There were a lot of surprises and a few heartbreaks for me. I was sad to see Showtime go because I've been a fan of the character for something like 12 years or so. He's got grade A antics and is incredibly entertaining. But anyone would have their hands full with Joey Melton and at least we got a great RP battle from the two. I really liked Melton's putting the bounty on himself angle. That was pretty awesome.
I was a bit surprised that Pete Whealdon d. Chris Hopper. I think the big thing that sticks out from this match, though, was Whealdon peeing on Hopper's grandpa's gave. I really wanted to see Chris have some fire in his second RP, but he didn't. He did come through with it on the third RP though, but I just feel if he had shown that fire earlier then he might have won it. I heard it came down to a tie-break vote, so that's how close it was.
The biggest surprise for me was my own advancement over Dave Brunk. I felt I had a chance through our second round of RPs, but then I hit that trip to NYC and didn't have much time to work on the finish (RP3 and the on-card.) I felt we both did a solid enough job with our RPs all the same, and I was trying as hard as I could to get my third RP finished in time to let him rebut. I thought my on-card could have been better as I was in a real rush to get it finished. I think there were some stylistic differences and differences in our approach. Brunk did more trash talking and I tried to hype up the UltraTitle. We both tried to pick at what we thought would be one another's weaknesses in the match.
All in all, I was really happy to have a win I didn't expect to get from someone who put up a great battle on the other end, and I want to congratulate Dave as well as say I'm VERY happy this match gave me a reason/opportunity to talk to him. The RPs from Jeffrey Roberts in this match have made me really want to do work with him again in the future, between these same two characters.
Since I got the win over Roberts, Jack Harmen going over Troy Windham is very exciting. It means I'll get the chance to RP against Tom, and that should be fun.
Tom's a good guy and a fantastic writer, and that's not just confined to efedding. So I expect this to be yet ANOTHER great challenge and a lot of fun because Ford is someone I consider a friend. Here's to round 4, Ford!
Not to take anything from Sean Stevens, but I marked out when I saw that Jeff Andrews had won. I knew he could do it if he put his mind to it, and that's not saying I had doubts about Stevens or his ability to win the match, either. For me it's an either-guy-could-win situation and you can't have any complaints about either one winning.
Shamon was entertaining and I liked seeing Hart pop up in his RPs, but I thought the Hart siblings could have been used differently. Sagawa winning was still pretty much what I expected. I liked that Waubash tried to step out of his element - and had it backfire. Their match was good and I liked the Shamon thriller angle in it, but I felt during it that Shamon could have had some offense as a zombie. Although it was interesting to see Sagawa freaking out and was still pretty intense.
Round 4 looks to have lots of great matches. I think the best will be Sean Edmunds vs. Eli Flair and Jeff Andrews vs. Joey Melton. Pat Gordon, Jr. vs. Jack Harmen and Sagawa vs. Deacon both have a chance to steal the show.
