by Mr. FIP (and now Mr. FCW), Big D

Full Impact Pro returned from their one month hiatus to the National Guard Armory in Crystal River, Florida. As of the time of this writing, the show currently is untitled, but that certainly didn't mean it didn't have it's fair share of shocking moments and great wrestling, featuring the debut of Pro Wrestling NOAH's Go Shiozaki and PWG's legendary Joey Ryan. Besides that, this show promised to finally finish the year-long rivalry between Erick Stevens and Roderick Strong for the FIP World Championship in a Dog-Collar Match.

We open the show with... NO JOHNATHAN GOLD? No Buys. Instead, some gigantic guy in a goofy red and black outfit was the ring announcer. He introduces himself as Mighty Ox. He welcomes us to the show and proceeds to talk about the big advertised matches, in quite a corny way. This... this guy SUCKS! When he gets to talking about the Strong/Stevens match, Roderick Strong himself comes out and snatches the mic from him. Thank God. Roderick Strong cuts a promo on Erick Stevens, hyping up the main event tonight. He basically says that regardless of what happens, it will all end tonight. Great.

Match #1: Chasyn "Not Cocky" Rance (w/ Mimi, Amanda, and Katt) defeated "Supergeek" Chris Jones and Shawn "Bad Seed" Osbourne in a Three-Way Dance. This was ECW Rules - which means there are eliminations. As I've said before, Chris Jones is like Matt Sydal/Evan Bourne on a smaller scale - geeky babyface who acts like he is so happy to be there. Every promotion must have a character like this. The three guys start going at it and Chasyn ends up landing on his ankle and launched out of ring, grasping his ankle. He's selling this as if it broken or something. So he has the three ring rats go check on him outside of the ring while Osbourne and Jones trade moves inside. Osbourne then manages to get Jones up for a super long airplane spin, in which both men wind up dizzy. Chasyn then gets up on his "bad" leg and dashes in there to school-boy Osbourne and get the 3, eliminating him. Then he quickly rolls up Jones and pins him as well. THAT WAS A FUCKING AWESOME TRICK! (** - mainly for the finish, the match was short)

The rest of the YRR come out and as per usual, put themselves over. This took quite a long time and was a bit longer than I wanted it to be. Sal calls out Joey Ryan, his opponent for later tonight, but instead gets the Age of the Fall. Jimmy Jacobs, Tyler Black, Milo Beasley, Rain, and Leva. Jimmy Jacobs says why wait until later, and runs into the ring. After some light brawling, the YRR high-tail it. I guess that match is still scheduled for later on tonight. Mr. Milo Beasley, Rain, and Leva stay behind because Rain has to wrestle.

Match #2: Mercedes Martinez defeated Rain (w/ Leva and Mr. Milo Beasley). This is Mercedes Martinez debut in Full Impact Pro. I like Mercedes. Wrestling needs more hispanics with big asses like that. Rain is a FINE woman in her own right. They start to work a very grounded mat style to begin things. Mercedes is apparently working heel while Rain is fighting her off. Rain takes the advantage but Mercedes cuts her off. Mercedes looked very big in the ring, but up close she's about 5'10 (which is still kind fo big for a woman). Anyways, both of these women worked hard here. Mercedes looked damn impressive in her debut and scored the win with a version of Jericho's Code Breaker, instead on the chest. The Titbreaker? After the match, Mercedes does a number on Rain until Leva tries to help her, but gets cut off and destroyed. Mercedes wiped out two chicks in her debut - hell of a way to introduce her as a monster. Afterward, Milo is on the outside and Mercedes spots him and beats the fuck out of him too. WHY~? THE MAN IS HANDICAPPED?! (**1/4)

Jon Davis and Kory Chavis, who make up the team of the Dark City Fight Club come out. Chavis is the main mic man here, which is good because he's the more charismatic of the two behind the mic. Chavis talks about how time after time they've embarrassed both Joey Machete and Shawn Murphy of the Black Market and beaten the fuck out of them. He says tonight they will punish the fans of Crystal River for cheering for Black Market. Suddenly, gigantic tank Shawn Murphy runs down and we have a match!

Match #3: Shawn Murphy from Black Market defeated Jon Davis (w/ Kory Chavis) from Dark City Fight Club via disqualification. These guys start going at it and immediately jump into the MMA-style hook-n-shoot wrestling, which is something that they don't do very often. Shawn gets on top of Jon and starts to ground and pound him (pound and ground for you Michael Cole fans out there). The match doesn't last long as Davis gets in trouble and Chavis runs in, attacks Murphy and the ref calls for the bell (1/2 *).

So DCFC double team on Murphy until Joey runs in to make the save and brawls with Chavis. Murphy chases Davis to the back. The referee calls for the bell and we have another match!

Match #4: Joey Machete from Black Market defeated Kory Chavis from Dark City Fight Club in a No Disqualification Match. The ring announcer says that the referee calls for no disqualification. Can a ref really do that? Since when is a ref a booker? This is worse than Christian making his own matches whenever the fuck he wants to on TNA. Anyways, this is your traditional FIP "lets go to the crowd" match, only it was a little more contained. These guys brawled over by the merch table and used chairs and whatnot to pound each other. I'm not sure if it was just the geeks, but it seems like Crystal River has turned on Black Market, booing them and cheering the heels. There was a definite "Kill Black Market" chant in the building, much larger than before. Well anyways, the finish came when they fought to ringside and Joey Machete hits a nasty looking hangman's neckbreaker from the corner for the pin. (**)

After the match, they continued to brawl. Joey prepares to kill Kory Chavis by wrapping the chair around his neck, Kane-style, until Jon Davis comes out and saves him. Jon Davis then screams "what the hell is your problem man?". Hey asshole, didn't you try to light them on fire a few months ago, as well as break into their house and beat the fuck out of them? Ha! Anyways, Joey Machete cuts a promo challenging them to go to war next month in August in a Weapons Match.

Match #5: FIP World Tag Team Champions Kenny King and Jason Blade of the YRR defeated Jimmy Jacobs and Tyler Black of the Age of the Fall in a 2 out of 3 falls match to retain the titles. This match was FUCKING INCREDIBLE~! They started it out slow and when they did that, I knew it would be a long one. Then again, most 2 out of 3 fall matches are a bit longer. Lots of mat wrestling holds and reversals early on. Age of the Fall are total babyfaces in FIP. The first fall came when one of the blonde rats tripped up Tyler and he got rolled up. Then this announcer, Mighty Ox, who already pronounced Joey Machete's name wrong, proclaimed the YRR the winners, then, after realizing what a goof he was, apologized and said they won the first fall. This guy HAS to go. I know you are reading this Johnathan Gold - COME BACK! This is an unacceptable replacement. SAVE_US.JOHNATHAN.GOLD.

Anyways, the match continued and the crowd booed the cheating. They beat on Jimmy for a very very long time before making the hot tag. This was intense. This is how you properly do tag team wrestling~! Anyways, the Age of the Fall won the second fall with a T-Gimmick-like move. Chasyn Rance, Sal Rinauro, and more rats come out and all hell breaks loose. Interfierence left and right, as usual, Memphis style. Tyler gets ahold of the blonde bimbo rat (no offense) and does the spanking routine. Tyler and Jimmy start to clean house. Sal is knocked away, as is Chasyn. In the confusion, Jimmy is knocked to the outside and Chasyn, away from the referee's view, grabs ahold of his leg as to not interfier while in the ring, Kenny King hits the springboard blockbuster and wins the third and final fall. YRR have screwed their way into retaining the titles, yet again. Still, this match fucking kicked all kinds of ass. (****)

Afterward, Age of the Fall cuts a VERY pissed off promo. Tyler says that the YRR always cheat to win because of their strength in numbers. Kenny King says from his point of view, the Springboard Blockbuster is what did it. Some back and forth smack between the two groups. Tyler challenges Kenny King to a one-on-one singles match at next month's FIP event. I think Kenny agreed, but I don't recall exactly.

Intermission

Joey Ryan comes out to a huge ovation. He cuts a promo on Sal Rinauro, stating that he is a major player and a former WCW Cruiserweight Champion. I don't remember this whatsover. Sal Rinauro comes back and cuts a promo of his own and we're off to the races.

Match #6: FIP Florida Heritage Champion Sal Rinauro defeated Joey Ryan to retain the title. This was BUYS~! in every sense of the word. The match begins with pure comedy to start it, with Sal and Joey trading moves. It took both men four tries to do a kip-up. They did the infamous Eddie/Dean spot where they trade moves and stare each other down after a series of moves. Anyways, Joey ran wild to start until Sal started to cheat. The fans started to chant "Sal's a chicken" again, and I cringed. Thankfully the other side chanted "please don't chant that", and nullified my lobotimized state. Sal continued to cut him off and beat on him some more until Joey made a small comeback. We saw some light high-flying maneuvers until Sal hit a springboard spin kick for the win. Clean! (***) "Please Come Back" chant for Joey.

Match #7: Go Shiozaki defeated ROH World Champion Nigel McGuinness in a non-title match. Streamers~! Shiozaki was very over in FIP. The smart mark fans began to chant for him and everybody else joined in. This was a power match. Started off slow until Go hit those chops. As I've said before, Go is like a miniature Kenta Kobashi. He has a lot of Kobashi's maneurisms, he uses a lot of his moves, and he has a similar build. That is a formula for success. Nigel gets the heat and begins to work the arm, obviously setting up for the London Dungeon. Go hits Nigel VERY hard. This is a match that Les Thatcher would shake his head at due to the STIFFNESS, but hey, thats all them. Still, this was great, but you could tell they are holding off, probably for a rematch down the line. Tons of near-falls near the end. Nigel goes for the Jawbreaker Lariat, but Go ducks and schoolboys him for the three. Big ovation. A fine match. (***)

Match #8: Erick Stevens defeated FIP World Champion Roderick Strong in a Dog Collar Match to win the title. Indeed this was it, the big blow off to the feud. I said in my report for April's FIP show that the Last Man Standing Match they had then was damn near impossible to top, and I was right about that. However, they gave it one hell of an effort here. This match was INSANE! Stiff as all hell as usual. Lots of spots with them tug-of-warring the chain. Roderick Strong has hands like bricks. At one point he sets up Erick Stevens on an unfolded chair and prepares to hit him with another chair, conchairto style, and hits it, then hits him with the chain. Stevens is bleeding prefusely. I figured they'd save the blood for this one. At one point, Stevens got planted into the post at FULL SPEED. This is sick and twisted shit. Blood everywhere. The two then began to duke it in the ring. We got the "yay/boo" punch dealie. Stevens started to use the chain to pull Roderick in for clotheslines. Roderick started to then pound on Stevens with the chain. He began to hit those nasty kicks to the face like he did in April. He hit about four in succession but didn't get the pin. Stevens fights back and hits his finisher, the Doctor Bomb, but only gets 2. Damn that was close. Roderick regains his composure and hits the Gibson Driver, but only gets 2. Roderick then gets on the top rope but Stevens pulls him down and Roderick takes an absolutely sickening backflip bump from the top onto his neck in the ring. This was not pretty. Stevens starts to make the big babyface comeback and hits Roderick with a series of combo moves. He then sets up the Doctor Bomb, nails it, rolls up back up and hits a second Doctor Bomb. 1...2...3!!! NEW CHAMPION!

This was unbelievably brutal, however I would rank it second, above their match from Redefined, and below their match in April, which was possibly the stiffest match I've seen live. Still, this was FUCKING UNREAL~! Big-ups to both guys. (****1/4)

Afterwards, Roderick tumbled to the outside, obviously spent. Before Erick can celebrate - mayhem occurs. Out of nowhere, Fabulous Phil from Heartbreak Enterprises comes out and proceeds to do a number on Stevens. Superstar Sean also comes out dressed like a damn marching band leader. This was hilarious. Go Shiozaki comes out and teases saving Stevens, but instead pounds him down as well. HEEL TURN IN FIP~! Everybody was shocked. Go proceeds to beat the fuck out of Erick Stevens. Superstar Sean Davis says that their buddy, Tex-Arkana Champ "Sweet & Sour" LARRY SWEENEY sold Go Shiozaki to Heartbreak Enterprises for FIP-use. Sean Davis says next month in Crystal River, Go Shiozaki will take the FIP Title from him and bring it to Heartbreak Enterprises. As they continue to beat on Erick, Roderick runs in for the save and chases them off. Roderick then grabs the belt and teases hitting Stevens with it. Stevens gets up and looks him. Roderick hands Stevens the belt and raises his hand. I guess this war is over, and a new one begins.

Overall, tremendous show. Stevens/Strong, McGuinness/Shiozaki, and the FIP Tag Title match are definitely worth catching on DVD once they are released. Overall, I was very pleased. Nothing went too long and everything flowed perfectly. Next time though, and it's nothing personal, but this Mighty Ox guy is an absolutely horrid ring announcer. ZERO BUYS~! Replace him immediately.

Full Impact Pro returns on August 23rd to the National Guard Armory in Crystal River, Florida. Already scheduled for the show will be Tyler Black vs. Kenny King, A Weapons Match between the Black Market and Dark City Fight Club, and Erick Stevens defends his newly won FIP World Title against Go Shiozaki, representing Heartbreak Enterprises. For more information, including tickets, check out http://fullimpactpro.com.

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