FOUND FOOTAGE FRIDAY: FRED OLEN RAY'S ALL STAR CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING!!

Exploding Tables: Freddie Valentine vs. Cincinnati Red ACW 11/17/00

MD: Here there was a table set up in two of the corners, with exploding barbed wire on top of them and the ref had brass knucks in his pocket. That meant they had even more range of motion off the ropes and things were even more kinetic due to that. Red had some sweeping, clumsy offense that fit his mangy look. The tables got used first, as counters to top rope moves and were the main momentum shifts, with fairly impressive bumps that let both guys kick out at two. Valentine snuck in another low blow and knocked the ref out for the knucks. Then things got 2000 indy silly for the finish but it was vaguely reminiscent of those old Mid-South coal miner's glove matches where the babyface got the glove first and did the first bit of damage but interference meant that they lost anyway, just, you know, with a guy in a gimp mask and a ref shirt involved as well. 

Electrified Fence: Freddie Valentine vs. Shane 54 ACW 11/17/00

MD: This match is ridiculous but I find myself fairly sympathetic to it. The fence isn't electrified. There are cutouts on either side where there is a wire. This wire can be used in a few different ways. You can try to jam your opponent's head into it. You can toss your opponent into it with a whip. You can take a torch and set the torch on fire with it. Otherwise, they just run the ropes as the canned noise (and we really, really haven't made enough out of the canned post-production noise) goes wild with the sounds of electricity. I spent the whole match wanting to see over the top spasming selling and it just never happens. Even when Valentine got set on fire by the torch it was more for the moment than any selling that followed. My biggest takeaways from this are that Valentine has a couple of really quite good bits of (also canned) chain wrestling; that he hits the French Catch style armdrag into a slam early, whether he intended to or not; and that I really liked the transition to comeback where Valentine picked up a trash can lid that Shane had been hitting him with and used it as a shield to block a punch. There were probably worse ways to spend a Friday night in 2000 than watching Valentine get set on fire and beat up a ref, I guess?

Texas Rattlesnake Match: Freddie Valentine vs. Crayz ACW 1/26/01

MD: This one was pretty glorious, let me tell you. Crayz was the champion. The title was on the line. The title was in a small crab cage, as were two deadly rattlesnakes. The key to the cage was lodged into the ceiling, which wasn't all that high up. To win the title, you had to get the key and steal the belt without dying a horrible death. They made a big deal about the snake handler coming out and give a little speech. Believe it or not, I was feeling the pomp and build to this one. The crowd popped for the snakes certainly. 

The match played out like a normal sort of TLC match, starting with the chairs, escalating to tables, and ending with the ladder. There was one transition where they teased Crayz pushing Valentine towards the (closed) snake cage, but Valentine did yet another one of his weirdly solid transitions out of it with a headlock takeover out of the corner. He also hit a diamond dust, learning well from his previous interaction with Mando. One thing I liked about this was that the ceiling was so low that it was viable to stand on a table and get the key. Valentine tried that only to get his leg swept out for as simple but effective bump through the table. The bump that Crayz took at the end (after getting the key but being unable to keep it) was nuttier since it was off a not-so-tall latter and INTO, not through, a table on the outside. Why? Because it was a white plastic card table, the rarest of pro wrestling tables. Valentine milked the snake heist. It seemed like he was going to use the hook to do it, which prompted boos, but Valentine is a guy who will bleed and fry and burn for his audience, so he dove right in to the crowd's delight (except for the 45% of them that wanted to see someone get poisoned for their fifteen bucks, of course).