We’re still behind, as the first season of Who’s Next rolls on with… a bodyguard and some brothers? Again?!
Episode six opens with a reminder of Slinky… who won through to the next round. Yes. This week, we’ve got Heresh Kurdi & Georges Khoukaz. They’ve had 29 matches and just one match each; which immediately gives Khoukas a disadvantage, except he’s been a GWF regular before as the bodyguard for Blue Nikita. Tarkan Aslan, Ahmed Chaer and Chris Colen are your judges this week.
Heresh’s entrance leans very heavy into his Kurdish background, at least as far as the music. It’s your basic create a wrestler entrance, while his promo tries to tell us “the smallest guy is the toughest guy.” Georges Khoukaz has a similarly generic walk to the ring, as the Syrian tells us he’s here to be the best rookie in GWF history.
Heresh Kurdi vs. Georges Khoukaz
They stall at the start as Kurdi ducks under a tie-up from Khoukaz and tries to throw some kicks.
A headscissor takedown’s next as David’s shocking Goliath… but then Goliath wanders in with a clothesline before he clubbed away at Kurdi’s back. Chops follow in the corner, as Khoukaz keeps on top of him with some hard knees to the gut that had the judges wincing. Eventually Heresh escapes and nails a wheelbarrow bulldog, then a low dropkick for a delayed two-count. Georges hits back, crushing Heresh with a dropkick for another delayed two-count. A slam follows as Georges is being deliberate with everything… and gets caught out with another low dropkick and a diving knee as Kurdi nearly took home the win.
Heresh heads up top next, but his crossbody’s caught as Khoukaz lifts him into a Fireman’s carry, then a TKO for the win. A decent enough outing, but they went under time – despite dragging things out.
Post-match, Chris Colen quibbled at Khoukaz’s ambition to be the best rookie, while Chaer nitpicked some of Kurdi’s bumps. Tarkan Aslan took aim at how the guys didn’t protect their gimmicks during their match, comparing them to generic mobile phones. A decent enough outing, but otherwise nothing special, seemed to be the judges’ message.
Onto episode seven, and we find out that the fans voted Heresh Kurdi through with over 90% of the vote. Now THAT is a landslide…
Our contenders this week are Martin Guerrero and Matze, who will have to impress Pascal Spalter, Orlando Silver and Tom La Ruffa. Guerrero’s entrance has him trying to appeal to the crowd, as his promo introduces him “from the Internet”. Matze just jogs to the ring, as we find out that the two are brothers.
Martin Guerrero vs. Matze
Nobody seems to care about Matze, as all we got was “let’s go Martin”/”Martin sucks” chants.
They work some basic holds as they try to impress the judges with a headlock, but Matze’s takedown got some good murmurs before they stood up – with the judges questioning their conditioning. Matze looked to be a little too mechanical in his stuff as Martin pulled off a La Magistral cradle, but on the whole there’s a lot of stalling and pausing between their sequences.
Another headlock from Martin’s shoved off, but he rolls past his brother and hits a dropkick, then a monkey flip. Matze’s right back up to hit a spinning side slam for a barely a one-count, as he slowly got back to his feet to start laying into his brother. It’s almost lackadaisical stuff as the judges noted that he was perhaps going a little harder because it was his brother. A through-the-ropes, Miz-like clothesline traps Martin in the corner, before a back senton squashes him… but the cover’s massively delayed for a near-fall. Why can’t Al Snow be here to take shots here? Martin gets a one-count out of a sunset flip as he’d rather roll through and wait to avoid a kid, rolling him up for a near-fall, before catching Matze in the ropes.
We get a flip back into the ring, but Matze boots him in the head before picking Martin up for a big move… an airplane spin! Except Martin counters into a small package, and that’s the win – and a Botchamania reference! You talk too much!
The post-match judging saw Matze breathing pretty heavily, while Orlando Silver seemed to criticise their general lack of energy and how everything was at one speed. His description was more energetic than the match! La Ruffa chipped in to say that Matze didn’t seem to believe his trash talking, before throwing in the generic “hit the gym” line. Apparently the brothers came out dressed as if they were from Dragon Ball Z, something which drew a mention of “hey, think of something different, you might get hit by copyright down the line”.
All in, these were a pair of pretty solid episodes, but not spectacular. There wasn’t anything “so bad it’s good” unless you’re an expert in the ring… but a good sign of the sort of talent the show was attracting.