Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Dynamo Special Comment

Now, as promised, a special comment about Tuesday's Dynamo Pro Wrestling show at Off Broadway in St. Louis, Missouri.

The audience is slowly growing at Dynamo's new venues...Tuesday night is a tough slot for a wrestling show but the fan enthusiasm comes off well in the intimate venue. It's the polar opposite of the Sports Academy in Glen Carbon where the crowd noise doesn't come off as well in such a huge building.

Your ring announcer was Chris Roedel(with Luke Roberts handling extra announcements); your referees were Jay King and Patrick Hook. Your sponsors were Stag Beer and Strange Donuts(providing free gooey butter cake and Butterfinger-flavored donuts for the night).

Mike Outlaw vs. Danny Adams: Both men are newcomers to the wrestling scene; Adams is a trainee of ROH Heavyweight Champion Michael Elgin and Outlaw is a recent graduate of the Dynamo training school. I'm pretty sure I've seen almost all of their matches at this point...they got about ten minutes and had a solid opener. Outlaw gave out a bandanna to a ringside fan...yay for fan interaction. Once Outlaw was established as the crowd favorite of the two, Adams worked a more heelish style in response. Outlaw got the win(his first?) after a Macho Elbow in 9:07.

Brandon Aarons vs. Paco Gonzalez vs. Rocket Mapache vs. "The Bosnian Warchild" Spi-Ral vs. Jackal vs. "The Alternative" Brandon Gallagher: This was an elimination-style six-way dance, though only two wrestlers were legally in the ring at one time. As the lone outright heel, Gallagher ate an early superkick from Spi-Ral and then decided to bide his time on the arena floor. I noticed very few actual tags(if any), but it made sense in the bigger picture: Let the other guys wear each other out and then pick up the pieces. Gallagher's had previous encounters with Aarons, Mapache, and Jackal, so it was in his best interests to stay out of the line of fire...he tripped Jackal to set up Paco's Oklahoma roll for the first elimination. After that, Gallagher quickly rolled up Gonzalez with a handful of tights for fall number two. They didn't announce elimination times, but those took place in the first five minutes...things settled down after that as Gallagher locked up with Mapache. Yes, there WAS a "Rabies" chant.

Mapache and Gallagher tangled for a few minutes; that ended when Gallagher blocked a sunset flip for his second elimination of the match. That brought in Aarons as Gallagher was feeling confident, but it didn't last as Aarons eliminated him with a half-nelson pumphandle suplex. Notably, that meant a face/face finale between Aarons and Spi-Ral...Spi-Ral has a unique arsenal with mat wrestling ability, aerial moves, and some martial-arts kicks. He got some good airtime on the top-rope splash that earned him his first Dynamo victory in 14:47.

"Dirdey" Jake Dirden vs. Brandon Espinosa: Despite both being mainstays in the area wrestling scene for the past few years, this was their first one-on-one encounter. Espy had trouble dealing with Dirden's size advantage in the early going, but a timely distraction by the arriving Lucy Mendez allowed Espinosa to clip the knee. Espy focused his attack on the leg to keep the bigger man down...Dirden made the comeback but that brought out Heavyweight Champion Ricky Cruz to personally get involved. Lucy distracted the ref as Cruz got up on the ring apron with the title belt...but he accidentally hit Espinosa with the gold when Dirden avoided the shot. Dirden knocked Cruz off the apron and got the victory with the Asiatic Spike in 10:27...looks like the Cruz-Dirden issue is far from over.

The Black Hand Warriors(Michael Magnuson & David DeLorean)(w/ Travis Cook) vs. The Bumrush Brothers("The Don Mega" Shorty Biggs & Outtkast) for the Tag Team Titles: These teams have traded the belts a few times in this calendar year...the Warriors' Dynamo appearances have been scarce in this title reign as they're also WLW Tag Champs. Travis made an extended pre-match speech, noting the absence of Executive Director Mark Bland and suggesting that he and his crew could get away with whatever they wanted to do. I suspected another title change could happen...while there were several close falls in the finishing stretch, it didn't quite work out that way. Shorty got his hands on Travis and picked him up on his shoulders, but the referee's attention was on Outtkast and DeLorean brawling on the floor. That allowed Magnuson to stun Shorty with a low blow and roll him up for the pin. This feud...MUST CONTINUE~!

"The King Of Chaos" Ricky Cruz(w/ Lucy Mendez) vs. "Night Train/Gorgeous/Great One" Gary Jackson for the Heavyweight Title: Gary wrestled a handful of times for GCW and MRW before that, but he hadn't competed for Dynamo until an Off Broadway show a few months ago when he defeated Brandon Gallagher. Ricky and Gary had faced each other a couple of times in SICW when Ricky was the Classic Champion, but both were fan favorites at the time and Cruz is decidedly NOT a good guy any more. Lucy got involved a few times, of course. Jackson had Cruz set up for the Texas Cloverleaf but Lucy distracted the ref...in the ensuing chaos, Ricky mulekicked Jackson in the Universal Weak Point(tm) and got the pin with feet on the ropes. (Two low-blow finishes in a row, I note.) Didn't get a match time for this one. After Gary recovered, he challenged Ricky to face him again in a street fight-style matchup...hmm.

So, that ends my run of three shows in five days...and August is looking like a busy month:

-Saturday 8/2: Dynamo in Fenton, MO
-Sunday 8/3: High Risk Wrestling in Belleville, IL
-Friday 8/8: Dynamo in Eureka, MO
-Saturday 8/9: PWCS in Granite City, IL; MMWA in St. Louis, MO
-Saturday 8/16: SICW in East Carondelet, IL
-Saturday 8/23: DPW in Glen Carbon, IL

Good night, good luck, and #yaywrestling.

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