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I am hearing there have been some off and on streaming issues. As you can imagine, The WWN braintrust are pretty stressed about it.]
Gargano was being pretty arrogant early and looked good Fox caught him with a stiff kick to the mouth. He went for a springboard to the outside but Gargano pulled him to the floor and worked him over. Fox came back with an insane reverse springboard flip to wipe out Gargano and his charge Ethan Page. Fox's athletic ability is ridiculously nuts. Gargano cut him off and worked him over including a really brutal looking spike DDT. Gargano and Fox battled back and forth. Gargano cut him off and used a variation of the Texas Cloverleaf. Gargano's become so versatile over the last few years and his timing seems to always improve. Fox and Gargano turned up the heat battling with some big moves back and forth on the outside. Fox starts hitting all his big moves when they return. Gargano fires back and they go back and forth until both are out. Gargano came back and hit a tope to the outside so hard that not only did they hit the rail but it flipped the rails over and apart. That could have been something dangerous for the fans and the wrestlers but luckily, everything was fine and the crowd chanted it was awesome. It was but from my point of view it was freaking scary as hell. They returned to the ring with Fox setting up for the Spanish Fly. Gargano shoved him off and hit a brutal looking bucklebomb. Really, really physical bout. Fox started hitting all his big offense and it looked awesome. Lots of near falls after big moves. Gargano finally grabbed him in a crossface and Fox tapped clean. Really well told back and forth story.
Lacey (wow, I didn't even realize she was here) interviewed Gargano about his potential title unification bout tomorrow. He said he wants to wish Drew the best of luck tonight because tomorrow, when they fight, it will be Gargano leading the company into the future. Good promo from Gargano. He's one of the gems here.
Gargano was limping after his bout.
The main event is EVOLVE champion Drew Galoway (McIntyre) vs. PJ Black (the former Justin Gabriel). This should be a lot of fun. They shook hands and Black tried to sucker him but Drew caught it and warned him. Galloway showed some awesome intensity, as he has since hitting the indy scene. He had all the control early. Black came back with some nice offense and near falls but Galloway drilled him with a big clothesline. They went really physical with some strikes and chops and you can see they were laying it in. Galloway tred to get at Black on the floor and was backdropped over in the exact same place as the crazy dive earlier. Those poor fans. They battled in the crowd before returning to the ringside area. Black charged and was sent into the ringpost. Galloway worked him over and scored several near falls. Black goes to the top and Galloway shoves his feet out. Black goes down hard and somewhat awkwardly on the ropes. They battled over a superplex on the top and it ends with Galloway tied to the tree of woe. He nailed some big moves on Galloway, but missed a springboard moonsault. Galloway nailed a nice piledriver. He followed up with the Futureshock DDT and scored the pin. They worked hard but this was a step below most of Drew's bouts here and elsewhere that I've seen.
Lacey interviewed Drew about the match tomorrow. He praised Black and then praised the fans for making the roster prove themselves. They said that's what pro wrestling is supposed to be. He thanked the fans that came from all over the world to support shows like this. He said he's excited to wrestle every time now after spending three years doing nothing. He then did a promo about the title vs. title bout tomorrow. He cut a great promo about how much he loves wrestling.
Gargano came out. Drew, noticing their height differences, said he was going to try to say this face to face but now, this is his ring. Gargano said that Drew might have been here for 8 months but Gargano has been doing this and killing himself for six years. He said this was his ring, not Drew's. Galloway said he was asking Gargano politely to leave because it was going to be his ring. They got into a physical altercation after Drew said he was going to stop at nothing and would kill Gargano if he had to and Gargano got pissed and said he was going to have to kill him. Nice intensity at the end I thought.
You could tell they were trying to position themselves as the great wrestling alternative to everything else going on this week, almost
Overall, I thought it was an OK show. There was nothing I didn't like about it but I didn't think it was a blowaway show. What it was, was a good opening show for the EVOLVE crew and it felt like it was meant to be the opening chapter for the show that follows tomorrow. I really enjoyed the Thatcher vs. Gulak and End vs. Busick most of all. A lot of the mic work, especially early on, didn't really click but there was a good work ethic up and down the card. You can never fault the effort.
As a show live, the crowd left happy.
Stu will be handling iPPV coverage of EVOLVE 40 tomorrow!
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