Worst indy show you've been to

[King Kamala 0]

I know we did one of these a couple years back but I thought it'd be fun

 

 

I'll never forget when the indy fed that used to run up the street (literally) at the local armory brought in former WCW jobber, Rick Fuller and made him into their huge monster heel. It just kind of made the fed look bush league when one of Goldberg's former whipping boy was towering over everyone (I'm 6'1'' and I was taller than about 75% of the roster) and absolutely obliterating everyone.

 

 

I'm sure people have seen a lot worse indy shows than I have. So feel free to share your stories here.

[Red Baron 0]

I think it was called Rough Time Wrestling, and they had horrible workers. None of them could carry a match, and their skills were weak as anything. Too many botch spots and really made the show unbelievable.

[razazteca 0]

AAA show in Mexico, yeah I know it isn't an indy show but I just wanted to state that the show had children as young as middle school age working tag matches the kids really couldn't bump at all and the comedy was meh. And then there was another promotion based in Mexico that had wrestlers in marvel comics character costumes like a fat guy painted in green as the rudo Hulk vs technico Spiderman.

[Guest joshtothemaxx]

Without a DOUBT this New Age Wrestling show I went to. I only went because it was in my hometown in the gym of my old high school no less. Since I live in western VA, we don't get much indie wrestling. Anyways, most of the card was just AWFUL local talent except for one lonely tiny athletic guy, but mysteriously Shark Boy, Tracy Smothers, and James Storm were on the card. Here are some highlights from the show.

 

1) The opening heel was named The Shocker and didn't get it at all when my brother and I made the Shocker hand gesture at him.

2) We got to see the NWA North American Tag Titles defended by Scotty Blaze and Scotty Rocker. One of them was fat as hell and came to the ring wearing a Star Wars shirt and didn't say a word the whole time. The other cut a promo about how they were awesome tag belts because The Briscoes once held them. I yelled out "Jay, Mark, Jerry, AND Jack would whip your ass" and they had no idea what I was talking about.

3) James Storm's only merch was postcards of himself half naked.

4) They booked Shark Boy to wrestle a woman that clearly wasn't a wrestler.

5) Tracy Smothers damn near killed James Storm with a botched arm drag outside of the ring.

6) Bobby Heenan was in the main event which was refereed by the corpse of Jimmy Valient.

7) The Iron Sheik was drunk in the corner signing autographs.

8) The ring was so small every single suplex or arm drag performed would cause the receipient's feet to hit against the ropes, and these weren't big guys outside of Smothers and Storm.

9) "Doink" wrestled and was truly awful.

 

And many, many more.

 

[The Flamboyance 0]

When I used to live in Brooklyn, Homicide's old school, The LIWF Doghouse was up the block...maybe a 5 minute walk. I would go see their shows every Saturday night for 6 bucks and although it was never too horrible, they certainly had a bunch of shitty workers like some fat ass priests and Freddy Van Halen or something like that. A lot of JAPW wrestlers worked there and really, JAPW pretty much sucks.

 

The worst show they ever put on was when Low Ki got beat by J Train (Julius Smokes) CLEAN. Now, this was 7 years ago when Low Ki wasnt as well known, but still, people were just flipping out at the fact that someone as talented as Ki jobbed out to an elbow drop (not from the turnbuckle) There were a couple of CZW scouts there that night and they just shook their heads at the finish. That same night my friends little brother (8 years old at the time) got hit in the face HARD with a suitcase by Dan Maff. They didnt even offer to give the kid a refund and he had a huge lump on his head after. Later that night Jay Lover won the main title. He either beat Homicide or Low Life Louie. That match fucking SUCKED and Jay Lover is the worst ever. The most horrendous part of the show was the live play by play by some asshole Michael Cole lookalike but this dude was 10 times more of a puss.

[redbaron29 0]

At a local Armory where there were literally 8 people for the show. The ring broke every match and the guys in the ring pretty much broke Kayfabe and where just like, fuck it lets go. There main event was Chris Chetti who refused to wrestle because the ring was to dirty.

[JJMc 0]

A show in Salem, NH in '99. It was well attended, the venue was almost sold out. But it just wasn't good. There was a Buff Bagwell ripoff and everyone chanted "gimmick enfringement." The Headbangers and the Mean Street Posse were advertised, but it was clearly a bait and switch job. The main event was Brian Lee doing his fake Undertaker gimmick against "Doink." Everyone started running, yes running, for the exits when they realized it was the last match and there were no Headbangers/Posse. They brought the match to a finish when they saw everyone flooding out. The promoter ended up giving everyone half of their money back.

[King Kamala 0]

A friend told me about a TV taping he went to held by a local indy promotion about five years ago (late '02/early '03 IIRC) that started 90 minutes late and lasted over 4 hours. "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, Reckless Youth and Mike Quackenbush were the names on the card but other than them it was pretty much local scrubs. And it was like an old Superstars taping with like 30 five minute squash matches. The only bright side was only 70 people showed up and "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan apparently had personal conversations with pretty much everybody in the crowd.

 

 

If the highlight of a card is having a five minute conversation with Hacksaw than you know it wasn't a very good show.

[Zack Malibu 0]

There's a local RI/MA fed called the NEWA which is pretty much a glorified backyard fed. A good portion of the guys are just local average joes who got together, got a ring, and taped shows for public access. At one show they did in my high school gym (this was my freshman year, so '94), they used a local little league coach and his best friend (a custodian in the school department) as "special referees" for a grudge match between a recently broken up tag team. Ref Coach made the count for the heel, which Ref Janitor couldn't believe, and it was supposedly to build up a feud for the next high school show. Not sure if they ever went through with that one.

 

The same fed also ran a show at a local stadium (not huge, but a small local football/baseball stadium) that was supposed to have Warlord vs. Sid Vicious as the main event (this was in '94 also). It wound up being Warlord vs. New England's favorite Jacques Rougeau ripoff Pierrer the Mountie, who was a job match guy in the WWF as Ray Roy or Roy Raymond. According to him though, he's The Mountie from the WWF, and he's not shy about telling you so.

 

Very select few people from there ever went on to anything, although two of the younger guys there, Kid Liberty and Iron Fist, went on to become The Damned in Northeast indies (most notably working for Steve Corino's old fed). Another guy, Gorgeous Gino Giovanni, who was a skinny kid who looked more like a waiter in his tuxedo ring garb, also worked for Corino some.

[Jingus 0]

You guys are all fucking spoiled. Half of those shows sounded good by REAL outlaw indy standards.

 

First of all, pretty much all of you could name at least one well-known wrestler on the card. Hah! That's not a shit show. I've both seen and worked shows where:

 

1. There was not a single recognizable face on the card

 

2. Intermissions were frequent, and often lasted twenty minutes or more

 

3. A small plastic cup of cola from the concessions cost $2

 

4. There WERE no concessions

 

5. None of the guys had boots or tights

 

6. None of the guys were above the age of, oh, twenty-seven

 

7. The ring was homemade. Yeah, you read that right.

 

8. They featured a cage match, and people literally had to push on the sides of the "cage" throughout the match so it would stay up

 

9. Wrestlers attacked fans and vice-versa

 

10. Rigged raffles were held with a secretly pre-determined winner, people basically spent money on nothing and didn't know it

 

11. Half the locker room were obviously on drugs

 

12. The ENTIRE locker room was obviously on drugs

 

13. Incompetent referees botch finishes, incompetent announcers say wrong stuff, incompetent music kids play the wrong cds, incompetent security guys don't do a damn thing to prevent fights, and incompent workers doing their best to break each other's necks.

[The Amazing Rando 0]

I went to a show one time where the cage no-showed, and I saw perhaps the greatest whiff ever, a kick to the gut where the attackers foot never really left the mat and the "victim" who was on his hands and knees nearly cleared the second rope from the "force of the blow".

 

Oh, the show also featured one dozen arm-drags in a row by the same guy on the same other guy, and a Hannibal Lecter type gimmick for the "main event" complete with cheap metal gurney and even cheaper face mask. He was about as intimidating as Teddy Ruxpin without batteries.

[King Kamala 0]

You guys are all fucking spoiled. Half of those shows sounded good by REAL outlaw indy standards.

 

First of all, pretty much all of you could name at least one well-known wrestler on the card.

 

Well just because "well known guys" are there doesn't make it a good indy show. And I've seen some decent indy shows with a roster made up of nobodies

 

 

Case in point, Heroes of Wrestling or pretty much any "legends" wrestling show (There was one I just missed a couple months ago main evented by Demolition Ax Vs King Kong Bundy. I shudder to think of a 60 year old Bill Eadie putting on that S&M outfit)

[Smartly Pretty 0]

I just got back from the warped tour. They had a wrestling ring. I think it was sponsored by AAA, but still, it was at a fucking concert.

[King Kamala 0]

10. Rigged raffles were held with a secretly pre-determined winner, people basically spent money on nothing and didn't know it

 

 

Just out of curiosity, why the hell would they rig the raffle?

[treble 0]

One where the ring kept breaking. They were trying out a 6-sided ring and had just finished it the night before and hadn't had time to have a welder work on it (or so they said). In the first or second match, it just kind of tented up in the middle and they couldn't fix it. They were jamming tables, desks, podiums, ladders, anything they could find under there, trying to stablize the thing and it wasn't working. It was great, during promos, when you heard people yelling out from under the ring.

[Jingus 0]

10. Rigged raffles were held with a secretly pre-determined winner, people basically spent money on nothing and didn't know it

 

 

Just out of curiosity, why the hell would they rig the raffle?

To make a few more dollars. The winner is usually someone the promoter knows, who'll give them the prize back after the show. They also raffle off stupid & degrading shit like a chance to whip the heel manager. Anytime you're at a show and they do a raffle, just know that it's an automatic sign that this promotion cares more about taking your money than they do about putting on a good show.

[spman 0]

A Joel Gertner promoted show in a Kngiht of Columbus Hall with a 10 foot high ceiling. The show started an hour late, and at like 11:45 the cops came by and said everyone had to be out by 12:00 because of the curfew, so they just had Jay Lethal and Christopher Daniels run in during the main event and turned the match into a gauntlet style match where the first person to score the pin won. I don't even remember who else was involved other then Lethal, Daniels, and Lo Ki, it was just such a schmoz. Gertner is such a basket case now, he was rooming, actually more like squatting in an apartment with a friend of a friend of mine for quite some time while he was running these indy shows, and now I think he's living in New York hiding from his creditors. Although he's probably better off now then Justin Credible who now main events in a store front with a ring in it every week in front of 35 people.

[vivalaultra 0]

My girlfriend and I brought her 8 year old brother to this one-off wrestling show at the gym of this community college about a year and a half ago. The first thing that went wrong was that, apparently, they hadn't factored in that there was a practice for the basketball team that was supposed to take place in the gym at the same time, so, instead of turning away the 15 or so fans that came for the wrestling, they just had the wrestling ring and all set up on one side of the gym and the basketball practice on the other end. Basketball players were running laps and squeaking their shoes on the floor and at least a couple times, stray balls would roll through the crowd. The concessions were flat Coca-Cola at $2 a cup and they had five or six bags of potato chips (like the big bags) and if you paid a dollar, they would put a handful of chips on the napkin for you. The 'main event' was Hacksaw Jim Duggan and some guy vs. The One Man Gang and some other guy. 'Hacksaw' didn't even come out with his 2x4 and we got nary a 'Hooooooo'!

[Jingus 0]

now I think he's living in New York hiding from his creditors.

If that's true, then those are some pretty crappy creditors, cuz he's had the same phone number for like five years now, we still talk every rare once in a while.

[mysterious_w 0]

Due to living in North-East England I've only ever been to one wrestling show live, when I was a kid. There was maybe 100 people there, mainly kids and their parents. The ring was about 10 foot square, and the wrestlers were rip-off Undertakers and Kane (Who were about 6' 2"), and some All-American Lex Luger type with a Birmingham accent. I think the only slam a saw was a scoop slam, I'm not sure if the Undertaker even did a Tombstone or a Chokeslam.

[spman 0]

now I think he's living in New York hiding from his creditors.

If that's true, then those are some pretty crappy creditors, cuz he's had the same phone number for like five years now, we still talk every rare once in a while.

 

Who knows, but I know the reason he had to stop running shows was because he was completely out of money and owed just about everyone.

[Jericholic82 0]

I used to love going to IWF/UIWA indy shows at my local boys n girls club in SOCAL. Even though there wasnt a recognizable name on the card (well not yet at the time, but I did see future stars like Samoa Joe, Aaron Jesus Aguilera, Frankie Kazarian, etc), it still was fun. but I agree on the long intermission thing, my favorite moment was a masked Wrestler durin gthe intermission eating a hot dog WITH HIS MASK ON, that was cool, plus another time I actually was waiting on line with some of the wrestlers to use the restroom. And I towered over them and Im only about 5'10 at the most. The only bad thing I can say is the security was lax and I once watched little kids wrestler by the ring and one kid ram his head into the ring post, I think the lack of parental supervision was one of the reasons why they banned wrestling fromthe club in 01 (the other being all the negative publicity of that 12 year old boy who killed the little girl and used the "wrestling defense"

 

one show was pretty bad though it lasted under two hours with intermission and only about 10 wrestlers were actually on the card and they double booked them all.

[Obi Chris Kenobi 0]

Due to living in North-East England I've only ever been to one wrestling show live, when I was a kid. There was maybe 100 people there, mainly kids and their parents. The ring was about 10 foot square, and the wrestlers were rip-off Undertakers and Kane (Who were about 6' 2"), and some All-American Lex Luger type with a Birmingham accent. I think the only slam a saw was a scoop slam, I'm not sure if the Undertaker even did a Tombstone or a Chokeslam.

 

This sound familiar, I saw something like that at Sandy Bay Caravan Park when I was 15/16. The ring was tiny, and there was just a whole lotta running the ropes and take a clothesline. It was very boring, thankfully, War Zone had just came out on the N64, so I went back and played that instead.

[swan 0]

a bad indy show is a thing of beauty.

[Slingshot Suplex 0]

10. Rigged raffles were held with a secretly pre-determined winner, people basically spent money on nothing and didn't know it

 

 

Just out of curiosity, why the hell would they rig the raffle?

To make a few more dollars. The winner is usually someone the promoter knows, who'll give them the prize back after the show. They also raffle off stupid & degrading shit like a chance to whip the heel manager. Anytime you're at a show and they do a raffle, just know that it's an automatic sign that this promotion cares more about taking your money than they do about putting on a good show.

 

The very first GCW show I went to back in 2003, they raffled off a date with Daizee Haze.

 

[Dobbs 3K 0]

The very first GCW show I went to back in 2003, they raffled off a date with Daizee Haze.

 

So, how many tickets did you buy?

[Slingshot Suplex 0]

None, although I was asked three times, heh.

 

First match , I see this ultra skinny girl working against a guy and I'm thinking, "Huh?" . Then , as the night went on , I had someone come up to me about buying raffle tickets . All I could think was "What the hell kind of promotion have I gotten into?"

 

They did it the first couple shows I went to but not after that. 6 months later and I might have actually won it cause by then , I was on friendly terms with some the GCW people , including Daizee. Oh well.

[tekcop 0]

I've been to three Memphis indy shows. They all had their positives.

 

First one had a Lawler/Birchall main event and a guy in a Captain American costume who came out to "Born in the USA." My friend and I where the only one's cheering Birchall during the main so he stopped and bowed to us. That was fun.

 

Second show was a benefit for the local high school's new football team. It had a guy doing a "mysterious magician" gimmick complete with tacky tricks like shooting sparks from his fingers, a guy who did a standing SSP, and a black guy taking on Lawler in the most racist little town in Tennessee. Fun times.

 

I drove to Memphis the next night for Hogan/Wight. I enjoyed seeing all the "legends" especially Abdullah stabbing someone with a fork and bleeding everywhere.

[Slingshot Suplex 0]

tekcop, there is a pretty good promotion running in Dyersberg called New Blood Wrestling. I've heard some good things about a couple other promtions over in west Tennessee but I haven't seen for myself yet.

[GCWPatrick 0]

Oh wow, I have some stories to tell about stinker shows...

 

One of my favorite moments was when a wrestler dropped the F-bomb during a promo in front of an audience that was mostly parents and kids. Half of them left after that, leaving maybe a dozen or so people to see the final two matches of the night.