Zero Hour was hosted by Renee Paquette, RJ City, Jeff Jarrett, and Paul Walter Hauser. The show is coming from Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey,
The starting commentary team is Excalibur, Matt Menard, and Tony Schiavone. The first match was at 5:35 pm, about 5 minutes into Zero Hour.
Deonna Purrazzo w/Taya Valkyrie vs Anna Jay
People are still filing in, so there are a lot of empty seats. Their work when they start the match seems fairly lackluster, and the empty seats and silence of the crowd doesn’t help much. The match improves as they go. In the end, Anna rolls up Deonna after Deonna sets an arm bar for the pin and the win. A biodegradable TV match that should not have been done so early in the hype show.
Winner: Anna Jay
Lexi Nair is with Billie Starkz and we then get a number of run ins for people who will be wrestling for a chance to be in a match at New Japan’s Wrestler Dynasty. Everyone starts talking over each other and it does nothing to push the match they have coming up as it doesn’t say when and where their qualifying match is.
Lexi is then with QT Marshall, and he will lay out Big Boom AJ just like he did on Rampage. He heels New Jersey (and Bruce Springsteen) and says that AJ represents New Jersey.
Dante Martin vs Komander vs The Beast Mortos vs Buddy Matthews
Buddy gets rid of Komander and Martin so that we get him and Mortos, but Dante and Komander get back in the ring so that Mortos and Buddy can beat them down again over and over. Then, Mortos is tossed, followed by Buddy getting tossed. Mortos gets back in the ring so he can take on the two smaller guys.
Buddy gets in the ring as Mortos is taken out and the two smaller guys team up against him. We then move to one and one in the ring with different pairings. The crowd is starting to fill out and the match sounds a lot better than the first match. We then get a series of dives, including Komander doing the rope run into a moonsault.
Mortos sends Buddy into the steel steps and we get Mortos against Komander. Mortos takes out Komander with a lung blower. He then takes out Martin with a Samoan drop, allowing Buddy to get into the ring. Martin drops Mortos and Buddy then works over Komander. The one on one situations start speeding up. The match ends as Martin hits a splash on Mortos for a cover, and Buddy hits a curb stomp on Martin for the pin and the win.
Winner: Buddy Matthews
Lots of high spots, and they had a nice set of one on ones to tease possible future matches. It was OK for what it was, but nothing special.
Paul Wight joins commentary, and nice to see him back! He brings out the Rizzler, as the special timekeeper. I have no idea who he is, but the crowd does.
QT Marshall vs Big Boom AJ w/Big Justice
They do more to let us know who AJ is during his entrance to the ring than they have in the entire build up for the match. I get he’s a social media star, but letting us know he’s a local indie guy who worked with QT early in his career would have done more than the idea that everyone follows his food reviews.
QT is great at being the heel who gets humiliated by someone, and is able to generate heat quickly. QT oversells at the right times, plays to the crowd, and makes AJ look powerful. It’s a fairly gimmick-y match and the crowd absolutely loves it. At one point, QT gets into the Rizzler’s face, and Paul Wight leaves commentary to drive him off. This leads to AJ getting an avalanche suplex from the top.
Aaron Solo gets on the apron to distract AJ. Big Justice gets in the ring and hits a spear on QT. This allows AJ to finally get the power slam for the pin and the win.
Winner: Big Boom AJ
Decent use of a celebrity who knows his way around a ring, and the crowd loved it, so it was successful.
We get a segment of Mercedes Mone and Kamille where Mone berates her for all of her failures over the last month and Kamille starts to say something and Mone cuts her off and keeps berating her and says Kamille can watch the match from the back in catering.
We get the November Rain video again.
Matt Menard has left and Nigel McGuinness has joined commentary.
We then get a live band playing the entrance theme for the House of Black as we go to the pay per view.
Coverage Continues on Next Page
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