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RADICAN'S TAKE
RADICAN: Friday night funhouse! (PWG, New Jack, TNA PPV) Oct 12, 2007 - 6:33:47 PM
-I finished up the PWG All Star Weekend V: Night 1 DVD from April 7, 2007. This was one heck of a show. In fact, it’s one of the better releases from an in-ring standpoint that I’ve seen all year. I had the last three matches (Kaz Hayashi vs. Alex Shelley, Low Ki vs. Davey Richards, and El Generico vs. PAC) rated at four stars or higher. The undercard was solid as well. I had everything accept the 8 Man Tag match and the opening match at three stars or higher.
The main event of PWG Champion El Generico vs. PAC is a match worth going out of your way to see. They took the fans in attendance that night on one heck of a ride. PAC was very good in this match and used his athleticism to put together some incredible sequences with Generico. If you’re looking for some great wrestling, purchase this DVD right away. It’s a steal at $15 plus shipping. The production values are very good and the quality of the graphics stunned me given that PWG is an independent promotion.
-Another DVD of note that was recently released was Ultimate Insiders with New Jack. This release is hosted by Keith Lipinski and is available in most stores. New Jack is insane and it’s established quickly that he’s going to hijack the interview. During the early stages of the release, Lipinski says something along the lines of he knows now why Wade Keller wouldn’t do this interview. The production values for this release were very good, as there were on screen graphics that appeared as New Jack answered questions, along with clips from RF Video shoots and XPW. Big Vision entertainment also used some clips from the Forever Hardcore documentary at times to enhance the particular line of questioning New Jack was answering
New Jack has a lot of charisma, but he’s clearly a psychopath. New Jack talks a lot about his most popular incidents from the past and shows no remorse for his actions. He doesn’t care that he stabbed a green worker 9 times in Florida. He also doesn’t seem to care that he sliced Mass Transit open back in ECW. It turns out Paul Heyman even put on a dog and pony show when on the stand during New Jack’s trial for the Mass Transit incident and helped him get off.
The interview itself is very long, so it may take casual fans a few sittings to get through. New Jack often doesn’t tell the whole story at times when answering questions, so Big Vision fills in the gaps by using footage from RF Video where he actually answers or elaborates on the question being asked by Lipinski.
New Jack clearly doesn’t care about wrestling or the people he’s worked with. He shows no remorse for wrestling under the influence of drugs and alchohol. One particularly chilling moment is when he talks about how he was thinking of seriously injuring or killing another wrestling during one of his matches in XPW. I was hoping Lipinski would ask some tougher follow up questions when New Jack talked about his drug and alchohol abuse, but he’s not the only interviewer who has shied away from confronting New Jack on tough issues.
If you were a big fan of New Jack or want to get into the mind of a psychopath, this is a good collection to pick up. There’s also a bonus disc included with several of New Jack’s matches from XPW, along with footage of a road trip he took with Keith Lipinski around Los Angeles.
-TNA is running what should be their biggest PPV of the year (Bound For Glory) this Sunday, but the build for the Angle-Sting main event can’t even be called solid. Have they even mentioned they’re fighting over the TNA Championship yet?
The rest of the card doesn’t look very strong on paper. There are no big conflicts that need to be resolved because in TNA, if a wrestler is involved in one storyline, they are pushed into several others at the same time. The PPV also features 2 battle royal matches on the same card!
I would urge fans to save their money and get ROH’s Driven PPV if it’s still available or even the next WWE PPV. TNA simply can’t build a feud between two people or two tag teams to get people to open up their wallets and want to pay to see a singles or tag team match. I can’t think of the last feud in TNA that actually made me want to pay to see a wrestling match outside of the first Samoa Joe-Kurt Angle match.
Email Sean Radican.
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