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Thoughts on Mercury Rising 2018:
I would definitely recommend this show. I enjoyed all of the matches on the show.
Before I talk about the matches on the show, I want to talk about the job that Lenny Leonard did on commentary for this show. After doing the two Evolve shows, his voice was shot and I was glad to see that he made it through the entire show without completely losing his voice.
The show started off well with the six man tag match. While some might say it did not have the Independent Superstar matchup, you had some strong talent including the man who knocked off Keith Lee earlier in the day for the WWN Championship. DJZ looked very good on both nights along with AR Fox. Miguel, Wentz, and Banks all looked solid in the match.
If they are going to build on DJZ getting two victories to set up a future FIP or WWN title match against Austin Theory, I will not complain.
One of the few things that I had issues with during this show was the Jarek 1:20 segment. It didn’t feel like something that should have been on the show and I think the beat down took a little too long.
The Sawa/Sabre Jr. match followed up on the excitement from the opening match. It is amazing to think that Sawa had been retired for seven years and he looked this good against Sabre (and on Thursday night in the tag match with Sekimoto). I would love to see Sawa return to the ring and face Sabre in New Japan.
The Street Fight was a good match to follow up the wrestling clinic between Sawa and Sabre. This built off the tag match at Evolve on Thursday night. I have been a fan of Drake and Henry for a while (along with Odinson and Parrow) from their work in FIP and I liked that they had a two strong performances in the shows I watched. With it being a street fight, Drennan’s involvement made sense and I liked the intensity and elevation of violence throughout the match. The POUNCE to Garrini through the table was impressive. You have to feel bad for Parrow when the table did not break on the floor and he bounced off the edge and then when the table that Odinson was sent through landed on him. I also liked the intensity from Drake and Henry when they could have won the match, but they wanted to send a statement to everyone, especially The End.
I thought the Shine Championship match was good. Going from the break neck speed of the earlier matches to this match might have affected the perception of some people. I liked that they set up Evolve 50 and the likelihood of Kimber Lee versus LuFisto for the Shine Championship when they return to the Orpheum at the end of the month.
Last year’s WWN shows made me a huge Keith Lee fan and his match against Sekimoto might have made me a huge Sekimoto fan. When you talk about a HOSS match, this is what you should have in mind. The mix of power moves and aerial moves you expect to see from people half their size gave this match a unique feel on this show.
The Nick Gage attack did a good job of getting some hype for Style Battle (considering the competition it is going against)
With Lee losing the WWN Title earlier today and losing to Sekimoto, I wonder if that means that Keith is going to be having a change of address when it comes to his wrestling home.
I thought the Evolve Tag Title match was good, but I think I would have liked it more if I did not see Evolve 102’s tag match with Thatcher and WALTER against Sekimoto and Sawa. These two teams worked well against each other and for a few moments I thought we might have had a title change.
The Catch Point segment was okay and the twist of Stokely Hathaway buying Catch Point was good. I would assume that someone will join forces with Williams to feud with Jaka, Garrini, and Dickinson.
I think the Ospreay/Riddle match was the best match of the two shows that I have covered (this one and Evolve 102). Watching this match, all I could think was how good this was but imagine what they could have done if Ospreay was not injured. The part of the match when the officials were checking on Ospreay after the spot from the turnbuckles was well done, even if I thought the referees pushing Riddle back to his corner might have been a bit too much. While I talked about the intensity of Henry and Drake earlier, I thought the way that Riddle focused on the neck was really well done and showed a different side to the normally mellow Riddle.
When I heard about Ospreay’s health after his match against Marty Scurll (which I finally got to see and if you have not seen it from Sunday’s New Japan show, the bump he took on the apron was insane and added to the fact that he was grabbing his neck earlier in the match), I had said that I would rather he sit out and heal up so he does not make things worse. I am glad that Ospreay decided to come to New Orleans. I have said that I thought Ospreay has been the second best wrestler I have seen in 2018 (behind Okada) and this match against Riddle only solidified my thoughts on Ospreay.
After having some issues on Thursday with Evolve 102 on WWNLive, I had no problems with the stream of this show.
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