Triple-Shot Special Comment

Triple-Shot Special Comment

Hectic but fun weekend...so let's boogie.

Attendance was a bit rough since the shows were going against both the baseball playoffs and the Blues' home opener...the fans in attendance were into the shows, at any rate.

The sound system was a slight issue at Dynamo as we had trouble hearing some of the promos...

ADAM STARR~! made his return to ring announcing...been a while since I'd seen him. Intermissions are still not brief, by the way.

A couple of WLW guys worked the Dynamo show...several people had busy weekends as Saturday also had Metro Pro in Kansas City and WLW in Desloge. Lots of mileage on those vehicles...

Slight surprise to see Mad Dog McDowell get the win over Alexandre Rudolph since Rudolph is the regular competitor for Dynamo...perhaps this means McDowell will be down here more often in the future along with his regular 3XW tag partner Jon West(who was also in attendance for the show).

Some MRW/GCW alumni were in the house for Pete Madden's hardcore match: Big Bad Ben, J Caster, and Kevin X. Don't know much about Sanchez(who went from being called Hector "Dirty" Sanchez to just El Sanchez) but he's done well so far.

With Steven Kennedy absent, Greg Jovi was forced into his in-ring debut and played his part well, staying out of the line of fire for most of the match. However, the referee misinterpreted an encouraging pat on the back to partner Adam Rich as a tag and that led to his downfall. I did note that Jovi was lucky to have wrestling gear with him in case he was forced into in-ring competition... :) They made mention of Dynamo starting Tag Team Titles in the near future...goodie.

I think I'm officially burned out on the schmozz matches...four-corner isn't quite as bad, but the six-way matchup had a lot of times where people were on the outside and not doing much of anything. Even when they were doing stuff, the fans didn't always notice as the focus was on the action in the ring. Always good to see MsChif, who had the Freddy Kruger motif going with the striped top and the blade glove. For his part, Billy McNeil was sporting a hat straight out of the Cartoon Network show Adventure Time...bwahahaha.

I mentioned some of those in attendance and I had a chance to talk to Amy Hennig for the first time in a while...she's been on a break from wrestling in recent months. Don't know for sure if she'll get back into it, but I hope she does as she was doing well for someone in the early stages of her career.

Fine matchup between Jeremy Wyatt and Trent Stone...Wyatt retained, but only by countout and Stone delivered a post-match spear so the issue may not be settled just yet.

Mike Sharona hadn't wrestled much at all in recent years...if I'm not mistaken, his most recent match before this past weekend was in the summer of 2010. He was a bit rusty but hit a few of his signature aerial moves in the matchup. Odd way to finish things as Dan Walsh is now officially out of contention for K.C. Karrington's NWA Missouri Title...

Onward to South Broadway...think I'm getting a bit old for the longer drives so I'll stay close to home for the most part. :)

It was advertised as a "luck of the draw" night with match participants drawn at random with the exception of the previously-hyped Jackson-Espinosa title match. Of course, we just happened to have the Tag Team Title feud participants in singles matches against each other...yay wrestling. :-D

Enjoyed the Ace Hawkins-Max Archer opener...as I've said, I'm liking Archer's heel work as he did a good job of focusing on the arm. A handspring attempt by Hawkins went awry, but one could blame that on the injury as he couldn't put his weight on that arm...PSYCHOLOGY~!

Do I HAVE to address the situation in the second match?...all right, since heaven knows it's a good idea for me to get in the middle of these situations. *snicker* I never learn, do I?

Good match between LaMarcus Clinton and Mephisto(who did a promo before the match to establish that he's a heel now). Here's how things ended, to the best of my memory: Referee Jim Harris wouldn't count a rollup pin attempt by Mephisto because LMC was in the ropes. Mephisto shoved Harris to the extent that he tumbled through the ropes(he was all right), causing a disqualification. Commissioner Keith Smith took exception to this rough treatment of an official and ordered Mephisto to leave the ring, calling for a police escort. I believe Mephisto ripped off some of his wrist tape and threw it in Keith's direction, prompting Keith to respond with some rather harsh language. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed to an extent as Mephisto left with the police officer after that, leaving the building during the following matchup. Later in the night, Keith apologized to the fans for his language and said Mephisto wouldn't be working there any more.

There had been some past issues between those two...I note that if I hadn't gotten involved in the situation at Dynamo a few months back, it probably would have been Keith and that might not have turned out too well EITHER. I believe Harris was the only referee for the night(Bobby Patton wasn't there and I don't recall seeing Keith Jr.) so it could have screwed up the rest of the show if he had been injured in that tumble out of the ring. It could have been a freak accident with Mephisto getting caught up in the moment, shoving Harris a bit harder than he should have...either way, yay indy wrestling drama. :P

Anywho...solid matchup between Osborne and Chase King, both of whom are solid wrestlers...they've had good opportunities early in their careers to travel and learn.

The singles matches between the Lumberjacks and the Big Texan/Tony Raze duo went...about as I expected. A lot of DQ finishes tonight(four out of the seven matches), though one or two were called no-contests for whatever reason. I originally wrote down Gabe over Texan by DQ because the ref called for the bell when he caught Texan attacking Gabe with Raze's nightstick, but it was a NC instead...

Gary Jackson vs. Brandon Espinosa got a good buildup(including Espy's show-starting promo)...then had a finish that didn't make a whole lot of sense. Now they've put Espy and Phil E. Blunt at odds since Blunt screwed up Espy's title shot...who do you cheer?

Looking forward to seeing more of Ricky Cruz in action...

The SLA show was hampered slightly by the fact that MANY people were under the impression that the show was at their regular venue in O'Fallon, IL. However, it was at the LWA's old stomping ground of Fairview Heights in a building that housed most of their early events. After the pre-show match, they took an intermission of sorts to allow the fans some time to make the drive from O'Fallon to Fairview...heh. There was no mid-show intermission because they needed a lengthy intermission to set up for the no-rope barbed-wire match in the main event.

The aforementioned preshow match seemed a bit rushed. I believe it was the in-ring debut for Brandon MacGreggor(think I got that spelling right) who they announced as having graduated from a recent seminar...looks like a possible feud with fellow rookie Aiden Young. A bit surprising for Darin Childs to get all three eliminations in that matchup, especially since he was wrestling later in the show. Hope Shorty Biggs gets to do more in SLA in the future.

Surprised to see the match involving the SLA Heavyweight Champion on (technically) first...it certainly took Al Canal(mutual friend of myself and Dan Walsh) by surprise as he missed Dan's match as a result. Dan has been using a guillotine vice submission hold as of late and they're building up to an I Quit Match at Yuletide Terror...wait, they're doing a stipulation match with a logical buildup and not just because there happens to be a gimmick show on the schedule? YAY WRESTLING~! It was my first time seeing Bolt Brady, he looked good in there. Fine tag match, look forward to seeing the Submission Squad on NWA Anarchy TV in the near future.

No explanation for K.C. Karrington's absence from the six-man tag. ACW competitor Ricky Romida took his place and his look prompted some fans to chant "Joe Is Gonna Kill You"...cute. It continues to be ridiculous to see the Hooligans pull off some of the moves they do.

An oddball interview segment led to a face turn of sorts for Alex Shelley as well as Gunner Franks' introduction to the promotion. The inclusion of "Mrs. Victor" sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of everything else on these shows. Always cool to see Matt Cage, have become a big fan of his. Athena's been moving up in the world as she's become a regular at SHIMMER. Crimefighter wondered if they would book Shelley vs. Alexandre Rudolph to play off an incident at an LWA show several years ago...um, look it up. :)

A.C.H. vs. Arik Cannon was GREAT, definitely my favorite match of the weekend. Cannon is severely underrated. A.C.H. manages to be innovative in a wrestling era where it seems like everything has "been done" and I hope he gets a shot in a bigger promotion in the very near future.

Dingo and Christian Rose had a tough act to follow but they had a pretty good match...the face/heel alignments are tough as Dingo's a heel but the local fans don't want to root against him.

Me to Greg Jovi(managing Mat Fitchett at SLA): "Didn't I hate you on Friday?" Fun three-way dance here...Fitchett's getting a lot of hype lately and I've even compared him to Evan Bourne in certain respects. Things are looking up for him...coolness.

Darin Corbin is apparently the favorite wrestler of Al Canal's daughter...he got her an autographed picture later in the show. :) One of these days, I'll find out where Ryan Cruz went. Corbin's line to Rachel before their match was one of the wrong-est things ever said on a wrestling show and that covers a lot of ground.

I've said in the past that the ultra-hardcore style of matches like the barbed-wire matchups aren't exactly my personal cup of tea. I will also say this: Um...who starts a no-rope barbed-wire match with a HANDSHAKE?!? :)

This will be a rare weekend off from local wrestling as I have a family outing on Saturday evening...next weekend might be open as well unless I go to the Underground Wrestling show at Pop's on Sunday. On the 29th, there's MMWA in Lemay with Madison Rayne and MECW in Wood River...tough choice.