We’ve got a returning entry this week on Who’s Next, as one of the Spot Monkeyz are back!
A recap from last week reveals that A-Buck won the fan poll, before we’re shown this week’s judges: Jody Fleisch, Ahmed Chaer and Angelico.
Out first is Cody Kidman, whose basketball jersey identifies him as “fearless”. He’s no longer a Spotmonkey I guess, and he’s had about six matches since he was last on Who’s Next. That’s… not a good record, but apparently he couldn’t make it to round two last year because of a storm, hence his return.
Angelico is furiously scribbling away as Ahmed Chaer translates – apparently Kidman’s been training since he was last here. His opponent is Cris Opus, who’s only had one match since he started training last year. Apparently Opus is the host of a talk show the GWF does, called Kick Out. The fix is in, my friends!
Cody Kidman vs. Cris Opus
The crowd are heavily cheering for Opus at the bell, as Angelico picks out that Opus really had lost a lot of weight.
A Test of Strength saw the pair battle back and forth, until Opus slipped out and grabbed a wristlock that drew admiration from Jody Fleisch. It’s reversed of course, until a headlock takedown from Opus drew a little bit of scorn from judge’s row. Opus nails a shoulder tackle, but runs into a hiptoss as the match remained finely poised…
…and then he’s tripped in the ropes as Opus almost nicked the win. Kidman gets back up to chop Opus, before a clothesline is avoided and countered into a sidewalk slam. Opus whiffs on a back senton, allowing Kidman to hit a standing moonsault for a near-fall… but Opus comes back in with the back senton for a near-fall. A struggle over a suplex ends when Kidman gets free and hits a cutter, and that’s all! Pretty decent for the experience levels, but rough in places.
Post-match, Angelico praised the guys for keeping the match basic, but poked holes at things like kickpads not fitting. Ahmed Chaer echoed those points, while Jody Fleisch seemed to enjoy the match the most.
That’s it for another week – over and done in under ten minutes again, after you cut away the titles and credits. It’s a decent watch, but I can’t help but feel it’s perhaps too rushed – the first thing we called at the start of the season was how rushed it was, if only from the way the voiceovers were running into themselves. Still, that’s a minor nit pick, and on the whole I’d rather the show be more “real world” based than whatever reality TV nonsense we had with prior shows like Tough Enough.
I still miss Al Snow as a judge on this though…