RB Report: IWA-MS Bloody Road Ahead

IWA:MS Bloody Road Ahead
April 11, 2008
Joliet, IL

*”Diehard” Dustin Lee vs. Scotty Vortekz vs. xOMGx
All of these men are part of the stable Naptown Dragons alongside Drake Younger. Scotty and OMG recently appeared on Springer, because apparently Mickie Knuckles cheated on OMG with Vortekz while he was serving in Iraq. In related news, Springer is scripted. OMG has to be the worst ring name ever. At first I thought it was an abbreviation or something (other than “Oh, my God”), but appears that it’s just OMG. Anyway, onto the match. Diehard has some hardcore indy charisma. “PLEEZ CHEER GUYS!” Whoa, Bryce Remsburg and Chuck Taylor are on commentary. Awesome. Chucky T commentated like one match for CHIKARA back in April ’07 and he was tremendous. Apparently the story – if you can call it that – going into this match is that OMG is going to Iraq after this show and wanted his last match to be against his best friends. I promise I’ll shut up now and get to the match. Vortekz beats OMG down for a minute and then Diehard goes at it with the miniscule masked emo kid. The crowd gets into the WRISTLOCKS~! “Der, we love the tecnucul wrasslin’, bo’ howdy.” Diehard is sent to the floor and OMG follows with a tope con hilo. Not to be out-done, Vortekz lands a moonsault to both men. Vortekz and Diehard get into the ring and bore me. THREE-WAY HEADLOCK! My mind has been blown. OMG gets double-teamed, but that doesn’t last long when Diehard receives a kick to the mush. Everything they do is all really boring and has been done a hundred times before. There’s about fourty-seven snapmares and Dragon kicks in the space of a minute. MICHINOKU DRIVER to Vortekz only gets a two. Diehard lands a Jig ‘N’ Tonic to Vortekz, but misses a HADOUKEN punch to OMG. OMG lands a spinning pedigree from the top rope to Diehard and IT’S ALL OVER (TM Mike Goldberg) (9:00).

Rating: 1/2*. Everything they done was solid, but it all felt completely flat and boring. Nothing I’ve never seen before. They tried hard to get the fans into it with the BIG MOOVZ and INDY HEAD DROPS, but to no avail.

*Oh, fuck, Ian Rotten’s out. I’m just going to skip this because it’s probably going to last about twenty minutes. It only went six minutes, but still.

*CJ Otis vs. Viking
This is gonna suck, I can feel it. Otis represents every indy wrestling cliche out there. Looks like a fourteen-year-old girl, no charisma whatsoever, would no-sell murder just to exhibit FIGHTIN SPIRIT~! Etc, etc. Viking just sucks in the ring, but admittedly, he does have something about him that makes me want to watch him. Otis’ tights are way, way to small. They start out on the mat and don’t take long to go to that strong style crap. CJ botches getting thrown out the ring. God damn it. This is pitiful. Viking screams in his face for more chops. He rakes the eyes after like fifty minutes of chops. Otis catches Viking with a powerbomb when he comes off the top rope. He seems to be trying to work over the back of Viking, but that could just be me trying to find something to enjoy in this. I take solace in the fact that I skipped ahead to see how long this lasts, and there’s only a minute left. He gets Viking up for the Burning Hammer, but its countered and a lariat takes CJ down. Hey, I got one. More like CJ BLOATIS. Because he’s chubby. Gettit? Oh. A German suplex puts Viking away(5:15). CJ practically begs Viking to get in the ring and shake his hand. When he does, CJ bails. Oh, dude, you TOTALLY fucking rule.

Rating: N/A. Sucked. Next.

*Jason Hades and Troy Walters vs. Cheech and Cloudy vs. Fire Ant and Ricochet vs. Devon Moore and Jaysin Strife
This match has fun times written all over it, even though I’ve never even heard of Walters or Strife before. Fire Ant and Ricochet had a great little match together at one of CHIKARA end-of-season shows. Moore and Ricochet start out. They have an exchange of ‘ranas and Cloudy and Walters are tagged in. They counter each other and take each other down with armdrags. INDY STAND-OFF~! I so knew that was coming, but I’m surprised that it was three whole matches in. Cheech and Fire Ant in. They go at it with strikes until Cheech is sent to the floor with a dropkick. He fakes him out on a dive and Hades and Strife are in. They do some nice-looking stuff. Devon Moore helps out his partner and is tagged in. He hits a dropkick that misses by about three feet. I love wrestling. Hades is isolated and Fire Ant gets in with him. Cheech and Cloudy’s turn. It comes back round to Strife beating Hades down. This goes on for a while and it’s un-needed because all anybody wants in this kind of match is high spots. Strife misses a moonsault and that allows Hades to tag in Walters, who’s a house on fire for all of ten seconds. Ricochet and Fire Ant double-team him. Cheech goes at it with Walters, but is sent to the floor and eats a tope. Strife and Moore double-team Hades and the match becomes chaos. For some reason, Strife takes out his own partner, Devon Moore, with a superkick and leaves. Suddenly, Vin Gerard interferes and takes out Fire Ant, continuing their CHIKARA rivalry. Partly Cloudy With A Chance of Cheech to Walters and they follow that up with the powerbomb/enziguri combo, which ends the match(15:20).

Rating: *1/2. Not as good as I was expecting. Match was really pretty dull.

*Sexxxy Eddy vs. Hydra
Good lord. Eddy is now sporting a mohawk. Hydra’s popularity in CHIKARA seems to have carried over to Bumfuck, Illinois. Heel Eddy’s great compared to the bland, vanilla babyface Eddy that most people are acquainted with. There’s some pre-match shenanigans from Sexxxy Eddy. Hydra is weighing in at 140…THOUSAND pounds. They have a pose-off to start us out. They lock up and Hydra over-powers him. Eddy declares Hydra’s muscles fake. The swine. As payback, Hydra SLAPS him in the nuts. Tremendous. Eddy is sent to the outside and jaws with an overweight female fan. Hydra drags him back in, but Eddy’s heel tactics are too much for him. A flying knee and a kick right to the face do a lot of damage to Hydra and Eddy refuses to pin him. Chops do nothing as Hydra’s wearing the muscle suit. Hydra unloads on some of his own and does Kobashi chops in the corner. A school boy gets two before Eddy levels him with a clothesline. Hydra nails a NIPPLE LIFT INTO AN ATOMIC DROP! A “fine thingy of death” only gets two on Eddy. Hydra tries to lock in the Hydra Lock – I’m refusing to call it the Hydraulic – but Eddy goes low. Hydra sends him to the mat. Hydra does the Shawn Michaels foot stomp in the corner and is apparently sorry because he loves Eddy. AWESOME. Eddy catches the superkick and turns Hydra’s mask round a bit so he can’t see. A missionary pin with his feet on the ropes secures the victory for Sexual Edward(8:37).

Rating: **1/4. Match was pretty much nothing, but lots of fun was had here.

*Vin Gerard vs. Josh Abercrombie
The fans chant “Equinox” at Gerard before the match. I really hope this match is great. I think Abercrombie’s great and Gerard has seemed to be pretty good since he ditched the Equinox gimmick. They quickly go to the mat, but that doesn’t last long as Josh busts out some awesome Lucha stuff. Abercrombie takes the Equinox mask that Gerard brought with him and puts it over Gerard’s head. Gerard is over-raged and bails. He dares Abercrombie to come to the floor before running back in. Gerard puts the mask on Josh and beats him down. Vin chokes him because he’s a bad man. Vin teases the standing SSP that he used to do, but instead lands a back senton. Vicious running knee strike in the corner to Abercrombie. Abercrombie fires up and they trade elbows. A clothesline flattens Vin and a crazy neckbreaker only gets two. He sets up the Taliban Backpack, but Vin halts that and fish-hooks Josh off the middle rope. A LOW snap side slam only gets two on Vin. Vin soon regains control and locks in the STF, but they’re too close to the ropes and Abercrombie grabs them. TALIBAN BACKPACK! An arm submission that’s not in camera view wins it for Abercrombie(8:04).

Rating: **3/4. Good stuff, but badly needed more time to develop. As soon as Abercrombie started firing back and doing his big comeback like three minutes into the match, I felt really let down.

*Dingo vs. Jimmy Jacobs
Dingo is a young guy who I’ve never properly watched before, but apparently he’s good. He looks scarily like Bryan Danielson, but with a horrible tattoo on his back. Tomorrow night, Jimmy will take on BJ Whitmer in a no ropes, barbed wire match. He declares on his way to the ring, “Even I’d fuck myself.” Jimmy wastes no time in taking him down to the mat, but Dingo is no slouch down there. A satelite headscissors from Jimmy slows the match down, as they methodically attempt to wear each other down. Jimmy goes to the eyes. A headscissors sends Jimmy to the outside and Dingo fakes him out on the dive. They go at it on the outside and Jimmy throws him around some chairs. Jimmy sits him on a seat and hits an elbow drop off the bleachers onto him. Dingo is busted open. He gets suplexed on the floor and screams into the camera. Don’t do that again. Jimmy goes to town on the cut above his eye. Dingo teases suplexing Jimmy off the bleachers, but is headbutted off. Missile dropkick by Jimmy. Back in the ring, Jimmy grabs his trusty spike from under his jacket. He aims up the shot and stop Dingo in the head. In-case you didn’t catch it, there’s no DQs in IWA. Dingo fires back and plants Jimmy with a high-angle back suplex. Butterfly suplex only gets two. Dragon sleeper is broken by Jimmy and he goes for the Contra Code, but is thrown to the outside. Dingo goes for a tope, but Jimmy moves and Dingo lands HARD on the floor. Back in, Dingo regains control, but misses a moonsault. Jimmy capitalizes and lands the Contra Code, but that fails to put Dingo away. The guillotine choke does, however(12:13).

Post-match, Jimmy gets a small spool of barbed wire and cuts up Dingo’s head with it.

Rating: ***1/4. That was REALLY good. The match is great and it’s made me even more excited for Jacobs-Whitmer the next night than I already was. Dingo was great here, too, and is definitely one too watch.

*Stephen Saint vs. Kazukai vs. Brian Skyline
You guys don’t mind if I skip this one do you? Ah, screw it, I’ll just watch it. Kazukai looks like your average Japanese “young boy” and Skyline looks like a larger Pelle Primeau. Why the heck is this on the card? There’s like fourteen matches on the show, surely shit like this can be cut. These young guys can get exposure elsewhere, preferably in a promotion I don’t watch. Anyway, they do pretty much the same match as we seen in the opening match. They bust out plenty of high spots, but none of them manage to get the fans into it. Match ends really abruptly when Kazukai taps out to a reverse Cattle Mutilation from Brian Skyline(3:03).

Rating: N/A. Was there really any point in paying these young guys to come in and do absolutely nothing. Money well spent, IWA.

*2 Cold Scorpio vs. Mickie Knuckles
Scorpio is coming off an awesome match with Eddie Kingston at the last show. Scorpio isn’t taking his female opponent seriously at all. He dances and stalls some. He apologises for poking fun at her and shakes her hand. He goes to town on her left arm, but is entirely not serious about it. OH NOES, he cups her breasts! They exchange strikes, with Scorpio finally beginning to take her somewhat seriously. A boot to the face sends her to the mat, but Mickie is a firm believer in FIGHTING SPIRIT~! More strikes from both combatants. Mickie takes him down and locks in a rear naked choke, which he eventually gets out of. Scorpio tells her that she should just leave and Mickie begs him to just wrestle her. This is so lame, it’s incredible. He floors her with a knee to the head and follows that with an exploder suplex, that gets a two-count. Fans are getting into it. I’m not. Mickie fires back. Scorpio’s selling is ridiculously bad here. I can’t tell if he’s doing it intentionally. Northern Lights Suplex for Mickie gets two. Scorpio fails to connect with his strikes and gets planted with a German. She doesn’t cover, instead landing another and gets two from that. She headbutts away and Scorp falls on his ass. B-Boy facelift in the corner by Mickie fails to put Scorp away. More has happened in the last two minutes than in the first 12 minutes of the match. OH SHIT, Mickie kicks him right in the face, Shining Wizard-style. Scorpio Anderson Silva’s her before going to the top rope and landing the somersault legdrop, which ends it(15:56).

After the match, Scorp yells at her for disrespecting him. This causes Ian Rotten to come out and I sigh. I zone out and when I come back Mickie is whining and Ian’s talking about Eddy Guerrero’s teeth. I’m not even lying.

Rating: *. Really pretty dire. Nothing happened for like the first twelve or so minutes and the story they were going for was uber-lame. Once they got past all they “LOL SHES A GIRL!” stuff, it seemed to be picking up, but then Scorpio won after doing absolutely nothing the entire match except chopping her a few times.

*Kris Chambers vs. Danny Demanto
Chambers, if I’m remembering correctly, had one match in CHIKARA last year against, I believe, Xtremo or Brodie Lee. It was definitely one of them. Demanto is a regular in CZW and has pretty much nothing going for him other than that he can take a decent bump. Chambers comes out to ‘That Song From Legends of Wrestling 3’, as I like to call it. He gets on the mic. He’s pissed that he’s stuck wrestling Demanto. Yeah, IWA are really missing the boat on that Hogan-Chambers match that the fans have been clamoring for. Anyway, they start of by establishing Demanto’s obvious strength advantage. He tries to hit a dive to the outside, but is caught with a hard powerslam onto the floor. Back in, Chambers controls are targets the back of Demanto. Demanto dumps him on his head with a capture suplex and slams him into the corner. LOL, life-threatening bumps are kewwwl! Demanto goes upto the top rope and Chambers tried to roll away from the moonsault, but Demanto botches it and lands on him HARD anyway. Chambers just no-sells it and ends it with a fisherman’s buster(4:40).

Rating: 1/2*. Meh. Nothing much going on here. Is there really any need for filler matches like these, though, when there’s like 47 matches on the card?

*IWA:MS STRONG STYLE Championship
Egotistico Fantastico vs. Michael Elgin (c)
Yes, IWA seriously has a strong style title. Elgin won the title in a match with Drake Younger, Viking and Roderick Strong that sucked. Egotistico apparently is a former WWE development guy. He wrestles in a large blue mask and from this point on, I’ll be calling him Ego. Ego takes it to the mat, where he can control Elgin. He then displays his speed advantage over the large Michael Elgin. Ego dumps himself on his head with a ‘rana that sends Elgin to the floor. He follows up with a tope con hilo and lands on his ass. The commentator talks about how Elgin is a bad ass because he’s been hit with the “wrong side” of a chair and still managed to “no-sell it”. KAYFABE~! Elgin takes control with his generic offence. A big powerslam gets two on Ego. He locks in a sleeper. Ego fights to a vertical base, but is slammed back down. The match continues to move along at a pace so slow, the Great Khali would be proud. Egotistico counters a powerbomb and murders Elgin with a kinda reverse Ganso Bomb. Elgin, of course, kicks out of two. No, busting that move out wasn’t too much at all. Ego goes to the top rope, but Elgin quickly runs up and German’s him all the way across the ring. He’s out, but to make sure, Elgin picks him up and the Tiger Driver ’91 finishes(11:44).

Rating: **. Not much to it at all and it was quite boring, but everything was really solid and Ego looked good.

*Jayson Quick, Sami Callahan & Christian Able vs. BLK MIDNIGHT TWINS (Sabian, Jimmy Olsen and Billy Roc)
I haven’t heard of a single person on the first team, but the latter team just screams awesome fun times. Sabian comes out to the BLKOUT’s regular theme song, but then that quickly changes to Toxic by Britney Spears and out comes Jimmy Jam and the Well-Mannered one! I was ready to scream when I saw the first three come out. Roc and Callahan. Callahan seems like a really explosive, loud young fellow. Quite the opposite of Well-Mannered Billy Roc. Roc owns him for a while and tags out to Jimmy Jam Olsen. Able in. He looks like the bizarre love child of Austin Aries and Festus. Seriously. Able takes it to the mat and locks in a chinlock, but gets planted with a ‘rana and tags out after a dropkick to Quick. Sabian in. Sabian’s experience combined with his speed is initially too much for Quick, who bails. Mis-communication from the other two guys allows Sabian to take them out. Tope con hilo out to Quick. As Josh Abercrombie notes on commentary, the fans are the hottest they’ve been all night. You know it’s sad when your fans are considered “hot” because of about a half of the crowd clapping politely and about four people yelling. The tide turns for the rookie heel team when Billy Roc is isolated by Callahan. Callahan’s looking pretty impressive in there. Able has his way with Roc for a while before Callahan gets back in and they double-team him. He tags out to Jimmy out of nowhere and Jimmy’s a house on fire. That is, until his face gets acquainted with the forearm of Christian Able. Jimmy accidentally knocks Sabian off the apron. Sabian argues with both his teammates, which gets Jimmy blind-sided and sent to the outside. Sabian leaves. Jimmy gets back in and all three man have their way with him. Jimmy gets to tag out after a mistake by Able. Roc takes all three men out with dropkicks. Sunset flip bomb to Callahan only gets two. Jimmy dives to the outside to Quick and nails a TOPE DDT! Shit breaks down. Lots of near falls here. Roc lands a flipping head drop thing on Callahan and it’s over(15:07).

Rating: **. Well, that was damn long for a filler, nothing match. Same as pretty much everything else on the show, I have pretty much nothing to say because it’s all so bland.

*”Big Rig” Brodie Lee vs. BJ Whitmer
This is Brodie’s debut in IWA and he’s instantly being pushed as a main event level guy. I can’t wait for BJ to meet Brodie’s boot. Brodie jaws with a fan. BJ FLIPS THE HECK OUTTA THAT WRISTLOCK! He wonders out loud, “what you gotta do to get a pop here?”. Neither can take the other man to the ground with shoulder tackles, so BJ does the job with a drop toe hold. Brodie takes the action to the outside and they go at it. This is great, it actually feels like a fight. BJ is whipped into the ring post. Brodie mounts him and unloads on shots. Back in the ring, Brodie controls and stuffs all of BJ’s attempts at a comeback. Brodie misses a diving headbutt. BJ gets back into it with help from the fans. He can’t keep Brodie down for long enough periods of time to do much damage and eventually eats Brodie’s boot. Brodie decides that he needs to do more damage and lands a sky high powerbomb. He misses another boot and takes a jawbreaker. Jimmy Jacobs is out with a spool of barbed wire. This distracts BJ long enough for Brodie to absolutely MURDER him with a big boot and grab the victory(7:36).

After the match, Jimmy wraps the barbed wire around BJ’s face and pulls on it. He then proceeds to whip BJ with the wire before planting a kiss on his cheek and exiting the building.

Rating: ***. I expected a good match from these two and they delivered. This was a really good and heated brawl. Probably the best Brodie match I’ve seen. Can’t wait to see him more in IWA:MS.

*IWA:MS Light Heavyweight Title
Chuck Taylor (c) vs. Ash
Because nothing screams “main event” like Ash. Damn, this is going be so underwhelming as a main event. Did Chuck even main event any shows in singles matches while he was actually the heavyweight champion? Chuck actually gets a really big pop. Hell, I popped a little too when I heard ‘Hey Sandy’. Chuck starts out with goofiness, obviously. Ash takes it to the mat and the fans boo him. Taylor reverses and the crowd EXPLODES! Nearly. Chuck botches a kip-up out of a headscissors, so he does it again. Awesome. He berates Ash and declares there will be no flips in this match. Ash works in some heel schtick, so Chucky pokes him in the eye, much to the pleasure of the crowd. The commentator calls it a “jab to the eye socket.” Chuck controls for a while after that, but is eventually tossed to the outside. He follows with a MOSH PIT! They go through the motions until Taylor nails Sole Food and I wake up long enough to almost get back into it. The fans just aren’t into the Ash control periods at all. After almost getting killed with a spike DDT, Taylor is up moments later and nails the Omega Driver to secure the victory(12:02)!

Rating: *1/2. Like I’ve said with everything else on this show, it was solid, but just really boring. It’s like they’re not striving to have a good match. Chuck’s really over though, which is good for the company. They really should have put this on the undercard and just put Chuck over in like fifteen seconds. It’s not like anyone actually cares about Ash, or thinks that he’s on Chuck’s level, so he’s not going to lose anything. I’m sure the fans would’ve accepted Whitmer-Brodie as a main event moreso than this. Taylor did bust out some cool stuff throughout the match, which makes me wish they had put him against someone who’s on his level, not someone like Ash who’s a guy who’s just fine in tag matches. I really hate to be so critical of indy wrestlers, but Ash done absolutely nothing in this match to make me care or want to see more of him. He did bust out a Mosh Pit to the outside, but it was kinda botched.

*From this show on, I’ll be listing my current MOTYC’s for 2008. Unfortunately, nothing from this show gets on the list.

Current MOTY list (as of June 17th)
1) BJ Whitmer vs. Jimmy Jacobs (IWA:MS 500th Show) (****1/2)
2) Ric Flair vs. Shawn Michaels (WWE Wrestlemania 24) (****1/4)
3) Naruki Doi and Masato Yoshino vs. BxB Hulk and Shingo (DG Infinity 77) (****)
4) Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle (TNA Lockdown) (***3/4)
5) Eddie Kingston vs. Shane Storm (CHIKARA Two Eyebrows Are Better Than One) (***3/4)
6) Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho (WWE Judgement Day) (***3/4)
7) Randy Orton vs. Triple H vs. John Cena (WWE Wrestlemania 24) (***1/2)
8) Eddie Kingston vs. 2 Cold Scorpio (IWA:MS 500th Show) (***1/2)
9) Money In The Bank (WWE Wrestlemania 24) (***1/2)
10) Undertaker vs. Edge (WWE Wrestlemania 24) (***1/2)

Note: I’ve not watched any ROH so far this year, hence their being no ROH matches on the list. I’ve not seen a Briscoes or Brent Albright match in months, which makes me a very happy man. The prospect of a Briscoes match at the June 21st NOAH show is almost enough to make me want to sell my tickets.

The 411: This show was just "meh". I only rated one match ***+ and the rest is either crap or total filler. Avoid.
Final Score:  3.5   [ Bad ]