[2002-12-15-FWA-Season's Beatings] Doug Williams vs A.J. Styles vs Jerry Lynn

[TonyPulis'Cap]

Bit of an explanation needed before this one then! This is set to be Doug vs AJ, before the final match of the tournament will be AJ vs Jonny Storm. Going in, Doug has 20 points, AJ has 20 points and Jonny has 20 points. After his three matches, Jody Fleisch has 15 points and has therefore already been eliminated. But before the match starts it’s announced that due to the DDT he received on the outside in his count out loss to Flesich, Storm is unable to continue so his match against AJ won’t be able to go ahead. This makes Doug vs AJ as the default final to win the tournament…

 

…however we then get Jerry Lynn as a surprise, which was a pretty ballsy (stupid?) thing for the FWA to do, given you presume that if you had him booked you would’ve wanted to advertise him? Unfortunately there’s nothing on Cagematch that confirms if he was in the country wrestling elsewhere around the same time, but that could potentially be the case.

 

For most of the second half of 2002, Styles/Lynn had been in a heated rivalry in TNA which had spilled over to other promotions, and like the continuation of the Williams/Christopher Daniels rivalry from ROH into FWA storylines I like this connectivity that doesn’t treat separate promotions as different universes and through respecting continuity delivers more layered story telling. Lynn gets on the mic to say that he was originally meant to be in the tournament but had suffered an injury against AJ, that Styles had then over-exaggerated to FWA officials to get his spot in the tournament. It’s a little hokey, but I like the logic and storytelling. He then asks the FWA ringside official, to be given Storm’s 20 points and enter the tournament, which he then does and turns this match into a triple threat. It’s all a bit ECW, but the effort with the backstory and carrying over storylines from another company just about gives it a pass from me.

 

The match itself is only seven or eight mins long but they pack a lot into that and as you might expect it’s wrestled at a cracking pace. The chemistry between Lynn and Styles is evident and while, as with most indy three way matches in the mid 2000s, there’s not a huge amount of selling going on, there’s not a lot of down time and one guy lying on the outside either. The ending is controversial with Lynn power bombing Williams at the same time as he hits the Chaos Theory on Styles, with the ref counting the pin for Lynn while it looks like Doug is also pinning AJ.

 

The ending, and the fact that a guy that has just wrestled the one match ends up winning the tournament still leaves a bit of a sour taste in the mouth 15 years later, but it continues the theme of the booking of Christopher Daniels winning the title whereby results were meant to shock the largely hardcore/internet fan that was following the promotion. However, overall, given the different storylines weaving throughout the tournament – and the fact it set up several rematches with most having legitimate gripes, as well as the fact that there is a solid evening of consistently decent matches, overall this is a strong show top to bottom. (*** 1/4)