OdysseyIWA TV September 3 2007 thoughts
September 4th 2007 07:37
Well, for the first time ever something other than WWE is being looked at on this site! IWA have a TV show (the first weekly Oz wrestling show in many, many years, excluding HRPR on Ch9 and ASW on Ch31 which only lasted a few eps each, from memory).
Was on at a bit of a rough timeslot for me, as I also wanted to watch Andrew Denton interview Kyle Sandilands on Ch2 and ep two of Californication on Ch10, but wrestling won out (of course!)
First of all, it was really awesome to have a wrestling show shown in widescreen!! That made me very happy!
Ok, as for the actual show...
Well, I'm not the biggest follower of Aus wrestling, so I didn't know hardly anyone on the show (The only people I was familiar with were The Bastard Brothers [KrackerJack is awesome by the way!] and Julian James.). Just thought I'd mention that first off.
Overall... I liked it. The more wrestling on TV, the better, and I'll definitely tune into this each week and, unless I'm really busy, post reviews here.
None of the matches were five star classics (but I wasn't expecting them to be either)- they were all decent enough though.
Didn't really get into the opener, but the tag match was fun (The Bastards' entrance should've been shown though. Just having them shown standing in the ring while the other team got an entrance made them look like jobbers). And I really dug the main-event. I'd say the show succeed excellently in getting Mark Mercedes over as the promotion's top heel. His promo was effective, he looked a million bucks in the match, and the commentators (who I enjoyed throughout the show) put him over well throughout (talking of him not being a good role model and what-not). He was perhaps the only guy on the show to come across like a real star. I probably wouldn't have had him win the match by a roll-up though (ending it after a power move would've made him look more dominant, but I'm guessing Mercedes/Matrix will be a running feud throughout the series).
One other thing regarding Mercedes... I thought it was a bit lame how right after he cut his heel promo, they played the IWA Training School ad (with Mercedes calmly and normally reading the phone number and the .com details, etc.). They probably could've just got a voiceover guy to do that rather than the #1 heel.
While it was good to see backstage stuff, I can't say the skits worked for me. Perhaps they'd be more effective in a few eps time when we know the characters better.
Angeleeka was hot! The interview with Matrix though, was unfortunately a low point of the show. He didn't come off well there at all.
The post-production was all top-notch throughout the show. Thought I'd mention that, as one of the things I think a lot of people were thinking was that the show would look completely bush-league. Well, the graphics, music, sound and all the other stuff was really good. The camera angles weren't great but ok for the equipment they had (obviously wasn't expecting it to be WWE-level or anything) The arena lights probably should've been a tad brighter too.
Finally, the pacing was good also. The fact that the show's only 1/2 an hour had a lot of people worried but they used the time well and didn't try to chuck as many matches as they could in it (which I thought that they might). Having three matches 7-or-so mins each worked well. And something else I liked about it was that the main-event felt like a main-event. Often on wrestling TV shows, the show is stolen by an undercard match (ie- Smackdown! lately). On this show, thanks to the pre-match interviews with both guys as well as the commentators hyping it, the main-event came across as the most important and most epic match of the show, as it should be.
Overall-- I enjoyed it, and I anticipate episode two.
---
IF YOU MISSED IT: Catch a replay-- there are quite a few of them I believe. It probably isn't for everyone, but if you like wrestling, give it a watch and then decide for yourself whether it's for you.
Was on at a bit of a rough timeslot for me, as I also wanted to watch Andrew Denton interview Kyle Sandilands on Ch2 and ep two of Californication on Ch10, but wrestling won out (of course!)
First of all, it was really awesome to have a wrestling show shown in widescreen!! That made me very happy!
Ok, as for the actual show...
Well, I'm not the biggest follower of Aus wrestling, so I didn't know hardly anyone on the show (The only people I was familiar with were The Bastard Brothers [KrackerJack is awesome by the way!] and Julian James.). Just thought I'd mention that first off.
Overall... I liked it. The more wrestling on TV, the better, and I'll definitely tune into this each week and, unless I'm really busy, post reviews here.
None of the matches were five star classics (but I wasn't expecting them to be either)- they were all decent enough though.
Didn't really get into the opener, but the tag match was fun (The Bastards' entrance should've been shown though. Just having them shown standing in the ring while the other team got an entrance made them look like jobbers). And I really dug the main-event. I'd say the show succeed excellently in getting Mark Mercedes over as the promotion's top heel. His promo was effective, he looked a million bucks in the match, and the commentators (who I enjoyed throughout the show) put him over well throughout (talking of him not being a good role model and what-not). He was perhaps the only guy on the show to come across like a real star. I probably wouldn't have had him win the match by a roll-up though (ending it after a power move would've made him look more dominant, but I'm guessing Mercedes/Matrix will be a running feud throughout the series).
One other thing regarding Mercedes... I thought it was a bit lame how right after he cut his heel promo, they played the IWA Training School ad (with Mercedes calmly and normally reading the phone number and the .com details, etc.). They probably could've just got a voiceover guy to do that rather than the #1 heel.
While it was good to see backstage stuff, I can't say the skits worked for me. Perhaps they'd be more effective in a few eps time when we know the characters better.
Angeleeka was hot! The interview with Matrix though, was unfortunately a low point of the show. He didn't come off well there at all.
The post-production was all top-notch throughout the show. Thought I'd mention that, as one of the things I think a lot of people were thinking was that the show would look completely bush-league. Well, the graphics, music, sound and all the other stuff was really good. The camera angles weren't great but ok for the equipment they had (obviously wasn't expecting it to be WWE-level or anything) The arena lights probably should've been a tad brighter too.
Finally, the pacing was good also. The fact that the show's only 1/2 an hour had a lot of people worried but they used the time well and didn't try to chuck as many matches as they could in it (which I thought that they might). Having three matches 7-or-so mins each worked well. And something else I liked about it was that the main-event felt like a main-event. Often on wrestling TV shows, the show is stolen by an undercard match (ie- Smackdown! lately). On this show, thanks to the pre-match interviews with both guys as well as the commentators hyping it, the main-event came across as the most important and most epic match of the show, as it should be.
Overall-- I enjoyed it, and I anticipate episode two.
---
IF YOU MISSED IT: Catch a replay-- there are quite a few of them I believe. It probably isn't for everyone, but if you like wrestling, give it a watch and then decide for yourself whether it's for you.
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