Prestige Roseland 8: The 7 Year Anniversary Show (4.14.24) 

 

April 14, 2024 

 

We’re in Portland, Oregon at the Roseland Theater. This aired on IndependentWrestling.TV, which I still have post-Mania. A chance for some more IWTV action before we (maybe) give it up until next Wrestlemania. An interesting card for this one, highlighted by Daniel Makabe vs. Zack Sabre Jr, the biggest dream match on Makabe’s farewell tour. And that includes a sensational match with Tim Thatcher on the DEAN~!!! Show on Mania weekend. Hosts are Jordan Castle and Ryan Zane. 800+ in the building tonight. The business is booming. Seeing a lot of full houses over Mania weekend in all types of venues.  

 

Midnight Heat (Ricky Gibson & Eddie Pearl) vs. Dirty Breeze (Breeze & Dirty Dango) 

Midnight Heat gets the Jimmy Rave toilet paper treatment. I’m glad that’s back. It’s a good bit. Tyler Breeze is 36 years old; I feel so old. The Fashion Files feels like it only happened a few years ago.  

This goes from being a standard tag to a goofy comedy match. The second of which is not well executed. Dango feels like his ‘bits’ have no pay off. The guy who catches my eye in this is King Douchebag Eddie Pearl, who is a total scumbag. Like, Tony Deppen is watching this and thinks he’s going a bit far.  

 

The actual work in this is soft and slack. Dirty Breeze are not out here to blow anyone’s mind or try and get signed. Just trudging towards retirement. Dango has never been any good so fair play to him to still be out here earning at 40 years old. The finish is the softest of all the spots. Dango getting pushed off the ropes onto the top rope and planting both feet firmly on the mat long before he hits the rope.  

 

Alan Angels Championship Celebration  

Alan is out here to celebrate winning the belt. He beat Alex Shelley a few weeks ago.  

They run a talk show segment and I skip it. I’m here for the wrestling boys. Drexl tries to run in here but Sami Callihan, only much fatter, appears.  

Somehow Sami works in two spots where he eats something. Just needed a little mid-match snack. The actual action in this is borderline embarrassing. Callihan has stupid ideas (this is nothing new) and this is just a bunch of plunder with no purpose to it. This went on forever.  

 

JAIDEN vs. Lio Rush 

This has a superhero vs supervillain motif. Lio Rush looks like he’s been possessed. There’s a lot of DRAMA and POSING. The match plays out like panels from a comic book. It’s only missing a few speech bubbles and KLANG sound effects.  

Where the match frustrates is that they could lean into this, for a bit, and then have a great match. Rush is a phenomenal talent. His weird Beast warm up for the tope is AMAZING. Rush feels fully invested in whatever it is he’s doing. JAIDEN is nowhere near him in the ring but can match the character work, because he’s got the easier role.  

 

They do way too many spots where JAIDEN gets exposed. He’s simply not capable of hanging. There’s this obsession with Enzuigiri’s and he simply lacks the athleticism to land it. They also make a big deal out of JAIDEN crashing into the pole outside the ring, but it doesn’t go anywhere. They also have a big ‘superhero pose ended by head kick’ where Rush misses his kick by a FUCKING MILE.  

 

Which is made doubly worse because it’s supposed to lead a big dramatic kick out, but it whiffed so hard there’s no drama. Rush makes the match EVEN GOOFIER by drinking some “thick viscus gloop”, which gives him more superpowers. Which leads to the perfect finish of JAIDEN having his neck snapped and the Final Hour finishes…only it doesn’t. They do a fucking false finish on it and Lio bails to get a door.  

 

Why are wrestlers so intent on telling these dumb stories? It gets WORSE. They have the referee freeze. “I have never seen anything like this in my life”. There’s a reason for that. After adding in an extra layer of bullshit FOR NO REASON, Lio wins anyway. This was unspeakably stupid and if this is Lio Rush from now on, I’ll be skipping his matches. Which is a shame because the match and the Lio’s ideas prior to the kick out from the neck snap were good. Then it went too far and now it sucks.  

 

Trish Adora vs. Amira 

Amira is visibly green. She does a lot of telegraphing. Adora does a decent job of leading the match and slowing it down.  

They do work in some interesting sequences where a spot lands, and then they do it again and come up with a counter. Amira takes decent bumps but struggles with more complicated things like what she’s supposed to do between spots. She’s visibly waiting for something to happen where she should be selling. Occasionally she’ll remember to sell the arm, in her defence. Amira takes it with a front slam. This was fine. Amira needs reps.  

 

Kevin Blackwood vs. Mustafa Ali 

The dreaded “both these guys” chant erupts from fence-sitting Yanks. I just want both teams to have a nice time. As a result, the match is completely heatless.  

They do parity bits and pieces, with Ali coming out on top. It doesn’t quite have the zing and speed that a real banger needs but it’s good, which makes this a big step up over the rest of the show. Ali cut his head open on the rail wrestling for New Japan and figures “hey, I’m already cut, let’s get colour here” and runs his face into the buckles for a laugh.  

 

They do a solid job of having Blackwood cut off Ali’s flying afterwards and then again have Ali realise this. The spot where Blackwood tries a roundhouse and Ali remains planted on the buckles is genuinely good. The countering and ‘I’ve seen your tapes’ stuff works for me, brrrrrother. Even when they do something stupid; the German suplex onto the apron, it doesn’t derail the match and leads right into what should be the finish.  

 

There’s this obsession with kicking out of shit in wrestling at the moment. There’s nothing wrong with a finisher finishing a match. Blackwood’s bad habits sneak in after this and they just cannot contain themselves. Thighs are slapped. Big dumb spots sneak into proceedings. Ali then wins with a roll up anyway. ***¼. A lot of this was really, really good but the German on the apron/450 should have finished. They didn’t do anything worthwhile afterwards.  

I certainly think Mustafa Ali comes out of this looking better. It’s the best match I’ve seen from him post-WWE. If he can keep up that level of smooth, logical work I’m happy for him. Doing god’s work out here in the Indies. People need to tone shit down. This also would have worked better if Blackwood had leaned heel during the match.  

 

AKIRA vs. Minoru Suzuki 

Minoru Suzuki, at 55 years old, is finally starting to show his age. New Japan seems to have lost interest in him, which given their talent void says a lot. Suzuki still has the aura of a big star but his in-ring is middling nowadays. He’s just playing the hits. The crowd enjoy it and I don’t blame him doing a retirement that lasts years on end.  

 

AKIRA’s feisty response to getting beaten around the ring is decent. He’s all “fuck you, bitch” and Suzuki, I’m fairly certain, says “pardon?” right before slapping AKIRA across the chops. The match has some major flaws. Namely that AKIRA just gets beaten up the whole time and Suzuki never looks like he’s interested in doing anything beyond torturing someone.  

 

AKIRA’s comeback is tame and presumably he just doesn’t want to hurt Suzuki. Meanwhile, Suzuki is out here tattooing him with forearms. The match runs way too long, but it improves a little towards the end as AKIRA tries to fire up only to get choked out and eat the Gotch Piledriver. This was pushing 20:00, which is ridiculous, and they should have known better. It was what you would expect from Minoru Suzuki in 2024. For “chuckles” Minoru Suzuki considers giving the referee a piledriver. Haha, he was only joking ref.  

 

Miyu Yamashita vs. Kylie Rae 

The crowd once again opts for “both these wrestlers”. Pick a side!  

Yamashita is a fantastic talent, but she’s always had issues with English speaking workers. This generally works better than usual, although Miyu finds herself waiting for Kylie a few times. Yamashita also uses the lamest possible weapon here; a streamer. It’s paper!  

As with the last match, it feels like Yamashita is toying with Kylie a little. She has time to stop off and mock Rae’s taunts. Where it differs is that Kylie Rae’s comebacks feel like she might steal a win. She’s pleasingly fluid and uses the ropes well. They run some near miss stuff that doesn’t land. Whenever Kylie has to time something perfectly for the spot to work, she comes up a little short. 

 

Kylie Rae is 75% of her way to being a genuinely great worker. There are a few spots where she just needs to tighten up and close the space up. Otherwise, this is a pleasing performance from her. They have some awkward misunderstandings, but Miyu seems to have those with all Americans. Kylie survives a few head shots but gets laid out with the Skull Kick. This was good but just a little awkward here and there. *** 

 

C420 (Cody Chhun, Sonico & Guillermo Rosas) vs. Bullet Club (David Finlay, Gabe Kidd & Clark Connors) 

There’s just no escape from the Bullet Club. It’s like when the Elite were on every Indie show. According to Finlay the “War Dogs rule the world”. What a sad state wrestling is in if these are your top dogs. As with the match these guys had with Eddie Kingston and friends at New Japan, it’s a big ‘all over the building’ brawl. When they do get into the ring, they bring one of the all-time dumb spots; the one where you’re forced to DDT your partner.  

 

They try to build with the locals squaring off with the War Dogs and nothing works. It doesn’t help that Finlay and Connors are not good heels and don’t have a heel presence. Rosas and Kidd do a terrible duelling forearms thing that just never seems to end. Speaking of ‘never seems to end’ they do a bunch of spots, and this match just won’t end. Connors, who barely seemed involved in the storyline of the match, hits a brainbuster on Chhun to win. This was bad and your heel group went over clean one on one.  

 

Daniel Makabe vs. Zack Sabre Jr 

Makabe does a head scissors escape in this that involves lifting out the legs, which is beautiful. Sabre regularly does things that I’ve not seen before, it’s his shtick. Both guys look like they’re really enjoying this. Pushing each other to their technical limits.  

Sabre slyly leans heel here, after Makabe gets cheered a lot, and takes little short cuts. He does leave Makabe waiting on him a couple of times, which is unlike him. Normally Zack likes to close that space immediately, which is something I love about him. Zack also does something rare and focuses on a body part; the left arm of Makabe. Which Sabre uses to block Makabe’s attempts at holds.  

 

The match is a fascinating struggle. Two guys both looking for holds, looking to catch the other and block and counter. It is limb chess. Makabe goes after the ankle and forces Zack to go to strikes because he can’t wrestle out. That’s a huge complement from Sabre to Makabe. The way Sabre skips out of a dragon screw is amazing. Elite tier body control.  

 

Makabe starts to struggle with his arm, and it prevents him setting up some of his bigger holds. Sabre breaks out the same double armlock, leglock combo that he tapped out AJ Styles with and that’ll do it. Zack only saves that one for special occasions. What a great little match this was. The wrestling world will be a far worse place when Daniel Makabe retires this year. ****¼ 

 

The 411: 

The American Indies are not great now. Not compared to their absolute prime in the early 2000’s when anything seemed possible. However, this show had some delightful highlights. Makabe-Sabre was wonderful. Ali-Blackwood just went on a little too long. Same with Rush-JAIDEN. Both matches didn’t know when to logically finish. Yamashita-Rae was also very good. I didn’t hate anything on the show, bar Sami Callihan, obviously. This is a solid recommendation. Especially the main event if you have any investment in technical wrestling and/or Makabe’s final run in wrestling. He’s certainly a highlight for me this year.