[2000-09-09-MPPW-TV] Slash vs Austin Rhodes

[soup23]

Austin Rhodes is a penny store impersonation of a Rhodes family member. A terrible worker that botches a roll up at one point in the waning moments of this match. Slash is still doing a pretty unique character beat in the same vein of late 1996 Steve Austin but this match was just here to advance him in the tournament. 1/4*

[GSR]

Slash says how the non-believers thought they were going to kick him off TV last week and that would stop the evil and stop the madness, but it didn’t stop anything. Everybody that has crossed him that steps in the ring gets slashed. He tells Corey and ‘weather man’ to shut their face as for a long time he’s wanted to beat their brains out, and says that pro wrestling is going to find out what evil is all about. Aargh, Austin Rhodes is that unidentified wrestler from the ‘13 man elimination match’ and this is another bout in the ‘Ultimate Victory tournament’. Rhodes ducks under a couple of clotheslines and hits a crossbody for a one count. Single leg trip, but Rhodes kicks Slash off and takes him down with an arm drag. Slash backs him into the corner where he unloads with a flurry of headbutts. Suplex, he drops the leg but Rhodes kicks out at two. A back kick low blow puts a stop to the ‘Rude Awakening’ (we really need to find out what Slash calls it) and a piss poor imitation of Dusty Rhodes complete with ‘Bionic Elbow’ Reverse bulldog off the top for another near fall. Rhodes complains about the slow count before making a right hash of a roll up. Slash kicks out, but in doing so send Rhodes crashing into the ring post. Neckbreaker and he advances to face Blade Boudreaux in the next round of the tournament.

 

I will say that I thought Rhodes looked better than Charlie Laird and Jet Logan did last week, but matches like this really emphasise the lack of depth in Power Pro at the moment. As Slash was the one advancing he gave Rhodes the majority of the match before hitting his neckbreaker for the win.