SWF News and Notes

[Toxxic 0]

SWF News and Notes, taken from the 10/22 Wrestling Panda Newsletter

 

The SWF certainly seem to have had trouble with their world champions this year, with none of them managing to retain the most prestigious title on PPV, and some even dropping the belt on free TV. Official company line is that this creates an atmosphere of ‘anything can happen’ even with the biggest title in the business, but the stark reality is that without a figurehead to either follow or hate, the fans are growing unsettled. Much of this has to go down to simple bad fortune on the part of the SWF; Ejiro Fasaki’s decision to retire after losing the title was just the first blow.

 

Danny Williams’ Japanese commitments combined with bad timing on the SWF’s part on when to award him the title resulted in three relatively meaningless reigns for one of the most technically-skilled men on the roster. Va’aiga, the man who ended Williams’ first run, seems to have already been disenchanted with the business by the time he picked up the belt, and the broken cheekbone he suffered at the 2004 Clusterfuck against Williams can’t have helped matters. As a result it was decided at the last moment to abandon the Exploding C4 Cage match against Dace Night as the champion would not be able to endure it, causing much anger amongst the fans. Therefore Va’aiga went through to From The Fire without defending the belt, before losing it to Charlie Matthews. Even more unfortunately, first Matthews and then his ‘replacement’ at the top, John Duran, had to drop the belt due to neck injuries which saw them both bow out at Genesis V. Nathaniel Kibagami apparently lied to SWF officials about his own health upon rejoining the company, and it was only after he had won the belt from Danny Williams that the limited shelf life of the River Dragon became apparent. Panicking, the SWF thrust the belt back to Williams despite the fact that they knew he would need to drop it only a couple of weeks later, which led to the emergence of Janus/Terrence Bailey from out of the midcard. The monstrous Janus was widely regarded as a future main eventer, and it seemed to matter little to SWF officials if ‘future’ was changed to ‘current’. Unbelievably, bad luck struck once more as Bailey’s genuine psychotic illness began to manifest again, leaving the SWF with an unstable seven-foot giant as their World Champion. The company apparently wanted Janus to simply ‘disappear’ without defending the belt but Bailey assured them that he could keep control for a while longer, and bowed out after losing the title in the Triple Threat at Ground Zero which saw Toxxic defeat both Janus and Tom Flesher to become the fastest world champion since 2000.

 

Much has been made of whether or not Toxxic is overpushed; certainly business has not notably picked up since he won the title, but neither have the fans departed in droves either. Perhaps the SWF’s decision to go with a young, injury-free champion with no commitments elsewhere may pay off in the long run - providing of course the fame doesn’t go to his head and cause the quality of his in-ring work to decline. The other person who needs mentioning in this section is of course the man who ended Toxxic’s first title run (making it look like just another flash in the pan), Johnny Dangerous. Pushed on fan reaction to his long-running feud with Landon Maddix, Dangerous was certainly a surprise winner over a man who himself had been a long shot to pick the belt up. Fan interest seemed about to peak in the wrestler who a few months previously had appeared to be nothing more than Wildchild’s sidekick, but the SWF pushed the panic button again for reasons that remain unclear. Booking him in a match with Jamie Drazon for the title was a curious decision, since although something of a tweener Drazon’s backing amongst the hardcore fans would ensure a split crowd rather than the triumphant defeat of a heel that was needed to put Dangerous over as a top face. Getting the win in a hardcore environment - Hell in a Cell - would seem to establish Dangerous, but any gain that would have been achieved by that was nullified by Toxxic’s run-in to cost Drazon the match in order, kayfabe-wise, to keep the title on the man he could get a rematch with (but in actuality made Dangerous look weak). If Johnny Dangerous had then gone on to defeat Toxxic at Genesis V a new star might have been born, but the belt was instead dropped back to Toxxic. Now it remains to be seen if the SWF have the courage to stick with their two-time World Champion rookie, or whether yet another change will occur at Ashes 2 Ashes. Whatever the outcome, Johnny Dangerous will not be there - he is apparently still under contract to the SWF, but for some reason has been taken off shows. We await more news.

 

The name of Tom Flesher is one that is strangely absent from the above list, but it seems that Flesher knew all along that he would be leaving to pursue other interests at Genesis, and while he would have made a good champion for the office to go to he apparently was more interested in storyline development. Another possible solution would have been Dace Night, and the only reason most observers can come up with for his lack of a title run is his poor mic skills. It’s obvious from watching any arena that Night appears in that he can connect with the fans in the ring, but when it comes to backstage interviews or head-to-head confrontations he usually comes off sounding stilted and artificial. Night is currently enjoying a sabbatical in his home country of England and does not appear eager to return anytime soon; if he does, you can expect the likelihood of him getting a run at the top to have increased sharply since his last tenure due to the relative lack of big names.

 

SWF HQ have confirmed that the A2A HIAC between Suicide King and ‘Grand Slam’ Mark Stevens will definitely be the pair’s last match. King was later heard to quip ‘until the last one after that’, but take that for what you will.

 

Wrestling Panda would like to apologise to Terrence Bailey for a misprinting in last week’s issue when we reported his new life on the outskirts of Sydney. Bailey contacted us in person and made it clear that while he has no objection to people knowing his general whereabouts, he wants it clarified that he is currently breeding ferrets, not, as our last issue erroneously reported, breeding with ferrets. Our apologies go out to Mr. Bailey, along with the wrestling community’s heartfelt wishes that he conquers his mental illness soon.

 

The apparent return of Nathaniel Kibagami appears to be genuine. It seems that Kibagami has been rigorously assessed by the SWF medical crew to make sure that he is fully ring-fit, and can hold up for the long-haul if needed. At the moment it looks like he will be put in a programme with Toxxic towards the end of the year, although it remains unclear whether or not this will include the World Title.

 

Carnage seems to be the breakout star of the new crowd of SWF wrestlers. Despite being limited by a fairly cartoonish gimmick (a psycho in a mask who has just been released from a psychiatric hospital) he has been getting good crowd reactions and is holding his own in the ring, leading to his victory over Sean Davis for the Hardcore Gamer’s Championship on 18/10 Smarkdown. Davis had only just won the belt, but it was apparently considered that a rib injury he had sustained would be better served by dropping the belt and avoiding such high-intensity matches for a while.

 

The SWF tag division remains in trouble, even though the newly-formed team of David Cross and Christian Fury seem to be gelling well. Barring Spike Jenkins and Sean Davis there do not appear to be any immediately obvious teams to challenge them following the retirement of Mike Van Siclen (which broke up the record-breaking Hollywood Boulevard). This is where the long-anticipated return of Wildchild could help - assuming of course that Johnny Dangerous is still with the company.

 

The Birdman angle appears to be over and done with, despite never being concluded. SFW HQ still refuse to confirm for certain who was under the mask (although the vast majority of viewers either worked it out or read it on the internet), let alone why they chose to remove the ‘target’ without letting Birdman achieve his goal. It’s possible Birdman may return at some point for a different ‘target’ and SWF will hope to pick the story up from there, letting the audience believe that this was the real ‘target’ all along.

 

The buyrates for Genesis V are in, and are fairly unremarkable. Although a major success in terms of profit margins the show fell slightly short of Genesis IV, despite being pushed as ‘the biggest show of all time’. The card was good by PPV standards but possibly slightly sub-par for a company aiming for the be-all and end-all of wrestling. The presence of the vast majority of recognised ‘star’ names in one match (Flesher, Suicide King, Mark Stevens, Chris Raynor, Edwin MacPhisto, plus Landon Maddix who has emerged as one of the biggest current draws) possibly didn’t help, as the card seemed weighted to that one match.

 

Copyright 2004, Wrestling Panda Enterprises

[Guest Suicide King]

Just doing my part to keep people down.

[janusd 0]

Wrestling Panda would like to apologise to Terrence Bailey for a misprinting in last week’s issue when we reported his new life on the outskirts of Sydney. Bailey contacted us in person and made it clear that while he has no objection to people knowing his general whereabouts, he wants it clarified that he is currently breeding ferrets, not, as our last issue erroneously reported, breeding with ferrets. Our apologies go out to Mr. Bailey, along with the wrestling community’s heartfelt wishes that he conquers his mental illness soon.

... *cheap shot #8663 on being furry*

 

Nice newsletter as a whole, though.

[Guest Horse hockey!]

Very nice. This is a good way to keep people up to date when they don't read shows.

 

Yes, I am guilty of this.

 

But I read promos.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

Never let it be said that Toxxic doesn't try... which is to his credit. I don't know about anyone else, but I was a little hesitant when the JL closed down because of the combination of non-committals and writers who just weren't ready for the big stage yet, but Toxxic is one of the few to have justified the merger, as it would have been a gross waste of time and talent to have held him down in the JL for more than a week.