[2003-09-21-FWA-Hotwired] Jack Xavier vs E.Z. Money

[TonyPulis'Cap]

As ever before the opener of the show, a little intro on where the FWA was at this point; this is the final stop before the company’s biggest event of the year - British Uprising II the next month. As such, this show is used as a set up with a much heavier use of angles, promos and non wrestling segments than previous FWA cards. With no TV in place at this stage, and being in the pre YouTube era, it makes some sense to try to build up the big upcoming show, but as you’ll see in the individual match threads I’ll post, the matches suffer as a result, and after a strong run of shows from British Uprising I the previous October, this was a clear step back in quality.

 

As with Vendetta the previous month, we are in the Broxbourne Civic Hall, however attendance does look from the eye to be slightly down. As we’ll come onto, that’s perhaps because of the absence of Doug Williams and Jody Fleisch, and maybe the lack of an overseas import with a significant buzz or big name. One of those imports, EZ Money, is in our opener.

 

He’s facing Jack Xavier, who in 2003 was being pushed up the card by being put against a lot of the US imports coming over. Xavier had already faced off with Juventud Guerrera and Chris Hamrick, and at Frontiers of Honor he defeated Mikey Whipwreck. This is all being done to build him up to facing Homicide at British Uprising, and the fact he wins here is the best part of the match. The rest is very disappointing however.

 

The match has a lot of the worst habits of indie wrestling: lack of transitions, selling ranging from spotty to non-existent and no particular storyline to thread the match together. The spots themselves are also awkward with the two guys not exhibiting much in the way of chemistry. Xavier throughout his time played a great underdog for the crowd to rally behind but EZ Money never really takes control of the match and so there is little opportunity for any heat to build. I quite liked EZ Money in his late ECW run and also thought he was fun in his couple of months in the dying days of WCW as Jason Jett, but as the guys on the ThROH The Years podcast pointed out in their review of Expect the Unexpected http://placetobenation.com/throh-the-years-episode-15-expect-the-unexpected/ while he’s a guy that can look good in a multi man match or a tag team where he can come in and hit some impressive spots, when put in with someone where he was expected to lead more of the match, he doesn’t have that ability.

 

There are one or two fun spots in this match – both guys are good at that – and both have some fairly unique moves in their arsenal, but overall this does not hang together well at all, and I was really disappointed. (* ½)