Found Footage Friday: PANTERITA~! WHITE WOLF~! WHITE WOLFIE D~! SHEIK WEINGEROFF~?! BRAVE EAGLE~! JOHNSON~!

Chief Brave Eagle vs. Karl Johnson Big Time Wrestling 1930s?

MD: We lose the end of this and I think the first fall is a little clipped too but it's over twenty minutes of action from very long ago and probably worth taking a look at. I'm not sure about the 1930s designation but the only thing I have to make me doubt it is that the commentator compared Eagle to Japanese sumo wrestlers and pro wrestlers because he was bald and barefoot and had a particular stance. He was billed from Canada and Johnson from Sweeden. They made a very big deal out ofthe fact that Eagle was 270 pounds and Johnson was 250. That was considered quite big back then apparently. The first two falls had more cautious approaches with cheapshots off the ropes by Johnson and Eagle trying to fire back. Finish to the first was Johnson pressing in with clubbering shots and getting a fireman's carry and a knock down shot in the first and then Eagle recovering and hitting his own shot after the fireman's carry in the second. The third was more hold focused with Eagle locking in a Stepover Toehold and Short Arm-scissors that felt like they'd be totally valid forty years later. The bald head of Eagle was apparently so novel that they played up Johnson being unable to grab the hair to escape (he grabbed the tights). The footage cuts off with Johnson with a rear cross toehold. Again, I'm not entirely convinced it was from the 30s but I don't see a big difference in the actual work between this and something from, let's say the 50s, even if the way it was filmed did feel different.

Hubcap on a Pole: Wolfie D vs. Sheik George Weingeroff Powerslam Pro 5/27/94

MD: Bryan Turner says this was '94 which is after we have any record of Weingeroff still wrestling. He was apparently pretty much blind by this point regardless. He does the Sheik gimmick with costume and praying before the match and a couple of mannerisms, but it's pretty out of place. The fans were behind Wolfie against him for the most part. This was a hubcap on a pole match but didn't really follow the sort of logic you'd expect. The presence of the pole usually works to set up transitions. If a babyface has control and goes for it too early, he's vulnerable to the heel. If the heel is in the midst of a subsequent beatdown and tries to go for the weapon, the babyface can have his comeback, etc. They didn't lean into that here. Part of the problem was that the hubcap fell down midway through and someone had to put it back up while they were working holds. There were a decent amount of those for a match with this gimmick, and not just due to the technical mishap. It ended like these usually do, with the heel getting the weapon but the face nailing him before he could use it. Wolfie took out everyone, including the manager, and including the ref by accident, and someone came out to sneak attack him so that Weingeroff could win and leave with the title. Post match, Wolfie got some revenge. The audio was rough on this so I'm not sure who we were dealing with but at least the gimmick was self-explanatory. The actual work was ok for a mostly blind guy working an out there gimmick. You end up kind of glad he didn't work a few years later to the point where people would have expected him to emulate Sabu more. 

Mask vs. Mask: Panterita del Ring vs. White Wolf Monterrey 11/22/98

MD: I'm trying to stick to the post-order on these so I don't get lost, but Roy posted an apuestas match and Phil rightly noted that I should probably prioritize it. Since there seem to be no matches in the build to this, I'm giving it a go. Lobo Blanco is Andy Anderson, aged 23, who would be in the WWF system not long after this, primarily working in MCW and then with a fairly lengthy run in Puerto Rico. He had a pretty elaborate Wolfman style mask here. Plus side is that it stood out. Downside is that even though he took a posting on the outside at one point, it wasn't the sort of mask you could rip and get color with. Anyway, this comes in right at the end of the primera with the ref (Cuate Guerrero? who I think was the mainstay Monterrey ref for a lot of this footage) clotheslining Panterita so that Lobo could sunset flip him to win the caida and I was kind of wondering why I wasn't watching Fabuloso Blondy in 1989 instead. Immediately thereafter, Panterita did something I'd never seen which made it all worth it though; he started to bug the local commissioner about getting a new ref. It didn't work but I admired the refusal to just accept this bullshit.

Lobo took the initiative to ambush him during this, but he ate a back body drop and the aforementioned posting. For the rest of this match, including a fairly back and forth and actually exciting tercera, whoever was in the studio for this one kept rolling fast and loose with things; they'd be so excited to do a replay of a roll up that we'd miss a plancha, that kind of thing, so you were eventually watching a string of replays. That included the roll up that won Panterita the segunda, by the way. We saw it in replay form (they were showing us Panterita accidentally pulling Lobo's mask off in replay form during the initial roll up). Like I said, the tercera was pretty back and forth and exciting. Anderson wasn't afraid to let Panterita dive onto him including a flipping senton to the floor. Eventually, Guerrero got what was coming to him, body an errant Panterita dive and a Lobo dropkick; Lobo got his phantom pin off of a splash mountain style power bomb, but there was no ref. When Lobo tried it again, Panterita got the win. This was pretty good for what it was even if we missed the primera and the rudo ref infection had overtaken things by 98. Panterita was certainly confident in his own skin by this point and milked everything as much as possible for the crowd which isn't a bad thing for a local hero.

ER: I didn't know Andy Anderson was working Mexico, but he's a perfect fit. It's like Todd Morton working Mexico, if Todd Morton was a guy with enough gall to embellish his size on Cagematch to 6'2" 266 lb. Nobody has gone out of their way to tell me to watch as much Lobo Andy Anderson in Puerto Rico as I can find, and one of you should have. It's possible one of you did, but this match is what's going to make me go and do that. We never got Todd Morton working outside the states, and Anderson is an excellent proxy to show us what that might have looked like. He is the White Wolf, and his attire is impeccable. His pants are a shiny black, with white fur down the legs; his mask is Ke Monito, had Ke Monito been a werewolf inspired by Oliver Reed in Curse of the Werewolf rather than a monkey. It is a furry fluffy white mask which would look incredible matted with blood. Maybe there's a bloody match that led to this mascara contra mascara where we could see that bloody matted mask, but I doubt Anderson was walking around with more than one of these. 

White Wolf bumps exactly like Todd Morton, meaning he is an incredible bumper. He out bumps Panterita - except for one time - the entire match, taking a wild flipping Slaughter bump to the floor, a running backdrop on the floor, an excellent posting that would do Lawler proud, and countless more hard bumps into an ungiving ring. Panterita has a pescado with fine follow through and a slingshot senton to the floor that might have been 20% less effective than Super Calo's, but the drop was steeper and the Arena Coliseo Monterrey floor much harder than the WCW floors Calo was showcasing it on. Panterita and Wolf showed great strength in the way they integrated nefarious referees, somehow bumping subtly and with nuance for a Monterrey feature that is usually so broad and overplayed. There were a lot of great little things, like the way Panterita broke out of a low abdominal stretch with pointed elbows to the meat of Wolf's thigh...but then Panterita missed an insane flying shoulder block into the bottom buckle - into a chair - in an angle and trajectory I have never seen before, flying in like a dive knowing full well he was hitting a drained pool. The heat Wolf drew on his splash mountain showed how durable he could have been working Mexico for life. The fans he was egging on really hated him, and not just in the way you root against a man, there was hate in these men's eyes. But Andy Anderson didn't wrestle too often in Mexico, and he knows not what happens to men who attempt two Splash Mountain bombs. I loved this. 

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Found Footage Friday: ROSE~! WISKOSKI~! BASTIEN~! ZULU~! MARTINDALE~! ARAKAWA~! MARKUS~! DANDY~!

Tommy Martindale vs. Mitsu Arakawa NWA Chicago 10/22/54

MD: According to our buddy Ohtani's Jacket, Arakawa was Japanese-American and his gimmick in territories (though not here) was that he was a Hiroshima survival hellbent on revenge. This went about twenty in one fall and was solid stuff. During the pre-match stomping and bowing Martindale flew forth with a dropkick to get things going. He was a chippy and fiery babyface, always trying to work his way out of holds. In that regard, they seemed fairly evenly matched. Arakawa controlled the first third with a series of headlocks, constantly switching from one side to the other and taking him over. Eventually he used a "back bend" that he had been working for to get a reverse headlock in and break it up. You have to love the struggle. The fans did too. When Martindale went for a chinlock later and Arakawa had to escpae by going to the ropes, he drew big boos for it. These fans were conditioned to see wrestlers fight to get out of holds and everything was better off for it. Towards the end, Arakawa started to fight dirty with throat shots. Davis said Martindale had a boxing background but he didn't get to show it here. What he did get to show was that perseverence in constantly trying to fight out of holds, as he turned a body slam attempt by Arakawa into a pin and scored a banana peel victory. Nothing groundbreaking here but you have to love that underlying sense of struggle that could make six minutes of headlocks enjoyable. 

Buddy Rose/Ed Wiskoski vs. Red Bastien/Ron Pope Big Time Wrestling 11/4/78

MD: I don't know how new this is in general but it's a recent Orcutt upload and it's new to me and I've seen as much Rose as I can find. This was to establish Dr. Ken Ramey as Rose's new manager. Pope was a black strongman with a headbutt and a bearhug who I'm not super familiar with.The first five minutes of this were all worked around headlocks and while Wiskoski is good feeding and stooging for them, you can see the difference with Rose. He goes over perfectly for Bastien's walk up headscissors takeover in the corner, the legs going over in a picture perfect manner but one that still feigns impact and heft as opposed to seeming cooperative. Rose had a way of making over the top bumps seem completely natural. Likewise the way he'd flail his arms as far as was humanly possible during headlock cranks; it was for the last row, incredibly memorable, but still somehow felt like that's just what his body would do. Wiskoski was clunkier going over and more artificial on the flailing and it's not like he didn't bring things to the table. He just wasn't Buddy Rose. That's the thing though. No one was. He just instinctively knew what to do at every moment. 

The heels took over when Bastien went to the well once too often and Rose turned it into a belly to back. They got heat for a few minutes before a big comeback where Buddy ended up slammed by Pope and in Bastien's fireman's carry. When he got put in it a second time, they had a great finish of Ramey pulling Bastien's tights behind the ref's back so that Rose would go sailing over the top to draw the DQ. Very creative and it reminded me a little of the moment a few years before when Heenan debuted as Bockwinkel and Stevens' manager. Obviously this didn't have the same staying power, but it was a very effective capping of a pretty entertaining and purposeful TV match.

ER: I've probably been to Sacramento more than 98% of people who write about pro wrestling and I have zero familiarity with the Roy Shire Sacramento shows. I dated a girl whose uncle worked for KTXL as a camera operator. He was not a wrestling fan, he just filmed whatever was being filmed that day at KTXL. He viewed pro wrestling no differently than he viewed news broadcasts, talk shows, or people renting the studio to record their own paid programming. But he was still someone with up close wrestling stories from the sidelines, who did remember a lot of guys who came through Sacramento. Rocky Johnson was a name he brought up the way you'd bring up a college roommate's name, the way an old boss of mine used to talk about Pepper Gomez. This era of wrestling is underwritten about in general, and the Bay Area territory is way underwritten compared to other territories. Red Bastien is under-talked about because his career ran from 1950-1980 instead of 1960-1990, so most of the footage we have is from him in his late 40s. Ray Stevens too. The Bay Area guys all peaked in years we don't have, but now we get to watch Buddy Rose and Ed Wiskoski working a Sacramento TV studio within their peaks. 

Matt talked about Buddy Rose because Rose is a guy always worth talking about and seeking out. He takes multiple backdrops from Big Ron Pope and swung his loose floppy arms around in a side headlock like the Mighty Zulu had hit him with a second tranquilizer dart. Buddy is great, and this is a great Buddy match. But I love Ed Wiskoski and Matt shit all over him. Ed Wiskoski is great because he had two really great wrestling names: Ed Wiskoski and Col. DeBeers. He has some of my favorite wrestling posture. I love how he stands board straight like a Marine, like late 70s Nick Nolte. I love how he has a mustache and flattering shag cut, like late '70s Nick Nolte. His haircut and posture make him look like a Shakespearean surfer, and I love when he does his full rigid body flip over bump. Ed Wiskoski is a hulking version of Tom Atkins in Halloween III, the kind of guy who would show up to a street fight in brown corduroys. When he fights Bastien, he looks like and wrestles him like he's Bastien's younger, bigger brother. Buddy Rose is a guy who can and does steal many of the matches he's in, but Wiskoski wrestles like Chuck Connors would have wrestled. I get something out of him I don't get from any other wrestler. 

Gran Markus Jr/Monje Negro/Milo Caballero vs. El Dandy/Apolo Estrada/Monarka CMLL 1989

MD: Sometimes we get a 13 minute match and it's the full thing. Sometimes, like here, we come in at the start of the segunda. There's a short bit to begin where Markus does a pretty good job basing for Estrada's flashier stuff (think that was the main pairing) followed by a bit of dissension, I think because Dandy didn't like Estrada kicking Markus out of the ring (a tecnico taking pride in being a tecnico?) but then I got that from the commentators and they are unreliable narrators as usual. Regardless, that dissension helped the rudos take over. Of note, Caballero is a rudo here, which isn't what I'm used to and Monje Negro has to be up there in age, but he cut a forboding oversized figure, especially when put next to Markus. He had a knife kneelift and lawn darted Dandy right into Monarka, so that was fun. 

During the beatdown Markus really leaned on Estrada, bloodying him, gnawing on him, and tossing him into the third row in the most satisfying way. I don't remember Markus gnawing on bloody people often but the aftermath was a great visual with the white mask. The comeback was pretty great too as Estrada dodged a Markus knee as Monje Negro was holding him and the two ended up on their knees throwing shots at each other. Estrada got a few pin attempts in before Markus just jammed him, slammed him, and crushed his face with a nonchalant kneedrop. They cycled through after that, with Dandy and Monarka finally locking the other rudos into La Estrella, but Markus caught an Estrada body press, tossed him onto the mass of bodies in the submission, and then pinned said mass. I have to admit that Markus kind of looked like a beast here. Anyway, post-match kids got to hang out with the tecnicos in the bloody ring, so all's well that ends well, I guess?

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Big Time Wrestling TV 9/9/16

1. Sage Sin vs. Womankind (7/15/16)

Well this was a travesty in many ways. I have to wonder why BTW even wanted to air this match. Some things are better left being unseen by as many eyes as possible, and this match was one of them. Sage Sin is a worker I'd never seen before, with a cool goth jack-o-lantern look. Womankind is...sigh...a woman working a Mick Foley-as-Mankind gimmick. She wore the same outfit as Mankind, did the same moves, and even tried to mimic Foley-as-Mankind's movements. As far as I can tell it was her first match, and it looked like she had about 5 minutes of training right before having this match. Almost everybody involved should be embarrassed and ashamed that this match happened. Whomever is playing Womankind is clearly not ready to be wrestling in front of any sort of crowd. She couldn't do a single thing right: couldn't fall properly, couldn't get into position for anything, couldn't time anything, couldn't do a single move that looked good. And obviously, blatantly, the gimmick is shameful and pathetic. This is as worse as any non-trained nobody working a bad Doink the clown gimmick across the country. I mean who is the gimmick even for? At best it seems like it would get polite applause because people felt bad, maybe a few "I feel so sorry for you" eyerolls. It's the kind of thing that just makes an entire promotion look bad, completely undercuts everything they may have been trying to accomplish that night. Here we have a one night tournament showcasing all women talent, showing that the Bay Area women's wrestling talent pool is getting deep enough to hold up an entire card...and the match in front of the main event they have to throw out a poor girl who looks like she's never been trained to wrestle, and give her the lamest rip-off of a 20 year old gimmick. It's so bad. I felt really bad for Sage Sin, who wasn't able to do anything at all with Womankind falling all over the place. I would dread having to call something like this on commentary. This was a real low right here. I honestly cannot believe they made the decision to air this match.

2. Beatrice Domino vs. Raze (7/15/16)

Not a bad match to crown the first woman's champ, but this whole episode was really distracting as the audio was about 10 seconds ahead of the video the whole time. I had to mute the sound after the first match, seeing that the audio wasn't going to get fixed at any point, and that took away some potential drama from the main. The fact they threw in a cute, disputed finish didn't help things. The finish was Domino locking in a rear naked choke and the ref counting her shoulders down just as Raze was tapping. I get that it was to set up a future, third Domino/Raze match, I just don't think it looks good to have your first champ win the belt by means of disputed finish. Yeah, she's a heel, but she's also a heel who already beat Domino clean in May, and was bragging about that on the mic after this match. It makes it seem like Domino doesn't deserve another shot. The finish kind of betrayed the rest of the match, which was understandably worked as a "end of show main event, already worked two other matches tonight and I'm tired" war.

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Big Time Wrestling TV 9/2/16

Here are the the semi-finals of the Damsels in Distress 2 show, which is awesome of them to show.

1. Katie Lea vs. Beatrice Domino (7/15/16)

Katie Lea is the former Katie Burchill, and she still looks exactly the same as she did 5 years ago, which would have been the last time I saw her wrestle. The match itself didn't accomplish a whole lot in the 8 minute run time. Lea was the heel, and worked over Domino with various chokes. I don't mind an entire match based around chokes, but this really didn't have the playfulness of the best hide the chain matches or other cheating heel matches. In fact it was never really played up as cheating, more just Katie Lea choking Domino, breaking before 5, and then resetting before doing it again. There wasn't a ton of playing to the crowd, not a lot of build to the chokes, just ended up feeling like a heel occupying time before the comeback. Domino's comeback is very brief but looked great, with Kaite coming off the ropes and going for a rana, but Domino catches her, holds her, and plants her with a great sit out powerbomb. Finish looked great, both looked fine throughout, just never went anywhere too compelling. Plus Renner and Dave always leer and drool over the women which just comes off badly.

2. Raze vs. Dementia D'Rose (7/15/16)

D'Rose has that ever tough wrestling gimmick of "crazy", which never seems to come off very well. Dragon Dave suggests she may eat the title if she wins it. You know, because she's crazy. You would think the suggestion of eating a belt would lead to some crazy ring antics, but we mostly just get some teased hair. I like Raze and the parts with her controlling were good, really liked her hard knees in the corner and in the ropes, and she really plants her Saito suplex finisher. D'Rose is pretty new I think, and she ends up out of place a couple times, but I like her bombs away and I'm sure she'll continue to improve.

3. Sara Del Rey & Davina Rose vs. Amber O'Neal & Sassy Stephanie (5/21/11)

Aw man I miss seeing Sara Del Rey wrestling. I'm absolutely positive her current gig is much better, but she had grown into a real favorite of mine. So, it was fun to see this, and it went exactly as you likely guessed: Rey controls early, heels cut off the ring with Rose as FIP, leading to Rey eventually coming in and going monster on everyone. Rose was a good FIP at this point (and she's obviously only gotten better) and Del Rey knew how to work like a real brute. Never seen Stephanie before and I don't think I'll be rushing out to see more, but O'Neal is currently married to Luke Gallows and she runs most of the heel team. She was good with the taunts and doing great annoying things like lock Rose's arms behind her and doing sit-ups with Rose trapped. The eventual hot tag to Del Rey is fun, especially dug her rolling kappo kick in the corner, really making sure that leg swung accurate. So an overall fun match, but they already featured Rose/Bayley in their throwback match segment, just a few weeks ago. They have over a decade of shows to pull from, I wish they'd choose to show what they thought were the best matches in the promotion's history, instead of a Nasty Boys match. Show me the best BTW has to offer!

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Big Time Wrestling TV 8/26/16

I like the simple black polo shirts on Dragon Dave and Hank Renner Jr., comes off way less gimmicky than their previous tuxedo/plaid blazer/fedora. Man I hated that hat (and the too large striped shirt under the plaid blazer). The simple black polos with BTW's logo on them are a nice, classic touch.

1. Kikyo Nakamura vs. Dementia D'Rose (7/15/16)

This was from their very recent Dangerous Damsels show, an 8 woman tournament, and I'm really really happy they're showing matches from it. There were several match-ups I was excited to see (sadly I missed last week's TV and I think they showed other first round matches from this show). Good for BTW to be so up to date on their programming. I was excited for this one as I like Kikyo and have never seen D'Rose before, and overall I think this worked. Both are similar size but I was still surprised to see Kikyo work from underneath. I'm used to her being a kind of monster, but I think she works really well as a FIP. It's just not usually appropriate in her matches. She has great underdog babyface facials, and I dug Dementia's bombs away and especially dug her camel clutch; she really wrenched it in and Kikyo sold it great. D'Rose doesn't do Kikyo a ton of favors on her comeback, as she wasn't really expecting what appeared to be a Thesz press, but Kikyo saves it by muscling it into a kind of back leg trip takedown, and followed up with nice mounted punches. D'Rose does lean into Kikyo's yakuza kick, and Kikyo always throws a nice one. I was disappointed with the finish even though it was executed well, with D'Rose biting Kikyo's arm unexpectedly and then rolling her up with a tights grab. Kikyo sold the bite as well as someone reasonably could, and the roll up was a nice high roll up that looked tough to get out of. So it was executed nicely, but I was hoping for a little more throw down for a finish.

2. Brittany Wonder vs. Raze (7/15/16)

Fun match, I like both women and I imagine Raze is a favorite to win this whole tourney. Wonder is really fun and always tries new things. Sometimes those things don't work, but she's ambitious and has a certain charisma. I like all her butt based offense (though a normal butt bump would probably work better than a handspring version), she takes big bumps and works a fun sort of relentless, pesty style. I like Raze as a bully, and how every time she can slow down or catch Wonder then bad things happen. Wonder hits a top rope splash, tope (that Raze kinda saves her on), also throws a nice yakuza kick, bullies Raze into the ring announcer and time keeper, and Raze occasionally launches her with great throws. Raze played her part nicely, giving Wonder plenty of nice moments to shine, taking a big bump over the top to the floor, and Wonder paid her back by getting dumped a couple times on suplexes. The match ending head and arm suplex was a fitting finish, with Raze really snapping her over.

3. The Nasty Boys vs. Dustin Ardine & Vinny Poochanelli (5/21/11)

Amusing Nasty Boys steamroll. I have no clue who Ardine or Poochanelli are, but their job was to run into things the Nasties were doing, and they did that well. Ardine is kind of a loon as he lets Sags give him a powerbomb on the floor, just a straight up powerbomb on concrete. Thankfully the camera picked it up as it was *ahem* nasty. Poochanelli gets bodyslammed by Knobbs on the floor, some chairshots are thrown (at least Sags takes a couple shots), but yeah if you were hoping for any kind of offense from non Nasty Boys, you'd be leaving the match disappointed. The powerbomb was nuts, and there was another super fun spot with Sags dumping Poochanelli into a rolling trash can, and then wheeling him straight into a stiff Knobbs back elbow. I was hoping for some classic Knobbs unprofessionalism, but he seemed totally on the level.


Another fun episode, real tightly run as always. The camera work is something I don't think I've ever complimented them on but their work on their shows is very good. They have a satisfying way of filming matches and changing angles, not just showing stuff from a hard cam. It's an overall good production.

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Big Time Wrestling TV 8/12/16

1. Short Sleeve Sampson vs. Robbie the Giant (5/13/16)

Hank Renner Jr. informs us, as he often does, that this is a "main event anywhere in the world" and also says these two worked the Tokyo Dome which....well I don't think either of those things is true. And a couple minutes in I was already getting the urge to fast forward. You know that first midget match you saw, 10? 20? 30 years ago? That was this, same spots, same order. Ref does a pre-match pat down, Sampson pats him back. You know that spot where a midget kicks out, and the other leaps into the ref's arms, and the ref throws him back, and it repeats? We did three different run throughs of that spot, meaning we saw Sampson thrown into the ref's arms about 10 different times in the first few minutes of the match. This was unbearable. The crowd naturally ate it up. They always do. These spots always work, they've worked for as long as I've seen midget wrestling. Maybe I wouldn't be too keen on changing up my game if I knew just how easy it would be to get fans eating out of my hand. I'm stunned nobody bit the ref's butt. And then, something happened. Robbie the Giant (who I had never seen before) took over, and suddenly things got good. Suddenly it wasn't the same midget match you've seen your entire life, suddenly we had a heel midget doing nasty chokes in the ropes, dropping great elbows, and generally working as a good heel against Sampson's fired up face. We start getting cool spots like Robbie locking in a nice camel clutch and Sampson powering up all the way out of it to an electric chair. We get Sampson going for a crossbody and Robbie just burying him with a world's strongest slam. We get a great tope from Sampson. Robbie hits a massive cannonball in the corner, and it gets paid off towards the end of the match where Sampson makes a comeback after Robbie misses another and takes a nice Psicosis bump. The whole thing went from being every midget match trope you've ever been sick of seeing, to two guys who happen to be undersized just working a match. Yes, the match ended with Sampson's apparently "world famous" worm, one of the most "dynamic moves in wrestling" according to Hank Renner Jr. (I have zero idea what that even means). But after the first 4 awful minutes, if you had told me it was going 15 total minutes I would have magically skipped ahead. But Robbie the Giants made me glad I didn't.

2. Frankie Kazarian vs. L'Empereur (10/20/06)

L'Empereur is a longtime BTW comedy guy who probably could have done more in his career if he wanted to. As far as I know he only worked BTW, but he had good comedic timing a a solid hold on the basics: He knew how to bump and knew how to take a comedy pratfall, threw a nice back elbow, sturdy chop, nice clubbering forearms, and cut low on missed clotheslines. He was a pretty complete worker and the gimmick with his ability would have played great in almost any indy. And this match was plenty of fun with he and Kazarian having a nice rapport, dug the spot with L'Empereur locking a nice sleeper on Kazarian, who the drops to his knees in a jawbreaker, leaving L'Emp to do a great face flop. The only thing bad about the match was Hank Renner Jr.'s affected laughter during the WHOLE match. We don't need a laugh track, we don't need to be told that L'Empereur is funny, we don't need our hand held through basic comedy spots. "Oh my, L'Empereur keeps me constantly entertained." Yeesh. It's so phony. Just let the guy's spots land.

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Big Time Wrestling 8/5/16 TV

"The most anticipated episode of BTW TV so far!" Okay, that's a lot of hype to open the episode with. The will be showing a US Title match between Victor Sterling and Tony Vargas, but they also act like the match has been hyped for months, which it hasn't been. It wouldn't be too hard to hype up TV matches week to week (which they haven't really done, instead wisely using their TV time to focus on promoting live events), but I guess it depends on if they'd rather have more TV viewers or draw some more bodies to live shows. If anything their TV should probably be geared ENTIRELY to promoting upcoming live cards, explaining feuds, showing why the matches matter. We'll see what direction they take things.

1. Kimo vs. Will Roberts

Fun match that wasn't worked the way I was expecting. I've never seen Roberts as a heel and now I never want to see him as anything but. Cocky, undersized heel is one of my favorite wrestling roles and Roberts takes to it real well, and it makes him a nice foil for Kimo's offense. Roberts was great stooging around for Kimo, but hit some real cool stuff of his own (that low crossbody in the corner, annoying little mocking kicks and stomps, that boot scrape from the apron). Kimo played into it nicely, really liked his weird roll up that reversed Robert's momentum off the ropes, and he admirably sold his mouth and jaw after a few Roberts' kicks. Finish was one of the more satisfying "feet on ropes" finishes as it was all about Roberts' attitude while doing it. Afterwards he hilariously leaps into the crowd to celebrate his victory, acting the man of the people. Funny gag to cap a fun match.

2. Victor Sterling vs. Tony Vargas

Nice match continuing their feud, hopefully building to a violent No DQ match (as this ended up getting thrown out when both men kept shoving the ref as they brawled on the floor). Vargas was playing bully here and tossed Sterling with a couple big suplexes. The overhead belly to belly was crazy, looked like Sterling was *this* close to being planted right on top of his head. Sterling doesn't really do underdog, nor should he, so it's fun seeing a bully try to pick on someone who is just as tough. Sterling throws a couple of great leaping knees and I really loved a moment where he rushed Vargas with a forearm and Vargas sold it by spinning and getting knocked into position for a knee. Too many times guys fall into the comeback trap of forearm-back bump-forearm-back bump and I thought that's what was happening, but they too it a welcome, different way. Eventually we brawl to the floor and I loved this, because they haven't had anybody brawl to the floor yet in their small training facility space, and I'm glad they saved the moment for a title match. It's a good sized room, but much less so when you have a large ring and a backstage area. So the area with fans isn't that big, but it's filled with fans. So brawling in and around them looks nice and chaotic. Guys come from the back to break them up, Sterling breaks free and jumps off the apron over the timekeeper, really made me interested in these two having a No DQ match. We shall see.

3. Kimo vs. Shannon Ballard (10/22/11)

Okay, now this was strange. Owner Kirk White does a nice intro talking about how their 20 year anniversary is coming up in October, so over the next several weeks we'll be seeing some classic matches highlighting some of the stars that have come through BTW. Makes sense. Last week they showed a Davina Rose/Bayley match, and she's currently one of the more popular ladies in wrestling. Made tons of sense to show. So now we get Kimo vs. Shannon Ballard?? No offense to either guy, but BTW has had actual big names come through, plenty of ex WWE guys, several other bigger indy names. This match was around the 15th Anniversary show, in the shows all around this one there were some nice sounding matches with "names". Paul London came in several times (reallllly would like to see the London/Kendrick vs. Young Bucks match from 2010),  X-Pac, Matt Hardy, Chris Masters, show their matches! Kimo and Shannon Ballard are fine, but sheesh we already got a Kimo match on this same episode. Spread it out a bit. Just seems like a really "drawn at random" old match to show.

Now this is nothing against the match itself, which turns out to be the best match on the show! At some point Shannon Ballard became a really engaging singles worker, and him as the cheapshotting heel hiding behind a National Anthem singer was gold. He throws a mean right hand, which is not something I remember being a thing. He makes a real competent southern heel and there are some spots that would kill in the south, like Ballard crotching Kimo on the top rope, but then getting crotched himself when he went up top, then punching Kimo off the top and losing his own balance in the process. They do a couple nice callback spots, Kimo gets in some nice suplexes, but damn I might have to do a little digging for 2008-2012 singles match Shannon Ballard. After this he felt like a guy who would have been one of my favorite IWA-MS undercarders, and I have TONS of favorite IWA-MS undercarders!

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Big Time Wrestling 7/29/16 TV

1. Christopher Black vs. Andre LeVeaux

Hosts Dragon Dave and Hank Renner Jr. keep telling us that the debuting (?) Christopher Black has a "worldwide reputation for violence" which, well...seems like a dubious claim. But I liked him, so that counts for something. Match was only 5 minutes but they accomplished enough to make the short time worthwhile. I've never seen Black before and only seen a little LeVeaux. They start with some amusing twisting wristlock reversals, silly but I liked the outcome. Black gains advantage by yanking LeVeaux to the mat by his dreads, which seems like an appropriate thing for a mean bald dude to do to gain an advantage over a guy with dreads. We get a couple of moments where Black transitions away from LeVeaux by yanking the dreadlocks, which is a great thing for a heel to do, but rarely has an opportunity to do so. I really liked LeVeaux's big comeback down the stretch, hitting a nice lariat and a really hard back elbow, then spiking Black with a dropkick in the corner. Black hits a big boot with nice follow through to end it in satisfying fashion, with LeVeaux going limp on contact, making me buy it. I'd really like to see more of these two, or shoot just know more about where they came from, how long they've been working, etc. (**Apparently they just debuted in April, which is really impressive**)

2. Victor Sterling & Jack Madison vs. Rik Luxury & Will Roberts

Man Hank Renner Jr. sure does say the word "kisser" a lot. Nobody can be punched in the face, it's always gotta be his "kisser". "Take a look at Rik Luxury's kisser." There's no way he just naturally talks like this. His shtick is...tiresome. You can also count on hearing "well-oiled machine" many times during every tag match. And this tag match was really good. Really, really good. But woefully short. They go 7, and I easily could have been down for 17. What we got was really good, but so cruel to have it taken away so quickly. Roberts and Luxury are a fun team (I dig teams with size differences) who kind of do a reverse Ricky Morton, with Roberts being in the ring more often but as a heel. It never went full heel-in-peril but it was an interesting layout. Sterling and Madison have some polished double teams and Sterling in particular had some of his best move execution all throughout. A simple Madison drop toe hold into a seated Sterling dropkick looks real great when executed so well and timed so nicely. Sterling throws some nice knees and Roberts makes offense look even better, I dug Luxury doing a sort of fisherman's suplex on Roberts to flip him onto Sterling, and the finish stretch was real good and excellently timed. But again, so cruel to keep this so short. Easily could have gone twice as long.

3. Christina Von Eerie vs. Davina Rose (6/26/09)

Davina Rose is obviously now Bayley, and this is a smart move by BTW to unearth a couple of her matches and showcase them. Eerie ambushes Rose to start and I don't know how Renner thinks it's ok to keep saying "Pearl Harbor job" over and over to describe what happened. When a really large wrestler gets knocked over does he call it "a realll 9/11"? He has an extreme problem just calling objects what they actually are, always has to have some quaint colloquialism for every damn thing. Von Eerie's boots are called "stompers". Good grief. yet he doesn't seem to know what any actual moves are called. "Guy who likes Gorilla Monsoon commentary and adds shitty changes to it" is never going to sound good. This is really early into Bayley's career, she probably had less than 10 matches at this point, and it shows. She's decent at selling and can get over vulnerability, but she doesn't know how to land when doing offense and doesn't really know how to take moves. She gets confused a couple times one time falling out of a bodyslam in a way I've never seen anybody fall out of a bodyslam before. Eerie looked better here than I think she presently looks, seemed like someone who got to a certain level and stopped trying as hard. Announcer Dragon Dave is a creep in this as he keeps bringing up Eerie's ass crack and complimenting the camera man on his nice work. We also cut to the crowd to see someone with a Quagmire sign saying "Alright Ladies". Yuck. Good move to show this match and let a new audience see Bayley's beginnings, and a terrible idea to not redo the commentary.

This was another good, tight episode. I know I keep saying they're good at filling their time, but it really is important when you only have 30 minutes to work with every week. Both new matches they showed were good, and while the final match was not good it's totally understandable and smart that they would show a Bayley match.

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Big Time Wrestling TV 7/22/16

More matches from their training facility this week. I don't have any dates on these shows but they all seem recent (okay, got confirmation that they happened in June 2016).

1. Kimo vs. Dylan Bostic

This match was good enough, but it felt rushed. It felt a little more like an exhibition. Hank Renner Jr. annoyed and also begrudgingly impressed me by using "folderol" in a sentence without making it sound out of place. Both guys did some things I liked here, with Bostic impressing me more. I really liked the stooging bump Bostic took to the floor off a Kimo forearm. It was one of those fun 3 part bumps that reminded me of something John Tatum might do, where he flops through the ropes, rolls to the apron, flops off the apron to the floor, etc. Was also impressed by the height he got on a standing rana, nice cravate, and little things he would do like catching a mule kick to the shoulder but immediately holding his jaw, and how he would cheat when facing the crowd (the set up of the building means the crowd is all on one side of the ring), holding the tights specifically when the fans could see it. They were nice touches.

2. Rik Luxury vs. Tony Vargas

Short match, just 5 minutes. I was really hoping for a little more as Luxury is a guy who can work a fun 8 minute match. Vargas seemed to tire out early and I'm not sure if that factored into the quick finish. There was also some confusion as both guys worked heel for the first couple minutes. Luxury complained about a hair pull, but right after Vargas was biting him behind the ref's back. Renner awkwardly talked about how Luxury is the one who is always untrustworthy, but then had to act like Vargas flat out biting a dude's face was just business as usual. Luxury looked good here, love his spot where he locks up with a guy and then gets tossed face down into the mat. He threw a couple great right hands, nice eye poke, planted Vargas with a nice DDT off the ropes. Vargas for his part threw out a nice spinebuster bomb, and a decent enziguiri.

3. Synn vs. Devin Danger

I really liked this one. Synn is a big guy and while Danger isn't exactly small he's clearly smaller than Synn. So we did get some nice brick wall spots with Danger smacking into Synn, and this was maybe the best I've seen somebody work around Synn. I dug Danger's cannonball into the corner, and then he one-ups it by doing a crazier missed one right after, which then leads to Synn hitting a massive one! Danger had some nice straight right hands, loved him finding new ways to slam into Synn and then bumping off it, and the ways he would sneak in offense like snapping Synn's neck over the top rope from the apron and following that up with an unexpected slingshot twisting moonsault. Synn hits his standing splash and Danger kicks out, so Synn hits another and Danger kicks out of that. I was expecting that to be it so suddenly we have a nice fighting underdog on our hands! But Synn splats him with a nice powerbomb (apparently 12 feet in the air, according to Hank Renner Jr....Yeesh.) to end it. This was my first time seeing Danger and I really dug him, would love to see more. Synn is a really big guy, kinda shaped like Akebono (but not THAT big) and brings something different to these shows.

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Big Time Wrestling 7/15/16 TV

Looks like more matches from their recent student show they did at their training facility.

1. "Zen Master" Zach Muir vs. Chico Navarro

Boy Navarro is really not good. He's easily the weakest guy that shows up on TV, really has some of the most non-committal offense I've ever seen. He stops short on everything, as if he had super strength and didn't want to risk hurting his opponent. Everything that requires him to run through a move sees him just stopping at the point of impact. Stops on shoulderblocks, makes clotheslines look awful, whiffs on stomach kicks, threw an elbow drop where he straightened his arm past his opponent, just stopping short on every one of his moves. Muir has an amusing Zen Master gimmick which is present when he locks on holds. His stand up wrestling doesn't seem any different, but when he locks on holds while doing yoga poses, that's an amusing heel gimmick. Doing a sun salutation while doing an abdominal stretch? I laughed. Still, Chico Navarro, man. Not only is he the worst guy in the fed, but naturally he's a guy who seems to be pushed in his matches. It's a problem.

2. Shotzi Blackheart & El Guerrero vs. Beatrice Domino & Shane Kody

Shortish, formula match with Guerrero and Shotzi cutting the ring off by picking on Domino, while announcers Hank Renner Jr. and Dragon Dave just act incessantly shocked that the heel Guerrero is choking Domino in a pro wrestling match. It was terrible. "I've never seen anything like this!" A wrestler being choked in a pro wrestling match very much seems like something you would see in a pro wrestling match. Domino seems tough. It did not seem shocking to see her fighting Guerrero, especially now that we're at the point where practically every indy in the country runs an intergender match on many of their cards. This was okay for what it was, though I wish that Shotzi and Guerrero had done more with Domino while they were keeping her from tagging in Kody. Kody at least for his part threw nice chops. But then couldn't have been more awkward taking a bump on a roll up that ended the match. Really the best part of the match was before it started, with Guerrero talking trash to the crowd and doing a big build up to removing his shirt. Shotzi and Guerrero had funny mannerisms while removing their respective shirt and jacket. Shotzi may be green (har har) but her heel mannerisms are developing nicely and she brings great energy.

3. Dylan Bostic vs. Kenny K

Fun 4 minute WorldWide match between a couple of guys who I don't believe are BTW regulars. Bostic does nice heel things that need to be done more, like palming faces during pins. Love stuff like that. Both guys did a lot of modern indy stuff. We got our share of backcrackers and face washes. But the pace was hot as they worked a short match so wanted to fit stuff in, and the early match face wash did lead to a fun spot down the stretch where Bostic kept luring K into missing running kicks into turnbuckles to gain an advantage. So yeah, Bostic did some nice heeling, big dropkick, nice kick to the back, K threw a nice corner dropkick, and this was short and to the point.

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Big Time Wrestling TV 7/8/16

All the matches on this episode are from the BTW Academy, which isn't ideal as the sound is terrible, and the fans are all on one side of the ring (off camera), so wrestlers have to work to one side of the ring, which is the side away from the announcers. So that lead to a couple moments where the announcers were talking about what a wrestler was doing, but you knew they couldn't physically see that from where they sat. So there were problems, the audio especially.

1. Pitbull Wellman vs. Jack Madison

Short match, under 4 minutes. Both guys are fairly green, especially Pitbull. Madison had a nice powerslam and big scoop Michinoku Driver, Pitbull did an amusing pinfall where he pressed across Madison's chest and lifted his leg, but this felt like a 3 minute student match.

2. Shotzi Blackheart vs. Beatrice Domino

Shotzi comes out to talk about the upcoming Dangerous Damsels tournament, and mentions they might as well just give her the belt and save her from having to go through 3 women who are "crap". Beatrice Domino comes out to a huge reaction, and says that they might as well just give her the belt, because she worked hard. It's weird to run this match a week before the Damsels event, since these two are in the tournament and could face off, but as someone who likely can't attend the show, I don't mind a bit. It looks like they got lost down the home stretch as there were some awkward moments and some time stand still moments, but Shotzi is new and they handled things fine enough. I really liked Domino here as she kept things moving, and recovered a couple of the awkward spots. In one Shotzi stood still while Domino came off the ropes, and to cover things up Domino muscled her up with minimal help and delivered a cool rydeen bomb. She also leans into a nice Shotzi high kick. Shotzi throws low on a missed clothesline, which I always like, and leans into Domino's hard clothesline. Shotzi also hits a sweet cannonball and ends the match with a killer senton off the top. I had no idea what she was doing up there, and se looked a little unsure on the top rope, but the senton landed great. I can't wait to see a match between them in a year, as they've both improved every time I've seen them. Also cool job by the promotion filming the senton from a totally different angle, higher up and looking down across the ring. Made the finish look cooler.

3. Kikyo Nakamura vs. Christina Von Eerie (2/19/16)

I don't really think Eerie ever got good, as she seems to be about the same level as the first time I saw her wrestle 6 years ago. But Kikyo is a good match up for what Von Eerie can bring skillwise. Kikyo looked really good throughout, she bumped big for Eerie's stuff, caught her on a dive, hit a great northern lights, went up for a back suplex, nice shoulderblocks, big German. Eerie really didn't look good. Her offense is either to convoluted for her to pull off clean, or she just awkwardly gets up for stuff. But again, really great Kikyo performance. Oh, and at one point in the match the camera panned slowly away from the action and moved to a long crowd shot, before slowly panning back. The whole time Kikyo had a Fujiwara armbar locked on and you could hear Von Eerie's screams. I'm sure they didn't intentionally mean to make me think about Michael Madsen cutting a guy's ear off in Reservoir Dogs, but man was I dying. I mean, Kikyo starts working the arm, we slowly pan away, hear screams, and slowly pan back. They really should have been playing Stealer's Wheel, but oh well.

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Big Time Wrestling TV 7/1/16

1. Victor Sterling vs. Tony Vargas (5/13/16)

Really good match, probably the best match they've shown on their TV. Sterling is a guy I like and Vargas I'm less familiar with, but both guys worked stiff and surprised me a couple times with the direction they took things. Sterling works better as a heel so I was happy a minute in when they were working some genial standing grappling and Sterling went to strikes. He started throwing out Garvin stomps to Vargas' arm, and ankle and knee (in a knee brace!), slammed his arm into the mat a couple times, twisted him with a cravate, hit some nice 12 to 6 elbows over Vargas' shoulder, really solid stuff. He also hit a nice knee drop I don't remember seeing him use before. Brawl on the floor was fun with Sterling hitting his nice through the ropes dropkick, then yelling at fans to move so Vargas can get tossed through the chairs. It was satisfying seeing a teen in the front row get displaced from her seat while texting. These kids today, just texting away at their internet telephones while men in their underwear fight literally two feet away from them. The tide shift is really good as Vargas has several big suplexes and Sterling took them all; some nasty release Germans, a huge over the top belly to belly where I was afraid Sterling was going to bounce right on the top of his head, and my favorite was a fight on the top rope that ended quickly with Vargas launching him with a fallaway slam. The struggle up top was believable and they didn't spend forever getting into position to hit their spot, it was nicely handled. I expected a long forearm exchange that looked more like two guys trying to keep their balance, but instead it ended quickly with Vargas kinda deadlifting him into the slam, while Sterling struggled to stop it by grabbing the ropes. Awesome spot.  I wish we could have gotten a decisive finish as it ends in a 15 minute draw, but at least they didn't telegraph the draw by doing "minutes remaining" announcements or scrambling for sudden 2 counts. The 15 minutes was an honest count and that's refreshing, just wish we got an actual finish. Still, really good match. These two have worked each other several times over the years and the comfort and familiarity showed.

2. Ruby Raze vs. Beatrice Domino (5/13/16)

Another good match, and again the best match I've seen from both. Raze seemed to gas a bit by the end so there were a couple of clumsy moments but overall this was good. Both worked stiffer than I've seen them work, with Domino throwing these cool downward strikes to Raze's nose and Raze blasting her with elbows. I don't remember Domino having strikes this good, but the whole match she was throwing really tight punches, and I don't recall Raze ever working this mean, so this was just good all around. Raze hits a nice neckbreaker over the middle rope , Domino breaks out some new offense I hadn't seen like a killer diving clothesline and an impressive spear. At one point they basically lock legs and fight at close range, throwing punches and elbows with Domino knocking Raze hard to her back with a nasty elbow, but Raze fired back with a hard kick right to Domino's chest. Domino sold it great, possibly because she just got kicked real hard in the chest. Real good match that might have gone a bit too long with kickouts, but these two are getting better and better, and I'm especially excited to see where Domino keeps going.

This was a really wonderful half hour of pro wrestling TV, with two of the absolute best matches the promotion has shown, with next to no filler (except for the painfully unfunny Hank Renner Jr. bumpers and the awkward as hell Bret Hart commercial for their wrestling school that airs every week). Even in other weeks when the wrestling isn't great, they at least always make the most of their time. It really puts the old Pro Wrestling Revolution show to shame, when they would regularly air matches with full, long, unedited ring intros, oftentimes not even starting a match until past the 10 minute mark of a 30 minute PAID show.  BTW definitely makes the most of their time, which you think would be a natural thing for a fed paying to air their wrestling show. Good for them for doing the obvious thing.

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Big Time Wrestling TV 6/24/16

1. Ruby Raze vs. Kahmora (2/19/16)

They've added a "ref cam" for a couple parts of this match, which is wholly unnecessary. I don't think a ref cam has ever looked good. Modern ref cams come off looking almost exactly the same as when they first toyed with this gimmick 25 years ago. The benchmark is still early 2000s AAA ref cam which would have an ear piercing BEEP sound every couple of seconds while we were in ref cam view. Anyway, I had seen these two on the opposite side of a Premier tag match last year, with Raze and Kikyo opposite Kahmora and Savoy. I really liked that tag, but this fell a little short. A lot of strikes whiffed, there was some miscommunication moments, Raze had some awkward moments backing into position for moves and sandbagging Kahmora on a German. It went pretty early into big move epic feel, with a DDT on the apron, big neckbreaker with Kahmora draped over the top (which the hilariously inept Hank Renner Jr. calls "out of nowhere!" even though she carefully set it up for several seconds, and the only other move she can do from there would have been a high angle DDT), and then planting Kahmora with a nice back suplex for the win. I could see them having a better match, as several moments seemed a step off. They do each seem better in a tag setting though.

2. Jack Madison vs. Tyler Bateman (5/13/16)

Bateman is a guy I really like, who often seems to match up against opponents who aren't really used to his style. I did see an awesome match with Thatcher once and loved it, but typically he's working nasty wrist locks on vanilla babyfaces. Here he is working nasty wristlocks against a vanilla babyface with a Top Gun gimmick! Disappointed that Bateman cut off his long locks, I really liked his jerk ponytail. Now he just looks like a skinnier modern Anthony Kiedis. But the arm and wrist work is still nasty. This match was real fun with Bateman wrenching on Madison's arm, bending his wrist at some seriously sick angles, bending and biting at his fingers, while leaving plenty of room for Madison to make comebacks. Bateman would always come back to the arm and Madison was game for selling it. At one point Bateman had Madison's arm over the top rope and was pulling hard on it back through the middle rope, really rough stuff. Finish was pretty standard 80s babyface stuff, selling for 85% of the match and then hitting a couple moves to win, but the moves looked nice and Bateman got nice height taking a rydeen bomb. Madison really needs to figure out how to do a legsweep though, as it looked far more like Bateman dropped him with a DDT. Madison is pretty new though, so hopefully he grows out of the phase where he looks like he does moves to himself. Bateman is a real fun talent and I hope he pops up on TV more. I always dig seeing him.

Hank Renner Jr. is just the worst though, officially one of my all time least. Everybody is a "student of the game" or some shit, and whatever his phony ass Gorilla Monsoon catchphrase gimmick is, it's failing badly.  His vocal and verbal presence on TV is a net negative.

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Big Time Wrestling TV 6/17/16

1. Beatrice Domino vs. Lisa Lace (12/4/15)

Love Domino wearing a "Black Friday" shirt. Her gimmick is tough to pull off, as being a black crusader is a noble thing, but she acts like a heel, meaning it comes off like people are booing black lives matter, which is sticky. But this was a decent enough match, though the crack announce team was muddying the waters over who was the heel and who was the face, making things come off flat. Domino is kind of a complicated character to call anyway, and they always flop by having one of the commentators call her like comedy, which is just really annoying. But Lisa Lace was billed as being from another promotion, so part of the time they were treating her like an outsider, other times they were treating her like an underdog. They can be real bad. Lace is still inexperienced but working a lot, and her stiff disjointed nature kinda adds to matches. She has a good intensity and brings a little something extra than some other girls. Domino has some cool stuff, I liked her blocking a Lace roll up by stomping on her chest, and I'd really like to see more from both.

2. Zach Muir & Pitbull Wellman vs. Andre LeVeaux & Chico Navarro (5/13/16)

This is LeVeaux's first match, and kind of a tough call teaming him with Navarro, who has worked for years and often comes off untrained. Muir has an amusing heel gimmick as a zen master, so he has a bunch of fun holier than though ways to get out of moves, like an ultra cocky yoga teacher who specializes in hands-on guiding women students into tough poses. LeVeaux seemed fine, and Navarro looked better than normal at points, but I also don't think I've seen any wrestler throw worse stomps than Chico. They are impossibly embarrassing. Pitbull didn't do a whole lot and it was up to Muir to hold this short match together and he gamely tried, even taking a headscissors from a female valet. Short, not that good, but mostly inoffensive. They should really pick a different guy to feature every week than Chico Navarro, though, especially if they want to constantly talk about how they have the #1 training academy in the country.

3. Will Cuevas vs. Will Roberts (12/4/15)

Seeing guys like Navarro really makes you appreciate the polish that somebody like Will Cuevas brings to Bay Area wrestling. He feels like a guy who can get gigs around the country, has a good look and a nice moveset. Roberts is pretty new but looks good, although they looked best here when they weren't doing obviously planned sequences. All of the reversal stuff looked overly rehearsed and it was better when they kept things simple. Cuevas at one point hits a neat knee to the face, but it hardly gets sold by Roberts because it came in the middle of a planned reversal sequence. I hate that kind of stuff. But Cuevas hits simple things well, like nice forearms, a real good vertical suplex, nie headlocks, nice basics. But that temptation to do more complicated stuff is always there...

Kind of a nothing show this week with three short matches. Three 6 minute matches isn't very satisfying as nobody in the fed has the skills to work a real expert 6 minute WorldWide match, so you're just kind of left with short unsatisfying work. Plus Hank Ranner Jr. is just really bad. His announce schtick appears to be a guy in his 30s working as if he were a 65 year old sports pro. The pork pie hat, plaid sports coats and faux exasperation just scream hack.

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Big Time Wrestling TV 6/10/16

1. Victor Sterling vs. Ricky Mandel (3/25/16)

It got time, but didn't do a whole lot for me. Mandel really isn't that good, still have no clue how he got the LU gig. Although him being good may have been what lead to his eventual LU murder. He comes off real clumsy, so when he does standard cruiser stuff it always looks stumbly. He falls on his head doing that silly little backflip with his leg over Sterling's neck, falls short on superkicks, hits spin kicks in slow motion, just rarely looks good. Sterling had some nice stuff but didn't have a whole lot to work with here. Sterling's best stuff is always on the mat, as he's really good at grinding things out, pressing forearms into jaws, not showing tons of light on exchanges. But Mandel was really bad at taking some of his slightly more complicated offense. Some of the layout was there, this could have been much better with not-Mandel in there.

2. Rik Luxury vs. El Guerrero vs. Shane Kody (3/25/16)

When you get a Shane Kody match, you know what you're in for. Kody is the owner of the fed, the champion of the fed, the guy who never loses in the fed, the guy who rarely bumps in the fed, the guy who can't even let a heel get a visual pin, the guy who throws mostly chops. There are plenty of immobile workers in their 50s that I dig, but they all tend to be guys I loved or would have loved in their 30s. Kody works like a guy who was never actually a good worker at any age. The match goes far too long, and really only survives because it had a guy like Rik Luxury in there to glue things together. Guerrero is a real zero, a guy who looks athletic but never does a single athletic thing, and genuinely looks untrained. He hardly does anything you could even call offense. So Luxury had to have his boots on in this one, and luckily for me he did. He ably stooged around for Kody, at one point hilariously going up for a Flair turnbuckle flip but stopping half way through and delaying the upside down portion of the bump, before belly flopping back in the ring. He takes all of the bumps to the floor, makes a good point of falling into a bunch of front row fans as he's getting chopped around the ring, adds whatever ebbs and flows the match has (Kody essentially stands around the entire match, outside of one nice bump he takes after taking a shot with his cowbell), setting up the other two for their moments. Rik even breaks out a gorgeous asai moonsault. Did think Rik had it in him. So yeah, you knew this was going to be a Kody match. When the ref gets bumped after Kody takes a cowbell shot, he even kicks out of a fake pinfall counted by Luxury. The guy shows absolutely zero ass at any point. He's like HHH, but if HHH wrestled like five-years-from-now Jim Duggan. It's really a bummer. Still, Rik Luxury. Class all the way.

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Big Time Wrestling TV 5/13/16

1. Nicole Savoy vs. Beatrice Domino (2/19/16)

I've been interested in seeing Domino, as she's working a fairly edgy and unique gimmick for wrestling. Now, she paints her face like the Marvel character Domino (not sure how long she'll be able to work this gimmick) but has a BlackLivesMatter slant to her character. Her shirt for this match said "Trayvon - Don't Shoot" and walks slowly around the ring with her hands up in an I Surrender pose. The fans seem really receptive to it and didn't respond to it as a heel gimmick like I assumed.  I'm not sure how far you can really take the message within a wrestling context, but keeping the awareness there is worth something. The announcer instantly shits the bed with a "Shades of the Nation of Domination". Ugh. Early on she at least does her part to fight black stereotypes in wrestling, as she delivers a headbutt and staggers herself. Savoy is really good, easily one of the best bay area ladies. Domino hasn't been around nearly as long so show some awkwardness in spots. Savoy broke out some cool Indian deathlock subs, had some big chops and kicks to the chest, hit a big dive; Domino was a little tentative and clunky, but overall the match worked. Finish was a little sloppy though with Domino turning a snapmare into a small package for the win, but Savoy's shoulder could not have been farther off the mat.

2. Victor Sterling vs. JR Kratos (1/22/16)

They started the show by saying this episode was going to be all lady matches, but I guess that promise only lasted 10 minutes. Still, Sterling is my boy and I was interested in this match when I saw it happened. It didn't quite live up to expectations but it wasn't bad. Kratos worked heel and Sterling worked face, and I think they're each better as the opposite. There were a couple awkward moments where either Sterling got into position too quick, or Kratos wasn't in position early enough, so you had some time stand still action. There was a long weird top rope struggle where a lot of stuff missed but was sold, and it ended with Kratos suplexing Sterling off the top and dumping himself on his head. I think both guys would have matched up much better if the roles were reversed. Kratos doing his power offense as a babyface would have been more effective, and I've seen Sterling's heel stuff and know it's good. Him sneaking in offense against Kratos would have been better than him valiantly fighting back. Kratos hits a decent piledriver that I wasn't expecting, and takes a good bump into the ringpost, Sterling hits a really cool dropkick across the ring corners under the bottom rope after the post shot. I liked the finishing powerbomb-turned-Sterling sunset flip. Sterling whipped over on it real nice and held a high cradle which looked believable.

Well, I really liked Savoy on this episode, I like how current the matches are, and I like how packed the half hour is with wrestling. There's one commercial in the middle, only the necessary parts of matches are shown (meaning most of the entrances and long ring announcements are trimmed) and there are only a couple of cutaway bumpers to the announce crew. It's nicely edited for content, and that's a plus for a self-produced indy wrestling show.

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Big Time Wrestling TV 5/6/16

Local Bay Area fed Big Time Wrestling started popping up on local TV a couple weeks ago, and I've been meaning to check out their show. Finally remembered to set my DVR (5 AM on Friday mornings!) so let's see what they have to offer.

1. Classic Connection (Levi Shapiro & Buddy Royal) vs. Chaos Inc. (Tony Vargas & Synn) (12/4/15)

This was really good, and a great way to dive into their TV. Vargas was the only guy I was unfamiliar with. Synn looks like a taller, fatter B-Boy. Shapiro and Royal have been working as the Classic Connection for many years, but really seem to be peaking as a team. Chaos worked over Shapiro to start and Shapiro was good bumping around for them, with the best part being Shapiro getting tied in the ropes and getting blasted by a Synn lariat. Shapiro took it great, with his arms tied behind him, and ended up falling back into the ring in a great Terry Funk-like way. But things got really good when the Classic isolated Vargas and began working over his knee. It started simply enough with Shapiro tagging out and holding onto Vargas' leg while Royal dropped a knee on it, but then there were all sorts of low kicks, shoulder tackles, and a brutal spot where Royal gets bodyslammed onto Vargas' prone knee. Vargas was good selling the leg, doing a great fall down on a rope running spot, and him fighting back against the Classics was good. One spot I had to rewind as Royal is setting up a figure 4 near the ropes, and Vargas pushes him off with his good leg, and Royal gets launched over the top to the floor. Great looking spot. Royal gets more bonus points as back in he puts the figure 4 on the proper leg. We build to the hot tag and Shapiro tosses powder in Synn's eyes and hits a superkick. Classics set up a superplex spot with Shapiro aiming to suplex Royal onto Synn, but Synn moves and hits a splash for the win. This was a really good tag with Synn being the only weak point. He looked fine in the first couple minutes, but looked tentative and off on his hot tag, then hit a real weak standing splash for the pinfall. I really liked this tag, really want to see more Classic Connection. This was easily my favorite match of theirs.

2. Shane Kody, Mike Matthews & Chico Navarro vs. Ballard Bros. & El Guerrero (1/22/16)

Oof this one was bad. Ballards looked fine and I liked a couple of Matthews' exchanges, but everybody else looked bad. Chico Navarro has been working in BTW for a decade and looks completely untrained. I mean, right down there with the worst worker you've ever seen on any wrestling show. He's only in for a minute or so, but it's not too hard to imagine any fan from the crowd stepping into the ring and doing at least as well. He has no clue how to position himself, no clue what to do between "moves" other than stand there going "come on, come on", and nothing he does resembles something a pro wrestler might do. Just brutal. Kody is in his early 50s and can't do  much more than throw bad punches and slaps. He is the spitting image of current Jim Duggan, though I'd much rather see current Duggan in the ring.  Guerrero wears athletic shoes and basketball shorts, and does nothing athletic in the ring. He and Kody had a "throwdown" at one point where they I believe were attempting to exchange punches or...something. Looked like two guys leaning against each other waving their arms towards the others' face. Luckily Shannon Ballard works most of this. The commentary crew kept acting as if it were impossible to tell the Ballards apart, even though Shane is a good 30 lb. more than Shannon at this point. But the Ballards did the best with what was available, but man was there nothing at all available. I cannot understand a fed putting someone like Chico Navarro on TV.

This is the third episode, and what a mixed bag it was! A tag I really really liked, and a really bad 6 man tag. However, I did like how they made use of their TV time. A year or two ago when Pro Wrestling Revolution ran TV, it was the most poorly managed wrestling show possible. They would show full ring entrances, really long, bad promo segments that are at best amusing to the crowd there live, and just stretch 10 minutes matches out to fill 30 minutes. It was a mostly embarrassing wrestling presentation. This was a show that was at least clearly edited for max TV exposure. They fit two long matches into the airtime by cutting right to the opening bell and cutting away right after a match would finish. No wasted time. Ring entrances are completely pointless on a show like this, ad BTW gets it. Let the commentary crew explain who is in the match. They also wisely ran upcoming show announcements in a runner at the bottom of the screen. That's way more efficient and doesn't cut away from any ring time. The audio commentary is poorly recorded, but that's the case with most indy wrestling so judging it as bad as it seems. The main commentator was not good, but at least sounded like a professional.

Overall it's an easily digestible half hour of local wrestling television, and I'll definitely come back for more.

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