Karen Q vs Jonathan Gresham
04/05/2018
Pontchartrain Convention & Civic Center, Kenner, Louisiana, United States
(reviewed 05/14/2018) I’ve not been thrilled by these midnight shows Beyond’s been running Mania weekend but it always handicaps everyone and everything involved. The crowds are worse/smaller, the wrestlers are more tired and less willing to do something interesting, and in general the hype just isn’t there. However, this also comes with it the opportunity to have a smaller sort of match that you probably wouldn’t be able to have otherwise due to the stringent standards of independent wrestling, where you have to be putting on 20 minute blowouts to be on anyone’s radar. In most promotions these days, you couldn’t have this 10 minute match that’s mostly mat work and a relative unknown trying to push the boundaries of a higher-ranked guy using bare bone fundamentals. This has a lot more in common with random TV matches from the 90s than most anything you see today and for that reason I think it’s a nifty little match, where you get to see Gresham apply some of his simplest moves in a match he thinks he can waltz through but quickly finds himself frustrated by a woman his size who doesn’t roll over and die right away. Neither of these people are putting their all into this match but for what it is, a throwaway midcard bout on a show barely anyone’s watching on the biggest weekend of the year, it manages to be pretty neat. It doesn’t have to go all out to be entertaining and sometimes it’s great to see a match that understands that.
