Heat: The Space Age of Pro Wrestling

PWA Christmas Slam 2016

The Cody Rhodes Indie Wrestling Fantasy Camp Tour continues with a stop in Edmonton, Alberta, for the Prairie Wrestling Alliance! I have a feeling that this stop is more on the side of “you met the asking price, so sure” variety than many of his previous appearances in prestige indies like Evolve and PWG, but either way, he’s here and he’s got a shiny new Global Force Wrestling belt with him.

And boy, did it effect the house.

PWA’s attendance patterns are fairly predictable. Whenever they bring in an outside name that people in Alberta wouldn’t get to see otherwise, their numbers spike into the 500s. Occasionally, when they used to run a basketball gym, they could clear 600. Without those names, attendance hovers between one and three hundred, depending on if there’s a cool gimmick match or a feud that’s gotten hot. Last month, I estimated the attendance at 150-200 (we can’t all be Joe Lanza as far as attendance math, I pretty much just estimate based on how many seats are empty). This month? It was whatever the capacity of the Northgate Lions Centre is. The announced attendance of their show with Samoa Joe last year was 545, so let’s call this one 550.

PWA Christmas Slam 2016

Northgate Lions Centre

Edmonton, AB

Estimated Attendance: 550

Julian Lord & Jay Taylor vs. Michael Allen Richard Clark & Richie Rage

Jay Taylor is my new favourite guy in PWA. As mentioned last time, he’s whatever the opposite of a butterface is, and has an “I’m too sexy” gimmick. It’s dripping with irony, as he spends much of his time getting wedgies and taunting the audience with aggressively unsexy poses on the ropes. He’s the kind of guy that probably comes off as kind of funny but otherwise okay on video, but is really entertaining live.

As far as I was concerned, everyone else in this match was just there to give Taylor foils for his act. His partner, Julian Lord, did a dialed down version of Taylor’s gimmick. Think the difference between Rick Rude (Taylor) and Rick Martel (Lord) as far as prettyboy characters go and you’re in the ballpark. Richie Rage was waaaaaay more impressive than his showing the previous month. Michael Allen Richard Clark (it spells MARC. Get it? Ah? Ah? Yeah, it’s not funny) seems like a decent enough worker who absolutely should have been a heel. Their team name is Rage Appeal, playing on MARC’s nickname, “Flex Appeal.” It is a very indie wrestling portmanteau.

Speaking of heels, I had NO IDEA which team were supposed to be the babyfaces in this match. Rage has been a babyface for a while, so I guess it must have been his team, but MARC’s mannerisms were almost entirely heelish. It didn’t help that an early spot in the match featured Rage and MARC pantomiming performing an Eiffel Tower on Lord for about 10 seconds – guys, simulated rape is not a babyface spot, nor is it anything but really gross on a few levels.

Once things got going, this was a fun opening tag that mostly focused on Taylor’s mission to find new and interesting ways to shake his ass at people, and culminated with some cool spots. Rage held up Lord in a stalling suplex that lasted to a count of 15, and shortly thereafter pressed Lord over his head and threw him into a cutter from MARC.

Winners: Rage Appeal via military press/cutter combo. **3/4

Sheik Akbar Shabazz vs. “The Omen” Gabriel

Gabriel Lestat seems to have taken a cue from WWE and decided to go with a Madonna-esque single name. He’s still a vampire. He still walks to the ring with an IV and some blood bags, which is entirely too absurd for the vibe he’s going for. Shabazz is still a guy we’re supposed to hate because he’s foreign, although his hometown was amended from the horrifically racist “Taliban, Ramadan” to the comparatively less racist, but still pretty racist, “Taliban, Lebanon.”* At least Lebanon is a place.

* It is entirely possible Shabazz’ hometown didn’t change and I just heard it wrong last time.

Both of these guys are experienced, big, and work hard. They gelled well, and punctuated each sequence with a power move that gave the match a clear rhythm. The story was Gabriel’s resilience being the difference, as he always managed to recover just a little bit faster than Shabazz. This is the kind of match that’s hard to write about without falling into play-by-play, because it was unspectacular but consistently enjoyable throughout.

I CAN comment on the finish, though, because it was really weird. Looking for a shortcut around Gabriel’s resilience, Shabazz dug some brass knuckles out of his gear. He didn’t hide this well, however, and the referee quickly confiscated the knucks. Then, in a bizarre turn, the referee declined to simply toss the knucks to a ringside attendant – he decided he should personally deliver them to the timekeeper’s table for… reasons? While he was doing that, Shabazz tapped out to a torture rack (which included him yelling “tap out, tap out!” loudly, which made me laugh pretty hard). Gabriel thought he won, but the referee didn’t see the tap, and Shabazz caught him posing on the ropes and hit a Razor’s Edge for a very believable near fall. Shabazz went for something out of a fireman carry, which he had attempted several times, but was thwarted when Gabriel reversed it into a sunset flip for the 3 count.

The entire finishing sequence would have been fine if they had dispensed with the false finish, especially since Shabazz lost anyway. Why have the heel get out of losing a clean fall only to lose a clean fall almost immediately afterward? They could have done that entire finishing sequence without the false finish.

Winner: “The Omen” Gabriel via shenanigans into a sunset flip. ***1/4

PWA Commonwealth Championship Match – Lien Mendel vs. Fabien Ribiero (c)

Lien Mendel is yet another Australian guy trained by Lance Storm. Is Lance Storm ONLY training Australians now? Lien Mendel is all limbs, but his gear looked good and he worked well as a heel. He was a bit over-reliant on the established “Aussie Aussie Aussie” “sucks sucks sucks” call and response (established by another Storm-trained Aussie, Dylan Knight, over the course of nearly a decade) to get reactions, but I think he could develop into a pretty valuable member of the roster.

Fabien Ribiero is very similar to Jay Taylor, in terms of his penchant for using his charisma as the building block for his matches. He manages to make his opponents the butt of jokes without making them look like an idiot, and his dance-walk never ceases to entertain me.

Ribiero’s recent matches have used a structure in which he toys with his opponent a little too much, leaving himself open a counter-attack before trading bombs in the finishing stretch. Think of a 13 minute G1 match structure, but replace all of the repetitive guard rail spots with goofiness and crowd work. This one featured Ribiero going for his Caribbean People’s Elbow (named by me, because I don’t know what any of these guys call their moves), only for Mendel to hear the music start (see my previous review for an explanation of why that’s a thing http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2016/11/08/pwa-fright-night-2016-october-22-results-review/) and bail to the floor. The bomb sequence ended with Ribiero’s standard finishing combination of a Rock Bottom and the Caribbean People’s Elbow.

Winner and STILL Champion: Fabien Ribiero via Caribbean People’s Elbow. ***1/2

Millenial Rebels (Colten Kelly, Reid Matthews & Fury) vs. Frenetico, Aidan Adams & Gisele Shaw

This is a direct follow-up to the Fright Night tag team match between the Rebs, Adams, and Shaw as well as the singles match between Fury and Frenetico. Speaking of which, what happened to Frenetico’s title shot? He won one for beating Fury. Did that happen in Calgary?

Actually, I’m going to take a minute to bitch about that. PWA seems to believe that most of their audience is willing to drive the 3 hours between Edmonton and Calgary to see all of their shows, so they run one single storyline continuity through all of their shows. In practical terms, this means that the majority of the audience is only seeing 50% of the story developments AT MOST. Booking angles that will culminate on a show in a different city only works if your content distribution allows your fans to follow along even if they aren’t live in the arena. PWA has pretty much no content distribution aside from a DVD table at shows, so there are a whole lot of people wondering “did they pay that off already? What happened to that? Oh, that’s still a thing?”

I loved what I saw of the Rebs on the last show, but this match didn’t click at all. Their offence felt sloppy, and everyone meandered through a paint-by-numbers tag. Frenetico took the heat, and after eating shit on a suicide dive (he somehow got caught on the ring TWICE on the way down), looked pretty sluggish. Gisele Shaw looked great when she got the hot tag, busting out a clutch kick and a flip-dive off the top rope to the floor.

As an aside, if the crowd gets quiet, I frequently yell “DO A FLIP!” because it amuses me. In this case, it happened to coincide with Gisele standing on the top rope, so I choose to believe that I made a vital contribution to that spot.

Aidan Adams was tagged in at some point, and accidentally knocked Gisele off the apron. The referee went to check on Gisele as Kelly rolled up Adams. This was awful, as I’m pretty sure the referee was legitimately distracted by Gisele falling to the floor and forgot that she was supposed to be counting a pin (by the way, this is the female ref that blew a bunch of spots on Fright Night). Why? Because Adams was pinned for about a 9 count, then got up and reacted like he was shocked that he lost. What, did he manage to get in a nap and forget what he was doing? Oh, and he’d also taken virtually no damage throughout the match, so taking this pin made him look like a chump.

Winners: Millenial Rebels via narcolepsy, I guess. **

PWA Mayhem Championship Seasons Beatings Match – Kenny Stryker (c) vs. “Hollywood” Dusty Adonis

Kenny Stryker put out an open challenge to defend the Mayhem title, claiming that it was his gift to the fans. That capped a cringey promo about loving Christmas. How cringey? He managed to get Christmas booed.

The challenge was accepted by “Hollywood” Dusty Adonis, a PWA regular from years past whose most memorable run to me was an impersonator gimmick, where he’d come out as a different WWE wrestler each show.

This match was pretty much entirely Christmas-themed comedy. Both guys would open Christmas presents in search of weapons, but they mostly found things you’re more likely to find in someone’s box of Christmas decorations. Mistletoe was introduced early, leading to Stryker walking around ringside trying to get people in the first row to kiss him. It actually worked, which got a pop. He tried to kiss a woman in the row in front of me, but Dusty mugged him, took the mistletoe, and kissed her. Obvious plant is obvious. Dusty found a fruitcake and smashed it into Stryker’s chest with an Earthcake. No, that wasn’t a typo. Dusty ended up wearing a light-up Rudolph nose for several minutes. Stryker found a Santa hat, which led to a “sitting on Santa’s knee” spot with an open folding chair.

The finish saw Dusty find a bald cap, wrestling headgear, and a fake gold medal – in case you were wondering, those are the ingredients needed to call on the power of Kurt Angle. Dusty lowered the straps on his singlet, then hit a bunch of Kurt Angle moves culminating in the Olympic Slam for a near fall. Dusty Angle then pulled his straps back up so he could lower them again and apply the ankle lock, but Stryker kicked him into a chair wedged in the corner and rolled him up.

Winner and STILL Champion: Stryker via roll-up. **1/2

Intermission time! The downside of having 500 plus people at a PWA show is that the concession and bathroom lines got pretty absurd.

PWA Canadian Tag Team Championship Match – Moore Prime (Shawn Moore & Alexander Prime) vs. Team Hall of Fame (Duke Durango and Chris Steele) (c)

This is a direct rematch from last show, which had a garbage finish involving Durango hitting Moore with a tag title belt in plain view of the referee, who nearly gave herself whiplash trying to go back in time to find a reason not to see it.

This match was far better than the Fright Night encounter, with far less stalling and more energy in the work. Moore Prime are pretty ideal guys to go on after intermission, because they’re fantastically charismatic. I get hyped up immediately when these guys come out.

This match was kind of generically good, so I’m going to take this space to talk about a bizarre match structure thing I noticed in the majority of PWA tags – they’re almost entirely heat segment. There isn’t any real back and forth to start with, there’s an opening sequence that leads directly to the heat. Once the hot tag happens, they go to the finish quickly, leaving the hot-tag-recipient to work a very small percentage of the match. It’s a Southern tag without the parts that make you invest in the babyfaces by making them look good.

In a nice touch, the heat segment and the hot tag were triggered by the same move – Durango low-bridging Prime, then Prime returning the favour. In the scramble that led to the finish, Moore did a flipping clothesline, Steele and Durango hit a stalling suplex/cross-body combo, and Moore did the Eddie Guerrero “he did it” spot with the tag title belt. That was actually really dumb, because if it had worked, the challengers wouldn’t have gotten the belts. They DID get the belts, though, after hitting Total Elimination on Durango. They got a massive pop for their efforts.

Winners and NEW Champions: Moore Prime via Total Elimination. ***

PWA Championship Match – Marky (c) vs. Brett Morgan

Frenetico won a Beat the Clock challenge at Fright Night to get a title shot. Did that happen? No idea. Brett Morgan is probably an upgrade as far as opponents for Marky, though. He’s a decent-sized dude with a good physique and good arrogant heel mannerisms. Marky has a goofy name, but is the second best worker in the company behind Michael Richard Blais.

This was good, but Morgan needs to either practice his striking or stop doing it. I could have parked my car in the space between Morgan’s knee and Marky’s head during one exchange. Morgan’s power offence was much better, and the match improved when he started sticking to that.

The finish to this match was very reminiscent of the Shabazz/Gabriel finish. Morgan ducked a flying forearm from Marky, which caught the ref. Morgan followed up with a fireman’s carry into a spinebuster thing, which I guess is his finish. The referee hauled himself over to make a count, then… was too hurt, despite being able to move halfway across the ring? Morgan then grabbed the title belt and wound up to hit Marky, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He didn’t want to win that way. Morgan did a very good job selling his internal struggle with facial expressions, even if a lot of the crowd were confused as to why he was suddenly having a change of heart. Some stuff happened, Marky tried for his top rope leg drop, missed, then took another fireman’s carry spinebuster and that was the end of that. Brett Morgan wins with the same sequence that the ref couldn’t count the pin on earlier.

This match was mostly good, but Morgan’s… face turn?… seemed to come out of nowhere. He and Marky shook hands, then Morgan celebrated with the belt.

Winner and NEW Champion: Brett Morgan via fireman’s carry spinebuster. ***

Global Force Wrestling Nex-Gen Championship Match – Cody Rhodes (c) vs. Michael Richard Blais

Let’s start with the GFW Nex-Gen title. I get that GFW is a better known promotion, despite being a weird quasi-existing thing that is primarily a vehicle for some sort of gold scam. I get it. But the positioning here is saying “GFW’s title is more important than ours.” That’s not great. Obviously you want the big name outsider who drew the house to be in the main event, but this match sees a guy who just lost clean to the PWA Champion challenging for a title that’s being positioned as more important. There’s some problems here with both booking logic and the image of the promotion.

Okay, let’s allow fun into our lives now. The crowd came unglued when Cody Rhodes came out, and he pretty much had full control over their reactions at all times. The thing I found fascinating about this is that, for as much crap Rhodes takes for being a pure WWE guy, there is a very obvious difference in quality between a guy who’s been in WWE and the average indie roster. I think we’ve become spoiled by the accessibility of high-end indie wrestling, because we can choose to only watch the highest quality stuff from around the world. That’s the environment in which a WWE guy can come off as lesser-than – when the best wrestlers in the world have freedom to perform their art without restraint. I’ve liked the indie stuff I’ve seen from Rhodes, but that was against the aforementioned best indie guys in the world, where he was the lesser light in the match, looking to prove that he can keep up. Here, in the rec centre of a seniors complex in Canada, on a card with a lot of guys none of you will ever see, the pure WWE guy was temporarily Stone Cold Steve Austin in 1998.

The match started with the Stardust cartwheel and pose, followed by “there, but that’s the ONLY one.” The crowd exploded. Goldust’s drop-down throat-thrust. Minds are blown. An eventual step-up plancha to the floor? I’m surprised nobody’s head exploded. Like, physically blew up and splattered all over the walls. Rhodes could have taken a nap and the audience would have been rabid for it.

The level of crispness displayed by Cody Rhodes in comparison to the rest of the roster was almost shocking. It’s very jarring seeing Michael Richard Blais, easily the best guy on the PWA roster, be the second smoothest worker in a match. The match itself was quite good. Rhodes went for a second plancha, then ate a counter kick, which let Blais show off his offence, which is essentially one of those “100 Greatest Moves of X” comp videos. Highlights in this instance were Adam Cole’s Last Shot, a brainbuster, and a 450 splash.

Things got silly with the referees again, as Blais brought a chair into the ring in full view of the referee. Frustrated that he couldn’t put Rhodes away, he blasted him with the chair a couple of times. The referee cringed and walked around the ring, pretending to see nothing. I should bring up that the referee is Blais’ real-life girlfriend (wife, maybe?). I don’t think that’s ever been acknowledged in kayfabe (I asked around). Despite the chair shots, Rhodes managed to come back and hit Cross Rhodes. The referee counted two… then flipped off Rhodes, refusing to count her partner down. Some chaos ensued as the head referee was sent out to replace and eject the offending official. In the chaos, Blais accidentally kicked Rhodes low, causing him to scream at his girlfriend to leave so he could get the referee’s attention. Rhodes kicked out of a close near-fall, and the following exchange ended with a Cross Rhodes and three count.

Winner: Cody Rhodes via Cross Rhodes. ****

I liked the match a lot, but I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited about anything as the crowd sounded when the referee’s hand hit the mat for the third time. Thunderous applause, “thank you Cody” chants, screaming. Being in the midst of five hundred and some people screaming their heads off is such a great feeling. Pro wrestling is really fun, guys.

Cody Rhodes cut a promo saying that he loves wrestling and wants to come back to PWA, but everything was downhill after the opening line of “Did those two know each other?” He then circled the ring side area shaking hands and hugging people as the ring announcer talked and nobody listened.

Spot of the Night: This show was much lighter on bonkers spots than Fright Night. Gisele Shaw’s flip dive onto the Millenial Rebels was pretty cool, though. “DO A FLIP!”

Match of the Night: Cody Rhodes vs. Michael Richard Blais. It wasn’t really close.

MVP: Cody Rhodes. He drew the crowd, they LOVED him, and he put in a good performance between the ropes.

PWA Summer Heat
Saturday, July 30th, 2011
Century Casino Showroom, Edmonton, Alberta

PWA's new-look ring. The ropes and apron are red now.

The PWA is back in the Century Casino after last month’s detour into the NAIT Gymnasium (which I was, sadly, unable toattend). The incredibly comfortable office chairs have been replaced with ballroom chairs, which are both kind ofuncomfortable and far more numerous, which only made the place look more empty, especially since the attendance seemed visibly lower than usual. There was also only one referee present, so the beleaguered Ritchie Howard worked double the number of matches he usually does, which also meant he took double the abuse from the crowd that he normally does.

William Saint vs. Nightmare #2

Saint’s theme music (“Last Resort” by Papa Roach) makes no sense for a face. I don’t really have a greater point to build to with that, as it effects nothing in the match, I’m just sayin’. Things started off with a handshake between the two babyfaces, then a series of headlocks and reversals into other headlocks. A certain portion of the audience went nuts over this and started chanting “we want headlocks” whenever any other move was used. Most of the match was solid technical wrestling with a good pace to it. It’s also the first time I’ve gotten to see Saint actually do moves, since his last match was a six minute squash against Dylan Knight. Turns out he’s basically Dynamite Kid with a few tweaks, in terms of his moveset. One of those tweaks involved killing Nightmare with Angel’s Wings (which I have video of on my YouTube channel). Nightmare managed to kick out, which frustrated Saint, who followed up by whipping Nightmare into the corner. He followed up with a shoulder charge, but Nightmare used the top rope to hop up over Saint and take him over with a sunset flip for the pinfall. A visibly frustrated Saint rolled out of the ring, then regained his composure and encouraged the fans to applaud Nightmare’s victory.

Bobby Sharp vs. Cam!!ikaze

Bobby Sharp comes out and cuts a promo, which I don’t think I’ve heard him do before. It was okay-ish. His delivery wasn’t bad, but all he really had to say was that he wasn’t teaming with Scotley Crue anymore and that wrestling singles matches was all he needed to succeed. Which was a weird phrasing. He was announced as “The Atomic One” (what?) and ended his promo with “and that’s atomic!” Double what?  Then Cam!!ikaze (who does, in fact, have two exclamation points in his name) came out and Bobby Sharp eventually got into the ring to fight him.

Cam!!ikaze is upside down. I can't remember why. It's probably not going to go well for him.

This match was the classic style clash between the faster, more athletic Cam!!ikaze and the larger, more powerful Sharp. Things started off with chain wrestling which led to Cam going for a lucha libre transition from an arm-wringer to an arm drag (the Essa Rios move where he jumped onto the top rope, dropped down to his butt and flipped backward into the arm drag), but Sharp just kind of stood there like he thought there was more to it. Cam essentially pushed him over with a reverse gutwrench kinda thing. Awkward. Sharp gained control and kept Cam!!ikaze grounded using holds like the Sharpshooter. Cam made his comeback and hit a Michinoku Driver (his finisher), but Sharp kicked out. Cam’s jaw practically hit the mat, then he scooped up Sharp and tried to hit the driver again, but was countered into a small package for a two count. Cam hit the Michinoku Driver a second time and that’s all she wrote.

T-Bone Jack Sloan vs. Chucky Blaze

Remember when T-Bone Jack Sloan was the PWA Heavyweight Champion? Yeah… then he meandered about the card until he ended up with the Mayhem Title, then he lost that, and now here he is. The fans engaged in their customary “T-Bag” chants, eliciting the usual angry response from T-Bone, and HILARITY from the middle-aged woman sitting behind me who said, without even the slightest hint of a joke, “oh, I hear t-bags are good for the yes.” I don’t think she understood why I suddenly started laughing.

T-Bone does not like being called T-Bag. It makes him want to injure Chucky Blaze's internal organs.

This match wasn’t mind-blowing, but it was a solid example of two very good workers putting on a good midcard match. There were no slow spots, and whenever it seemed like things might start to lag they busted out something interesting to get the crowd back into it. Even the one botched spot still mostly worked, when Chucky attempted a springboard body press and missed the second rope. He luckily landed on the bottom rope and was still able to execute the move without hurting anybody.

After a bit of back-and-forth and some near falls, Chucky caught T-Bone square on the chin with a superkick, which the former PWA champ barely managed to kick out of. While Chucky stared at referee Ritchie Howard in disbelief, T-Bone tried to bail out of the ring. Chucky managed to catch T-Bone’s leg and drag him back into the middle of the ring, but T-Bone grabbed a fistful of the apron and it ended up coming with him. While Howard took a moment to shove the apron back into position, T-Bone took the opportunity to kick Chucky south of the border and roll him up with a small package to “earn” the victory.

PWA Mayhem Championship “Fast Break” Match
M © vs. Andrew Hawks

As soon as I heard the phrase “fast break match” the wheels in my brain started turning to try and churn out an idea about what the hell I was about to watch. The PWA makes up strange stipulations for matches on a semi-regular basis, and apparently that time has rolled around again. A fast break match has a 10 minute time limit (the usual for a PWA match is 20), and no holds… allowed? What? At first I thought the ring announcer flubbed his line, but no, that was right. No holds allowed. Only striking and moves (which, it could be argued, are also holds, since you can’t suplex a guy with getting a hold of him) were allowed. Naturally, Andrew Hawks immediately put M in a wristlock, causing referee Ritchie Howard to remind him that he can’t do that.

The pace of the match was pretty quick, which is unsurprising due to the rules. While it was interesting seeing a match without holds, it also highlighted how important holds are in controlling the pace of the match and making big moves really stick out. When Hawks can hit M with a sit-out powerbomb that’s spun out of a torture rack and I can forget that it happens until I look at my photos from the show, that’s a problem. The end sequence began when M missed a charge in the corner and rammed his shoulder into the post, which Hawks immediately capitalized on with a fujiwara armbar. M tapped out, but there were no hold allowed, so referee Ritchie Howard just ineffectually asked Hawks to let go. I’m not sure why he didn’t disqualify him, since there was no announcement of a “no disqualification” stipulation, but he eventually got Hawks to break the hold… to stand up and yell that he doesn’t care about the rules and is going to break M’s arm. Not sure why he had to stand up for that, but okay. WHOOPS M catches him by surprise with a crucifix for the three count to retain the Mayhem Title when Hawks tried to reapply the armbar.

Ravenous Randy Myers vs. King Dusty Adonis

King Dusty Adonis has had enough of Ravenous Randy's shenanigans. He shows his displeasure by violencing Randy's head.

Ravenous Randy started out by cutting a promo, at which point I realized I’ve never actually heard him cut a promo that was more than about four seconds long. After hearing him go for a few minutes, I was left to wonder why the hell he’s not on the mic at every possible opportunity. Dusty cut a counter-promo demanding that Randy bow to the king, at which point Randy pretended to not understand what that meant. First he extended his hand, then offered a high five, then tried to hug Dusty. Finally the King got frustrated and yelled “NO! Bow! Like this!” and lowered is head… right into a kick in the face from Randy. The first five minutes or so were an extended comedy segment in which Dusty was constantly outwitted and embarrassed, to the point that he ended up bailing to the outside with his singlet pulled down around his knees. Naturally this led to him deciding that he’d had enough and sitting next to an old woman in the crowd… without pulling his singlet back up. Awkward. Once he got back into the ring the two dropped the comedy act and got down to business.

A lot of Randy’s offence features moves I don’t know the name of, so instead of trying to awkwardly describe most of the match, I’m just going to go with “it was pretty good” and cut to the end. After a series of counters-to-counters and near falls for each guy, Ravenous Randy countered one of Dusty’s attempts at something into a bodyslam position, then hit a twisting slam move that I’ve never seen before for the victory. I had a really great angle on it so you guys could have just watched it for yourself, but an obese man walked in front of my camera just as Randy was hitting the move, so you can thank him for having to live with my crap description of it.

PWA Heavyweight Championship Match
Chris Steele © vs. Dylan Knight

I just realized that Chris Steele has held the PWA Championship for nearly a year now. A bland year in which I’m fairly certain he wasn’t even involved in a storyline over the belt, he just defended it against a string of random challengers. This time there’s a feud attached, so that’s nice. Dylan Knight couldn’t claim the belt in a steel cage at Night of Champions and, spoiler alert, he doesn’t do it tonight either.

Australia's primary export is angry wrestlers.

Steele and Knight are easily two of the bigger guys in the PWA, and as such this match had a much different feel than a typical PWA match, with a slower pace and a focus on basic moves delivered with a lot of power behind them (a suplex seems totally devastating when both guys involved are 250 pounds, for example).

Steele got the advantage, but T-Bone had quietly snuck out of the dressing room to lurk near the timekeeper’s table. Steele slammed Knight to the canvas with a gorilla press drop, which is usually the prelude to a match-ending spear, but T-Bone climbed up onto the apron to distract Steele before he could hit his finisher. He didn’t do a very good job, though, because Steele immediately cleaned his clock and turned his attention back to Knight, who had recovered. Upset at being punched in the mush, T-Bone snatched the bell away from the timekeeper and held it up in the corner as Knight attempted to whip Steele into the turnbuckles. Unfortunately for Knight, Steele reversed the Irish whip and Knight took the bell in the small of the back. Steele went for a cover, but T-Bone dove into the ring to break up the fall with a double axe-handle, ending the bout in a disqualification victory for Steele. Knight and T-Bone worked over the PWA champion until Lance Storm came out to make the save. After the fight was broken up, commissioner Kurt Sorochan came out and announced a tag team match on the next Edmonton show featuring Knight and T-Bone taking on Chris Steele and Tommy Dreamer. Yes, that Tommy Dreamer, he’s being brought in for a pair of shows in late August.

Spot of the Night: A tie between Andrew Hawks’ torture rack spun into a sit-out powerbomb and William Saint’s Angel’s Wings.
Match of the Night: Ravenous Randy vs. King Dusty Adonis.
Overall: This show was decent, but was probably my least favourite PWA show that I’ve attended this year. It seemed like a show that only existed to promote that Tommy Dreamer is going to be on some shows in August, and the rest of it was secondary as far as management was concerned.

On Friday, October 22nd the Century Casino in Edmonton, AB hosted the PWA’s annual Fright Night show. The first point of interest came up before the action even got started: the PWA graveyard. Usually the entryway for the wrestlers is a curtain hung over the locker room door. It lacks flash, but is otherwise perfectly functional. For this show, however, the smallest section of seats was removed to make way for a large graveyard entrance stage, featuring several headstones, a badass gargoyle thing, an opening casket, and mannequins of Leatherface, Freddy Krueger, and Michael Meyers. Very cool. There were also lasers and fog, but those weren’t evident until later.

CHUCKY BLAZE vs. KING DUSTY ADONIS

Last time I saw Dusty Adonis in action was at Hysteria, where he and Apoc set about hitting each other as hard as possible for about twelve minutes. Apparently between then and now he’s become a king. The king gimmick has always been a solid one throughout wrestling’s history, probably because it’s pretty simple: the king is better than you, and acts like it. Instant heel heat. Until some guys near the front, who would spend most of the night cheering on the heels, started a “long live the king” chant, which of course the impressionable youth of the audience got in on. Dusty played with this in a clever way, encouraging more fans to join in by pointing out the chanters and applauding their good taste. I like the idea that heels believe that they should get face reactions, and then get upset when they don’t (usually because they’re smarmy bastards that cheat like hell). Also, there’s a match, so let’s talk about it. Dusty and Chucky put on a very entertaining and competitive bout based on the classic “isolate a body part” tactic. Dusty works over Chucky’s arm, which Chucky sells well by avoiding unnecessary use of his left arm. Around the ten minute mark the king decides it’s time to end things and does what is essentially a more awkward version of Randy Orton’s “coiling viper” routine to signal an ace crusher. Chucky counters the ace crusher by shoving Dusty into the corner, then grabs him and hits Sliced Bread No. 2 from the opposite corner to score the fall in a very strong opener.

DYLAN KNIGHT vs. ANDREW HAWKS

Everyone’s favourite Newfie takes on everybody’s least-favourite Aussie in our second contest. Dylan Knight, fresh off of a dark match on Smackdown!, has some new tights which don’t make him look like he crapped his pants. I applaud this move. He also has a boomerang, which I hoped would get used during the match. It didn’t, but the match was a good one anyway. In a classic power versus speed match-up, Knight tried to keep Hawks grounded while Hawks tried to put Knight off-balance with kicks and high-flying offence. Knight punctuated his big moves with demands for crowd approval (I think the specific phrase was “How was that?”), which was a nice touch. In another interesting counter-move finish, Hawks sprung off the ropes in an attempt to hit Knight with a kick, but Knight caught him and spiked him into the mat with something between a classic Death Valley Driver and an Attitude Adjustment. Knight got the one-two-three in our last non-title match of the evening.

PWA CRUISERWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
ALEX PLEXIS (c) vs. M

Alex Plexis comes out first wearing Kam-ikaze’s mask, but without his gold, which Kam-ikaze stole at Fall Fever. Plexis gets on the mic and cuts a pretty impressive promo about wrestling being a brotherhood, and what kind of man is Kam-ikaze to steal from one of his wrestling brothers? He then plays on the “Stand Up for the WWE” campaign and tries to convince the crowd to stand up for him by petitioning the government and writing their city councillors, which causes the crowd to laugh at him. He gets frustrated and M comes out, removing his entrance gear to reveal a PeeWee Herman Halloween costume. It was pretty spot-on, and got a big pop. Things start off with fast-paced technical wrestling, showing some pretty good chemistry between M and Plexis. After a while, M hooks in an arm bar while Plexis is in the ropes, causing the referee to call for a break, which causes M to run around screaming after announcing that “break” is the word of the day. About a third of the crowd finds this hilarious, the other two thirds are very confused. The ring announcer explains that you’re supposed to scream when the word of the day is said… and it’s never said again. What started as a funny idea really killed the pacing, but M and Plexis get back to work and things pick up again. Eventually there’s a ref bump, M gets sent out to the floor and the lights go out, at which point several Kam-ikaze’s run out and surround the ring. The lights go out again and only one Kam-ikaze is left, standing behind Plexis with the PWA Cruiserweight title belt. PWA boss Kurt Sorochan comes out; the match has been ruled a no-contest, but since it’s a Halloween show, it’s time for some trick or treat action. The treat? Well, it’s for the fans; the next Edmonton show will feature Plexis vs. Kam-ikaze, mask vs. cruiserweight championship. The trick? If Plexis doesn’t agree to it, he’s fired.

I feel like this match could have stolen the show without the pace-killing PeeWee Herman joke (which, to be fair, was pretty funny for the people who got it, but took too long when it needed to be explained) and a proper finish, with the Kam-ikaze stuff happening after Plexis got the W.

FATAL 4 WAY MAYHEM CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
APOC (c) vs. “RAVENOUS” RANDY MEYERS vs. TEX GAINES vs. MATTIAS WILD

This one was originally going to be for the number one contendership for the PWA title, but Kurt Sorochan comes out and announces another treat: this one is going to be for Apoc’s Mayhem title instead. Apoc is not a happy camper. Tex Gaines (who, it turns out, I’ve seen at the comic shop but wasn’t aware he was a wrestler) and Mattias Wild are introduced as the two mystery men, and “Ravenous” Randy comes out to one of the most hilariously over-produced theme songs I’ve ever heard (a bit of the Two & a Half Men theme song, Steve Regal’s old Real Man’s Man theme, Salt ‘n’ Pepa’s “What A Man” and another song I recognized but don’t know the name of). Apoc cuts a promo that’s a bit weak, then the match starts with a huge brawl. After getting pinballed between the three challengers’ strikes, Apoc isolates Ravenous Randy beats the tar out of him on the floor, which I mostly ignored because Tex Gaines dragged Mattias Wild out into the section of the audience where I was sitting. Eventually things get into the ring, where the heels team up to keep the faces on the defensive in a series of stereo spots. The heels turn on each other when Tex tries to score a pinfall, but the faces still aren’t getting in much offence. The heels turning on each other is where I realize that it’s not an elimination match, though, so that was useful. Mattias Wild superkicks Tex, taking him out, then finds himself tossed out of the ring. Randy pulls a pinfall out of nowhere on Apoc, winning the Mayhem belt.

Afterward it’s intermission time. At the end of the intermission there’s a costume contest, split into categories for adults and kids. An 18 month old dressed as a spider wins the kids’ contest, to the surprise of nobody. Drunken Juggalos are booed, and some pretty nifty Hart Foundation costumes get a big pop. As a wrestling fan, I found the contest to be a bit too time-consuming, but I see it’s value to the family friendly branding of the PWA, so I can’t really complain about it.

PWA CANADIAN TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
SCOTLEY CRUE & BOBBY SHARP (c) vs. THE NIGHTMARES

This match has a special stipulation: if either Nightmare is pinned, they’re fired. Why? Not sure. The champs are accompanied by Mr. Kyoto, who’s wearing some kind of zombie mask, and Strife, who I’m not familiar with, but took a lot of abuse from the fans and even the ring announcer previously in the show. Why he’s out here, I’m not sure. I’m also not entirely sure why Bobby Sharp is wearing American flag workout pants, circa the Sandman in 1993. Scotley Crue points out that Sharp is now the All-American American American Canadian… or something to that effect that is confusing.

So anyway the match gets started and is a pretty good tag team contest that improves on the bout between the two teams at Fall Fever. Scotley Crue takes abuse from the crowd while the heels isolate one of the Nightmares. There’s a really fun false tag spot where the other Nightmare gets tagged in while the referee is distracted, then Scotley Crue makes a show of calling the referee’s attention to the heel teams completely legal tag following the Nightmare’s ejection to the apron. The Nightmares start to build some momentum, then Strife cracks a Nightmare (apparently #4) with the tag title belt, KOing him and helping Sharp and Crue retain the gold. The belt shout sounded terrific, although why Strife was there for it when the champs already had Mr. Kyoto in their corner, I don’t know. Nightmare #4 gets fired, resulting in goodbye applause from the audience and a “Nightmare Four” chant. Although I suspect we’ll be seeing a Nightmare #5 shortly.

PWA HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP CHAIN MATCH
CHRIS STEELE (c) vs. “T-BONE” JACK SLOAN

Chris Steele beat T-Bone in a street fight in Calgary to claim the ten pounds of gold, so the roles are reversed coming into this match. The belt is hung from the rafters above one of the turnbuckles, and the two men are attached by a chain. The match starts with some nice psychology as both guys tentatively measure each other, trying to gather up the chain so that the other guy can’t use it against them. Which of course is what happened. Pretty much the entire match was worked around the chain, which I liked. Too often, gimmick matches are just that – a gimmick. They’re a normal match that happens to have a prop that gets used a little bit. The way the chain was made integral to the entire psychology of the match put it on a higher level than most of the “two guys attached to each other” matches that I’ve seen. The first five minutes or so were mostly striking, with a few attempts to get the belt which were easily countered by yanking the chain. T-Bone wound up a decent length of chain around his fist and clocked Steele, busting him open. T-Bone was busted open in a similar spot later on. At one point, Steele’s chain accidentally broke off during a bump. He looked around then reattached it, which could have been made awesome if Steele had yelled something like “I’m not done with you yet!” before re-hooking himself. One of my favourite spots involved Chris Steele yanking the chain so that T-Bone punched himself in the crotch, then flowed smoothly into a pump-handle slam. After about fifteen minutes of battering each other, T-Bone climbed up top. The belt nearly in his grasp, he found his own arm rammed into his crotch twice by Steele yanking the chain. Steele scrambled up the ropes and dumped T-Bone with a back suplex, giving him enough time to secure his title belt.

Spot of the Night: There were a few pretty good ones, but I’m going to go with the finish to Dylan Knight vs. Andrew Hawks.

Match of the Night: Steele vs. T-Bone. This is an easy choice, as the psychology based on the chain was superb and elevated this match above the rest of the card. Which is just as well, since it was the main event.

Overall: A strong showing from the PWA with no big names to lean on.