Segunda Caida Incompletes: WARD FAMILY ROAD REPORT 2005

Ward Family Promotions draws approximately 3000 people into a high school gym every year to attend what is essentially a Mid-Atlantic reunion show. In 2005 they headlined the show with Jerry Lawler v Bill Dundee which never was a Mid-Atlantic feud. Nonetheless they sold out the place and we had to bribe our way in. The whole show was a load of fun as we were packed in like sardines surrounded by a really appreciative crowd. Lawler blew his mic work and complimented the wrong college basketball team which turned the crowd on him; he also had a bunch of folks booing him for his WWF shtick. But as soon as Dundee got into the ring and acted an ass and punched Lawler in the face, the crowd knew who to cheer and who to boo. The redneck guy behind us spent the whole show explaining to his son how everything was fake “They don’t really hurt each other”, explaining how the cruisers were all “European”..”see this is how they do wrestling in Europe with these Europeans”…but as soon as the main event started he shouted “Holy FUCK, he just punched Lawler right in the jaw, those fuckers are beating each other up”. Lawler v Dundee as houseshow match is something I’m glad to have gotten to see live. Post show we drive into a ditch and end up with the entire front end of car falling off. We get a tow truck, put the front end into the backseat and turn the car into the rental company. “It got dinged up a bit”.

TKG: So earlier this year the Ward Family Card was being talked about as though the main event was going to be Rodney Mack vs. Jerry Lawler and I remember being pretty excited by that match up “Hey Phil that could be really good in front of a packed crowd, depending on what else is on the card we should probably go”…then late the main event was changed to Jerry Lawler vs. Bill Dundee and well “Fuck it doesn’t matter what else is on the card we’re going”. So we planned on borrowing friends car and going to the Roanoke NWA Va show the week before and then the Ward Family Show. Unfortunately out friend ended up in hospital for some sort of stomach problem and we missed the Roanoke card…but we talked about maybe renting a car and still going to the Ward show. We never really finalized what are plans were and so I went out and got shitfaced the night before the show. Went out drinking about 6 Pm on Friday and really started pounding with a bunch of hardened Howard nurses who were bitching about how loud Camron screamed. “There was a six year old with a bullet in her belly guts hanging out…she didn’t scream…But Camron that was a hot mess”. Supposedly he spent most of his time yelling at his entourage for leaving him out to dry. I try to describe tertiary Byrd Gang members to deduce who was in the entourage:”Was he yelling at Stack Bindles? Un Kasa?”. I think I continued to drink with them for rest of evening but I have no idea…apparently I called Phil at 2:00 AM still drinking to find out the plans.

PAS: I am leaving work at 2:30 and give Tom a call to meet up. He is clearly wrecked and as I am trying to tell him what time to meet me, I hear "Shut the Fuck up Bitch, can't you see I am on the phone." I resolve to stop loaning Tom my Ant Banks produced mid 90's East Bay Rap (Spice 1, Too Short, The Delinquents, Mac Mall, Mac Dre, 415 ect), as he clearly thinks he is Dru Down (Original Ice Cream Man, and possessor of one of rap's great finger waves).


TKG: Apparently when shit faced I keep my pimp hand strong. I mapquest the trip and call Phil in the morning to figure out if we’re still doing this thing. And go off to MCI center to meet him at the Car Rental place where we are rented a car by the world’s least enthusiastic Eritrean woman.

PAS: First she tries to get us to rent a Jeep Cherokee, and then tries to sell me insurance, but I am too clever to get suckered into either of those things. Remember for later.

TKG: My quote when offered the jeep may have been.."What do we need a jeep for? small car". Phil’s exact quote may be "Insurance...that's for suckers" and then he rents car using his debit card. Somewhere along the way we decide to stop and get some food at the all you can eat Brazilian Barbecue. I call one of my friends to get the exact exit and he tells me “Its right across the street from the Footlocker Outlet” as though that’s a landmark that white people is aware of.

TKG:We just eat and eat and eat meat. It was kind of scary as I almost vomited trying to hold down the candy from the jar on the Thrifty rental sales desk…but somehow able to power through the meal. After the meal I went to the use the facilities. The thing about the bathrooms at the all you can eat barbecue place is...well they are bathrooms at an all you can eat barbecue and they smell like a horse's stable. To lessen that smell the doors to the stalls are floor to ceiling. I open stall #one and notice white milky stuff floating in bowl. “someguy actually polished one off in barbecue bathroom….how do you decide to do that. ‘well I guess I got all this meat grease on my hand don’t want it to go to waste’” I checked out a couple of other stalls and am assuming that the white fluid is some kind of cleaning thing that they put in all the bowls. Either that or a lot of guys toasted one to bacon wrapped chicken. HMMM Bacon Wrapped Chicken.

TKG: We drive and we drive. End up driving through Orange. We’ve been to Orange before to see NWA VA show. Unfortunately when the hackers destroyed the board we lost all of the Road Report other than the report for the pre-show stuff. We don’t see Big Daddy’s this time but instead pass a giant effigy of a crucified football player. I mean the thing was several stories high with a giant stuffed Bread and Puppets effigy in full football uniform arms outstretched on a cross. No holes in the hands but he may’ve been nailed in the knee.


TKG:We make it to Waynesboro and the town is dead. I man dead. Children of the Corn, No one on the streets. No loose dogs. Nothing. Complete ghost town. Turned out they were all at the show.


TKG: We squeeze are way into some bleacher seats and get ready for the show. A Ward relative sings the national anthem and a guy from the local VFW leads us in prayer. Then I think another Ward relative shakes her titties at the crowd in a Ward Family Show shirt in an effort to drum up more sales.


PHIL BROWN v. GREGORY CORSETTI v. DR STUDD v. JAY SINN v. CHRISTPHER SAINT v PRESTON MICHAELS

TKG: Is this a ticket sellers match? I assumed it was George South’s ring. As this really felt like the match you give the guy who owns the ring. This was my first time seeing Phil Brown outside of WWE squashes and he looked like easily best guy in ring. Which I guess isn’t saying much. But he looked actively good. Dr. Studd kind of looked like a cross between Slim Goodbody and David Bremmer and kind of wrestled like a cross between Slim Goodbody and David Bremmer. Him and Preston Michaels fought to the back and I’m not sure what the rules of this match were. Phil Brown eliminated Christopher Saint and it really felt like Saint should have also wrestled to the back as he didn’t look to know how to eat wrestling moves. You ended up with two on one as Jay Sinn (maybe J-Sinn, or some other indy spelling of Jayson) and Vercetti are the New York Street Sweepers “We sweep together every night”. Vercetti wins with low blow and the NWA VA ref who looks like Ted Knight gets chased to the back by an angry Brown.

SHORTSLEEVE SAMPSON v. TODD STONE

TKG: Todd Stone is midget that Jarrett piledrove before Puppett pulled a gun on him. Also the midget that had awkward match with Pierrothcito on Smackdown. The Smackdown match felt like both guys were catchers and not on the same page although I liked that match by the end. Stone has a great stone face half way between Buster Keaton and Public Enemy James Cagney although I think he was aiming for a no nonsense Benoit thing. There is a lot of Benoit in Todd Stone and really amusing to see a midget who was inspired by Benoit. He does neck slash and a real tight set of extended work the back offense a diving headbutt to back. Sampson doesn’t really sell the back. Stone has really weird bow legged midget knees that make it look like he is bridging up every time he stands. Short Sleeve Sampson gets enormous height on his Worm. He soars up into the air worming.

THE GRAPPLER v. GEORGE SOUTH

TKG: This was advertised as match pitting Grappler’s loaded boot against George South’s loaded glove and the only match outside the main event that I was really looking forward to. I’ve never seen the Grappler live before. Or at least I don’t think I have and his loaded boot is really odd as it looks like he’s wrestling with one lift on. Does Len Denton have a clubbed foot? As it really looked like one leg was shorter than the other or something. I’m used to seeing George South work heel and not really used to him as face. I originally assumed this was going to be heel vs. heel. But South is working face and took a little while for me to adjust to that. Some of the early South as face controlling felt awkward but I think that may have been more me uncomfortable with him in that role. Still the match got really good when Grappler loaded the boot cut South off and started working the arm. As Grappler was really good at working over the arm and South was really great at selling it. Third match in and it was psychology drenched slow body part work. South wins with super hot face roll up and the glove really never comes into play.

MIKEY BATTS v. SONJAY DUTT v. ULTRADRAGON

TKG: I think I may have sat behind Ultra Dragon at the Raleigh Lucha show I’m not sure. But he does a bunch of fun I’m crazy “Delirious/Will’O The Whisp”spots and gets tossed around by the other two Europeans in the early sections of this. He’s fun and really seemed unfortunate that he was first eliminated. As I think him as underdog overcoming Batts leading to him vs. Dutt in single might would have been better match. Dutt and Batts end up working a singles match. This really gets smoked by the Grappler vs. George South but amusingly Dutt and Batts work the exact same match except for Dutt doing more flips leading to his arm work and Batts instead of winning with a Sunset Flip wins with a Code Red style sunset flip bomb. Oh yeah and Batts isn’t as good at selling the arm work as South. And really Batts stinks.

TONY ATLAS, RANGER ROSS, THE PATRIOT, THE STO v. IVAN KOLLOFF, RUSSIAN ASSASIN #86, BORIS POPPOFSKI, KING KAHLUA

TKG: Does Tom Brandi think he’s going to get a WWF job? Holy shit is he tanned. He was darker than Tony Atlas. Ranger Ross is the lightest skinned guy on the face team. The Stro has aged a ton facially since I last saw him as facially he looks like the worlds seediest Brian Christopher. Koloff is old old old, Russian Assasin appears to be a 16 year old in pajama bottoms and a Russian Assassin mask. It’s unclear if he’s trained, King Kahlua has been working East Coast indies forever and maybe marginally worse than Tom Brandi. Boris Poppofski is a name I’m making up since I have no idea what the fourth guy on the heel’s team name was. Pretty much for the most part they kept the match to Stro and Poppofski doing wrestling exchanges with everyone else running in for everyone brawls sections. Stro vs. Poppofski sections were ok, when anyone else worked one on one sections it was a mess. Kolloff was surprisingly effective on the apron as guy who would grab face drape him over top rope and hit him. Despite his hunch back and being barely able to walk he really screams hard toughness. If Shimmer ever gets off the ground I could see him being really great in the role of heel manager: evil Bela Karyoli leading a stable of abused gymnast wrestlers, forcing Traci Brooks to exercise till she stops having her period “true athlete must never develop”, etc. This match wasn’t good but far better than it had any right being.

IVORY v JAZZ

TKG: Some huge woman blows her run in and has to redo it. She tries for the run in the first time and seems to just crash into the ring busting part of her top. She tries the run in again leading to the match being declared a no contest and the two ex-WWF women double teaming the indy woman and shaking hands or something like that. Why they couldn’t have a clean finish in this match? Neither Ivory nor Jazz was willing to job?

BILLY GUNN v. RODNEY MACK

TKG: Ok I’m a Rodney Mack fan and was kind of hoping he’d come out and do his JYD mic work and work face but instead they do the straight WWF face/heel stuff and this match is pretty good as Mack looks good and live you realize that Gunn has two punches that he actually throws well. A really nice short punch. And forgot what the other one was. His jab and hook is still as horrible as you remember it but this was perfectly fine wrestling.

MAVEN v. AL SNOW

TKG: This was originally advertised as a retirement match and I was scared as figured these two would try to do some sort of fake Guerrero/Malenko indy showcase match as retirement match. Then about a week before show it was announced on the Ward Family web page that it wasn't going to be a retirement match and I breathed a sigh of relief. That was a mistake. So before match starts Marvin Ward (the promoter) comes out in his signature black cowboy hat to his music THUNDERSTRUCK and sends the Ted Knight NWA VA ref to the back...Ward "This match harkens us all back to the days of Tough EENOUGH and so I thought it needed a special ref...and no one more TOUGH ENOUGH for the role than HERMIE SADLER!!!!" Is Hermie Sadler like ICP or something...such a mark that he shows up at shows and agrees to work for free? They try to work a student is teacher of student thing at a couple points they work face vs. face fake indy showcase at some point I think Al Snow turns heel at another point I think Maven turns heel. There may have been heel vs. heel sections of this. I think at some point Sadler works heel ref. At some point he turns back face. Heel vs. heel with face ref? Face vs. heel with face ref? Face vs. face with heel ref? Every possible combination they tried. This match was a mess. There were a couple points where they all just stood around like they were extraneous guys in a battle royale. Points they huddled up to try to figure out what they were doing. Al Snow works the North East indies doing a bunch of WWE tribute spots (people's elbow, stunner, worm etc.) I think at one point when crowd had turned on this match Snow decided to start doing NWA tribute spots...Garvin stomp a Flair pushes Tommy Young spot, etc. I don't think Sadler was familiar with the Tommy young spot so snow had to stop the match again to explain it to him. They talk it out and then go back to wrestling and do the spot. This match was awful. Crowd completely turns on this and well this is an easy crowd to please...but they shat all over this match and the match deserved to be shat on. Honestly this whole write up with footnotes would be done weeks ago if it wasn't for this match as just recalling it to write something just wore me out. Whole match wore me out my spine started to atrophy I began to itch. So awful that my body started to rebel against me for making it watch this atrocity.

PIPER's PIT:

TKG:So they follow this endless match with a mic work section. This was originally scheduled as Piper's Pit with the Hebner brothers but instead we get Piper solo doing his Hal Holbrooke one man show deal. And he just talked and talked. Eventually they brought out Phil Brown for Piper to put over only to have the New York Street Sweepers get on the mic and threaten the two of them. Piper gets to do some gay baiting mic work and the him and Brown clean house of the sweepers. Piper blows his double eye poke against Jay Sinn. Like eye pokes an imaginary head at least two feet from where Jay Sinn stood. Sinn sells it anyway and I'm not sure what a wrestler is supposed to do when there opponent blows an eye poke. I mean leaning into the eye poke would probably be a mistake. Next thing you know Bob Orton is out to go after Piper. Ooh man doesn't Juve "ride" with the Cowboy. I bet a Piper/Smart Bart Sawyer vs. Orton/Juve match would be really good. They could work it real All Japan style with the heavyweight on each team attacking the other guys junior as a taunt...and you'd really buy that Piper would be really upset if Bart was being hurt and you'd buy that Orton would be real proud of Juve if he fought back against Piper. Orton enjoying watching his junior get toughened up. God All Japan really made a mistake by never working exoticos into their tags. Fuck Bart/Piper v. Juve/Orton...they attach the midgets and the women and Ward Family Promotions could have the best fake AAA match in VA indy history. But Smart Bart Sawyer doesn't come out to make the save for Piper and Juve doesn't come out to have the Ace Cowboy's back....instead we all hear over the PA "ONE MORE SILVER DOLLAR" and fuck a fake AJ tag based built on homosexual couplings and fuck a fake AAA. Fuck all that shit... Well I've got to run to keep from hiding...I'm bound to keep on riding...I got one more silver dollar...ain't gonna let them catch the midnight rider. The crowd is electric.

DUSTY v. ORTON (special ref DAVID FLAIR)

TKG: Orton is in dress pants and dress shirt while Dusty is in his bunkhouse jeans and T-shirt uniform. Most of the match is built around Orton squeezing an arm wringer while Dusty fights back the impulse to escape through a punch. Every time he gets ready to punch his way out...Orton twists some more and Dusty winces and opens his hand in the wincing. Eventually Dusty gets his punch off Orton splays his legs, Dusty punches again flip flop and fly. Thus spoke Zarathustra plays in background. Everyone turns to curtain. Dusty is distracted and David Flair low blows him. This was good while it lasted but needed at least two other sections to be a good match.