PWA Collsion w/ Tradition Review

[Guest Jonathan Barber]

PWA Collision With Tradition (March 9, 2003; Danbury, CT)

 

I got to the show about 15 minutes before it started and got to meet Raven and get my picture taken with him AND got him to sign the picture. I’ll try to scan it when I get a chance, but I can guarantee that my scanner will work. We didn’t get to really speak because there were others online, but I just said “Good luck tonight” to him and was on my way. Before the show, I bought some tapes from a tape dealer who had a concession stand set up. I bought The History of Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat. The guy was very cool. He also had AWESOME posters of Keji Muto, Toshiaki Kawada, CIMA, and tons of other Japanese guys and tons of FMW, Toryumon, T2P, and WWF tapes from their shows in Japan over the last decade. He was quite cool and it was a pleasant surprise because we were actually able to converse about Japanese wrestling. I was surprised that he knew so much about puroresu. He was a nice guy. He goes to Japan three times a year and attends shows, buys tapes, buys posters, etc. and makes money by selling them back in America. I lost the guy’s business card that he gave me, but I believe his company name was Mayfield Mayhem. Go on Yahoo.com or another search engine and you can probably find his web site (I forget if he has one) or at least his e-mail address.

 

I sat in the front row (there were only bleachers and chairs in the gym that the show occurred; I sat in the front row of the bleachers).

 

The show began with Danbury’s own Side Effect band playing some songs off of their latest CD, A Perfect Life, including the PWA theme song, Depression. http://www.sideeffect.net is their web site. Also, the PWA owner came out and introduced the new commissioner of PWA, Ryan Cox, who says that his first duty in PWA is to bring the S.A.T. in!

 

- The first match was Bad Leroy Brown vs. Shorty Smalls w/ Chucky Wynn. Chucky is a very fat red-haired guy who’s supposed to be funny, which he actually kind of is. This was basically a comedy match, with several funny exchanges. Chucky distracted the ref several times to allow Shorty to beat up Leroy with foreign objects, but Leroy eventually gained the win with a Michinoku Driver II. Chucky was quite over with the fans. About 3/8*

 

- The second bout was J-Busta vs. The Stallion. J-Busta was a heel and Stallion was quite young, but very over as a face. This was better than the first bout, but still nothing great. Highlights:

 

- Stallion hit The Messiah’s Holy Roller and then a catapult leg drop.

- Busta hits a Flying Corkscrew Somersault Senton and then tries another, but he’s crotched and Stallion takes him off of the top buckle with a Tommy Dreamer-style corner Neckbreaker and follows with a 619.

- Busta hits a Running Back-Mounted (Back-to-Belly) Slam, like Excalibur uses.

- Stallion hits an awesome Run-the-Ropes Corner Tornado DDT where he, instead of swinging back into the ring, swung out to the apron and landed out at ringside. He took Busta with him and drove his head into the apron as he was coming down to complete the DDT part. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that.

 

Stallion wins with a rollup, but is attacked by Busta after the bout and hit with three straight Ryuji Yamakawa-style Reverse Tiger Drivers.

 

About 5/8*.

 

- The third bout was The NEW Peurto Rican Connection vs. Wayne the Convenience Store Guy & Mr. Vandetta. Vandetta was a pretty big guy and a “Little Big Show” chant even began during the bout. The PRC win, but are attacked afterwards buy a big black guy who hit a Flying Elbow Drop. About ½*.

 

- The fourth bout was “Untouchable” Anthony Michaels vs. “Fantastic” Jim Masters.

 

Highlights:

 

- Jim hits two Rolling Fisherman’s Suplexes into a Fisherman’s Swinging Neckbreaker.

- The ref gets knocked out during the action, so when Anthony hits his awesome Flying Moonsault Splash, which was very over with the fans in my section (they were chanting “Moonsault!” the whole match! LOL!), there’s nobody to count. Another guy runs in and attacks Anthony and delivers a Bareback. Jim wins the match. Afterwards, the two guys beat on Anthony until two guys I don’t know the names of run out and make the save.

 

- The next bout was for the number one contendership to the PWA Lightweight Title, held by Jason Rumble. Rumble I was told by my source within PWA (evil laugh; My “source” was one of their referees) no-showed the event. The match pitted Blade (no, not Ric Blade!) against Quiet Storm, who came out to Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.” There were lots of armdrags to start off and lots of other matwork. Highlights:

 

- Storm hits a Super Cutter.

- Blade hits a Flying Moonsault Splash.

 

Storm wins the bout with the Spinal Shock (a.k.a. Victoria’s Widow’s Peak). About *1/2.

 

- Falls Count Anywhere Triple Threat Match for the PWA World Heavyweight Title: “Psycho” Mike Osbourne vs. Pat Gunner © vs. Raven (w/ Trinity)

 

Osbourne is basically supposed to be an inmate of the local state prison. He comes to the ring wearing a blue shirt that inmates wear with an ID number. Raven gets a pretty big pop. Highlights:

 

- Gunner hits a Tope out to ringside, but Trinity then takes him out with a beautiful Flying Moonsault Press Suicida.

- They come up right near my seat so I get out of the way. They brawl up to the top of the bleachers before coming back down.

- Back in the ring, Trinity hits a botched Diving Huracanrana onto Gunner.

- Raven mounts a comeback after being double-teamed by both guys and DDTs Gunner, but Mike breaks it up at 2.

- At ringside, Raven sits one guy on a set up steel chair and hits a running kick to his face, knock him and the chair backwards. Raven then does the same to the other guy.

 

The finish comes when Raven drop toeholds Mike (I think) on the chair (back in the ring) and then DDT’s him for the pinfall win. We were told, though, that he didn’t win the title.

 

Next, there was an intermission. It was supposed to be only like 20 minutes, but it ended up being about 40. During it, everybody was basically allowed to get up and walk around the entire area. They were allowed to go right up to the apron and touch it, etc. Many of the wrestlers came out and were talking to the fans, signing autographs, etc. Balls Mahoney came out and was signing, but it turned out, as I expected, it costed money. I went up to him and asked if he would sign a piece I had, but he said that I had to buy the 8x10 photo of him for him to autograph it, which I didn’t want to bother with, since I had already bought the Flair/Steamboat tape and tickets. Balls was taller in real life than I expected him to be (this was my first time seeing him live). I then went over to the merchandise booth and talked to the tape vendor a bit more and watched the Hollywood Blondes (Brian Pillman & a young Steve Austin) match that he had on on a small TV he had set up. I was told by another fan that Raven slipped out the back way during intermission, and when I inquired this to the referee I know, they said that he had to catch a flight to another show.

 

- After intermission ended, the second half of the show began again. Next up was a six-man tag team match pitting some guys with their face painted white against some other dudes. One of the other dudes was a big black guy who looked like a fatter version of Mustafa Saed, but was actually a pretty good worker. He hit some cool moves. Chucky Wynn, the fat guy from earlier in the show, came out and hits a big running fat boy splash on one of the face-painted guys. Chucky’s team cleans house with a steel chair and after the bout is ended (I have no idea who won; I wasn’t really following it LOL), the guys with their faces painted all hit several Flying Plancha Suicidas and then brawl into the crowd near me with their opponents for a few minutes before leaving.

 

- Next bout was the EOS (Elvises of Suicide) vs. Wrecka & Reefer. There were lots of “LIWF” chants, since Reefer I think is from LIWF. Either Wrecka or Reefer hit a Ropewalk Somersault Senton. Other highlights were a stiff DDT, several Head and Arm Tazplexes by Reefer, a T-Bone Suplex by Reefer, and a DVD. The finish comes when Reefer’s team wins with a Hanging/Lifting Dragon Suplex Hold/Missle Dropkick combo for the pinfall win. About *1/2.

 

- Next bout was RW Starr (or something like that; I couldn’t hear the name very clearly) vs. Chris Devine. A lot of people say Quiet Storm is better than Devine, but Devine looked better tonight, although that was probably because he had a better opponent than Storm had. This match was very solid. It had very good matwork and although they didn’t pull anything too special out of their bags, it was just a really solid mat-based match, with submission and hold-for-hold exchanges. The crowd, though, was really dead for this and many had left by the time this match began. I think it sucks because they really didn’t get the reaction that they deserved. This was quite solid, but not many cares. Divine won, but I didn’t see how. I think RW was slightly hurt and I do mean legitimately, because it looked like they had to stop the match abruptly. He got helped out by referees and got some claps upon getting up. About **.

 

- PWA World Tag Team Titles Match: The Dirty Rotten Scoundrelz © vs. The S.A.T. The S.A.T. get a relatively big pop, considering how relatively few were left in the crowd. The DRS were playing the heels and acted like they didn’t want to fight. They started leaving, but one S.A.T. member said, “Get out here and fight you little pussies,” which convinces them to come back. They brawl around at ringside for awhile before re-entering the ring. There are several snap huracanranas by both Joel and Jose. Highlights:

 

- One DRS member does an Iconoclasm out of the corner.

- The DRS do a cool Inverted Canadian Back Breaker Rack/Cutter combo and then one of them do a Flying Senton Splash for 2.

- The S.A.T. do a move I’ve never seen before and got me out of my seat. It also got a “Holy Sh*t!” chant to begin – a fucking ELECTRIC CHAIR DROP/DIVING SWINGING DDT combo! Oh My God!

 

However, a few seconds after that is done, another tag team runs out (they were on the show earlier, but I forget what they were called) and attack both teams. The DRS retain via DQ. The SAT tell DRS before they leave that the fans nor they didn’t come here to see a DQ. They order them back in the ring, which the DRS pretend to do, only to back out. The SAT challenge them to a rematch at the next show, which I guess makes it official that that’ll happen.

 

- Next up: the main event. This was a Falls Count Anywhere Match. First out was Balls Mahoney, to his regular ECW “Balls!” music. He was accompanied by a rather large red-haired woman, who I talked to after the show for about…five seconds, just to ask how much he was signing autographs for. I think she said forty bucks, but I could be wrong. Anyway, Balls got a pretty big pop. Then, making his return to Connecticut for the first time in about three years, out came possibly my favorite wrestler ever, SABU. I was really disappointed because I figured that the roof would damn near blow off the gym when he came out, but since there were so few there, it didn’t. He got a big pop, but not as big as I expected. I ran out of my seat over to the entrance place where a lot of others were gathered to see him come out. I saw him close up and damn was it cool. He got a pretty big pop and played his gimmick well by not speaking and by repeatedly doing his skypoint taunt.

 

The two did some work in the ring to start, but quickly ended up brawling out at ringside after Sabu hit a Triple-Jump Plancha. They ended up brawling right near me and then ended up at the opposite end of the gym. The whole damn crowd practically followed them, including me. There was almost NO security and the fans were like right next to them practically. It was insane. They need better security. They beat each other up with soda cans and other bottles. I picked up two of the soda cans they used and I now have them as souvenirs. Also, Sabu used a nail or something like that to legitimately cut open Balls’ forehead, which a lot of people, including me, saw closeup. They then brawled back to my side of the gym and brawled up onto the bleachers. I dropped my hat running out of the way and next thing I know, I see Balls rolling down the bleachers wearing my hat. I got it back, but it was quite funny stuff. Balls piledrived Sabu onto a steel chair before they re-entered and there were a few more highlights while they were in there. Before these highlights, though, they had re-entered the ring and what’s notable is that there was announcement over the PA system telling the fans to back up because they were LITERALLY leaning on the ring apron while the two were fighting in the ring. They didn’t back up much, but they did a bit. Here were the other highlights:

 

- Sabu hit a Slingshot Lariat.

- Balls hit the Ballsbreaker (stiff Rotating Sitout Spinebuster) followed by a huge Flying Frog Splash!

- Sabu hit his signature Triple-Jump Moonsault and a few minutes later a Slingshot Kick.

- Sabu DDTs Balls’ valet.

- Balls delivers a Superkick.

- Balls delivers a Michinoku Driver II.

 

Sabu gets the win by setting a table up (he only layed it on one leg, so it was diagonal to the mat and facing toward a corner). He then Super Huracanrana’d Balls off of the top rope and through the table for the pinfall win. About *3/4 for a fun brawl.

 

Sabu got out pretty quickly and I got to see him up close again as he went backstage. Balls stayed out after the show and took pictures with the fans and signed autographs, but they were too expensive, so I didn’t bother. His forehead was juicing a fair amount, but he sat down and weakly shook some hands (including mine) before getting up and taking the pictures (and signing autographs). I waited to see if Sabu would come out so that I could get his autograph, but as I expected, he wasn’t going to come out and risk getting mobbed by the fans. I saw the S.A.T. getting ready to leave behind the curtain.

 

All in all, the match quality of the show was pretty poor, but that was made up for by the big names. It’s not everyday you get to see Raven, Balls, and Sabu all on one show, among others like Divine Storm and the S.A.T. Seeing Sabu live was friggin’ awesome, and the same went with Balls and Raven. You can visit the PWA website at http://www.prowrestlingalliance.com/.

 

After the show, the referee I know told me that Jason Rumble and Tough Enough 3 Jonah no-showed the event.

 

Mikey Whipwreck will be appearing at an upcoming PWA show to wrestle a match.