SLA Special Comment

Now, as promised, a special comment about Friday's St. Louis Anarchy "Circus Maximus" show at the Knights Of Columbus Hall in Alton, Illinois.

SLA has been drawing really good crowds lately and they seem to get better with each event...cool for them. The in-ring quality has always been there, though I suppose your mileage may vary depending on your attitude toward the Ring Of Honor bang-bang huge-moves-for-two-counts style. I'm somewhere in the middle...I don't mind it to a point, I guess.

I didn't know the name of the ring announcer or the two referees who weren't Brandon Tolle. One of the refs got some grief from the fans for officiating in jeans...heh. The other official got grief for being a bit slow on the mark with the pin counts, to the point where even the wrestlers seemed a bit impatient with him.

Danny Adams, Shane Sabre, & Channing Decker vs. Ashley Sixx, John Greed, & Michael Schofield: First of all, I appreciate the ring announcer's help with the names of everyone but Danny Adams(who I'd seen at Ring Of Honor and Dynamo). Google helped me match the names to the remaining wrestlers(Sabre helpfully had "Sabre" on his ring attire). The SLA ring is a bit small for multi-participant matches like this, I have noticed. My personal philosophy: The more people in a match, the harder it is to get a read on individual competitors. That especially holds true when I'm unfamiliar with the people involved...I THINK I'd seen Sixx's name somewhere before, but I don't think I'd seen any of his matches. From what I understand, these six participated in Michael Elgin's recent training camp. Sabre took abuse from Sixx's trio, then Adams got the hot tag and cleaned house...he finished with a Codebreaker on Schofield(I think).

A.C.H. vs. Johnny Gargano: Admittedly, this amounted to "hey, two cool wrestlers, let's you and him fight". Gargano is best known for his Dragon Gate USA exploits and had a long reign as Open The Freedom Gate Champion until recently dropping the title to Ricochet. A.C.H. has been gaining notoriety on the national indy scene, including an increased role in ROH as well as Pro Wrestling Guerrilla on the west coast. Gargano appeared for SLA a few months ago as a substitute tag partner for Young Buck Nick Jackson against Davey Vega and Mat Fitchett...since he got the winning pinfall, SLA announced that he would get a title shot down the line. After Gargano got the hard-fought win by blocking a La Majistral cradle, he said he was challenging the winner of the night's championship match...sounds like that'll happen at the next show, which I think is scheduled for October).

Thomas Shire vs. Evan Gelistico: Gelistico's been on a losing streak in recent months in St. Louis Anarchy. The SLA fans seemed to think that Shire bears a resemblance to Jack Swagger...I don't see it, other than the singlet. Shire played along, even doing the "We The People" catchphrase. Shire's repertoire resembled Antonio Cesaro's more than Swagger's...he's one of the few guys who still travels up to these shows from ACW in Texas. Gelistico's woes continued as Shire won after a spinning torture rack and drop...I was afraid Evan would go flying out of the ring on that move.

Arik Cannon vs. Zakk Sawyers: Another solid matchup here...Sawyers has looked good in his SLA outings this year. I had mostly seen him on Pro Wrestling Collision's online shows prior to his SLA debut. Cannon didn't have his usual Pabst Blue Ribbon cooler on this night. At any rate, Cannon got the win with a hanging neckbreaker.

Davey Vega vs. Christian Rose(w/ Greg Jovi): The BOSS stable is all over the place...Jovi was out with Rose and Jeremy Wyatt but not with Dan Walsh and Jordan Lacey. Of course, he probably just wanted to stay out of the line of fire...on top of that, Dorian Victor was out with Gerald James instead of Jovi. Despite his best intentions, Jovi had a rough night as he accidentally got booted off the apron by Rose near the end of this matchup. As good as the match was, I didn't see Rose defeating a guy with wins over Roderick Strong and Chris Hero in this calendar year. Like Gargano, Vega wants a title shot...and he specifically requested it for Yuletide Terror. Vega once defeated Gerald James(then Gary The Night Owl) for the LWA Title at a Yuletide Terror, so history may repeat iself...

The Hooligans(Devin & Mason Cutter) vs. The Young Bucks(Matt & Nick Jackson): SLA had this booked for March 1st, but Matt Jackson was out of action with a broken hand so A.C.H. substitued as Nick's partner. Incredibly, the Bucks managed to save the SUPERKICK PARTY~! until late in the bout. The Hooligans won clean with their finisher...with all the post-match handshakes on this night, it seemed out of place in this case.

Jojo Bravo vs. "Unbreakable" Michael Elgin: These two had a competitive matchup earlier this year with Elgin winning. It looked like they would do the post-match sportsmanship thing, but then Elgin clotheslined him...ha ha. Jojo was the sympathetic favorite here, complete with a "Jojo's Gonna Kill You" chant. It was a similar story in this case with Jojo fighting a much larger opponent and trying to pull out a miracle. He came close again, but the new ROH Heavyweight Champion was a bit too much for him. The turnbuckle powerbomb/spiral bomb combo ended Jojo's night...Elgin talked about how NOW Jojo had earned his respect, shook his hand, and raised his arm. However, this led to ANOTHER cheapshot attack as Elgin dropped him with a post-match powerbomb. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...you don't get fooled again.

Kyle O'Reilly vs. "The Rebel" Jeremy Wyatt(w/ Greg Jovi): This was one of only two card changes for the night; O'Reilly was scheduled to face "Dynamite" Danny Cannon who's on the shelf with an injury. These two had battled at least once before in Metro Pro Wrestling. Another fine matchup here...Jovi took a shot or two from O'Reilly, continuing his terrible horrible no-good very-bad evening. O'Reilly's been adding a legbar to his cross-armbreaker finisher...nice unique twist and that got him the win.

Darin Corbin vs. Brandon Espinosa(w/ Angelus Layne): Layne is recovering from two broken hands...a suicide dive at a recent show ended badly as no one caught her and she hit the floor hard. OW, needless to say. The story to this matchup was that Corbin believes Espinosa and Layne are LIVING IN SIN~!, so he wants them to get married. On the other side, Layne seems interested in such a relationship upgrade but Espy wants no part of it(he turns the androgynous act up to 11 at Anarchy shows). The actual stipulation was that if Corbin won, he would earn the right to marry the two at the next show...yup. I don't know if the fans were divided on this one or if they just couldn't make up their minds...I heard some very vocal chants both for and against Corbin. Angelus actively tried to sabotage her own guy so she could get married...bwahahaha. Espinosa seemed to have the match won after the frog splash(as well as he could hit the move with the low ceiling) and Layne distracted the ref, leading to the rollup pin for Corbin. Espinosa was stunned...then turned around to see Layne on one knee, ready to propose to him. Espy said "NO!" only to get dropped by a Diamond Cutter(Ginger Snap?) by Corbin...then Layne told us that Espinosa said "yes" and I guess we'll have to take her word on that.

"The American Viking" Alexandre Rudolph & Alex Castle vs. "Walking Reality" Dan Walsh & "Gorgeous" Jordan Lacey, double dog collar match: This was our second lineup change for the night...Adam Raw had a family emergency and couldn't make it to the show. This was as crazy and bloody as expected...everyone was busted open but the vampire Castle. It was tough to see everything as two guys were fighting on one side of the building and the other two were fighting on the other side. Rudolph(I think) actually used wooden BBQ skewers to puncture Lacey's forehead...owie. It took a concentrated double-team chain-choking effort to put Rudolph out and end the match...Rudolph got a great ovation afterwards.

Gerald James(w/ Dorian Victor) vs. Mat Fitchett, best-of-three-falls Tables-Ladders-And-Chairs Match for the Heavyweight Title: Since it was best-of-three-falls, it wasn't so much a TLC Match as it was a hardcore match with use of those particular weapons strongly encouraged. It was odd to put the two wild brawls back-to-back, but there you go. Multiple tables were destroyed before the first fall took place...it seemed odd at the time, but made more sense once the final result took place.  Since the best-of-three-falls stipulation became a regular thing for SLA Title matches, I'm pretty sure this was the first time a championship match went two straight falls...wow.  It sounds like Fitchett is truly taking a break from wrestling, if not leaving entirely...never say never in wrestling, I have learned.  Still, quite a way to go out.

Anywho, it was a full weekend...SICW coming up in the next comment.

Good night, good luck, and #yaywrestling.