The Eye Gouge
Alicia vs. Roxxi II
By: Jose Marrero of Wrestleview.com
It’s time for another edition of “The Eye Gouge”. This time out we are reviewing WSU’s Alicia vs. Roxxi II card. This card I believe was held on December 11th 2010. Of course we here on “The Eye Gouge” do things a bit different with the usual 1 to 5 system. What’s the catch? Well 5 is the worst rating you can get with 0 being the sought after goal. Going into this Saturdays WSU 4th year anniversary show which will be live on iPPV on gofightlive.tv I figured this was a good time to see what happened on this show so let’s get into it.
First thing I noticed on this show was Brittney Savage was doing commentary due to I guess being out with an injury. Angel Orsini kicked this show off and came out and cut a promo saying her opponent who I believe was supposed to be Athena didn’t show up and she had no one to take on and did the open challenge deal asking who would come and take her on for the WSU All Guts, No Glory championship. This bought out Rick Cataldo to accept the challenge due to his opponent for the show Melissa Coates also no showing. So we get Cataldo vs. Orsini in an impromptu bout for the WSU All Guts, No Glory title. There was nothing fancy about this one as Orsini hit the “Kiss of Death” on Cataldo in less than a minute to retain the title. Orsini grabbed the microphone again and basically stated wanting a real opponent to test her skills against which bought out Jamilia Craft out to accept so we next had Jamilia Craft vs. Angel Orsini for the WSU All Guts, No Glory championship.
This match was much more competitive than the first with Craft mustering all the babyface underdog fire she could muster but like most underdogs in her situation coming up a bit short to the seasoned Orsini. In the end Orsini hit her “Kiss of Death” for the finish on Craft to once again retain her championship. I sort of liked this as it established Orsini as a fighting champion and Craft as an up and comer in the promotion.
We had a backstage bit with Jamilia knocking on Jennifer Cruz’s door to complain about Jennifer Cruz not picking her as a mystery partner despite their having teamed before. She promised to do something about it and leaves and of course after leaving Cruz opens the door and asks “who is there?”
We had a WSU Womens Tag Team Championship match up next as the Belle Saints came out. Marti Belle cut a promo putting over the fact that they have already beat Cruz once before and will do so again with the mystery partner. Cruz came out and just had the weirdest expression at which Brittney Savage tried to explain was her not approving of her entrance music which made me ask “Why did she choose it?”. Cruz comes in and cuts a promo where she announces in the most non caring way that Monique is her partner. This was the first time these two have teamed up and well the story of this tag team is that Cruz is the serious one while Monique is the more colorful of the two which sort of rubs Cruz the wrong way which makes me question why they are still teaming to this day and why they teamed in the first place. The match was nothing special although there was one thing that I wanted to point out that is going to sound sort of insulting but it’s really a compliment. There was a spot in the match with Marti Belle going for something that was botched whether it was due to her or Monique messing it up but in true worker fashion they didn’t try to get the spot back they went to something else. As a matter of fact usually you see something like that at an indy show and fans jump all over it with a “you .ed up” chant and well I didn’t hear that chant at all here which shows that even though I noticed it the fans in attendance didn’t pick up on it which is the way it should be. The only reason I point it out is because whether it is WWE, TNA, ROH or any other promotion it just about irritates me when I see wrestlers blow spots and either panic or try to get the spot back. A good worker knows how to move on and these two did just that.Finish came when Monique tried to spray perfume right in front of the referee in Tina San Antonio’s eyes only for Antonio to block it and hit her with a rocker dropper for the finish. I’ll say this much as stupid as it was for Monique to try something like that right in front of the referee Brittney Savage was all over it which made it a bit more tolerable for me since it wasn’t like the promotion was trying to insult my intelligence as even Savage acknowledged the absurdity of it. Cruz left her partner and was visibly upset as the Saints retained.
We had a promo by Cindi Rogers hyping up her match with Jana in a submission match in which she put over that they were tag team partners and while Jana may be familiar with her is not familiar with all her submissions. Basically the back story on this match is these two were the WSU Tag Team Champions until losing to the Belle Saints at which point Jana and Rogers had their falling out with Jana being excommunicated from the Cosmo Club. I’m not really sure why this had to be a submission match and didn’t hear the announcers explain why either but I wish it wasn’t. I thought the two worked much better together when they weren’t doing submission spots as there transitions to submissions didn’t really work for me and some of their submission attempts were really clunky. Yet when they actually went in and worked without the submissions there work had more energy to me. Finish came around 11 minutes when Cindi left to try to hit Jana with a chair and got the chair taken away from her by the ref and saw her caught in the “Jana Vice” for the clean submission win.
We then had Alicia come out and told the fans how she is on a bit of a losing streak going into this show and will be wrestling Nikki Roxx for the right to challenge for any WSU Championship of their choosing at any time ala Money in the Bank. Nikki Roxx came out and reminded Alicia how like her she is also a former WSU champion and that Alicia’s losing streak was going to continue. Alicia promised to win the match and go onto win the WSU title and said she would do it for her and her fans.
We then had Niya taking on Kristin Astara who came out with two glowing balls that she gave away to a lucky fan. Astara cut a promo thanking the fans for having her and reminded them of her previous identity as Krissy Vaine and after promising a new beginning and shaking hands with her opponent the match was on. I was very curious to see this match as Astara as Vaine was a former WWE developmental talent who actually did get called up to Smackdown before her and her boyfriend Conor O’Brien decided that the life wasn’t for them. Of course O’Brien would wind up going back to WWE and competing on the current season of NXT and now Astara is here in WSU. I really enjoyed this match as it had a lot of back and forth action which I thought made both women look good Kristin won with a rock bottom finish that she calls “Once upon Astara”. My favorite match of the show up until this point.
It’s main event time as we have Alicia vs. Nikki Roxx for an open contract for any title in WSU. I thought this was the best match on the show as Roxx is in my opinion one of the best female talents working on the independent circuit right now. She has the look that you can put her on TV with; a natural charisma that while you saw flashes of it in TNA was never really capitalized on and can work. There was a part of the match that came across really bad where Roxx rolled up Alicia with a handful of tights and the referee stopped his count even though his line of vision wasn’t to the infraction and went around Alicia to see the tights being pulled at which point Savage in her commentary pointed out how could the ref even see that. Alicia was able to capitalize on it and hit the “A Bomb” on Roxx for the win to get the open contract. I loved everything about this match except the finish that the referee was really out of place for. I will say this much for Savage everytime she saw something that really didn’t make sense on this show she called it rather than just insulting the audience’s attention. This ends the main portion of the DVD.
DVD extras were Alica teaming with Rob Vegas to take on Mercedes Martinez and Eddie Kingston in a mixed tag team match in whom the WSU and ACE Diamond Division titles were at stake and Brittney Savage defending the WSU Spirit title against Jana. This was a decent DVD offering with nothing really noteworthy other than the main event taking place, I still thought it paced itself well with the last two matches of the main DVD being good and the DVD extras didn’t hurt it either so I gave it a 2 and ½ out of 5 gouges rating. Having seen this DVD and the previously reviewed Breaking Barriers iPPV and sitting live in attendance for the last WSU iPPV The Final Chapter I feel like I’m primed and ready for this Saturdays 4th year Anniversary show as now all the pieces are in place and well that’s it for this review. I’m going to try to hammer out a review in the next week or so for Bruce Hart’s latest book release “Straight from the Hart” but until then I am out.