There’s no comic today, as I mentioned on Wednesday, but that isn’t going to stop me from giving you guys some wrestling action. Like the last match video I posted, this one also features a former WWE Superstar, albeit one who was in the ‘E a lot more recently. I was never much of an MVP fan while he was in WWE, as I only got back into it toward the end of his run there when they had given up trying to do something interesting with him. He had a ton of charisma, but his offence was bland and most of the time he was thrown in nothing matches to get somebody else over. Now, I’ve been aware for quite a while now that WWE restricts wrestlers’ offences, but watching MVP in New Japan Pro Wrestling really spotlighted just how much his talent was kept in check by that system. See for yourself, as MVP defends his IWGP Intercontinental Championship against former ECW World Heavyweight Champion Masato Tanaka (who appears to have lost a ton of weight) at NJPW Destruction 2011.
EDIT: So apparently that match got pulled from YouTube, so I’ve decided to replace it with a different (but very similar) match. In this one, Masato Tanaka defends the IWGP Intercontinental title against MVP in a rematch that is a lot like Tanaka’s initial title victory.
RCW Rise of Legends
Night 2, October 15th, 2011
Glengarry Community Hall
The show began with Big Jess Youngblood making his way to the ring with the RCW Championship belt and a birthday cake. He explained that it was his birthday, and invited a little girl from the crowd who was also celebrating her special day to join him in the ring for cake. Evan Inferno made his way to the ring and promptly ruined that moment by shoving the cake into Youngblood’s face, thus maintaining the wrestling tradition of food not being able to be involved in a show without ending up all over somebody.
Kato hefts "The Greaser" for a suplex. Emphasis on "hefts." Greaser also describes the content of most of Angel's meals.
Ronnie “The Greaser” Angel is basically a poor man’s Deuce ‘n’ Domino. As his name implies, he’s doing a ‘50s “greaser” gimmick, complete with slicked hair and comb. He came out and cut a brief promo about taking the Mid-Heavyweight belt back to America and King Obama, at which point I loudly informed him that he doesn’t understand how politics work. He then proceeded to take off his white t-shirt (a greaser staple) to reveal a completely nonsensical black singlet top with zebra striping down the sides. Uh, what? He also managed to visibly screw up pretty much every one of the opening spots until Kato hit him with a springboard clothesline, which was not an auspicious start for “Greased Lightning.” After a little bit of back and forth, Kato hit a scintillating somersault plancha over the top to the floor, which made it very clear that moving the front row back about five feet from it’s location during the previous show a very, very good idea. They went for a bunch of “catch the high flyer” spots, which only worked really smoothly once, with Angel countering a cross body into a fallaway slam. Kato retained his title after a relatively short bout with a frog splash from the top turnbuckle. Winner: Kato via top rope frog splash.
The winner shall consume an entire cow. Who are we kidding, so will the loser.
Barricade vs. Andre Williams
Andre Williams was working a French Canadian gimmick, which is a pretty good way to get heat from a Western Canadian crowd. He also drew laughs because he was a “French” guy with an English name who yelled at the crowd in “French.” Which was basically composed of French words jammed together in nonsensical ways and pronounced with a cartoonish French accent. He and Barricade had a pretty solid “big guy” match, which began with an irresistible force/immovable object sequence of shoulder tackle attempts which ended when Barricade finally overran his “French” foe. There wasn’t anything particularly flashy in terms of offence, but the two behemoths had good chemistry and put on a good, meat and potatoes type of bout. Barricade pulled out the victory when he squashed the wind out of Williams with a running big splash after thumping the Frenchman in the corner with an avalanche. Winner: Barricade via running big splash.
The impact of Briggs on the mat will be complete. Several of his internal organs will not be.
Styles by surprise with a devastating DDT on the hardwood floor, which painted a rather nasty picture of Bucky Briggs’ future. C-Block continued to paint that ugly picture, but in a less metaphorical and more kick-y fashion. Styles attempted to save his partner from being thrown around like a small child, but each attempt to return to the apron was met with a boot to the head. Briggs showed amazing resilience in kicking out of C-Block’s devastating side slam/yakuza kick combination, but it seemed like the end was near until Slammer’s attempt to keep Steven Styles out of the ring got fouled up, resulting in Slammer being sent sprawling to the floor and Bucky Briggs managing to get the hot tag. Styles hit a series of clotheslines on the cons then, for no explicable reason, sank to his knees and crawled around until Slammer had returned with Officer Gordon’s riot helmet in his possession. A big wind-up and a dull thud later and it was Ugg, not Steven Styles with a helmet-shaped dent in his forehead, much to Slammer’s dismay. Shortly after Slammer was forcibly ejected out to the floor, Styles covered Ugg for the pin to retain the titles. Winner: Complete Impact via helmet shot.
“All American” Steve Rivers vs. “Hotshot” Danny Duggan
The second “America is better than you” gimmick of the night belonged to “All American” Steve Rivers, who returned from a suspension to take on the Wunderkind from Winnipeg, “Hotshot” Danny Duggan. Steve Rivers holds the dubious honour of possessing the rattiest, most hilariously ghetto kneepads I’ve ever seen. The rectangular chunk of foam that made up the pad itself looked like a pillow stuffed into a case three sizes too small, and every time he took a step his pads slid down his legs revealing a second pair of kneepads, which really just led to further questions.
Danny Duggan can't fly, but he is so pretty that it blurred my camera. I don't know why I let him write this caption.
Oh, right, there was a match. Danny Duggan got himself jumped from behind for doing unacceptable things like “walking to the ring,” which is apparently offended Evan Inferno. Rivers distracted the referee, then nearly scored the pinfall within seconds of Duggan being rolled into the ring. Duggan managed to kick out, but that just led to further bludgeonings at the hands of the All American. Duggan eventually used youth and ability to overcome age and treachery, somehow not killing Rivers with a flying knee drop from the top rope. Shortly thereafter, Duggan blasted Rivers with a punch that took the All American out of his kneepads – literally, the foam in one of his kneepads rocketed up into the air and out onto the floor. The bout was ruled a draw shortly thereafter due to a double count-out. Evan Inferno returned to help Steve Rivers work over Danny Duggan, then the heels raised their arms in victory… with Rivers holding his kneepad foam in his other hand, which made it look like the single worst trophy in the history of awards. Winner: Draw. Double count-out.
Intermission
Teddy Hart & Team Impact vs. “Pistol” Pete Wilson, Keishi & Danny Nightmare
The fact that there are two tag teams with “impact” in their name on the same card is straight-up indy wrestling, as is the fact that by far the worse of those two teams holds the gold. I have no idea what the names of the individuals comprising Team Impact are, but they wore really badass entrance masks. They looked like ROH’s Briscoes with white versions of the Demolition entrance masks. Wilson, Keishi, and Danny Nightmare, on the other hand, may have been the least intimidating trio in six-man tag team history, unless Hornswoggle teamed up with the Swagger Soaring Eagle and a coat rack at some point that I’m not aware of.
While there was some mat wrestling to begin with, including Teddy Hart and Pete Wilson doing a whole bunch of rolls, spins, and counters that seemed to include every submission hold that Hart knew being applied briefly at some point. But what you really want to hear about is when things escalated into everyone throwing as much cool shit out there as possible. I got a bunch of it on video, so I’m going to just let you guys watch that instead of trying to explain it all. Teddy Hart picked up the victory to the surprise of nobody, but the fact that he did so by pretty much murdering Danny Nightmare was pretty shocking. Now, I make a lot of jokes about guys getting killed by brutal looking moves, but in this case I was seriously concerned for Nightmare’s health, because Hart didn’t seem to do much to protect the guy, and it took him an uncomfortable amount of time to get moving again. Scare at the end aside, this was a very exciting match full of really interesting spots, even if the psychology was largely absent. One thing I don’t think I caught in the video was one of the members of Team Impact kicking every member of the opposing team in the face in a different fashion in a span of about five seconds, all of which sounded like somebody got shot.
Winner: Hart & Team Impact via hammerlock piledriver.
After things spilled out onto the floor, Evan Inferno snuck over to the merchandise table where he grabbed an Uberfist (foam Hulk hands with cup holders built into them) and tried to cheap shot the champ with it, but he made too much of a show winding up and Jess blocked his punch, then disarmed him (semi-literally) and waffled him with the delightful yet mighty mitten. Despite the fist being obviously made of foam, Inferno reacted like he just got smashed with a chain or brass knuckles or something, which was really funny. Big Jess retained his championship after splattering Inferno all over the mat with a running powerbomb out of the corner. Winner: Big Jess Youngblood via running powerbomb.
Demolition vs. Supreme-Adonnas
The Supreme-Adonnas entered first to jeers from the crowd, then got on the mic, which only increased said jeers. Heavy Metal and “Mr. TLC” Tommy Lee Curtis took turns berating Demolition for continuously ducking them, then claimed that Ax and Smash were only in the building because the Supreme-Adonnas had sent their personal limousine to pick them up from the airport to ensure their presence. The Gurus of Shampoo then brought out “Demolition” – two skinny guys with dreads who looked like Juggalos with their faux-Demolition make-up. The Supreme-Adonnas feigned being terrified, then beat the tar out of their face-painted patsies, hitting a double superkick on a kneeling “Smash” before cutting down “Ax” with a superkick-into-flapjack thing. Then actual Demolition came out and it became an entirely different story. Instead of reading it, why not just watch it in full on my YouTube page? Yes, of course you want to do that.
Winner: Demolition via Hart Attack.
Spot of the Night: The ending of the six man tag, while it appeared to be absurdly dangerous, featured the highest ratio of “holy shit” moves per second. Kato’s dive to the floor in the opener was also pretty impressive, and didn’t kill anybody. Match of the Night: Supreme-Adonnas vs. Demolition. Was it a technical masterpiece? Nope. Was it fun, solid, old-school wrestling? Yep.
RCW Collision Course
September 17th, 2011
Glengarry Community Hall, Edmonton, AB
The show opens with commissioner Dan Druff being introduced by the ring announcer. Druff insists that his last name is pronounced “Drowff” then goes on to announce that Ax and Smash, Demolition, will be headlining RCW’s October 15th offering, Rise of Legends. The placement of this announcement was a bit suspect, as it made the current show seem less important. “Yeah, you just paid for tickets for tonight’s show, but NEXT show we have Demolition.”
Ugg had several spinal surgeries in the following weeks.
Teddy Hart, the tonight’s headliner, made his way to the ring and, after seemingly shaking the hand of pretty much everybody in the audience, got on the mic. I’m not going to lie, I was more pumped to hear what insanity was going to come out of his mouth than I was to see him do ten thousand flips in the main event later on. Hart talked about returning to Canada after a long stint with Triple A in Mexico, which he claimed was the second largest promotion in the world, behind WWE. I have no idea whether or not this is true, but my instinct is that the second biggest promotion is probably in Japan. At any rate, Hart went on to talk about how the fans are vital in rebuilding the popularity of wrestling, then went on to take shots at PWA promoter Kurt Sorochan for turning the territory that Ted’s grandfather (Stu Hart) made the best in the world into a territory that draws 200 people a night. He rambled on about competition breeding excellence and at some point Evan Inferno showed up to say he had Teddy Hart’s back. Uh, okay. This promo was long and rambling, and for the most part didn’t feel all that necessary. I should also mention it’s the only time I’ve ever seen a wrestler cut a promo in sandals with socks. It’s not a very intimidating look. He also managed to swear in front of children less than five minutes into the promo, which I found incredibly funny.
Ugg vs. Bucky Briggs vs. Barricade
Our first match of the night turns out to be a triple threat match, which confused me because I think the announcer forgot to announce that prior to the third guy entering. Things started with Bucky Briggs attempting to take on both Ugg and Barricade, which was not a fantastic idea on his part. After the initial sequence, wrestlers took turns bailing/being thrown to the floor while the other two guys wrestled. So what I’m saying is it was a triple threat match. Ugg was briefly on the floor early on, which caused Officer Gordon to bellow “I didn’t let you out to watch!” which I thought was a nice touch. Once Ugg got back in the ring he took over, with Bucky Briggs and Barricade alternating as his victims. Whoever was on the floor would end up brawling awkwardly with Officer Gordon, which in the case of Barricade and Gordon looked like two bears pawing drunkenly at each other. Ugg was the most polished of the three in the ring, and managed to save a few mis-timed spots. Offensively, the highlight of the match was Ugg’s fallaway slam on Bucky Briggs. The finish saw all three men in the ring and Barricade on fire. He squashed Ugg with a running avalanche in the corner, taking the convict out of the equation, then countered Bucky Briggs’ ill-advised charge with a British Bulldog-style powerslam for the pin. Winner: Barricade via powerslam.
Steven Styles chops Keishi up like the steaks that both of them have clearly consumed a few too many of.
After the match, Heavy Metal rushed the ring and laid out Barricade with the Mid-Heavyweight Championship belt, then got on the mic and told Kato, Barricade’s tag team partner, that he had no chance to take the Mid-Heavyweight Title, because Metal was going to do to him what he just did to Barricade. Kato hit the ring and chased off Metal before he could do any more damage.
Steven Styles vs. Keishi
Prior to the match, Keishi delivered a short promo, claiming that his loss in a previous tag team match against Steven Styles and Bucky Briggs was due to his partner, who he has now severed ties with, being awful. He claims he has never tapped out before, and it was his partner’s fault that he was forced to submit by Steven Styles.
The match began with a comedic opening in which Keishi decided that he needed to stretch a bit more before the match, but was unable to reach his feet to complete a toe-touch, at which point he asked the referee to help him out. After that he challenged Styles to a test of strength, then let out a piercing, girlish shriek when Styles overturned the knuckle lock. Once the actual wrestling started, Styles hit Keishi with a flurry of offence, punctuated by a big bodyslam and a double arm suplex. After a very brief brawl on the floor, Keishi managed to gain the advantage by attacking Styles’ knee. After a few minutes of doing damage to Styles’ knee, Keishi went up top and attempted to end Styles’ night (and ability to walk) with a moonsault onto Styles’ exposed leg. Fortunately for Styles, he saw it coming and was able to get out of the way, resulting in Keishi splattering himself all over the canvas. Loopy from denting the mat with his face, Keishi walked right into a flatliner, then tapped out to a Crippler Crossface. Winner: Steven Styles via Crippler Crossface
The canvas is terrified of what's about to happen to it when one of these monsters falls off the ropes.
lovechild of Booker T and Kofi Kingston. Being billed from South Beach in Miami, Florida, Wilcott worked an American heel gimmick (that’s right, American wrestling fans, in other countries you’re one of the evil foreigner gimmicks). After a bunch of very entertaining back-and-forth with various members of the audience, Jesse Youngblood came out to defend his RCW Heavyweight Championship.
The match had flashes of brilliance, but for the most part it seemed that the two grapplers weren’t quite gelling together. After some early back-and-forth, Wilcott found himself on the apron with an angry Jesse Youngblood coming at him like a runaway bus. Wilcott was able to cleverly spin under the clothesline, catching Youngblood’s arm and yanking it down across the top rope with a simultaneously vicious and flashy shoulder stunner. Wilcott maintained control through most of the bout, weathering periodic surges of offence from the champion. Towards the end of the bout, Youngblood attempted to polish off a reeling Wilcott with some sort of powerbomb, but he didn’t have the strength left in his shoulder to heft his opponent. Forced to improvise, Youngblood countered an attempted superplex by Wilcott and laid waste to the challenger with a frog splash from the second turnbuckle, the force of which squashed the fight out of Wilcott and, I’m fairly certain, made the ring tap out. The three count was merely a formality. Winner: Jesse Youngblood via second rope frog splash.
Just prior to the intermission, commissioner Dan Druff, still lamenting the ring announcer’s continued inability to pronounce his name properly, announced that October 15th’s Rise of Legends card would feature Demolition (which leads one to wonder why the opening announcement happened at all, when all of the information from it was repeated here). He added that they would be taking on RCW’s own Supreme-adonnas, Heavy Metal and Tommy Lee Curtis.
Intermission. Some random fan got into the ring, apparently determined to find out what the mat and turnbuckles felt like. His actions led to me believe he wasn’t a member of the ring crew, although I kind of hope he was because otherwise some guy was just in the ring and nobody cared.
This is before they decided to just attack each other with ringside furniture.
In easily the best match of the night, Heavy Metal defended his RCW Mid-Heavyweight Championship against Kato. Metal attempted to jump Kato right off the bat, but Kato proved to be quicker and got the better of the champion, dumping him out onto the floor in short order with a hammerlock counter. He followed it up with a sort-of moonsault that saw him use the ropes to propel himself in a backflip over the top and onto Metal on the floor (a normal moonsault probably would have killed the first couple of rows). This ended up doing more damage to Kato, as the momentum from the ropes dumped him on his head on the apron. After getting back in the ring and exchanging some wear-down moves, highlighted by Metal hitting a hangman’s spinning neckbreaker (think Orton’s DDT, but off the top and a neckbreaker), Metal got himself hung in the tree of woe on the side of the turnbuckle, dangling above the ring apron. He ate a dropkick in the face from Kato, which sparked the beginning of a wild brawl on the floor. Metal reversed an Irish whip which resulted in Kato wiping out about a quarter of the floor seats on my side of the ring (Kato landed on the person sitting a chair to my left, who failed to recognize that getting out of the way would be smart). Metal attempted to suplex Kato, but was reversed, at which point I learned that the “splat” of a 215 pound man being suplexed on a hardwood floor ten feet away from me is very loud and kind of disgusting. Metal tried to escape, but Kato slingshotted Heavy Metal face-first into the bottom of the merchandise table, under which Metal was trying to hide.
After destroying most of the ringside area, both men finally got back into the ring. Metal managed to regain control, then proceeded to throw everything he had at Kato, culminating in a tiger bomb that flabbergasted the Commissioner of Hair Conditioner when Kato still managed to kick out before the three count. After eating a diving dropkick from the top rope to the floor (which resulted in Kato landing in the front row again), Metal finally snapped and grabbed the ring bell, determined to put away the Asian Assassin once and for all. Kato ducked the bell shot and landed a kick that loosened Metal’s grip on the bell, then drove the Guru of Shampoo face-first into the metal bell with an ace crusher, knocking the Mid-Heavyweight Champion out and ending his championship reign. Winner: Kato via ace crusher on the ring bell.
Pistol Pete Wilson vs. Teddy Hart
Teddy Hart pretzelizes Pete Wilson. This is before Teddy Hart hilariously claimed he ruptured a testicle.
Things started off with some lucha style chain wrestling with a pretty quick pace and a lot of holds that turned into rolls and drags of various sorts. That went on for a couple of minutes before Teddy Hart all of a sudden suplexed Pete Wilson over the top rope to the floor from inside the ring! Never seen that before. After a brief brawl on the floor ending with Teddy Hart getting a faceful of ring post, the fight moved back into the ring and the two returned to exchanging holds and counter-holds, highlighted by Teddy Hart rolling through an attempt at a sunset flip from the top rope and somehow reversing directions and transitioning into a Canadian Destroyer! I’d never seen a Canadian Destroyer live prior to this, but I can now confirm that it looks like somebody was just murdered. A bit more lucha stuff ensued before a Cactus clothesline sent both Wilson and Hart crashing to the hardwood floor. Hart was smashed into the ring post once again, this time eliciting loud cursing and claims of an injury, which led me to the conclusion that he doesn’t quite understand how selling works, but in the most amusing way possible. Wilson didn’t ease up his attack, though, and used my seat as a springboard for a flying crossbody press after clearing out the row to give him room to get a running start. They nearly landed in a potted plant. Now firmly in charge, Wilson took the action back into the ring, where he attempted to end Hart’s night with a 450 splash. Hart had a little something to say about that, though, and drove his knees into Wilson’s sternum, which caused Teddy to start yelling to the referee that he broke Wilson’s ribs. This is what made it clear to me that Teddy has no idea how to sell, because Wilson looked pretty spry for a guy with allegedly busted ribs. You don’t see the average guy with busted ribs doing another 450 later, is all I’m sayin’.
I didn’t notice when he came out, but at some point Evan Inferno ended up at ringside to cheer on Tedward Hart. When the referee’s back was turned, however, Inferno entered the ring and destroyed Hart’s unborn children with a low blow. As Wilson ascended the turnbuckles to further punish Hart with a 450 splash, Keishi ended up at ringside for some reason. Even more inexplicably, a moment of sheer what-the-fuckery occurred as Inferno and Keishi hit the ring to assault Teddy Hart… causing THEIR OWN GUY TO LOSE by disqualification when he had Hart beaten, dead to rights. The referee’s hand was on its way down to the mat for the three, Hart wasn’t moving, and it would have been a huge pinfall victory for Wilson. But nope, he lost by DQ. Now, normally I wouldn’t mind a local guy losing by DQ to an international star, this finish was just so completely absurd that it killed an exciting match. Winner: Teddy Hart via disqualification.
Inferno, Keishi, and Wilson continued to stomp the piss out of Hart for a moment until Big Jess Youngblood and Steven Styles hit the ring to make the save. Making the save actually took quite a while, as the heels continued to lurk on the floor for several minutes while Jess amused the crowd by assaulting Evan Inferno’s hat. Teddy Hart groaned and yelped that his testicles had been ruptured, which was honestly fucking hilarious. He even went so far with it that he dumped the content of a fan’s water bottle down his crotch, then had a hand down his pants while making agonized faces. There’s a masturbation joke in there that I’m far too classy to make (shut up), so feel free to fill in that blank yourself. After several surreal minutes of this, Hart and Steven Styles took turns on the mic with the upshot being that Hart would team with Styles and Youngblood to take on Wilson, Keishi, and Inferno in a six man tag team match at Rise of Legends in October. Due to the fact that this review took me forever to get finished, I have seen the advertised card for Rise of Legends, which adjusted the match-up a bit. Big Jess Youngblood and Evan Inferno have been removed from the match and put into a separate bout for Youngblood’s RCW Title. Bucky Briggs and a mystery partner, respectively, have been slotted into the six-man in their place.
Spot of the Night: The sunset flip counter into a Canadian Destroyer blew my mind, but this was actually a very tough call. Heavy Metal and Kato’s spots on the floor were fantastic uses of the environment, and Pete Wilson’s flying crossbody off of the seats was pretty exhilarating, since he took off from roughly a foot in front of me. Match of the Night: Heavy Metal vs. Kato for the Mid-Heavyweight Championship, with Teddy Hart vs. Pete Wilson as the runner-up. Metal and Kato told an interesting story and put together a match that blended technical wrestling and wild brawling in a way that made sense in the context of the story.
You’ve already seen it if you’re reading this (unless you read the RSS feed, I suppose), but I finally did that new header thing I’ve been talking about since like, forever ago. And by “I” got around to it I mean my friend Trevor, who is an animator, got bored and started screwing around with my logo and came up with stuff waaaay better than anything I was cooking up. And by cooking up I mean sort of kind of thinking about but not actually working on because that time is typically better spent just doing more pages.
So anyway, Trevor is awesome and there’s a new header which is also awesome.
A SHOW OF FORCE: MORINVILLE
Cultural Community Centre, Morinville, AB
August 20th, 2011
While officially titled “A Show of FORCE: Morinville,” the inaugural offering from FORCE Pro Wrestling could easily have been billed as “Card Subject to Change.” Despite substantial changes to the card, the show managed to exceed expectations and deliver an action-packed night to the raucous crowd in Morinville’s brand new Cultural Community Centre.
William Saint vs. Nightmare
Nightmare makes William Saint think about that bad ride he's about to take. Photo courtesy Trident Photography.
The first match in FORCE history will be remembered as a good one. William Saint started things off by yelling vigorously at the crowd, which only served to increase the volume of chanting in support of Nightmare. Nightmare started off with a very technical offence centred around the erstwhile headlock, which gave Saint a lot of difficulty in the early part of the match. After Saint was able to solve the headlock, he and Nightmare traded suplexes, a stalling vertical suplex by Nightmare and a snap suplex by Saint, and other high impact offence in an attempt to put each other down for the three count. Nightmare was able to land the biggest move first, nailing Saint from the second rope with a Taliban Backpack (a leaping variant of the lungblower), which was enough to keep Saint down for the three count and allow Nightmare to chalk up the first victory in FORCE history just shy of the twenty minute mark.
Winner: Nightmare via Taliban Backpack.
Following the Saint/Nightmare bout, Cam!!ikaze was welcomed to the stage by ring announcer What About Ivan. Cam informed the audience that he had seriously injured his knee a couple of days prior to the show, which would prevent him from wrestling Johnny Devine in the main event. He continued to say that he was incredibly sorry that he wouldn’t be able to perform, but he was able to secure a replacement. Miss Danyah came out onto the stage and accused Cam!!ikaze of faking his injury to get out of the world of hurt that Johnny Devine was going to put on him. She also mentioned that her own opponent, scheduled to be KC Spinelli, was even more scared than Cam, because she didn’t even show up. She then entered the ring and demanded that referee Kevin Sane raise her hand since she had just won by forfeit, as far as she was concerned. Sane was reluctant to do so, since she hadn’t actually done anything, but eventually relented and raised Danyah’s hand in victory… only to eat a clothesline from her free hand. Danyah pulled the poor referee’s shirt up over his head to feed him some short punches, then threw him out onto the floor where FORCE’s other official, Vijay Shankhar, was waiting to check on his colleague. Sane brushed off Shankhar and tried to storm the ring, but was held back while Danyah taunted him from inside the ring and the crowd screamed for Shankhar to “let him fight.” The decision made for him by the fans, Shankhar allowed Sane to get into the ring and called for the bell.
Miss Danyah bodyslams a small child. No, sorry, that's Kevin Sane. Photo courtesy Trident Photography.
Miss Danyah vs. Kevin Sane
Sane started off like a house of fire (once he finally got started, which took several minutes of being thrashed to take effect) putting the overconfident Danyah back on her heels with a flurry of offence. With the crowd solidly behind him, Sane countered Danyah’s size advantage with speedy moves like a tilt-a-whirl head scissors and hurricanrana, but was eventually felled by the incompetence of his own brother-in-arms, Vijay Shankhar. Danyah used her body to block Shankhar’s view as she mule-kicked Sane, then gave him another shot to the peninsula south of the equator for good measure. A big splash later and that was all she wrote for the fighting referee.
Winner: Danyah via Big Splash.
Chucky Blaze vs. Mr. Fantastic
Chucky Blaze entered the arena to a huge ovation from the Morinville crowd, which was only heightened when he charged up the bleachers in an apparent effort to high-five the entire population of the town before stepping into the ring
Referee Vijay Shankhar hustles to make the count as Chucky Blaze pins Mr. Fantastic. Photo courtesy Trident Photography.
to take on the masked Mr. Fantastic. In a wild battle that spent nearly as long on the floor as it did in the ring, Chucky Blaze pitted his fast-moving and high-flying offence against Mr. Fantastic’s arsenal of high-impact throws and slams. Blaze seemed to have things well in hand after hitting a death-defying suicide dive that resulted in both he and Mr. Fantastic sprawling into the front row. Chucky strung together several of his signature moves in sequence, including a flying knee strike in the corner and a springboard cross body block, but Mr. Fantastic proved to be remarkably resilient, and responded with a double overhook suplex. After a series of reversals, Chucky escaped a back suplex attempt and caught Mr. Fantastic off-guard with a super kick, which finally kept the masked man down.
Winner: Chucky Blaze via Super Kick.
Intermission. Normally I don’t mention the intermission in show recaps, but I wanted to point out that the intermission ran longer than intended to accommodate the large crowds that formed when several FORCE stars set up shop at the merchandise tables to meet fans, take pictures, and sign autographs. The crowd was still fairly substantial when the show was scheduled to resume, so the call was made to extend intermission so that everyone who wanted to could meet their favourite wrestlers and get an autograph.
Handicap Match C-Block w/ Officer Gordon vs. Strife
Originally scheduled to be a tag team match, Strife’s partner failed to arrive and thus left Strife to battle Officer Gordon’s uncaged animals on his own. Strife started off well, nullifying Slammer and Ugg’s power advantages with technique, but once the cons started cheating, things went downhill fast for the lone warrior from the Orient. Officer Gordon attempted to get involved to turn the tables, but after choking Strife across the middle rope and being admonished by the referee, he attempted to choke Strife again (this time with his back turned in an attempt to use his bulk to block the referee’s view), only to strangle the life out of Slammer before realizing what was happening. After being launched across the ring with a capture suplex by Ugg and a combination sidewalk slam/Yakuza kick, Strife shocked C-Block by refusing to stay down for the three count. Officer Gordon got involved again, this time far more effectively, by removing his helmet and cracking Strife in the head with it. With Strife stunned, Slammer applied the Billy Goat’s Curse, setting Ugg up to nail the defenceless Strife with a thunderous leg drop to the back of his head. The three count was academic. After scoring the pinfall, C-Block continued the assault on Strife until Officer Gordon was able to subdue them, handcuffing Slammer and choking Ugg unconscious.
Winner: C-Block via combination Billy Goat’s Curse/Leg Drop.
Once C-Block were en route back to Arkham Asylum, hometown hero Sgt. Hazard made his return. He got on the microphone and praised the crowd who came out to see him, but then regretfully informed them that his scheduled opponent for the night, Bill Yates, had run into travel problems and wasn’t present. At this point Hotshot Johnny Devine made his presence known, claiming that he was the main event and that Sarge being from “Moron-vile” wasn’t anything worth bragging about. While Devine verbally ran down Hazard and his home town to jeers and boos from the fans, astute observers noticed that one fan was wearing elbow pads and approaching the ring. As the man climbed into the ring behind Hazard, Johnny Devine informed Hazard that just because Bill Yates couldn’t make it didn’t mean he didn’t have an opponent. He introduced Livewire Matt Richards just as Richards introduced his forearm to the back of Sarge’s head.
Sgt. Hazard makes Livewire Matt Richards regret jumping him from behind by making him experience involuntary flight. Photo courtesy Trident Photography.
Sgt. Hazard vs. Livewire Matt Richards
Richards used the element of surprise to his advantage, but Hazard was quickly able to regain his bearings and make Richards regret his underhanded tactics with a hip toss that in other venues may have seen Richards collide with the ceiling, as well as a flurry of powerful punches. Richards, not prepared for Sarge’s heavy artillery, remained in the floor for several moments after being thrown through the ropes by Hazard. Richards regrouped while referee Vijay Shankhar warned Sarge to make sure that he didn’t throw Richards over the top rope, which is an illegal move in FORCE. Richards came back in, with similar results. Sarge ducked an attempted cross body block, which sent Richards sailing over the top to the floor. Despite Hazard not having actually thrown Richards, Shankhar issued him a yellow card; one more infraction would earn him a red card and a disqualification. While Sarge argued that he hadn’t actually done anything to Richards, the Livewire jumped him from behind and began to work him over with an offence highlighted by an excruciating flipping neck snap that Sgt. Hazard was, shockingly, able to fight through to remain in the match. Vijay Shankhar found himself the unfortunate recipient of an attempt at a corner avalanche, which led to Richards bailing out to grab some furniture. He set up the chair to perform a double jump moonsault, but the slightest miscue on Richards’ part allowed Hazard to get his knees up and knock the Livewire silly. With the fight gone out of him, Richards decided that a win was a win, no matter how he got it. As Vijay Shankhar started to recover, Richards handed the chair to Hazard, then flopped onto his back and lay still. Shankhar, seeing Hazard standing over Richards holding a chair, issued a red card – Sarge was disqualified. His hometown fans went berserk as Richards scuttled away, but Sgt. Hazard would eventually get the last laugh.
Winner: Livewire Matt Richards via Disqualification.
Hotshot Johnny Devine suplexes Andy Anderson during their main event clash. Photo courtesy Trident Photography.
Hotshot Johnny Devine vs. Andy Anderson
Hotshot Johnny Devine entered first with Miss Danyah by his side. Cam!!ikaze came to the ring, at which point children in the audience implored him not to wrestle so he didn’t get hurt. Johnny Devine agreed with them, then attacked Cam!!ikaze. Cam was able to escape to the floor, where Danyah landed a few kicks while Johnny Devine taunted him from the ring. Devine turned around to find, to his horror, that Cam!!ikaze’s replacement had arrived, and was standing right behind him. Andy Anderson, “the Lone Wolf,” a similarly experienced international wrestler, had hit the ring while Devine was busy berating Cam. Anderson lit up Devine with a series of right hands, a Manhattan drop, and an atomic drop before Devine took a powder to regroup on the outside.
Devine returned to the ring and immediately went to work on Anderson’s left arm, catching him by surprise with a variation of the shoulder DDT. Despite weakening Anderson’s arm, Devine still had to resort to breaking the rules in his attempt to keep his surprise opponent down for the count. Danyah didn’t pass up the opportunity to land cheap shots, and Devine had some sort of foreign object (which can best be described as small and gougey) with which he would jab Anderson whenever the referee’s vision was obscured (which was a lot, as Devine has had plenty of experience cheating). Despite Cam!!ikaze’s myriad attempts to point out the wrong-doings to the referee by telling him where Devine had hidden the object, but Devine always managed to move it before the referee checked him. Anderson proved to be incredibly resilient, however, and even Devine’s rulebreaking wasn’t enough to sap his will to win. Devine and Danyah both realized this, causing Danyah to subtley toss a chain into the ring while she distracted Anderson and the referee. Devine wrapped the chain around his fist, then waited for Anderson to turn around to meet him with a cracking shot right on the button. Anderson stayed down for the three count and beyond, but Sgt. Hazard quickly made his way to ringside. Hazard, who had been watching from the entryway, saw Devine hide the chain in his singlet, and convinced referee Kevin Sane to check. This time, Sane was able to find the chain, and asked the audience if they wanted the match restarted. Of course they did, and said so as loudly as possible.
Shortly after the match was restarted, Danyah attempted to intervene with the chain again, but this time chaos ensued. While referee Kevin Sane and Cam!!ikaze attempted to get Danyah out of the ring, Sgt. Hazard made his presence felt. While Devine was wrapping the chain around his fist, Hazard spun him around, which startled the former X Division Champion into dropping the chain. Anderson quickly scooped up the chain and, with referee Sane occupied by spanking Danyah (who had been pushed over his knee by Cam), blasted Devine square on the chin, cooling off the Hotshot and earning the pinfall victory after nearly twenty-five minutes of gruelling action.
