Got Kurt RussellReunion II today from Highspots - awesome show. The opening 8-person tag was a lot of fun, with some comedy, and some pretty fast action at points. Aguilera-Bucanero was okay, although Aguila looked a bit off and botched easily the most convoluted setup for a
ing bodyslam I've ever seen. He did the wacky top rope leap-armdrag deal, slipped on the ropes, finally got up there, dive a flip...and just held onto his opponent so he could hit a slam. Made RVD's matches seem downright realistic by comparison.
Helms-Joey Ryan featured Helms cutting the best promo of his career...when it was audible, and Joey Ryan's new look is great. It's a step up from his pure comedy '70s porn star deal, but still manages to make him look like a sleazy mother
er, so it works. Helms' indy red and black gear looks really good, but the Hurrigut has to go. Joey Ryan was supposed to be a heel here, but Hurricane was beyond hated for knocking HBK. Ryan did, finally, turn himself heel by cutting a promo against the fans for not appreciating his technical greatness. Then he won and they chanted "don't come back" at Helms. The match itself was kinda not much because Helms didn't really do a whole lot, but everything but it was at least really amusing.
Low-Ki-Davey Richards was a good mix of ground work and stiff kicks. Loved Low-Ki hitting a double stomp to counter the Alarm Clock and the finish teasing, then delivering the Warrior's Way was really well done.
Roberts-Kizarny was just what it needed to be - an easy match for Jake to look as good as possible in. Kizarny's gear now has teddy bears on it. Jake got pretty emotional when the crowd chanted " thank you, Jake" at him, which was nice. Jake's punches still looked better than 90% of the ones thrown nowadays. The match went about five minutes with lots of stalling, but they teased the DDT throughout, and then delivered. Well, as much as possible - Jake can't take the back bump for the DDT anymore, so he just kinda fell on his side. Still, I expected worse, and this was okay. Easier to get through than Cole-Lawler or Bret-Vince because it didn't go any longer than it needed to.
Bill Apter and Mean Gene doing the WrestleRoyal pre-match stuff was awesome. They had some really classy intro for Orndorff, Sheiky, Harley Race, Masa Saito, who actually ran the ropes pretty quickly. The match started off with Danny Davis and Mike Graham, who is in his 60s and has ink on both arms. He and Danny did a lock-up and he nearly fell on his ass breaking away from it. Then he did a headlock, which of course, he invented. The usual DVD menu music they have works for that, but boy is it ever terrible for entrance music as a replacement for the real stuff they used and they muted everything else to get it in there, so you sometimes can't even hear guys being introduced. The "
him up, Jimmy,
him up" chant for Hart ruled. Barry O came out in a T-Shirt and and purple and yellow plaid shorts, tried to do the leap over the ropes and just
ed it up massively. Barbarian came out and looked pretty close to what he did in his day.
Rock Riddle came out and looked old in floral Lawler-ish gear. Shane Douglas looked to be in better shape than he was in TNA last year. Warlord looks more intimidating with some grey in his beard. CHAVO CLASSIC came out and was hilarious when he doubled crossed Warlord twice. Helms came out and got booed louder than anyone else. Bob Orton Jr. came out and his poor arm still hasn't healed yet. A fat guy in like green tights with yellow trunks and a mask came out and did jumping jacks. Mondo Guerrero wore, I think, a black women's tank top of some sort. Even coming after said fat man in green, this was odd. TERRY FUNK came out and attacked Shane Douglas one last time. Savio Vega came out and looked fantastic - hasn't aged much since the mid-'90s and he moved pretty well. Piper came out and POKED BOB ORTON JR IN THE EYES. How dare he treat his bodyguard like that. Sean Moley hit the ring with an "I LOVE RATS" shirt. Piper poked more eyes. Tatanka and Vampiro came out, didn't do much. Dudes got eliminated and actually looked decent with the over the top bumps. Terry Funk and Piper were the last two, and Funk's speech about needing to pray to pay homage to the lost wrestlers was
ing awesome. He made himself into the ultimate face, thanked the people there, those in heaven, and then bonked Piper with the mic and then kept beating him up. Piper looked fantastic moving around here. They they did crowd brawling before it became a battle royal again, they had an awesome punch exchange that everyone who worked the show should've learned something from, and then good triumphed over evil as Piper eliminated that vile, egg-sucking dog Terry Funk.
Hero-Steen was a good brawl. Steen's dive off the lighting rig was...something. Hard to tell exactly what since he was cloaked in darkness thanks to poor lighting, ironically enough. So yeah, that wasn't exactly the smartest of moves to do. Luckily, no one got hurt, so the action afterwards was able to be fast-paced. The cyclone kill spin kick looked fantastic and worked nicely as a finish.
The four-way tag with the Bucks was full of wacky, flippy-dos and solid tag action. GTS>Rolling elbow combo was a great near-fall, and was far more logical than the actual finish - the RockNES Monsters doing an FU to the other guy onto the opponents and winning. Steen beat the
out of them, which I enjoyed. Claudio-Generico was a lot of fun. Loved the HUGE throw into the (very) European Uppercut and the long tease for the Ricola bomb -including one off the top that got countered into a rana. The spinning stretch muffler made for an awesome finish. Joey Ryan's post-match attack built up his future title match well, Hero coming to make the save was great, and then Claudio said he'd kick Joey's ass and pinpointed which parts of the ring he'd do it in.
ing awesome. I enjoyed last year's RussellMania show, and the sequel was even better. It might tempting to just hit up a torrent for the show, but buy it if you can - you'll definitely get $20 of value out of it.
