AIW Hell on Earth 14 11/23/18

Duke Money (Mance Warner/Jock Sampson) vs. The Production (Derek Director/Danhausen) vs. Young Studs (Eric Ryan/Bobby Beverly) vs. Jollyville Fuck-Its (Nasty Russ/T-Money)

PAS: AIW has a lot of really fun multi match workers, and their big clusterfucks are at a minimum enjoyable. This was a little more than that, as we got a bunch of cool big moments, along with a really exciting finish. I love the Jollyville Fuck-Its, they are a great version of the tough guy face tag team a 21st Century version of Bruiser and Crusher. This was an especially great Nasty Russ performance, he hits a standing version of his great cannonball, does a totally unexpected and insane Orihara moonsault, and while attempting to do a cannonball on the Duke, dives from the top rope right into a kneelift which looked like it removed all of middle school from his memory. Everyone else had a cool moment or two, and they really built to a cool crescendo, just a great way to open a card.

ER: I'm officially over the moon for AIW multi man tags. They're the best. I'm not sure who's training all these guys but these matches always have a ton of moving parts and everyone is able to work real fast and real stiff without clogging up the works and stumbling through anything. It's super impressive and there's always a few wild moments and a ton of hard as hell shots. Everyone makes the most of their time in so that everybody leaves looking real good. Mance was hitting hard all match, sprinting in with hard chops and bringing a boot into play (where did that boot come from?) and Mance is really good at corner beatdowns, really made this feel more intense; The Production is a fun stable, dug Derek's avalanche and Danhausen (looking like a spitting image of King Diamond) gets dropped with a nice backdrop driver, and clonks heads at high speed with Derek in a fun spot (T-Money had Derek in a fireman's carry and was spinning him around while Russ punched him on each go 'round, Danhausen ran in to stop it and two melons collided), one of those spots that never looks good but here looked great. The breakdown of the match was pretty crazy, with Ryan hitting a huge cannonball off the apron into Derek (his stuff to the floor is great, earlier he was running into the ring and out hitting spots, including an awesome moment where he slid to the floor to hit a Russian leg sweep into the barricade), Russ hits a wild Orihara moonsault to the floor, Money hits a big pounce on Duke (who looks like Louis CK so the spot is satisfying on a couple levels) and then the spot of the freaking match: Russ goes for a cannonball off the top and eats the nastiest kneelift to the teeth from Beverly, and then Beverly eats a sick running knee from Mancer. These guys know scramble tags, know exactly what makes them work and what keeps them exciting. AIW opening match tags have pretty much become the best guarantee in pro wrestling.

Swoggle vs. MJF

PAS: Swoggle was the surprise replacement for a retired Tracey Smothers, and this was a basic comedy match, with MJF loudly talking trash and taking a pasting. Swoggle was almost too dominant, 30 seconds into the match he is throwing a German suplex, although he does work stiff, and I do buy that it would suck to try to wrestle him. Not really my thing although it was solidly executed.

Dr. Daniel C. Rockingham vs. KTB vs. Dominic Garrini vs. Joshua Bishop

ER: This was weird. Decent, but weird. It only goes about 5 minutes and Garrini/Bishop disappear to the back a couple minutes in, so we mostly get a short Rockingham/KTB singles. But this whole thing is fun enough. Garrini gets a cool release German and a nice running shot in the corner, KTB hits a suicide dive, Asai moonsault, and a nice top rope lariat, but for the life of me I still have zero clue what DCR's trap arm finisher thing is supposed to be, or who it's supposed to hurt, because every time I've seen him attempt it, it always looks like both people fucked it up. Any help on what that is supposed to be? He traps an arm, do-si-dos to the side, grabs another arm, then KTB gets dropped straight on his head while DCR acts like he's taking a rana...it's something that can only happen on the indies. A move where neither guy seems to know what he's taking or delivering, at least one guy gets dropped on his head, and the fans have no clue how to react? That's an indy finisher baby. But, the good here was good (not sure why it was so short or why Garrini got brought in to work about 1 minute of a scramble though).

No Consequences (Tre Lamar/Chase Oliver) vs. The Production (Frankie Flynn/Magnum CK)

ER: Another short match, with Magnum's epic ring entrance taking much more time than the actual match itself. And Magnum's entrance is spectacular, so that's not a huge issue. He walks around ringside taking people's hats and throwing them into the crowd, some quickly, taking his time on others, making me laugh when we cut to the hard cam and you can see him running in and out of frame snatching and throwing hats. He gets a massive reaction from the crowd too, and a guy over huge in front of his home fanbase is awesome to see. It sounds like he really went through the shit, and it will always be awesome for someone to go through the weeds and come out the other side bigger than ever. It's an easy thing to root for. We've seen these two teams match up before and they gel nicely, so it's disappointing we didn't get much of a match. There's some cool stuff, I especially dug No Consequences going for a tandem flying knee and crashing their own knees into the other, liked CK's two big spinebusters, liked Oliver's full extension superkicks, but I wanted more than a 3 minute match ending with a quick roll up.

Frankie Flynn/Magnum CK vs. Weird World (Alex Kellar/Evan Adams)

ER: That match leads directly into this match, with Weird World coming out with big trophies that I believe grant them an any time title shot. They bring a ref and start brawling on the entrance ramp and some wildness is there, but overall this didn't work. I liked Weird Body brawling through the crowd with Flynn and Derek Director taking a nice spilling bump through a chair, and back in the ring Flynn hit a cool delayed side slam that really whipped Weird Body into the mat. But this whole thing overall was too short and the champs went down way too easy. Magnum went down after getting press slammed off the top and eats a DDT and not much else to put him down. I would have liked to see an actual match with these teams. A title change should have felt like a bigger deal. But it does all make a ton more sense (and his huge reaction pre-match makes a ton more sense) after the match when CK does a long and heartfelt promo about how his back has gotten worse and he found out that he has always had spina bifida, apparently. I had noticed he really really slowly locked Kellar in a figure 4, but I just assumed he was poor at applying a figure 4. He said spina bifida was supposed to be diagnosed from birth but it wasn't diagnosed. A fan amusingly said that it was probably Dr. D who blew it. His talk is really straight from the heart and the locker room comes out and he gets a lot off his chest. He talks about his difficult upbringing and how he started watching wrestling, tells a couple stories about his career. A real nice moment.

The Philly Marino Experience (Philly Collins/Marino Tenaglia) vs. To Infinity & Beyond (Cheech/Colin Delaney)

ER: This show is almost exhausting in its high quality. The tag scene in AIW is just incredible, these guys can just keep matching up in different combinations and having killer 12 minute matches and I will keep watching these shows. This match had it all in an economical amount of time, fun opening stooging from Delaney and Cheech, great double teams from To Infinity, fun spots from all, really built in a satisfying way and never threatened to overstay. I thought Colin Delaney looked really great here, and he's a guy I've enjoyed plenty before (and really loved his Hero singles) but this felt like a guy really coming into his own. He can do quick spots, innovative-while-not-ridiculous double teams, stooging, hard shots, really moved comfortably around a ring that constantly had action in it. I really dug his sliding in-ring powerbomb to the floor, then running around the side of the ring to hit an under bottom rope dropkick back into the ring, then ran in with a leaping cutter off the middle rope that lead right to Cheech planting Marino with a sick German. Super fun sequence in a match filled with them. He and Cheech worked consecutive running elbows in the corner then follow with consecutive face washes, and every tag team in AIW seems so in sync. Delaney even surprised me later with this awesome springboard cutter that saw him climb over the ropes and stop on the inside middle rope before leaping off. Philly Marino were fun foils, with Marino hitting some nice flying spots (big leap to the floor, awesome rana off the top that sent To Infinity cannonballing into each other) and Philly having a nice fired up babyface comeback hitting some big lariats on Cheech. They all made good use of saves and cut off spots so we didn't have ridiculous kickouts, and while it took a bit to set up the match appropriately ended on a tag team Vertebreaker/Air Raid Crash, which is a suitable way to end a match. Very very excited for this tag division going forward. Also, for whatever reason, it hit me that one of the commentators during this match is basically 0.9 Rick Sanchez. He doesn't do the belching, but the dude sounds exactly like Rick while calling the action.

PAS: This was really fun stuff. Delaney and Cheech are long time staples in AIW and it was really fun to see them work subtle heel here against a pair of young energetic kids. Fat guy and flippy guy is a good tag team template, and Marino took a big beating leading to a great fired up hot tag from Philly.  Loved the springboard plancha, Marino got great height on it and he had an awesome Skayde style roll up which is a great dude to crib from. I didn't think any of the double teams looked goofus (which is always a fear with indy tag team double teams, I see you Lynch Brothers), and that finishing Vertabreaker/ARC was super nasty and I appreciated the lack of kick out. So many good tag teams in this fed, there are dozens of different match ups I am excited about.

El Hijo De LA Park vs. Facade vs. Louis Lyndon vs. Laredo Kid vs. Gringo Loco vs. Flip Kendrick

PAS: Throw a bunch of nuts in a ring and let them try every highspot in their crazed minds. Obviously not everything is going to be hit cleanly, but there is enough frosting to make this a great dessert. Loco is a fucking beast in this match, his exchanges with Laredo Kid are pretty breathtaking, and he just takes offense so well, love the fact he is back in the wrestling spotlight nearly a decade after his IWRG peak. Lyndon and Flip are brothers and have some crazy ideas, including Flip hitting a destroyer into the turnbuckles (unsurprisingly this match had a bunch of Destroyers) and Lyndon hitting double poison ranas on Facade and Flip for the win. Hijo Park was probably the weak link, but this was on the level of any crazy Crash, AAA or indy lucha spotfest.

ER: I love a good spotfest and this, like any decent fireworks show, had a couple nice peaks and then kept drawing out the action, getting to a respectable runtime and leaving before running out of ideas. If I had attended this show and not enjoyed anything on the card so far (not true as this card has whipped) but I would have left happy, saying that Gringo Loco squaring off against Laredo Kid was worth the price of admission. Those two were so good and matched up so excellently that I just kept waiting for the match to get back to more Laredo/Gringo tradeoffs. Loco is certifiably Loco, and he works such graceful fast sequences well with basically anybody, but watching him take the flourishes of Laredo were too cool, especially that absolutely nuts rana that he took onto the entrance ramp. That ramp doesn't provide a lot of room to move - let alone bump - but he caught it and tumbled on down the rampway. Hijo de Park isn't great and he slowed things down when he was in. Slower is a better speed for him as there's still delay with a lot of his moves, but when he works faster he tends to cut corners (sloppily applied ranas, ugly headscissors). Lyndon, Kendrick, and Facade all had moments, every one of them knows how to take a flipping crazy bump off another crazy move, but I still was just waiting around for cameras to show Loco or Laredo again. Because come one. We had Laredo getting flipped into a dragon rana on Loco, Loco taking an MK Ultra from Hijo Park right on the top of his head, Laredo flinging himself off the mat and bouncing around after taking a flipping piledriver, Laredo hitting an insane dive - fast as hell - that crashed him into Loco and the guardrail (with Park hitting an Asai moonsault into him right after, and Facade hitting a flip dive onto Loco) and Loco is just an expert at flying around the ring and getting delicately into position for others' madness. I have a feeling we'll be writing up more available Gringo Loco footage than just about anybody.

LA Park vs. Nick Gage

PAS: There were some moments of miscommunication and awkardness here, but for the most part it delivered on its on paper promise. Gage gets mauled early, with pretty sick chairshots, and belt shots, getting tossed into the ringside. Gage makes a comeback beating on Park some, and we get a great Park dive and spear, before the shticky finish. It felt a little like play the hits PARK, which is fine those are some good hits, but it never reached the intensity of a great PARK brawl, or even a great Gage brawl. This isn't a big main event Apuestas match or anything, and I get why he didn't go nuts and have a classic,  but the PARK ceiling is so high, that it is hard not to think about what could have been.

ER: Phil didn't think I needed to watch this, but I was still curious and like these guys, wanted to see for myself. And I'm glad I did because I thought this delivered. It wasn't clean, it was a little messy, but I thought that dirtiness added to the mean fight feel of it all. Gage looks hungry and angry, Park looks like a larger and larger boss, both look like two guys you *want* to cross paths violently. Park jumping him with a chairshot got everything off to the perfect tone, and I thought that tone was matched through to the beginning. The brawling in this had a good amount of danger, and there were some major moments like Park's colossal dive, and Gage getting powerbombed kidneys first into a couple set up chairs. Park whips him with that sharp belt, but I loved the Gage comeback we built to. I dug how Park was working this almost subtle heel, really made Gage's comeback feel more exciting. I liked the up close hits in the middle of the ring, both guys throwing hard straight arm lariats, fun low blow finish all with great vocals and visuals from Gage. I'm glad I checked out these two kooks doing their thing.

Matthew Justice vs. Tim Donst

ER: This was no DQ and had a fair amount of crazy stuff, but it had a lot of backyard level spot set up and a confusing (which is not uncommon) Donst performance. Donst keeps kind of morphing into Balls Mahoney, and here he really lazily crawls onto tables to wait to be put through them, seems tired all throughout, but has no problem taking some rough spills. He splits Justice's head open kind of early with a brutal hard chair shot, then jabs at the cut with his fingers and scrapes Justice's bullet belt into it. There are a few big table spots, a nasty Jackhammer on the entrance stage where Donst likes like he doesn't really get all the way over, Justice really taking a long time with some of the set up, really dragging out the match time for spots that weren't ever treated like anything close to a killshot. The ref even takes an insane clutched death valley driver through a table after not letting Justice wrap Donst's head in a chair. The absolute craziest spot of the match - and one of the wildest things I've seen in wrestling this year - was Donst hitting a double underhook piledriver on the entrance ramp, and Justice's head splitting that ramp into a jagged particle board hole as it completely broke away and dropped Justice into the hole. A piledriver that literally drove Justice through the surface he was being piledriven onto. It gave us a great visual of Justice disappearing into the depths. Donst dragged him out and it got a 2 count. I lost interest in it the rest of the way (which wasn't much, but everything after felt like it was post a moment they wouldn't be able to match intensity-wise).

Eddie Kingston vs. Tracy Williams

PAS: Eddie Kingston does big Puro epic matches better then anyone in Japan. This was a hell of a battle and a kicker for a great year for both guys. I get a total kick out of Brooklyn street fighter Eddie Kingston training BJJ at American Top Team, but the early rolling here was pretty great, including Kingston with an awesome guard pull. Williams stomps and twists Kingston's fingers and we get some classic Kingston bodypart selling. He is constantly pulling at his finger, trying to pop it back, and get feeling back, it is a part of the match the entire time, nothing he does isn't informed at least a little bit by that bad finger. I have said it a bunch before, but Kingston may be the best seller in wrestling history, he takes a backdrop on the floor and starts groaning like someone who just blew out his knee in a pick up game. Kingston lands some very big shots on Williams, busting his eye open and smashing him with backfists. and Tracy refuses to go down. We get maybe the only good version of the emo Gargano spot, where Kingston makes the sign of the cross before trying to hit the Burning Hammer. Williams is able to flip the switch and hit two piledrivers to put Kingston down, and Kingston does his post match mic work while holding his arm straight out because of neck trauma.

ER: Main Event of a 3.5 hour 10 match show, and following a 6 man spotfest, a No DQ match, an LA Park brawl, and a fan favorite's retirement. That's a spot Eddie Kingston seems to have no problem occupying, and you knew he'd approach that fan burnout with his own unique touch on main event epic. This was a deep bruising war, and there really aren't guys around that do these deep bruising wars better than Kingston. Williams has his shoulder wrapped and Kingston is always nursing something, and that was an awesome story for two guys who couldn't look more different but have super complementary styles. Williams has hard elbows to the jaw, and the impact makes me think of my hands hurting after making bad contact with an aluminum bat. That ringing through your body. At one point Kingston starts gnawing on his tongue to get feeling to his jaw (a weird habit I sometimes do while running). Kingston hits back just as hard as Williams, sometimes Kingston can't help it and forecasts his shots, but it's a fun wrinkle in his game and I always like how he plays it. These guys throw each other around a ton, and each landing was so hard. These landings all looked no give, Kingston taking a back suplex on the floor, both getting dropping in the ring, Kingston unleashing a career shortening head and arm suplex (dumping Sauce directly onto his head and neck); all the suplexes looked tough, fought for, earned. That butterfly suplex by Kingston was something that you could see in a creative playground fight. Now, I do think the match went long. I see why they went long, and I kind of appreciate them going long considering their spot on a very big card. But my absolute favorite Kingston wars do tend to be his somewhat truncated shoot outs. This went a little over on the damage for me, and I'm never going to be excited for a piledriver rendered meaningless. These guys were crushing vertebrae, I'm going to need that to be respected. These guys earned their scars, sheesh we see in real time a cut get opened on the side of Williams' eye for goodness sakes. But these two were mean, they should have protected their killshots.

ER: What a fantastic show, this fed is really ticking off all the boxes on what I want to see on a pro wrestling show. The base style of this fed is very high floor for me, so with that structure and an enjoyable pace these shows really deliver. We're putting THREE matches from the show on our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List, and there were a couple others that were arguable. That's a show that's easy to recommend, highly.