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THE UWN PRIMETIME LIVE WEEK FIVE BLOG

 

We are back for week 5 of the UWN on FITE, or 3 minutes after AEW Dark went off the air.  Our primary tease is an announcement for something 8 years in the making.  This really needs to be a humdinger tonight.  The goal here should be to go off the air hot so we want to purchase next week.  I can hear the Saturday Night's Main Event type sound bytes but I have the Prime Time LIVE logo locked in on my screen.  Our main event is a UWN TV Title match.  The music kicks us off and I'm still looking at the logo.

We have a rematch from NJPW between Danny Limelight and Clark Connors.  This should be good to watch, if the logo ever goes away.

THERE IT GOES!  I'm curious as to how Connors will be presented once he returns to Japan full time from excursion.  Limelight has had a few looks on UWN Primetime Live so far, he's showing some real fire with running uppercuts.  Even in the U.S., on excursion, Connors is in the plain black trunks and boots.  Connors with a good looking snap suplex.  Good job by UWN starting off with this.  Two guys who are not household names but have enough recognition that you care who wins.  Connors got the W the other night for NJPW.  Limelight just hit a double stomp after jumping over a spear attempt.  Limelight has some excellent footwork and balance, jumping off one rope and landing on another.

The ramp and ring are mic'ed up loud. These two are definitely working New Japan style.  Connors slipped off the ropes but that might have been intentional as it set up an immediate Limelight superplex.  Connors reversed the Fisherman and scored the pin.  Really nice way to open the show.  This was just as good as their previous match from a days ago.

Fred Rosser is with Dave Marquez.  Fred calls himself a Prime Time Player.  Is that a copyright infringement.  Chris Masters interrupts but doesn't get too far before a seemingly drunken James Storm shows up seemingly drunk.  Masters dumps the rest of Storms beer and the previously announced Rosser vs. Masters match is now a triple threat with Storm.

Heather Monroe returns to UWN along with the ever present Halston Boddy to take on Elayna Black, who'll hopefully get a chance to show more than she was able to on AEW Dark tonight.  Black has her mini coffin with her as she did earlier.  This time, her tarot card has an image of Heather Monroe.  I'd be remiss is I didn't show some love to Monroe, who had a really nice outing a month ago against Kamille, a match I thought was put together for Kamille to eat her alive.

Black seems to have a lot more confidence on her face than she had earlier tonight.  Monroe's got a certain Glamor Girls charisma to her.  Halston Boddy gets involved here, as expected.  I can never remember the announcers names but they did a nice job reminding us that they're live, when referencing Black's second go round on our screens tonight.    

Black is making a great showing here.  In this one, you can really see her potential.  She's young, obviously and you can see her sort of putting together her moves in her head before she executes.  We're told that a UWN Women's Title is forthcoming.  Monroe with the win after she nails a Michinoku Driver.

 

Back to that UWN Women's Title thing: It's going to behoove the UWN bookers and announcers to let us know the pecking order.  We've seen Thunder Rosa defend the NWA belt and we saw something called the UWN Nevada Title or something.  They have to be careful because, as we've seen in WWE, too many titles renders all titles meaningless.

We see an interview from Chris Dickinson after went off the air last week, telling us that he won't be here this week.  Something funny about a guy cutting a pre taped interview where they show him saying he won't be on the very show they're presenting his interview on.

Steven Tresario vs Hammerstone for the West Coast Pro Title is up next.  This'll be Hammerstone's second title defense on UWN.  Tresario goofs off a little.  Hammerstone looks awesome, as in he should be one of the focuses of this show.  He lets Tresario slam him.  I just hate that idea and visual.  Hammerstone, for the 2nd time in as many appearances, should be eating this guy from breakfast, squashing him into oblivion.  I'd rather get to know this guy on a major level as a killer before having him do competitive matches. Here, in this match, he should not have to be competitive.  Hammerstone with a great looking dropkick, again something I'd rather he save for a big moment.

I respect them wanting to now bury Tresario, but he just shouldn't be in the spot if looking like he's this close to beating Hammerstone.  It's one thing if Hammerstone was out here every week doing an open challenge gimmick and some guy takes advantage of a tired out champion.

Tresario just scored a 2 and 5/6 count.  Hammerstone finally wins.  I think he accidently dropped Tresario while attempting to deliver a jack hammer

James Storm, without his NWA Tag Team Title belt, Fred Rosser and Chris Masters are next.  I loved Rosser as 1/2 of the Prime Time Players.  I never thought WWE gave them a real chance (I know, shocking).  Funny how much time has passed since we last saw Masters on a big stage.  I remember him and Carlito challenging Kane and Big Show at a WrestleMania, 22 I think.  I'm curious to see if the announcers mention Storm being a tag team champion with Eli Drake.  Rosser looks great, leaner than he was in this WWE days.  Masters is just sitting back watching Storm and Rosser beat the heck out of each other.  

Masters finally gets involved here and this one is starting to flow pretty smoothly.  So far, no mention of the NWA Tag Team titles, so I'm assuming Billy Corgan will have to make some decision about the title's future.  Masters tries to apply the Masterlock but it gets broken up.  Rosser with the gut check for a really nice impressive win here.  Storm with a "block the hate" show of respect to Rosser.

Time for the huge announcement.  Dave Marquez is out to make it personally.  Marquez talks about his 30 years in wrestling, yet he looks no older than 38.  I think the announcement is for an 8 man Openweight tournament for the UWN World Championship.  The best itself looks beautiful and I'm glad UWN is taking steps to put a singular focus on someone in the Network.  I'm not sure what this does for the future of its relationship with the NWA but it should be an interesting next few weeks to say the lease.  I'm not sure why this announcement was 8 years in the making.

MAIN EVENT TIME.  Dan Joseph vs. Dom Kubrick for the UWN TV Title.  I admit I know next to nothing about either of these 2, except I think Joseph last appeared on UWN Week 1.  Having these guys do a promo the last 2 weeks would have been better than having them come out cold in a main event spot.  We're told that Timeless Levi Shapiro will get the next title shot, thanks to the greatest name in pro wrestling today, one Howdy Price.  Joseph is really favoring the back of his head and neck.  He's either hurt or doing a great sell job.

Looks like a great sell job as he's back at it.  Match is completely fine for what it is and I give the announce team a lot of credit for feverishly trying to introduce the audience to these guys as the match is in progress.  Kubrick has looked pretty dominant the last 5-6 minutes of this but a German suplex and bridge by Joseph scores him the pin for the win.  

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the matches and the action tonight, with Connors and Limelight being tremendous.  I'm just not sure exactly how "must see" this show was. There really needs to be an effort made to give us viewers some real surprises, or at the very least, release some YouTube videos introducing us to some of this talent we may not be entirely familiar with.

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