12:52)
I really liked the story they were telling with this match. Travers had a shoulder brace on during the match and would favor his right shoulder. He would get frustrated with the punishment Bateman was giving him and try to do something flashy like a handspring and completely collapse to the mat because of the shoulder. Eventually Travers powered through the pain and was able to take it to Bateman with a series of strikes. There was a headbutt sequence that knocked both wrestlers down and as Bateman was falling on Travers he hit his Death From Above finisher and got the pin. . This was well paced ad they managed to get across the story they wanted to tell without going long. I thought this was really good.
Delilah Doom defeated Ruby Raze via submission. (21:40)
A couple of shows back Raze saved Doom from a beatdown by heather Monroe and now they are facing each other. The match started off with some chain wrestler before turning into an all out fight. Doom was using her speed to counter Raze’s power, and both took a lot of punishment in this. Raze had blood coming out of her nose and mouth half way into it, getting blood all over Doom’s legs. Doom had her gear ripped as well. After Raze got Doom to tap they hugged in the ring before Raze laid Doom out with a lariat.
Douglas James defeated Tito Escondido via pinfall (Frogsplash). (13:43)
This had a lot of intensity. The wrestlers started out in each other’s faces, and when the ref tried to separate them they took out the ref. This brought out another ref with the same result. They strarted fighting and were fighting all over the outside of the ring. Eventually they got back in the ring and referee Jeremy Marcus had recovered enough to have the bell rung and start the match. James and Escondido kept the intensity level high and really had a great performance here. There were a lot of near falls and nice counters, including James countering Escondido’s Fade to Black finisher. James got the win but Escondido laid him out with the Fade to Black after the match. This was my match of the night, and hopefully not the end of this feud.
It was a weird show in that if you take all the matches individually they were good, but the way the show was structured it was just way too long. As a wise man said, people don’t want to endure a wrestling show, they want to be left wanting more. I think when the show comes out on video it will come across a lot better because it will be easier to digest in parts. It’s certainly worth tracking down the Stand Your Ground Match and the last three matches on the show.
