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FCW-WWE TV Tapings 9/4/08 - Tampa, FL The FCW Arena Report by Big D of f4wonline.com
Florida Championship Wrestling ran it’s third REAL TV Taping from the FCW Arena in South Tampa. This was one of the dullest, most unimpressive shows I’ve ever been to and easily the worst FCW Taping yet. There have been some below average shows in the past, but the majority were really good, including last week’s which was excellent. This show left a lot to be desired.
Angela came out and prior to the start, we had a dark match that was obviously not taped for FCW TV.
Match #1: Ian Richardson and Joe Emminger defeated Greg Jackson and Brian Cage (I think thats the names). This was vanilla and vanilla versus vanilla and vanilla whos dresses like Wolverine. This match had virtually no heat. A lot of the failure of this show may have had to do with the fact that FCW drew it’s smallest crowd ever. This was downright depressing. The fans, including myself, were confused as to who the faces and heels were. Brian Cage (or whatever his name is) had the wolverine tights and beard. Ian and Joe are the most generic wrestlers I have ever seen. They’re both big white guys with arm tattoos. That’s it. Jackson has long hair… wow. Boring. Ian and Joe won the match.
Angela introduces Dusty and Brian Kelly and the taping officially begins.
Match #2: TJ Wilson defeated Afa and Ryan Braddock in a Triple Threat Match. This was about as great an opener as you can ask for and wins Match of the Night in my book. All three of these guys worked very hard. I’ve said before that Braddock isn’t exactly the most over commodity, but he did a lot to impress me with his workrate. They went out and did a bunch of really creative three-way spots, including a combination spear/samoan drop and others. The heat was shared by all three men, but there really wasn’t heat since most threeways, specially short ones, are just spotfests. TJ scored the win with a BIZARRE let submission I have never seen before, making Braddock tap out. After the match, they carried him to the back to a chorus of boos. Third week in a row he’s been “carried out”.
Match #3: Kevin Kiley vs. Mike Kruel. This was freaking deplorable. Neither guy is over. Kiley is yet another generic, pale, whitemeat babyface who has a big upper body and 1/3 of the work to match it. Kruel has been in developmental forever and still sucks. This failed on many levels. Nobody gave a damn. Kiley worked the arm and this and that. Kruel fought back. Kiley then did his little finisher, which is like a backdrop into a uranage.
Match #4: “Carnival Freak” Sinn Bowdee defeated Lupe Martinez. Lupe may be a whiter Mexican than Super Chico~! This match was designed to get Sinn Bowdee over to the television audience. Like I’ve said before, the man definitely has a look that gets people’s heads turning. Anyways, Bowdee and Lupe started trading holds and whatnot. They just did stuff. They just traded moves until Sinn won with his DDT “Tolukabella” or whatever. Sorry if I got that wrong PJ.
Then came the worst segment known to man. Daisy comes out. I took a very good look and didn’t see any cuecards or a teleprompter, which shocked me because this was as wooden a promo ever. Daisy says she doesn’t want Angela’s job anymore and now she’s the new FCW correspondent. Does anybody give a damn? The more she talks, the more horrid she sounds. This was legitimately WORSE than Maryse and Michelle’s backstage segment on Smackdown. So she calls out Scotty Goldman and Kafu in street clothes. Scotty says he found Kafu in the jungles or Brazil or something. Kafu says he’s not from the jungle blah blah. Basically they want a shot at the FCW Florida Tag Team Titles. Heath Miller and Joe Hennig come out. What a strange team this is. They say THEY want the belts. Goldman says next week, they’ll have a triple threat match for the belts. Since when is he the booker? Heath then says Daisy sucks, now acting like Edge in addition to dressing like him. Bad segment.
Match #5: DH Smith defeated Khalib O’Neal. This was basically a squash. Khalib is a new guy I’ve never seen before, to the point where I don’t even know if I spelled his name right. Smith won with a running powerslam.
Match #6: Joe Hennig and the Puerto Rican Nightmares (Primo Colon and Eric Perez) defeated FCW Florida Tag Team Champions Gavin Spears and Nick Nemeth, and Sterling Jack Gabriel. FINALLY another great match. I think this was the second best match of the night behind the opener. All six men worked very hard. Spears doing the job to Super Crazy on television is a travesty, as Roland Alexander would say. Nick Nemeth MUST stop the Billy Gunn act IMMEDIATELY. Perez is still very over and in reality this match was designed to get Curt Hennig’s son Joe Hennig, perhaps because the DVD is dropping. The end came when all six men brawled all over and then did that spot where every guy gets a chance to hit their finisher, ending with Joe Hennig hitting the Perfectplex for the 3 count. Tremendous six-man match. Afterwards, the fans chanted “That was Perfect”.
Intermission
When we return from intermission, they did a strange segment with Angela that wasn’t taped for television with two kids coming into the ring and getting to cut a promo on who will win in the FCW title match tonight. They actually came off a lot better than I had thought for a couple of kids. This took too much time though. Angela then announced Kofi Kingston next week on FCW.
Match #7: Drew McKintyre defeated Heath Miller. This was another match that few people cared about. Heath is somewhat over, but with the incredibly small crowd, it really didn’t work. Heath gets the offense early on running wild. Drew McKintyre comes back to garner heat. The best part about this match was the great PJ Burger in the crowd, harrassing Drew to the point where he was legitimately distracted several times during the match. I don’t think that this was just him reacting, because he actually flubbed up a couple of moves here and there, like he was distracted. He won with a sloppy X-Factor.
Match #8: Tiffany defeated Roucka. Tiffany comes out with legs that look like she was involved in a domestic violence situation; bruises all over. I didn’t see these on WWE TV this week. Strange. Roucka works Tiffany over the majority of this match by attacking her back. Tiffany makes small comebacks but gets cut off. Once again - nobody cared. There were a few sloppy moments but nothing that can’t be fixed with a little editing, although I suggest they omit this match from the TV version completely. Tiffany won with a schoolboy out of the corner. My eyes may have been playing games with me, but I do believe Roucka had a nipple slip during this. All I saw was a nice chocolate skittle.
D-Lo Brown comes out to a huge ovation. Crowd always wakes up for these WWE guys, plus his music is one of the more recognizable. D-Lo says that guys like John Cena and Ric Flair told him FCW is where it’s at. He says that all of the new talents of the future are here, much like every other WWE performer has said who’s appeared in FCW. D-Lo says that there are still some bad apples and troublemakers and whatnot around. So he calls out Vic Adams. This leads to…
Match #9: D-Lo Brown defeated Vic Adams. Since his partner Charles Evans was released, Vic has been floating around in multi-man matches and not being used. This was a very basic, short match. D-Lo pretty much dominated. Vic didn’t get enough offensive heat to make a difference. Crowd was cheering D-Lo for the most part. D-Lo kept this very basic, not busting out moves like the Low Down or the Shining Wizard, but he did score the pin with a Frog Splash. About 4 minutes.
Match #10: Johnny Curtis defeated Tyrone Jones. This was another absolutely awful match. Nobody cares about Johnny Curtis in that building and if anybody did, they weren’t there that night. Curtis is another vanilla whitemeat built guy who means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. No gimmick. No character. He’s just “Johnny Curtis” wearing red tights. Boring. He pretty much dominated this match, which looks bad for a bayface. Tyrone hit three or four moves, but was utterly squashed. Curtis won with some spin kick.
After the match, Black Pain ran in to attack Johnny Curtis. I guess Black Pain is friends with Tyrone Jones, but who really cares? Curtis is saved by his old tag partner Gabe Tuft. Tuft chased Pain and Jones away. Tuft and Curtis went back to back, then end up punching each other at the same time. They are still teasing the breakup between Curtis and Tuft.
Match #11: Sheamus O Shaunessy defeated FCW Florida Heavyweight Champion Jake Hager via disqualification. This PISSED ME OFF. They built this match up last week with Sheamus winning a wild four-way match to earn this shot. This match was heel vs. heel and unless you have a kick-ass match with two super over heels, it won’t work. Sheamus and Hager are over enough in FCW to make this work, but failed. They started out slow with lockups and whatnot. Sheamus starts to beat down Hager, including launching him into the steel steps. Sheamus gets a whole crapful of offense, more than most have gotten on Hager. Lots of heat. This felt like it lasted forever. Hager did a comeback, but it was tough to cheer because he is also a heel. Sheamus did a bicycle kick and Hager wound up on the outside. They start fighting at ringside and apparently Hager either hit Sheamus with something or threw him into an object and the referee called the match off and disqualified him. Hager then walked off with the title and Sheamus looked hurt and mad. Some disqualification finishes can work to get a future match over, but this was not one of them. Good match up until the finish, which truly put the cherry on top of an awful taping.
As I said, this was the worst FCW show yet. A handful of matches nobody cared about with a crappy finish to the main event, plus no heat with the crowd and a very small crowd. The booking was honestly dull and some of the finishes lacked any sort of thought. Hopefully next week will be better.
Quick Notes:
- D-Lo Brown and the Bella Twins were signing autographs.
- Next week, Kofi Kingston will be in action next week.
- No news on TV. I know these episodes are definitely airing. Quite frankly, I’m sick of asking about it.
- Dusty Rhodes looked notably upset. Each time we looked over at him in the corner doing commentary, he had his arms crossed and looked upset at something. I have no idea what that’s about.
- Crowd size looked to be about 50-60 people, which is bad. A portion of the hard cam front row left halfway through.
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