NWA Wildside- Throwback Review Episode 36

NWA Wildside was an awesome early 2000's promotion run out of a barn in the middle of nowhere Georgia. They really were one of the only promotions to pull off R rated sex and violence wrestling without devolving into puerile Russo humor. More Abel Ferrera then Dennis Dugan. Guys like AJ Styles, R-Truth and Abyss started out there, and they had a bunch of really fun Southern veterans, and the best promo guy in indy wrestling history in Jeff G. Bailey. Episode 36 is the earliest they have up, and I will do a couple of these a week until I catch up to them

http://www.twnworldwide.tv/nwawildside36.html

5/14/00

Show starts with a Pulp Fiction style rundown of previous weeks. They are setting up a Shank v. Scottie Wren match, and Shank is as awesome as I remember him. He is working an Oz inmate gimmick, he has crazy tattoos, a creepy high pitched voice and tells Wren he has to bend over and take it like a man. We also get an quick intense Jim Cornette promo with the Cole twins talking about Bad Attitude.

Rusty Riddle v. Skyfire

Riddle is an 80's WWF job guy who was working a biker gimmick. I remember him in a pushed tag team at one point in Wildside, although this appears to be before that. Skyfire worked as EZ Money in ECW and Jason Jett in the dying days of WCW. This was kind of a mess, as they seemed to be on different pages for most of this. Riddle had an impressive rope walk, but no other big spots. Finish had an unnecessary ref bump.

We get a pretty generic Jeff G. Bailey promo, he does compare team NCW to the Cornelia chapter of Act-Up and call someone a dirty Mexican who wants to steal the hubcaps off of his Corvette, but this was mostly just a typical heel manager promo. I know I will see better from Bailey in the future.

Silky Boom Boom v. Ricky Noble

This was Noble's debut and he had a nice monkey flip, but kind of blew his finisher. Nothing to see here

Scottie Wren v. Shank

Shank is a better promo then a wrestler, but he did have kind of an enjoyable Ahmed Johnsonish green guy doing awkward highspots charm. He went up early for a plancha, slipped off and then just threw himself over the top with a nasty tope. Wren had some nice fatboy highspots too, although much of this match was pretty ugly. Finish comes with a Timber the Lumberjack chair shot to Shank, and then a save from champion Stone Mountain (currently stinking up TNA as Abyss)

Eddie Golden v. AJ Styles

Eddie Golden is a long time Southern indy guy, he is the nephew of Jimmy Golden and really great. Styles is a little green at this point, but an athletic freak and he and Golden work really well together. Golden works him over nicely with Styles bumping big and breaking out a nice highspot or two. Still will all of AJ's backflips, I was probably most impressed by Golden's nasty back elbow. Finish gets telegraphed a bit as babyface color guy Steve Martin (not working a Steve Martin gimmick) mentions that AJ Styles and Rick Micheals are the only two guys he can trust. Ref gets bumped and Martin slides in the ring to make the count on Golden (he has some sort of power in the company, I am just jumping in here), Styles gets up before 3 and attacks Martin, AJ then jumps his tag partner Jorge Estrada and we get a big AJ heel turn.

Very watchable overall show, the Golden v. Styles match and post match angle was definitely the highlight, but we really didn't get any of the transgressive weirdness or crazy violence that made Wildside so awesome.