SAW Tribute To The Fairgrounds ROAD REPORT 1/28/11

PAS: Phil Schneider
TKG: Tom Karro-Gassner

TKG: They are planning to tear down the fairgrounds in Nashville so we decide to head out to see what may be the last wrestling show at the Nashville Sports Arena. Phil is from Oakland and currently lives in DC. I am from DC and currently live in New Orleans. Nashville is kind of a new experience for both of us as we have never seen white nightlife. Arena crowd is mostly family crowd, young and old. Lots of middle aged women taking their moms in walkers, bunch of Korean War vets, lots of young families, and groups of 20 something guys and gals. There are folks in overalls with straw cowboy hats and no shirt, and there are indy rock geeks who look like EricR with (I'm assuming ironic) Michael Nesmith hair cuts. Not a cross-section of Nashville so much as some really disparate threads. The set up to get into arena is as disorganized as most set ups to get into a wrestling show. There are about 900+ folks trying to get in at once and it takes a while to get them all in. They bring in a lady to sing the national anthem and we start the pre-show before everyone is able to get in.

PAS: We walk all around Nashville during the day on Saturday. Including a Nashville dinner theatre running the Odd Couple starring Richard Moll of Night Court. Somehow that ends up with us fantasy booking an Odd Couple with Bull Connor and Bayard Rustin. Downtown Nashville looks like hillbilly Vegas, and for a second I felt bummed that everything seemed so inauthentic and shiny, until I realized I was in Nashville. Really not the town to complain about things being overproduced.

THE WILDBOYZ v, The WEATHERBY BROS

TKG: The Wildboyz wear black T-Shirts and woodland camouflage pants. They kind of look like if Richard Karn and Bill Engval were playing middle age white supremacist meth dealers. The Weatherby Bros are skinny tatted shirtless guys in orange and yellow fatigues who look like if DJ Qualls were playing twin teenage white supremacist meth dealers. I really enjoyed the heels as kind of indy Pandilleros working with green Tijuana rookies. Wildboys bumped really well, made the bros armdrags look good, and covered for awkward or blown stuff well. Their stomp/kick double team and suplex based heel offense was good and they had amusing collision spots and fed the face comebacks nicely.

PAS: The Weatherby Brothers were a methed out fake Hardys, who somehow ended up looking even more methed out then the actual Hardys. Weatherby's appear to be sons of the promoter, but look way more J.C. Bailey then Greg Gagne. The crowd is clearly supposed to be behind them, and I think all credit goes to the Wildboyz for drawing any sympathy for such unlikeable looking babyfaces.

"Luscious" David Mathews v Tony Falk

TKG: Luscious David Mathews is working an ugly fat homosexual sissy from San Francisco gimmick and this is worked almost spot for spot the way Jackie Fargo would work Boy Tony. Tony Falk is fun as a poor mans Jackie Fargo and David Mathews isn't very good as a poor man's Tony Falk. But it is a formula and a bunch of spots that work.

PAS: You would think this would be worked more as an older gay guy angry about the dismissive attitude of the younger generation. "They were beating people in Stonewall; I had 9 friends die of AIDS in a year, now it’s all Logo network and poppers, NO RESPECT." Instead Falk works like Eddie Marlin. Falk looks exactly like Tony Korniheiser, I kept expecting Rocky Johnson to get up from the gimmick table to argue whether Kobe is the best crunch time shooter in the league.

TKG: There still is a logjam at the door and even people around the block and he promoter has the ring announcer kill time on the mic for maybe 45 minutes until everyone can get into arena. It is a pretty spectacular announcer performance, as he just does non stop patter talking about the history of the fairgrounds, putting over crowd, the talent on the show, getting different parts of the audience to cheer to see who has the most enthusiasm, talking about what Nashville means to wrestling and what wrestling means to Nashville,etc. I have seen lots and lots of ring announcers but killing of 45 minutes without ever appearing to be filibustering, looking panicked or breaking a sweat or ever hinting that "hey we need to wait till everyone can get in" was kind of amazing. He had endless time killing patter to draw on, never repeating the same spot twice. Once everyone is in he introduces the "Vegas" ring girl and has the National Anthem sung again for those who missed it the first time. The announcer is then interrupted by heel Arrick"The Dragon" Andrews who has issued an open challenge. You really can't do the heel rudely interrupts the announcer for heat spot when the announcer has just talked for 45 minutes straight.

ARRICK ANDREWS OPEN CHALLENGE

TKG: Andrew issues an open challenge which is originally met by someone with a name like Mustard Molloy and once Molloy is dispatched it is met by Eric Young. Young v Andrews goes long and wasn't very good. Andrews has a neat ride into bulldog spot.

PAS: Eric Young is a pretty crappy surprise opponent. Was Reggie B. Fine busy? Couldn't you have just stuck Tony Falk under a Freddy mask?


DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH (David Young and Sigmon) with Athena v MADDOX BROTHERS

TKG: The Maddox Brothers are unfortunately not working a Western Swing band gimmick. And outside of their dives, I couldn't get much of a sense of them. They might have had a better showing with the Wildboyz. But The Diamonds in the Rough were no Wildboyz. Sigmon appears to have no forearms. Mini Frank Parker would be an awesome gimmick, and David Young looks to have gassed himself into looking like that. Unfortunately, Young doesn’t appear to have the wrestling chops to pull it off. Frank Parker deserves better than to have this guy working as his mini. I mean I remember once really liking the team of Bad Attitude, I remember liking David Young. For a guy working "Messiah of the Spinebuster" he didn't have a particularly good spinebuster.

PAS: Of all the guys on this show who were past their primes, David Young looked the most out of shape and washed up. Shit Bill Dundee's prime was 1979, David Young’s was 2003. This is a Nashville show, guys don't have to be tall to main event Memphis, but Sigmon wasn't Memphis short, he was EVOLVE undercard short, Arena Puebla short, WON rookie of the year short.

KID KASH v CHRIS MICHAELS

TKG: Kid Kash is a heat magnet and he tries to start one fight after another with every old lady or teenage kid in the front row. The security guy is amazing diving in the way of each and every confrontation, "holding" Kash back as he tries to jump the guard rail and start fights. Kash spends 15 minutes or more just milking this and milking it. Chris Michaels comes to the ring and Kash is still rolling out to get in fans faces and rile them up some more. The poor security guy has to sprint from one side of the ring to the other to keep up with Kash. Kash then does a bunch of in ring stalling, constantly breaking up whatever momentum Michaels can get by complaining to the ref about Michaels being greased up, cheating someway or other and then it's right back out to rile the crowd up some more. They do a bunch of superfast mat exchanges and rides and then it is back to calling out an old lady. Michaels at one point sells that he has busted up his leg and works the rest of match from below selling the busted wheel. I really liked the way the match moved from the earlier stalling into the body into the story of the leg up into the finish. Sometime when you see these things it just goes BS to finish and misses the midpart. That said the BS may have gone too long and so at one point one of the old ladies that Kash had been goading decides to take an arena tour. Kash had so successfully turned a random old lady into a face that when she decides to walk over to her family or concession stand, the crowd followed her like she was Steve Austin ("ooh she's going over to buy a soda what do you think she'll do?"). Crowd was so interested in where the new face was going that they were distracted from the match in the ring. Post match Kash does more fight starting and we wonder how anyone is going to follow that.

PAS: Kid Kash is the best guy I have ever seen at being held back by security. Really throws himself into the security guard and you buy he is going to start a fist fight. There may have been some bathtub boogie smoked by members of the crowd (and possibly by Kash) and that shit can fry the decision making synapses in your brain so he is lucky he didn't get stabbed with a screwdriver. It was spectacular, but I agree with Tom that it overshadowed the match a bit. Chris Michaels is a really great wrestler, but he felt like the fourth or fifth most important person in the match behind Kash, two old ladies and a kid who got his baseball cap stolen.

BRIAN CHRISTOPHER/KEVIN WHITE v "TEEN EXCITEMENT" DREW HASKINS/ DERRICK KING

TKG: I mean you can't do a ton of heel staling and BS after that, so instead you do a bunch of face stalling and shtick to get the crowd back in. And Brian Christopher comes out and grabs folks from the audience and him and Kevin White get kids into the ring and teach them essentially how to do interactive T-shirt gun spots with his sunglasses. I really liked Kevin White the last time I saw him, but here he looked like William H Macy playing a Morning Zoo radio DJ. I have seen plenty of wrestling tags with Morning Zoo wrestling DJs and I have seen better working Morning Zoo DJs. What happened to White? That said Brian Christopher is super polished and did the bulk of the work for his team and HOLY SHIT Derrick King/Drew Haskins is a great heel act. Haskins is working a teen idol Justin Beiber gimmick in too small tights and Beiberish scarves, while King is I guess the Usher/Maurice Starr brains behind the teen phenom. King is awesome in ring, really eats stuff well (including taking the signature Lawler apron bump), nice offense, and sets up and directs traffic, etc. All of Haskin's "teen idol" shtick, movements and reactions are perfectly executed for the gimmick. His punches have gotten a ton better since last I saw them as he really throws his arm behind them. Really feels like there is no reason that the Haskins/King team isn't in TNA, WWE, AAA, NOAH, SNL or having a Wayans brother build a movie around them. This is an act that belongs on a bigger stage.

PAS: Yeah this was three quarters of an amazing match. Christopher looked lucid, polished and fit which is not a prop bet I would have taken before this show. King may have been the overall most impressive performer all night, just had his shtick down gold, bumped huge, had awesome looking offense, Just shined. Haskins is just great; if they could turn this show into something more substantive down the road I could see him being a star. His promos are already the highlight of SAW TV, and he looked twice as comfortable then the last time I saw him in the ring. The post match kids dance off was also some quality professional wrestling. They bring in 6 kids and well endowed young lady. Christopher does a great pull into guard takedown on the rat and ends up with a face full of nipples. They also have the first four kids jump around a bit, and then the fifth kid does a perfect worm and a backflip. Must have been a plant, and you have to admire the carnieness of putting a plant in a little kids dance off.

LONESTAR v HAMMERJACK

TKG: The announcer tells me "From Baltimore, MD: Hammrejack" and I loose it. In the 80s, Hammerjacks was THE glam/hair rock nightclub in Baltimore. And Hammerjack appeared to be a wrestler who was working a gimmick celebrating that trashy “Wet T -Shirt contest and hair metal” Baltimore 80s-early90s scene. This match stank but I amused myself by singing Kix songs. DONT CLOSE YOUR EYES, DONT CLOSE YOUR EYE-EYES,,,OOH COLD COLD SHOWER. Eventually I ran out of Kix tunes and just gave up on the match completely.

PAS: These two guys basically work a Balls Mahoney v. Axl ECW street fight with two fat guys throwing awkward chair shots and doing ugly table spots. I would say 8% of the audience was loudly into the match, and I get these are the guys SAW are going to try to draw with when the legends go away, but still it is kind of bullshit. No reason the match before intermission should have all this color and shortcuts. This kind of backyard recklessness makes it harder for the chairshots and brawling in the main event to mean as much.

TRACY SMOTHERS TRIBUTE TO LEGENDS

TKG: Tracy Smothers comes out to talk about the legend only to be attacked by Derrick McNeal and the Wildboyz. The Moondog and Josephus (who appears to be working a Brody gimmick--what the fuck? It is Nashville and you have wrestlers called Josephus and Maddox Bros who aren't working country music gimmicks???) make the save. The Smothers parts of this quick brawl were cool...but moving on.

PAS: I get when Jimmy Jacobs at 5'7 does a Brody tribute gimmick, that makes sense. I really don't get the point of a 6'1 guy doing it. Would have liked to see Tracey do something more on the show, and this angle felt way too much like the opening angle.


WOLFIE D v DOUGIE GILBERT

TKG: So Chris Michaels/Kid Kash had worked an epic match built around stalling and crowd heat, Brian Christopher and Derrick King Enterprises gave a lesson in comedy spots and building in and around them, and Lonestar/Hammerjack had worked a badly done bloody streetfight. So Wolfie D and Doug Gilbert aren't going to do stalling/milking the crowd for heat, or lots of comedy spots, or blood and plunder. Instead they essentially do a workrate sprint match. Both guys have fun highspots and take big bumps (Gilbert gets ridiculous height on a backdrop). And while I enjoyed this a ton, I wish they had more access to their other tools. Gilbert works as heel Bill Dauterive who once was a local hero and doesn't understand why he isn't anymore.

PAS: Yeah I think it would have made more sense for Kash v. Michaels to work your spots match and have Dougie and Wolfie do stalling and crowd taunting, or had Lonestar and Hammerjack set up the ring and let Wolfie and Dougie bleed and brawl. Still these guys are pro and the will take what you leave them. Dougie was great, when I came into the arena he was sitting behind his gimmick table wearing sunglasses and a white towel tucked into his baseball cap. Just a hateable fuck, he makes you want to jump the rail, just walking to the ring.

PAS: The ring announcer announces the promoter, who had been walking around with a K-Mart knockoff Ed Hardy vest with a big cross on it. He comes out to fucking entrance music (and waits until the crescendo to walk through the curtain) and then seems totally perplexed why people are booing. He puts over Make a Wish, with a bunch of inappropriate cursing, and gets booed some more and starts getting really butthurt. God bless him for putting this show together, but he came off like a giant douchebag. When he brought out a cake for the longtime promoter, I assumed this was all a preamble for a heel turn, but the cake becomes the first cake in wrestling history to be enjoyed by the recipient, and apparently the promoter is shoot unlikable.

JERRY LAWLER v BILL DUNDEE

PAS: This is what we came to see and it didn't disappoint. Both guys seem totally jazzed up by the huge crowd and Dundee was especially frisky. Early in the match Mantell forces clean breaks in the corner, but he eventually gives up and lets them fight. Dundee gets an advantage and lays in a nasty looking beating on Lawler. His punches are as good as ever, and Lawler takes a couple of his signature eating of posts. The whole thing was violent enough that I thought Lawler was going to end up calling the Royal Rumble with a pressure bandage We of course get the strap drop and big time Lawler comeback and it always great to see, although Dundee fires back and doesn't go down easy. I have to rewatch this and the other, but this feels like the best of the 21st century Dundee v. Lawler matches.

TKG: All three guys get face pops coming out so Dundee makes sure to heel himself by doing a Zbysco stall to back and getting into it with some ringside fan. Lawler puts Dundee over on the mic but wants to make quick work of him so he won’t come into Rumble damaged, and hilariously warns Mantell to watch for Dundee’s closed fist. Dundee is in his late 60s and takes a lucha style rolling back bump, but will take big back drops and goes full force into all of his other bumps. This includes taking a superfast and nasty looking Flair flop off a comedy spot (Lawler uses a closed fist-Mantell gets upset and Dundee raises his hand for the DQ win only to have Mantell shove arm down with such force that Dundee does a face splat). I think this had a longer Dundee eats stuff opening then the Ward family show and the Lawler eats stuff section was a more vicious Dundee then the kind of less vicious more dickish Dundee that we saw in Waynesboro. Both guys take big ring to floor bumps and there is a lot more weapons based brawling then there was in the Ward family show. Dundee is first to throw chair into ring only to get hit by it. And Dundee just wails on Lawler with chair on the floor. They do a Mantell in ring bump which allows the Superstar to get a hold of Shoo Baby and whip Lawler’s back. But it still comes down to two men trading punches and the big piledriver in the end.

PAS: Post match Lawler puts over the fans and promoters, and Dundee gets on the mike and buries Jeff Jarrett, talking about screwing Dixie Carter and how they only drew 600 people. I almost expected him to book himself in a challenge against Jeff with 1500 dollars going to Cerebral Palsy kids if he loses. Just a great show and a really fun road trip.