Evolve 13 Review

Four Men Battle for a shot at the Open The Freedom Gate Title!!

Evolve 13

Concord, North Carolina 5/12/12

Another DVD with great cover art and the crowd for this show is a little better here than at the last show.

1.) Winner Gets an Open The Freedom Gate Title Match – Ricochet vs. AR Fox vs. Jigsaw vs. Samuray Del Sol: ***3/4

The winner will face Johnny Gargano in the Main Event with the title on the line. This was an awesome opener. Fox & Del Sol looked like stars, Ricochet was his usual self, and Jigsaw played his roll well. An entertaining Four-Way Match. AR Fox continues his wave of momentum by picking up the win and a shot at Johnny Gargano in the Main Event!

2.) Silas Young vs. Adam Page: *3/4

This was nothing more than a squash match. I suggest checking out their match from Ring of Honor's 2013 Top Prospect Tournament. That one was much better.

3.) Caleb Konley vs. Kyle Matthews: **1/4

Matthews has made a few Evolve/Dragon Gate USA appearances previously, I believe. Konley is good but at this point The Scene is doing nothing for me. A decent match.

4.) Alex Reynolds vs. Jake Manning: **1/2

Both guys head into this undefeated so someone is leaving with a loss. The win ends up going to Reynolds, who is surprisingly at 3-0. A fine match.

5.) Low Ki vs. Jon Davis: ***1/2

Another first time match-up as Low Ki is facing a size disadvantage. A very good match. Both guys hit their stuff and looked good doing it. Low Ki especially looked good selling the offense of Jon Davis, but in the end, the World Warrior picked up the win to become the first person to (technically) go 4-0 in Evolve

After the match, Low Ki talks about his record, and the need for an Evolve Title.

6.) Chuck Taylor vs. Mike Cruz: **1/2

Cruz is looking to spoil things for the Evolve wins leader. Swamp Monster is once again over. A fair match. Cruz held his only against Taylor, and the Kentucky Gentleman looked good as usual.

After the match, Taylor also expressed his desire for an Evolve Title.

7.) Sami Callihan vs. El Generico: ****

Looks like Callihan took Finlay's words of advice and decided to have an awesome wrestling match with El Generico. Great stuff here. Both guys put on their best effort, but I felt like the location held things down a bit. If it had been held in front of a larger (and better) crowd, it would have been fantastic...oh well. Still a great match. Low Ki was also on commentary.

Afterwords, Lenny Leonard tries to interview Generico about Low Ki, but Callihan attacks him, and in Evolve, post match attacks are severely frowned upon. Callihan also goes after a ref. before Low Ki ran him off. After Sami left, Generico & Low Ki had a stare down and exchanged some words.

8.) Open The Freedom Gate Title – Johnny Gargano vs. AR Fox: ****

AR Fox has a ton of momentum, with his win over AR Fox in Evolution's End at Evolve 12 and the victory in the Four-Way earlier in the night. This was a very good Open The Freedom Gate Title Match. While the environment prevented this one from soaring, it was still very good and a great way to close the show. Once again, Fox looks like a star.

After the match, Gargano puts over Fox and then brings in a girl in the front row who wrote a school paper about him and celebrated with her in the ring. Nice Gesture.

Overall: 8.0/10

When compared to the show from the night before (and the last two Evolve shows, really) this was definitely a step up. You have three matches on here that you should definitely check out, and the rest of the undercard isn't too bad. Despite the smaller crowd, this was another good show from Evolve.