My April 1st Wrestling Pros & Cons

[Phoenix Fury Legdrop 0]

I was at both the IWA & Ring of Honor shows on April 1st. I would post this on the thread for the IWA & ROH shows seperately, but eh, I'm a whore for attention. Also, I'd have written a much longer write-up, but I'm writing the full length deal for my next column for The Suplex Monthly. So, here goes:

 

IWA Mid-South - Midlothian, IL

 

PROS:

 

Attendance: IWA actually had a packed house for once, and it totally added to the experience. There's noise where there'd usually be awkward silence and in a lot of ways, it helped IWA look more like a wrestling show than usual. It also helped to the "big show" feel that usually only comes from TPI yearly. There were a few un-needed new attention-devoid dorks in the audience, but eh, their money is green too.

 

The Opener: I usually dread seeing Eric Priest, Chandler McClure, & Brain Damage wrestle, but I thought it was cool to see Ian booking some regulars on what seemed to be such a loaded show. The match was eh and I miss Priest's long ring intro, but the rest of the show made up for it.

 

DARIN CORBIN~!: The guy is so damn great. He was a breath of fresh air amongst all the flip-flop destruction and death going on around him. The opening spot where he does his thrusteriific dance amongst a gang of angry junior heavyweights awaiting the chance to beat him down was one of my favorite spots of the whole night. I'm not so sold on him possibly turning face, but he is gaining a following.

 

Josh Abercrombie's appearance: The match with Ruckus wasn't too hot, but Abercrombie dressed to impress. He had on this ridiculous Zubaz-looking tear-away pajama set to go along with the mustache and shades, and came out to "The Right Stuff" by New Kids on the Block, which for you Wildside fans is also the old entrance song for G-Rated (Sal "Kid Xctasy" Rinauro & Seth "Kid Kool" Delay).

 

Delirious vs El Generico: It was the usual Generico/Delirious silliness, with some neat wrestling in the middle.

 

Tank vs Toby Klein: These two once again show the world the almost-worn-out-by-now addage that "deathmatch guys can do more than fall through lighttubes", as they had quite the fun brawl. The headbutts were oh-so-brutal, and the chairshot that Tank took was ouchtastic.

 

Necro vs Ki: It seriously shouldn't have been able to go that long, and the ridiculousness of the visual of a guy Ki's size beating up Necro should have been laughable. But, it overcame all of that and excelled. In my opinion, it was the match of the day. It wasn't the "best match ever", or whatever ridiculousness some people on IWA's board are calling it, but it was damn GREAT.

 

Hero/Milano: A little slow at times, but Milano is such a treat to watch live.

 

CONS:

 

Tall People: Hint to anyone over 6'2-6'3: you're taller than everyone else there. Could you maybe be a little more considerate towards the views of others and either move over or step back if someone smaller is trying to see past you? If the action is within inches of you, it couldn't hurt to help some brothers out.

 

Vanessa Kraven: She's a big girl, but she doesn't have to wrestle like a chopperific Kurrgan. Most of her whole deal was just standing around and being like "ARRRGH! I'm TALL, so you cannot hurt me!" I could understand tossing some of the other girls around and being dominant, but she just kinda stood around and chopped people.

 

The Women's Tag (in general): It was really random to begin with, but the addition of Daizee somehow turning face before the match and the title unification deal, it really should have been a four-way or something along those lines.

 

Spike Dudley: I don't know that he drew more than maybe 5% of that crowd that wouldn't have already come to begin with, then on top of that, he didn't do a whole lot and cut this wacky, hate-filled "I HATE WWE & ROH!!!" promo. Jigsaw would have been so much better in the role, and he would have made sense too (with the whole Chikara brothership deal).

 

Kevin Steen: I probably would have enjoyed Steen/Ian if it were just a catch-as-catch-can mat clinic like Ian brings usually, but Steen added some deal about him being Shawn Michaels against Ian's Vince McMahon, and doing a bunch of HBK spots to be all goofy. It totally detracted from the match, and when I, the dorkiest young man around, thinks that unneeded goofiness has occured, that's bad. Plus, it was right before Generico/Delirious, which was obviously meant to be your wacky comedy match of the night.

 

Line-up Order: This mostly goes towards the last two matches, though the way it went, Steen/Ian should have been put elsewhere in the card too. Necro/Ki was expected to be this wild spectacle that would have taken a ridiculous amount out of the crowd. That, and the rush to get to ROH by those attending that show, kind of flattened the crowd for Milano/Hero.

 

**********

 

I almost put the apparant Larry Sweeney face turn in the cons, but the jury's still out on that, in my opinion. The guy wasn't too bad of a fiery good guy, but considering how good of a sleazy, slimy heel he is, he'd need to be a much better fan favorite to justify it.

 

***********

 

ROH - Chicago Ridge, IL

 

PROS:

 

Atmosphere: ROH's set-up has two big things going for it:

1) It seems like a cool hang-out for you and your wrestling fan buddies to shoot the shit during live bouts

2) It's ridiculously professional and major-league

 

There's one MAJOR complaint I have about it, but I'll save it for the Cons.

 

Jimmy Jacobs' Entrance: I'm proud to say that I got to wave my lit-up cell phone in the air, as Jimmy Jacobs' smooth voice led him & his fair young lass of choice to the ring. The entrance alone was an experience, between the incredible song, the lights being only those in the crowd via phone, and the adorableness of young Jimmy bowing down to Lacey and re-declaring his love for her. Like the last pro, there's a con that follows this one up, but this seriously saved him from falling completely into that con and made him come off like a total superstar.

 

The Dragon Gate Crew: They were ON like super bon-bon! My favorite match of ROH was the six-man tag with Rave/Shelley/Yoshino vs DoFixer, but the tag match was badass as well and could be argued was better. Also, to show how much of a small-town dork I am, I seriously might never forget the visual of looking over my friend Jesse's shoulder and randomly seeing Genki Horiguchi, a personal favorite wrestler of mine, intently watching the wrestling action.

 

Storm/Danielson: It wasn't a "OMG MOTY~!~!LOL2006~!" type of deal, but considering all of the anti-Storm stuff online leading up to it, it went well beyond expectations. Of course, Bryan Danielson is also the King of Rock, Cock, & Spock, which means he can do no wrong.

 

Card Layout: The show built to peaks and valleys at just the right times, between starting off hot without blowing your load with a crazy six-way match to draw the newbies in, seperating the Dragon Gate awesomeness out, and ending with what was supposed to a wild, intense brawl (more on that later).

 

Merchandise: Their merch table is, by far, the most impressive layout I've ever seen for a merchandise table ever. Not only do they have everything under the sun wrestling-wise (even after apparantly selling a lot of stuff on Friday), but the service is great and the layout is set up to where everything's easy to find and looks nice.

 

CONS:

 

Building Set-Up: This could also go along with the IWA con about tall people, but seriously, it seemed like unless you're front row or at the top of the bleachers, you cannot see a damn thing. The whole horizon-line is seriously messed up, and made even worse when you have a bunch of people close to the ring standing on their chairs to see past the people in front row. That alone was my main con that put IWA over ROH as show of the day (since ROH's show was something that I could barely actually see at points).

 

The Use of Jimmy Jacobs: I'm not saying put the World Title on him ASAP and give him a stable of minions, but damn...Jimmy seemed to have all of this momentum from the music video and song, and he was just another bum who didn't do much in a throwaway six-way match that seemed to be meant to help Jack Evans & Matt Sydal. (Warning: I type this as I have no clue about the results for 3/30 other than that Jimmy wrestled Joe & Daniels, but the way I was briefly told by a friend, he wasn't there to look equal).

 

Chanting & Streamers: I'm going to throw these two in together since they're both crowd-related. First off, after seeing streamers and/or toilet paper in at least half of the matches tonight, I'm officially desensitized to them as a cool visual in pro wrestling. It's called overkill, man. Also, I LOVE crowd noise, don't get me wrong. But it seems like every five seconds, there was some sort of chanting going on that the entire crowd caught onto. So damn annoying.

 

The CZW Angle: I'll finally agree with Larry Sternstein on something: DO SOMETHING WITH THIS. It's the same old shit every time: Hero & Necro jump the rail, they fight with a few ROH guys in the ring, and then some other dudes (usually the Dempseys & Co.) run out and chase them off. It's wash-rinse-repeat BS. Hopefully this repetition ends in Philly.

 

Homicide/Cabana: I thought it was the perfect manifestation, or whatever the term is, of the rest of the feud: it dragged on for too long, bored me, and couldn't begin to grab my interest. After all of the shit that Homicide has done to Cabana, Colt should have bolted out to the ring and done everything short of stabbing Homicide to death, skull-fucking him, and shitting in his ear. Instead, it came off as just a couple of guys doing a mediocre brawl. The chair riot thingy seemed totally forced (and kind of dangerous, since no one in the crowd seemed to have any sort of throwing arm). The group of people I went with got bored enough during this that we walked out right after the three-count, so I can't say anything about the whole handshake controversy. But, that totally seemed to fit the rest of the match's activity.

 

****************

 

Overall, I totally enjoyed myself at my first ROH show. However, I'm currently only on the fence about going to see KENTA in June because the drive completely sucks and I don't want to get stuck to where I can't see about half of the stuff that's going on. But, thumbs up to the show and on the overall wrestling weekend. PODER~!

[The Buzz 0]

While I disagree with you on a few points such as the chanting...I'm glad they have that much heat for the show. I do agree on the set up for the seating. I had third row tickets to both the detroit show and this show, and I found myself standing behind the sound table at 4/1(since I could see everything without blocking the bleachers view...cuz yes I care, and beside my row of seats on 3/30.

 

Storm vs Danielson was pretty sweet and just behind the Tag Title Defense for me for motn.

 

My only problem for the show was finding the fucking place...just a word of advice for anyone who reads this thread...MAPQUEST IS BAD...DON'T USE IT...

[Phoenix Fury Legdrop 0]

While I disagree with you on a few points such as the chanting...I'm glad they have that much heat for the show. I do agree on the set up for the seating. I had third row tickets to both the detroit show and this show, and I found myself standing behind the sound table at 4/1(since I could see everything without blocking the bleachers view...cuz yes I care, and beside my row of seats on 3/30.

 

Do you mean the computer set-up by the smoke machine? If so, I might have been standing within inches of you?

 

Google Maps was awesome for directions, besides saying 99th Street was the non-existant 98th, and getting lost for a half-hour because of it.

[The Buzz 0]

Yeah I was by the computers with a black shirt on. My girlfriend was sitting in front of me and I was with my big friend john and his gf. I thought it was pretty funny that I never found 98th street until I was at the Frontier Fieldhouse via 99th street.

[Phoenix Fury Legdrop 0]

Yeah, I think I know who you are now. I was probably only 5-6 feet away from you at my closest (kept wandering back and forth between two groups of friends in the same section). I had on a long-sleeve grey-and-black shirt and had long hair under a IWA baseball cap.

[The Buzz 0]

Cool man..I won't be at the next midwest set of shows, but if you ever see me say hi. My name is Buzz.

[Jingus 0]

A couple guys named Chuck Taylor and Ricochet worked the IWA show, right? What'd you think of them?

[Phoenix Fury Legdrop 0]

A couple guys named Chuck Taylor and Ricochet worked the IWA show, right? What'd you think of them?

 

Ricochet, from the couple of times I've seen him, comes off like a gymnist in wrestling gear. I still can't get a good read on Chuck, since he had a flopping match in Plainfield as a heel, then kind of worked face in the ladder gauntlet and practically did nothing.

[Jingus 0]

Don't let 'em fool ya, those kids can work. Ricochet is the only guy in the world that I know of who can turn a complete double moonsault off the top rope, and he has several other awesome highspots as well. Chuck Taylor is kinda like the Spirit Squad guys: athletic, innovative, entertaining, and way better as a heel, but sorta generic in his look.