DGUSA Mercury Rising 2011: Better Late Than Never PPV Flashback Report

I am really late with this one, but I have finally watched the DGUSA Wrestlemania iPPV (which you can order by clicking on the banner in the right column of the blog). This show really restored my faith in DGUSA after the very up and down triple shot weekend in January. This show was laid out perfectly with three very good main event quality matches. Just as important as the show’s substantive quality (if not more important) was the show’s production quality, as DGUSA was presenting their first in-house iPPV on WWNlive.com. While I did not watch the iPPV live, I can say that the on-demand picture and sound quality was top notch and far better than the viewing experiences (including on demand experiences) with Gofightlive.com. DGUSA has fired the first shot in the iPPV battle, and this will hopefully force GFL to step up their game (their on-demand experiences have been spotty with and me and their live telecasts have well documented issues). iPPV competition will be good for the promotions, and in turn, good for the fans. The real interesting thing will be if other prominent American indy promotions, like PWG and Chikara, will also move to iPPV. Will they choose GFL or WWNLive? A potentially exciting, and at least a newsworthy, time for fans of independent wrestling.

Match ratings:

Jon Moxley (w/ Valerie Malone & Trina Michaels) vs. Arik Cannon: n/a…For some reason the on-demand version did not play the first 3 minutes of this 7 minute match…terrible finish, especially now that we know Moxley is going to WWE (although the booking of Cannon later in the show at least makes this finish make more sense, but bullshit finishes are still not desirable on PPV)…Cannon continues to deliver solid performances in DGUSA...Reby Sky tried to confront Moxley after the match but she got hit in the back of the head with the heel of one the porn stars' shoes

Jimmy Jacobs[5] vs. Jon Davis[4] vs. Brodie Lee vs. AR Fox[2] vs. Silas Young[3] vs. Stalker Ichikawa[1] (Elimination style with the order of elimination in brackets): ***1/2…Stalker was awesome at the beginning…when Stalker was eliminated by Davis, the crowd chanted at Davis “You Hate Fun!”…Brodie did a hurricarana and a suicide dive, which was quite the site….Jacobs eliminated Fox, Young, and Davis in a row but once again lost to Lee…real good match…Fox and Young once again impressed me with their athletic prowess (as did Lee for that matter)…Stalker needs to be brought back for every show without question

Masato Yoshino vs. Sami Callihan: *** …This match was pretty solid…Callihan’s antics got over with the crowd…Yoshino made him tap with his wacky lucha triangle choke, which does not look painful at all.




Akira Tozawa vs. PAC~!© (w/ Masato Yoshino) (Brave Gate Title): ****1/4… Excellent match that started methodically but gradually built to an awesome, crowd-pleasing finish…I think these two have the potential to be the biggest stars in DGUSA if the promotion wants them to be…Blood Warriors attacked World 1 after the match to put heat on their tag title match at the cable PPV taping (which was won by World 1)

Some geeks were going to have a post-intermission match, but Sami Callihan and Arik Cannon came out and kicked their asses, and then started beating the shit out of each other. Apparently, the next day at the cable PPV Taping, they formed a tag team that will be called Dirty Ugly Fucks (or D.U.F.). Awesome. That is an excellent use of those two talented performers.

YAMATO© vs. Austin Aries (Freedom Gate Title): ****… YAMATO sent Moxley to the back, insisting that he wants to be a fighting champion…similar to the Brave Gate title match, the match started very methodical but then they had a great finishing sequence that made the match feel very special (especially since the crowd was into Austin because of his self-imposed retirement stipulation, which apparently turned out to be bullshit because he joined Blood Warriors the next night…this reportedly caused the fans to chant “WE GOT WORKED~!”)…YAMATO seems to be a bayface now with Kamikaze USA no longer existing (it is now just Kamikaze with YAMATO and an injured Shingo)

Blood Warriors (CIMA, Naruki Doi & Ricochet w/ Brodie Lee)) vs. Ronin (Chuck Taylor, Rich Swann & Johnny Gargano): ****…CIMA beat up Stalker before the match to get some extra heat…another excellent match…not quite on the level of some of the DG 6 mans from ROH (or the Way of the Ronin 6 man tag), but this was still a lot of fun…Ronin has done very well for themselves since their formation; they know how to get themselves over with the DGUSA crowd…PAC and Yoshino attacked Blood Warriors after the match to get some revenge for being attacked earlier…PAC and Yoshino put over the crowd and the first WWN live iPPV to end the show

Overall Show Thoughts: Excellent show from DGUSA…this was probably the best DGUSA show since Untouchable 2010 or Enter the Dragon 2010 (the DVD versions of those shows with the Bryan Danielson matches)…Buy the show by clicking on the DGUSA banner at the top right of the page