[2001-01-06-NWA Wildside-TV] Caprice Coleman vs Jimmy Rave

[GSR]

Jimmy Rave looks so young here, something that Dave Prazak mentions on commentary, joking that he looks about eleven years old! His ring gear is doing him no favours either, as he reminds me of one of those backyarders who would videotape themselves doing matches and then stick the results on YouTube. Rave reverses the hip toss, catches Coleman with an arm drag and then a dropkick as his opponent takes to the outside to compose himself, although none of this looked the smoothest. When he returns to the ring he levels Rave with a side kick but they’re too close to the ropes as Rave drapes a leg over them to halt the count at two. He counters the tilt-a-whirl with a headscissors and drops Coleman with a flying back elbow. A couple of bad looking punches before a lariat stops him in his tracks. Floatover by Rave and a Northern Lights suplex gets him a near fall on the Jr Heavyweight champ. He backdrops Coleman over the top to the outside and then nails him with a crossbody to the floor. That seems to have taken as much out of Rave as his opponent though. Although he’s back in the ring first, Coleman snaps Rave’s neck across the top rope. High springboard clothesline followed by a slingshot Falcon Arrow. Coleman starts choking Rave and ends up getting into it with the referee, spending an eternity arguing with him and even ‘treating’ us to the Earl Hebner shove spot! He then proceeds to climb the turnbuckles from the inside for no apparent reason other than so Rave can hit a sunset flip powerbomb. Rave misses the corkscrew senton off the top, ‘Thermoshock’ (Diamond Cutter) by Coleman and he retains the Wildside Jr title.

 

I didn’t think much of this. Rave is athletic, knows what to do, but his execution leaves a lot to be desired. He comes over to me as someone who hasn’t been trained; not only does he look like a backyarder, but wrestles like one too. Prazak mentions this is his debut TV appearance, so I wonder if maybe he was a tad nervous. It’ll be interesting to see whether this was a one off or not as we follow his progression for the year. I also absolutely hated the ridiculously unnatural way that they set up the sunset flip powerbomb spot just before the finish as well.

[soup23]

This is Rave’s first appearance in WIldside and they say he looks 11 years old. Rave looks good here and has a lot of offense.  His flying bodypress in particular look good the way it was filmed in that he hit Coleman with great impact and looked like he came from the roof of the barn.  Coleman is able to catch Rave with a springboard clothesline and a slingshot falcon arrow that looked really cool.  Coleman wastes a lot of time and allows Rave to hit a top rope sunset flip but he misses the corkscrew senton and the Thermal Shock for the win. **1/4

[AstroBoy]

Really fun match.  Rave is kind of sloppy and raw but has some energy and some good spots and Caprice had enough charisma and some seasoning to help carry this off.  They escalate hot moves back and forth and keep a great pace before Caprice shuts him down with a cutter.  Really all you could ask out of a deal like this.