Long Road Report to Hell 4/4/19, Show #1: IWTV Family Reunion

PAS: Segunda Caida rides again, as Eric, Phil and Tomk met up to do all of Wrestlemania weekend in one day. We started out at the White Eagle Hall for Family Reunion

ER: Phil and I had a nice unexpected breakfast of hot dosas, lemon rice, spicy soup, and I had a delicious chicory madras coffee. We hadn't planned on going for dosas, but it was a close walk and the place totally delivered. The ladies and baby broke free for a fun day in the city, while Phil and I had a nice walk over to the White Eagle Hall, where we would be spending the bulk of our day. I love walking around places like this and seeing big brick school buildings and churches, because we can't have brick buildings out on the west coast, with our sick and constant fear of earthquakes. I like seeing the buildings, and graveyards right in the middle of the city, while Phil told me amusing pick-up basketball gym stories (as I realize that 60% of what Phil tells me about are pick-up basketball gym stories...). The White Eagle is a cool spot, nice stained skylights and seeing wrestling with daylight pouring in through doors is a cool vibe. Tom meets us there as we grab a nice spot in the third row, right by the entrance curtain.

TKG: Phil and Eric explain the concept of Family Reunion as this big interpromotional showcase thing and I go “Oh like Breaking the Barrier”. Spend the entire show trying to figure out which match this would have been the functional equivalent on Breaking the Barrier but refuse to use my cell to look up the actual card.

Orange Cassidy vs. Johnathan Gresham

PAS: Not for me. Good for Cassidy for finding a way to get himself over and not killing himself. Colt Cabana had a way longer career then Necro Butcher. Doesn't mean I want to watch one second of it. Gresham not only has to sell all of his yuks, but has to get squashed by his yuks. I dunno, a Kip up with hands in your pockets is athletically impressive I guess.

ER: Not really any of our thing, but it's better to get that kind of match out of the way first. That way we were able to catch-up and go through formalities with Tom without having to remember too much stuff about the match for later. I'm always a fan of people working the system, and Cassidy has tapped into something easy on the body that people clearly want to see. If you have the personality to pull it off, and you aren't dropping yourself on your head? Do it man. Phil, Tom, and I weren't laughing, but we were in the minority. Hands in joggers and sunglasses and pops, can't say he's doing it wrong. We felt bad for Gresham all day. Here he has to open up his day, the start of the biggest indy wrestling showcase of the year, and he has to spend 10 minutes entirely putting over the entire shtick of somebody else, and then lose, twice! Gresham was essentially the theatre hand wearing all black to be hidden from the audience, while busting their ass for an elaborate prop moving moment. All the work, none of the credit. Are their any matches where someone gets to make Cassidy pay for his nonchalance?

TKG: I like Jeff Spicoli, like David Wooderson, enjoy some Owen Wilson. This left me cold. On Breaking the Barrier, Stevie Richards was able to get his comedy gimmick over without making Tom Brandi feel like a prop. Post-match MJF comes out working gimmick of Jersey used car salesman who listens to a lot of MJG. I think that’s the gimmick. Me and Phil argue if he is supposed to be rich and pompous or a guy who aspires to be rich and pompous. He had a poorly tailored suit but a nicely accessorized off the rack scarf.

Shane Sabre/Space Monkey/Brett Michael David vs. Justin Sane/Kobe Durst/Kody Lane

PAS: This match was indy wrestling the names. How is there a match where Shane Sabre isn't the most PWI 500 name in the match? This was a six man tag showcase, with all that implies. Some stuff looked good, I like BMD's clothesline a bunch, some stuff looked OK, and a fair amount looked weak. The kind of match where you would try to find individual moments to enjoy, but the match as a whole wasn't it.

ER: Look at this lineup of names! This match was totally worth it just for the names alone. This felt like the first time I read a PWI 500 and actually thought the process was legitimate. I would love to do an SC 500 but it would weirdly be harder to do now as we have access to far more stuff than we ever did before, and less time than ever to watch it. I had seen a couple of these guys before. Tom had never seen Space Monkey, and by the end of the day he'd have seen Space Monkey more times live than most guys he genuinely liked. In fairness to the monkey, he seemed to get better each match of his we saw over the 14 hour stretch. New outfits each time, too. Had a banana flask this time and hit a big moonsault off the top to the floor at one point. It was at least an honorable mention for best dive of the day. Justin Sane was a guy who seemed better than his name; I joked that it would be funny if an indy guy was name Just Insane, like he thought it sounded cool and didn't understand it was a pun. Brett Michael David felt like the name of a guy working a Rock of Love gimmick, but he was the biggest guy in the match and had a couple nice strikes and nice lariat. I think BMD was the most memorable here.

TKG: I had actually seen Space Monkey before and thought this was the best of his matches. He needs to watch some GG Allin and work for the scat fans who Joey Ryan is unwilling to reach. Him BMD and Justin Zane seemed totally competent.

Red Eagle vs. Ethan Page vs. Ophidian vs. Arik Cannon vs. Mikey vs. Mike Verna

PAS: Weird match where the relative newcomers Mikey, Verna and Eagle looked more polished and professional then the decade plus veterans they were in there with. Page is on a zillion shows this weekend and was on cruise control here. Verna is from IWA Italy (not sure if that fed was part of Ian's early 2000s expansion) and has some cool strength spots. Outside of that this was pretty forgettable.

ER: This was fine, they've done a good job this show and kept all the six man stuff around 10 minutes and moving briskly. I actually like Arik Cannon here, thought he was the most impressive bumper out of the bunch, seems in better shape than over 12 years ago when I saw him more frequently. The other two vets I can do without. Ophidian has been doing the same routine that I wasn't interested in over a decade ago. Ethan Page showed off his comedy chops in this one, and between he and MJF sitting in the crowd mugging and hamming up hack jokes, I had already had enough comedy in wrestling for the day. Lucky for us Page and MJF were also guys we couldn't stay away from all damn day. Shane Sabre was fine and had the most classic name of all, made us all actually giggle every time we mentioned it. Mikey looked like Yahoo Serious and had a dumb fun mustache, and like the better comedy wrestlers he took a couple nice bumps. Yelling "Here's my moment!" right before running into a big bump is a funny spot.

TKG: Of all the comedy guys I saw, Mikey may have had the best comic timing. It never felt like he was just trying to force gags in, all made sense in the context of what was happening. Bet he has an interesting ladder match in him. That fucking simultaneous DDT one guy while suplexing or ace crushering other guy spot was whipped out a bunch over course of day…not sure if it was in this match but felt like every match and there is no reason to do it. Total Elimination was a fucking superkick/Russian leg sweep. You have multiple guys in ring have them do combo moves doing solo combos always looks a little blown.

Bell Pierce/Jack Bonza/Mick Moretti vs. Caveman Ugg/Steph De Lander/Unsocial Jordan

PAS: This was an all Australian trios match which had some moments. I thought Bonza had some fun tricky mat stuff and Ugg was really impressive. He obliterates Pierce with a chop, which felt boundary pushing and was really agile for a big dude. Pierce has a spot which she blows glitter at her opponents, which is a really dick move towards anyone else who has to wrestle on this show.

ER: This was also a perfectly fine 6 man, with the brief section of De Lander vs. Pierce being the only really weak portion. Tom was just happy that Bel Pierce gave us a better pun name than Justin Sane. Moretti is a guy I like and he had a couple big bumps here. This was our collective first time seeing Ugg and we all came away impressed. We thought we were getting the "Cavemen aren't sending their best" version of Cavernario, but Ugg moved quick for a bigger guy and hit hard, showed enough to make me watch Ugg the next time I see he's on a show I'm already watching. Pierce did have a funny moment where she threw glitter everywhere. It meant that every single wrestler that hit the mat the rest of the day in this venue was going to have glitter on their torso for the next week.

TKG: my son really likes Raymond Brigg’s Ug Boy Genius of the Stone Age so I want a little more sadness out of my Caveman Ugg…my desire for hints of suicidal Owen Wilson under the laid back veneer of Orange Cassidy or sadness at Caveman’s inability to improve his quality of life…may be too much to ask for wrestling gimmick. The Lazertron-ish, Unsocial Jordan made sense as a caveman’s tag partner.

Isaias Velazquez/Kylie Rae vs. Robert Anthony/Shotzi Blackheart

ER: Most memorable thing about this was Tom repeatedly asking what Egotistico Fantastico's gimmick was supposed to be now. They were more familiar with him than I was. First look at Kylie Rae and she was fine, though her Bayley gimmick would play better on a local show that would actually be attended by dads with their little daughters, instead of a show filled with weirdos who already had beer sweats at 1:15 PM. It was cool seeing Shotzi getting east coast bookings in person. Rachel and I have been seeing her for years. She was originally eye candy on a local Bay Area Saturday night public domain horror movie show called Creepy KOFY Movie Time, a weekly staple in our house until its demise. When she got into wrestling it made sense, she was always a performer who didn't seem to get nervous. She has good energy and I think eventually her ability will match up to her potential. I thought Frank the Clown was an unexpectedly good second. I had heard the name and heard that people couldn't stand him, but I'd never seen anything he was in. I thought he looked scummier and meaner than anticipated and looked like a guy who got his role. Felt like his routine was actually pretty effective.

PAS: Anthony was a big part of the IWA-MS run with Dingo and the two guys named Jayson having a loser has to change his first name feud. Not the best part of not the best run of IWA-MS but a fine guy. Good idea dumping the racist gimmick, although his new gimmick seems to be guy obsessed with Cactus Jack's weird son-in-law, which doesn't seem to have legs. He seemed like a guy who knew how to get heat, and Frank the Clown is actually an effective second.

TKG: Back when “ha ha Mexicans are funny” racist gimmicks were all the rage on the indies with probably El Generico being most successful, Egotistico Fantastico was one of the more egregious with all of his moves named after Taco Bell items. Does anyone still do that gimmick? Just El Ligero? Anyway, Robert Anthony really impressed in this, easily most polished guy on show thus far and probably top 5 by end of show. All of his stuff looked great and he ate everything well. Lots of times during show, you got the sense that you were watching parejas increibles matches where guys not always on same page as to if they were heels or faces but he was real clear. And he looked like he wanted to beat opponent and didn’t want to be beaten. I thought he also did real nice selling for Rae in believable manner. He is guy I’d watch again.

Fred Yehi vs. AC Mack

PAS: One of the matches I was most looking forward to of the day, and it unfortunately fell a bit short of expectations. Love both guys, love ACTION wrestling, but this never hit the gear it could have, and Mack seemed a bit off. Mack was able to get some real heel heat, and I have no idea why MJF is booked on fifty shows over the weekend, and Yehi is only on two. Yehi seems to be working a Soul Glo gimmick, and we added activator juice to the glitter which was already all over the ring. Guys this talented aren't going to have a dud, but this should have stolen the show and really didn't.

ER: I really did build this one up a lot in my head. This was one that I would have had in my 5 most anticipated matches of the weekend, which was probably setting a high bar in retrospect. AC Mack is a fairly recent discovery for us, when we started getting access to ACTION shows last year, but was an immediate favorite. This was probably the least performance I've seen from him, and I felt kinda bad building him up to Tom so much. I still think the stuff I've seen from him speaks for itself, and this felt like more of an off night than a norm. The match also felt very rushed, and maybe that threw things off a bit. We still got some fine moments - these two have a higher floor than most - but I think I was relatively justified in my high expectations and this didn't approach that. 

TKG: Why wasn’t Yehi being used more? He came out as part of Kelly Klein’s entourage on the ROH show. Mack is working heel and actually got heel heat and I was digging this a bunch and then it just felt like it went home early with low blow finish.

Kris Stadtlander/Solo Darling vs. Jessica Troy/Shazza McKenzie

PAS: Lots of Australians on this show, seems like a long flight for this amount of shine. This match was a casualty of the long day, as I remember very little from it. I think I dug some of Darling and Stadtlander's power stuff, but I am hoping Eric and Tomk can fill in some more.

ER: During the match you groaned and made ugh noises a lot during the Troy/McKenzie control periods, you weren't a fan so I applaud you effectively willing it from your memory. I came into this only familiar with Stadtlander and she's been getting some hype lately. I came away from this with only Solo making a decent impression on me. Darling came off like a little powerhouse, coming off more like a good hand joshi babyface that anyone else we saw. The team that Phil was grumbling about were not good. They did a lot of semi-complicated offense, but they had this awful habit of doing only the first 1/4 of the move, and leaving Stadtlander and Solo on their own to bump it. There were three different moments where McKenzie would start a potentially nice headscissors or rana, and then just fall and immediately after starting the move. It was infuriating.

TKG: I really had high hopes for the Roller Derby revival which was attracting ex-college rugby players, field hockey, ice skaters, gymnasts, and theater nerds into this semi athletic tradition and felt like it would eventually return to being a worked sport. And was watching this thinking, everyone here would be really fun taking bumps on a banked track. Women’s wrestling revolution may have killed the rollerderby one. I thought Solo Darling looked super solid and like she knew where to be at all times.

15. Mr. Brickster/O'Shay Edwards/Cabana Man Dan vs. Dominic Garrini/Kevin Ku/Brett Ison

PAS: This was really great stuff, we had a totally over the top ring announcer and a possible group of front row Hales cousins serving as hype-men, so I was ready to be let down, but man all six guys brought it. Brickster was great as a fired up 80s babyface, loved the whole presentation and he brought the heat like Sting taking it to the Dangerous Alliance. Sadkampf were throwing and receiving reckless potatoes (opening up what would truly be a fucking insane day by Garrini), and this was the first time O'Shay Edwards hit as hard as it looks like he should hit. It felt like a raucous southern main event, with the babyfaces walking tall and the heels coming forward. Edwards moonsault felt like a big deal for the finish, and this totally won me over.

TKG: This had a really chaotic feel to it. Like the kind of Briscoes, JAPW chaos that I want out of wrestling but still southern tag as fuck. Brickster is a guy who should get more bookings as he looked like the best of the guys working power offense that I saw that weekend. Just bumped well, wrecked people with clotheslines and made lifts into throws look like lifts. And had the real “I’m guy fired up in a 6 man tag” aura. Garrini is insane and pretty much the star of the whole day. Just runs into taking offense and everything he does looks like he wants to win. We had already seen insane big guy moonsault from BMD but O’Shay’s looked like he actually wanted to flatten opponent.

ER: Tom was really attracted to the chaos of this match. After this match, for the rest of the day, he would frequently lob a "felt like it should have been more chaotic" backhand to matches Phil and I liked, having clearly won over - twice - by Brickster within the first two hours of our day. And it was really really fun, a nice portend to a super fun exhausting day. Brickster had a best-possible-Cheetah Master feel to him, or Dolph Ziggler understanding his flaws, or Matt Taven who wasn't a total embarrassment. Out of all the downright unique wrestling experiences the three of us went through today, we were all talking about Brickster 10 hours later. Hard strikes, great energy, felt like triumphant Stan Lane. O'Shay had his career best performance, a big dude taking some great risks. Later Phil and I saw him hanging out with someone who had to be his uncle, and the uncle was flipping out about his performance. Gotta love a guy putting on a show for family over Mania showcase. Ku smacked Dan hard in the chops and dropped him hard on his knees in a powerbomb, and Dan's flip flop chopping actually made a good slapping whipcrack. We had a total ball during this match with a hard hitting fast paced 10 minutes, and I made Phil laugh as much as he laughed all day, as we were all tickled by the early 2000s hardcore ring intros. Some guy would get kicked in the face or Garrini would throw a double chop to someone's neck, and in the energy I would cookie monster grunt "PUT YOUR FUCKING HANDS TOGETHER FOR CABANA MAN FUCKING DAN YOU PIECES OF SHIT!!!! YOU WANNA SEE SOME FLIP FLOP COMEDY SPOTS YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!?!?" Just a bearded guy who looks like me with tattoos.

Gary Jay vs. Jake Parnell

PAS: This was a long running midwest feud given a showcase spot, and both guys really delivered. They chopped the hair off each others chests, took some big hard bumps to the floor and the apron and made the match feel like a feud ender, there were a couple of big dives right into the seats we were sitting in which felt crazy and uncalled for. I thought the end section was a bit construction-y, you really need a manager to set up all of the chairs and tables to fly into, would have rather seen them just beat on each other, rather then set up big garbage bumps, although to be fair, the big garbage bumps were big ass garbage bumps.

TKG: Gary Jay is Gary the Barn Owl who I had seen get booed out of building by idiot provincial Chikara fans who hate tall guys 9 years ago. “Hey this guy is 5 ft 8, I only want my wrestler’s 5 ft 2”. So awesome to see him main eventing this show. The early brawling and dives were crazy, I had less of a problem with how long it took to set up on the big construction garbage spot. As pretty much everything that took a long time to build almost universally gave opponent time to recover from last garbage spot and either reverse or get an escape in. Getting to watch Nick Gage realize they were going to try for a fish hook spot with ring ropes as Jay unhooked them was pretty neat….and well knowing ahead of time that the next show was going to be a no ring rope show added a whole “they are going to take down this whole set” Who burning their guitars feel. I didn’t dig the chair fu at end of match. Walking around with chair on head has a Terry Funk head caught in a ladder joke spot feel. Felt like a joke that you work in early or in middle of match and not at end.

ER: I'm with Tom in that I thought the big stunt spots were paced out nicely, so that the set up time was conceivably possible due to big stunts. I don't love Last Man Standing as a stip, even though it has created some great matches, as it lends itself to a lot of lying around and counting, so there is a constant interruption to the violence. But I really liked this and thought the chaos was worth the price of admission. In my history of going to live pro wrestling, any time I have to run away from the action by escaping over chairs and narrowly ducking dives, always leaves me with a positive memory of the show. These two hit each other with real force, both had red chests, and they sent us scrambling and ducking with some reckless dives. We were sitting in the corner near at the entrance curtain, and dives getting to our seats mean that the action was going a little out of bounds. I loved running over chairs and getting as close to the roving fight, and the violent chop exchange on the apron was one of the top moments of the night. There was no slap on these chops, these were deep bruising shots. We saw violent shots all day, and these held their own. I do agree that the match lost some steam as it went to the finish, but I also think that plays into the psychological structure of the stip, so I probably liked all of this more than Phil and Tom. I thought the KO spots felt worthy of the KO recovery, and while I do think the finish didn't match the violence of the rest of the match, I still thought this lived up to expectations.

ER: Price was right on this one, with me cashing in my free ticket for being a Independent TV subscriber, and the show was a briskly paced start to our terrible idea of a day. The Brickster trios match was the kind of overdelivery that makes this kind of friendship reunion worthwhile, the best kind of surprise addition to our 2019 MOTY List, and a cool "first show the three principle Segunda Caida doofuses ever attended together."