Worst indy show you've seen?

[King Kamala 0]

The worst indy show I've seen was a show about 30 minutes away from my house. First off the ring wasn't even fully set up at the start time and the show started about an hour late. Second it was a 4 hour TV taping filled with matches ten minutes or under and everybody was half assing it. Third was the kiss of death for this indy promotion, about 100 people attended and they had hired some big names for the card (Jim Duggan, Chris Hammrick, Julio Dinero and a few others I'm forgetting). And after the horrible 4 hour card, all we got for a main event was a three minute Jim Duggan squash.

 

 

Anybody also got indy show horror stories?

[Guest The Notorious CRD]

The Cincinnati Wrestling Federation. Oh my God was it ever horrible. The champion at the time basically copied Triple H's mannerisms and combined it with Tazz's "tapout" gimmick, including using the Tazzmission itselt. There was absolutely nothing original about him at all. The wrestling was bad... the promos were worse... and I'll never waste money on them again.

[Guest The Real Nosferatu]

Thank god the only Indy promotion around that I'd go to is MLW. If I had a chance to go I would but work is a bitch.

[Guest Markingout]

I only really go to IPW,and MLW and you could always expect atleast too good matches on each card. Now MXPW is down here in FL... I love it

[Guest The Real Nosferatu]

IPW sounds familiar...does that air in Florida on a UPN network?

[Guest bigdunn20]

http://home.mchsi.com/~pconner/midwestmark.../article83.html

 

A write up I did about a show in WI over a year ago.

[Guest Gatornibs]

IPW airs on UPN 44 in Tampa Bay area

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

NEWA/RIWA. Don't know what that means? Good. It stands for the New England Wrestling Alliance, and the Rhode Island Wrestling Alliance. Essentially, the same promotion.

 

The ring was set up by bell time, so it was fine. The first match wasn't too bad, as it was between Patient 666 and Mark "Messiah" Thunder. Thunder was playing the uber-prick heel, and he played it well. He got heat, and they put on a good match. The rest of the show I can't be bothered to remember, because it WAS that bad. Until the last two matches, which topped the crappiness off.

 

The second-to-last match was the NEWA/RIWA Tag Team title match. It was 2 random Mountie rip-off's against the champions, Danger Boy Alfredo and Wolverine. New England wrestling fans will know of Danger Boy, as he has a huge ego because he did a job here and there when the WWF/WWE would come up to MA/RI. Anyways, the match sucked balls. Worse than an APA/Billy & Chuck match. Worse than a fucking match between HHH and Kevin Nash. Yeah, THAT BAD. Anyways...the match ended when Wolverine was tagged in and hit some powerbomb or something.

 

The main event was the NEWA/RIWA's version of the Royal Rumble, which was just a shitty excuse to get a bunch no-named bitches in the ring. This big fat guy won to no avail.

 

I was bored the whole time.

[Nevermortal 0]

I can sympathize with Laz's story.

 

NEWA absolutely BLOWS. I went to a show at Cranston Stadium in Cranston, RI and it was so terrible. I learned later that most of the guys at NEWA-RIWA were never trained, which is understandable since most of their athletes were like 40 year old fat guys.

[Guest macheteofodin]

I've only been to three indy shows in my life. The first was an EWA show it Norwich University (Vermont) on Halloween of 1998. The second was an IWS show in Montreal, from this past June ("Scarred 4 Life"). The third was about 3 weeks ago. It was a fed a couple of my friends wrestle in called XWA. It runs out of Malone, New York.

 

None of the shows were "bad," but the one I found the least enjoyment in was probably the EWA show. The only wrestlers I recognized were past their prime and didn't put on overly great matches. The younger wrestlers were decent, but I don't really remember the matches that well. I'd like to find the card for that show just to see if anyone that would later become "big" on the indy scene was there.

[Zack Malibu 0]

Amen to the RIWA/NEWA hatred. Me and my friends used to go just for shits and giggles. I remember one show back when I was like 14, and one of the guys (Kid Liberty) put on a hood to work the battle royal as evil foreigner Hiroshi Asai, except he left his Liberty shirt on under his new costume. We pointed this out, and one of the managers lurking ringside was like "Don't say that too loud!", as if we were breaking kayfabe during a major angle or something.

 

I think Liberty is one half of The Damned nowadays. They've worked for East Coast indies and Corino's PWF.

[Phoenix Fury Legdrop 0]

Definately the only local group (which runs maybe 2-3 times every 2 years), the Intergalatic Wrestling Federation. No, unfortunately, it's not based on humans vs. aliens, like the names suggests, though I think booker/ticket-taker/wrestler/part-time clown Ronnie Vegas must be on something on Mars in order to put on crap THIS bad. One show, he worked as both the top heel/champion (with authentic ripoff WCW title belt) and an undercard comedy act Doink ripoff (as "Boink The Clown"; came out to the old Goldust music too...I'm dead serious) with a guy that was at least 6'4, and legitimately fatter than Iceberg, doing a dumb hillbilly gimmick. The moron even took tickets up front in his Ronnie Vegas gimmick, with the clown paint on. Ridiculous.

 

They sold $6 programs, which featured Nikoli (sp) Volkoff, King Kong Bundy, some random midgets, and Sid Vicious. NONE of these guys were on the show. They held raffles monthly for some horrible-looking airbrushed t-shirts for the top guys on each show (the only time I even put money in for it was for an autographed shirt the one time Ricky Morton came through town). Every show, the same old lady won the raffle. Do ya think it might have been rigged?

 

I haven't even gotten to how awful the matches were. I saw one good match in the four IWF shows I went to: The Cold Bros. (New Jack ripoffs with athletic ability) vs. Chris Hamrick & Ricky Morton. Morton looked a zillion times worse here than he did in TNA eighteen months after this show. Hamrick, however, ruled all. Ironically, Hamrick played Ricky Morton in a match featuring Ricky Morton. It was a bizarre site to see. But, Hamrick proved why he's the King of Men.

 

Then, you got the rest of the stuff they put on. If you compiled every shitty Memphis comedy match from the 80's onto one show, it'd still be a little bit better at the style they were going for here. Every stinking match, they did nothing but bad comedy spots that would only have worked if it were 1963. To add to it, there were maybe 4-5 guys in half-way decent shape at every show. Everyone else was either disgustingly fat and pale, or disgustingly skinny and pale. We had Public Enemy, maybe ten months before Ted Petty passed away, in for a few shows. Johnny especially looked at his worst. He was immobile, carrying probably 350 on a frame totally not meant for it, and the biggest dick you'd ever meet. Ted, on the other hand, did work his ass off, even if the matches did suck. The last show they did here, Ted did double-duty: once in a masked gimmick in a battle royal, and in the main event "TLC" (as in a WWE comedy-style hardcore match with one table bump off the third rung of a ladder) match with Grunge (and this 73 year old guy with long, grey hair and army fatigues on, who took a SCARY bump off the apron that may have been more brutal-looking than anything you'll seen on cable in months, but ended up okay). His ring gear in the battle royal was an XWF shirt (this was a week after the Orlando tapings), a pair of camoflague pants, and headgear eerily similar to the mask Conan O'Brien wore on the SNL he hosted when he was "The Beekeeper from the Village People" in the Congress/Napster skit. He didn't really try to hide who he was: he did all his signature taunts & spots, even if the XWF shirt totally gave it away. Still, the battle royal, like the previous one done at the afformentioned Morton show, was won by local DJ Rob Lee. They even put the other three DJ's in attendance in there, and had them in as the last four guys, where the other three turned heel, but got thrown out).

 

That's just part of the wacky, wild, yet extremely embarrasing adventures with the IWF. Quick inside joke: How do you know when the IWF's taking a two-year break from your town? They announce a Ronnie Vegas/Bobo Brazil Jr. cage match at Wabash College's basketball arena for the next show.

 

(I do realize no one here got that joke, but that exact thing's happened three times, and each time, they never came back.)

[Guest Duncan Eternia]

Worst indy show I was at was in Hazelton, PA with WXW. Horrible, with one exception (Afa Jr.) and he wasnt even that good.

[Guest ManKinnd]

There was a 3PW show I went to that was the absolute worst show there has ever been in wrestling. A somewhat watchable Killings match against Lynn, I think, but then there was the worst match to ever occur between any two wrestlers, Dusty Rhodes vs. Kevin Sullivan. Sabu/Pac main evented, and was sloppy as hell as Sabu blew everything possible. I can't even remember the rest. My God what a mess.

[Guest Boo_Bradley]

King Lawler just wrestled at an indy here in Green bay, and during his Main event tag match GANGREL burst out of the locker room and was chasing Busty Lhodes (Peter B.Beutiful's alternate gimmick) due to the fact that Busty owed him $$$ legit, so a shoot occured out in the stands while lawler fought in the ring...

[Guest Boo_Bradley]

BTW for Full results and current pics of FAT Gangrel click here:

 

http://www.geocities.com/a2nwo/

[PsychoDriver 0]

Well, I've been lucky, Besides a few students shows (which I don't count because they were free)

 

But I'd have to say EWF in Covina CA 7/19/02, The card was:

1. Vizzion vs. D-Rail

2. Sonny Suave vs. Lyger Rivera

3. Threat & Desire vs. Krazy KC & Fire

4. The Hardkore Kidd vs. Joey Ryan

5. Steve Masters vs. Rudy Luna

6. Ragin Dawg vs. Iceman John Black

7. Tag Team Battle Royal

 

It wasn't horrible, just not nearly as good as the rest of the SoCal indies. They book like it was the 1970's and have alot of big dumb crappy wrestlers (HK Kid-Ryan was good though)

 

Plus it was filmed for a Travel Channel Documentary and I could see myself in the crowd (I don't like seeing myself in the crowd at wrestling shows... I just don't)

[Guest ToddRoyal]

Proving how evil the NEWA is:

 

In CM Punk's latest commentary he mentions a promoter in Boston (NEWA) that is advertising Punk (as well as Kamala) for their fan fest and subsequent show. Punk was never contacted for this and won't be on the show in anyway. He also never signed the supposed "authentic" merchandise the promoter is auctioning off.

 

The worst part about all this? The profits from this "authentic" CM Punk merchandise is supposedly going to a sick kid. This promoter is scum, and it doesn't surprise me that his shows suck.

[Guest Dynamite Kido]

I don't know if anyone else on here is from Pittsburgh,PA but I live there and there is a Indy fed here called PWX (Pro Wrestling Xpress) and WOW have they had some crappy shows. I used to go see their shows from 95-97 and me and friends used to go there when they would have names there.(Stevie Richards, Shane Douglas, AFA, Samu, Blue Meanie, etc.) The main guys weren't that bad, but the midcard wrestlers there were absolutly unbearable. Some of these guys honestly couldn't have ever even been trained. (At least by the looks of it). But there are too many bad stories for me to tell, so I will leave it at that.