A Wrestling Pay-Per-View by Terminus
I am extremally late to the party in terms of watching this, largely due to the fact that this came out at a time when TONS of other wrestling shows were coming out and I got too busy. As the name would imply, Terminus 3 is the third show from this fledgling Georgia-based wrestling company run by Baron Black and Jonathan Gresham. At the time of this show, Gresham was still ROH World Heavyweight Champion, as this was mere weeks before the now infamous situation where Gresham allegedly exploded in a meeting with Tony Khan, demanded his release, then seemingly took a break from wrestling entirely. In my review for ROH: Death before Dishonor, I talked about how disappointed I was with this news, and how I hope things get smoothed over. As it stands, this could very well be the last Terminus show assuming I understand Gresham’s proclamation – good news is they are promoting a third show under the banner of Modern Age Grappling, which is basically a sister-show to Terminus, so fingers are tightly crossed this is not the end. Speaking of that, Modern Age Grappling was not on my radar until today, so I may need to fix that.
Terminus has a bunch of rules and differences that set it apart from other professional wrestling shows. Rather than regurgitate that here, please go to my previous reviews:
For anyone wanting to watch this, I would recommend Fite.TV. you can get some FITE credits (10 dollars I believe) with the following code: “6m6lyyn”. I’m sure there are other ways to watch it, but FITE has a solid interface and has been worth it so far.
The Card:
- P – Will Ferrara vs. Adam Priest – Pre-Show Modern Age Grappling Match
- 1 – Kaun Defeated Cheeseburger – Singles Match
- 2 – Invictus Khash Defeated Mike Bennett – Singles Match
- 3 – Jay Lethal Defeated Baron Black – Singles Match
- 4 – Jonathan Gresham Defeated Konosuke Takeshita – Singles Match
- 5 – The Factory (Aaron Solo & QT Marshall) Defeated C4 (Cody Chhun & Guillermo Rosas)- Tag Team Match
- 6 -Masha Slamovich vs. Queen Aminata – Singles Match
My Thoughts:
As I’ve stated before, my methodology for this is to avoid giving arbitrary star ratings or anything resembling the typical ratings people give in wrestling reviews. I usually go through the show and pull a half-dozen or so things that I thought were significant or that I liked. You might think some of my choices are dumb and that’s okay – we all like different things!
Not Again!
Here I was thinking that Baron Black’s recent win against Brandon Cutler would start an upward trend in his career, but once again Jay Lethal gets the upper hand. Granted, this loss was due to Lethal having his foot on the ropes, and Black’s insistence on arguing with the referee rather than continuing his near-winning assault. Black wants a third match, but Lethal is now dodging him, so hopefully this leads somewhere. I see that Modern Age Grappling has a tournament soon, maybe the rematch will be forced on Lethal? Time will tell. This is definitely a promotion that could use some semblance of a TV-styled schedule to build feuds like this, but with what they have I can’t wait to see is Black FINALLY gets his win.
God, I love me some Takeshita:
I want Konosuke Takeshita to get a ton of belts and become the new face of Japanese Wrestling in America upon his eventual return in a number of months. The dude seeps charisma, is an amazing wrestler, has a great look, and seems very humble about his popularity. C’mon Tony Khan – make it happen! Kudos to Gresham for making Takeshita look like a star here, yes he won the match, but it came down to a referee stoppage after the time limit was reached. He could have easily pinned him and taken the win, but he set it up for a second match, if that ever happens.
Perfect Heels:
These guys are great at getting heat from the crowd, glad to see them on here showing why they need to get some more love on the main AEW roster. Perhaps with the trios belts in play, we may see some more of these guys and especially Nick Comoroto, who I am amazed isn’t more prominent than what he is!
So that’s what she can do!
Queen Aminata is one of the wrestlers that pops up on AEW Dark all the time, but never really gets to honestly showcase what she can do. That’s honestly one of my biggest gripes with Dark, they have some amazing talent on there doing jobs week after week, I’d love to see more showcases. Thankfully with a smaller show like this, Aminata can stretch out and put on a show, and with an opponent like Masha Slamovich, you knew this was going to be good. After the match, Aminata thanks the fans and talks about how she wants to fight some of the best wrestlers in the world, and familiar music hits….
The Professor:
It looks like AEW’s Serena Deeb is taking the bait… or training her? I’m not sure, but I’m excited to see it whenever it happens!
Conclusion:
Overall, this was a good show, but I can’t help feeling like Terminus has lost some of the hype it had going into the first and second shows. This show was short, had less talent working, a smaller crowd, and overall it felt “off” to me for some reason. That isn’t to say the show was bad, I’d say by match quality it was probably better than it’s predecessor, but something was missing. From its inception, Terminus was designed to be an alternative to corporate wrestling. It existed to fill in some gaps left from the demise of the old Ring of Honor, and become a place that showcased more POC wrestlers than most other federations. it was definitely refreshing, so I hope it keeps going. If AEW backstage politics ultimately kill this, I’m going to be pretty annoyed, but I am cautiously optimistic that this will keep going somehow. It just needs to recapture some of that magic from Terminus 1, if that’s even possible.
Arcadia Pod 