Review: Ace Aarons vs. Luke Lonza (BGEast)

From the BGEast Catalog 119 Description:"Wherever Luke is hiding all of that vaunted indy pro experience he was bragging about, he's putty in his opponent's hands. He has zero counter moves. He doesn't know the first thing about a reversal."

I'll give BGEast credit on this one - their description is right on. I sense some frustration at Luke's lack of fight in the description, a rare occurrence in what is a sell-piece for the video. Maybe I'm inferring too much, projecting my own reaction onto the writer and it's something he didn't feel. However, reading that, it feels like it to me and knowing that a couple of my fellow bloggers occasionally write these, maybe I'm not ...

Ace impresses as he dominates Luke.

Let me start by saying that Ace Aarons is the black, bald heel and Luke Lonza is the familiar white jobber with the 50's hair. This still throws me off, because Ace seems like more of a Luke and Luke seems more like an Ace. Maybe it's Luke's similarity to Ace Perry. Maybe it's from reading too many Luke Cage comic books.

Or maybe it's the opening title card, which is too clever by half. It puts "Ace Aarons" under Luke's picture and "Luke Lonza" over Ace's picture then adds two cute blue arrows for the old switcheroo. Whatever the reason, it's just not sinking into my brain.

I can't get their names right.

Luke's a good looking guy, fresh out of the 50's with a high pompadour, a hot smooth body and an 'aw shucks' attitude. He looks great here in his white trunks. Ace provides a nice contrast. He's more rugged, but still sexy in his silver trunks. He carries himself well, talking a good game then delivering with well-deserved confidence.

There's no secret to Luke's popularity.

Luke looks great when he's punished.

Ace's trunks are perfection on his hot body.

I'm assuming that Luke Lonza is the intended draw here. He's a popular indie wrestler who's also appeared at Wrestler4Hire as Cam Zagucci. I've reviewed him twice and liked him twice. Admittedly, I have not reviewed him several other times when I was less than impressed. Unfortunately, this falls in the latter category, but screw it, I'm reviewing this video anyway.

While Luke might've been the draw, it's Ace Aarons that emerges as the guy to watch. He does a great job with the completely compliant jobber. Ace has a nice range of moves, filling the 24-minutes of action with some great body-displaying holds. He's really got this nasty heel thing down in attitude, trash talk and skills.

Ace is a powerful hunk.

And he knows how to be a nasty heel.
 Ace kicks the ropes out of reach.

If you want to look at Luke, Ace complies.

While Ace is rocking the ring, Luke has a tendency to narrate the match and say what we can see. In addition to looking like he's from the 50's, that's his persona, too. He's playing a cornball character who'd be at home on an old-timey radio sitcom. I get it. But less is more with this stuff. It was okay in the superhero video and not as noticeable in the back-and-forth with Zach Reno. Here, it's too much in a squash to the point of being distracting.

Perhaps if they'd given Luke more to do, he would've focused on wrestling. Here, where he's 100% passive, maybe he felt like he just had to do something.

Joy and pain.

Luke perhaps thinking about what to say.
How about nothing?

Ace is grinning as he keeps the jobber quiet.

In the end, this wasn't a great squash for me. There are a ton of great holds, but there's too much talking and not enough effort. Despite that, I do want to see more of Ace. He's got a lot of charisma and skill. I'd love to see him against feistier jobbers like Ty Alexander, Kirk Donahue or Calvin Haynes. And I hope Luke does get to show those indie wrestling skills at some point.

What are other bloggers saying? Well, I will say that they don't agree with me. Joe and Sean loved this. Find out why at their blogs ...

INNER JOBBER: MY NEW FAVORITE JOBBER

RINGSIDE: READY OR NOT

So that's my take. What's yours?

Alex