KENTA

First thing's first, major props to Jef Katz for actually getting this thing working. Not only is WRP up and running, it already has one spinoff done shooting(That'd be The Underground) and another in the making(no idea what that one is called). That being said, it's already pretty clear to me that The Underground is off to a very shaky start. Episode 1 is basically a short match between PW3 and Hayashi, and while the match itself is alright for how short it is, everything else really didn't click with me.

To start, the most obnoxious thing, the crowd. Oh lord this crowd. It's clearly all actors paid to be there and boy does it show. Just about everything done in the ring gets a huge fake reaction and it really detracts from what's going on in the ring. Not to mention there's some douchebag trying to get himself over with a "OOH OOH OOH OOH" chant every five seconds. I get why these people were hired, but fucking christ next time tell them to tone it down.

Up next is the camera. This one is a really simple fix, unlike the crowd. There are just way too many closeups and even more changes in shots. I actually started to get a little dizzy there were so many unnecessary cuts. And the closeups really detract from the match, since without a wide view it becomes really hard to see what all is going on.

Another thing that really irked me was the youtube portion of the video. I understand you want people to subscribe and watch your other crappy videos, but putting things like "OUCH!" in the annotations is just......just awful. Especially when you have a commentator who can do that for you.

Speaking of the commentary, I actually enjoyed The Underground's take on this. Instead of the normal sports like approach of play by play and color commentary, there's just one guy saying as little as possible while making sure you, the viewer, know things are happening. There's still a little bit of the play by play going on, but it seems like that's done more to fill a silent void. It'll be really interesting to see what happens commentary wise as the story shapes up.

Speaking of, something else I'm really enjoying is how The Underground isn't just a new thing. They clearly have held this tournament a few times, since King won the last one, and Stone/PW3 are both former competitors. It adds a layer of depth that's really nice to see in a wrestling show, and it makes everything seem just a little bit more important.

All in all, I wouldn't say I enjoyed the first episode of The Underground, but I'm very intrigued and will watch the next one. Hopefully the further into this tournament we go the longer matches become and the more natural things start to feel. I really think that this show is promising and would love to see it take off like I think it should. It'll also be nice watching WRP if only because it won't just be SoCal wrestlers wrestling like SoCal wrestlers.