[2000-07-01-NWA Wildside-TV] A.J. Styles vs White Trash

[soup23]

This was probably better than the Eddie Golden ladder match. Styles comes in with a viciousness on his stop sign shots and has to show a different side to him than we are accoustmed to of the pretty boy showing he is a bad ass. White Trash felt like your generic garbage wrestler de jour of the day but he did pretty well here and wouldn’t have looked out of place facing off against 2 Tough Tony in IWA at the time. I really liked the finish with the running DVD through the table on the outside. Fun match that didn’t overstay its welcome and felt like a fight even with the weapon shots. *** (5.9)

[cheapshot]

Fun for what it was, short enough where I didn't lose attention. I thought the first stop sign shot my AJ was vicious as hell, and it was lucky the sign didn't fly off in to the crowd. **1/2

[AstroBoy]

AJ really embodies the douche character here. He is still a little clunky on offense at times but I like the way he takes offense and his athleticism really shines. It's clear how talented he is in moments and he carries himself well in a fight scenario. The match itself is fun enough with some nice use of the stop sign. A bit of an awkward setup leads to AJ putting Trash through the table for a win.

 

**1/2

[Tim Evans]

"More hardcore than European Porn" AJ Styles was pretty good in this. He took some vicious bumps and actually laid it in on the weapons shots. I liked the spot where Trash tried to hit him with the stop sign from the top but Aj hits a spin kick to counter. Finish was a little awkward but it worked.

[Edwin]

This was pretty awesome. This is entirely different to what we have usually seen Styles involved in so far. White Trash looks like he belongs in IWA-MS KOTDM tournaments or facing Lowlife Louie in JAPW for the suicidal title. Styles being able to adapt to the hardcore element and making use of the weapons properly was great. I loved how White Trash took forever to dive off the top with the stop sign and AJ blasted him with a spin kick when he finally decided to dive. I also dug how AJ messed up the baseball slide to the outside due to White Trash’s jeans, yet he had the self awareness of hitting him with a low blow to cover up for it. Plus AJ stomping White Trash with the stop sign on his face. Despite being short, this was really good.

 

***

[GSR]

Jeff G. Bailey is talking about the ‘Role Model’ A.J. Styles being the greatest wrestler in the company, someone who can work Lucha, can work the Japanese style.  A.J. interrupts him and says “hardcore too”, which leads to Wildside’s resident Hardcore exponent, White Trash, rushing to the ring.  He wallops Styles over the head with a ‘Stop’ sign and A.J. bumps around for him until Trash takes too long to climb the turnbuckles.  When he leaps off them, Styles nails him with a spinning heel kick, sending the sign that he was carrying clattering into his own face.  A.J. puts everything into a ‘Stop’ sign shot of his own, the sign fortunately flying off into the top rope when it could easily have ended up in the crowd.  The match spills to the outside where Styles holds Trash so Jeff G. can clobber him with one of his $300 dollar shoes (after listening to Jeff talk about 80s NWA on ‘Exile on Badstreet’ you can really see the J.J. Dillon influence in him).  Suplex on the wooden floor, however while A.J. is messing around with a half broken table it allows Trash to grab a second wind.  He elbows Styles in the mid-section before whipping him full force into the barricades.  Trash then runs at his opponent but A.J. snatches him and hits a Death Valley Driver through the half table that he’d positioned earlier.  This being contested under ‘hardcore rules’ also means it’s ‘falls count anywhere’ and A.J. picks up the win, pinning Trash at ringside.  Bailey and Styles continue to attack Trash after the match until they’re run off by J.C. Dazz.

A good one for the Styles resume, showing that he can do ‘Hardcore’ just like he said. He took some hard bumps in here (actually breaking the wooden barricade when he was whipped into it) and I thought the finish looked real cool.  Also despite there being a couple of ‘stop’ sign shots in there, this never developed into your stereotypical 2000 ‘hardcore’ match.