Now, as promised, a special comment about
Saturday's Southern Illinois Championship Wrestling show at the Community
Center in East Carondelet, Illinois.
DISCLAIMER: I'm biased. Deal with it.
Attendance was still good, though down a bit from last month's Wrestling
At The Chase anniversary/Bruiser Brody memorial event. Luckily the
air conditioner was working as it would have been pretty hot in the building
without it. I'll be recording the commentary for this month's set
of shows this evening along with Drew Abbenhaus...of course, we're just
holding down the fort until Larry Matysik is ready to return to his rightful
microphone.
Spoke with my compatriot "T.N.T." Keny G at the show as he was
helping with Kahagas' merchandise table. I also had the opportunity
to chat with Malia Hosaka, who competed for WCW and held WLW's Women's
Title; she remains active today and was recently one-half of the SHINE
Tag Team Champions with Brandi Wine. Very cool to meet her.
Your ring announcer was Drew Abbenhaus; your referees were Denny Thomas,
Jay King, & Terry Riley.
Morgan sang the National Anthem again; well done.
We had a ten-bell salute for Dusty Rhodes and Tommy Rogers. Rogers
was best known as one-half of The Fantastics with Bobby Fulton; he was
also the innovator of the "Tomakazi", the move later known as
the Unprettier or the Killswitch. When it comes to wrestling, to
quote that great philosopher Batman: I have been to too many funerals.
(On that note: R.I.P. "Nature Boy" Buddy Landell.)
Travis Cook(accompanied by Chris Hargas and Bull Bronson) hit the ring
to start things off, gloating about how Director Of Affairs Cowboy Bob
Orton had promised the team of Ron Powrs & Red River Jack but R.R.J.
was nowhere to be found. That brought out Orton, Powers, Big Daddy,
and...someone wearing the Red River Jack mask. I'm pretty sure that
wasn't the same guy who usually wears the mask, but we had an instance
like that a few months ago when a person in the mask simply appeared in
the entranceway. At any rate, our main event had been confirmed.
Keith Smith Jr. vs. Ax Allwardt: Keith Jr. is fresh off his first
SICW win over "Ironman" Ken Kasa in May, not to mention his first
singles victory in Dynamo Pro the night before. On the other side
of things, Ax scored a victory over Big Jim Hoffarth at last month's show
due to an arm injury suffered by Hoffarth during the bout. Ax went
OLDSCHOOL~! by repeatedly using his wrist tape to choke his younger opponent.
Keith's dropkicks have improved recently (which I noticed at both
shows this past weekend). An errant high knee by Ax hit the turnbuckles
and Keith worked the leg to set up the figure-four leglock, but the time
limit expired in 10:00 before Ax could surrender.
"Dead Sexy" Daniel Gunner vs. Bubba Troll: Wrestling seems
to be trending toward shorter ring names...on top of Allwardt simply being
referred to as "Ax" in SICW, Paco Gonzalez is just going by "Paco"
these days and Bubba was simply announced as "Troll" here. This
was a rematch from a few months beforehand as they seem to be testing the
waters with Gunner as a fan favorite. Gunner put up a better fight
than in their previous encounter, but Troll picked up the win with his
sitout Tombstone(Fire Thunder Driver/Rikishi Driver) in 5:23.
"Night Train/Gorgeous/Great One" Gary Jackson vs. "The Tokyo
Monster" Kahagas: This was quite a test for Kahagas in his SICW
debut as he was facing the former Classic Wrestling Champion. They
had teased Big Daddy managing Jackson and Daniel Eads a while back, but
that seems to have been dropped. Kahagas is a well-traveled veteran
who has held championships all over the place, including the NWA World,
North American, and National Heavyweight Titles. Locally, he was
one of the top guys in Keny G's High Voltage Wrestling, holding both their
Heavyweight and Livewire Titles.
I was expecting this to end indecisively to set up a feud...but then I'm
not good at predictions in the first place. Travis Cook came out
to scout the newcomer in a harbinger of things to come. Kahagas has
definitely added to his bag of tricks since the last time I saw him(a few
years ago). After a competitive battle, Kahagas got Jackson in a
guillotine hold...Gary was able to escape by running him back into the
turnbuckles, but Kahagas secured the hold again. Gary never submitted,
but he passed out in the hold and his arm dropped three times, giving Kahagas
the shocking win in 9:04! That's one way to make an impact in your
debut appearance...Gary made no excuses for his defeat, but vowed to climb
back up the rankings in the future.
Cue intermission~! Concession total for the night: Cheeseburger
and two bottles of water. Talked with Ax for a bit; don't recall
having too many extended conversations with him before. This intermission
was surprisingly short...yes, they are usually announced as such(R.I.P.
Adam Starr), but this time it actually happened. BRIEF INTERMISSION
IS BRIEF~!
"Your Canadian Hero" Sean Vincent vs. "Volatile" Curtis
Wylde(w/ Wyldefyre): These two(particularly Wylde) have been building
their feud through social media after a time-limit draw at the Millstadt
show; Vincent had Wylde in his Mapleleaf Leglock but the match ended before
he could get a tapout. As usual, Wyldefyre made her presence felt...she
distracted the referee when Vincent went for his finishing hold this time
around. In a slick move, she pulled the referee into hug in order
to cheapshot Vincent (literally) behind the official's back. That
gave Wylde the opening to finish with a Flatliner in 8:12, but I suspect
this feud...MUST CONTINUE~!
Farmer Billy Hills vs. "The Elitist" Brandon Espinosa: Hadn't
seen Hills in quite a while...this proved to be an interesting contrast
in styles. Espy would have trouble trading shots with the bigger
and stronger Farmer, so he showed his technical side by targeting the arm.
That led to Espinosa notching a rare submission win via cross-armbreaker
in 8:53.
Travis Cook brought out Midwest newcomer Denzell Vance, saying that he
was giving him an opportunity to prove himself as a potential member of
his Organization. He issued an open challenge, but those rarely go
well for the rulebreaking types...
Heath Hatton vs. Denzell Vance(w/ Travis Cook): Don't blink...the
former Classic Champion wasn't getting paid by the hour. He made
a statement in his first SICW bout since his title loss to Flash Flanagan,
delivering a spear and layout DDT for the decisive win in 46 seconds. He's
baaaaack...
"The King Of Chaos" Ricky Cruz vs. Attila Khan(w/ Travis Cook):
Ricky rushed Attila at the bell and this fight only got crazier from
that point onward. The two brawled all over the building and briefly
out the door of the East Carondelet Community Center! Chairs flew
as the referee showed a LOT of leeway...but the fight finally spilled to
the floor for good and it led to a double countout in about 4:16. Khan
tried to bring out his international object of choice(which turned out
to be some kind of FORK...eep); however, Cruz turned it on him to drive
him from the ring. There's another issue that hasn't quite been resolved...they'll
meet again in July with Ricky getting five minutes in the ring with Travis
Cook if he wins.
Cue intermission numero dos...
Flash Flanagan vs. "The Old School Warrior" Chaz Wesson for the
Classic Title: These two fought during Flash's first title reign;
Flanagan scored a cheap win with a handful of tights at that time. With
other storylines seemingly taking precedence in SICW, the title has been
lost in the shuffle to some extent...next month's main event(Powers/Jackson
vs. Flanagan/Kahagas) will hopefully fix that issue. Flash was able
to keep Chaz from leaving his feet in this one...I can't even remember
him using one of his signature dropkicks. When Wesson got enough
of an advantage to go to the top rope, Flanagan pushed the referee into
the ropes to knock the challenger off balance. With Chaz crotched
on the top turnbuckle, Flash followed up with a hanging DDT to retain his
title in 10:18.
Ron Powers & Red River Jack(w/ Big Daddy) vs. "The Icon"
Chris Hargas & Bull Bronson(w/ Travis Cook): Call me crazy, but
THIS "Red River Jack" looked decidedly different than the usual
Red River Jack OR the R.R.J. that appeared in the opening segment. I
have a theory about this masked man's identity, but that would be telling...perhaps
Powers just had an ace in the hole. I don't know what else Travis
could possibly do in this situation...he wanted to see Powers and R.R.J.
in the same place at the same time and we've seen that on a few occasions.
He wanted to see Powers and R.R.J. in the ring at the same time;
we've now seen that. At any rate...life goes on. R.R.J. wrestled
the majority of the bout for his team and was isolated by Hargas &
Bronson for a while...but Ron got the tag and chaos broke loose near the
end. Kahagas ran in and whacked R.R.J. in the arm with his kendo
stick(somehow eluding the referee's field of vision)...however, Powers
notched the win after an RKO on Hargas in 11:43. Hey, that's Red
River Jack's finisher too! The good guys won to close things out,
but R.R.J. appeared to be injured as a result of Kahagas' attack...
I may add a few more notes if I notice any other details during the commentary
session...I can only jot down so many details on my stupid note sheet.
#smaaaaartmaaaaark
Next weekend:
-Friday 6/26: World League Wrestling in Troy, MO
-Sunday 6/28: High Risk Wrestling in Cahokia, IL
Good night, good luck, and #yaywrestling.
P.S. We are all marks.
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