You can't tell because it's super dark, but there are like 400 people in here.
PWA Fruition
February 18th, 2012
Century Casino Showroom
This is the first PWA show that I’ve been to in five or six months, and holy balls is it crowded. The main event PWA Championship match between former WWE superstars Harry (David Hart) Smith and Chavo Guerrero Jr brought in a packed house of over 400 fans, a near sell-out.
Richie Rage vs. Scotley Crue w/ Dr. Kyoto
This was a great opener. Formerly a PWA referee, Richie Rage made his in-ring debut for the PWA tonight, if I’m not mistaken. Richie is the… sigh, “son” of Ricky Rage, in a gimmick which wasn’t really acknowledged, which was good because it’s terrible. What wasn’t terrible was the match he had with Scotley Crue, one half of the PWA Tag Team Champion Redneck Renegades with Brandon Van Danielson, who we’ll talk about later. Richie has gotten a lot crisper in the ring since the last time I saw him, and he and Scotley wrestled a fairly fast-paced bout punctuated with interesting offence from both men, but highlighted by a double overhook suplex and a double jump moonsault from Richie. Shortly after the moonsault, Scotley regained control with a second rope hurricanrana and went up top to finish things off with a diving headbutt, but Richie rolled out of the way and caught the dazed Crue in a cradle for the three count somewhere around the 5-8 minute mark.
This match had everything you could ask for out of an opener: the crowd was way into it, it was well-paced, and had just the right amount of high spots at the right times.
Winner: Richie Rage via Roll-Up
There's no way this could possibly go poorly. Nope. No way.
Triple Threat Match
William Saint vs. Deryck Crosse vs. “Superfly” Dan Myers
As far as I could tell this was a triple threat match for the sake of having a triple threat match, as I’m not aware of any angle involving these three that would have warranted such a bout. I was optimistic, however, because I dig William Saint. Saint seemed to be a heel here, although his previous PWA appearances have been as a face and he used his face entrance music. He and Crosse did the classic “heels team up on the lone babyface” thing, which naturally led to Myers spending most of the early portion of the match on offence. This was not so good. He seemed slow and sluggish the entire match, which really gummed things up because, as the face, he was the one that the match was built around. Early on, Crosse did a drop-down during a rope running spot, but Myers hadn’t started hopping over him yet, which resulted in an awkward looking half-trip-half-hop, which was the point at which I realized my enjoyment of William Saint wasn’t going to be enough to get me through this one. Saint and Crosse did the sorts of things you’d expect two heels to do in a triple threat match, including the obligatory squabbling when one went for a cover. Myers hit a twisting cross body block off the middle rope onto both heels, which led me to believe that all of his internal organs were made of solid lead, as that was the only explanation for a cross body being that slow and heavy-looking.
The match was built around Irish whips to the corner, with the heels whipping Myers into the corner then each other into Myers (and occasionally Myers whipping them into each other). At one point toward the end of the bout Saint pulled a double-Crosse, planting a short-arm back elbow on the Prince of Perversion’s jaw. Is that still his gimmick? I don’t know, but he wore the Hercules glasses from it, so I’m going to go with maybe. Shortly thereafter, Saint and Crosse patched up their pointless differences and attempted a Doomsday Device, which Myers awkwardly countered into a sluggish (word of the match!) victory roll. Saint found himself dumped out to the floor, at which point Crosse countered a Myers attempt at… something, I’m not really sure what, into a schoolboy, and that was it. That makes two roll-up finishes in a row.
Winner: Deryck Crosse via Roll-Up. Again.
Kevin Sane vs. Brody Malibu w/ Brady Malibu
I have no idea how this picture turned out this well.
Brady Roberts has apparently appropriated the last name of his sidekick/personal lifeguard, Brody Malibu. I assume they finally admitted their love for one another and married since the last time I saw them in action. Also, Kevin Sane is a face now, which was news to me, as he had been a heel for his entire PWA run up until now. This was also originally billed as a mixed tag team match with Sane and Valkyrie taking on Brody Malibu and Jordyn Brooks, which really only leads to further questions about the whole face/heel dynamic of this contest, but regardless of the confused nature of things both men are in the role which best suits them.
This is a fairly standard, although solid, match, where the smaller Sane uses flippy shit (excuse my technical jargon) like hurricanranas and spinning head scissors during brief spurts of offence while Malibu controls the pace of the action with various holds and slams. I give bonus points to Sane for using a lungblower as a mid-match move, where it belongs, despite the insistance of a certain Puerto Rican tag team in WWE. Sane busted out a Shiranui/Sliced Bread No. 2 for a near fall, at which point Brady Malibu distracted the referee while throwing his life preserver to Brody, which for some reason is considered a reasonable weapon. Brody never got a hold of it though, as Sane beat him to it, just in time for referee Vijay Shankhar to take it away from him. While Sane and Shankhar engaged in a tug of war with the life preserver, Brody scooped Sane from behind with a schoolboy and used a handful of tights to ensure his victory.
Winner: Brody Malibu via Roll-Up. Seriously?
You’re not reading that wrong. Three matches in a row ended in roll-ups. Not only that, they all ended in schoolboys. I chalked it up to poor communication amongst the wrestlers when they were planning their matches, but those finishes were apparently booked that way on purpose. What purpose? No idea.
Jordyn really likes her new shoes, especially the way they crush windpipes.
Valkyrie vs. Jordyn Brooks
Last I heard, Valkyrie was the PWA Women’s Champion. Except she didn’t have the belt, so she must have lost it. Jordyn didn’t have the belt either, though, and she’s the only other woman in the PWA, so I’m not really sure what’s going on there. Perhaps somebody realized that having a women’s title with only two women in the promotion was absurd. Anyway, due to the fact that they’re the only two women in the promotion, these ladies have pretty good chemistry together, since they wrestle each other A LOT. Seriously, I think this is the fourth match between them that I’ve reviewed. Matches I’ve reviewed featuring other female wrestlers? Also four, and one of those was a mixed tag team match.
Valkyrie’s charisma once again shines through, and Jordyn has improved in the ring since the first time I saw these two ladies wrestle (back in the ’77). Valkyrie hit some interesting new offence, highlighted by a back handspring off the ropes into a stunner (but she did the splits instead of landing on her butt). Jordyn attempted to counter a powerbomb into a sit-out facebuster (aka the X-Factor, aka a terrible finisher that has stuck around for years for reasons inexplicable to me), but she landed too far out, so she just hit a normal facebuster to end things.
Winner: Jordyn Brooks via Sit-Out Facebuster
PWA Cruiserweight Championship Match
“Hollywood” Dusty Adonis (c) vs. Brandon Van Danielson
Whoa whoa whoa. Dusty Adonis is no longer a king, has reverted to his Hollywood gimmick, turned face, AND won the Cruiserweight Title since the last time I saw him wrestle? Whoa. At least I can take refuge in Brandon Van Danielson’s relative sameness, although he has acquired a shiny gold tag team title belt, as I mentioned earlier. He’s still got his “Rising Outlaw” gimmick that I no longer attempt to make sense out of, and the accompanying moustache. Although now he has sideburns, which look hilarious with his shaved head. I would make fun of BVD a lot more if he wasn’t a really good, entertaining wrestler.
This isn't the part of the match with the dancing. Despite what it looks like, it's the part with the punching.
This match went about 15 minutes, by my probably wildly inaccurate estimate, and was full of some of the most impressive offence of the night. Early on, Dusty went for that swinging kick through the ropes that Christian does all the time, but BVD blocked it and countered with a hanging neckbreaker from the second rope. Later, BVD tried to polish off Dusty with a Finlay roll into a Vader Bomb, but he took too much time showboating on the ropes and the champ was able to recover enough to kick out. I can’t remember where in the match it happened, but at one point Dusty transitioned from a spot with BVD to dancing with the female referee, which was cute and funny. Towards the end of the match, he hit a sweet briding electric chair for a close two count. Dusty regained the advantage and called for the Dusty Cutter (ace crusher), then launched into… the Cena series? Two shoulder blocks? Check. Blue thunder bomb? Check. He replaced with the Five Knuckle Shuffle with the Earthquake, but when he went for the Dusty Cutter he was shoved off by BVD. Adonis ended up catching BVD with the Dusty Cutter after spinning through a European uppercut attempt, and that was the end of the Rising Outlaw’s night.
Winner: “Hollywood” Dusty Adonis via Dusty Cutter.
Intermission
Chucky Blaze vs. T-Bone Jack Sloan
This is a feud that began, developed, and is now coming to a head since the last PWA show I saw. At some point in those six months or so, Chucky Blaze and T-Bone became uneasy tag team partners, challenged for the belts, won them, lost them to the Redneck Renegades (BVD and Scotley Crue), Chucky turned heel and T-Bone turned face, and Chucky got a giant-ass bodyguard. The bodyguard isn’t mentioned by name or really addressed at all until the end of the match, at which point he does some stuff but still isn’t named.
This would turn out to be a terrible idea.
This was a really good match, but the kind of really good that I don’t have a whole lot to say about. It was technically solid, well-paced, and as an added bonus Chucky Blaze changed his wrestling style to adapt to his new role as a heel. Instead of his usual high-energy, high-flying attack that got the fans behind him as a face, he adopted a more methodical ground-based attack retaining only one of his signature moves, the superkick. The superkick played into the finish, as after an altercation with Chucky and his bodyguard on the floor (right in front of the referee, who apparently chose not to do anything about the bodyguard popping T-Bone), Chucky nailed T-Bone on the chin with the superkick to end the man from Newfoundland’s night. Afterward, Chucky and his unnamed bodyguard mugged T-Bone and the bodyguard, who I’m told is legitimately 6′ 7” tall, splattered T-Bone all over the mat with a thunderous chokeslam, because guys that big are required by wrestling law to use the chokeslam. After aping the classic Shawn Michaels/Diesel pose, they’re satisfied with their handiwork and leave T-Bone to drag his carcass out of the ring.
Winner: Chucky Blaze via Superkick
Andy Anderson vs. Eclipse
It’s Andy Anderson! I like Andy Anderson a lot, although tonight he’s a heel instead of a face. On the other hand, he’s wrestling Eclipse, who gets
Holds like this always prefaced Eclipse falling on his head.
cheered for some reason, so heel it is. It also helps that Anderson’s heel role put him in control of the offence for the bulk of the match, which prevented me from going on another rant about how Eclipse is the worst luchador in the world. Eclipse did take Anderson’s two biggest moves of the match very bizarrely, though, twisting in the middle of both a sit-out dominator-type of thing and Angel’s Wings, which polished him off. This match was fine, but nothing special, so it filled its role of being a bit of a break to breathe in between the intense Chucky/T-Bone feud and the hotly anticipated PWA Title match.
Winner: Andy Anderson via Angel’s Wings.
It’s promoter Kurt Sorochan’s birthday, so he comes out to cut a promo to raucous chants of “happy birthday.” The PWA’s 11th Anniversary Show is coming up, and after last year’s theme of Decade of Excellence, he announces that this year will be the Return to Glory. Which actually makes no sense because to return to something you have to have left, which implies that the “decade of excellence” was somehow a fall from glory, which it wasn’t. The gist of the promo is that he 11th Anniversary Show is in March, but he takes his time getting there.
PWA Heavyweight Championship Match
Harry Smith (c) vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.
It was good and I got it on video, so just watch that.
Winner: Harry Smith via Sharpshooter
After the match, as you saw in the video, a match was set up for Night of Champions in June that would pit Chavo Guerrero against Lance Storm. That’s all well and good, because that will probably a really solid match. The ridiculous thing about it, which I discovered on Facebook the day after the show, is that Night of Champions is in CALGARY THIS YEAR. Why the fuck PWA thought it would be a good idea to build a big angle months in advance that will be paying off in a city that, at the time of announcement, HAD NO IDEA IT WAS HAPPENING, is beyond me. Little things like that, which could be easily corrected with a little foresight, but the shit out of me. Without TV or DVD releases, or even posting shows on YouTube, how are fans expected to be able to follow storylines that weave between two cities? Argh.
Anyway, nightly awards.
Spot of the Night: There are a lot of contenders for this, but I’m going to go with Richie Rage’s double jump moonsault, mostly because it surprised me the most. BVD and Dusty Adonis pulling out cool stuff normal because they’re both experienced, good workers, and Chavo and Harry were expected to do good things.
Match of the Night: Harry Smith vs. Chavo Guerrero. I expected it to be the best match, and it was. Dusty Adonis vs. Brandon Van Danielson was my favourite undercard match.
Overall: This is the kind of show that makes it frustrating that PWA doesn’t really utilize DVD releases anymore, because it was excellent and the kind of show worth watching again even if you were there live.
