World of Sport – September 29, 2018 (Season Finale): And Thank Goodness For That
IMG Credit: World Of Sport
World of Sport
Date: September 29, 2018
Location: Epic Studios, Norwich, England
Commentators: So Cal Val, Stu Bennett, Alex Shane
It’s finally the last show of the season as there’s no reason to keep this thing going any longer. In what shouldn’t surprise anyone, the two matches for the last show are the biggest faces in the promotion getting title shots. They’re not exactly hiding what they’re doing here and that’s ok…I think. Let’s get to it.
Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.
We open with a recap of the season, mainly focusing on the titles.
Bennett is in the ring to start and introduces the first of two title matches.
Tag Team Titles: Kip Sabian/Iestyn Rees vs. British Bulldog Jr./Grado
Bulldog and Grado are challenging. The champs try to jump them to start but get punched in the face for their cheating efforts. Bulldog slams Grado onto Sabian but Rees offers a grab of the leg to let Sabian take over. A slingshot legdrop gets two on Grado and it’s off to Rees for a chinlock. Grado fights up without too much trouble and brings in Bulldog for the real house cleaning, mainly off a bunch of suplexes. Rees tags himself in though and saves Sabian from the running powerslam, followed by a leglock on Bulldog.
That just earns him an enziguri for the second hot tag to Grado as house is cleaned again. Shane: “Grado has been kept on the outside this entire match.” We’re barely six minutes in and this is his second time in the ring. The Cannonball crushes Sabian for two but he’s right back up to take both challengers down again. The powerbomb/neckbreaker combination only gets two, leaving Bulldog to pull Rees to the floor. Sabina gets Grado up but walks into a cutter for the pin and the titles at 7:55.
Rating: C-. Given the main event we have coming up, this was only the second most obvious ending of the week. The only question coming into this match was which of the two top stars would get the pin and that doesn’t leave much in the way of drama. Not the worst match, but more a matter of waiting on the inevitable.
Post match Bennett applauds Grado to end their….I guess it was a feud. That being said, Grado came into this season as WOS Champion and leaves as a Tag Team Champion. That’s kind of a downgrade no? Did he ever even mention going after the World Title again?
We recap Rampage vs. Justin Sysum. Rampage and his cronies cheated Sysum out of the title so Sysum (already #1 contender at the time) won a match involving nearly the entire roster to earn the shot tonight.
WOS Title: Justin Sysum vs. Rampage
Rampage is defending and has CJ Banks and Sha Samuels in his corner. A goon distraction at the bell doesn’t work as Sysum hits Rampage in the jaw and starts speeding things up. Sysum dropkicks him down as the fans seem to be behind him at least. Rampage is right back with a shot to the ribs and a powerslam as the fans go quiet off the champ taking over. Sysum counters a powerbomb with a backdrop over the top…which makes the referee eject the goons for some reason.
The distraction lets Rampage trip Sysum down on the apron and a hard clothesline gives Rampage two. A belly to back suplex gets the same and an elbow to the face cuts off a comeback attempt. The required heel spinebuster gets two more and we hit the even more required chinlock. Back from a break with Sysum making a comeback off with exactly the kind of offense you would expect from him.
A t-bone suplex sends Rampage flying, only to have him clothesline Sysum’s head off. Rampage’s superplex gets the same and another suplex on the floor keeps Sysum in trouble. Like any villain, Rampage tries to cheat but spends too much time setting up the steps, allowing Sysum to hit a clothesline. The 450 is loaded up but cue Banks for a distraction, mainly showing how toothless the referees are around here.
Sysum hits his own running clothesline for two as Banks pulls the referee out. That means a suicide dive for Banks but since that’s another distraction, Rampage catches Sysum with a Samoan drop. We haven’t had a cheap booking tactic though so the referee gets bumped, meaning there’s no one to count the pin on a fisherman’s suplex to the champ. Now it’s Samuels coming back in to slam Sysum and take the turnbuckle pad off.
Rampage’s implant DDT gets two and the referee gets crushed again on the kickout. Rampage grabs the belt but another referee comes out to take it away, allowing Rampage to grab a small package for two. Sysum sends him head first into the exposed buckle though and the 450 gives him the pin and the title at 25:04.
Rating: C+. It’s good, but WAY too long for what they were capable of doing. This felt like they were trying to fill in as much time as they could with one booking trick after another, which isn’t what you want on a main event. The match should have come off as a big moment and while the title change was the only way to end the show, it needed to have come about ten minutes earlier.
Post match Rampage is livid and shoves Barrett so it’s a Bull Hammer to leave him laying. Sysum celebrates to end the show.
Overall Rating: C. And that’s probably it for the series. The final show was exactly what you would have expected it to be and there’s nothing wrong with that. You wouldn’t want to leave the fans sad and having the popular guys win the titles was the right way to close things out. I’m not wild on a lot of the roster but that’s the way you go with things, at least in a classical booking style.
Overall though, the show just wasn’t very good. At the same time though, it wasn’t very bad. That’s the problem as a whole: the show is so average and so mundane that there’s just nothing to talk about. Most of the roster is forgettable and the promos/stories are almost nowhere to be seen. None of the stories stuck with me more than the end of each episode and that’s not enough to make a full time series. Having ten episodes hurt things, but they didn’t leave me with anything that made me want to see more.
I still have almost no idea what the differences are in a lot of the members of the roster. So many of them have no distinguishing features and since there are almost no characters around, it’s not exactly the best roster to make you remember who is who. There were a few stories here and there but most of them began and wrapped up so fast that they didn’t have time to go anywhere.
Every week, the thing that sticks out to be is how much better stuff there is out there. The British wrestling scene is hot right now and this doesn’t cater to any large group of fans. Older fans aren’t going to be interested in such a lame show and younger fans aren’t going to be entertained by something that comes and goes so fast. With all the other wrestling available out there, this isn’t something worth your time.
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