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Here are the results:
Your announcers for all three episodes were Matt Martlaro and William Regal.
July 24, 2011 Episode
Match Number One: Donny Marlow defeated Peter Orlov with a Samoan drop.
The ring is adorned with blue and orange balloons and streamers. A table is set up in the ring with a microphone. The University of Florida dean, Dean Martin is introduced and he comes to the ring. He says that he is a native Floridian and he is honored to pay tribute to one of the University’s most valuable alumni. He introduces Byron Saxton.
Byron comes to the ring and his arm is still in a sling. Before Saxton makes his remarks, they show pre-recorded testimonials from Emmitt Smith (or someone resembling Smith) and from his favorite professor Ms. Moffett.
Saxton says that he doesn’t know what to say but then he thanks some people and then he thanks Titus O’Neil because he made Saxton make a mockery of his school. He talks about how he is embarrassed to share a ring with a three hundred pound barking carcass.
Titus makes his way to the ring but Saxton escapes and sees refuge with James Bronson and Erick Rowan.
Titus sees the ‘Dean’ still in the ring and the ‘Dean’ tries to make amends with Titus, but Titus with a clothesline.
Match Number Two: Husky Harris defeated Monty Lynch with a back senton splash.
Briley Pierce interviews Rick Victor and he talks about his FCW 15 match against the current FCW 15 Champion Seth Rollins. Victor says that Rollins has faced some of the best in the ring, but Rollins has never faced anyone like him.
Match Number Three: Dean Ambrose defeated Tito Colon with the Air Raid Crash.
After the match, Ambrose gets the mic and he addresses his issues with Seth Rollins. He says that this is not about the FCW 15. Ambrose says that Rollins continues to hide from him. Ambrose says that he wants Rollins broken, bloodied, and bruised.
Match Number Four: Leo Kruger defeated Xavier Woods with a rollup. During the match, Ricardo Rodriguez came out to scout the match.
Damien Sandow was interviewed by Briley Pierce. Sandow talks about the controversy over the FCW Title after his match with Rotundo. Sandow claims the controversy is with the referees. He says that he will prove that he is the best.
Match Number Five: FCW Florida Champion Bo Rotundo, Richie Steamboat, and Leakee defeated Alexander Rusev and FCW Tag Team Champions Big E Langston and Calvin Raines after Rotundo speared Langston.
July 31, 2011 Episode
Match Number One: FCW 15 Champion Seth Rollins defeated Rick Victor to retain the FCW 15 Title by a score of 2 Falls to 1.
Briley Pierce interviews Leo Kruger, who talks about how he will be the FCW Champion and he calls out Bo Rotundo. Kruger tells everyone that he is the dreamslayer.
Maxine is in Steve Keirn’s office and Keirn informs Maxine that Norman Smiley will continue to be the FCW General Manager. William Regal was in the office as well as a representative of the WWE and was supporting Maxine’s position. Keirn threatened to show the other tape to Regal and Maxine and Regal suddenly congratulates Smiley on still being the General Manager.
Naomi Knight was scheduled to wrestle FCW Divas Champion and Queen of FCW Aksana but she refuses to wrestle. Norman Smiley comes out and she tells Naomi that she will have a match.
Match Number Two: Naomi Knight defeated Audrey Marie (with Sonia) with a leg lariat.
Briley Pierce interviewed the FCW Florida Champion Bo Rotundo and Bo talked about Damien Sandow’s claims that he was the real FCW Florida Champion. Bo says that he will not back down from a fight and will defend the title any time and any place.
Before the next match, Byron Saxton came to the ring with James Bronson and Erick Rowan and addressed the crowd and Titus O’Neil. He said that Titus didn’t listen last week when he was told to leave. They know that Titus is afraid and they want him to sit back and relax as they paint a picture for him. That picture is titled ‘The Beginning of the End for Titus O’Neil’.
Match Number Four: Erick Rowan (with Byron Saxton and James Bronson) defeated Kenneth Cameron with a choke slam.
After the match, Bronson attacks Cameron and Titus comes out to make the save for Cameron.
Match Number Five: Lucky Cannon defeated Husky Harris with a rollup after Husky was distracted after Damien Sandow hit Bo Rotundo with a chair after Bo came to ringside during the match.
August 7, 2001 Episode
Match Number One: Brad Maddox defeated Percy Watson and Richie Steamboat in a Triple Threat Match when Maddox pinned Steamboat after countering a sunset flip and some help from the ropes.
The next match was scheduled to be a handicap match with Titus O’Neil facing Erick Rowan and James Bronson (with Byron Saxton), but FCW General Manager Norman Smiley told Byron Saxton that he is not going to get away with this so Titus will have a tag team partner and it is Leakee.
Match Number Two: Leakee and Titus O’Neil defeated Erick Rowan and James Bronson (with Byron Saxton) when Leakee pinned Bronson with a rollup.
After the match, Bronson and Rowan attack Leakee and Titus and the other referees have to come to the ring to break things up.
Match Number Three: Leo Kruger defeated DeSean Bishop with a swinging fisherman’s neck breaker. Ricardo Rodriguez came out to scout this match.
Briley Pierce interviewed Seth Rollins and Seth said that he was not worried about Dean Ambrose right now because he is focusing on his FCW 15 Title and defending it. Dean Ambrose comes out and he makes his way over to the interview area. Ambrose leaves without incident.
Match Number Four: AJ Lee, Kaitlyn, and Caylee Turner defeated Sonia, Audrey Marie, and Raquel Diaz when Kaitlyn pinned Audrey with a back slide. During the match, Ricardo Rodriguez came out to watch the match and take some photos of the Divas.
Maxine joined William Regal and Matt Martlaro at the announce table for the main event.
Match Number Five: FCW Florida Champion Bo Rotundo defeated Damien Sandow with a spear.
Thoughts on the Tapings
When they announced that “Dean Martin†was the dean of the University of Florida, I was wondering if they accidentally called Great Lakes University to talk to their dean.
With the blue and orange balloons and streamers, I was thinking that they were going to do a segment for Titus O’Neil, but I was a little surprised that it was for Byron Saxton, but it did continue the storyline with Saxton and O’Neil while Saxton is unable to wrestle at this time.
When Titus clotheslined the ‘Dean’ at the end of the Saxton segment, I wonder if that means that he will not be winning any alumni awards.
I like the way that they are making Husky Harris into a monster. I thought they missed an opportunity with him when he was part of Nexus so maybe this will usher a return to Raw or Smackdown.
I liked the Dean Ambrose/Tito Colon match. I liked that they had Ambrose dominate the match until he made a strategic error that allowed Colon get in some offense. These are two of the top guys in FCW and it showed in this match. Like with Seth Rollins, they haven’t really changed his style from the independents to FCW.
I also liked Ambrose’s promo after the match. Since he made his debut on television at the last set of tapings, he has focused on Seth Rollins and that was all he talked about during his promo. I like how he wants to get a shot at Rollins, but he doesn’t care what condition Rollins is in.
Damien Sandow had a good promo talking about the situation at the last show taped when it appeared that he won the FCW Title only to have the match restarted to get speared by Bo Rotundo.
I thought the best match of the first show was the six man tag match that was the main event. I thought that all six men worked well in their roles during the match. There was some really good action in the match and they were given time to tell a story. When multiple men were in the ring, there wasn’t much clutter like you see in some multi man matches when the referee loses control of things. Towards the end of the match, when everyone was in the ring, there was a very nice spot when Leakee used Langston’s back as a springboard to hit a clothesline on Rusev.
They went from a very solid main event to end show one to what I thought was the best match of the night to start off show two. As I mentioned on a recent audio, I really enjoy the FCW 15 matches because it allows the wrestlers to work on the ring psychology and other aspects of a wrestling match that they wouldn’t normally get in a ‘regular’ match because they aren’t going to go fifteen minutes. I was not sure what to expect from the Victor/Rollins pairing because they haven’t really given Victor a lot in his television matches. However, after this match, I am sold on Victor and I think if they give him a chance, he could be successful.
Getting to the match, I thought that they did a good job starting off the match with a series of near falls on rollups by both men because of the nature of the match where there might only be one fall, so you need to take advantage of the situation. They gave us two falls in the first five minutes of the match so there was the build for the final nine and a half minutes over whether Victor would be able to get the fall necessary to get the win. I liked the running European uppercut that he used to get his fall in the match. The last minute of the match was really good with Victor trying to tie up the match and get another fall but Rollins used his experience to be able to do whatever it took to stop the count and he used every possible option.
Another thing that I really liked about this match was how there wasn’t a ‘major spot’ during the match to take the energy from the crowd. They built things during the entire fifteen minutes so you were anxiously waiting the next move to see what Victor and Rollins would do.
Leo Kruger had a good promo where he talked about his desire to win the FCW Title. I liked how he called himself the Dream Slayer.
While the opening in ring segment with Byron Saxton might have had some flaws, I thought the first segment in Steve Keirn’s office was good. William Regal was the star of the segment because he was there as a representative of the WWE and when he appeared to be on Maxine’s side with her dispute against Keirn and Smiley, they threatened to show a video that would have probably embarrassed Regal, so he suddently changed his mind and supported Smiley as General Manager.
I was surprised to see Aksana’s new look. Her hair is now dark and she was not wearing such provocative outfits.
Byron Saxton had a good promo before the Rowan/Cameron match to continue his feud with Titus O’Neil. Saxton’s strengths are with his mic work whether it is on commentary or doing promos.
I thought the best match of the third show was the opening Triple Threat match between Percy Watson, Brad Maddox, and Richie Steamboat. I thought that all three men worked well during the match. There was a good spot when Watson charged at Maddox in the corner while Steamboat was on the floor. Watson was back body dropped by Maddox but instead of going to the apron, he turned it into a plancha onto Steamboat. I liked that Maddox got the pin on Steamboat because that should give him some momentum.
I was a bit surprised to see some people at this set of tapings. Titus O’Neil, AJ Lee, Kaitlyn, William Regal, and Eden all tour with the Smackdown brand so they had to work the next two weeks of television due to the international tour and then they had to probably take a red eye from Tucson where they taped next week’s Smackdown and NXT to get to Tampa for these tapings.
I thought the Sandow/Rotundo match on the third show was good. As I have mentioned before, I think Sandow is someone who is ready for a run on Raw or Smackdown so I think it is viable for him to be FCW Champion. I thought Sandow was going to get the win, but instead of focusing on winning the match, he worried too much about arguing with the referee. There were two times when I thought they were going to do a ref bump with Rotundo spearing the referee, but they did not do it and Bo got the win with the spear.
The next FCW Television tapings in Tampa are on Thursday, July 21st.
While I don’t normally talk about non-show related matters, but before the doors opened, there was a torrential downpour in South Tampa. Unfortunately, FCW did not open the doors early to help their fans who might not have had umbrellas or proper rain gear.
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