SoCalUNCENSORED.com - Southern California Pro Wrestling - AWS 9/25/04 Review

One To Grow On
A Review by Chris [WhiteTrashMark]

AWS Presents: Major Styles Clash
Date: September 25, 2004
Place: Frank And Sons

Welcome to my first "official" review for SCU. In the past, I've tossed together a short review from time to time of the shows I've gone to but this is the first time I went to the show knowing one was expected from me. So, it was with a Jimmy Olson-esque pride this morning that I bought a 99 cent notepad and ventured to the historic Frank And Sons Collectible Show Warehouse "arena" for another day of 'rasslin.

I was pretty excited about this show for one major reason. Anyone who has read my posts or reviews in the past knows that I'm an XPW fan. XPW was what got me interested in the non-Big Three wrestling action and what really got me going to live shows on a regular basis. So, when I saw three former XPW stars in one match... I knew it was going to be a special show if even just for nostalgia and nothing else.

The rest of the lineup had its ups and downs... dropped in quality a little bit by the loss of B-Boy to the lineup... but still good enough on paper to warrant a trip from the OC to everyone's favorite wrestling venue. So, when Scrub was looking for someone to review the show, I happily volunteered to give it my best shot.

I got to the building about 10 minutes before scheduled belltime and was overwhelmingly thrilled to find parking in a matter of seconds. Anyone who goes to Frank And Sons on a regular basis knows that's a rarity but the lots looked kinda empty actually. Maybe everyone was home watching the Dodgers and Angels battle for their respective postseasons... not sure. But I was happy to get in quick that's for sure.

There was no line when I got there as everyone had already been let in... another nice surprise. I took a minute to look at the merch table... some very good stuff there. A good mix of AWS/Rev Pro/PWG stuff plus some other things. Was very tempted by the Hustle 3 show on DVD but passed this time out. Was once again unable to find the Rev Pro tape with Dragon/Slymm on it [anyone know if that ever was released?]. (Editors Note: Yes, that show has been released. Rudos Media was undergoing some "creative changes" and that's why there backed up on their releases) I took a look around the AWS Arena and snatched a seat up against the curtain on the far wall. It wasn't long before a "five minutes til showtime" call came... a bit surprising as it appeared to me that the luchadors hadn't done their autograph session yet.

Oh, on a "Thank you, Bart!" note... there was huuuuge industrial size fans scattered throughout the crowd. It was still very warm in there... but those helped tremendously and I don't even want to think about how warm it would have been without them. Those fans made it tolerable and is something PWG desperately needs to look into for their shows.

So, it was a pleasant surprise that Travis hit the ring at 1:37 to announce the first match. Seven minutes late? For an indy show? Good grief, that's amazing! Major props to the AWS staff for being ready to go so soon to scheduled belltime. My first indy show since PWG's The Reason For The Season was set to begin...

...with Eric Matlock? Great.

MATCH ONE: Eric Matlock vs Funky Billy Kim

You immediately notice that FBK looks in tremendous shape. Even moreso than the most recent PWG show I remember him being on. The New Japan Dojo obviously does wonders for everyone who steps foot in there.

Matlock spat on someone immediately upon walking through the curtain so at least we knew who the heel was! Well, that and FBK was wearing trunks that reminded me of the Killer Bees... and anyone who wants to be a Killer Bee _must_ be the good guy.

FBK was in control of most of the match with some nice mat work to start things off. Those Inoki Dojo lessons had him throwing some very nice strikes that made exchanges with Matlock look very one-sided. FBK scored with a nice dropkick that made me wonder if the X-Foundation members all worked on their dropkicks together. He also used a nice axe kick on the floor that looked very convincing. A sitout powerbomb scored him a near fall... and to be honest, I don't remember much from Matlock on offense. He didn't strike me as anything special... but was very solid.

In the end, he took the win with a frog splash. The crowd seemed annoyed by Matlock winning and really don't seem to have attachment to him either way. He was unspectacular in the ring... but not offensive... which is not bad to be at all. He seems like he could have potential to be someone fun to watch someday. FBK was definitely the star in this match though. This match made me interested in seeing FBK in higher profile matches down the road.

WINNER: Eric Matlock in approx. 9 minutes with the frog splash. I didn't have a clock with a second hand... nor do I own a Green Lantern ring... so you'll have to make do with approximations of match times.

RATING: I don't do stars or hot pokers or any of that. But this match was nice and solid... a good way to start a show. It won't blow your house down but it was good enough to keep my interest.

AWS got another brownie point from me after the match by moving quickly to the next one. I've always found it odd when indies have big breaks between matches. So, it's nice to see a promotion have their shit together to make things move smoothly.

MATCH TWO: Ronin [w/ Dino and Johnny Paradise] vs Steve Pain
Ronin gets the early vote for entrance of the night thanks to Dino strutting behind him... then quickly playing it straight when Ronin turns around to glare at him. Comedic genius! I'm a little confused at how Dino's at ringside for Ronin... something from Rev X maybe? I've yet to hit a Rev X show so I'm not sure on their storylines. Steve Pain... Steve Pain... Steve Pain. Now... maybe it's just me. But for someone who has never seen Steve Pain before, don't you picture some generic looking guy who is desperate need of a gimmick?
Yeah... me too.

Well, we'd be wrong! Steve Pain has a flashy attire... a cool mask... and a ring name that couldn't be more ill-fitting! We need a contest to come up with a new ring name for Steve Pain... something snazzy... something flashy... something with pizazz! But don't get me wrong... Steve Pain is a hell of a worker. He was fun as hell to watch inside that ring and he and Ronin put on an excellent match. It was extremely entertaining to see... despite Pain wearing tights that looked like a very shiny trash bag tied off at his waist. So, new ring name + new tights = Steve Pain being even cooler than he already is!

Did I mention Ronin coming to the ring to "Dead Man's Party"? Excellent. Did I mention Steve Pain being intro'd as the Whole Lucha F'n Show? Also excellent! He used an Asai moonsault to the floor early in the match for our first major highspot of the show. That plus a cartwheel moonsault in the middle of the ring put the crowd pretty solidly behind Pain in this one. But Ronin's no slouch in there either throwing some of the lariats and strikes that his teacher is the master of.

Lots of good action in this one. This was a match that you could watch and think that it could be a main event in SoCal in a couple years. It was also a match that should show people that these two could have a hell of a feud together. A little more time in this match and I think we could see something very special from them down the road. Only real flaw to this match came on the finish where the referee started the count on a cradle... then started it again as a flipover bridge was added to the cradle... which made the kickout happen just before three instead of after it like it was apparently supposed to. Anyways... there was a little confusion before the bell rang and Steve Pain took the win.

WINNER: Steve Pain in about seven minutes with a double leg cradle.

RATING: I really enjoyed this match. It made me want to see both of these guys together and apart in matches in the future... which should be the ultimate goal for any match. Both guys have a great look and could be big stars in SoCal down the road. Excellent match and a great way to keep the momentum started by the opener going.

Around this time, I noticed the "arena" was really filling up. Before the opening bell, I'd guess near 100... pretty soon it was over that easily. Maybe 125-150? I'm terrible at guessing crowd size so I wouldn't be surprised if I was very wrong... but that's my guess.

MATCH THREE: "Brawlin' Bo Cooper vs Human Tornado
Bo Cooper is another worker I've never seen until today. He had a pretty good look to him and is a heavyweight which is incredibly rare on today's scene. Human Tornado snatched the best entrance award from Ronin... sorry Ronin! Tornado's music started up... and in walked Johnny Paradise with a woman [my apologies if she's a regular]. Tornado walked in behind them... stared down JP... and PIMPSLAPPED~! him out of his boots. Tornado grabbed the lady and proceeded to make his way around the ring. Upon getting in the ring, he basically got a vertical lap dance in the corner from her. Pimpslap + Lapdance = GOLD, BABY!

This looked to be your standard big vs little man match... but Tornado's really not that little. And he's got a pick in his hair... which makes him larger than life. Bo Cooper established himself as the evil heel with some comment about Kentucky Fried Chicken off the mic and by saying, "She's the reason 10 out of 20 African Americans have AIDS!". OOOOOOOOOH SNAP! That's heel heat you're feeling, Bo!

The last time I saw Tornado at Frank And Sons, he nearly killed himself with a somersault plancha to the concrete in that Hair match with Rising Son. Well, he attempted to do it again as he threw himself over the ropes with a somersault... and overshot Cooper, crashing down on the chairs and concrete below. I was on the opposite side so I didn't see how bad the landing was... but since he was up pretty quickly, I'd imagine it wasn't too bad. But I tell ya... Tornado's on the verge of getting the Paul London "PLEASE DON'T DIE!" chant from me.
Anyone else?

There was a fun spot where Tornado hit Cooper with a series of big lariats that he no-sold... and then flipped Tornado inside out to the mat with one of his own. Cooper also laid in some pretty brutal cringeworthy chops to our favorite P.I.M.P... but Tornado kept fighting back. A big splash off the apron to the floor [did it hit? I couldn't see!] by Cooper put Tornado down pretty hard. But as the Brawlin' One got back in the ring, so did Tornado's lady who threw some clotheslines of her own at him. Cooper threw her down in the corner and hit the mother of all Bronco Busters on her. Man on Woman violence! Paul Heyman would be proud!

But Tornado continued to fight back and looked to be on the verge of victory with a tornado DDT out of the corner... but Cooper countered it into a fireman's carry dumped down into a big Death Valley Driver for a three count.

WINNER: Bo Cooper in six minutes with the DVD

RATING: Another fun match. AWS was on a serious role at this point. We hadn't seen anything that was MOTY quality... but three damn fun, solid matches. I couldn't ask for anything more at this point in the show.

After the match, Bart came to the ring to lead the crowd in a ten bell salute for Ray Traylor, Dr. Wagner, and Vanderpyle's mother. Classy stuff. I have to admit that I was a little surprised earlier in the show when this didn't come before the opening match... but I was glad to see the tribute when it happened.

MATCH FOUR: Joey Ryan/Chris Bosh vs Quicksilver/Lil Cholo

This was a pleasant surprise. And I hate to admit this, but I was disappointed to not see Bosh on the original lineup as he's quickly become one of my favorite heels in SoCal. But Bart fills B-Boy's void in impressive fashion with Joeyoeoh and BOSH!. It's a shame that Lost is the heel in PWG because Bosh/Ryan made a pretty good heel team. Especially when you consider their theme music... lemme give you a hint...

#Here comes the Ax#
#Here comes the Smasher#
#We're Demolition#
#Walking disaster#

YES! They used Rick Derringer's classic "Demolition" off Piledriver: The Album! Complete with a singalong by Joey Ryan Fan. Classic stuff.

Time for confusion. Dino was with Quicksilver and Cholo... Johnny Paradise was with Joey and Bosh. Explain! I hate nitpicking stuff like that... but my god, by this point I was wondering if Paradise and Dino managed the entire roster. But apparently Dino and Paradise only manage Ronin together and the rest are... ahhh, I give up. If someone wants to explain it to me, that'd rock... BUT NOT AS MUCH AS THE DEMOLITION THEME!

Chris Bosh made impressive use of his arsenal of backbreakers that makes me giggle. He turned a Quicksilver crucifix attempt into a swinging backbreaker in one cool spot. But perhaps the greatest Bosh spot of the match was his sunset flip attempt on Quicksilver. When Quicksilver blocked, Bosh went to the best possible counter. He sat up and bit Quicksilver's groin! Innovative offense that would make Nova shit himself in wonder! And to make it even better, Joey slid in behind Quicksilver [if I stop the sentence right here, that makes a horrifying scene... but one oddly fitting for a show topped off with eXPW stars]... and pulled Silver back onto his bent knee in a backbreaker. Fantastic double team... err... bad choice of words?

Other highlights was a fantastic Lungblower by Cholo on Bosh that Bosh sold like a champ. Quicksilver also busted out a Tiger Wall climb into a hell of a head kick. Gorgeous move. With all four down, Johnny Paradise came in to interfere... and to make my nightmare more vivid, Dino slid in to oppose him, ducking under a clothesline [sorta] in a Trish Stratus Matrix Move! Oh the humanity! And then he clubbed Paradise with a Stan Hansen-esque Lariat. But dammit, Dino... give the Hook 'Em Horns next time.

In the end, Lil Cholo somehow tied up Joey in what looked like a Styles Clash but with Ryan face up instead of down... and then got dropped on the back of his head for the three count.

WINNER: Lil Cholo and Quicksilver with... that move... in about 13 minutes. Their fans in Gaytown, USA will be very, very happy on this night.

RATING: This was easily the Match of the Night for me at this point in the show. Some very good stuff from all four. And I think this is the best match I've ever seen out of Lil Cholo. More Joey/Bosh teaming! MORE!

This was the one slow spot in between matches on the show where we were told that intermission was still a few matches away... but that the luchadors would be making their way to the gimmick table to do signings. They were introduced... but didn't come out. Travis ran to the back... and then Blue Panther came out in a little bit. The other two took even longer. Odd stuff and it made the crowd a little anxious.

MATCH FIVE: Kenny King vs Scott Lost
Did Lost turn heel everywhere with the one PWG turn? I don't recall reading about one anywhere else. The SoCal indies really need to decide if they're going to respect each others storylines or not... the blending of the two is really confusing. This was my first time seeing Kenny King. King was greeted by someone yelling, "You should have won Tough Enough!" Poor guy. He must hear and think that every time he steps into the ring... every time he turns on the TV and sees Jackie Gayda. Not to mention Linda Miles. He doesn't seem to get booked much around here. Is he local?

The one thing that stands out about this match is that there were a ton of kicks involved. Standing kicks, spinning kicks, leaping kicks, twisting kicks. You would almost think it was a martial arts movie. This was a pretty solid match. Lots of good work in it... yet it somehow didn't connect with the crowd. The crowd was pretty live for most of the show til this point and then hushed quite a bit. Even some good crowd brawling didn't pick it up much. Scott took a hell of a bump on a whip to the post... then got laid out between two chairs while Kenny stood on the chairs before dropping a knee down on Scott's gut. Unique spot but didn't do much to pick the crowd back up.

Kenny snapped off a nice enzugiri at one point near the end and eventually put Scott away with a torture rack into a layout faceslam. Cool move. After the match, some big masked guy that a couple people called "Blade" charged the ring and had a weird beatdown on King that included chops in the corner. It was probably the most uninspired run-in I've ever seen. I think the masked guy had the Rev Pro logo on his kneepads... but I don't recall ever seeing him at a Rev Pro show [but it's been a while since I've gone to one of those too].

WINNER: Kenny King over Scott Lost in about 13 minutes with the torture rack faceslam.

RATING: Eh. It was a sound match and with a different crowd, it might have worked well. The work was fine but it just didn't click the right buttons to be as good as it should have been. Plus negative points for the bizarre post-match attack.

I think the crowd was really aching for an intermission at this point as the heat was draining and we'd been in our seats for an hour and a half at this point. But the show went on to the next match.

MATCH SIX: Black Metal/King Jakal vs Dante/Extreme Loco
Uh huh. I don't know if I didn't enjoy this match because of wanting a break or because it was bad. Dante was kinda all over the place. He did a nice running SSP and a tight 450 splash... he also countered a chokeslam with a backflip and had some nice bumps... but other than that, nothing memorable. I don't recall King Jakal doing anything of note. Black Metal was just kinda there... but was probably the best in the match. And Extreme Loco is neither Extreme nor Loco... discuss.

At one point in the match though, Black Metal approached a fan... talked a little trash... and then proceeded to put his hand on their head and kinda lightly shove at it. Sorta a mini-pieface. The first fan kinda ignored it. The second one got a little more annoyed. As a matter of practice, I think it's a _real_ bad idea to get workers in the habit of touching fans in that fashion. All it takes is the wrong person to do that to and you have a bad situation on your hands. Ask Ian Rotten. I'd hate to see an ugly situation at a SoCal event like IWA:MS had last weekend... but something like that could escalate in a hurry.

In the end, Black Metal scored the win when he chokeslammed Dante for the pin. I was just glad this one was over as it was easily the worst match of the night at this point.

WINNER: Black Metal and King Jakal by chokeslam at the ten minute mark... it was only ten minutes?!

RATING: Bad. It was just bad. Like I said, I might have been cranky because of the heat... but I don't think so. Anyone want to back me up on this one? Oh, after the match, Metal and Loco looked like they were staring each other down. Hopefully a singles match with them would be better... but I think the most potential might be Metal/Dante in a singles match. Just my opinion.

We had one more match before intermission... thank god for that.

MATCH SEVEN: AWS Tag Title Match - Skulu and Al Katrazz vs Misterioso and Superboy
This was a very cool match to wrap up the first half of the show. All four of these workers are fairly competent in the ring at worst and are very colorful characters. I've loved Superboy since his brief [one match] work in XPW and always enjoyed seeing him in action. It was my first time seeing Misterioso but he had a great look and was very good in the limited action he had in this match. Al Katrazz always struck me as the weaker half of Hardkore Inc but he handled himself fairly well in this one. And Skulu... well, despite Skulu's obvious limitations as a worker, he's one of the most colorful... most charismatic workers in SoCal and he should be seeing more bookings.

Skulu and Superboy squared off in one of the more amusing spots of the night. Greeted by calls of "Fat Hardy", Skulu cracked a big grin... obviously proud of his RAW appearance. But things were about to get ugly. Superboy wanted a showdown... and ripped off his shirt! Egads! It was horrifying yet so, so fantastic at the same time. And then?! THEN SKULU DID THE SAME! Dear god! It was hideous... but the crowd ate it up. They teased some sumo spots and then proceeded to take turns running the ropes until both were "blown up", gasping for air. Great stuff.

Misterioso took over with some fantastic lucha work... some nice mat work and then some fantastically elaborate armdrags. We got a Superboy top rope senton that looked absolutely brutal. We got a teased Skulu splash before it was broken up by a double suplex by the challengers. And in the end... we got the Fat Man Moonsault by Superboy for a three count. New Champs! The rudos were wildly over with the crowd for their title win and then asked for the mic. Superboy went first, declaring the belts as the Mexican Tag Team Titles and then offering a rematch to the now former champs... but in a traditional lucha libre 2 out of 3 falls match. The fans had a pretty good reaction to that. But then Misterioso took the mic and said that if they wanted a title shot... they had to go to the bottom of the list. Personally, I hope that list included Joey Ryan and Chris Bosh! Oh, Superboy also said winning the titles was too easy... just to insure that "OHHHHH!" from the crowd.

WINNER: Superboy and Misterioso become the tag champs in about eight minutes with the Fat Man Moonsault.

RATING: I really liked this match. And I think I'd probably enjoy the 2 out of 3 Falls match too... although that would be a little more tricky with some obvious stamina issues with some of the workers. High quality stuff to pick the show back up after the couple matches before it.

INTERMISSION! FINALLY! The place practically emptied with people in search of drinks. I even passed up my usual trek down to the AWS booth to hit the soda machine instead. The intermission was kept pretty short as well as they realized they had _four_ more matches left. Eleven matches on one show? Oddly, it didn't seem that bad since a lot of them were of high quality and relatively short. I could have done without a couple matches though and given some of the openers a couple more minutes. Just my own opinion.

We came back from intermission to discover Funky Billy Kim looking for money for... food, I think? Donations were flying! SoCal fans at their finest!

MATCH EIGHT: Nikki vs Disco Machine
Intergender match, huh? It's the first time I've seen Nikki work so I was willing to give it a chance. Disco tried to snatch the Best Entrance crown by having... who else... Johnny F'n Paradise as his "ballboy". But Paradise dropped the ball [no pun intended] and Disco banished him back to the locker room area. Next show they should save time and just make Paradise one of the old WWF Federettes... complete with the little purple outfit... err... not that I want to see JP in one of those... or anything... seriously.
Ahem.

Moving on, this match was okay actually. Disco worked pretty snug with her which made it believeable... I guess it also made him the heel but no one really can ever boo the man with the best entrance music on the indies. Disco offered the left handed handshake to start... and Nikki accepted only to get hoisted up for the chokeslam. BUT... she countered with an armdrag. Nice stuff. A baseball slide kick put Disco in the crowd... and shockingly, Nikki went out after him. We got another fantastic spot where Disco dragged Nikki around the ring, yelling for fans to clear out of their seats... and when they did, he'd move to the next section and repeat. Great stuff.

Nikki snapped off a nice gutwrench suplex and Northern Lights suplex with a bridge as well. She also connected with a good missile dropkick. My only suggestion to Nikki? Those tights looked awfully close to giving us all a sneak peak. Might want to rethink that wardrobe choice.

Disco scored with a _huge_ missile dropkick to her back before hitting the chokeslam for the pin.

WINNER: Disco Machine over Nikki in about five minutes with the chokeslam.

RATING: Good enough. It was a nice way to come back from intermission and seemed to get everyone back in that wrestling state of mind. Nice placement for the match on the card too. Wouldn't have thought so... but it was.

Time for another title match!

MATCH NINE: AWS Title Match - Babi Slymm vs Scorpio Sky
On paper, this looked like the match with the most potential to either fail miserably because of the style clash or to be awesome. Luckily for all of us, it was much closer to the latter. Slymm entered with Vanderpyle of course, doing some heel schtick as they approached the ring. Sky entered with sparkly new gold ring gear. Fancy.

This is much closer to your standard big vs little man match... and was played really well for that. We saw Sky try and use headlocks on Slymm and Slymm kept escaping. We saw strikes by Sky that Slymm just brushed off. The message was sent psychologywise early that Sky was going to have to stick and move to stand a chance.

He tried that attack early in the match with a plancha attempt to the floor but got caught... and posted. One of the cooler spots of the night happened on the floor when Slymm grabbed Sky by the legs and kinda Giant Swinged [Swung?] him into the chairs without the multi-rotations. Then he picked him up and did it again. Slymm seemed to be into his role as a heel, throwing his bandana at a fan... then yelling at one in particular from the ring.

Back in the ring, Sky scored with a Fivearm... someone called it a Tito Santana flying forearm but I was always partial to Terry Taylor's so we'll go with that. He also connected with a top rope dropkick to get a two count. Vanderpyle was all over Sky's case all match long... but Sky got the payback by ducking a running lariat by Slymm and throwing himself over the ropes and onto Vanderpyle with a somersault plancha. He followed shortly after with a corkscrew plancha onto Slymm. This was all some really great action and was played up well enough that it really looked like a title change could be coming.

A big frog splash by Sky got a near fall... but Slymm regained control with an overhead belly to belly for a near fall of his own. At one point near the end, Sky was out on the apron when Slymm bumped him off into the chairs on the floor. Eventually, Sky got drilled with Slymm's bodyslam lift into a spinning side slam for the three count.

After the match, Slymm ranted on the fans for a bit. He seemed pretty frustrated that the fans were quiet for what was an excellent match. He mocked them for saying it's too hot... said he hated a few of them and told them to never come back. He shook Sky's hand and then got into the face of a ringside fan. I don't really know how to respond to that. I mean... he's right to an extent. They busted their ass... they had a great match... and they didn't get the reaction they're looking for. On the other hand, you can't force fans to be into a match and telling them you hate them and not to come back isn't any way to make that reaction better next time out. So, he's right but he's wrong.

WINNER: Babi Slymm over Scorpio Sky in about 14 minutes with the spinning side slam.

RATING: Excellent match. I think with a good feud behind it and the right crowd, these two could put on a match that got the same kind of praise that Dragon/Slymm did. It's a shame the fans weren't more into it but that happens to all workers. You just can't try to bully them into reacting.

It was time for the first half of the double main event and I noticed a lot of fans standing. It was very crowded in there despite some empty chairs scattered throughout. I don't think it was more than 125-150... but as I said before, I could be wrong on that.

MATCH TEN: Blue Panther vs Dos Caras Let me preface this part of the review by saying lucha really isn't my thing. I mean, I've watched some and I'm familiar with the major players... but I don't watch it very often and I think this would be the first time I've seen a match with either of these guys period... not just live.
With that out of the way, let me say...
Wow.

I don't really have the words for this match. It was a lucha match in the truest sense of the word. There were armdrags, intricate mat work and submissions, barely any rope running. It was just fabulous. The fans were _very_ into this one... lots of cheers for the two lucha legends.

Oh, and these guys were so amazingly cool... so over-the-top awesome... they didn't even need entrance music!

I can't even describe half of went on in this match... and sadly, it looked like they weren't rolling tape on this match. If I'm wrong on that, I apologize. That's really a shame if it's true because I think AWS could gain a lot of fans by showing this match as an example of the kind of stuff you get from AWS. I mean... really, no other promotion in town is trying to present action like this match and it was a real treat for me as well as everyone else in the house.

Dos Caras got the win with a cradle of some kind [pardon my lucha ignorance] and the fans gave the two legends a standing ovation for their efforts. After the match, Blue Panther gave a promo in Spanish that was unfortunately far beyond my limited espanol. Translation by someone would be great.

WINNER: Dos Caras over Blue Panther by cradle in 12 minutes maybe [I put my clock away during the match and forgot to check]

RATING: Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. It was totally unlike anything I've ever seen at a live wrestling event and if Bart plans on putting on something like this again, I'd suggest anyone with even a passing interest in lucha be there to see it.

Main event time! The reason I was there... the reason it sounded like a lot of people were there. Lots of the "workrate" crowd seemed ready to shit on this match as they booed its' announcement... they booed the workers as they came out to the ring... but not a single one of them left.

MATCH ELEVEN: No DQ Match - Messiah/Adam Flash/Wifebeater vs Supreme/Kaos/El Mongol
First, lemme get my one complaint about the match out of the way first. El Mongol?! They couldn't find any eXPW guys to round out the team? Where the hell is Angel at these days? Webb? I know Grimes is sick or hurt... but there must have been someone.
Ok... that's it.

They tried to wrestle to start with... and did a pretty good job of it. Kaos, Messiah, and Flash can all still wrestle with the other three tagging in to do a little and tagging back out. And then? It broke down.

My notes on this one are pretty much non-existant because I figured I'd be trying to avoid getting levelled by a brawl through the crowd [which never happened in my area!]. But I'll do my best to recall.

There was a lucha train wreck spot with Kaos diving to the floor, Flash diving to the floor, Messiah diving to the floor, and Supreme coming off the top onto all of them. There were chairs... there was a table brought in...

Diablo took a chair shot across the big like a fuckin' man! And then got the barbed wire bat [that he brought to the ring] used against him, cutting him open. Yes, our good friend Diablo was sporting the crimson mask! Great stuff.

El Mongol took a fierce spike piledriver on a steel chair which cued him getting carried out by AWS staff... in something that looked pretty legit until Messiah started yelling, "He's done! It's three on two!" As Mongol cleared out, someone slid into the ring to stand with Team eXPW, steel chair in hand. Our old friend Dynamite D! Supreme and Kaos seemed surprised to see him...

...and even more surprised when he creamed Supreme over the skull with the chair! D joined Team CZW in beating down our hardcore heroes. Wifebeater grabbed Kaos... and put him through a table leaning in the corner with an ugly as fuck powerbomb that I thought was going to break Kaos' neck. And we got LIGHT TUBES! I'm telling you... I was in hardcore heaven. There were scattered XPW chants that both made me sad and brought a smile to my face. Supreme took a slam on the light tubes of course.

Wifebeater left the ring as Messiah and Flash continued to work over Kaos... and soon a sound very familiar to CZW fans was heard. Yes, the Weedwhacker was making its' SoCal debut! Messiah and Flash held Kaos and it looked like his shirtless back would taste the Weedwhacker... but Uncle Supreme came to his rescue, battling the CZW guys... until Wifebeater drove the machine into Supreme's leg, taking him down to the mat and allowing Flash/Messiah to make a double pin to end the match.

The beating continued after the match with Messiah on the mic, saying that D betrayed them because he wasn't invited to be the third man in the match. The CZW guys continued to pummel Supreme and Kaos, Flash using the Weedwhacker on Supreme's leg again as they celebrated. Team eXPW bailed from the ring and were being helped to the back when Bart came out and snatched the mic. He said that the match was over... but the feud wasn't. With the crowd listening, he said that Supreme has always wanted to do a death match at AWS Arena... but he was going to do him one better. On Oct 30, we'll see a STEEL CAGE DEATHMATCH to settle the feud! Ohhhh yeah!

WINNER: Team CZW by Weedwhacker shot on Supreme in approx. 15 minutes [another one I didn't get a good time on]

RATING: This was a ridiculous amount of fun. And I salute AWS for doing something the rest of the SoCal promoters have failed to do... deliver to the hardcore fans. For a long time, XPW drew better crowds than anyone else on the scene and to ignore those fans completely is ignoring a very large fanbase. AWS has recognized that and done something about it.

SHOW OVERALL: When I went to the AWS show a few months back, "A New Beginning", I was left with the feeling I'd seen something that was okay... but something that had potential to be more than that. With this show, they proved that. This show had something for anyone... any type of wrestling you like was representing here. And if AWS can continue to produce this kind of show on a consistent basis, they're in for a very successful run.

Top 3 Matches:
1. Hardcore Six Man
2. Caras/Panther
3. Slymm/Scorp
[Joey-Bosh vs Quick/Cholo is a _very_ close runnerup]

Chris Blue aka White Trash Mark