WAR GAMES: Team Blackheart vs. Team LeRae
This wasn't much. There's maybe one or two pretty cool moments in the whole match. And even those moments weren't really that neat in all honesty. The action upped a little bit once Io entered the match, but still wasn't very interesting. The nicest thing I feel like I can say is that I thought it flowed nicely & didn't drag, so there's that at least. Gentleman's **
Timothy Thatcher vs. Tommaso Ciampa
This was easily the most appealing looking match-up from the show on paper, and I thought it ended up being kind of a best possible match between Timothy Thatcher & Tommaso Ciampa. Meaning it was fantastic. Loved the early work on the mat - felt slick, looked tight & violent + there's a good struggle behind it all. Awesome stuff, as was Thatcher's big control seg w/ him targeting Ciampa's neck. Thatchman brought lots of nice, focused, creative, vicious work there, and I thought the whole gameplan was sold extremely well w/ Ciampa feeling like he was in true peril. Ciampa's big comeback w/ that clothesline flurry was very nice as well, and the spot & the visual with him locking in that badass looking choke (Ciampa legit has one of the best looking chokeholds in pro-wrestling imo) w/ Thatcher bleeding from the ear, 'twas badass. Also loved the whole finishing stretch; beautiful amount of grit, struggle n' brutality there. It ended this match perfectly. It was a great one. In many ways it was the Timothy Thatcher show, and boy what a glorious time it was, but at the same time I don't want to say that, because Ciampa was also really good, suited the style extremely well & simply brought it. ****
Cameron Grimes vs. Dexter Lumis
Dexter Lumis isn't very interesting at all, but Cameron Grimes was so good throughout, this match ended up being good as the result as well. He put it all into making Dexter look good by bumping big for each move he ate, and he also brilliantly used the strap-gimmick in awesome, interesting ways as he gained the control multiple times via using it. What a man. As far as my enjoyment of the match goes, he certainly was the driving force behind it all. And I sure did enjoy the match quite a lot. ***
Damian Priest vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Leon Ruff
The whole dynamic with Leon Ruff being the champ, but being overlooked by the other two, especially Damian Priest, was really fun. There's some nice moments in the match centered around that, with Ruff bringing the fight & getting thrown around, and it's indeed fun stuff. Priest & Ruff both looked overall really good throughout I thought. Gargano was also there; he didn't stand-out like the other two, but he also did his thing & looked solid - the fast-paced spotfest nature of the bout certainly fit him pretty well, and funnily enough, I actually liked his talking here, as the bit with him teaming up w/ Ruff for a while to beat the bigger man up in Priest was one of my favorite moments of the match. The whole ghostface-mask-dude invasion at the end was pretty wacky & I do think it sucked some energy out of the match which it was shining with beforehand, but even with that, it was still a really good and fun match all in all. ***1/4
WAR GAMES: The Undisputed Era vs. Team McAfee
Comparing this to the women's War Games match, this one was much better. They portrayed the dislike between the teams pretty nicely throughout, with the match at its best feeling like a chaotic brawl, doing the gimmick solid justice. However, unsurprisingly with its 45-minute runtime, there was some periods of time where things weren't as interesting as one would hope. For the most part I enjoyed it very much though. It was a good one. ***1/4
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