Welcome, one and all, to my latest OVW TV review. This week’s episode comes with the tagline ‘Is This The End?’. Let’s dive right in.
OVW Episode 1025
On commentary this week is Gilbert Corsey, Josh Ashcraft, and Shannon The Dude.
We open with a recap of Dustin Jackson being told that he should retire. This has been a great feud, and it’ll be cool to see how it does all end. We then cut to the commentary team who run down the significant things coming up.
First up is the OVW TV Title Gauntlet. Our first competitor is Brandon Wolfe, and he’s taking on Chace Destiny. Plenty of speedy exchanges here, including a beautiful top-rope belly-to-belly suplex from Chace. Brandon sneaks the win with a quick roll-up and a handful of tights after one minute twenty. The defending champion, Dimes, is out next. Brandon dives straight in and takes over with some old school eye rakes on the ropes. Some more nice exchanges from the competitors here. While perhaps a little sloppy at times, Brandon Wolfe obviously has a lot of potential. While he came out of this looking good, he eventually came up short after Dimes hit the Change Maker at the three and a half minute mark.
DL3 is out next, and after a distraction by Shiloh Jonze, takes control of the match. A quick post-commercial recap shows that Entourage 2.0 are the difference makers again this week. Nice finish sequence with Shiloh stopping Dime from hitting the Change Maker, only for him to reverse a suplex attempt and hit it anyway for the win after four minutes twenty. Shiloh enters immediately and is all over Dimes. I’ve gotta say, while the stable is described as a group of goofs, and Shiloh certainly has some cheesy mannerisms, he’s really effective in his role. You could see him as a titleholder without it being a joke, even with all the shenanigans. This as looking to be more of the same, i.e. heel takes over early on, and Dimes heroically fights back for a quick win, but they switched things up with Dimes having an extended bout of being on top before hitting a sunset flip for the pin after three minutes ten.
Big D heads straight into the ring, but his attempt to charge Dimes sees him dumped to the outside and hit with a dive. DL3 smashes Dimes with the title belt while the referee deals with Shiloh, and then Big D starts using his power advantage. The big man is not as polished as his stablemates, it has to be said. Like, at one point he misses a clothesline but swings it higher than Dimes anyway. And late. That’s a very rookie mistake to make. Really, you should always be throwing it as though you’re going to hit it. Dimes scores the fall with another sunset flip at the two-minute mark. The rest of Entourage 2.0 jump in after the match and start beating down the champ. Chace Destiny and Zo run in for the save.
That was decent overall, though not as tight as some gauntlets we’ve had. At around twelve and a half minutes total though, it was well placed. I give the match ** ½. Given the antics of Entourage 2.0, I’m assuming this will head into a six-man tag match, perhaps with Shiloh scoring the pin over Dimes to earn a one-on-one match. I’m fine with that.
Backstage, Sam Thompson gets some verbal abuse, continuing his feud with Ca$h Flo. A short but effective segment that let Sam show some intensity. Next up, Colton Cage is running the ‘funeral of Dustin Jackson’. He has a casket in the ring, sad piano music playing, and a bunch of stills of Dustin on screen. Colton gets some heat from the fans as he and Dani ham it up. As expected, Dustin eventually pops out of the casket, head still bandaged, and drives the heels off. Gilbert gets in the ring to talk to him, and he makes it clear that he’s going to tear Colton apart, whether he’s cleared to wrestle or not. They build up the risk to Dustin if he steps into a cage match, and Gilbert produces a ‘hold harmless’ agreement, which would allow the match to go ahead with no risk to OVW as an entity. Dustin signs, and the crowd cheers.
We get a promo from the OVW Southern Tag Team Champions, The War Kings. The screen is black though, which is odd. King’s Ransom responds, and the screen is still black. The promos were mostly good, but there was an uncomfortable edge to the War Kings calling their foes ‘ Queen’s Ransom’ and the challengers responding that ‘If you’re beaten by two queens, what does that make you?” Depending on how you want to approach it, that could be seen as homophobic, misogynistic or both. That aside, the promos were fine, it’s just a shame about the video.
The commentators run down the main part of the Saturday Night Special card. The big matches have all had some good build, so it’s looking good. Jay Lee and Valerie Vermin then enter to hype Jay Lee’s match on the card against her former companion Cali. Jay Lee is, in my opinion, the best talker on the female roster. Valerie Vermin mentions that she beat Cali last week so can be added to the match to make it a three-way, and Jay Lee goes nuts and beats Valerie down. This might actually be the true end of The It Girls. I suspect Valerie will indeed be added to the match and that Cali will retain.
We get a recap of last week’s angle with Tony Gunn, Justin Smooth and Al Snow. The champ then enters to find out who Justin has picked for him to face and we get ‘Shotgun’ Tony Gunn vs. Ca$h Flo. Good pick by Justin there. Despite the positive reaction he’s been getting from the crowd, I still feel like they’re trying to turn Justin Smooth here. This was everything I wanted from these two; power moves from Ca$h, a gutsy fightback from Gunn, and the commentary team doing a great job of pointing out the importance of the match in terms of the Gunn vs. Smooth feud. Tony drops Ca$h with the Kill Shot, but Tony leaves the ring to attack Justin, and the match is thrown out. ***1/2 to end the show.
The final show before the Saturday Night Special felt a little toned down from last week, but that’s fine. The main matches on the special have had a good amount of build, and things are looking good for the promotion here. The technical issues were unfortunate, but there you go. All in, a good episode.
