[2001-02-14-WCW-Thunder] Jamie Noble & Evan Karagias vs A.J. Styles & Air Paris

[GSR]

There are two vacant slots in the Cruiserweight elimination match at Superbrawl, the winning team here going on to fill them.  That seems to be telegraphing the result already.  The televised debut of WCW’s newest signees, A.J. Styles & Air Paris, two guys who have been tearing it up on the independent scene according to Mike Tenay.  Paris has got different ring gear to what he wears in Wildside which I don’t think benefits him.  Apparently WCW has been actively scouting Cruiserweights.  Nice back leg trip by Styles for an early two count.  Tenay is already plugging his Shooting Star press.  Styles is working well with Noble here.  Stereo backdrops and Noble & Karagias are out to the floor to talk strategy.  A.J. connects on the baseball slide and then backdrops Paris out onto the.  Sit-out spinebuster by Air on Evan.  Drop toe hold, legdrop to the back of the neck, twisting senton sequence.  Styles gets trapped in the opposition’s corner where Karagias nails him from behind after he takes a swing at Jamie.  Side suplex/legdrop off the top double team, Air in to break up the pin.  He’s forced to do the same again when A.J.’s caught with a scoop powerslam.  Northern Light suplex by Noble.  Surfboard into a Dragon sleeper and for the third time in as many minutes Paris saves his partner.  Styles escapes the tombstone and hits a big powerslam, the back of Noble’s head crashing into the canvas.  The crowd aren’t reacting much at all to this as Paris gets the hot tag.  Burning Hammer, okay they reacted to that alright!  He turns his attention to Karagias however forgets about Noble who catches him with a German suplex.  A.J. breaks that up but then gets dropkicked out the ring by Evan.  Springboard crossbody to the floor.  Paris crotches Noble upstairs, he though holds on, blocking the superplex, and Karagias gets underneath Air lifting him up on his shoulders.  Awesome Doomsday Device turns Paris inside out.  Karagias pulls his partner off him at the count of two so he can make the cover himself.  In response Noble then does the same to him, which is unbelievably daft as they had the match won.  Evan with a 450 splash, but he’s dragged to the outside by Paris who DDT’s him on the mats.  Air sidesteps the Noble pescado and then holds his opponents in anticipation for a Styles dive.  It’s the springboard Shooting Star to the floor, called the Shooting Styles Press by Tenay.  He ends up hitting his own man with it though as Noble & Karagias move him in the way.  Back inside they hit a springboard dropkick/powerbomb double team for the win and complete the lineup for the Superbrawl elimination match.

A great debut from the Wildside boys who showed none of the expected nervousness.  I was surprised at how long they were given here although think a shorter match may have been more beneficial than the traditional tag.  The crowd weren’t really with them, see Paris’ not-so-hot tag, and I think a 6-8 minute full of high spots could have got them into it more.  On the contrary, how long they were given, and the fact that they weren’t just squashed, bodes well for them.  Well at least it would have if the company wasn’t dead in a month!  The Cruiserweight tag team tournament is one thing that I’m really looking forward to in the last month of WCW and this was a tremendous pre-cursor of what’s to come.