[2000-12-30-IPW-New Year Nightmare] Barry Horowitz vs Mike Shane

[GSR]

Chalk up another person using ‘Last Resort’ as their entrance in Mike Shane.  We’re in ‘the Stretcher’s’ home town of St. Petersburg tonight so maybe he will work as the face.  Horowitz isn’t impressed by Shane’s size, saying how he’s taken down the Undertaker, taken down Earthquake and has been in with bigger and better than him.  A semi-final match up in the IPW TV title tournament, the winner moving onto the finals.  ‘The Stretcher’ points at Shane’s valet and wants to know “who invited trash to his match?”  That leads to the cameraman zooming in on the valet’s cleavage!  I was convinced that Shane was the heel (he’s also got Sir Ronald J. Niemi IV in his corner who cut a promo on the crowd pre-match) and Horowitz the face, yet Shane is doing face spots and Horowitz heel.  Shane takes all of the first half of the match, using his power advantage and giving ‘Bad Barry’ nothing.  After a sit-out powerbomb Horowitz roils under the ropes to the floor.  Shane is on his tail and throws him back inside, but ‘the Stretcher’ gets the jump on him...briefly.  Snap suplex by Shane, however there’s no-one home on the middle rope elbow drop.  On Horowitz’s first actual offensive move of the match, a jawbreaker, the referee gets bumped, caught by an errant Shane elbow.  That’s something else!  Some quality European uppercuts from Horowitz.  The valet has now removed her jacket so we get another close up of her breasts.  Dear me. Shane taps whilst trapped in a single leg crab, although with the ref still down it isn’t seen.  Niemi climbs up onto the apron and Horowitz releases the crab to slug him.  Jet Jaguar runs out, but he gets double arm suplexed for his troubles, then we have another run-in, this time courtesy of Mike Sullivan.  He fares better than Jet and softens Horowitz up who ultimately falls victim to a Shane reverse DDT as the future member of Gymini moves onto the finals next month.  The Cuban Assassin makes an appearance post-match with his valet.  I thought he was offering to form some sort of alliance with Horowitz to go against Niemi and his cohorts but don’t think that was the case in the end.

Not good.  You had the confusion over who was the face and the heel (not the first time this has happened in a Horowitz match as it was the same situation when he took on the Cuban Assassin – maybe he just automatically resorts to the heel as he’s more comfortable that way?), Shane taking everything at first and giving ‘the Stretcher’ nothing, a soft ref bump on Horowitz’s first move, him then laying there until the finish which was still several minutes away and then two run ins, for some reason required to beat someone who had looked dirt weak the vast majority of the match.  Not worth the time.