Branch Out Project #4: Wrestling Retribution Project Part One

We're doing something a bit different this time. Thanks to Rick Knox, one of the best referees of all time, I learned about a little gem that never fully saw the light of day.

Wrestling Retribution Project, or WRP, was founded by Jeff Katz back in 2011 by use of crowd funding sources. They taped 13 episodes that were set to air via Image Entertainment, featuring a stacked roster playing custom roles similar to Lucha Underground.

In about one month, Katz reached his goal of $100,000. The episodes, as mentioned above, never were released, though. Not only that, but the backers never got really anything in return for their investments making this one of the most controversial wrestling projects of the past decade.

Well, apparently back in March Katz decided to release the footage on YouTube and I plan on going through and watching most of this insanity.

Now, this is a large post reviewing content from this YouTube channel but I wanted to quickly give a shout out to one of my favorite sites for a great write up they did on this promotion recently. Check it out here!

I'm going to watch five videos this time and more each time until I've completed the channel's content, starting in order of upload. I'll get some interviews soon, too.

1.Chase Walker vs. Artrelle Burt NR
Thoughts:
Joey is in the Cali trunks. I really like the atmosphere here, as the arena layout is pretty well done. The match was pretty short, with Joey...I'm sorry, Chase Walker, going over. He was set as the face and came out with "Aphrodite" aka Trisha LaFache.

2.Grand Old Predator vs Pax Americana NR
Thoughts:
Adam Pearce was a dominate monster here. A few sparks from Pax Americana got some minor pop, but the Grand Old Predator (what an awful name) took down the patriotic opponent quickly. Squash!

3.Stan Shooter vs Carter Swan NR
This had Kenny from the Spirit Squad working as Stan Shooter, with some simple heel stalling at the start and then was a simple squash immediately after. Clearly, they were trying to do some basic ideas in these first uploads here. Nothing even long enough to rate yet.

4.Chris Hyde vs Bryce Braxton-Collins ***
Now we're talking! Chris Hero versus Timothy Thatcher, people. This appears to be the first of many with a watermark attached. The camera work here on these will likely turn some off, by the way. Anyway, this was a fun tech battle between the two great workers. Sure, it was kept short, but these two are basically incapable of a bad outing. Good stuff!

5.Dios Dorado vs SoCal Crazy NR
Dios is the Amazing Red, which should be enough to get you to click this one. What ever happened to SoCal by the way? This one was a high speed sprint that saw Red go over quickly. Again, too short to rate.

Five matches in and I'm seeing a theme being set and have a good idea what they are planning next. I'll be back with part two and more match reviews soon enough. As always, thanks for reading!