IPW Super Jr. Tourney Report

[Phoenix Fury Legdrop 0]

HEY! So, like, I was there and stuff (thank you to T-Mack for posting said results that I texted in and putting up with my total marking out for Konnan bobbleheads at the gimmick table), and here's some totally thoughtful thoughts about everything:

 

-I don't know if it's a new set-up (I hope it is, so they'd have an explanation), but the fancy lights and music set-up created mucho problems with the power. In other words, they had so much stuff hooked up to what I presume was one singular place that they blew the power out not once, not twice, but THREE times. The third one happened during a match, and although the referee had a zany comment about not being able to count a man out if he cannot see him, it was kind of embarrassing. On the bright side, when the lighting worked right, it looked JUST like the Kumite from Bloodsport, which blew my damned mind.

 

- The building is in quite a random location. If you ever go to an IPW show, look for the Fountain Square COMMUNITY Center, since the Salvation Army sign up front is unseeable from the road, in my opinion.

 

- Lots of kids and "special" folk in the crowd tonight, which made it way different from most other "workrate" feds (and a lot more fun at times). Irish Airborne, who somehow randomly became fountains of charisma here, were great at riling the kids up. The nameless manager who came out with Hex Gage...notsomuch.

 

Promoter Mike Williams comes out at the beginning of the show and announces that Matt Sydal's still on the Interstate, as he flew from LA to St. Louis this morning and was now driving from St. Louis to Indianapolis.

 

The ring announcer was, if he had a suit, the epitome of "old-timey" awesomeness. If he would have bought something nice to wear and not a suit jacket over a t-shirt and jeans, he would have been straight out of 1938 and it would have been awesome.

 

- 1. IPW Mid-American Title Match: Ryan Raze defeated Zac Vincent and Roach to retain the IPW Mid-American Championship. This was rather not good. Vincent also came out with the pretty bad manager with had the slowest wit imaginable and wrestled "Omega" Aaron Draven in both men's IWA East Coast debuts. He also looks like a mini of Tony Stradlin (who now wrestles for WWE developmental territory Deep South Wrestling). Roach looks just like a mini of Quicksilver from PWG, and Raze looks like what would happen if Lash LeRoux went on a bender and the only thing he had when he woke up was a box of Mike Quackenbush's old gear. Pretty bad match that followed that three-way formula of "two guys wrestle, one guy stays outside of the ring" so closely that there were times that one guy would just kind of wander outside of the ring, not even getting knocked out there. Vincent hit a pretty neat sit-out backbreaker out of the starting position for the Cop Killa, but other than that, nothing memorable here.

 

2. Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament Quarter-Finals: Chuck Taylor defeated OMG in a sucky match with a Lungblower to advance to the Semi-Finals of the Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament. If a match could ever make Sexy Charles T. look minor league, here it is. Very un-structured and random. I think the Lungblower is now the 2006 version of "Grab a hold when things fall apart".

 

3. Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament Quarter-Finals: Mike Quackenbush defeated Billy Roc in a fantastic match to advance to the Semi-Finals of the Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament. Following the match, Quackenbush gave Roc props on the microphone. "Fuck Yeah!" was basically the general statement upon the closing of this match from the crowd. Best match of the tournament almost by far, if it weren't for the finals rocking also. This crowd had the benefit of the crowd being not dead at this point and reacting to everything they did. The match started with lots of wacky chain wrestling, which Quack is the king of and therefore dominated. Then, they go to the lucha armdrags...and Billy Roc surprisingly takes control of the match. You can literally see the expression on Quack's face change from "Okay, this is a neat little exhibition to have some fun with" to "I need to take this guy out". So, Quack being the master of every wrestling hold known to man, decides he's going to take out Billy's knee since he's all quick and stuff. Quack gets really mean with the knee-work, doing anything from the KneeDT to just holding the leg out and palm striking the knee. Big "Let's Go Billy!" chant when Billy attempts to escape a variation of the STF from Quack. This all builds up to probably the best-looking move in Billy's arsenal, the enziguri, beginning Billy's comeback. A really hot sequences of moves leads to Quack bringing Billy down with the Lighting Lock Delta for the tap-out finish. After the match, Quack puts Billy over on the microphone for being a credit to the Indiana indy scene and thanked him for a great match. This was, by far, the best match I've ever seen out of Billy Roc. Though I'm sure some of it was Quack, Billy didn't look as hesitant as he can sometimes, he sold well enough to get the pro-Quack crowd behind him, and all of his stuff looked really crisp and good. If this match had circulation like what Smart Mark Video or ROH's distribution company has, this would be the match that'd change opinions on Billy Roc on some. Overall, good times were had by all.

 

- A problem with the show arose here, as the best and most heated match of the night went on third, and totally drained the crowd for most of the rest of the show (there was a little bit of energy left after intermission, but then Quack came out and ruled again). Part of it might have been the whole "delaying for Sydal" thing, but it was still a problem.

 

4. Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament Quarter-Finals: Ricochet defeated Hex Gage with a Yoshi-Tonic to advance to the Semi-Finals of the Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament. I actually missed part of this bout due to fearing the possession of my car no longer being mine since I parked in a rather shady part of the area due to getting lost and showing up late. But, from what I saw, Gage looked super-athletic and did some neat spots, including the afformentioned Phoenix 630, which was impressive considering he's built like a thicker Chuck Taylor. Gage also looks like what would happen if Alex Shelley were a wacky old-timey magician, and that's a great thing. Ricochet tried the double moonsault for the finish, but he basically landed like Eddie Kingston did at the 2004 TPI on his moonsault dive, only replace the metal part under the ring with Hex's head. It was really scary, but they finished the match.

 

5. Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament Quarter-Finals: Jake Crist defeated Aaron Williams in a stiff match with a lariat to advance to the Semi-Finals of the Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament. Williams looked pretty good here, not being so light and flippy and being more solid at basics than some of the other non-"super-indy" guys here. These two just beat the holy hell out of each other. At one point in this match, Jake got into an argument with a child outside of the ring with a young kid that ended with, after a really awesome Yakuza kick, he popped outside of the ring and charged at the kid to yell at him so fast that he almost headbutted him on accident. But yeah...way different than most Jake Crist stuff with the crowd-playing and stiffness.

 

6. Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament Quarter-Finals: Dave Crist defeated Allan The Solution in an akward match with a Ghetto Stomp to advance to the Semi-Finals of the Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament. Allan The Solution looked pretty impressive but the finish was rushed due to Crist being knocked loopy. Allan The Solution was the best of all the guys you'd probably never heard of going into the tournament, and should really be given a shot in bigger promotions. He's quite intense and looks to be a big subscriber to the Al Snow theory of "put your opponent down to the mat at all costs". It turns out that I'm pretty sure now that Solution was the one who got knocked out off of the hurricanrana on the floor, not Crist. However, they went with Crist selling it like he had a concussion off of it...then popping right back up once he got back into the ring, hitting a few moves, and finishing the match quickly. Alright match, but I think it would have been better given more time and less brain bruises.

 

7. Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament Quarter-Finals: Matt Sydal defeated Vortexz with the Moonsault Belly-To-Belly Suplex to advance to the Semi-Finals of the Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament. Sydal looks extremely tired due to flying in from CA. Alright match, but Sydal looked like if you were to have thrown him a pillow, he would have taken a nap right there. This is even the first time I've ever seen Matt Sydal without perfectly groomed hair. To his credit, he made Vortekz look way better than he probably usually would, picking spots for Vortekz's wacky flips and flops that made sense and popped the crowd.

 

INTERMISSION TIME~! Lots of guys selling Best of DVD's, and someone was selling an atrociously awesome collection of mid-90's WWF Best of Coliseum Video clipped tapes and action figures, including the afformentioned Konnan bobblehead. There were also a lot of people in the crowd with random huge WWF figures for no reason I could figure out. Dave Crist also did some "tricks" in the ring for applause. (and by tricks, I mean wacky lucha rolls)

 

8. Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament Semi-Finals: Chuck Taylor defeated Mike Quackenbush in a goofy match with a Moonsault Press to advance to the Finals of the Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament. I think they could sense that the crowd was still kind of waning, so they did this weird hybrid of a really good comedy match wrapped in a delicious seaweed package of good chain wrestling. They did the old Pepper Gomez "Look up there!" spot, but with British courting holds, as well as zaniness based around Quack biting Taylor and threatening to do it again. The finish stunned the crowd somewhat, but it was an assumption at that point that it'd be Ricochet/Chuck/Sydal, which would still make sense in terms of predicting it'd click well.

 

9. Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament Semi-Finals: Ricochet defeated Jake Crist in a short and very flippy match with a 630 Splash on broken ropes to advance to the Finals of the Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament. They did a lot of moves and they did them well, but the big thing about this match was being scared that the ring ropes were either going to snap or the ringposts would literally snap in half off of someone even as small as Ricochet hitting them. At one point, Ricochet hit the ropes and the two posts on the other side of the ring FLEW UP OFF OF THE GROUND. The other two posts were making snapping noises as well. So, what do you do when the ringposts and ropes are falling apart? Do a 630, of COURSE! That was the finish, and....just thank God no one got hurt.

 

They did another impromptu intermission to fix the ring, and when we got back in, Sydal vs. Dave Crist had already started.

 

10. Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament Semi-Finals: Dave Crist defeated Matt Sydal with a Superbomb to advance to the Finals of the Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament. Sydal kind of woke up during this match, but he still wasn't the usual Matt Sydal. He doesn't deserve any shit from anyone though, as his travel schedule really sucked this weekend. Crist looked really good during this match though, as you could definately tell he was taking the lead at most points. They also held a lot more holds than almost anyone else did in the tournament.

 

11. Horror Show, Botch and Cyanide defeated The Council Of Champions, Dave Davidson and Carlton Kaz and Southern Rock, Hillbilly Jed and Indiana Kidd Jr. in an abysmal match when the member of Horror Show that tries to be like Brain Damage pinned Hillbilly Jedd following a Side Slam. This match was not only filmed for the DVD release of this show, but also for repeated use in the 7th Circle of Hell to punish the sinners. This wasn't even bad in a funny way...this was bad in a terrible way. Horror Show are the saddest thing I've seen in a while, as one looks like a really fat Insane Lane who imitates Deranged and the other tries to be just like Brain Damage. Neither does it particularly well. Kaz & Davidson didn't look too bad, but that's because the other two teams were so fucking awful. Kidd & Jedd, in their yellow and black attire, looked like the killer bees that even the Iron Sheik wouldn't humble. This match just kept going...and going...and going. There was no reason for it other than to get guys on the show, especially this late into the show when the crowd was already worn out. They did the always-retarded spot in these matches where partners are tagged in against each other, and it was terrible both times. They did the most awkward "accidental dive spot" EVER when Kidd stood on the top rope with his back to the ring for seriously about a minute before Jedd was whipped into him by the Horror Show, causing Kidd to fall onto the Council outside of the ring. This match made me hate being alive for about twenty minutes.

 

12. Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament Finals, IPW Light Heavyweight Title Match: Dave Crist defeated Ricochet and Chuck Taylor in a great match to win the Super Junior Heavyweight Tournament and the IPW Light Heavyweight Championship after pinning Chuck Taylor following a Top Rope Rubix Cube. Really good stuff to end off the tournament, with Dave Crist being the star of the match (which sometimes doesn't happen in situations like this). It was very similar to Dragon/Daniels/Ki from ROH in 2002, with lots of the one-upsmanship and three-way holds. Crist also brought the double-stompery here. The finish was a little out of nowhere, but the crowd still really dug the match. Good stuff.

 

After the match, the promoter came out and did a 30-minute Ian Rotten-style speech about how awesome his crew is, how great his business partners are, etc. that was nice and all, but it was around midnight and it was five hours at this point. I can stand it at a show like TPI since the wrestling's mind-blowing the whole way, but on a show like this where it's good, but not amazing, you get kind of tired.

 

Overall, the show was worth the $12 I spent on it, and Quack/Roc and the finals I'd venture to say are worth buying the $15 DVD for, with Quack/Roc being a must-see by any means. You can find the DVD's on www.insanityprowrestling.com.

[LucharesuFan619 0]

Hex Gage is amazing...people need to check that kid out to see some crazy insane high-flying.

[I like Forums 0]

What the heck is a "tope rope Rubix Cube"?

[Phoenix Fury Legdrop 0]

What the heck is a "tope rope Rubix Cube"?

 

Lift the guy up in an electric chair position, then drive him down head-first between your legs, only off of the top rope.

 

Gage was alright...his high-flying was impressive considering his size.

[Jingus 0]

I've known Hexgage, Chuck Taylor, and Ricochet for years, and I couldn't be happier that they're finally breaking out into the more well-known promotions. They're all incredibly talented workers and really nice guys.

[Phoenix Fury Legdrop 0]

Just wondering, since you said you've known him for a while: how long has Ricochet been working? He's only 17, and I can't imagine he's been around for a long while.

[Jingus 0]

I think around two years now, I don't know exactly when he had his first match. He's one of those guys who started out REAL young. If you think he's a small dude now, you should've seen him back then, he looked twelve.