RIP Supreme

Supreme vs. Necro Butcher XPW 5/24/08

PAS: This was a no-ropes barbed wire match for the XPW King of the Death Match title, on the first XPW show in five years (they ran once more in 2009 and then the PDM/XPW show reviewed down below).  Necro is the perfect guy to bring in for this kind of match, he was in the tail end of his prime, and still perfectly willing and able to put together a big time death match performance. Supreme was right there willing to take all of the big bumps, Necro right hands and chairs to the head. There were a couple of really neat cut offs by Supreme, a sneaky lightube shot to stop Necro from pushing him on a barbed wire table, and throwing a bucket of thumbtacks to stop a rush. I tend to enjoy the regular brawling parts of these matches more then the death match parts, and there was some really fun bumping into chairs and jabbing with soda cans.

ER: Anyone who bought a ticket to see Necro Butcher vs. Supreme in a big time death match main event, easily got their money's worth. Necro really knows how to bring gravitas to a match like this, and Supreme does his part by doing what he's good at: dangerous bumps, lots of blood, an ingenious match turning cut off spot, and a hot dog neck roll so impressive that he is impervious to a collar and elbow. Supreme gets busted open all over the place, from mouse traps and barbed wire and gruesome table bumps. We get a big suplex off the apron through a barbed wire and light tube strewn table, then a Russian legsweep through a totally different sharp and stabby table. Necro punches Supreme in the face, headbutts a tube into his head, and walks around barefoot like a total psychopath. The ring and surround area was filled with broken glass and here's Necro walking around with no shoes. And just as I start to think about how stupid and endearing Necro is to be wandering around a death match with no shoes, sure enough, Supreme breaks out one of the finest, smartest, wonderfully timed spots in death match history: Stopping a speeding Butcher by throwing down a spike strip in his path. Supreme utilized two "desperation" moves in this match, making unexpected headway while being dominated, and fanning out a bucketful of tacks into the pathway of Necro is some twisted sadistic Kevin McCallister level evil. Necro is suddenly wounded hopping around and trying to avoid tacks, dropping to his butt to frantically slap tacks out of his feet, and that's when Supreme starts stomping Necro's feet into the tacks! This is sicko stuff, done at the perfect psychological point of the match, the kind of logic that inserts itself into the best death matches. We get a couple of other nasty falls into tacks, and I loved the finish of Supreme just dropping his weight onto Necro in the tacks.


Supreme/Johnny Webb/Kaos/Carnage vs. Halloween/Damian 666/Bestia 666/X-Fly PDM/XPW 8/2/11     Part 2

PAS: This was a really great performance by all 8 guys, and especially awesome performance by Halloween and Damien. This was in a junkyard, and may have been as good or even better then the best Zona 23 stuff. The in between brawling was pretty great, everyone through good punches, and there were a bunch of fun weapons shots including Kaos getting drilled in the head by a flying garbage can from out of nowhere. They built to the big car spots, including Damien taking an totally psycho fall off of a scaffold ribs first on a car windshield. Supreme was more of a minor character in this match, but looked good in spots, and got his bowling ball head smashed into a windshield.

ER: Wow this ruled, a match that we would have placed ungodly high on our 2011 MOTY List (if we had one). This was how you do a wild brawl, with a great junkyard setting surrounding the ring, truly a performance where every single person contributed something big. At the center was a tremendous Damian performance, one of the wildest garbage brawl performances ever, with several different unnecessarily ugly bumps taking by the 50 year old! This was Damian with a boiler as big as Supreme's outbumping the man who was literally known exclusively for his crazy bumps. Damian is a real violent lunatic here, and this was the kind of setting where the bumps from a guy delivering a move were just as ugly as the guy taking a move. Sure, you just suplexed someone onto the roof of a car, but that means you took and arguably uglier bump because your back landed right where the windshield meets the roof. Damian wings a galvanized washtub at Supreme's head (and this washtub was really the 9th man in this match, and was at least the 6th best guy here), powerbombs Kaos on that washtub, hits a big suplex on the ramp, misses an elbowdrop off the bleachers (incredibly rickety bleachers that a 50 year old man should not be even attempting to climb), takes a wild bump over the guardrail into the crowd/chairs, and then peaks things by taking the undisputed bump of the match by getting knocked off the camera scaffold and landing hard on a car. Totally insane bump for anyone to take, totally suicidal for a 50 year old man to take it.

Crazy bumps were the order of the day in this match, with the centerpiece being a cruelly unforgiving washtub that had to have given half the participants sciatica. Kaos ate a powerbomb on it, X-Fly ate a powerbomb on it, Kaos did a suplex that landed the edge of his back on it, everyone else either had it banked off their head or landed kidneys first on it. Whoever brought that washtub was a real sadistic asshole. Halloween bled buckets and hit two different violent spears, including one onto a car that looked fantastic. Carnage got the back of his head sliced open, Supreme took several tough bumps onto chairs and through tubes, Kaos took at LEAST eight different powerbomb and suplex variations, Bestia hit a big crossbody off the scaffold, just total chaos. This whole thing was pure uncut insanity, not a second of it worth the body damage that surely resulted from the insanity. I had no clue this match was out there, but I imagine I'll go out of my way to make sure many more find out about it.

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Monday AIW - Gauntlet for the Gold 4/26/19

I had so much fun at the AIW live show Mania weekend, I decided to go ahead and buy their shows going forward, it is a fed which deserves my cash. With all of the AIW shows available on IndependentWrestling.tv, I am going to try to do a new show every Monday. Eric will be jumping in when something intrigues him.

Facade vs. Lee Moriarty vs. Louis Lyndon vs. Tre Lamar vs. Wheeler Yuta vs. Zach Thomas

PAS: This was a spotty six way, pretty much what you would expect from that match. AIW does really good spotfests, although it is their tag spotfests which really stand out. I hadn't seen much of Thomas before, and I liked some of his power stuff. Lamar had the best dive hitting a top con hilo with great height. There was kind of a scary moment when Facade tried for Teddy Hart's top rope doomsday destroyer, but slipped and ended up spiking Lamar awkwardly on his head, degree of difficulty of the stuff which inexperienced guys try (Facade has been around forever, but Thomas and Lamar are basically rookies) is always nerve racking.

MJF vs. Shane Douglas (w/ Francine)

PAS: This is as advertised. MJF talks some shit on the mic, Douglas curses out Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels and steals some of Tommy Dreamers ECW nostalgia act lines (I imagine those guys have the same booker, and if Dreamer is busy you can get Shane for 80 cents on the dollar). Francine looks way healthier now then when she was in her prime, together they look like a successful speedboat salesman and his wife who has really got into Yoga since her kids went to college. Francine may have had the best punches in the match, MJF knows how to bump around and stooge for an old guy, and the fans got to chant along post match to Douglas introing Bam Bam and Candido in heaven. Not my thing really, and doesn't translate to video particularly well, but for what it was designed to do it did it well.

ER: I'm not planning on watching this match, but I can attest to how nicely Francine has aged. I remember seeing her at a con several years ago and actually wound up standing next to her at one point, and had a brief, nice chat. She was very pretty and kind, in a way I was NOT expecting after seeing her in 1998. She aged much closer to an east coast Andrea Savage than a Jersey mob goomah. She seems like a really well adjusted woman for someone who got some insanely disgusting things screamed and chanted at her regularly when she was 25. I like nice wrestling stories.

La Familia de Tijuana (Bestia 666/Damian 666) vs. To Infinity and Beyond (Cheech/Colin Delaney)

PAS: It is pretty cool that Damian 666 has become an AIW regular, what an awesome dude to be showing up as indy fed regular in 2019. I loved the LFT brawl at the Wrestlemania weekend show, but this was much more of a straight tag, which doesn't really work within Bestia or Damian's strengths, best part of the match was probably Damian breaking out the leather belt and starting strapping. I do think To Infinity and Beyond have fun double teams, but this was more a cool idea then a great match.

ER: I really liked this. 2I&B is one of my favorite current tag teams, two guys I've liked for quite some time who have been really clicking, and I like them running wild on FdT due to FdT being forced to work normal. If they had come out stabbing Delaney in the face with forks that would be one thing, but I like them working straight. It never crossed my mind that Delaney would ever somehow get BACK into WWE, considering the weird circumstances that lead to him being there for 7 months over a decade ago. He's still among the very weirdest guys to get an official WWE action figure, and watching him now he's clearly good enough to be in NXT, which is the best. He's really good at working with FdT, setting up fun moments for Damian to attack him from the apron, and I really like Infinity's double teams, especially Cheech's facewash leading into an outside to inside 619 (it's easy to make something seemingly cutesy work when the end result is kicking someone across the face). FdT working straight and getting kind of dominated was great, because then it lead to a great reaction when Damian finally got a belt BY TAKING THE REF'S so he could start whipping ass and strangling dudes. Damian even wraps the belt around Delaney's throat and beals him across the ring, and I thought they set up the comedy tree of woe/69 spot really well. If FdT are going to be regulars (and I hope so because I like how they slot into AIW) then it makes sense to give us some straight matches with them, and this was just the amount of fun I wanted from the tag.

Deranged vs. DJ Z vs. Flip Kendrick vs. Gringo Loco

PAS: This is DJ Z's final indy match, and is a pretty great balls to the wall spotfest. Deranged comes out of deep freeze and looks awesome, he takes the biggest bump of the match, when he gets pushed off the top rope and flies rib first into the ring ramp, and was part of the craziest highspot a double moonsault by Deranged and DJZ. Pretty much everyone looked great though, Loco was right there to base for all of the crazy highspot stuff and everyone in this had great charisma with everyone else. Lots of high degree of difficulty spots all pulled off really well, and some great athletes doing athletic things.

ER: Hell yeah. I don't always love the idea of "dream match" booking, but I really like the idea of someone hand picking their opponent/s for their "retirement" match. DJ Z is going to NXT and we get AIW legend Gringo Loco back, and freaking DERANGED gets on another 2019 indy card! This was exciting as hell and an excellent charcuterie plate showcasing each person's talents. We get big bumps, dangerous flying, nasty car crashes, everything you'd want really. Loco takes a nasty snap suplex on the entrance ramp that lands hard, and minutes later Deranged gets shoved off the top rope and takes a bellyflop right onto the ramp, nasty as hell. Kendrick flies into everyone with a corkscrew moonsault to the floor, his own body whipping across the guardrail. DJ Z shows off some of his pretty lucha sequences he learned from Skayde, we get a couple of tower spots that are actually worthy of the set up (one seeing Kendrick getting lawndarted off the top by Z and Deranged into a Loco cutter, and later a surprise Spanish Fly onto the others on the floor), and everybody fits nicely into the hybrid lucha setting. Deranged drops crazy stuff that still looks good today, and he has that Jack Evans flying ability where he makes complicated spots look like violent breakdancing moves, putting his own twists on flying double knees off the top or a caught standing spinkick. But I like every individual in this one, and especially like how the match really felt like each of the 4 bringing an equal part of their style to it.

Matthew Justice vs. Joshua Bishop

PAS: Fun big boy punch out which really falls apart at the finish. Couple of really fun spots including Bishop catching a Justice dive and powerslamming him into the metal barricades. I also really liked Justice's chops, really lacing into Bishop's chest. Finish had Justice redoing his death valley driver off the ramp because the table didn't break and we got an elongated ref bump/Wes Barkley inference section. If that is going to be the finish, just do it. Here it just dragged on and killed the momentum of the match. Still excited about the rematch next show, though.

26. Eddie Kingston vs. Mance Warner

PAS: I thought this was great. Basically a WAR match, totally built around two relatively big guys punching and headbutting each other really hard and selling that exertion (neither guy is Ashura Hara, but neither guy is Ultimo Dragon sized either). I write this every time I review an Eddie Kingston match, but he is really amazing at all of the little things which make an all-time great wrestler. His reactions after getting hit with Warner's big headbutts were so good, first he wants to shit talk, and it is almost this delayed reaction where the brain trauma hits him a moment later. There is also some great knee selling later in the match, when Warner can't stand in front of Kingston anymore and has to clip his leg. I loved the finish, with Kingston going to the top, getting distracted briefly by the Duke and diving right into a Warner headbutt, which clipped him right on the jaw. It didn't take Kingston down immediately, but it was the beginning of the end. If Kingston is really retiring at the end of the year, he is going out with a huge run. It reminds me of Dick Togo's pre-retirement match streak, and hopefully Eddie will also just travel in South America, read leftist literature and return in a couple of years.

ER: This would have been more shocking if it didn't deliver on its on paper promise, and while I don't think it was quite up to the high standards Retirement Tour Kingston has provided us, there was zero chance I wasn't going to love this. Eddie adds so much to these ringside tour/in ring slugfest brawls, so much added personality, even just getting verbal in so many ways that a ton of indy guys are afraid to get. Seriously, look at how many times an indy guy pumps his fists and opens his mouth for a triumphant scream, only to be totally silent. Once you notice it you'll hate me for pointing it out. Kingston beats Mance with chops, nice overhand shots that always land, and he mixes them up by occasionally smacking Mance right on top of his shaved head. He's really good at making ringside brawls engaging, falling into rails, smacking into a ringpost, getting everyone a good look. But everyone knows and everyone loves when Kingston integrates an unexpected injury into a match, and it's a more unique formula than "guy works my arm, my arm is sore". Kingston always just pulls an injury doing something he regularly does, which is ULTRA relatable to me, person who is the same age as Eddie Kingston. King is great at working those "I slept for 8 hours but woke up with a neck kink" injuries, and here he came off the top rope with a knee across Warner's jaw but then sold landing rough on his knee for the rest of the match. I am someone who will do a goofy dance at work for a quick laugh on office birthday cake day, and then feel a tug in my ribcage for a week after. King knows how to create and sell injuries like this, and knows how to keep working a competent match through that type of injury. He hits an absolutely scorching powerbomb on Warner and is feeling out his knee afterward, and it's those little details that always make King matches mean so much more. His shit talking is always welcome and I love how he uses shit talking in the same way Lawler takes down the strap. It never comes at the same time, doesn't always set up a comeback, but always signifies a sea change in the match. He can use them to taunt his opponent into doing something stupid, he can use it when he's clearly behind and doesn't sense a comeback, he can do it just because he's upset his opponent is making him go through some shit, but it always feels placed with intention. These two don't aim to break noses or concuss, and I'm glad because they have the personality to work a match like this without hurting each other.

Josh Prohibition vs. M-Dogg Matt Cross

PAS: This was sort of a nostalgia match for something I am really not nostalgic for, but I kind of love that these guys are going out there and killing each other 20 years after those backyard wrestling videos. I really dug the story of the match which was put over on commentary, two kids who started together, Cross goes on to tour around the world, while Prohibition gets married and has kids, and Josh always wonders if he could have been the guy on TV. These guys have been doing this for so long, and are still in such good shape that they pull off complex stuff effortlessly. I really loved Prohibitions running tope over the guardrail, and Cross is still an explosive high flyer. It got a bit OTT at the end, although the 20 anniversary match of backyard legends should be a bit OTT. Prohibition gives almost a wedding toast speech at the end, and the whole thing is pretty endearing.

Gauntlet For The Gold

PAS: This was a royal rumble, which isn't really my thing, but I am going to love a Royal Rumble when everyone who comes out is a cool AIW guy. It is just going to be more exciting when music hits and it's T-Money or Weird Body then when its Dolph Ziggler or Baron Corbin. This match had some fun eliminations,  I loved Marion Fontaine grabbing Dr. Dan's tie, and when Dan lets go of the rope to block his face, Fontaine just lets go of the tie so he falls to the floor. There was a lot of Joey Janela in this match, like he runs through about a dozen separate comedy spots, and by the end I just wanted Sandman Sims to tap dance into the ring and eliminate him with a hook. I also am not familiar enough with AIW minutia to understand the meaning of the surprise entrances. Kingston winning is great, although I probably would have had him come in earlier. Kingston vs. Lawlor as a big time main event is really intriguing, and should be a great capper to Kingston's AIW career if he is indeed retiring.


ER: Throw another Kingston match onto our 2019 Ongoing MOTY List. At this point it feels like it's guaranteed every time he shows up.

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Long Road Report to Hell 4/4/19 FINAL ACT, Show #4: AIW Slumber Party Massacre

ER: We sadly had to cut out of the MLW tapings at 10 PM (felt like they had enough material to go to 11, and if was going to take an hour to get back to White Eagle). So we missed LA Park, which was amusingly our original reason for even planning this cross country meet-up, when Park/Rush was going to happen. So no Park, but we'd all seen Park more than once in life, and the AIW early show multiman is one of Phil and my favorite things in current wrestling, Tom had never seen one, and we all decided early on in the MLW tapings that we did NOT want to miss than multiman. Yes, we realized in hindsight we should have just camped out at the White Eagle all day I haven't had any liquid since my beer at Bloodsport 6 hours earlier, and my mouth feels gross. Due to lack of options I am forced to buy a pack of gum from the bathroom attendant for $3, but the $3 was worth it. I had mentioned to Phil that I was getting gum on three separate occasions, but once I *had* the gum I never offered him or Tom a piece. Later in the night at 2:30 AM, Phil made me feel like shit for not offering him gum over 4 hours earlier. Even though he never seemed interested any of the times I told him I was getting gum. THAT'S WHERE WE WERE AT AFTER WATCHING 10 STRAIGHT HOURS OF WRESTLING. The whole ride back Tom openly makes fun of the awful Delilah request radio show the driver is listening to, with us openly laughing when she dedicates Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is" to a poor lost soul in love. It's a bunch of hacky shlock that feels weird in 2019 and to my delight Tom made sure this was known. As we pulled up and jogged to the entrance we literally heard the sound of nasty chairshots. We knew we made the right choice when we walked in the door.

34. La Familia de Tijuana (Bestia 666/Damian 666) vs. The Young Studs (Bobby Beverly/Eric Ryan)

PAS: We entered the venue to the sounds of chair hitting flesh and the first thing we see is Damian wasting Beverly on the floor with uncalled for chair shots (We missed the first minute or so, including Damian doing the Fuerza hug, but instead of a punch he stabbed Ryan in the head with scissors) This was listed as a Mexican street fight and definitely had that insane Tijuana feeling as all four guys just tried to mangle each other. The match slows for a bit when it gets into the ring, but the finish of Bestia Death Valley Drivering Ryan through a fork door was completely bonkers. Hell of live experience and a crazy start to the show.

TKG: There were a lot of forks in this Mexican street fight. Guys stabbing each other with forks, forks covered door, Familia de Tijuana doing fork assisted headbutts to transition. Is a fork considered to be a particularly Mexican tool? I mean molcajete’s would be more expensive and don’t know if you could safely do molcajete spots. We saw a lot of big brawls Thursday, start to pick up on the little differences. liked way whole match was about transitions being built around wrestling not around props. Also Bestia and Damian always made sure to hold the chairs for other during spots so Young Studs never had to, also if Damian is putting a chair necklace on opponent he’s going to use it like a horse collar to yoke him around.

ER: It was awesome getting to our seats, and hearing Phil mark out more for the Young Studs than he has for anybody else today. You could tell he was excited to be at AIW with Tom because Tom had seen next to none of these guys, some of our favorite current asskickers. Ryan and Beverly are two of those guys and this was an awesome start to the end of our night. I don't always like stabby brawls, but I really liked this because we didn't just linger on gouging or worked stabbing where guys are wailing on each other's foreheads with spikes and yet coming up bloodless. Here every stab attack at a forehead was done specifically to get blood, so the stabs actually came off effectively and kept the action moving. Seeing belt shots on tape always looks nasty, but belt shots live just echo in your ears and seem like the most painful thing. And the first 5 minutes of this was FdT just beating the bricks off the Young Studs, with chairshots, hard shots to the head, tossing them through chairs, headbutts, and all those belt shots. There was minimal downtime (one chair spot took a bit long) and it was fairly one-sided in favor of FdT, but the show starting energy was strong with these guys. Ryan and Beverly come off like a pair of Arns staggering around a WarGames, and that's a vibe that I LOVE in a bloody brawl. Bestia gets a fork bat dragged across his head and comes up bleeding, Damian gives our most violent AARP member performance of the day (of course outside of Severn I'm not sure we saw anybody else past 55), and my god the reactions from all of us when they brought out the fork door. I'm a man who has never considered attaching forks to doors, and it's one of those great deathmatch props where I would happily listen to a podcast that was just a recording of whatever was said while they made the fork door. I actually screamed loudly when the fork door got used, only because I fully expected Ryan to come out of it with forks sticking grossly out of his body. This was really the burst of violence and energy that we needed at this point in our long day. And then before leaving the ring Ryan gigged himself a bunch of times with a fork for the benefits of the camera. And then I remembered "oh right wrestling is gross."

7. Joshua Bishop vs. Dominic Garrini

PAS: Got to give it up to these kids, they came into this match trying to steal the entire weekend and basically pulled it off. Garrini has turned into a hell of a brawler, which is not where I saw his career going. He opens with a jumping knee and a tope, and then they pull out the stuff. They do a pretty nasty version of the Whitmer/Jacobs hockey fight with spikes (where they both do super obviously blade afterwards). Garrini takes the bump of the weekend, getting Awesome bombed off the stage through a door, which was truly harrowing to see live. I am not normally a fan of skewers, but they were used here as a real bit of torture rather than a geekshow trick. The finish was maybe the best shticky I Quit finish I have seen, with Bishop cuffing Garinni to the ring ropes, spraying him with lighter fluid and threatening to burn him up. With the nuts stuff they were doing in this match, I briefly bought them doing some lunatic WING Kanemura finish. What day Garinni had, total psycho.

TKG: This was batshit great brawl and hard to write about this match without full on going Chris Farley fan boy play by play ‘do you remember the time Bishop did...’. This is submit or surrender and does a great job of escalating so everything just keeps on getting worse and worse and both guys go through crazy shit and sell cumulative damage. Garrini has had a crazy day of impressing me and I love the way he chops bishop straight to the throat to set stuff up. This was the second match on the show, which is a crazy match to happen second match on a show.

ER: This is the kind of violent brawl that is exciting and scary in person, the kind of brawl where real and shocking violence really lands well. These guys beat the hell out of each other and after his day I would hate to be Garrini's body on 4/5. This was paced out really nicely and my favorite thing about this was that a lot of violence often felt retaliatory, especially from Garrini's end, and instead of them moving to stunt spots Garrini especially would always have this look of "you just did WHAT to me you fucker? Really?!" And then he would make Bishop pay. He hits a chair erasing tope to start the damn match, and it set an awesome tone. Garrini eats an inverted suplex on the ring apron, and from where I was sitting I assumed we had just seen the most painful powerbomb of the match. Heh. I don't typically like wooden stake spots as they're always a reminder of how people with my natural translucent pale skin and fang-like canines have been eliminated throughout history, but also because they typically seem unnecessarily gross don't always read well enough to make the assumed pain worth it. But here Bishop sticks them right into the side of Garrini's head and his ear, and Garrini has a great fearful anger response to them. His face reads WTF scared, but his instinct is to yank them right out and use the weapon he's been given. The Whitmer/Jacobs spike spot played great, looked nasty, big shot looked good....but my god did I wish they could have found some other way to gig their foreheads than what they both chose to do: lie on the mat, facing away from each other, jabbing their foreheads with a blade repeatedly, like they were angrily trying to force a straw into a Capri Sun. It was the most blatant blading I've ever seen. And what's frustrating is they COULD have incorporated that into the match. It would have been really easy! If they were already committed to bleeding out of their heads, they could have just worked the spikes spot differently. Throw a couple harder shots, get opened up by a spike, go from there. Or shoot, make the blade a spot in the match, act like he had a blade for use as an actual weapon in an I Quit match. You could have even had Garrini blading so obviously AS A SPOT in the match itself! Eric Ryan did that same thing before leaving the ring, just stabbed his forehead with a fork a bunch to show what a savage he is. Bishop could have spiked Garrini, and Garrini could have gotten up screaming, gigging his head to show that it's going to affect him. But rolling over to opposite corners of the ring and then wild arm blading your head in broad daylight? That's so bush. Roll to the floor, cover it SOMEHOW.

And I really liked the rest of this! It was great! It's filled with tough chairshots, Garrini hitting Bishop in the chest at one point, and Garrini takes an Awesome Bomb off the freaking stage through chairs and a door. That really was the spot of the weekend, and it happened DIRECTLY in front of us. There were only a handful of people closer to that evil, and pro wrestling is just wild. Garrini just got murdered with that powerbomb, but I like that the specific nastiness that an I Quit match could bring, as a big move like that is more likely to KO your opponent, but not necessarily make him quit. Their weapons really played like violent weapons, the chairshots were hard, tacks spot was gross, I even liked the BS interference spot as it lead to Garrini punching the guy on the apron like he was picturing him with a Phil Baroni face, then hitting a fantastic piledriver on the apron. And the finish was incredible, right up at the top with the best I Quit finishes we've had. Bishop handcuffed Garrini to the ringpost, sprayed him with lighter fluid, and then waved a lighter literally inches away from him. And honestly, this finish was so damn effective that IN THAT MOMENT, considering the increased craziness we'd seen from Garrini that day I was thinking that it was entirely plausible that some wacko would agree to get lit on fire because it would give them the most holy shit moment of the biggest week in pro wrestling of the entire year. I literally thought that I was going to witness a guy get let on fire, and I was already thinking about the worst possible outcome of such a spot and was then frantically checking my exit locations so I wouldn't end up trampled at Great White II: Great White Eagle Hall Fire. It was totally plausible that Bishop was going to set Garrini on fire, and that fact alone makes this a super difficult to defeat "finish of the year". Crazy spot to end a crazy fight.

9. To Infinity And Beyond (Cheech/Colin Delaney) vs. The Jollyville Fuck Its (Russ Myer/T-Money) vs The Philly Marino Experience (Marino Tenaglia/Philly Collins) vs. The Production (Derek Director/Eddy Only)

PAS: I absolutely adore AIW multi man tags. They have a ton of guys with a ton of fun stuff who really know how to pace a match like this. Fuck-It's were the standouts, They do their great spot where T-Money airplanes spins Derek Director while Russ punches him in the head. Russ breaks his finger (which he shows our row in gruesome fashion, but he still goes on to do ten crazy things, including his beautiful cannonball. T-Money is slamming and spinebustering and pouncing his way into my heart as well. Everybody was good in this, Cheech and Delaney are very good at making me buy otherwise implausible shit, and the young guys all bumped big and had cool offense. Super excited I got to see one of these live.

TKG: This is exactly how you work this match. A gaggle of tag teams doing double team and tandem moves till no one left standing to break up pinfall. The PME did a bunch of guy blinded performs his signature move on his own teammate comedy spots which I normally think don’t work in this type of match as a joke kinda needs to be built to, and not sure if they worked as comedy but they worked as “this shit is so chaotic that mistakes will happen”, crowd popped for comedy spots as dramatic errors. They also really pulled off a sense of hierarchy which you don’t expect in this kind of clusterfuck spot fest. I hadn’t seen any of these guys before but immediately knew who was the ace champs, who veterans, who underdogs..and what everyone’s role is in those teams so at the point where Cheech and Delaney start doing simultaneous tandem moves on the hoss from both Production and PME you knew where shit was going. Actual sense about who has momentum in a spotfest clusterfuck. This is match I want to see again on tape. I joked at end of season one of LU, that they should bring in Cheech Hernandez or Jesse Hernandez to replace Hotstuff and never explain the switch...but fuck no joke they should have brought in Cheech.

ER: This was definitely the match Phil was most excited to see today, and it was hard for me to not be as excited as he was. Enthusiasm is infectious, and I think we've written some of our most enthusiastic reviews of the past couple years about AIW multimans. It's a real testament to what these guys have done that we spent more time saying "we should leave soon, I do NOT want to miss the AIW 10 man" and not "I do NOT want to miss Shinjiro Otani's first US match in 16 years, against EDDIE KINGSTON". We wanted this match, and this match gave us exactly what we wanted. Phil had been talking up AIW multimans all day to Tom and it's great when you hype something up and then watch it deliver on the hype. And goddamn did this deliver on the hype. Every one of these matches makes me like all these guys even more. I can now easily say that Jollyville is my favorite tag team in the world, Colin Delaney looked like a guy people should be talking about as a top 50 guy, Cheech/Delaney are a great tag team that can take big spots and seamlessly work in some complicated do-si-do cooperative spots without making them look stupid, Eddy Only is damn fearless with his body and does some wild offense and just as wild bumping, Derek Director keeps getting better and is great at landing hard with his body (he had an awesome cannonball and took The Pounce like a brave psycho, Big T-Money had a major coming out party for me, he and Russ are both so damn good. This had every damn thing I wanted. I love Nasty Russ' punches, loved we got to see the airplane spin punch, and love how he would only shake out his fist after a couple of the punches to really sell that sometimes you can land a punch on a sweet spot and other times you get your wrist bent weird. The flying is nuts as we get some big dives: Tenaglia stars the whole match by falling off the top rope onto Delaney), Russ hits a moonsault to the floor but gets caught lawndart style by the group and then Collins crashes onto him, T-Money hits a big man flip dive, all great. And that's the thing, every damn move in the match looked great! The powerbombs were brutal, great attention was paid to punches, DDT's looked vertebrae crushing, Delaney hit a couple cool cutter variations that looked real neck wrenching, kicks to the stomach looked good, just a super snug match with bodies getting run into bodies really hard. Everything was laid out really well so the whole thing flowed and had people constantly moving in and out of action with no break in pace, with a couple of very nice saves that extended the action into an increasingly violent finish. Cheech/Delaney have cool combos that are snapped off well, building nicely to something that would convincingly finish a killer match like this. This three matches really had us on an improbably joyous pro wrestling high, quite a miracle in our literal 11th hour of wrestling.

25. Shinjiro Otani vs. Eddie Kingston

PAS: Otani is a guy who clearly means a ton to Kingston and you could tell it was big deal for him to face off with him. This was very much a Zero-One style of match, which is a type of Puro I really miss. Simple, hard hitting, and focused on selling and facial expressions, like Hash said, it's about the eyes. It the type of thing Kingston does as good as anyone ever, and Otani stepped up and matched his intensity. Awesome selling by both guys, Kingston sells the initial Otani chop like it briefly stopped his heart, and Otani did some cool knee selling like he was working out a leg cramp. Would have liked to see this go a bit longer, but otherwise this delivered it's on paper promise.

ER: Once Rush/Park was taken from us, this was really the main singles match that kept our interest in doing the trip. Both are obviously group favorites and it's one of those great pairings that none of us had thought about before. Kingston is supposedly gone from wrestling this year and his year really has felt like an awesome retirement tour. The problem is, retirement tour Kingston has been some of my absolute favorite damn wrestling of the past decade. So can we just talk him into being About to Retire Kingston for a couple more years? Just do one of those Cher extended world tour retirement tours? And this is great, which makes it even more bittersweet. I think this match could have not lived up to our personal expectations, but it totally did. It's a unique situation as it's not often you get to see a match worked as both Legends Match and Dream Match. So you get greatest hits spots teased out, like the Stones playing the Start Me Up riff to a bunch of different parts of the arena to ramp up the excitement. Otani does this for the facewash kicks, really grinding the toe of his boot on Kingston's cheek while getting the crowd louder and louder, still doing really stiff kicks and scrapes, but then throwing in a few genuinely funny comedy spots when he kept booting his seconds Takeda and H. Suzuki into the front row with the facewash follow through. It's a heartwarmingly violent way to do a signature spot, which is fun when it happens. But while there were legend spots, both played like they were in their prime, and looked it. The stand and trade had a legends feel to it, with Otani riling up Kingston with shots but then paying for it when Kingston crushes him with a hardest-of-the-day rolling elbow or a wicked backfist. Kingston going after Otani's knee was some of the absolute best stuff we saw all day; every time Kingston would kick his knee out it looked like he was trying to hobble him, and Otani sold it by crumbling convincingly with each one. Kingston working a kneebar and a really snug STF was great, the holds looked painful and Otani sold them as dangerous and painful, scrambling to ropes knowing they were a threat. But he punished Kingston back and Kingston was great selling Otani's biggest stuff. Kingston dumped him on his shoulder with a nasty German and I loved Kingston's woozy pain afterwards. Otani is an old dude who has been wrestling a long damn time, but his lariat still looks like a lariat that should finish a match. That's awesome from a guy who was a cruiserweight legend for so long. This was compact but told a great short match story, managed to be a modern match while feeling nostalgic. Would have been a great capper to our long day...

TKG: I ended up unexpectedly going to the MSG ROH/NJ and enjoyed it despite not being much a fan of either current ROH or current NJ and maybe at one point I’ll write about that show. But you watch current NJ style which is built on guys always working as though they are building for a marathon…it’s great watching this instead. This Choshu style “these guys are aiming for a win from the start” just charismatic as fuck guys coming out trying to hit hard and win a match is a path I like and miss. Kingston sells being hit hard as well as anyone can. Post match Kingston does essentially one of those Ian Rotten works Tommy Gilbert and then explains to audience why Gilbert is a legend and hero to him. Kingston has enough charisma and connection with crowd to be able to pull off that speech.

Scott Steiner vs. Swoggle

PAS: I suggested we leave after Kingston vs. Otani and it would have been an unbeatable wrestling experience if we had. This was OK, I guess. Steiner still has a great sleazebag charisma and I was amused at him coming out to Short People. The Cabana Man Dan stuff seemed unnecessary and an excuse to drag the match out a bit.

TKG: Scott Steiner looks old...so old, he looks 5 years older than exclusively sold at Cracker Barrel gospel album era Kenny Rogers. Steiner does some amusing old man bullying mic work and gets PA guy to play Randy Newman’s ‘short people’ he then talks about song and how we all sympathize with narrator of song which is why ‘we made it #1 on top 40’. I mean this is a nerd audience where sure bunch of guys could talk Randy Newman deep cut and Bulgarian exclusive releases but may have been total 3 guys in building who’s record buys contributed to top 40 record placement in 76.

ER: Let me say that while Phil did *technically* suggest we leave after the Otani match, it was never actually brought up as a serious proposition. None of us ever asked if he was serious, we just kind of laughed as somehow two of us at 12:30 AM weren't thinking of leaving a show early. I think if Phil would have asked seriously, or asked another time or two, he could have gotten some support on that idea. And what is a drag, is this whole thing felt like something that could actually work, except every time I started thinking that (and we're talking from the moment we saw this match was announced) that no matter how good the bullshit surrounding this match was - and this match was going to have some major bullshit to pad the time out justify the fly-ins - no matter how good the bullshit was, it was never going to work for one big reason: Swoggle is not good at pro wrestling in almost any way. When people do "most overrated" lists, his name never pops up on them, and sure there are going to be built in complications with Swoggle matches, but damn has he gotten a ton of opportunities with nothing worthwhile to show. This is a guy who was paired with Finlay for 5 years and I'm not sure any of their tags would make it past FUN on a Finlay C&A. When you're paired with a top 5 blog favorite and have zero meaningful matches during that span, you're just not good. The WeeLC gets a lot of praise, but is thoroughly unimpressive because of the awful performance of Swoggle. He was too young to grow up around traditional vaudeville act midget wrestlers, and he physically can't do the style of wrestling on the shows he gets booked on, so none of it works. And yet he's been as much as part of AIW over the past several years as any other wrestler, so I understand his presence on this card. But he's just not good. He was on a gazillion Mania weekend matches, nobody cared about them the moment they were over, and while I'm ecstatic that the guy is getting so many pay days, he is never going to be a part of a card I'll be excited about. Just like I have a running list of guys I would watch against anybody (Necro, Finlay, Kingston, etc.), Swoggle is a guy who wouldn't be interesting against ANY of those guys. This was never going to work, no matter how well any of it worked.

But the bullshit worked. Steiner comes out looking leathery as hell but he still has his kind Steiner eyes. Nobody talks about the Kind Steiner Eyes! But they're an important part of his act. Not many people know, but their WCW theme was originally "Steiner Eyes" and they got scared people would mock their sensitivity so they changed it to "Steiner Line". But look at those tender Scotty Steiner eyes. They're not cloudy or distant like other older roids guys. He can still be a major asshole, but he still has relatably kind eyes which give his asshole rants more personality. He's not a sad old guy, he's an old guy who is scarier because he doesn't look crazy which means he's actively choosing to be mean. There's a "Roided Up Athlete" tree that branches into "crazy" "surprisingly well" adjusted" "sad" and all points in between. Having Steiner show up doesn't feel exploitative because those eyes show he's still a functioning human. Tom mentioned he looks like an older Kenny Rogers from when Kenny Rogers already looked old, but I think it's important that Steiner hasn't had a facelift that completely sapped the warmth from his eyes. Kenny lost that warmth, Robert Mitchum lost that warmth, Bronson just kept getting weirdly smoother, Burt Reynolds lost that warmth, but Steiner kept his normal face and retained that eye connection. And the way he wears shades for the bulk of his appearances makes them oddly even more powerful, showing that Steiner essentially realizes his tender eyes are barely slightly less powerful than Gambit's. We've never had any scary "Scott Steiner pilled up" moments like we've had with many of his peers, and I've enjoyed his actual ring work as recently as a year or so ago in Impact. Steiner milks this fucker for as long as possible and if he had an even slightly more competent opponent, I think this would have worked. Steiner gets a lot of stick work - which I'm sure most in the crowd wanted more than anything else in this match - and demands to come out to his REAL theme music, which turns out to be Randy Newman's "Short People". It's a fun gag, but Steiner makes it so much funnier than the gag should be. He suddenly turns into Davy Jones doing a reading for a Time Life AM Gold infomercial. "Yeah that's right. You remember this song? This song takes me back. Takes me back to a simpler time, where Americans' hatred of little people but love of strolling bouncy upbeats rocketed this song up the charts to #1." And it kept getting more blue and more violent and more hostile, and honestly Steiner on the stick was probably enough to keep this in the "what worked". The wrestling was fine, Steiner threw a little guy around a bit and Swoggle did a good enough dazed sell after a tough weapons shot. If Steiner had broken the laws of time and space and done a Frankensteiner on Swoggle, this would have made List.

Colt Cabana/Space Monkey vs. Ethan Page/Maxwell Jacob Friedman

PAS: The stuff were Cabana acts like he is MJF's dad seems vaguely Anti-Semitic to me. They don't really look anything alike. Page and MJF's shtick is best used as seasoning, and we got big glopping handfuls of it in this match and all over the weekend.

TKG: The joke here is that Cabana and MJF are both Jewish thus must be father/son. I mean I watch dunking booth insult clown videos, so I’m ok with racial phenotype jokes...and maybe you could have pulled that bit off in Ohio or Utah but this is a Jersey/NY wrestling audience where there were 30 other Jewish looking guys in my section alone. I thought Space Monkey looked good on the Family Reunion show, here he looked like a guy with nice gear.

ER: Earlier in the show two presumably very nice girls sat a seat down from me. I think I weirdly recognized them (maybe they were sitting hard camera side for an MLW taping meaning I saw them for 5 episodes of TV) and one of them had on a boss custom Dan Severn sweatshirt. The other one had leaned over to ask me "Has Colt wrestled yet?" "Who?" "Colt Cabana?" "Ughh he's on this card?" I hope I didn't come off rude, it was just a reflex. So I knew we were getting a Colt Cabana match, and now we were paying the piper and at MINIMUM we can be thankful that the other "guys whose brand of comedy I don't care for" were all shoved into one match. We saw Page honing his comedy chops to start our day, and nothing that happened during our day made him any more funny here. MJF is a guy I've enjoyed in matches, but I don't love a lot of his shtick and think a lot of his comedy can be hack. And his comedy has kind of haunted us all damn day. Space Monkey is an unfortunate bystander here, as I think his stock had raised a bit earlier in the day within our group, here he was the guy unfortunately lumped in with a three-way comedy bit that he couldn't participate in. But he at least stood out with big bumps and sold all of the work done on his tail about as well as you can sell tail work. You sell tail work, you lean into a couple of back elbows, you're going to be the best guy here.

Nick Gage vs. Mance Warner

PAS: This was pretty much a lesser version of the Warner match we saw at MLW, and it is always going to be tough to follow that Bishop vs. Garinni match with a lesser plunder brawl. I would have liked this if it was more of a savage fight, but Gage matches are almost good-natured now.

TKG: I liked this match way more than Phil. The MLW match was a match between two bigger than life cartoon characters while somehow one of the coolest stories of last decade is Nick Gage becoming the kind of Post World War II local babyface who does car commercials that Bob Mould talks about. And yes, I realize that he works Ohio and Illinois and crowd has that same connection with him but Gage in Jersey feels like local act from guy that people go to church with and watch son play varsity basketball. Did Annie Social/Roxxie Cotton ever work outside of Philly? That was an act that I think you need to spend time in Philly to connect with. Anyways this was Big Daddy Lafonce Latham v big city outsider in reverse. I also really dug how little in the way of props these guys used vis a vis the Mexican death match, and submit or surrender match. This was an arena tour brawl with just one chair getting set up and one door.

ER: I think this would have looked better if it was the only brawl we saw today. I could see this being the brawl main event of ONE show we were seeing and us walking away talking about it, but this was at least the FOURTH match like this we'd seen at this point today. Gary Jay/Jake Parnell, Garrini/Bishop, Mance/Sami, and half the matches we'd seen on this card already. It had a lot of stiff competition over the prior 12 hours. I think this was honestly really good, it just came towards the very end of a long day. This was good, and the aggression felt high, Mance fell into chairs, they did a headbutt exchange that were probably the two best headbutts we saw today, and it really feels like we're not giving enough credit to the shit kicking that took place here. This will be a match that looks better removed from our circumstance. I watched this back because I was curious how it held up removed and on tape, and it still retained the live intensity while working stronger as a brawl. You see  Mance absolutely crack Gage with a hook while Gage was climbing the stage, and it's going to have legs. Mance takes a nasty vertical suplex across chair backs and gets tossed off the stage in fun manner by plowing through a couple fans. Gage breaks out cool shit like a fallaway slam off the middle rope and a great pop up elbow drop off the middle rope that landed flush. There were nasty yakuza kicks, more nasty bumps, hard lariats to the throat, hard lariats to the back of the head, bad landing powerbombs, just a ton of stuff you'd love to see in a brawl. I'm also reminded of how much I always love The Duke, this guy is a fun Alex Jones type loud mouth second, and he always makes it into the ring at one point to get absolutely annihilated. Here he eats a full force Nick Gage chairshot to the top of the head like this was 1999 or something. Maybe it had one too many stand and trade sections, but this is something that held up really great on rewatch for me, and something I have to admit may have suffered live due to my growling stomach and aching dogs. Jesus I felt both young and old at all of these shows today.

Tom Lawlor vs. Matthew Justice vs. PB Smooth vs. Tim Donst

TKG: So I haven’t seen Tim Donst in forever…When I last saw him he was working babyface guy with amateur high school background and now he is working guy who peaked in high school still trying to live off glory of four touchdowns at Polk High. He is wearing boots and elbow pads held together by duct tape and really looks like JT Jobber gone to seed. Apparently, he had cancer and then started working as heel who used “ohh my cancer” as equivalent of heel manager interference spots. And he is able to project all the detestable parts of Kevin James sad sack characters without any of the endearing stuff. Next level Kevin Owens. This of course is Wrestlemania weekend and an audience full of guys who are wasting the money for their children’s childcare and family heating bill on seeing 4 days of wrestling….so Donst’s hatable sad sack who makes poor life decisions is somewhat more sympathetic than he would be with a regular audience that only spent $20 on a show. Doesn’t matter, it is deep in the night and an audience that’s pretty burned out by this point and so this is match with a million crazy dives, stunts, and bumps and Donst getting back of his head opened up really nastily that all played to crickets.

PAS: This was really a victim of them running so late at night. It wasn't a great match, but it was ambitious, and its ambition wasn't rewarded by a burned out crowd. Justice hit like a half a dozen dives, Donst took a nasty bump which opened up his head. Lawlor was throwing people. It was crazy stuff, but not as crazy as either of the opening two matches, and no one in this was as over as Gage was in his match.  Lawlor winning was a nice moment, but they probably should have made a different match order decision, or worked this differently.

ER: This was a shame honestly, as these guys busted their ass. I'm not sure what would have had to be done to successfully win over a bunch of exhausted bodies at the end of a big wrestling day. It's tough to maintain that because wrestling fans have the gas tanks of manatees. These guys had a killer fight and you could tell they wanted to have a great match for the crowd. They had a LOT of great stuff over a 12 hour period that they had to top and it was a losing battle, but these guys didn't disgrace themselves a bit. This was a hard working performance that did have flaws, but also would have gotten a better reaction in a more conventional setting. Matthew Justice especially had a killer performance. It must be at least a little nerve wracking to be watching your friends have crazy wrestling matches all day, 12+ hours of watching guys kill themselves to stand out early in the Mania week, and all day you know that you gotta go into the title match of the last match on the last show of the night. It's a heavy spot to be in and he really performed admirably as fed champ. He was hitting dives into ever part of the crowd and flying off the apron, really coming off like a guy who is going to be a big indy name. Justice kind of comes off like a more indy scum Seth Rollins, but I mean that in a good way. PB Smooth is really raw, but raw giants are a fucking cool thing in wrestling. Justice bumps big and takes wildman vicious spills into chairs, commits fully to dives, really came off like a big deal. It's cool seeing a 6'9" guy throw someone and land giant elbow smashes. Smooth is open minded and tries cool things that you don't see a ton from guys his size and it's always neat to see a big guy come up through the indies. Donst I think has a the most consistently empty gas tank, but he falls into some pretty perilous stuff here and gets cut open in an ugly spot. That's at least a positive contribution to all this. Lawlor took some big spills too, and that's why this whole thing was a shame, these guys really were busting their tailbones and even with a couple of too long prop set up spots there was still a ton of chaos happening here to make me enjoy it.


PAS: The first four matches on this show were the most fun four match run I can remember seeing live. Show dipped after that, but hard to call the AIW Wrestlemania weekend debut anything less then a huge success. Great to see one of my favorite feds hit such a home run on their biggest stage.

ER: The first half of this show was definitely better than the last half, but I think the violent stuff in the second half actually worked real nicely on tape, and the 1st half held up even better. The first hour of this show is probably the best run of wrestling we saw all day, though the best consecutive hour of Bloodsport would have to be the best competition for that honor. This was still overall an excellent show that was worth staying out late and learning an old guy badge of honor to attend. This show lands 4 different matches on our 2019 Ongoing MOTY List, and that makes it a no doubt show of the year candidate no matter how unfunny we find Colt Cabana.

ER: So we get dumped out into the street tired and hungry at 2 AM, and I say we walk back to our place. It's almost a 1 mile walk. Phil and I had a lovely walk earlier that day before our first show, so, so long ago. I'd like to think that in our properly tailored pants and my black peacoat and his nice overcoat, that we looked like a couple of cool character actor detectives having a walk and talk about a case on some shitty canceled CBS detective show. Jersey City PD. I was even having coffee out of a styrofoam cup while walking and talking! We looked great. But Phil didn't want to get jumped in an alley. He has something to live for now because he has a baby boy. He told me I only wanted to walk because I have nothing to live for. Tom had been watching wrestling for so long that he lost all measure of distance knowledge. "So how long would it be if we walked?" "We could make it 17 minutes walking brisk." "17 minutes so like two blocks? Three blocks?" "Two blocks in 17 minutes? No, like a mile." Phil has been mugged before so I said "It's like people sitting next to Flair because he was already in one plane crash and what are the odds of another. What are the odds of you getting mugged twice, Phil?" "I have been mugged twice." "What are the odds of you getting mugged three times, Phil?" I am not a monster or idiot so I agree to a Lyft, and of course we get the first Lyft driver in my history of using them who is a total bum. She said she was a couple minutes away and soon we had been standing there 10 minutes while everybody else standing near us for 2 blocks was long since picked up. She kept telling Phil she was 2 minutes away while her icon wasn't moving. She finally showed up and had a ton of excuses that seemed like plot holes. I think Phil said it was the only negative review he's ever given. We stumble back into our home with the cruelly steep stairs that our 2 AM legs can barely handle. Phil finds 2 leftover slices of pizza. Phil wordlessly dives into one of them and holds the other out to me. I say "Well what if that's Rachel's or Chelsea's that they were saving..." and while I was being thoughtful he silently held it out to Tom who silently grabbed it and immediately ate. I was left with no 2 AM 10 minutes before bed pizza - arguably the greatest of the pizzas - all because I was thoughtful. Nice guys finish last, kids. Day was totally worth it.

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Pro Wrestling Revolution Live Report 10/27/18

Tim Livingston Reporting:


Pro Wrestling Revolution Road Report – 10/27/18

I made a day out of my trek to east San Jose to see LA Park at a high school gymnasium, getting matcha soft serve at Matcha Café Maiko in San Francisco and finishing my scenic trip down Skyline Blvd with a pizza cheesesteak at Amato’s in west San Jose. I still remember Delco’s when I was working with the Blue Jays in Florida and it’s difficult to find a good cheesesteak anywhere out here; Amato’s is basically the only place to go in the bay area for your cheesesteak needs.

Pro Wrestling Revolution has been around for over a decade and does a good job with its presentation. My first exposure to them was going down with Eric to a high school gym in the Mission District in SF to see Timothy Thatcher literally carry Blue Demon, Jr. to a very good match years ago, and they have a good following with the Latin fans in the Bay Area. The gym had the entrance across from one section of the bleachers with a ramp (short version of the old WCW ramp) and a full lighting setup that made it look pro. Gym was pretty dang full, probably 750-1000 in total. Sartorial choices were of the Bullet Club variety if they weren’t lucha-themed shirts. PWR is always good for bringing in a big name or two, and bringing in LA Park in 2018 certainly qualifies, along with Silver King (with his mask) in the semi-main. No-brainer $15 ticket here.

Card was subject to change here as it looked like Misterioso was unable to make the show which set a domino effect all the way down the card.

Show began with La Migra interrupting the Mexican National Anthem to cut a promo on how they’re gonna send Park and Damian 666 back over the wall and the Lucha Horsemen were gonna take the tag titles. It’s cheap heat, but damn it, it was good heat. Colt Stevens was looking jacked here, as was former Phoenix Pro Wrestling champ JR Kratos. You also had Sparky Ballard out in his suspenders looking like guero Tirantes (referee hate became a theme throughout the show). But it set the tone, got the crowd off to a hot start, and allowed the show to grow from there.

Cu Cuy/Grappler III/Fuerza Azteca vs. Mariachi Jr./Pantera Jr./Ultra Hashi

Fun opener that did a lot of basic stuff well to build off the promo. Hashi is basically a mini, billed at 120 and if he’s any taller than 5 feet, he’s lying. Cu Cuy is only a few inches taller than Hashi but weighs nearly 300 pounds. Does well moving around for all of Hashi’s armdrags, and has great fat boy offense, including a running splash that looks like it crushed poor Hashi. Grappler is Rik Luxury (the ¼ pound during the intro gave it away) and he gets some cool stuff in as he always does. The other three were kinda non-descript, with the tecnicos trying all types of armdrags but not landing them in the most graceful of ways. Pantera’s big high spot was him doing a pescado onto everyone for the stretch run, leaving it down to Hashi and Cu Cuy for the finish, where Hashi gets the win with a crossbody off the top. Kids were doing his pose to him as he left the ring post-match, which is basically everything you want out of the fan experience for an opener.

Ultimo Panda vs. “The Flying Lion” Marcus Lewis

Lewis wasn’t on the original card so I’m guessing he’s the Misterioso sub as he lives in San Jose, which is cool because I love watching him work. Panda is, of course, Vincenzo Massaro working under the hood, and he comes out to Gangnam Style and is over with the kids. Comedy stylings to start out as they get to do the ol’ “Panda gets tired running the ropes sequence” bit, but when it breaks down into a 50/50 match, it gets fun. Panda using his size against Marcus, Marcus using his speed and his strikes, and then some good nearfalls down the stretch. Marcus even gets sat on attempting a sunset flip. Panda wins with his FFF variation with him seated on the top rope, which Marcus bumps big on for the finish. Then they do the Gangnam Style dance together afterwards. Crowd has been hot all night and on that kick, they’re 2-for-2.

PWR Jr. Heavyweight Title: Bestia 666 © vs. Vapor

Vapor is sometimes PPW hand and DDT hand Royce Isaacs, who’s worked the gimmick in a few spots in California and it’s a good look, kind of like Bane but not on the gas. Bestia is Bestia and I kinda figured he might phone it in here, but they really go at it for a good 12 minutes or so. Vapor controls and hits a bodyslam on the hardwood before leering out into the crowd (I can’t undersell how much the crowd went after the rudos during this show). Also counters a slam into a nice Island Driver variant for a near fall. Bestia eventually comes back and hits a DVD on the apron before retaining, which is the only finish of the match I can’t seem to remember offhand. I remember liking the stretch run, but the finish didn’t stick with me. Odd.

PWR Tag Team Titles – Jungle Boy and Prostipirugolfo © vs. Lucha Horsemen

The Horsemen are Papo Esco and Arkady, with Esco’s tights literally saying “Fat Boy” on them as if they’re booking this show specifically for me. He hits a chokebreaker on the referee during their entrance so that Sparky HAS to be the referee, as he’s the only other guy who could do it, but the champs jump them before the bell to take advantage. This was the Jungle Boy show, as he was flying around and hitting his offense really crisp (along with good basing from Esco and Arkady), and then plays a good face in peril before Prosti gets caught for the longer section. When he gets the hot tag, he takes it up even another notch, clearing the ring and hitting a nice tope to the hard camera side. Of course, the match is full of Sparky shenanigans with either slow counts or not counting or derisively pointing out who the legal man was. That did lead to the finish, where a distraction by Sparky leads to a foul and a quick count pinfall and there’s new champs. For the shenanigans, at least it played into the finish. Jungle Boy was fantastic in this, though, and he seems to be getting a good run in the bay area and with good reason. Slight of build, but he can go. Also of note is the fan next to me continuing to razz Sparky throughout the match, offering him and Esco to eat some chicken nuggets. Popped some of the folks around me, but he did it literally the entire match, which got annoying pretty quickly with me. We get it: Fat guys like fast food.

Silver King vs. El Hijo de LA Park

King comes out wearing the mask, which I was a bit confused about because I remember him without his mask way more than with it. This is where they lost me with the ref stuff, as King and Parkcito take turns trying to coerce him to hit the other one, only for both of them to gang up on him and chop him down. Some matwork to start, where I hope King would work more maestro stuff than try and go 50/50, but Parkcito can go and they trade some nice holds. King starts trying to lay in the strikes but most of them whiff, sadly. Parkcito hits a tremendous tope that pushes King right up against the guardrail. King rudos it up during the second half and unties the mask which leads to him whipping the mask off on a charge and rolling Parkcito up for the win. I have this feeling it might have come off better on tape. Might be worth a second look if I can find it out there.

Cole Stevens/JR Kratos vs. LA Park/Damian 666

Place comes absolutely unglued for Park, who plays the chair as a guitar on his way down the ramp and just absolutely oozes charisma from every pore, posing on the chair in the ring and looking like the legend he is. There isn’t too much structure early on (spots were easily visibly called here) but the chaos adds to it, especially with Sparky having been involved in the shenanigans earlier on. Kratos mauling on Park is a good visual, and Damian is cool just brawling with Stevens wherever he can. Sparky gets run off (complete with going through the crowd to escape Park), which leads to the ref from the previous match coming in and becoming a part of the match AGAIN (kinda tired at this point), but he at least bumps huge on a corner charge and goes back to doing his job. Park’s belt gets involved and everyone gets whipped with it, with the ref taking the most punishment, of course. Park and Damian hit stereo topes right in front of me which makes my year. After a big miscommunication spot, Park grabs the chair, hits Kratos with it, and spears him for the pin. Folks throw money into the ring afterwards and Park acts like he’s ready to Chippendales it up for even more. He then gets on the mic and cuts a promo thanking folks for coming out to support the show (even with his “terrible fucking English” as he put it). Fun, chaotic brawl that was completely charisma driven and held up by everyone just going for it with the molten crowd, a great way to end the show.

I mean, it’s LA Park in 2018 working a high school gym in Northern California; I’ve now seen both him and PCO in the flesh in high school gyms this year and they both come off as huge presences even in that setting. Pretty sure him being there galvanized the entire card because this was good top to bottom. Nobody wanted to go out there and have a stinker with Park ready to show everyone why he’s the man, and it paid off. Well worth trying to find if the tape shows up somewhere.

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Hugo's Lucha Libre Live Report 9/12/18

Wife and Little Dude headed down to her parents for a week while I am off to a business trip tomorrow morning. Since I am on my own, I made a last minute trip down to the Fairgrounds to check out some lucha libre. This was part of a fair, so the crowd was probably 40% white, which is very different then previous shows where it was just me percent white.

Red Mask? vs. Komaya

Different opponent for Komaya then listed on the poster. Komaya is a guy with Muta paint and kanji on his trunks who kind of ruins his gimmick by doing a lot of loud crowd work in a Colorado snowboarder accent. This was solid juniors wrestling, Red Mask guy was lucha trained and had a fine armdrag and headscissors offense. Komaya had a stiff shot or two, everything wasn't super crisp, but it moved at a nice pace and ended in a good spot. This would get the old full Worldwide point if it was a WCW syndie match.

Lady Lee/Athena vs. Luna/Alley Gato

Kind of odd that the only three caida match on the show was the luchadoras match, but this was another well worked entertaining match. This was an atomicos with one thick girl and one skinny girl on each team, and for the first part of the match it was skinny vs. skinny and thick vs. thick. The skinny girls (Luna and Athena) looked a little wrestling schoolish in their exchanges, but I liked both big girls. Alley Gato hit this BBW rana and a great second rope rolling senton. Straight falls ruda win which I was not expecting, I remember thinking that the segunda had too many near falls for a segunda and then the Rudas won. Lady Lee had fun submissions and the rudas won the third fall with a cool double bridging Indian death lock. Alley Gato continued to impress, she really should have been in the MYC.

Corsario Negro vs. Sol vs. Rayo vs. Joe Alonzo

This was a nutty four way which felt like a crazy undercard Tijuana spotfest. Lots of dives of varying quality, big bumps by everyone. Really liked Joe Alonzo, he hit a beautiful lionsault, worked stiff, and took a crazy bump where he did a running stage dive over the railing into a bunch of chairs. Corsario Negro had some stiff shots and was a fun rudo. Right after that happens I look over to my right and Rayo is just chilling up near me in the balcony, and he flies maybe 20 feet off the balcony onto everyone below (I don't want to know what stupid shit Aerostar is going to try next month) Rayo took the craziest bump on the last show I saw, so he is clearly the lunatic of this fed. Match falls apart a bit after the stage dive, unsurprisingly, but Rayo goes over which totally makes sense.

Amaya vs. Heros vs. Vago

This is for the Hugo's title which a replica NWA Big Gold Belt with plastic red HUGO pasted on it. Vago comes out with a tiny super cute baby and immediately starts rudoing it up which was lucha as fuck. Much of the early match is the rudos Vago and Amaya double teaming Heros, until they turn on each other. Amaya has a nice right hand, and Vago has a great sleazy rudo charisma. Heros does a tope into a chair which clearly fucked him up. He rolled under the ring and even took his mask off under the ring. When he gets back in he is off, there is a badly blown diving rana. It's his match to win though, so when they set up a super rana for the finish it added a bit of danger because I was worried a concussed guy would kill himself and Vago. They hit it cleanly, Heros wins the belt and the ring announcer pops his shoulder back into place. Post match they set up a title vs. title match with Amaya and his Rocky Mountain Pro belt which is the non-lucha fed with local TV. I might have to start checking them out, because I dig some of the gringos who work this fed.

Bestia 666 vs. Rey Horus

These were the fly-ins and they worked their fly-in match. Bestia was kind of along for the ride, he threw some chops, grabbed a belt from a fan to hit Horus and based for all of Horus's spots. Horus does have some great individual spots, his tope con hilo was super fast and high, and his jumping DDT and dragon rana all look great. Still I didn't think either guy had a ton of superstar presence since I have been in Denver I have seen guys like Zumbido, Demus, Negro Casas and Blue Panther and while they weren't doing dragon rana's they connected to the crowd so much better then either of these two.

Really fun show, no match which would make an MOTY list, but I enjoyed every match I saw and it all moved at a nice pace, the Arena is set up great, with screens and lighting and raised balconies and I am excited that this fed runs every month. Hopefully if I am in town I can check out their AAA Supershow next month with Monster Clown, La Mascara, Pimpinela, Rey Escorpian, Drago, Aerostar, Averno and more.

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Wrestlemania Weekend Cherry Picking: CRASH

Brian Cage vs. Sami Callihan vs. Willie Mack

ER: This was fine, felt like a Lucha Underground dark match, a quick 10 minute pleaser that these three could probably have in their sleep. I think heel Callihan carrying a bat around with him is pretty effective, as when he tries to hit Mack in the face with it you buy it, because we've all see him hit someone in the face full force with a baseball bat. You want to get over a prop, you use it on a sap. "Don't worry honey, these guys don't want to hurt anybody, they just want to leave the bank with all of the money. Oh my god they shot a guard." Cage is fun throughout, I especially like a couple ways he no sells Callihan, like eating a chop and not blinking (while holding Mack in a Samoan drop) and earlier just running through a lariat. I don't think I've ever seen someone attempt a lariat only to have the other guy just sprint through it. Cage throws really heavy corner clotheslines, and I liked a spot where Mack was still in the corner, Cage went to clothesline Callihan who ducked, and Cage still clotheslined Mack. Still this felt rushed and everyone was coasting. They have more tricks in their bag than the average guy, so they can work an amusing coasting match, and it will still have things like Callihan throwing a stiff forearm shiver to Cage, hitting a nice sitout powerbomb, and a big vertical suplex spot, but coasting is coasting.

Rey Fenix vs. Flamita

ER: This goes just 5 minutes, which was likely annoying to those in attendance, but played as a fun WorldWide sprint to me. Fenix is really good for something like this, as his spots are always nice (big flip dive to start and followed up with this killer late rotation swanton in the ring) and Flamita hits a big moonsault to the floor. Flamita always finds Fenix works tight with kicks, and throws in neat little things that add to a sprint-y spotfest, like a great spit take while getting folded up by a Flamita superkick, or reaching out to grab Flamita's boot to try and stop Flamita from going up top. Those kind of things are great as typically you just get guys lying there waiting to get hit. Flamita works tighter strikes than a lot of flippers (I loved him kicking Fenix in the face when Fenix grabbed his boot), hits a mean 450, all fun stuff. This would be legendary if it happened on WCW Saturday Night, here it just gets complaints for going to short. Oh well.

LA Park/Damian 666/Psicosis vs. Garza Jr./Bestia 666/Mecha Wolf 450

PAS: Fun if sloppy rudo vs. rudo brawl. Match opens up with Rebellion Amarillo getting the upper hand on the LWO, including Psicosis taking a powerbomb into the crowd and through some chairs.  Lots of amusing shtick by both teams Garza Jr. has inherited his uncles hateful face and he does a lot of amusing begging off. Lots of nasty belt shots with PARK's big belt and we get a great fat boy Park tope and an awesome looking Mecha Wolf low missile tope. There was some real issues when guys were trying to apply moves, the LWO guys are pretty old and probably should have stuck to brawling, still it would be hard not to enjoy this.

ER: This was a bunch of fun, with fat old rudos (except Psicosis who looks exactly the same, the other two are clearly XXLWO at this point) going up against three young rudos of varying quality (I like Garza Jr. as a 0.6 Hector Garza, Wolf has some impressive spots, and Bestia usually leaves me cold). The big star of the match is clearly Park's belt, as it gets removed early and amusingly gets used by every member of the LWO to break up pinfalls. Park used it in the best way possible, to belt Garza as he's tearing off his tearaway pants. Bestia gets whipped in the face, Psicosis breaks up a pin from the apron, truly some excellent belt usage throughout. Park is a total megastar. I bet plenty of people in the crowd haven't gone out of their way to watch him since WCW, and he showed them what they've been missing. He completely engulfs Bestia on a huge dive, still somehow bumps big for a guy that size, and works a great spot where he gets frustrated and slaps the ref in the face. Psicosis is still Psicosis somehow, OPENING the match by getting powerbombed over the railing into a bunch of chairs, still crazy after 25+ years in the game. He still moves quick and fits in totally fine with the younger guys. I can't believe the LWO was literally 20 years ago. I think my buddy still has the t-shirt (though he's a poseur because he wasn't there the night the LWO party vignettes aired. Eddie always wins!).

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Pro Wrestling Revolution Workrate Report 5/16/15

Brian Cage vs. Bestia 666

This is the last match from the 2/28/15 show in San Francisco, milked to its entirety (with 6 matches stretched to fill FIVE WEEKS! of programming), so I'm excited to see what we get next week. This was a good match, the best match on that 2/28 card, and could have been a very good match if not for  rudo ref shenanigans, or if Cage had sold anything whatsoever. There was a little awkward miscommunication towards the very end, but mostly they worked together really well, except for Cage not selling anything whatsoever.

I'm not sure why but Cage always looks so much more gassed when he works this fed. His Lucha Underground body looks slightly leaner, and his PWR body looks significantly more bloated. I don't understand it. And let me explain what I mean by Cage not selling Bestia's offense: He would take moves, and do little things afterwards such as shake his head, stumble around, etc. to show that the moves has done SOMEthing to him, but then he would always immediately go back on offense. I don't think there was any point in the match where Bestia hit two moves in a row. He was working from underneath the whole match, which made the awful heel ref schtick even worse and more pointless since Cage was never in any point in danger of losing. So we get Cage dominating, and being cheated for, but we never get to see any sort of Bestia comeback. Just a slow plod towards the inevitable. And what is life but a slow plod towards the inevitable?

I liked how they started, with Bestia trying to shoulderblock Cage a bunch. I like when guys don't back down on shoulderblocks. Bestia quickly realized he wasn't going to budge him, so led him into some cat and mouse which led to a great spot, with Cage chasing him around the ring, Bestia rolling back in and fluidly hitting Cage with a legdrop off the middle rope while Cage was rolling back in. It was timed perfectly, with Bestia fluidly hopping up to middle rope and legdropping him right as Cage was rolling in (so Cage in theory wouldn't have seen it happening). Usually that kind of thing seems much more cooperative and here they nailed it. Bestia also had several cool armdrag variations throughout, which Cage took really nicely. Cage himself had a pretty nifty legdrop, working in a couple of quick sliding legdrops like Waltman used to do. The "big slams" portion of the match is fairly uninteresting, and the heel ref stuff kills any interest in the home stretch of the match, but there was good work within, and you could tell the framework of a good match was in there somewhere. I enjoyed it.

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Pro Wrestling Revolution Workrate Report 3/7/15

Not sure what they're trying to do with this episode as they have Derek Sanders come out at the start of the episode with the rest of La Migra, and then we get about 5 minutes of him running down Mexicans. You know, real groundbreaking stuff like "Go back to Mexico" repeated several times. Most of it we can't hear because it's indy wrestling and it's never mic'd properly, but based on what was audible it's a promo we've all heard hundreds of times before. Now Sanders' match wasn't even on this episode, and they didn't advertise a match for him on any upcoming episode…so I guess they just really wanted to show 5 minutes of him running down Mexicans, and then show a singles match between two Mexicans? What's weirder is this Sanders promo took place on the October 2014 King City show, and the match that aired afterwards was from a January 2013 show in Watsonville, but the commentary guy kept acting like it was from the same King City show. Now, I have no idea what's to gain with pretending you were in King City instead of Watsonville. That's like correcting a police officer with "Actually officer it was my WIFE I strangled to death, not my girlfriend. You are mistaken." Both towns are places you wouldn't want to visit, so I'd love to hear the thought process behind pretending you were in the illustrious King City, and pretending the Sanders segment was from the same show as the match (even though the people in the crowd were completely different, and the walls were filled with advertisements for local Watsonville/Salinas businesses) is a weird and seemingly pointless decision.

1. Bestia 666 vs. Rey Horus

Now, I can understand why they'd want to show a match with Bestia 666, considering he was working Brian Cage on their 2/28 show in SF, but if the point was to highlight Bestia then it probably would have made more sense to show the match a week or two ago before the new show he was on actually took place. Now, last week they showed a Juvy match, which made a lot of sense since their SF show was later that night and Juvy was in the main event (although I'm pretty sure Juvy ended up no-showing and/or sending his father in his place, which really I think there's a higher likelihood of Fuerza putting in a fun high school gym performance than Juvy). So not sure why they felt the need to show a 2+ year old match and present it as happening 5 months ago. What's the difference at that point?

So I figured it would be kind of pointless to write up the match they actually showed, since it's over two years old and these two are frequent opponents. A quick search brought me to a match from 9/6/14, so I just decided to link to that one, and offer some words about it. Now I think this match was better than the one that aired, although it's not my intention to dump on the match that took place in PWR. The PWR match had less exciting sequences, and added in an extended run of Bestia climbing the buckles to get booed by the crowd, following by Horus climbing the same buckles to get cheers. That kind of thing seems like it happens so damn much in PWR matches. Yeah, I know, it's an easy way to get a reaction but man it bores me every single time. So the 9/6/14 match felt like much more of a fight, and 2 years on each guy felt more polished. Both guys had flaws, but Horus especially worked some nice real fast exchanges. A couple times it looked like the video had actually sped up, had to rewind to see if the video glitches (it hadn't). Wasn't sure what to expect and then early on Horus takes a nutty bump into the guardrail, really flying recklessly into it. That made me stand up and take notice. They each take turns chucking chairs at each other's face, Bestia lands a few stiff strikes, Horus hits a nice dive and a nice rana on the floor, overall a real fun match that didn't overstay its welcome.

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