PWInsider - WWE News, Wrestling News, WWE

1/25 MOX VS. GRINGO WRESTLING REVOLVER IN DAYTON, OHIO REPORT

 

The Wrestling REVOLVER review 1/25/24: Mox vs Gringo

Broadcasting live on TrillerTV from the Calumet Center at the Montgomery Country Fairgrounds in Dayton, Ohio, The Wrestling REVOLVER presented the Mox vs Gringo show, finally giving us the very well built up match between Jon Moxley and Gringo Loco and giving us the title vs title match that was supposed to take place in December between Jake Crist and Alex Shelley.

Bork Torkelson is joined for this event by Phoenix Nitro. My first time hearing Nitro's work and he yells...a lot. It seemed to encourage Torkelson to try to out-yell him at times.  Team early Don West (rip) with early Don West with far too much profanity thrown in and that's what this was and that's not really a compliment.

Masha Slamovich got the win over Jake Something in the opener.   Good starter. Something had a huge power advantage and used all of it, big slams, big clothesline, big strikes. Slamovich isn't often the "fighting from underneath" type but she was good at it here and is anytime I've seen her in that role.
She surprised Something with a Sunset flip for the win.  He was not pleased and took his frustration out on the referee. Something showed a lot of edge in the match and with his post match attack on the ref. Interesting.

One half of the TNA World tag champions ABC, "The Inevitable" Ace Austin (with the Glamanager, Gia Miller) got a win over the new look Matthew Palmer, stemming from Palmer's attack on Austin after Austin won the 6 Way Scramble over Palmer at Season Finale last month.  Palmer jumps Austin early and takes the fight to him. Austin blocks what looks like an attempted leglock and rolls up Palmer with a Backlund Bridge for the sudden pin. Nice sequence if a bit too similar to the previous match.  Palmer goes to continue attacking Austin but Miller runs in to stop him and is cold cocked by Palmer, who saunters off, leaving both laying.  I assume there will be more to this going forward. I hope so.

In a 7 Way Sudden Death Scramble match, Brent Oakley of Alpha Sigma Sigma won over Rich Swann, "The Young GOAT" Myron Reed, Damian Chambers (with John E. Bravo and Kayla Kassidy), Warhorse and his Alpha Sigma brothers, KC Jacob and the Pledge.  My first time seeing Warhorse in a while and he looks great.  Whoever told Swann to change his entrance music from Lionel Richie's "All Night Long" to Waka Flocka Flame's "No Hands" should get a nice birthday present from Swann.  All the spots and bumps and dives and superkicks and saves you would expect but had a good match in there as Alpha Sigma Sigma were working together trying to help get the win for either of them, which I thought was clever.  Very good finish with Reed hitting Jacobs with a crossbody, both men landing on a prone Swann and the other Alpha members pulling Reed from the ring, allowing Jacobs to get the biggest win of his short career.  

A dejected Swann seemed a bit upset with Reed as it's announced on the big screen that he will be facing the incoming Mustafa Ali on the March 28 show in Dayton. That sounds good and Ali's video package was impressive but why have Swann lose here then?

To settle a long, long standing violent feud, JT Dunn got a win over "The Death Machine" Sami Callihan in a Last Man Standing match.  We got the plunder that comes with these kinds of matches but it was put together really well with Sami getting a quick start, hitting a Cactus Driver 97 and trying to win in the first minute.  There was good drama to go with the violence in this and I enjoyed it.  With Callihan closing in on the win, Jake Something hits him with a forearm to the back of the head.  TNA Knockout World Tag Team champion Havok, Callihan's wife and her first appearance back in this persona since going back to it at TNA's Hard to Kill premium live event, came in and faced off with Something and then kneed Callihan in the groin!! Now that's a turn I did not see coming at all, even Something seemed surprised.  Havok and Something allowed Dunn to hit his Death by Elbow finish and a piledriver of his own to keep Sami down for the 10 count.  The Dayton crowd didn't seem in love with the angle but I thought was a turn that will need explaining to work.

Dunn is very much an under appreciated talent. If this is a new version of Dunn's group, The Unit, it looks good.

In the first match out of intermission, Steve Maclin of RED (Riches Equal Death, with Killer Kelly ringside) defeated Mance Warner of Second Gear Crew.
Good brawl but had a lot of doors and stuff so it felt redundant after the Last Man Standing match, a common issue I have with REVOLVER shows. There wasn't even a stipulation to it. They were just using weapons.  They brawl to the back after the match.

Fan favorite Crash Jaxon makes an appearance, informing everyone he'll need surgery for his broken arm and will be out 6 months to a year. Some makes a Lex Luger joke. Funny. 

Rickey Shane Page and Alex Colon of RED defend the REVOLVER tag titles in a 4 Way match against the Rascalz (Trey Miguel and Zachary Wentz), the Grizzled Young Veterans (James Drake and Zack Gibson) and Second Gear Crew (Matthew Justice and the 1 Called Manders).  Good subplots as GYV and the Rascalz are continuing their issues from their 4 way at TNA's Hard To Kill and the longstanding issues between GYV and Wentz from NXT and RED, particularly RSP, have their own longstanding, multicompany rivalry with SCG.  I thought this was a lot better than most matches involved RSP and SCG. Smart tag team wrestling without using any weapons.

In a unification match originally scheduled for Season Finale last month, REVOLVER Remix champion Alex Shelley (a title where the champ gets to pick the stipulations for his defenses) defeated REVOLVER champion Jake Crist (with His Boy Bobby) to hold both titles in a very good match.  Shelley really flexes his heel muscles in REVOLVER and with Crist being a Dayton native, it was easy for them to side with their guy.  I loved the first two falls happening quickly inside the first 90 seconds of the match. That was different.  Got messy with Crist's Boy Bobby interfering and maybe having people think he was going to turn (he didn't) and then Palmer coming out, first saving Shelley from a pinfall and then hitting Crist with a low blow, setting him up for the Shell Shock face plant to end the match.  Messy finish but good match. The last two matches have been the best of the show.

They move past Crist quickly as Ace Austin and Gia Miller come out and announce they will be cashing in their Golden Ticket for a title shot at the next Dayton show against Shelley, if he is the champion (good touch since REVOLVER has a show between this event and March 28th). The house mic was turning heel on Ace here but we get the idea. Two big matches announced for the next show. Well done.

In the main event, Jon Moxley of the AEW Blackpool Combat Club beat Gringo Loco in a Lucha Death match. This match had to be rescheduled twice and they were smart to have Loco start badmouthing Moxley and build up some heat for the eventual match.  This was fine but the pacing made it feel too slow. It was just over 25 min and felt like a long just over 25 minutes.  More doors, more chairs but with some new plunder in a board with soda cans on it and a strand of barbed wire that got in a lot of work.  Loco looked really tough and Moxley was having a hard time putting him away but the former WWE and AEW World champion strung together some hammer and elbow strikes and a piledriver for the win.  I think there's a very good wrestling match these two could have but that's not what they were going for. They were going for spectacle and got it.

Code of Honor adhered to after the match with both men putting themselves and the Dayton audience over in post match promos.   A solid show but some of the matches felt repetitive. The REVOLVER shows all seem to have the same formula. It's not a bad one but it can make one show hard to distinguish from another.

The Real Uncle Dave grade: C (84 out of 100)

If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!

• Tweet