Scenic City Invitational Night One Review

Hey guys it is Josh Masterson, the internet’s resident TNA and EVOLVE fanatic. I originally intended on writing a review for the first night of the Scenic City Invitational in my typical format, where I give my star ratings for each match and then write a couple sentences about them but I decided not to so that I am less limited in talking about the show.

Thoughts Before Watching

When I first heard about the 2016 Scenic City Invitational I didn’t really understand why people cared about it so much. I remembered it getting some attention last summer and while the lineup looked like a large improvement from last year, I still didn’t know most of the names in the tournament. Southern indy wrestling over the years has gained somewhat of a negative stigma surrounding it as a lot of people see things like Alabama Doink and automatically assume it is all like that. I have a friend who wrestles in the Alabama/Florida area (the same area as Alabama Doink) and through him I have seen so many ridiculously over the top gimmicks used by southern indy wrestlers that look like they came straight out of 1994 WWF. That is what so many people see southern indies as and if this show is as good as people say it is and continues to gain attention I think it can do a lot for getting rid of that stigma. Going into this the only people I had seen more than one or two times were Chris Hero, Matt Riddle, Lio Rush, Anthony Henry, and Jimmy Rave (but the most recent Rave match I saw was nearly ten years ago).

Star Ratings

Jimmy Rave vs John Skyler ***1/2

Joey Lynch vs Ray Fury ***3/4

Billy Buck vs Drew Delight ***1/4

Lio Rush vs Anthony Henry ***3/4

Odinson vs Chip Day ***1/4

Mikael Judas vs Gunner Miller 1/4*

Matt Riddle vs Corey Hollis ***1/4

Chris Hero vs Kyle Matthews ****

Thoughts After Watching

Chris Hero is the best wrestler on the planet and it really isn’t close. His match with Kyle Matthews, who ended up being one of my favorite unknown talents of the night, was another addition to the endless list of great matches he has had this year. While Hero doesn’t have the most extensive moveset every move he does is so brutal and great that it doesn’t even matter. I’ve said this before but there is nobody who is more fun to watch beat people up than Chris Hero. Matthews looked great in defeat and I will definitely try to see more of him as he was highly impressive here. Some more people I had never seen before who impressed me were Odinson, John Skyler, Joey Lynch, and Ray Fury.

Odinson had one of the best performances of the night in his match against Chip Day, physically looking like Sheamus but looking more athletic and talented than Sheamus has in any matches I can remember from this year. I understand that Chip Day is pretty popular in the south and he looked pretty decent here and in the couple other times I’ve seen him but if I’m being honest Odinson vs Hero sounds like a much more appealing second round match than Hero vs Day.

Joey Lynch and Ray Fury, two guys I’d never even heard of before, had a great match that made me wish both men were working regularly in promotions I watched. It seems like some people thought they may have tried to do too much but I enjoyed every minute of it and it was different enough from every other match on the show. The match it was most different from though was Billy Buck vs Drew Delight which while it didn’t have the high speed nonstop action of some of the other matches on the card it was a very fun and enjoyable match with two simple old school characters. While those two matches were very different for their styles, Gunner Miller vs Mikael Judas was different in that it was just bad. I had never seen either of these men before and after that match I’m not really sure that’s a bad thing (but I’ve heard that it was not a good representation of Gunner’s talent and I hope he proves that in his other matches). For the majority of the night the crowd was very hot but it was insanely quiet during this match as Judas beat up Gunner for what felt like an eternity. If I can say anything positive about this match it is that the botched snapmares got a second-hand embarrassment laugh from me.

For most of the matches on this show I seemed to agree with most of the reviews I’ve read or things I’ve seen people say on Twitter but there were a couple matches that I felt differently about. The first of these was Matt Riddle vs Corey Hollis. Matt Riddle is a great talent and I have loved watching him grow into the outstanding performer he has very quickly become but something was missing in this match for me. While the chasing under the ring was funny and I loved the pedigree stuff and the match was very good at points it just felt like something wasn’t there, it went a little bit too long, and it wasn’t on par with a lot of Riddle’s other matches this year. The other match I didn’t like as much as a lot of people is Lio Rush vs Anthony Henry. Unlike Riddle vs Hollis even though I didn’t like it as much as most people I didn’t have any problems with it. I like both of these talents a lot and this was a very enjoyable match, easily one of the best matches of the night but I personally enjoyed Hero vs Matthews more than it.

Many shows I feel don’t live up to the hype, but this did 100%. After watching all of this years fantastic G1 Climax tournament you’d think I’d be sick of tournaments or even wrestling in general but I loved this show so much. It was extremely fun and was very easy to get through with a lot of very good to great matches, main evented by the best wrestler in the world doing what he does best. This gets a very easy recommendation from me especially considering the low price. If you’re interested in seeing this show and the second night here is the link: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/sceniccity2016/178928814 Thanks for reading!