We started with a strength comparison and they came up even, so Dexter takes Jones down and kicks him in the back. Jones gets mad, slaps the taste out of Dexter’s mouth and kicks him around. Dexter keeps trying what Jones’s doing, only for Jones to outdo him at every turn early, notably with the kicks.
Jones goes to the well once too often and gets hit with a dragon screw through the ropes. Time to even things up, as Dexter works on the leg to take away Jones’s kicks and speed. Dexter mixes in leg work and strikes, making sure Jones is too tired to come up with a way to fight back. Dexter’s crowd interaction here is great, the FRONTIER fans buying into him despite this being his debut performance here.
Dexter mistakenly gives Jones momentum and Jones replies with a flurry of attacks with his arm. The leg was worked for a short time. A few moments later Jones is able to go back to kicks, shaking the leg out, and despite being slightly slowed, he’s successful and locks in an STF.
After Dexter escapes, Jones goes for another running kick, but is slowed enough still for Dexter to nail a capture suplex. Jones bails, but is still groggy and slow enough to be hit by a huge Dexter dive to the floor. Crowd goes nuts for that one. Back in, Dexter hurt himself enough to allow Jones to fight back, but to no avail as Jones is clearly the more damaged of the two.
Dexter takes his time setting Jones up to the top, so Jones knocks him off and hits a similar combo to the one Dexter just hit with corner running strikes, except Jones makes sure to kick Dexter into mush so he can’t fight back. Jones goes up and hits flying double knees for a near fall.
Jones rush attempt is turned into a Dexter hurricanrana. Jones keeps fighting back, but Dexter can counter his predictable offense, as the springboard dropkick is turned into a huge powerbomb and we go to a cloverleaf, Dexter finally putting pressure on the legs again. Dexter goes back to kicks and it’s fighting spirit time as they trade killer strikes, doing the exact same thing until both collapse.
Both men take a bit, get up and go right back to insane strikes, but this time Jones wins and turns the exchange into an AJ-guri before collapsing. Dexter tries to roll out, so Jones follows him and they fight on the apron for control. The struggle in this is awesome. Jones nearly kills Dexter with snap DDT to the floor and both men are again down and in pain.
Jones and Dexter struggle into the ring . Jones is on his feet ready and Dexter on his knees and AJ nails a stiff kick to the head of Dexter which almost knocks his brains clean out! Near fall.
Jones is done screwing around. He aims for the Time to Burn, but Dexter escapes, grabbing both arms of AJ he looks for the Double D Driver. Back body drop from Jones turns that one around but Davis goes right back for him again, nailing the Double D Plex for a near fall!
Both men are down again. The fans, however, are on their feet and going nuts!
Dexter gets back up and Jones kips up, much to the delight of the fans. Dexter charges in with a boot to the midsection, then goes for a ‘rana. But Jones reverses into a mean looking powerbomb. Jones holds onto Dexter, hoists him back into the air and turns it into the Time to Burn! A swift three count later and Alex Jones marches on to the Quarter Finals!
What started out as a promising night soon turned into a mini disaster, but those last few matches turned the opinions of everyone again and I think it’s fair to say that the fans went home happy. Davis and Jones, Hardaway and Pride. Both could easily have been semi-finals in this tournament, it’s a shame that Davis and Pride went out at such an early stage, especially considering some people didn’t even turn up here tonight!