MMWA Special Comment

Big crowd for the first South Broadway show of 2012...only one match was announced ahead of time, but it was a big title matchup that had been built for the past few months.

The first half of the show had solid in-ring action...when Mauler came out with a bullrope, I joked that I finally knew who took Poodoo The Cow's cowbell. :-D A bit surprised that Courageous got the win over Archer, but Archer's feuding with the ring announcer in SICW and Courageous still has his rematch clause for the Jr. Heavyweight Title. Osborne faced the Jr. Heavyweight Champion again(honestly don't remember if it was a title match) but it took a lot from Hawkins to keep him down.

Onward to the second part of the event...Tony Raze and Jimmy D had a falling-out after Jimmy(under the Waco mask) cost Raze and Big Texan the Tag Team Titles at the Lemay show. Raze and Jimmy had a shot at the Lumberjacks at the December show but didn't win the belts, resulting in Jimmy bringing his brother Frankie D out of retirement for this grudge match. The match...um...yeah...it wasn't very good. Nope. Not good at all. Nope. Nope. They fought to a draw(mistakenly announced as a double countout at first by ring announcer Ben Simon) which means they'll be fighting AGAIN! WOO~!

My initial speculation was that Cruz-Vaughn would have an indecisive finish of some kind to set up a rematch, but Vaughn's post-match attack did that quite effectively even with Cruz getting the decisive victory. Really good contest here; the rematch should be tremendous as well.

With the last two Gary Jackson-Brandon Espinosa matches ending with run-in DQs, they set this up as a lumberjack match. Sadly, that stipulation in recent years has meant that they're simply saving the interfering wrestlers the trouble of running all the way from the backstage area to get involved(as we saw on Smackdown). The Cruz-Vaughn issue spilled over into this matchup, resulting in Espinosa finally capturing the title...I hadn't even realized that Gary had held the belt for over a year(he won it from Future in December 2010).

Espy now holds both the Heavyweight and T.V. Titles in MMWA as well as the PWE Heavyweight Title...he also takes credit for training both Ace Hawkins and Dave Osborne who are well-decorated in their own young careers. I can recall some of the first few times I saw Espy in action and how he emulated Eddy Guerrero...and I noted the irony of his big title win resulting from someone else's spear and then a frog splash(a la Eddy's WWE Title victory). :)

It seemed anticlimatic to tack a battle royal onto the show after it peaked with the title match...it was already past 10:00 and people were starting to leave. Several storylines in the night worked into the battle royal, particularly Cruz/Vaughn(as Cruz eliminated Vaughn to end his title reign) and American Riders/Texan/Raze. I believe Osborne was a Tag Champ in PWE but this was his first singles title victory...nicely done.

Elsewhere this weekend, Tyler Priegel won the NMW Heavyweight Title from Ryan Phoenix. ROH experienced a mini-invasion from CHIKARA as Jigsaw & Hallowicked faced Tag Team Champions The Briscoe Brothers, upsetting them in a non-title match. It was a bad weekend to be a champion as T.V. Champion Jay Lethal lost a non-title encounter to Tommaso Ciampa. Eddie Edwards was unable to compete due to a staph infection.

Nothing local next weekend...3XW has a big show as NWA Heavyweight Champion Adam Pearce will be defending against Jeremy Wyatt next Friday. February looks like IHW on the 4th, MMWA on the 11th, SICW on the 18th, a benefit show in Bethalto on Sunday the 19th, and SLA on the 25th. Dynamo doesn't run again until April and MECW is off until March.