12/15/2022 01:48:29 PM
The year 2022 has seen a massive resurgence from the Philippine wrestling scene. From late 2021's online-only show, a tournament which saw a collaboration among the country's three wrestling promotions, and the full-blown rebirth of live events which involves World Underground Wrestling, a startup Filipino Pro Wrestling, and the now long-standing Manila Wrestling Federation, which just had its first physical and king-sized year-ending show since 2018 (or at least, before the Aksyonovela TV tapings took over in place of MWF's big shows in late 2019).
And the same time frame it took for a long story of chasing championships to pay off for Fabio Makisig. Forget if they don't have confetti or all the blazing beam lights or pyro. A simple coronation was quite enough to showcase Fabio with such grandeur – despite some post-match shenanigans from Jake De Leon and Crystal. Safe to say this became a fitting culmination to MWF's biggest story the moment they took off after resumption.
Or maybe a beginning of sorts for the once-called street bully of Batasan and his cohorts HSSL. He has the sole yet biggest gold now; despite all the odds the world had stacked against him. It's going to be an interesting phase for the champion come 2023. More targets on his back, but he's still the "Walang kasinlupit, walang kasing-astig" person out there. That's for sure.
For sure, after all that transpired during Noche Buena, there will be new conquests to begin with like how JDL imposes his raging will against the federation and continues to gatekeep Philippine wrestling to its core; as well as Dabid Ravena's long-standing clash with MWF commissioner Sonny Go; and #RevengeSZN for Migzz Valdez (sheesh!). Of course, where will the Bahay ng Liwanag go from here? Plus, Kanto Terror's new video show reminds me of how Gigz Striker has made back then.
All in all, MWF Noche Buena 2022 was a damn solid show – and perhaps the most complete in around 2-3 years of following them. Excellent storytelling for almost all of the matches. The crowd was basically ecstatic for the majority part of the night. For a moment, I thought Road to Fate was MWF's biggest show to date; but with the same venue and a much-improved quality of content they delivered, they definitely upped their ante.
There were also less technical difficulties, and some accidental mishaps didn't look really that bad as they made fun of them. If there's one thing I could nitpick about, it's the long-ass four-hour flow which could make some members of the audience scratch their heads because there was no intermission.
Maybe with a massive card and understandable that the entire Noche Buena event will eventually be dissected into four parts of Aksyonovela TV episodes? Yeah, quite understandable actually, but some people still need to take a breather, especially their pace has been ascending from one match to another.
Save for the main event clash for the Pinoy Wrestling Championship, I'll say my second favorite match of the night would be the BGC street fight tornado tag team matches between the team of Razael and Danny Zamora against the duo of Kanto Terror and Migs Valdez. Is it because it's the only different wrestling match since the rest were contested under Manila Rules? Perhaps yes, but nothing loves good old extreme fun kind of theatrical violence. Hello, would you even see a damn traffic cone and a PVC pipe in any other extreme rules match? Hell no. This clash of the classes really did well.
Also, another notable moment is the flip-flop switch between the Jomar's faction. One moment, they're faces to promote his Spaghetti (which, according to some of my peers, were really good!); and next thing you know, they're back to being heel again after the Setup Thailand 24/7 Championship switched hands like a hot potato for like countless times during the evening. The following developments were damn comical that I'll say Tarek El Tayech definitely pulled off the swerve of the year right there.
Yeah right, Tarek, you were the champ... for like 50 or 60 minutes. Hahaha!
The Verdict: 8.4/10
No comments:
Post a Comment
Feel free to make a comment as long as it is within the bounds of the issue, and as long as you do it with decency. Thanks!