Tuesday, June 23, 2015

SICW Special Comment

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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