CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide Episode 149

Episode 149

Ethan Alexander Sharpe/Cain Justice vs. Michael McAllister/Nick Richards

ER: This starts out as a fairly genial, crowd pleasing house show match, the kind where you can see it continuing this way and being a match where Cain and E# show ass the whole match, or one that has a turn in the middle with the heels finally taking it to our 90s Create-A-Wrestler-Singleted duo. So we start amusing, with Sharpe not getting anything rolling, and we have fun house show moments like Richards booing Sharpe from the crowd. I should note that I also really love not just the Chapel Hill crowds, but the giant mural on the wall that often shows up in shots; front and center is a little girl smiling and reading a book, but she's wearing something bright white, and the design always tricks my eyes into thinking it's a big white beard. So this girl looks like Black Jesus holding a giant tome, or Grady from Sanford and Son. It brings joy every time I see it. Anyway, match gets really fun once Cain and Sharpe isolate Richards. Those two are so good at working a crowd like this, and Sharpe keeps adding fun new simple offense that fits his personality (the wind-up elbow drop that ends with him posed over Richards is a keeper), and his 12-6 elbows while standing over a seated Richards looked nasty. Cain throws a bunch of nice kicks, makes me laugh by sticking out his foot for Sharpe to tag in, and always impressed me with how quickly he can get from the ring out to the floor. I also like how he kind of cockily rubs his belly while trash talking opponents. Once you see it you can't unsee it! McAllister trips on his hot tag, so makes up for it by pasting our heels with forearms, hard lariats, and a big back elbow. Sharpe misses his KO uppercut, really swung hard for McAllister's jaw, and Cain makes the cutter look like a worthy finish. Fun match.

PAS: Great example of a formula southern tag, and what a great formula that is. Both Cain and Ethan are great as shit stirring heels. Cain can really stir up a crowd, and is great at flipping the switch between bumbling and vicious. He had some great kicks and stomps. I really dug McAllister's hot tag, he tripped going into the ring, but makes up for it, by throwing some really spudsy clotheslines. I also really dug McAllister's STO which planted Sharpe on Cain. Hargraves Community Center crowds are the best in wrestling and it was fun to watch them do this dance in front of this crowd.

Aric Andrews vs. KL3

ER: Andrews has some facial scruff back and there's no sign of that ponytail wearing smooth faced weirdo who was hanging around CWF for several months pretending to be Andrews. And I'm sorry to KL3 and his family, but Andrews needed a TV win like this. We get GOOD Andrews, dropping high elbows down across KL3's neck, knocking over ref Charles and pointing at Charles to watch it, hitting a great classic kneedrop, holding those hands over the head and then bringing that whole body into a crunch as his knee drops onto KL3's temple, and finishing things off with a couple of big uranage slams. Sinister Aric Andrews is back, and he's got that Golden Ticket!

PAS: Total squash for Andrews, and he looked good, that knee to the temple was brutal. KL3 looked awful, his 15 seconds of offense had no impact at all, including one of the worst kicks to the stomach I can remember, he also bumps really awkwardly on the Asphalt Spike. I am all for Andrew's squashes, but KL3 needs another couple of months in the training center before going back on TV.

Chapel Hill Street Fight: Arik Royal vs. Snooty Foxx

ER: I'm already well beyond hyped just watching the entrances of both men. Royal entrances are maybe my favorite in wrestling (and I'm the guy who writes about Metalico), a real crowd worker. I remember a Norm MacDonald story where he worked the WHCD while Clinton was president, and after his set he was backstage eating a pickle. Clinton comes in and works the room, one person at a time, saying something different to each person, and gets to Norm, shakes his hand and says, "I see you have a pickle" and keeps on going to the next person before Norm can even process what was said. It's not groundbreaking stuff, but it's a person to person unique touch. So Royal goes around the ring, he's waving his big Duke flag (so I know Phil is into this, big Duke supporter, not their sports teams, just their general vibe), he's getting into it with individual fans, mocking one guy with baller motions, making bug eyes at a little girl, purposely whiffing a high 5 with an even smaller kid, making fun of a woman's hair, simple making the rounds stuff you can tell he loves. Snooty comes out and it's night and day, people are overjoyed just to slap hands with him. The fans in Chapel Hill treat Snooty likes he just showed up at the cookout thrown in honor of him finishing his tour of duty serving our country. It's the best.

And this brawl totally delivered. Both guys brought it and were able to work a full 30 minute match without any drag, all while giving us a detailed site map of the Hargraves Community Center. And the cool thing about this brawl was that I dug the in-ring stuff as much as the wild crowd brawl. If it hasn't happened already, this just might be the official Snooty Foxx coming out party. Dude is here, he keeps getting better, and I get the feeling crowds anywhere would have been going bananas for him. Royal stalls to start, leading to Foxx rushing him with a hard forearm shiver, slingshots him into the ring, and then puts on a show by hitting turnbuckle 10 count punches on him all around the ring. Foxx has genuinely great 10 count punches, which is by far one of the hardest punches in wrestling to perfect. Snooty even hits a super early powerslam, with a great battle over whether Royal would slip out of it or not. We go through the crowd and it's all good stuff, love these two hitting each other hard in front of kids, Royal gets tossed through some chairs and kids are running up trying to touch him, merch table gets messed up, and you know we're going to go outside. They fight up on the trailer they use to haul the ring, and it should be noted that Cecil Scott and Smith Garrett were really great on commentary for the duration of the match, but really excelled during the outdoor portions. "Pretty sure we're getting shoplifted while we're out here, not for nothing." "That's a sturdy 1983 vehicle too, that thing is hard as hell" "That's the heartbeat of America right there." "So here's a recap, Arik Royal just hit a child with another human being." Royal throws Snooty off the flat bed just right into the huge crowd of fans that had gathered around. Foxx looked like he was stage diving, just a low fast dive right through a bunch of people, totally crazy looking. They both take great bumps into the fence around the baseball diamond, Royal finds an old hose and does some great chokes on Snooty, even drags him back into the building with that damn hose. Snooty takes a great beating, eats a couple shots with a shovel that Coach brought in, gets one of Coach's batting helmets busted over his head, and we should also note that Royal is someone who understands how to dress for a street fight. I want an action figure of "Street Fighter Arik Royal", complete with Duke flag. Snooty's comebacks are all excellently spaced out, and we get a great near fall that ended with Coach diving onto Redd Jones with his whole body to stop the count. Snooty clearing ring on the All Stars was primo fan stuff, taking them out with a huge dive off the top, hitting his nice one armed spear (so many guys would make that look trash, and he makes it look like a kill shot), and Royal gets perfectly in position to take a top rope bulldog face first into a chair. You know the knux come into play, and while I wish Snooty really waylaid Royal with the final blow, both sold it perfectly. Awesome, awesome match. These Chapel Hill shows are always a big ol' bank full of money. They're the heartbeat of America.

PAS: This is the way wrestling used to be, hot crowd disinterested in seeing MOTY candidates, instead totally invested in watching a beloved babyface beatdown a group of cheating jerks. Foxx is an all time great ticket seller, as he has packed the crowd with his entire neighborhood, there are multiple black ladies in their sixties who might be Snooty's great Aunt. Royal is world class at firing up the crowd too, taunting kids, stealing folks hats, talking trash, one of these days a drunk cousin of Snooty is going to take a swing at him. The Duke flag is a classic troll move, but the batting helmet signed by Coach K is another level. Of course that Coach K signed batting helmet gets busted on Snooty's head. The outside stuff was really great, I loved Snooty getting his head slammed in the truck door, and both guys really flew into all the fencing. Arik Royal tossing Snooty into a 4 year old girl could have gone badly, but instead it ended up being great. Everything didn't land as cleanly as you would hope, Snooty is still clearly early in his career, but the old school heatseeking greatness of this match made up for any execution issues.

PAS: We put the street fight pretty high on our 2018 MOTY List and added the tag match to our C+A Cain Justice