Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

By Nicholas Jason Lopez

“Notes In Observance” features random thoughts and analysis on recent television shows. Quick results can be found at the bottom of the post.

(Aired 5/21/16)

Killin’ And Thrillin’ 

– The opening in-ring segment with The Wrecking Crew did a good job as it set perspective on the heel faction’s goal to overturn their recent rut and hyped the main event to determine a new WCWC Pacific Northwest Champion as we learned that Grappler III would compete. Also liked that he “renamed” himself The Grappler since he alleged he put the original on the shelf.

– Nick Bugatti’s a charisma machine between his long brown hair, “BU!” ring attire and constant poses. He didn’t make a bad partner for Ethan HD and could even fit in the “Kate Carney Presents…” midcard stable. Of course, the match with Bugatti/Ethan HD and The Whirlwind Gentlemen served as another notch in the WG victory belt. The in-ring action was there, but never truly took off like we hoped it would. Other than Bugatti’s self-obsessed dramatic antics, not much to write about but we do applaud WG going over. On that note, the Magnum Opus double-team finisher was pretty. What’s next for the Neon City warriors?

– Kassius Koonz has also come into his own as a character. He’s like a mix of Brian Pillman and Trevor from Grand Theft Auto V and seemingly a natural fit for The Wrecking Crew stable. The Wrecking Crew’s backstage segment focused on Blanchard and how he told Koonz he needed to “raise his game,” to which Koonz replied he was the recent runner-up in The Grappler’s tournament and that he got things done when it mattered. So basically, Blanchard put pressure on Koonz to win and we got inadvertent hype for Koonz’s match against Jeff Boom.

– The Koonz-Boom match had a unique angle in that no Wrecking Crew members had accompanied Koonz to the ring, which told us that he was all on his own here. Boom continues to show better skills in the ring than on the mic, but he’s not the worst on the stick either. He can also work a crowd well, so it showed in this bout to be an advantage. Found it funny how Koonz wheeled out his microscopic award to the ring. On the serious side, it made sense to have Koonz nearly dominate the whole bout, but get caught out of nowhere with Boom’s cutter finisher to get the loss. With another “L” in his pocket, we were curious to see how Blanchard/G3 would react to the loss. Surely later, right?

– There seems to be no stop in the momentum of WCWC Tag Team Champions Greg Romero/”The Rock God” Ricky Gibson thus far. The key now would be in proof that they could win matches without the need for interference or dirty-handed tactics. When we saw that they’d defend the belts against The Midnight Marvels, it had “glorified squash” written on paper. To our surprise though, we saw some solid double-team aerials from the superhero babyfaces early on, but the heels took over not long after and before you knew it, match over. The best part – it was a clean win. No 8-balls necessary. Color us shocked. We know G n’ R have Rude Boy Riley/Jeff Boom still to deal with, so it was a good holding pattern bout.

– Gangrel’s backstage promo also hyped the main event as he was revealed shortly before as the other competitor opposite G3 to determine the new WCWC Pacific Northwest Champion. It was pretty generic Gangrel stuff. He acknowledged that he had a history with G3 and that there’d be “fangin’ and bangin’.”

– In a continuation from last week’s match, we had another Marcus Malone-Darin Corbin bout, where Corbin came out with unlaced boots and a chair and taunted the rookie to follow up on his word and referred to him as “boy,” which enraged Malone, who’d already started to lace ’em up and attacked him. The match was on. Okay action that had a decent finish where Malone used Corbin’s boot as a weapon to win the match after Corbin had previously used it and it backfired. A decent continuation of their feud, as we’re curious what’ll be next.

– Given that Koonz had lost his match after he assured Blanchard that he’d win, we were baffled that they didn’t mention it during the main event match between Gangrel and G3 to determine the new WCWC Pacific Northwest Champion when Koonz was a ringside presence for G3 and Blanchard joined commentary. On another note, Morty Lipschitz was great on commentary the whole show. It adds more to the show when you have a heel color commentator. As for the bout, it was okay, as the theme of heel shenanigans ran roughshod throughout, from Koonz’s outside attacks even to the point where he pulled the Referee out of the ring as he counted up to two for an Impaler DDT. It was at this point where it looked like Gangrel would overcome the heels and their cheap ways, but it was too much as he came face-to-orthopedic boot and G3 gained back the belt he lost. It was like the last four weeks never happened. Obviously, the goal of the episode was to give The Wrecking Crew some momentum back and have a few clean finishes along the way. Let’s see if they keep that formula up.

Quick Results

• The Whirlwind Gentlemen def. Ethan HD (w/Kate Carney)/Nick Bugatti via pinfall 
• Jeff Boom def. Kassius Koonz via pinfall 
• WCWC Tag Team Championships – Greg Romero/”The Rock God” Ricky Gibson (w/Mr. Tubbs) def. The Midnight Marvels via pinfall to retain 
• Marcus Malone def. Darin Corbin via pinfall 
• WCWC Pacific Northwest Championship – Grappler III (w/Kassius Koonz) def. Gangrel via pinfall to become new Champion