PWCS Special Comment

Now, as promised, a special comment about Saturday's Pro Wrestling Championship Series show at the YMCA in Granite City, IL.

Disclaimer:  I'm biased.  Deal with it.

For those coming in late, PWCS has a unique format:  Four stables compete over the course of a season to have the best win/loss record.  The top two groups face each other in the season finale in an elimination tag match for the Team Championship...this would be that season finale.

Final records for the 2014-15 season:
Ego Busters(captain/manager Greg Jovi):  6-3
Blacklist(captain Makaze):  5-4
Team Anarchy(co-captains Pierre Abernathy/Davey Vega):  4-5
Resurgence(captain Steven Kennedy):  3-6

The original card experienced a few shakeups as Gary Jay, Evan Gelistico, and Pierre Abernathy were all booked for EVOLVE/FIP this past weekend, forcing the Ego Busters to shuffle their lineup.  Hype Gotti was brought in as Gary's replacement in the main event.  The scheduled Anarchy grudge match between the Submission Squad and the Kobra Kai Dojo was changed to Davey Vega & Mat Fitchett facing The Viking War Party.  It looked like Dan Walsh would be wrestling twice as he was scheduled to be in the elimination tag as well as his featured singles match with Colt Cabana...but Jovi had one more ace up his sleeve.

The small venue was a legit sellout; they had to literally stop ticket sales about a week before the show as a result.

Your ring announcer was Tito McGee; your referees were Patrick Hook and...the guy with the mullet whose name I don't know (apologies).

The Hooligans(Devin & Mason Cutter) vs. Mad Dog McDowell & Barackus:  McDowell & Barackus scored a dominant win over Brady A. Dezire & J.J. Garrett at a previous show and wanted better competition...they definitely got it.  The Hooligans have held tag team gold in practically every promotion where they have competed...I don't know what happened with High Risk Wrestling to cause the title vacancy there.  They have to be considered the favorites in the upcoming Tag Team Title tournament in St. Louis Anarchy.  The Cutters couldn't do as much aerial offense as usual due to the confined quarters, but it was still a fun tag matchup.  Obviously the opponents were too big for their usual finisher(wheelbarrow/second-rope flying DDT double-team)...Mason hit a flying Stone Cold Stunner off the second rope on McDowell and Devin pinned Mad Dog after a LARIATOOOOO in 9:00.

"The Madman" Paco Gonzalez vs. "The New Hotness" Danny Adams:  I can only imagine how often these two have faced each other in their first year of wrestling (dating back to their Ring Of Honor preshow match last summer).  People who started training at the same time can either become steady tag partners or steady rivals...they tried the tag team thing in Dynamo and it lasted all of one match as they couldn't get along.  They've got the formula down at this point; Paco won a solid matchup with an exploder suplex in 9:08...

...then Jimmy Jacobs came out and speared both guys.  It honestly took a second to register in my mind:  "Holy crap, Jimmy Jacobs."  MATCH THEN ANGLE...I can appreciate that.  I HATE HATE HATE the finish where someone interrupts a totally unrelated match.  Anywho, Greg Jovi came out to say that Jacobs was his surprise last-minute acquisition for the Ego Busters...woo.

Steven Kennedy vs. Dangerous Deveroux:  The undefeated-in-PWCS masked man had challenged Kennedy to put his spot as captain of The Resurgence on the line...with the stable coming in last for Season One, SSK had something to prove.  Deveroux attacked Kennedy from behind as he made his entrance, gaining an early advantage.  Each guy threw out their heavy artillery, but Kennedy finally got the win with the Assassination(better known as Christopher Daniels' Angel's Wings) in 7:30.  That marked Deveroux's first loss in PWCS...Kennedy vowed to turn things around for his stable in 2015, then challenged Gary Jay to a rematch from their Stage One bout...that will most likely happen at the first show of Season Two on March 14th.

Colt "Boom Boom" Cabana vs. "Walking Reality" Dan Walsh(w/ Greg Jovi):  Was looking forward to this one as soon as it was announced...I described it to someone by saying it would be "ridiculous in a good way".  When you put two guys who are both wrestlers and standup comedians in the same ring, shenanigans are bound to ensue.  This is the kind of match you need to see live since the verbal quips don't always come across well on video.  This was just a lot of fun for me to watch...hope they face each other again in the future.  The ending seemed to set up that possibility:  Cabana had Walsh in the Billy Goat's Curse(inverted Boston crab) and Jovi distracted the referee.  That allowed Jeremy Wyatt to interfere and hit Cabana with brass knuckles; after that, Walsh reversed the hold into an O'Connor Roll for the cheap pin in 13:14.  That story wasn't done for the night, as it turned out...

Intermission~!  I wondered about the difference between the water from the water fountain and the water being sold for a dollar a bottle at the concession stand...

"The Daywalker" Alex Castle vs. "The Alternative" Ozzie Gallagher vs. Steve O. Reno vs. Chuey Martinez vs. Jeff Gant vs. Justin D'Air:  There were a lot of newer faces in this matchup.  The face/heel balance was in favor of the good guys by a score of four to two(with Castle and Gallagher as the heels).  Reno is a Texas guy and currently holds the ACW U-30 Title.  Gant is also from Texas and appeared on a previous PWCS show in an undercard matchup.  I don't know much about Martinez, though I'd heard his name before; he was the biggest guy in this matchup.  He and Manimal have done annual benefit shows in Jerseyville, parts of which I'd seen on Crimefighter's "Nose Bleed Seats" YouTube show.  Justin D'Air is the artist formerly known as Sir Isaac.  Gallagher's name change provides a ready-made fan heckle of "Braaaaandooooon"...bwahahaha.  This sort of match tends to be a schmozz...it started with guys tagging in and out but broke down in a hurry.  Several guys did dives out of the ring, capped off by D'Air hitting a huge somersault plancha off the top rope.  Gant went for his own dive, but Castle was the smart one on the match and cut him off with a clothesline for the win in 5:49.

The Kobra Kai Dojo(Davey Vega & Mat Fitchett) vs. The Viking War Party("The American Viking" Alexandre Rudolph & "The Littlest Viking" Jake Parnell), St. Louis Anarchy Rules:  As previously noted, this was supposed to be Vega & Fitchett against the Submission Squad in a grudge match.  That stemmed from previous issues over the direction of the team as Vega and Pierre had different ideas about how to run things.  Vega started the match by offering a SPORTSMANSHIP~! handshake...perhaps for the benefit of a friend who was lurking in the back of the room.

This was as crazy as expected, though they were slightly restricted by the smaller venue...the vikings brought in a metal spike and no one wanted to deal with that.  Of course, that also came into play on a few occasions...especially when Rudolph military-pressed Fitchett and THREW HIM INTO THE WALL.  Eep.  A bit later, Fitchett tried to set up a top-rope Frankensteiner on Rudolph onto two chairs...but Rudolph lifted him up into a second-rope chokeslam.  Fitchett's head hit a light fixture on the ceiling and THEN he was dropped onto the pair of chairs!  That got our friend A.C.H. marking out in the back of the room...bwahahaha.  Somehow Fitchett survived all of that...he and Vega double-teamed Parnell into a near-fall so close that it nearly fooled the RING ANNOUNCER who had to correct himself.  Vega went on to pin Parnell for real after their version of Chasing The Dragon, only Vega did the brainbuster onto his own knee after Fitchett delivered the head kick...the final match time was 21:22.  I have no idea about Fitchett's wrestling future...he had been planning to hang up the boots in 2014 but Pierre "held him to his contract" so he could finish up the PWCS season.  Guess we'll see...

"The Hoss Of The Highway" J.D. Riggs vs. "Superior" Adam Rich:  This was Rich's first match in about a year and a half...he did a pretty good heel promo beforehand about how we're all quitters for breaking our New Year's resolutions.  I tried to start a "we are quitters" chant to no avail.  Riggs is a big boy, billed at 400 lbs.  I was figuring on a cheap win for Rich, but Riggs dominated most of the matchup, winning with a Vader Bomb in 3:51.

The Blacklist(Makaze, Outtkast, Jojo Bravo, & Nate Redwing) vs. The Ego Busters("The Zombie Princess" Jimmy Jacobs, "The Rebel" Jeremy Wyatt, "The Elitist" Brandon Espinosa, & Hype Gotti):  The teams had a few changes over the course of the season...Wyatt started the season with Team Anarchy before defecting to the Ego Busters.  Christian Rose actually ditched The Blacklist, leading to Outtkast facing Pierre and Castle in a handicap match at Stage one...Rose would join the Ego Busters, but unfortunately he had other obligations on this night and couldn't be a part of the finale.  Gotti was a late replacement for the absent Gary Jay and Jacobs was Jovi's ace in the hole so Walsh wouldn't be wrestling twice.

The match started with Redwing and Wyatt, notable since they had main-evented the previous night at 3XW.  The early portion match had a lot of quick tags, mostly on the part of the Ego Busters stable.  The ring announcer gave out match times for all but the main event, so I went full dork and used my cellphone stopwatch to keep track of eliminations...yup, SOMEHOW still single here, ladies!  Anywho, the match went a bit over ten minutes before any eliminations happened...Outtkast took a lot of punishment until the powerhouse Redwing got a hot tag and cleaned house.  Redwing took out Gotti with a huge rewind powerslam(a la Michael Tarver) in 10:44, but Wyatt caught him off-guard with the Lightning Spiral to eliminate him in 10:58.  Things settled down for a few minutes, but then Jacobs made an impact by spearing Outtkast to eliminate him in 16:10.  I had barely registered that turn of events before there was another one as Jacobs speared Makaze and pinned HIM in 16:24!  That left our favorite underdog Jojo Bravo alone against three guys...and things looked bleak for The Blacklist.

Jojo kept on fighting and wouldn't stay down...Walsh tried to interfere with a chair but Colt Cabana ran him off, leading to Jojo rolling up Espinosa for a pinfall in 22:23.  Jacobs hit Bravo with Walsh's chair and Wyatt covered...for two.  The remaining heels kept manipulating the referee and pushing their numbers advantage...but Jojo pulled off a unique maneuver into a victory roll for the flash pin on Wyatt in 23:36!  Wyatt tied up the referee's attention while Jacobs did more damage with the chair...but Bravo wouldn't be pinned, even after Jacobs delivered another spear.  We finally got El Big Comeback from Jojo and he pinned Jacobs with the Samurai Driver(cross-legged Ki-Krusher...WA-SHING~!) in 28:07 to win it for The Blacklist!

Victory celebration ensued...Jojo said that the group had banded together since no one else wanted them, but the fans supported them and the championship trophy belonged to them as well.  WOO~!  Wrestling has hit a major dry spell when it comes to the good guys winning, so it's nice to see it happen every once in a great while...

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I will probably do a separate commentary on the MMWA show since I watched the online video of the event...stay tuned for that in the next day or so.

A new group called World Powerhouse Wrestling had their debut show in Jerseyville on Saturday...the promotion seems to primarily consist of alumni from Midwest Powerhouse Wrestling/Full Throttle Wrestling.  Xavier Frost won an eight-man tournament for the Heavyweight Title and Bioshock won a triple threat match for the U.S. Title.

The latter part of January will be oddly quiet for independent wrestling...here's the upcoming schedule as I know it:

Saturday 1/17:  SICW in East Carondelet, IL

Saturday 2/7:  Dynamo Pro Wrestling in Fenton, MO; MMWA in St. Louis, MO
Saturday 2/21:  SICW in East Carondelet, IL (J.J. Dillon)

Saturday 3/7:  Dynamo Pro Wrestling in Fenton, MO; PWE in Pontoon Beach, IL
Saturday 3/14:  PWCS in Granite City, IL; MMWA in St. Louis, MO
Saturday 3/21:  SICW in East Carondelet, IL (Nikolai Volkoff)

Good night, good luck, and #yaywrestling.

P.S. We are all marks.