ROAD REPORT: GCW Devil in a New Dress 4/10/22

This Road Report is going to be much more vibes than actual match analysis. This was the first wrestling show I had been to with this many friends (seven people, including myself) in who knows how long. It was a great night, fun as hell, but there's no way I'm going to be remembering full details of a 20 minute Dark Sheik match or what specific Kidd Bandit spots I thought were stupid. The card was changed around wildly and the two people I was most excited to see (Biff Busick and Gringo Loco) were either there and not used or not there for reasons I don't know (travel?). So that was a drag! And yet, we still had a good time. It was fun seeing it with several friends who don't follow indy wrestling, as a couple of my boys were only familiar with Busick, Jacob Fatu, and Suzuki. With no Busick or Fatu, that meant they were seeing nearly everyone on the card for the first time, brains unsullied by the opinions of those on the internet. I told them to "just think of this as early Jersey All Pro" and that set the mood just fine. 

Effy vs. Nick Wayne

ER: If you had told me earlier in the night that Effy would be the guy putting on my favorite performance of that night, then I would have been skeptical. Had it been my Looper, I would have been more inclined to believe me. This was my favorite personal Effy performance and I thought he came off like an honest to god star. The Yellow Brick Road music, the trashy blonde asymmetrical mullet, the fishnets, and the extreme confidence on the mic. For reasons I could not quite make out (it is not an indy wrestling show without somewhat questionable sound), Effy stated that this was a family show and he would therefore be working much less horny. And honestly? Focused ass kicker Effy is much more entertaining than horny Effy. He did a great job bullying a high school junior, caught all of Wayne's dives (including a big tope con giro), and came off like a real complete act. I'm not sure there was anyone on the card who carried themselves like a bigger star than Effy did in this match, and that includes Suzuki. 

My favorite moment of the match - which might sound odd - is how he handled a failing prop spot: Wayne brought the doors into the match, and as Effy was setting up a door on a couple folding chairs and trying to keep Wayne on them, the door just fell off the chairs. As the fans were jeering the extended spot set up, Effy just did the most hilarious hurrr durrrr face with a funny dance to accompany it, immediately shutting down any potential derision. Now, the *craziest* moment came right after, when Effy went up top and Wayne got up way too quick to catch him with a Spanish Fly. Wayne got up so quick that Effy's feet weren't squared up, one of them looked to be slipping, and those knees were shaking hard as Wayne flipped. I was standing near the turnbuckle directly opposite them, and I swear to you I looked directly into Effy's eyes and saw the expression of a man who did not think he was properly making it over on that Spanish Fly. I thought he was going to brutally plant chin or neck first directly into the mat, but somehow he made it over (not really through the table, instead going off course and flattening one of the chairs). People were going nuts after that Fly, and I know I'm not the only one there who thought we almost witnessed an opening match murder. 

Jordan Oliver vs. Jack Cartwheel

ER: The only thing really worth remembering about this match is the bananas finish, but honestly on a show like this having the most GIFable finish is way more valuable than just having a good match. This was a match that I really didn't care for as I wanted to see Cartwheel get punished for his frequent cartwheeling and I don't think it got there. I did not need to see these two working multiple stand and trade spots and reversals of reversals over a too long 15 minutes, and I could not believe how many Cartwheels Jack got away with. We had to have seen at least a dozen of them (conservative estimate) and every single time I wanted them to end with Oliver cutting them off HARD. I like Oliver and liked when he did get stiff with Jack, but Cartwheel is like a bad Dynamite Kid, only replacing the crisp execution and crippling alcoholism with cartwheels. This match felt like it was peaking to a finish, and then kept going, then went to more slapping and missed its window. However, the finish is something that only the most joyless wouldn't pop for, as Oliver bounced Cartwheel off the top rope with a front suplex and then caught Cartwheel on the rebound with a sitout powerbomb, fundamentally erasing the previous 15 minutes from my brain by finishing with the far and away coolest thing they were capable of doing.  

Allie Katch vs. Kidd Bandit

ER: I would be plenty happy never watching another Kidd Bandit match ever again. I hate a babyface whose only quality is being cute, and this was some next level eye rolling uwu waifu horseshit. I wanted to see them get the shit kicked out of them but instead we mostly got them doing simp fingers, making Allie sell for an eternity while they posed, then posed some more, then did a shitty stunner and 619. Her kicks couldn't break paper and Allie was insanely generous selling for any of it. The best parts were Allie trying to snap Bandit in half with a Boston crab and battering her in the corner with a lariat, hip bump, and big cannonball. I did like Allie's match finishing piledriver, draping Bandit over the ropes and sitting back with it, but Kidd Bandit's act is 100% not aimed at me and that is fine. I do not want to be a member of that club. 

Jimmy Lloyd vs. Masha Slamovich

ER: Out of everyone on the show, I think my friends left this show as bigger fans of Jimmy Lloyd than anyone else. They liked plenty of people on the card, but the different boy just connects...differently. I was excited for Masha/Busick - the originally scheduled match - but this was a fine replacement. I dug the story of Jimmy trying to outpower Masha at the outset with a powerbomb, but when all it did was fire her up, going immediately to the weapons and pushing things to more dangerous places (and Masha being totally fine being pushed there). The floor brawl was cool and lead to some nasty spots, with both throwing chairs (Lloyd is someone who is going to lean into chair shots), Masha running up the apron with a tornado DDT on the floor, and Lloyd hitting a nutso death valley driver off the apron through a door. They broke some doors in this one, and when they took it back in the ring was when Lloyd started breaking out his biggest bumps. He was really good at selling and taking damage from the smaller Masha, never feeling like he was overbumping and mostly selling her shots appropriately. When he flies into a door, it's because he got hit with a high impact missile dropkick that sent him flying across the ring. 

Masha didn't escape damage, as Lloyd powerbombed her across a trash can and brother, that trash can barely took any damage. The can won that battle, and Masha's future back problems will be testament to that. Lloyd leaned face first into her running kicks, took and sold a nasty suplex across an open chair, even took a piledriver onto some open chairs. We don't get to see a lot of classic piledrivers in wrestling these days, so seeing one dropping a guy head and neck through a chair is insane, and I love how she finished with another one right after. It's hard not to be a fan of the different boy after this match, and the boy came off even more lovable later in the night when my friends kept seeing him in the crowd, not always knowing if it was Lloyd or any one of a couple dozen wrestling fans who look exactly like Lloyd. After the show, when most wrestlers were hanging around ringside and the merch area selling polaroids and gear, Lloyd was just chilling in the crowd sitting alone. A different boy even among peers. 

Titus Alexander vs. Midas Kreed

ER: This was kind of a local showcase, although I'm not sure you'll be able to call Titus a local guy much longer, as clearly bigger things await him. The Bay Area scene is not where you stay if you want to grow your career, all the big ones get out and move east. Titus stood out in a big way on this card just by actually working heel, doing things that got actual heat, and sticking to it. He wasn't out looking for MJF "I'm a HEEL" type heat, he did some actual hateful stuff like getting right in the face of the female ref when she made him break a count. He moved into her personal space so quickly that I think it actually caught a lot of the crowd off guard and really got them turned against him. Titus knew how to get heel heat and comedy heat, which is an important distinction. He was good at setting up spots and not paying them off with what the crowd wanted, like clearing a section of crowd to throw Kreed through chairs, only to throw him right back into the ring instead. It's an old trick, but one I'll laugh about every time. It's an especially funny trick in GCW, since every person in the crowd knows there's a chance any match will spill into the crowd and a minimum four guys are going to get thrown through a section of chairs. 

Kreed had some flashy stuff, like a 450 splash that connected (even though he's a small guy) and a really cool pendulum swing reverse DDT that Titus took right on the back of his head. It was like a Sliced Bread, only Alexander really got drilled into the mat. Alexander has a nice moveset: a spinebuster, a couple kneelifts to the face, and a big rolling Chaos Theory German suplex that threw Kreed across the entire ring. These guys were probably the least known on the show, and post-intermission is sometimes a rough spot to connect to a crowd (which typically correlates with how long the intermission is, and this one wasn't bad at all), but these two won the crowd over pretty quickly. 

Matthew Justice/Mance Warner/AJ Gray vs. Juicy Finau/Journey Fatu/D-Rogue

ER: I was excited to see my boy Justice live. I've seen him a couple of times live, and I just really connect with him as a big time babyface. He wasn't really a babyface here, but he's got that same kind of working man's charisma that Jimmy Lloyd has, that same kind of guy who will bleed and wreck his body for the fans, with the major difference being that Matt Justice fucks. He also did not let me down, as he hit some of the absolute LOUDEST chair shots I have ever heard. He was pasting these Islanders with shots (even broke a cane over someone's head!), hitting them so hard in the head and back that I bet his hands were getting hurt just as badly. Justice wasn't just wrecking people with chairs, he also caught a big D-Rogue dive and got flattened by a Juicy splash from the middle buckle. When Juicy told the crowd he was gonna hit a 450, he climbed to the middle buckle and slapped his belly: "THIS...is 450" and then made Justice disappear beneath girth. Earlier, Juicy had threatened to do a dive to the floor, and Mancer got on the house mic and said he had a bad leg and there was no fucking way he was going to stand there and catch that motherfucker's dive. Jacob was gone, but honestly Journey isn't much of a step down in quality. He hung in for stiff shots, ran Gray through a door with a running powerslam, threw headbutts, basically everything I would have expected from Jacob. 

All the stuff in the ring was even crazier than the stuff on the floor. SGC combined forces to suplex Juicy through a table, Gray threw his lariat as hard as possible at Juicy, Justice and Mancer made the perfect bug eyed dumb faces when Juicy grabbed them in Tongan death grips, and we got a cool finish with Justice and Gray nailing D-Rogue with Superfly splashes from opposite corners. The deservedly loudest pop of the match was when Mancer wasted Journey with an unprotected chair shot to the dome, and Journey roared his way through it because, well, the brother is Samoan. This was probably my favorite match of the night, a great mix of violence and personality and big spots. 

Dark Sheik vs. Joey Janela

ER: I am not a big fan of these 20 minute Joey Janela matches, but I recognize that I am likely in the minority, and even though they had the longest match on the card they managed to keep the crowd's interest for all of it. That means something. Still, this felt like a match that was about to wrap up around 12 minutes in, so of course it shot right past that window and yep, we were locked into 20 minutes of move trading, back and forth. If you have the offense to fill 20 minutes of time then more power to you, but a lot of times there felt like no rhyme or reason as to who was in control. Joey catches her with a kind of blue thunder bomb, and moments later Joey is eating a big Sliced Bread on the apron. Joey eats a brainbuster and big guillotine legdrop, but Joey is the one setting up the prop spots just moments later. There was some entertaining bullshit with Dark Sheik's valet, SF drag star Pollo Del Mar, that ended with Del Mar putting Janela through a table with a powerbomb. At the start of the match Janela had hit her with a cheapshot and this was a good way to pay that off. 

After the powerbomb, Sheik hit a big coast to coast missile dropkick, and that's what I thought would be the finish. You know, the cheapshot at the beginning got paid off in a big way, Sheik hit a big impressive finisher, felt like a good time to end all of this. But we still needed another 9 minutes of prop set-up, bad strike exchanges, and even worse kneeling strike exchanges! Janela did hit an insane running elbowdrop through a table, running from the stage and leaping  FAR off it, far enough that I wasn't actually sure he would clear the distance. Great spot. It looked like Janela would pull this whole thing off after a piledriver and top rope double stomp, but nah, we needed to get to some of that kneel and trade that never looks good. If I remember correctly, Janela eventually lost when he suplexed Sheik through some chairs, and Sheik just wound up pinning Janela. They went all out and had a bunch of big moves, and that's great, but man was I ready for this to be over and done with long before we got there. 

Minoru Suzuki vs. Speedball Mike Bailey

ER: When we got to the venue (The Midway, great building for wrestling that I had never been to before) and started wandering around scoping out a spot to stand, one of the first things I noticed was Suzuki just hanging out by the bar, leaning against it and silently surveying the growing crowd. He was wearing a track suit with his name on it, and a sunbeam was coming down from a skylight, giving him a perfect spotlight to lounge in. I swear, I didn't see another sunbeam shining into that entire (large) venue, and here's Suzuki basking in his own personal warm glow. 

Suzuki has a pretty great thing going with his US appearances. He knows what the fans want to see, and he knows the exact bare minimum he can do to scrape by while still leaving everyone happy and excited that they got to see Minoru Suzuki live. Sometimes you get forearm exchange/silly faces Suzuki, sometimes you get that plus a little extra. I think we got the latter. There were a lot of forearm exchanges (way too many), and you can see his personal formula for them when you're watching up close. He throws 90% of his shots totally worked, but knows to payoff his killshots with real stiff killshots. This leads to a bunch of dull exchange where guys are pulling everything and meandering through their 5th, 8th, who knows how many stand and trade sequences, but they always end with an absolute jawbreaker. It's like Suzuki is using George Costanza's High Note Theory, where he knows he can sleepwalk through most of an exchange before throwing one tooth loosener, and everyone will mostly just remember all the big endings to those endless exchanges. I really liked some of their mat exchanges, and thought this would have been a lot more fun if Suzuki kept tying Bailey up with arm and wrist work, leading to Bailey forgoing his arm and just attacking with kicks. We didn't get that, but I would have liked that. 

Suzuki had a hilarious misread of the room, as he kept getting into the female ref's face when she asked him to break holds, I guess thinking that him telling a woman to get out of his face was going to get him cheered? After Titus Alexander used the exact same thing to draw strong heel heat just a couple matches earlier, it was completely brainless to go in thinking he'd get anything but awkward reactions for backing down a much smaller woman. He won them back pretty easily with a funny spot where he ducked a couple of Bailey head kicks, stuck out his tongue to mock Bailey, and then got kicked in the face. Bailey had a few cool spin kicks that stopped Suzuki cold, a couple to the chest and one that wrapped around his head. He also hit a big moonsault to the floor and had a near fall off his flipping double kneedrop that got me to bite. Bailey wound up missing the same kneedrop, only off the top rope, mine own knees crying out in eternal pain just witnessing it, and Suzuki planted him with his Gotch piledriver. The match had far too many strike exchanges, but I don't think it would have been as bad if four of the other matches hadn't had the exact same strike exchanges. If you're on the undercard of a show Suzuki is headlining, it seems pretty dumb to have a shitty stand and trade sequence in your match, but that did not slow down all of the worst strikers on the show! Even thinking that a lot of the strike exchanging in this match was cumbersome, I can't deny that this was a bigger Suzuki performance than I was expecting. The guy is a legend and has some of the most contagious charisma in wrestling, and I couldn't be happier that he's getting the biggest paydays of his life while basking in sunbeams. 

After the show we battled the strongest winds I have ever personally experienced in San Francisco, and drove a couple miles to go to one of the great SF restaurants, Papito. Papito is a great taqueria with a French chef owner-operator, and this is the first time I'd been to their new location (around the corner from their old location). My favorite music venue in SF (maybe anywhere?) is Bottom of the Hill, and Papito is a nice steep uphill walk a few blocks away from B.O.T.H. As I have not been to any concerts in SF since March 2020, I have not been this close to Papito in over two years. The original location would have been a logistical nightmare with a five person party as there were only a few tables inside. Now they have 3-4x the space and we were seated immediately. Glorious. I filled up on their excellent chips and salsa, ruining my appetite for their incredible hamburguesa, one of the greatest burgers I have had in my lifetime. My plan, however, was ingenious, as I took most of my burger home and wolfed it down the next night, regretting not requesting some of their orange salsa to go. 

As I was the driver on this trip and therefore chose what we listened to, my friends' ears were blessed by a 3-2 Giants victory on the radio, some Gene Vincent, Grateful Dead's excellent 4/8/72 show at Wembley Empire Pool (with awesome tonally shifting 30 minute Dark Star, among other highlights), The Brides of Funkenstein's disco classic Never Buy Texas From a Cowboy, and Charlotte Adigery's amazing new album Topical Dancer. 

Even though this was not the card I wanted, there was not one person in our group who was disappointed by this show. Even the matches that were firmly Not For Me had memorable moments, and the people I was excited to see totally delivered. Every one of my pals had a great time too, and when GCW announced they would be returning in July, we made plans to do it all over again.