WXW in Leesburg, April 11th, 2009
Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.
I’ll apologize in advance if this isn’t the most detailed recap of a show that I’ve done, but I’ll explain what happened on the drive up to this event during the intermission part of this review.
This is the last WXW show before their huge event in Minneola this upcoming Saturday, which has been built up for the past few events now. By the way, as I have the website linked, I’ll tell you that if you look at the main page and you click on the charity wines link, you’ll get to read about how for a great charity, you can purchase wines named after guys like The Wild Samoans and Haku, which is pretty cool, but you can also purchase wines named after guys like Scott Hall and The Iron Sheik. Hmmm. If you want to, you can make comments about it; I won’t, as hey, it’s for a great cause.
I don’t know if it was because it was a holiday weekend or what, but the attendance here was certainly less than at previous Leesburg shows. I’d guess this was in the ballpark of around 100 or so.
There was some pre-show wackiness. As I entered the building, there was a homeless man sitting on a mattress by the entrance! No kidding; it wasn’t Ray Beez or Mr. Milo Beasley, either. He was begging for money. More on him later, believe it or not. Then, in the building, the continuing WXW music trend of not playing a song from begging to end continued. Do I ask too much here? Probably so. But, a wrestler-I won’t divulge who-decided to rib the crowd by playing a pair of 80’s songs, but 80’s songs that are the opposite of manly. The first one was Madonna’s Borderline. The second was even more feminine, believe it or not. It is the song that many say is rather homosexual; yep, Wham’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go! That got a legit LOL from me. Now, here’s a moment that I know will elicit bellylaughs from all the people out there who don’t care for me. For whatever reason, a lady I know in Illinois-a girl who has the hots for me, if you can believe it-always thinks of me whenever she hears that Wham song! No lie.
The show started on time, but there was an oddity throughout the event. There was a ring announcer, but he never appeared in front of the crowd! Honest, he did his announcing from the backstage area. I’ll refer to him as “Disembodied Voice”. I could have referred to him as God, but I figure that’s not a wise thing to do, especially considering what today is.
1. Dylan Night-David Mercury (w/ Candilynn) defeated CJ O’Doyle-American Marvel. Note that Marvel is James Pash, formerly a teammate with the now signed to TNA Tribal. I thought this was a good opener. It was a standard tag match; you know, CJ and Marvel worked the arm and the bad guys worked over Marvel for a few minutes. The crowd disliked the heels and they enjoyed jeering Candi, who at least had her voice back this time. O’Doyle made the comeback but due to some chicanery Night and Mercury were able to get the win.
2. Wolf defeated Nick Nero. I was not familiar with either guy, so I had a feeling that they were Afa’s newest students, and that ended up being the case. It was an entertaining match, but afterwards we found out that it was their very first match in public, and in that case I thought they did a real good job. Wolf is a large man with large strange hair; it sloped as if it was a ski slope! It was rather odd. Nero (no, not Nic the Destroyer!) is a thin dude. His offense was him using his speed and flying around to get the advantage, but it took him multiple blows to even do damage to Wolf. Meanwhile, Wolf used his size to his advantage and the ending was Nero attempting a cross body block from the top rope, but Wolf caught him and just fell forward and that was it. Afterwards, Afa came out and briefly spoke. He stated that this was the first match for both guys and he thought they did a great job; he then did something for the first time ever and he gave both guys a certificate. He stated, though, that they both had to take down the ring after the show, much to their disappointment. A very nice moment.
Disembodied Voice stated the names that will be at the next Leesburg show (June 13th) will be Scotty 2 Hotty, Jimmy Hart, and Jimmy Snuka. DV stated that they were “former WWE Hall of Famers”, as if they were kicked out of the Hall of Fame for doing something wrong! Later on they were correctly identified.
3. Betsy Ruth defeated Leva. Yep, yet another meeting between these two ladies. It seems like they’ve wrestled dozens of times by now. This was a good contest. Leva dresses up in various costumes for her matches; this time she was Wolverine, complete with toy Wolverine claws. A funny moment was the start of the match, where she still had the gloves on and she stuck out her claws, which frightened Betsy. Once she took them off, the match started off proper, and as you might expect, Betsy controlled with her size advantage, but Leva fought back with strikes and she flew around also. However, she ended up losing when she was caught in a Ruth running powerslam.
By the way, I did know some people there; the other people I knew but not personally were New York Jim (baldie looked to be there with relatives, so I didn’t really hear him at all) and, sigh, one of the Afro Puff idiots. He was his usual self and he was bellowing all night long. He started to lose his voice; I wish it would have been completely lost, or even better, be stricken mute for the rest of his life! I ended up sitting by a pair of real bratty kids; don’t get me started on those monsters. Why do I usually end up sitting by real idiots? At least most of the time I’m able to sit by someone I know real well, so it’s nice to talk to him and it plays its part in counteracting the idiots I have to be around.
4. Da Biff (w/ Simon Sez) and Lou Cypher (w/ Rico Moon) fought to a double countout. This heel vs. heel contest with these two huge men went how you thought it would. They just pounded and pounded on each other, and no man had a real advantage throughout. As Simon said on the mic before the match, Rico was Grandpa (Abe) Simpson, so you know that Afro Turd and other fans chanted that at Rico. But, you also had people booing and jeering Simon throughout. The ending came in this few minutes long contest when Biff ended up getting chokeslammed by Lou, but Simon distracted the ref (the guy known as Shaggy; he and this fed’s young African-American lady ref were the two for the night). Rico ended up laying him out. Soon after that, Biff speared Cypher, but he landed in the ropes. Then, they fought to the back for a double countout, which pissed off Moon to no end. It sets up the match at Minneola with Biff and Simon vs. Lou and Rico.
5. Mike Cruz defeated Gus Money, Ben Dejo, and Taino in a 4 way match (first pinfall wins). Before the match started, all four men briefly spoke on the mic. To make it short, Cruz griped that Jerrelle Clark wasn’t there but he would prove himself here. Taino was the last to speak and he was tired of hearing everyone else and he just wanted to wrestle. Once they did wrestle, we saw that all four were in the ring at the same time and it was chaos all around. They flew around, did dives (including Taino somersaulting out of the ring; it looked like he landed a little short so I think he splatted on the mats; thankfully he looked fine afterwards), and this was a pretty good contest as it was fun. The ending came when Money was on the mat, Cruz was on the top rope and Taino was about to do a move himself; Taino was thrown off to the outside-landing on Dejo-and Cruz did a Swanton onto Gus, allowing him to get the win. It sets up a future match between Clark and Cruz.
Intermission time. This went like 20 minutes. It was a typical intermission, so let me copy and paste something I wrote on my MySpace/Facebook blog earlier today:
The second thing has to do with what I did yesterday. I went to Leesburg to attend a wrestling show. The show itself was fine, but the drive up there… oh boy. Road rage for yours truly! Hey, when you have nincompoops who don’t understand the concept of “slower traffic keep right” (despite the presence of signs all over on the highways and byways) and others who can’t make up their mind how fast or slow they want to go and constantly change their speeds for no reason at all, then I’m going to lash out at them, and lash out I did. Well, stuff happened and it ended up with me having a “friendly” conversation with a police officer! No, no accident happened; my car and me myself are fine. I just had to chat with him for a few minutes, and I thought for certain he would give me a ticket, but maybe because it’s the Easter weekend, he just gave me a warning. Whew! What a lucky SOB I am.
Yeah, feel free to laugh at me again, haters. It’s not the first time I’ve had to have a chat with a police officer (and yeah, I’ve gotten at least one ticket before), but at least I can brag that I’ve never received a speeding ticket. But, right after that, I was wondering if I should go home and skip the show; after all, the cop recommended I do that. You know, maybe going out somewhere to have a drink… but then I realized that all the cops in the world would be out this weekend, as you can figure out already, so me attending WXW and not consuming any alcohol would be the most prudent thing to do.
6. Hatchet City All-Stars and Afroboy-Sulu Afi fought to a 10 minute draw in a 2 out of 3 falls match. Yep, a 2 out of 3 falls match only having that short of a time limit. Hatchet came out first and then out came Afroboy and Kavu (the Son of Tonga who isn’t in FCW) came out and he’s still injured, so again he was replaced by Sulu Afi, the son of Sivi Afi. What happened was that Sulu got a quick pinfall in the first minute. After that, much time was spent with the Hatchet guys having the advantage; both teams are still fan favorites but aside from Afro Doofus, most of the crowd supported Afro and Sulu. Anyway, with near a minute left, Hatchet got a pinfall, so it was tied at 1-1, and a minute later, it’s a draw. It sets up the two teams fighting in Minneola with the tag titles on the line. I thought this was good.
7. WXW Heavyweight Champion Sugaa and Richard Criado fought to a no contest in a streetfight. Go figure. I thought it was a good contest. By this point, the homeless guy, who was in the building for the show and was carrying around a “Will Wrestle For Food” sign, sat in my section and he was loudly cheering on Sugaa, who he apparently is friends with. I noticed that someone involved with the fed was filming the bum with a handheld camera, so I knew what was up then, but it’s certainly a unique deal. Sugaa controlled the bout for the most part, whipping Criado into the men’s room door; they whipped each other into the ringpost, the ring steps, and all that. It ended up being a no contest after all the heels came out and handcuffed Sugaa. Faces came out for the save, thus saving the champ from more than a cut on the forehead. This sets up the lumberjack match for the belt at the Minneola show. I thought it was good also.
Note that during the bout, Will Wrestle For Food (honest, that’s what the fed is identifying him as) tried to storm the ring to help out his friend; security had to throw him out.
8. Sgt. Hardcore (w/ Rico Moon) and Haku fought to a no contest. Hardcore is the Hardcore Champion, but this was a regular match not for the title, as far as I could gather. Disembodied Voice didn’t clarify it, but that’s what I’m inferring here. It was a brawl throughout, with not much in the way of technical wrestling. The first few minutes were Hardcore punching and clubbering the Polynesian wrestler. But, he made the comeback and it was more even then. Eh, I’ll say that this was entertaining. Anyway, the ending was when the ref (Shaggy) got in the middle and both wrestlers struck him. Of course, Afro Idiot was overjoyed by this, as he’s still butthurt over the ref for whatever reason. Afterwards, Rico ended up getting hit with a steel chair by Haku, who promised that at the Minneola show, he’ll drop a few pounds and put on a better performance as he takes Hardcore’s belt.
Overall, this 2 hour and 20 minute show was entertaining enough for me, given that the drive (while fraught with stress and then embarrassment) is at least short for me compared to usual. I know that half the matches ending inconclusively is kind of a gip, but I do understand that it’s more build-up for the big Minneola show on the 18th, which of course I’ll be at. Although, after that show, which will be more conclusive (and it should be a longer and more detailed review for me, too), I’ll be interested in seeing what new angles they have to offer up.
Anyway, I hope that everyone had and is having a nice Easter today. My review of the WXW show in Minneola that will take place this upcoming Saturday should be up around this time-hopefully-a week from now.
I’ll apologize in advance if this isn’t the most detailed recap of a show that I’ve done, but I’ll explain what happened on the drive up to this event during the intermission part of this review.
This is the last WXW show before their huge event in Minneola this upcoming Saturday, which has been built up for the past few events now. By the way, as I have the website linked, I’ll tell you that if you look at the main page and you click on the charity wines link, you’ll get to read about how for a great charity, you can purchase wines named after guys like The Wild Samoans and Haku, which is pretty cool, but you can also purchase wines named after guys like Scott Hall and The Iron Sheik. Hmmm. If you want to, you can make comments about it; I won’t, as hey, it’s for a great cause.
I don’t know if it was because it was a holiday weekend or what, but the attendance here was certainly less than at previous Leesburg shows. I’d guess this was in the ballpark of around 100 or so.
There was some pre-show wackiness. As I entered the building, there was a homeless man sitting on a mattress by the entrance! No kidding; it wasn’t Ray Beez or Mr. Milo Beasley, either. He was begging for money. More on him later, believe it or not. Then, in the building, the continuing WXW music trend of not playing a song from begging to end continued. Do I ask too much here? Probably so. But, a wrestler-I won’t divulge who-decided to rib the crowd by playing a pair of 80’s songs, but 80’s songs that are the opposite of manly. The first one was Madonna’s Borderline. The second was even more feminine, believe it or not. It is the song that many say is rather homosexual; yep, Wham’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go! That got a legit LOL from me. Now, here’s a moment that I know will elicit bellylaughs from all the people out there who don’t care for me. For whatever reason, a lady I know in Illinois-a girl who has the hots for me, if you can believe it-always thinks of me whenever she hears that Wham song! No lie.
The show started on time, but there was an oddity throughout the event. There was a ring announcer, but he never appeared in front of the crowd! Honest, he did his announcing from the backstage area. I’ll refer to him as “Disembodied Voice”. I could have referred to him as God, but I figure that’s not a wise thing to do, especially considering what today is.
1. Dylan Night-David Mercury (w/ Candilynn) defeated CJ O’Doyle-American Marvel. Note that Marvel is James Pash, formerly a teammate with the now signed to TNA Tribal. I thought this was a good opener. It was a standard tag match; you know, CJ and Marvel worked the arm and the bad guys worked over Marvel for a few minutes. The crowd disliked the heels and they enjoyed jeering Candi, who at least had her voice back this time. O’Doyle made the comeback but due to some chicanery Night and Mercury were able to get the win.
2. Wolf defeated Nick Nero. I was not familiar with either guy, so I had a feeling that they were Afa’s newest students, and that ended up being the case. It was an entertaining match, but afterwards we found out that it was their very first match in public, and in that case I thought they did a real good job. Wolf is a large man with large strange hair; it sloped as if it was a ski slope! It was rather odd. Nero (no, not Nic the Destroyer!) is a thin dude. His offense was him using his speed and flying around to get the advantage, but it took him multiple blows to even do damage to Wolf. Meanwhile, Wolf used his size to his advantage and the ending was Nero attempting a cross body block from the top rope, but Wolf caught him and just fell forward and that was it. Afterwards, Afa came out and briefly spoke. He stated that this was the first match for both guys and he thought they did a great job; he then did something for the first time ever and he gave both guys a certificate. He stated, though, that they both had to take down the ring after the show, much to their disappointment. A very nice moment.
Disembodied Voice stated the names that will be at the next Leesburg show (June 13th) will be Scotty 2 Hotty, Jimmy Hart, and Jimmy Snuka. DV stated that they were “former WWE Hall of Famers”, as if they were kicked out of the Hall of Fame for doing something wrong! Later on they were correctly identified.
3. Betsy Ruth defeated Leva. Yep, yet another meeting between these two ladies. It seems like they’ve wrestled dozens of times by now. This was a good contest. Leva dresses up in various costumes for her matches; this time she was Wolverine, complete with toy Wolverine claws. A funny moment was the start of the match, where she still had the gloves on and she stuck out her claws, which frightened Betsy. Once she took them off, the match started off proper, and as you might expect, Betsy controlled with her size advantage, but Leva fought back with strikes and she flew around also. However, she ended up losing when she was caught in a Ruth running powerslam.
By the way, I did know some people there; the other people I knew but not personally were New York Jim (baldie looked to be there with relatives, so I didn’t really hear him at all) and, sigh, one of the Afro Puff idiots. He was his usual self and he was bellowing all night long. He started to lose his voice; I wish it would have been completely lost, or even better, be stricken mute for the rest of his life! I ended up sitting by a pair of real bratty kids; don’t get me started on those monsters. Why do I usually end up sitting by real idiots? At least most of the time I’m able to sit by someone I know real well, so it’s nice to talk to him and it plays its part in counteracting the idiots I have to be around.
4. Da Biff (w/ Simon Sez) and Lou Cypher (w/ Rico Moon) fought to a double countout. This heel vs. heel contest with these two huge men went how you thought it would. They just pounded and pounded on each other, and no man had a real advantage throughout. As Simon said on the mic before the match, Rico was Grandpa (Abe) Simpson, so you know that Afro Turd and other fans chanted that at Rico. But, you also had people booing and jeering Simon throughout. The ending came in this few minutes long contest when Biff ended up getting chokeslammed by Lou, but Simon distracted the ref (the guy known as Shaggy; he and this fed’s young African-American lady ref were the two for the night). Rico ended up laying him out. Soon after that, Biff speared Cypher, but he landed in the ropes. Then, they fought to the back for a double countout, which pissed off Moon to no end. It sets up the match at Minneola with Biff and Simon vs. Lou and Rico.
5. Mike Cruz defeated Gus Money, Ben Dejo, and Taino in a 4 way match (first pinfall wins). Before the match started, all four men briefly spoke on the mic. To make it short, Cruz griped that Jerrelle Clark wasn’t there but he would prove himself here. Taino was the last to speak and he was tired of hearing everyone else and he just wanted to wrestle. Once they did wrestle, we saw that all four were in the ring at the same time and it was chaos all around. They flew around, did dives (including Taino somersaulting out of the ring; it looked like he landed a little short so I think he splatted on the mats; thankfully he looked fine afterwards), and this was a pretty good contest as it was fun. The ending came when Money was on the mat, Cruz was on the top rope and Taino was about to do a move himself; Taino was thrown off to the outside-landing on Dejo-and Cruz did a Swanton onto Gus, allowing him to get the win. It sets up a future match between Clark and Cruz.
Intermission time. This went like 20 minutes. It was a typical intermission, so let me copy and paste something I wrote on my MySpace/Facebook blog earlier today:
The second thing has to do with what I did yesterday. I went to Leesburg to attend a wrestling show. The show itself was fine, but the drive up there… oh boy. Road rage for yours truly! Hey, when you have nincompoops who don’t understand the concept of “slower traffic keep right” (despite the presence of signs all over on the highways and byways) and others who can’t make up their mind how fast or slow they want to go and constantly change their speeds for no reason at all, then I’m going to lash out at them, and lash out I did. Well, stuff happened and it ended up with me having a “friendly” conversation with a police officer! No, no accident happened; my car and me myself are fine. I just had to chat with him for a few minutes, and I thought for certain he would give me a ticket, but maybe because it’s the Easter weekend, he just gave me a warning. Whew! What a lucky SOB I am.
Yeah, feel free to laugh at me again, haters. It’s not the first time I’ve had to have a chat with a police officer (and yeah, I’ve gotten at least one ticket before), but at least I can brag that I’ve never received a speeding ticket. But, right after that, I was wondering if I should go home and skip the show; after all, the cop recommended I do that. You know, maybe going out somewhere to have a drink… but then I realized that all the cops in the world would be out this weekend, as you can figure out already, so me attending WXW and not consuming any alcohol would be the most prudent thing to do.
6. Hatchet City All-Stars and Afroboy-Sulu Afi fought to a 10 minute draw in a 2 out of 3 falls match. Yep, a 2 out of 3 falls match only having that short of a time limit. Hatchet came out first and then out came Afroboy and Kavu (the Son of Tonga who isn’t in FCW) came out and he’s still injured, so again he was replaced by Sulu Afi, the son of Sivi Afi. What happened was that Sulu got a quick pinfall in the first minute. After that, much time was spent with the Hatchet guys having the advantage; both teams are still fan favorites but aside from Afro Doofus, most of the crowd supported Afro and Sulu. Anyway, with near a minute left, Hatchet got a pinfall, so it was tied at 1-1, and a minute later, it’s a draw. It sets up the two teams fighting in Minneola with the tag titles on the line. I thought this was good.
7. WXW Heavyweight Champion Sugaa and Richard Criado fought to a no contest in a streetfight. Go figure. I thought it was a good contest. By this point, the homeless guy, who was in the building for the show and was carrying around a “Will Wrestle For Food” sign, sat in my section and he was loudly cheering on Sugaa, who he apparently is friends with. I noticed that someone involved with the fed was filming the bum with a handheld camera, so I knew what was up then, but it’s certainly a unique deal. Sugaa controlled the bout for the most part, whipping Criado into the men’s room door; they whipped each other into the ringpost, the ring steps, and all that. It ended up being a no contest after all the heels came out and handcuffed Sugaa. Faces came out for the save, thus saving the champ from more than a cut on the forehead. This sets up the lumberjack match for the belt at the Minneola show. I thought it was good also.
Note that during the bout, Will Wrestle For Food (honest, that’s what the fed is identifying him as) tried to storm the ring to help out his friend; security had to throw him out.
8. Sgt. Hardcore (w/ Rico Moon) and Haku fought to a no contest. Hardcore is the Hardcore Champion, but this was a regular match not for the title, as far as I could gather. Disembodied Voice didn’t clarify it, but that’s what I’m inferring here. It was a brawl throughout, with not much in the way of technical wrestling. The first few minutes were Hardcore punching and clubbering the Polynesian wrestler. But, he made the comeback and it was more even then. Eh, I’ll say that this was entertaining. Anyway, the ending was when the ref (Shaggy) got in the middle and both wrestlers struck him. Of course, Afro Idiot was overjoyed by this, as he’s still butthurt over the ref for whatever reason. Afterwards, Rico ended up getting hit with a steel chair by Haku, who promised that at the Minneola show, he’ll drop a few pounds and put on a better performance as he takes Hardcore’s belt.
Overall, this 2 hour and 20 minute show was entertaining enough for me, given that the drive (while fraught with stress and then embarrassment) is at least short for me compared to usual. I know that half the matches ending inconclusively is kind of a gip, but I do understand that it’s more build-up for the big Minneola show on the 18th, which of course I’ll be at. Although, after that show, which will be more conclusive (and it should be a longer and more detailed review for me, too), I’ll be interested in seeing what new angles they have to offer up.
Anyway, I hope that everyone had and is having a nice Easter today. My review of the WXW show in Minneola that will take place this upcoming Saturday should be up around this time-hopefully-a week from now.