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Friday, July 10, 2015

Review: Jonny vs. Kip (JonnyFirestorm.com)

I've bought quite a few matches from Jonny Firestorm's site. He's a wrestler I've liked over the years, whether as a boyish heel, suffering jobber, giant killer or beefy and hairy bad guy. However, I've missed some of his latest action, with him being mainly in BGEast and there being no option to download. So when he set up his own site with downloads, it was great for me.

I'm definitely a fan of Jonny

Regrettably, I've just seen that he has hiked all his prices up significantly ($50 for one match!), so I'm probably done with his stuff for the foreseeable future.



Maybe I'm just cheap, but it seems like a few newer companies are charging what I think are outrageous prices. At $35, I think Thunder's is about $10 too high, plus I just saw they have a new ring match priced at $50. And Cameron Matthews wanted to do a streaming service for $60 a month. Wow.

Maybe wrestling isn't as important to me as it is for other guys. I tend to watch most of the matches I buy just once. So I can't believe there's this much money available out there. I wonder how long before the market sorts itself out. There are Brian Cage, Chris Dickinson and plenty of other hot wrestlers in ring matches on YouTube for free.

Hopefully Rock Hard and UCW hold the line offering amazing action, quality video and hot studs for a decent price. Movimus is still under $30. And if you like DVDs or VOD, BGEast is still great value.

Anyway, that rant happened because I went to confirm the price (after I wrote the review and pulled the screencaps). Sorry about that, I wouldn't have reviewed it if I'd known, but I also don't want to waste my work. Plus, you guys know your own finances. Maybe you have $50 to spend on what is basically a standard BGEast squash job match.

It's Jonny vs Kip

This match is featuring hairy and beefier Jonny as a 100% heel. He's sporting longer hair and pale skin in black trunks.

This is the only match I have with Kip Sorell. He's been interesting, but his previous matches weren't downloadable. Kip is a hot stud, seemingly always the prettyboy jobber. He has a great body, rich tanned skin and hair you just have to pull if you wrestle him. Fortunately, Jonny does exactly that.

Those are some strong roots

Filmed in the main BGEast ring, the match goes exactly how you think it'll go. There's no suspense or twists in the action. Jonny is nasty and methodical in his breakdown. He knows how to display Kip's body in some great holds. And Kip is weak, submissive and suffers well.





There was a little surprise, in that this match has a bit of a plot. It's kind of Cave-like with its focus, as Kip announces he's newly single, having been caught seeing two guys at the same time behind their backs. He wants to get with Jonny, but it turns out that this is all a setup. Jonny is friends with Scott and Ethan (the betrayed boyfriends) and is here to destroy the cheating Kip.



There's 2 minutes of banter and posing where Kip and Jonny flirt a bit, checking each other out. After that, it's pretty much a 28-minute ass-kicking before a 1-minute victory posedown/celebration. Jonny just destroys and humiliates Kip, even forcing him to admit that he's a 'fucking slut' and a 'dirty whore'. Kip does submit, but Jonny doesn't care and won't accept it. Like I said, this could've easily taken place in The Cave.

"I'm sorry I'm a fucking slut!"


When Jonny leaves, he promises the unconscious Kip that he's going to return with Scott and Ethan for a group punishment session.


The camera work is okay. It seems to be in the right place, close but not too close. However, the video quality is sub-par, with a noticeable dullness. It's nowhere near Rock Hard's crisp and clean HD or Movimus' cinematic 4K style. Kip's copper muscles probably would've popped a lot more and the white front of his trunks could've been more impressive in one of those formats.


Value: The value WAS good. It's NOT now.

Overall, I enjoyed the match, but can't recommend it for $50. It's ultra low def and it's just a standard jobber beatdown with a minor storyline. You can get the same thing for a lot less elsewhere. I assume Jonny is trying to drive people to his Club Firestorm membership service for $25 a month, but I think that's kind of expensive, too.

Again, sorry. I wish I would've checked the price before doing all the work on this. But I didn't, so here we are. Lesson learned for a new-ish blogger. Maybe Jonny will have a huge sale at some point. It's tough for me to believe that these prices are sustainable for multiple companies, but maybe there are enough wrestling fans willing to do it.

I love comments, whether it's on my cheapness, the trend in industry pricing, these wrestlers or this particular match.

Alex

7 comments:

  1. I am a bit disappointed by the whole membership movement on some of these sites. The prices for Thunder's TV is quite steep for what it's offering. BG East Arena works quite well because of it's back catalogue and consistent contents.

    I am very skeptical about these newer sites' membership services. I am afraid that they won't be able to offer the amount of content that would justify the cost of the monthly subscription fees. I understand that it costs money to produce these matches, maybe more so for these sites, but for the same amount of money you get access to more content, better quality and more variety of videos elsewhere.

    I hope they will consider the situation of their customers and offer more flexible options and pricing. I noticed that these newer sites (like Jonny's and Cameron's) are pretty slow in updating too. I think if they become more established then subscription may become more viable.

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    1. Thanks for the comment. I agree with you on everything. I've seen so many subscription services that just fade away, while continuing to take the money every month. Subscription and streaming are two modern trends I'm not a huge fan of, because it doesn't suit my personal viewing experience.

      The market will sort itself out, I guess. As I said, I just hope that RHW, UCW, Movimus and BGEast stick it out and get rewarded by fans for the value they offer.

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  2. Membership services are no good for me, because I can't say month-by-month how I'll be doing, and for me, $50 for one match is too much. But I'm glad you posted the images, because I DO love Kip Sorrell!

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    1. Thanks for the comment. Glad you like the images.

      I'm with you on membership services. I also am very sporadic on viewing wrestling. I go some months where I watch little to none, so there's be months where I'm spending money for nothing. And now Dire Straits is running through my head.

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  3. This is OT, especially since I don't do subscription (it eats iPad data like crazy). I can barely afford the occasional DVD.

    But I'm contemplating just how little I like guys who are cast as perpetual jobbers. I don't approve of jobbing, period. Every wrestler should bask in the light of victory at least occasionally.

    After spending the afternoon at BGE deciding what disks to put on my wish list (it has nine for now, three for $39 a piece, six for $49, at least nine months to budget for) I began thinking about the plight of two guys on their roster, Kip and Rio Garza. Both have the equipment, IMO, to win. But they never have. 100% loss records.

    I've even written to them asking if there's any way that they have wins.

    BTW, it's been a while since either has wrestled there. Neither may be currently active. Garza, real name Alan Valdez, has recent modeling photos out there. He's even more massive now and has gotten some tatts. He looks even more capable now.

    So what does any of this have to do with you. Nothing, unless you choose to make it so.

    It'd be wonderful if could could consider writing some stories about them or anyone else to whom the term applies. You might call it the Ex-Jobbers Club where we get to see them transformed into match winning dynamos, even getting pay-back on some of the opponents that virtually squashed them.

    I'd love to see Kip give Jonny a lesson he'd never forget. Teach him some humility.

    Just a thought!

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    Replies
    1. Do you have any info on what Kip's real name is?

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    2. No, I have no idea.

      I will also say that I don't think that's something that should be shared. If he's using a pseudonym, it's obviously intentional.

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