Beyond Wrestling Uncharted Territory episode 5 review: The best one yet

It’s Wednesday night, so that means we take a look at Beyond Wrestling’s shiny new webseries on IWTV, Uncharted Territory! As always, our format is a hard-hitting triple threat, results followed by the best of the show and the worst of the show, with a nautical theme because that’s how they’re branding it and I decided to roll with it. On with the show!

Land Ho!

1. David Starr gets a pretaped promo where he talks about how he’s done everything there is for him to do in Beyond and he’ll be back when there’s something for him to do.
2. LAX (Angel Ortiz & Mike “Santana” Draztik) over Best Friends (Chuck Taylor & Trent?) by pinfall with a wild series of double-team maneuvers.
3. Thomas Santell gets an interview spot where he talks up his experience and legitimate background and his proclivity for drinking Ovaltine rather than beer.
4. Thomas Santell over LD “Mantis” Montesanti by submission with a stepover toehold Twister. (Discovery Gauntlet) Post-match Santell gets a promo where he talks about being excited to head to the 10th anniversary show next week and again praises the superiority of Ovaltine over alcoholic beverages.
5. Solo Darling over Ashley Vox, Penelope Ford, and Veda Scott by submission with the SharpStinger on Vox.
6. Milk Chocolate get a promo spot where they proclaim themselves the new aces of the tag division, a notion to which the crowd is not very receptive.
7. Bear Country (Bear Boulder & Bear Bronson) over Milk Chocolate (Brandon Watts & Randy Summers) by pinfall with an assisted splash on both men. Post-match Chuck O’Neill runs in to continue his crusade and overcomes Bear Country despite initially getting cut off!
8. O’Neill cuts a promo where he runs BC down for trying to be legit but still making a mockery of pro wrestling and even derides the very concept of tag team wrestling before once again promising to make Beyond legit again.
9. Kris Statlander over the Whisper by pinfall with a wheelbarrow Tombstone piledriver.
10. Anthony Greene and the Platinum Hunnies come out to the Blue World Order music decked out as the Greene World Order. He superkicks a camera guy and runs a survey as to whether or not he engages in sexual activity before calling Stevie Richards out and promoing on him.
11. Slither (Chris Dickinson & Joey Janela) over Beaver Boys (Alex Reynolds & John Silver) by pinfall with a bridging German suplex / jackknife pin combination on Reynolds. Silver makes no attempt to save his partner and we get a breakup tease for the Beavers.
12. Penelope Ford dumps Slither out of the ring and says at Lethal Lottery, Mama Slither has no allegiances and she’ll do what it takes to win BattleBowl and earn a match of her choosing at Americanrana.

X Marks the Spot

• Ovaltine!: Thomas Santell, everybody! His mix of old-fashioned slightly nerdy catch wrestler demeanor and an absolute vicious streak in the ring might make him my favorite of the new talent that have been through the Discovery Gauntlet so far. And the match was pretty easily the best of the gauntlet so far on top of it all!
• Good friendly violent fun: Once again, a women’s match is a violent highlight of Uncharted Territory-- a different delightfully vicious flavor of pro wrestling than the pure high octane ass-beatings Davienne handed out the past two weeks, but still super fun as all four women wove in and out of the action and contributed innovative combination spots and just generally made for a really fun viewing experience.
• BEARS RULE: Holy hell Bear Country! Two hugely athletic big guys hitting hard and hitting fast? Fantastic stuff, I hope they become a fixture in the tag division for sure. Plus Chuck O’Neill’s run-in evolved his stance even further and I kinda love coming after tag teams as “proof” that wrestling isn’t legit.
• Slithering along pleasantly...: The tandem of Janela and Dickinson has come together REAL fast and boy Worcester loves those dudes! Their sheer energy makes watching them work even more enjoyable than it usually is. There was some super cool stuff happening in this main event tag even if maybe I didn’t love the whole thing start to finish, and overall it was a really good way to end what I feel was the best episode of Uncharted Territory yet.

Walk the Plank

• A bit of a slow start: LAX vs. Best Friends ended up being quite good by the end of it, a whirlwind of mile-a-minute tag team action, but the opening exchanges were slower than I might have liked and it felt like it took them a while to get into gear. When LAX have the “worst” match on a Beyond show, I feel like something’s gone wrong, and so it ends up here even though I think it was actually pretty good in the final reckoning.
• ...but I’m still not quite there yet: Beavers vs. Slither started off super hot with Slither in control and through a really good back-and-forth segment, and ended well as noted above, but once the Boys took charge it slowed down so hard it lost me. Which, they’re the heel team here so it’s not the worst thing, but when I start paying more attention to my nails than the main event, that’s no bueno.
• Alas, poor Undertaker gag: I think I have to admit that it’s dead, folks. Josh Briggs made one last valiant effort to bring it back, but it’s gone.

On the Horizon

Announced for next week, Joey Janela vs. Matt Cross and Orange Cassidy defends the IWTV title against Jordynne Grace! Plus Thomas Santell returns as the Discovery Gauntlet rolls on!