WWE News: Detailed second report from FCW show on Wednesday featuring NXT
Invasion continuation
Jun 11, 2010 - 3:25:27 PM
FCW House Show Report
June 9, 2010
Melbourne, Fla.
Report by Jimmy Eaton, PWTorch Reader
On Wednesday night, I attended the Florida Championship Wrestling
developmental show for WWE in Melbourne. My grandfather and I sat third row
from from ringside. Usually, there are about 7-8 rows total on each side.
Not a whole lot you'd think at first, but the crowds in Melbourne are
usually FCW's biggest. I wanted to give an overview of the FCW house show
experience for anyone looking to attend in the Florida area.
6:30 p.m. - Arrive at the Melbourne Auditorium. Get lost trying to figure
out which line if for Gold Circle (Ringside) tickets, as well as the one for
autograph signings.
An interesting note here is that wrestlers who aren't on the card for the
show are put on staff duty. Talk about moving up the ranks. I give WWE
credit in this regard as it keeps costs down and also allows young talent to
"pay their dues" in a respect.
6:50 p.m. - Get in line for the autograph signings. Try to stay in the line
as it merges with the concessions area. They're also showing an autographed
ringside chair signed by Rey Mysterio from the Great American Bash. You
could pay $5 for six raffle tickets and the winner is drawn at the end of
the night.
7:30 p.m. - Met Christian, Miz, Bryan Danielson, Heath Slater, Justin
Gabriel, and Jamie Noble. All were really nice and class acts. Danielson
seemed tired, but he was great with his die-hard fans. Christian was being
rushed by staff, but he was still as nice as when I met him in Melbourne at
a TNA signing a few years ago. Noble was as classy as the other NXT stars.
The biggest surprise for me was The Miz. He was probably the nicest guy
there. Before we got there, he was great with kids. It was a credit to him
playing a fantastic heel on TV.
8:00 p.m. - Show begins pretty close to on-time. They have a decent looking
set in the background where oddly enough people have to walk out and around
down stairs to get to the ring. There are two female ring announcers, the
main one being Jamie Keyes. She's training with A.J. Lee, who I think was a
bit better. Keyes got a bit screechy, as evidenced by her work on NXT Season
Two.
Here's a quick match rundown from memory.
(1) Yoshi Tatsu beat Conrad Tanner. Seeing Yoshi was a nice surprise and the
crowd went nuts for him. He had some mic work at the beginning to get heat
on the heel and the match went around six minutes. Tatsu picked up the win
with a spinning heel kick off the top rope.
(2) Curt Hawkins & Vance Archer & Mason Ryan beat Michael McGillicutty &
Percy Watson & Johnny Curtis in a six-man tag match. The crowd was way over
for Percy Watson wanting him to dance. (It was scary that adults were saying
this more than kids.) The heels won with some nice teamwork from Archer and
Hawkins. Hawkins got the pin for the win. Archer and Hawkins have improved a
lot in my opinion. I haven't watched Smackdown enough to be any kind of
judge, but females were into Hawkins a lot and he was a great personality.
Not a bad match at all, I'd say it was just over ten minutes.
(3) Naomi Night & Aksana beat Tamina & Liviana in a Divas tag match. This
was one of the worst matches of the night and to be honest one of the more
annoying for me simply because of some drunk people behind us were screaming
at the top of their lungs and yelling a bunch of, let's just say, non-PG
things to the ladies in the ring. I feel bad for parents with kids around as
the crowds typically aren't like that at FCW shows. It was a decent-length
match with a fair share of botches, but they were trying their best it
seemed. After about seven-to-eight minutes, the face team got the win.
(4) Bo Rotundo beat Donny Marlow (w/G-Rilla). Nothing really special, as I
was still dealing with ringing ears from the people behind me.
(5) Jamie Noble beat Tyler Reks in a Special Challenge match. By far, this
was the surprise match of the night. It was very good with Reks coming
across as a pretty entertaining heel. I forgot how good Noble is in the
ring. He's a bit of a cross, as many know, between a Davey Richards and
Chris Benoit. At least in his wrestling style. The match had a lot of
nearfalls and the crowd was eating it up the whole way. I think it was about
12 minutes or so with Noble getting the win. Oddly enough, I saw a flying
headbutt for the first time in a while. Probably the second best match of
the night.
(6) FCW Tag Team champions Dos Equis & Hunico beat The Uso Brothers to
retain the FCW Tag Titles. These teams always put on a good show. I saw both
of them in Orlando last month when the Usos were the title-holders. Good
back and forth match with both teams having good chemistry together. The
Usos got more of a face reaction than I would have thought, but overall a
fun tag team match. Tamina was good in the Uso's corner as well. The
champions retained after a pretty good contest.
9:30 p.m. - 15-20 minute intermission.
(7) FCW Hvt. champion Alex Riley beat Lucky Cannon (Johnny Prime) via
count-out to retain the FCW Hvt. Title. Riley plays a good heel and Lucky
Cannon (formerly known as Johnny Prime) had some good face reactions. It was
a simple back-and-forth match with the end being a count-out and a Riley win
after a nasty-sounding bump outside involving the steel stairs. Not a bad
match, but a bit of a down spot in the show as it was just after
intermission.
(8) Christian & The Miz vs. Daniel Bryan & Heath Slater went to a No Contest
in the main event. This last match took the cake. It pretty much worth the
price of admission alone to be honest. It was advertised as Miz and Bryan
vs. Christian and Slater. To start the entrances, Miz's music hit but he
didn't show. Christian then came out to some odd, Heath Slater-like music
afterward and cut a great promo thanking FCW for playing his ring entrance
music from six years ago. He called out Heath Slater on the "cowardly" acts
Monday night on Raw and said that he never returned his phone calls. There
were chants of "Cena Sucks" and he witfully replied, "He's the champion, so
I'll have to disagree."
Heath Slater came out to a ring of boos and had a good exchange with
Christian for the next few minutes about how he didn't like the answers
Christian gave him when he called before and that fourth place wasn't
acceptable for him. The crowd blew up when all of a sudden Bryan Danielson
hits the ring and decks Christian from behind. He and Heath put the boots to
him and then out runs Miz for the save. He cleared house before Danielson
and Slater get the better of him. It was here that Danielson whipped out the
"N" armbands. This got a ton of heat from a small crowd of maybe about
100-200 people. It was a great moment with the continuation of a major
storyline from TV. Eventually, though, Miz and Christian recovered and
challenged them to a Pros vs. Rookies match.
This match went about 15 minutes and was an absolute blast. Ring psychology
was fantastic and there were a handful of fun moments with Miz and Christian
playing for laughs. They both also did the clapping, crowd-pleasing action
that Christian does during every match about half-way through. It was also a
lot of fun to see Danielson as a heel. He and Slater were all over the crowd
and got a lot of good, solid heat. I was shocked to see Miz cheered so much
even by kids. To me, this shows that NXT angle is already working where the
crowd is getting behind the "WWE Pros" no matter who they are. I'll be
interested to see if they use Miz as a face-figure now on TV since his angle
with Danielson has seemingly evolved into this faction storyline.
The match had some good heel tactics and great overall tag team action. Near
the end, the crowd blew up again when the rest of NXT Season 1 made their
way to the ring lead by Wade Barrett. Christian and the Miz got back to back
and took the beating like men but got outnumbered by the "Rookies." Another
funny spot here was the referee taking off his shirt and joining Miz and
Christian. After a good laugh from the crowd, he was tossed out of the ring.
The crowd was all over them and the reaction was fantastic for an
independent show-size group of fans. They laid out Christian and Miz before
tearing the area around the ring up a bit and threatening the two ring
announcers and Tom Prichard. They all lined up on the stage to close the
show as the crowd booed and Dr. Tom Prichard went in the ring to help
Christian and Miz, who got a great standing ovation. Most of the crowd was
on their feet for the whole main event.
10:40 p.m. - Left the show. Ironically, as people left, the wrestlers/event
staff were giving out a promotional card for the "American Dream Tour" for
the show in Melbourne on July 2. I ran into Wes Brisco and after I told him
I already had one, he said just take it. It was a bit odd seeing someone in
the ring one night and doing this the next, but I give him credit for doing
this and not acting completely miserable.
Show Rating - 8.5. Some matches were too close to duds, but was still a
great show.
Experience Rating - 9.5. I'll be attending FCW shows as long as they're
around. Anyone who has the chance to go for a fairly cheap price and a
change of pace, I highly recommend it.
All in all, FCW is flawed with minor stuff like any "independent show" and
sometimes it's laughable, but little things like the main event get people
buzzing, excited, and looking forward to what's to come, especially in the
way of the NXT Invasion angle.
For pictures from the event, click on the link here.
(http://picasaweb.google.com/jeatonbucfan/FCWWrestling6910WithPoppy?feat=directlink)
http://www.pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/WWE_News_3/article_41882.shtml
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