CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide Episode 128: The CWF Rumble

Episode 128

PAS: Incredible ride of a match, my favorite battle royal ever. Just a testament to the booking prowess of the CWF, and pair of all time performances by Trevor Lee and Cain Justice. It is hard to keep the momentum of a 1 hour plus battle royal going, but they had a bunch of nifty mini stories weaving through out. Opening the match with Trevor and Ric Converse was a nice battle of the past champ vs. future champ, and it felt like a big deal when they went nose to nose and slugged it out. I thought Dr. Dan landing on the hoverboard to avoid elimination was a fun bit of battle royal comedy. Loved Otto coming in with fast takedowns on both Trevor and Converse and cracking ribs with nasty bear hugs.

We had the classic middle of the rumble monster run with Mike Mars, getting some big eliminations including Mecha Mercenary (it did irritate me a little when Stuttsy and Cecil pretended the Dawsons v. Sandwich Squad match happened a week ago, and then abandoned the fiction later in the match when talking about the night of the RGL, rare bit of inconsistency from the commentary team), only to have his run ended by Ray Kandrack's surprise return. My CWF fandom is post-Kandrack but he seemed like the biggest deal out of the returning guys (Micheal Yamaha felt kind of unnecessary, but I did love Brad Attitude saying "I thought you were dead".) We have a bump freak competition between Kool J and Nick Richards to see who could die worse on eliminations (Richards by a hair, his kidneys hit the ring apron hard, he was pissing blood for sure.) Your final crew of guys was pretty great (although a bit too much Chet Sterling for my taste), Brad Attitude is one of the most purely entertaining wrestlers in the world, and he has awesome in this, full sleazy prick and his post match mauling of Sterling was awesome. Everything about Roy Wilkins was perfect, he and Gemini orchestrate the entire match, he comes in last, places the brass knuckles on his hand, and walks in with all the confidence in the world, only to get tossed instantly.

What really puts this over the top is the final two. What an incredible 10 minute segment Trevor Lee v. Cain Justice was. Cain loses the RGL title earlier in the night after a classic reign, and is totally made as a main eventer the same night. I loved how Lee almost worked heel here, he had been bloodied and beaten for over an hour, but he was still going to punk out this rookie who felt like he belonged. Lee laid in some savage blows, and Cain was firing right back at him. The moment where Cain got him trapped with the in rope armbar and got Trevor to tap out was huge in the history of the fed, I can see that being a huge deal when they match up again. I also loved the tightness of the elimination, Lee hits the double stomp on the apron and they both tumble to the floor with Cain landing seconds before Lee.

ER: A flat out killer, episode long Rumble. I cannot say for sure that this was the best Rumble I've ever seen - I am partial to the 40 man Berzerker Rumble - but I'm a huge fan of battle royals and this was without a doubt one of the best. I thought there were several standout performances: Ric Converse looked insanely fired up and continues to bring an intensity few can, Mike Mars looked like a hirsute bulldozer, Cain Justice turned in another great ride, Lee put on a performance worthy of the champ, Brad Attitude shit talked and knuckle punched his way through. This was a quick and super entertaining hour + of pro wrestling.

A great Rumble is going to be filled with tons of nice individual moments, with a long narrative thread running through, in and around these moments. Converse and Lee run through some nice teases and set a nice violent tone for the Rumble. Rockingham has a great comedy elimination - and believe it or not maybe my favorite use of Lee's punt - as he gets punted off his hoverboard (which he had landed on to avoid touching the floor), his legs go flying up in the air and the board goes skittering off the length of ringside. Otto brings some big boy strength to the proceedings and I love him interjecting himself into the Lee/Converse scrum and just squeezing the life out of them. I would have liked to see more Donnie Dollars but I was impressed with the huge bump he took on his elimination. Eddy Only was a cool little dirtbag who had no chance but at least came in throwing punches and poking eyeballs. Andrews' appearance just made me angry again that he and Valiant don't have the TV title any longer (and I'm still waiting for Adler to throw one of his signature spin kicks well. We've seen maybe 6 since his brief comeback and they've all looked about 0.2 on the Speedball Mike Bailey scale).

Mecha was still selling his neck from the Dawson chairshot, and I like that detail. Mike Mars was an absolute beast, throwing those big headbutts and causing my favorite elimination of the Rumble, when he just literally throws Kool Jay as far as possible. Jay is a lunatic and I loved how he kept challenging guys during his brief appearance, knowing that it would likely end well for him. He didn't even get to grab a rope to slow down his landing, just got launched. Nick Richards eats a brutal elimination when Kamikaze Kid gives him a brutal driver on the apron. He gets his when Snooty comes in. Outside of Kamikaze Kid we also got Ray Kandrack and Mikael Yamaha as legacy entrants, and I am definitely interested in seeing more of Kandrack (his last CWF match was before my CWF jump in), but Yamaha looked like a guy who hadn't wrestled in a couple years (I remember getting a tape of Carolina stuff from Statmark 15 years ago that had a lot of great Yamaha and Edsel stuff, as well as CW Anderson riding in a tractor to a ring that was set up in a corn field). I actually expected Ethan Alexander Sharpe to go to the final 4, but dug his work here, especially when he cut a promo to camera after eliminating McAllister, only to get snap German suplexed mid sentence by Lee. Coach Gemini stacked Royal/Li/Wilkins in the final 3 spots and I love how that blew up. Wilkins gets the knux and runs at Lee (held by Li), ends up getting himself thrown to the floor. Naturally, he comes back in and blasts Lee with a big knux shot, busting him open. Cain Justice was pitch perfect celebrating Lee's demise with other heels. Brad Attitude goes right after Lee's cut with the meanest punches of the match, real laser focused shots right at Lee's temple.

And this all comes down to Cain Justice vs. Trevor Lee. Cain had worked a hard match earlier in the night and lost his title, Lee has spent his night avoiding eliminations left and right and being the target of everyone. And they have an absolute war, immediately making it look like Cain Justice outgrew the RGL label in one evening. Perhaps inspired by Attitude going hard at Lee's cut, Cain throws more mean punches at Lee's temple. These two scrap well and both are great at selling the exhaustion and desperation. Lee gets Cain to tap by wrenching his knee and neck at once in a real sick looking sub, but a tap won't do much for you in a Rumble. We get a great gross moment where Cain acts like he's popping his knee back into place afterwards. Cain getting Lee to tap while tied in the ropes was a huge moment, as I don't think I've seen Lee lose in any way since watching CWF, this was at least giving me a visual of what nobody else has been able to do over the last calendar year. Cain's RGL loss is a distant memory at this point. He's moved on and shown he can tap the champ. The apron work by both men was excellent, with both clinging to the ropes almost afraid to move, knowing they were each one slip away from a loss. But Lee stomps the absolute hell out of Cain, and Cain BARELY lands on the ground a fraction of a second before Lee. Epic showdown. This is going way high on our 2017 Ongoing MOTY List.