2. Peter Goodman vs. The Mighty KAFU – 2
3. Colt Cabana and “Sexy” Sony Sampson vs. Ricky Reyes and Bobby Jo Marshall – 2
4. 25 Man “King of the Summit” Battle Royal – 5
5. Los Pochos Guapos vs. Matt Classic and Human Tornado – 4
6. Los Luchas (Zokre and Phoenix Star) vs. Real American Heroes (Joey Ryan and “Machine Gun” Karl Anderson) – Flag Match – 4
7. Adam Pearce vs. Nelson Creed – 3
8. El Hijo Del Santo and Billy Kidman vs. Super Parka and Nicho El Millonario – 4
I scored this DVD from the local library and was excited to give it a spin. The show is mostly made up of west coast independent workers, including former WSX and XPW guys, some lucha luminaries, and the rest from NWA territorial companies. Production on the DVD is moderately good, with acceptable lighting and editing, although the steady camera shot is somewhat lopsided, and the commentary isn’t thoroughly dislikable although it straddles the line. The opening four-team tag doesn’t do much to get you out of your seat, hollering and shouting, involved in the action as it unfolds in front of your eyes. However, there is a decent heel and face dynamic, with two of the teams being fresh-faced, young, good guys, and the other two teams being pudgier, cheating, bad guys. TJ Perkins is advertised on the back of the DVD case but is nowhere to be found. His replacement? Tommy Kim. You can imagine my lack of excitement. This isn’t actively bad, though, just deserving of its opening slot.
Goodman looks like a mixture of Simon Dean and Petey Williams on the Arby’s diet. His opponent, KAFU, is a huge Brazilian beast, and I’m surprised he hasn’t had WWE executives knocking at his door with his impressive look. They do the familiar little guy versus behemoth match, void of any memorable moments outside of KAFU dragging Peter around the arena by his ear. I was really disappointed with the following tag, especially considering it included two former ROH guys. Bobby Jo plays a white trash, skinhead, John Cena with sneakers, baggy black jean shorts, and crewcut. Sampson and Cabana were all about the comedic stuff, as expected, but sadly there was little else to this match.
I actually really enjoyed the battle royal. While yes, there were moments of pure indy excrement, it felt strangely like an authentic ‘80’s battle royal, with clearly defined roles and other recognizable institutions. Every 45 seconds another competitor would join the fray so it kept moving at a brisk pace. One of the dumbest contrivances was near the end; about ten guys got eliminated but instead of going to the back like everybody else, just stood around waiting. I predicted someone would get tossed onto them, and of course, some small guy ran in only to be thrown onto the group of milling idiots standing around aimlessly. The following tag was pretty decent, too, featuring former WSX heels Los Pochos Guapos doing their “we’re partners but pissed at each other” shtick still. This was my first glimpse at Matt Classic, a very interesting character, basically take Captain America’s origin story and put a wrestler in place of a solider. He was a grappler in the late 1930’s but suffered a coma and was just recently awakened. His mannerisms and style are very old school, and at one point, he was distracted by a cameraman’s headset and it cost his team. I’m usually not a sucker for such obvious characters (Eugene, El Generico, The Shark, etc.) as their shelf life is about as long as my last bowel movement, but I admittedly sort of dig this concept in a ridiculous sort of way. The match ran about ten minutes, but thus far, featured the fastest and hardest-hitting action of the show; coincidently that’s not saying a whole lot.
The flag match featured some pretty decent wrestling, probably the best glimpse of contemporary stuff, and while being entertaining, it suffered some serious logical flaws given the flag stipulation. To win, you could either score a pin or grab your country’s native flag, but the flags were merely stuck on opposing turnbuckles and any of the guys could have easily, at any time, just reached over and grabbed theirs. Instead, they worked choreographed spots, defying all rational, as if you were trying to win, or at least give the impression you were, you’d at least tease going for the flags. Ryan and Anderson play pretty decent heels, working up the crowd playing racist roles. Los Luchas did an awesome double-team combo where one of them slingshot Ryan into their partner’s “Buff Blockbuster” with Ryan taking the bump on the first partner’s knees. The heels hugely fucked up their big double-team, as Anderson was supposed to toss one of the lucha guys into a mid-air superkick by Ryan, but the guy landed right square on his ass before Ryan even threw his shitty savate.
If you’ve seen one shitty Adam Peace stall-a-thon than you’ve seen ‘em all. It didn’t help matters that Creed looked greener than Doc Samson’s pubic hair. Pearce does some decent facial sells, but it takes a lot more than that in my estimation to call yourself NWA champion. The main event was slightly disappointing, as you can tell at this point in all their respective careers these guys don’t put forth that much effort. Santo looked the best, some dispute El Hijo is better than his father, the legendary Santo, and while that’s arguable, I’d wager more Mexican banks have been robbed by people wearing his mask than any other. Santo busted out some crazy old man spots with some gigantic dives, topes, etc. He nearly crushed Super Parka’s skull from a giant splash off the top turnbuckle out onto Parka on the floor. Another thing that really ruined this was the heel announcer going on and on about Billy Kidman’s newfound gut—all right, I get it already, he’s fucking fat! So what? Kidman’s a chubby, bloated guy now… as long as he still throws a competent dropkick and jerks off to his ex-wife Torrie Wilson’s Playboy than he’s aces in my book.
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