Group Phase - Round 3 Results

Results

Match #1

Kenta Sawada pinned Hampton Doubleday with the Uranage in 0:12:11.
Rating: *** 1/4

In the first of three matches between unbeaten wrestlers, Kenta Sawada used pacing to his advantage to defeat Hampton Doubleday. Every time Doubleday would try to step up the pace, Sawada grabbed a submission hold to calm things back down. Doubleday reached for the ropes as he was being held in an abdominal stretch and got the rope break. And just as he loosened up, Sawada pulled him back off the ropes and hit the match-winning Uranage for the pin. With this level of ring generalship, Kenta Sawada has got to be a favorite not just to reach the Elimination Phase but to take the whole tournament... wow!

Match #2

Luna Rose pinned Christopher Tiberius with the Famous Last Aphorism in 0:03:06.
Rating: ***

Christopher Tiberius, who had been ruling the first two rounds with his Imperial DDT, never got out of the gate and was quickly dispatched of by Luna Rose - who may just have punched her ticket to the Final Four.

Match #3

The Bob pinned Mo Kingweed with the The Horse Stomp in 0:11:39.
Rating: **** 1/4

''Olives'' Mo Kingweed had posed the question before the match whether The Bob would be able to remain on a roll. Perhaps Kingweed had had too many Bong Hits leading up to the match but a running kick to the head followed by the Horse Stomp substituted a headache the size of Amsterdam for Mo's unbeaten streak.

Match #4

Jonny B. Gawdz pinned Gorgeous Greg after a Tombstone in 0:14:04.
Rating: * 3/4

It would be fair to say that Jonny B. Gawdz dominated the match. But to call Gorgeous Greg's performance anything other than inspiring would be disingenuous. It took two Fu Manchu Stunners and a Tombstone to end Greg's night. With two back-to-back wins, Jonny B. Gawdz is still very much alive in his quest to make it to the Final Four.

Match #5

Vyacheslav Ivanov pinned Lee Campbell with the Fall with Love in 0:11:07.
Rating: *** 1/4

After having been disqualified in his second-round match against Hampton Doubleday, the tournament's envoy from Mother Russia rebounded with a bang. The Scotsman Campbell's highlight of the night was slamming Ivanov onto a chair with a Soviet suplex (get it?) but in the end he was no match for the Russian's Fall With Love.

Match #6

The Masked Marvel pinned Basher Loadstone with the SuperKick in 0:08:12.
Rating: ** 3/4

The Masked Marvel, having clearly been unimpressed by Basher Loadstone's not wearing a mask, used an unfortunate collision between his opponent and referee Tim White to his advantage. After hitting Basher in his loadstones, ringing the Christmas bells early, Marvel got out of a backdrop driver attempt and came within inches of a three-count. A SuperKick from the masked man later, replacement referee Rudy Charles channelled his more famous namesake Ray and completely missed The Masked Marvel's handful of tights, giving the man from Parts Unknown the win he needed to stay in the tournament.

Match #7

Dan Mastriani pinned JL Stinger with the Shining Wizard in 0:11:32.
Rating: ****

JL Stinger and Dan Mastriani had an excellent back-and-forth match with a bizarre ending. Just when it seemed like Stinger had turned the tide with a DDT, he turned around and posed for the crowd, giving Mastriani an opportunity to jump back to his feet and knock JL out cold with his Shining Wizard. With two similar wins back-to-back, the striking specialist from the Mean Streets of Hartford, CT is now one of seven(!) wrestlers tied with four points. The field remains wide open!

Match #8

Nick Demola pinned John Lamb after a cross-body block in 0:17:02.
Rating: *** 1/2

While the old saying ''it is better to be lucky than good'' has its place in pro wrestling, Nick Demola's hard-fought win was anything but lucky. John Lamb had arguably had the better performance during the first 16 minutes of the match, before getting dropped with a double arm DDT and put into Demola's finisher, the Vice Lock. A well-placed Lamb elbow to the head seemed to have knocked Demola silly, and Lamb planned to put an end to the match. He set up a chair in the ring, stepped behind Demola and lifted him up for his patented spinning back suplex onto the chair. Only Demola had clearly been playing possum, turned in mid-air and caused Lamb to crash onto his own chair for a poetic end to truly a fun match.

Match #9

The Black Shuck pinned Clint Tomasson with the Folklore in 0:04:52.
Rating: *** 1/4

After having complained on the Internet about having gone down via a ''surprise Facial'' (his words, not ours), The Black Shuck entered his match tonight against Clint Tomasson with renewed vigor, making quick work of the technical marvel from Bryan, Texas. And if losing in a blowout isn't bad enough, the combination of a soccer kick to the noggin and Shuck's version of the Tombstone which he calls ''Folklore'' put serious doubt on whether Tomasson will be in any shape to compete in tomorrow's final group round.

Match #10

Tarot pinned Nico Voight after a moonsault in 0:07:56.
Rating: *** 1/2

Having come up short in his first two group matches, Nico Voight wanted to leave no doubt and rushed Tarot early, even vaulting off of a chair to deliver a flying clothesline from hell. Voight was having a hell of a match and dishing out punishment to the man from Le Carnaval - which, according to Google Maps, is a hotel in Cairo. Mysterious indeed. But Tarot was just biding his time, waiting for that perfect moment to counter. Tarot picked Voight out of the air with an intercept superkick and followed that up with a lightning-fast moonsault to take the win.

Match #11

Bobby Goodwin pinned Ravenous after a lariat in 0:18:38.
Rating: *** 1/2

For the longest part of this match, it looked to be heading to the tournament's first 20-minute time limit draw. Bobby Goodwin kept pushing the pace, clearly wanting to be the person whose ''0'' must go. Ravenous, however, was more than just a formidable opponent, even managing to kick out of Goodwin's finisher. Still, Ravenous never got of first gear in the match. Bobby Goodwin figured that if one move won't take his opponent out, why not double up? After two overhead belly-to-belly suplexes, two kneestrikes and two lariats, the referee's hand slapped the canvas for a third time and Bobby Goodwin's hand was raised only 82 seconds before the time limit was set to expire.