[2002-07-05-FWA-Vendetta 2002] The New Breed (Ashe & Curve) vs Jody Fleisch & Jonny Storm

[TonyPulis'Cap]

This is face vs face going in, and played up as a dream tag match, between The New Breed – who were the No. 1 tag team in the company at this point (albeit the FWA’s tag division was never one of it’s strong points, mainly due to the shallowness of the UK scene at this time with anyone with ability being needed as a singles wrestler) while Jody and Jonny were of course the two up and coming top stars.

There’s a handshake at the start, but the New Breed then jump Fleisch and Storm immediately after the bell to set themselves up as the heels in the match. The opening exchanges are very early 2000s indy stuff, looking very choreographed, but the dive sequence we get from everyone is fun and works to get the crowd fired up. This leads to Jody missing a Shooting Star Press from the top (a move he’d broken his wrist doing previously) and from there he’s now your FIP.

Jody, because of his flexibility and his ability to make moves look like they are breaking him in half is always able to gain good sympathy, and while Ashe and Curve don’t do anything revolutionary they do the basics of tag team wrestling well enough that it leads to a good hot tag to Jonny after a few minutes. However just as it looks like the match is going to progress from a competent one into something more engaging it starts to fall apart. The hot tag was well built to but gets cut off too early, and what’s more the New Breed’s big double teams like a super bomb from the top rope and an assisted X Factor are really sloppy. Even then it would’ve been nice for one of those moves to be the finish rather than Jonny missing a moonsault and getting pinned, which feels very anticlimactic.

I’ll always give a thumbs up for an established tag team beating two singles wrestlers, even when they are more high profile, and they did tell the story in the match of Storm and Fleisch not having as good continuity when Jody accidentally hit Jonny with the 720 DDT midway through the match. However Fleisch and Storm were clearly on another level in terms of talent and The New Breed were always a team that felt very indy; attempting big moves outside their ability while looking sloppy with their fundamentals. I liked this being built up as a dream tag team match in terms of the BritWres scene of the early 2000s, but it sadly just doesn’t have much coherence too it and it’s a bit disappointing all in all. (** ¼)