Now, as promised, a special comment about the Mid-Missouri Wrestling Alliance show on Saturday, September 8th at the South Broadway Athletic Club in St. Louis, Missouri.
DISCLAIMER: I'm biased. Deal with it.
After my 41st birthday, I had a doubleheader wrestling weekend with MMWA and Wrestling Over Everything. Broadway usually packs in the crowds, even on its off-months...finding a spot to watch the show where I'm not blocking anyone's view can be a tricky prospect. I've never been the type to seek out a front-row seat for that reason...sometimes I need to get up and move around, that's all.
Your ring announcer was Drew Abbenhaus(now in that role on a permanent basis with Ben Simon pursuing other opportunities); your referees were Nick Ridenour, Jay King, and Shaft.
"Night Train/Gorgeous/Great One" Gary Jackson vs. The Big Texan: This was a surprising choice to start the show as two former Heavyweight Champions locked up. This was one of three matches that had been announced prior to the show, the other two being the title bouts for the evening. These two had crossed paths many times in the past, including a match in Southern Illinois Championship Wrestling where Jackson put his career on the line against Texan's mask...Texan lost his mask and wrestled as Big Jim Hoffarth for a while before voluntarily going back under the hood. Gary Jackson Fashion Watch(tm): Brown coat and orange trunks. As it turned out, the match didn't go long before Moondog Rover made his presence known...he pulled Jackson out of the ring and made a beeline for his long-time rival Texan, leading to the referee calling for the bell as other officials tried to separate the two. The official decision seemed unclear at first, but it was announced as a DQ win for Jackson in 5:40 due to Rover interfering against Jackson first. It was announced that Moondog and Texan would get a chance to battle out their differences later in the night.
At this point in the show, we got an unexpected visit from "Volatile" Curtis Wylde and Wyldefyre. Wylde bragged about his exploits in SICW, leading to another surprise visit from "Your Canadian Hero" Sean Vincent. Of course these two are no strangers to each other and had a long feud in SICW...the confrontation led to a match being set up for the October show. It seems like the MMWA and SICW are going to be working a bit more closely together, as I believe the upcoming Multi-State Tag Team Titles will be defended in both promotions as well as New Breed Wrestling. Speaking of tag team wrestling...
Khayman & "The Caramel Bear" C.J. Shine(w/ Abigail) vs. The Professionals(Shawn Santel & Mauler McDarby): Khayman and Shine were teaming for the first time against an established duo who had held the Dynamo Pro Tag Titles and will be competing in the match that will crown the first Multi-State Tag Champs. Khayman and Shine had been in tag team competition recently with other partners in MMWA; Shine had been joining forces with The Snitch while Khayman had been working with Frodo "The Ghost" Meyer. My money would have been on The Professionals based on tag team experience alone...but things would turn out a bit differently. Santel & McDarby got frustrated and brought their shillelagh into play, so Khayman retaliated by spitting mist in their eyes...that led to the official calling for a double DQ in 12:46.
Intermission~! Official Ben Simon Concession Count(tm): Pepsi, water, soft preztel with cheese.
"The" Ace Hawkins vs. A.J. Williams(w/ Cruiserweight Champion "2.0" Da'Marius Jones): Jones had been scheduled to defend against the returning former champion Hawkins, but Jones decided that Hawkins needed to earn his title shot...that led to Williams wrestling Hawkins in his place. I'm a fan of both guys as in-ring competitors and they had a tremendous matchup...Jones ran interference for his partner for most of the bout, of course. Williams went for the 450 Splash but Hawkins got his knees up...Ace could have gotten the pinfall but the referee was occupied with Jones. A.J. connected with the superkick out of nowhere and went for the pin, but the referee was STILL with Jones...by the time he turned around, Ace kicked out at 2 1/2. A.J. went to the top rope again, but Ace cut him off and nailed the top-rope Frankensteiner! Hawkins took out Jones, then capitalized with the somersault Ace Crusher to get the duke in 11:12! Jones vs. Hawkins would happen for real at the October show!
"Rough Cut" Rick Ruby(w/ Rough-Cut Diamond) vs. "The Righteous One" Johnny Park: From that fast-paced cruiserweight bout, we shifted gears to this matchup. Park has been throwing around open challenges and often getting more competition than he was expecting...that was the case here against a much larger and more experienced opponent. It wasn't exactly a technical masterpiece, nor did I expect it to be one...Ruby put him away with a belly-to-back suplex into a uranagi(aka John Cena's Protobomb) in 8:52.
Moondog Rover vs. The Big Texan, no-DQ match: It feels like these two have been battling for the better part of the past few years...Moondog won the tournament for the vacant Heavyweight Title and Texan was the one who ended his reign. The situation was already out of hand earlier in the show and they picked right up where they left off. Texan had no problem with using foreign objects to his advantage, hitting Moondog with his own bone as well as brass knuckles. Rover battled back and attempted to take out Texan's knee, but Texan was able to retaliate with a huge chokeslam...he climbed the ropes and nailed the big splash off the second rope, putting his feet on the ropes for extra leverage(no-DQ!) to win in 11:38. Moondog didn't take kindly to Shaft's officiating job and attacked him after the match, leading to Commissioner Jim Harris suspending him for a month. (Unfortunately Drew forgot to mention at the start of the match that it was no-DQ, leading to the fans getting on Shaft's case for ignoring the use of the weapons...Drew did mention it after the match was over.)
"Da Bomb" Brian James vs. "The Incomparable" Deacon Cash vs. "P.O.D." Damion Cortess for the Heavyweight Title: Cash and Cortess had been battling for months and often getting in each other's way in their respective pursuits of the big belt, so all the factors were put in one match. Cash looked rather small next to the other two, but he picked his spots when the other two were focused on each other. Cortess was able to eliminate his rival from contention by slamming him off the top rope to the outside of the ring, leading to a nasty landing as Cash hit the edge of the ring on the way down! (That left him injured and unable to defend his WOE Heavyweight Title the following night.) While Cortess' attention was on Cash, James took advantage of the situation and dropped Cortess with the sitout gourdbuster...that allowed James to score the winning pinfall to retain his title in 10:37!
The night wasn't quite over as Gary Jackson made his entrance, challenging James to a title bout at the October show...those two are no strangers to each other and most people have honestly lost track of how many times Gary has been the MMWA Heavyweight Champion. Would The Great One regain his throne? We would find out in a month's time...
Hey, I made it to September! MY GOD~! While I'm trying to cut costs, maybe I could get caught up on these commentaries while I'm at home...
The next several weeks look like this:
-Sunday 10/28: Rampage Championship Wrestling in Granite City, IL
-Friday 11/2: Pro Wrestling Epic in Brownstown, IL
-Saturday 11/3: WLW in Troy, MO; SICW in Swansea, IL
-Sunday 11/4: DPW in St. Louis, MO(4 Hands Brewery)
-Saturday 11/10: MMWA in St. Louis, MO
-Sunday 11/11: Glory Pro in Collinsville, IL; Wrestling Over Everything in Centreville, IL
-Friday 11/16: St. Louis Anarchy in Alton, IL
-Saturday 11/17: SICW in East Carondelet, IL
-Saturday 11/24: MMWA in Lemay, MO
That's my special comment for this, the fifty-fourth wrestling show I've attended in the year 2018. Good night, good luck, and #yaywrestling.
-PB, Watching Wrestling Wrong Since 1991
P.S. We are all marks.
No comments:
Post a Comment