WPW Special Comment

Now, as promised, a special comment about Saturday's World Powerhouse Wrestling show at the American Legion in Kampsville, Illinois.

DISCLAIMER:  I'm biased.  Deal with it.

Truth be told, I initially balked at attending this show due to the driving distance.  However, Ben Simon's curiosity was piqued as he had never been to an MPW/FTW/WPW show, so we decided to carpool to the event.  Ben did the driving and he had GPS, so that was a plus.

Kampsville is a small town of about 350 people(going by the sign), so I imagine they don't get a lot of wrestling shows in their neck of the woods.  We nearly drove past the venue since all we had for an address was "2nd Street"; thankfully the sign outside the building had "WRESTLING" on it.  Yup, the marquee literally said "wrestling" on this night.

Your ring announcer was promoter Chuck Maddox; your referees were "The Whole Reffin' Show" and another guy whose name I didn't quite catch.

Chief Executive Officer Scotty Mac started the show...thankfully the opening promo wasn't overly long.  He had a ten-bell salute for Dusty Rhodes & Rowdy Roddy Piper(who had both passed away since the previous show).  He also acknowledged the "controversy" from the previous show; the referee had counted Uriah Eleazar down in his match with Curtis Payne when Uriah had seemingly gotten a shoulder up before the three-count.  Instead of giving him a rematch(which I thought had been teased at that Collinsville show in July), he was put into the Heavyweight Title match between champion Xavier Frost and challenger Scar to make it a triple threat.  That meant two members of The Legion would be in the main event against Frost...I see odds to be overcome.

"The Shooter" Curtis Payne vs. The Searcher for the U.S. Title:  The Legion had put Searcher out of action for a few months (explaning his absence from recent shows).  Searcher had been a rulebreaker before that(going by the WPW YouTube channel), but seemed to be a fan favorite on this night.  They went all mutual-respect-y in the early going, but then tempers flared and they took the fight to the floor.  The Legion(minus Scar) made its way out to ringside after a few minutes, but they just observed the battle as the two fought with chairs and a ladder.  They made their way back to the ring(with the referee allowing a lot of leeway with regards to countouts) and Payne went for a superplex, but Searcher took a bad fall off the turnbuckles to the floor.  He came up bloody as he had apparently hit his head on the landing...all I saw at first was blood on his arm.  Payne appeared to have the edge after a Buff Blockbuster, but Uriah Eleazar entered the ring to superkick The Shooter.  That ended the match in an indirect DQ win for Payne in 14:07(!)...Searcher didn't appearciate the interference(and the lost title opportunity) and dropped Uriah with a sitout powerbomb, encouraging the referee to make a three-count for some reason.  They had to take a quick break to clean up the blood on the mat and floor...

Dr. Wapo Choncho vs. Gideon Morbid:  Wapo came out in doctor's scrubs with a plastic toy doctor's bag.  This was Morbid's first match in several years; I saw him in attendance at the previous WPW show but didn't know if he would be getting back into the game.  Morbid took a quick cheapshot and went to the top rope with Wapo's doctor bag...but Wapo avoided the leap and Morbid hit his head on the plastic case on the landing.  Just like that, Morbid was down and out...Wapo attempted to administer C.P.R. and got a three-count completely by accident in 0:48.  WAPOWITZ WINS~!  Morbid decked the masked man after the bell...that was weird.

Sniper vs. Victor Cortez(w/ The Legion):  Scar was absent from the earlier Legion appearance, but he was at ringside for this matchup along with "The Butcher" Damian Blade, Uriah Eleazar, and Scarlet Wyld.  This was Sniper's first truly competitive matchup as he had previously only been in squashes with Wapo and Paradox.  He's still inexperienced, but he can only get better if he wrestles more back-and-forth matchups.  Of course, The Legion got involved on their new recruit's behalf...Cortez's suplex on Sniper looked a bit shaky, but then Sniper's a big dude.  Sniper set up for a chokeslam but Uriah broke it up with a superkick to cause the DQ in 6:10.  Cue Legion beatdown, capped off by a splash off the second rope by Scar.  Blade proclaimed that the heroes would all fall...

"The Real Deal" Alexander Steele & Knyght Fyre vs. "The Hitman" Jake Capone & Bronson(w/ Juggernaut Jones) for the Tag Team Titles:  Steele & Knyght won the titles from Ivan Strokgenovf and Victor Cortez at the previous show thanks to Cortez & Scarlet Wyld turning on Ivan to join The Legion.  Capone and Jones won a tag match at that show, but this match had Capone and Bronson teamed up with Jones in the corner.  Would like to know a bit more about Bronson; he's shown some good athleticism in the few times that I've seen him.  There was one gaffe where Jones pulled on the leg of a guy making a pin attempt...but it was one of his own guys.  Whoops.  The match was pretty decent but seemed to run out of steam toward the end; maybe it could have gotten the point across with less time.  The makeshift challenging team fell apart at the end as the two got into a shoving match...that led to Knyght pinning Bronson after a pretty cool Skyhigh/Zigzag combo in 14:33.

Intermission~!  Refreshment count:  Two root beers.  Ben indulged a bit more, including some chocolate-covered potato chips...interesting combo.  During the break, Uriah talked Jason Halbert of the Hour Bomb podcast into entering the ring for a handshake...then decked him and put the boots to him before order was restored.  Hate when that happens.

Ivan Strokgenovf vs. "The Chosen One" Gauge Evans(w/ The Chipster):  Chipster proclaimed Evans to have been "trained by Ric Flair & Harley Race"...I can only assume that he attended the World League Wrestling training camp last month.  Ben was a bit worried when Ivan took a DDT from Evans, but thankfully no Darren Drozdov tribute ensued.  Uriah/Cortez/Scarlet came out to ringside...seriously, this was getting to New World Order territory with the constant presence on the show.  Uriah distracted the ref while Cortez took out his former tag team partner with his own kendo stick; that allowed Evans to capitalize with a frog splash for the win in 9:57.  Cortez invited Evans to join The Legion...Evans walked away from the offer and Cortez told him that he would regret his decision.

Christian Haze vs. "The Butcher" Damien Blade(w/ The Legion):  Hadn't seen Haze in quite a while; it looks like he's slimmed down in the past few years.  Cortez got in a cheapshot with Blade's Grandmasters' Rumble briefcase and Blade targeted the arm.  At one point, the match spilled to the floor and Blade jokingly(?) confronted me, asking me if this was my "match of the week"...I think he mistook me for someone else in that regard.  (Was it Crimefighter who used to do that?)  At any rate, Haze rallied but had trouble delivering power moves with the bad arm(PSYCHOLOGY~!).  Christian went aerial with a cross-bodyblock off the top rope, but the ref's attention was elsewhere thanks to the 82nd Airborne at ringside; Cortez whacked Haze with the briefcase once again and Blade got the cheap win in 18:26(!).

Xavier Frost vs. Scar vs. Uriah Eleazar(w/ Victor Cortez & Scarlet Wyld) for the Heavyweight Title:  Scar came out alone but the rest of the Legions(sans Blade) entered with Uriah; it was implied that Scar was supposed to help Uriah get the win as it was essentially a two-on-one situation.  As I was talking to Ben, I referred to Uriah as looking like "emo Gary Jay", if that makes sense.  As one would expect in this situation, the Legion duo worked together to beat down Frost, but tension surfaced over who would get the pin for the win and the championship.  They got back on the same page, but Uriah threw one superkick too many and accidentally took out his stablemate.  Frost took advantage with the KICK WHAM STONE COLD STUNNER on Uriah for the win in 9:17 to retain his title...but his night wasn't quite over.

Cue Blade's music...he was cashing in his briefcase contract.  Payne, Searcher, and Haze entered the scene to brawl with the rest of The Legion, leaving it as a one-on-one matchup...

Xavier Frost vs. "The Butcher" Damian Blade for the Heavyweight Title:  Frost had just been through a tough title defense...Blade had his own match right before the main event, but he had some time to rest.  Frost was able to take Blade down almost immediately into a Koji Clutch, but Blade punched the referee as he tried to escape the hold.  Scotty Mac called down a second referee, but one official counted Frost's shoulders down on the mat as the other ref called for the bell due to Blade's verbal submission in 1:19.  We had a double-fall draw...would the champion retain?  Would the title be held up?  Put on the spot to make a decision, Scotty Mac declared that Frost and Blade were "co-champions"...weird, but okay.  It's not unprecedented in wrestling as Chris Jericho and Chyna once did that with the WWF Intercontinental Title.  Of course, there's only one title belt so Frost got to take it home...he called for the sound guy to play some music to wrap up the show, even noting that I wanted some music.  Well, yeah, music is good.

Anywho, WPW has two shows lined up for November:  Friday the 6th in Jerseyville and Saturday the 28th in Collinsville.  More on that as it develops and more on the weekend in the next commentary.  Same Pat-Time, Same Pat-Channel...

Good night, good luck, and #yaywrestling.

-PB, Watching Wrestling Wrong Since 1991

P.S. We are all marks.