The Dynamic APW King City Pseudo-Review
By Scrub

I had been planning on going up to King City to check out All Pro Wrestling for quite some time now, ever since the card was announced. The card had a couple matches I wanted to see, but the main attraction was another SoCal Uncensored Road Trip! Well, an SCU Road Trip sans two-thirds of the staff, which in essence, would just be me.

So, I was anticipating a fun road trip and some good wrestling. Some of the other things that I had not anticipated:

- SoCal Tom Walters almost getting us killed three times. YES, THREE TIMES.
- SoCal Tom Walters getting us pulled over for cutting off a cop. Luckily, the officer let us slide, since we weren't from the area.
- The absolutely horrendous traffic that made its presence known in LA County.
- The absolutely shitty service we were given at Denny's. Well, why should I be surprised? Since when did Denny's have five-star service? Denny's service is usually average at best, but the service we had over the weekend was absolutely the worst service of all time. OF ALL TIME.
- Me actually staying awake the whole drive home. I'll admit. I really didn't plan that out very well. I should have known that I wasn't gonna be getting any sleep on the ride home. A DUUUURRRRR! I'm so stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid...

Well, with all that outta the way, I'll get to the actual show. This APW show was a paid show, meaning that the King City Fair had paid APW in advance to put on a show. So with a paid show, APW would not really have to worry about making a profit, because they already have. The show was sold out, yes. But it was free to anyone that paid for admission to the fair. So basically, it was a sold out show filled with a lot of average Joe Schmoes in the crowd. It's safe to say that the sold out crowd weren't exactly die hard Indy wrestling fans. There were some die-hard APW fans, of course. But not exactly the entire sold-out crowd.

The production values and the setup APW was using were really nice. Their live production values have always been great. APW had a big a huge screen setup to play wrestlers entrance videos, and also had nice little setup for the wrestlers to enter through. Really added to that big time feel.

The actual show was not really worth the drive. The last three matches were really good, but had I known that those would be the only good matches, I probably wouldn't made the trek up to King City. Also, 3 of the 7 matches featured SoCal guys. That means that the drive was probably not necessary, because I could see these guys (Scott Lost, Joey Ryan, Silver Tiger, Lil' Cholo, Super Dragon) compete in SoCal rings, without having to bear with the long drive. But with all that said, I was still glad to be there to support my fellow SoCal'ers. The other matches with the APW guys were alright, but not exactly worth the drive. But on the bright side, I picked up some GSCW videos at the APW Bunker. YAY!

I'll break down the actual card as arbitrarily as possible.

- Larry Blackwell vs. Kryptonite was an alright "big man vs. little man" scenario. Blackwell is one of the most obese wrestlers that I have ever seen. Very surprised to see him move the way he does. Kryptonite, hmmmmm… Kryptonite… well, I can't really give a strong opinion on him. This was my first time seeing him in action. Maybe I'll see him in action again sometime in the future. Though, Kryptonite did bump like a madman for Blackwell, making me think that he was pretty much dead. Maybe that wasn't selling. Maybe Kryptonite really was dead. Finish saw Blackwell hit a sit-out tombstone piledriver, followed up with a top-rope slash for the win. Kryptonite had to be carried out by APW Security.

- James Watkins vs. Robert Thompson was alright. But yet again, not really worth the drive. Nothing mindblowing, but nothing terrible. Just an alright match. Didn't Robert Thompson used to be an APW Champion? Now he's been reduced to the second match on the card.

- X-Foundation (Scott Lost & Joey Ryan) vs. Vennis the Menace & Lost Boy Billy Blade was an alright match as well. But once again, not worth the drive. I'd much rather see the X-Foundation here in SoCal, against opponents more appealing to me. There's so many teams out here in SoCal that I'd rather see go up against the X-Foundation. But instead, we get this unorthodox pairing of Vennis and Billy. Maybe it's not unorthodox. Maybe they're a regular tag team. I don't really follow their careers, so I wouldn't know. Again, not a bad match, but nothing mind blowing. The X-Foundation got really great heel heat. They really got the crowd riled up. At one point, Ryan brought in a chair to the ring, and threw it at his opponent to catch, then fell right on his back, trying to trick the referee into thinking that he had just been laid out with the chair. That Joseph P. Ryan is such a rascal! Might as well call him Taj Mowry, because he's such a SMART GUY! (OK, I won't ever do that again... *ashamed*) Joey Ryan is the King of Chair Trickery. First, his scam with Bo Cooper at the February GSCW show, and now this!

- James Choi & Jardi Frantz vs. Silver Tiger & Lil' Cholo was another alright match, but had it's miscues. Frantz did a good job, as always. Choi is pretty much just there. He does the typical Asian fighter gimmick. He lacks intensity in my eyes. Cholo and Tiger were the crowd favorites, as they got "Mexico" and "Lucha Libre" chants echoing off the walls. An alright match. The X-Foundation tag was better though.

- Super Dragon vs. Melissa ended the streak of "alright" matches at King City. This match was one of two reasons why I came to this show. This match up seemed so intriguing to me, as I've read good reports for Nikki vs. Super Dragon at a Gym Wars show last year. I've seen said match also, and though that they worked well together. Since Nikki (now known as Sara) and Melissa are pretty much neck and neck as wrestlers, I thought to myself that Dragon vs. Melissa would be just as good, if not, better. And better is probably right. This match was really, really good. Dragon played the heel this time around, and of course, by default, Melissa was the face. It was pretty much effortless to get the crowd to hate the masked man and rally behind the chick. Dragon started the match off with a pat on Melissa's bum, which didn't sit to well with Melissa. So in return, Melissa pat Dragon's tail to get even with him. Melissa worked really well with Dragon, and vice-versa. Better performance from Melissa with Dragon than Melissa's match with Mr. Excitement at the last GSCW show. As Excitement went soft on her at times, Dragon did not go soft on Melissa at all. Although, I must mention that Dragon didn't totally obliterate Melissa's face with forearms. I mean, c'mon, she's not Bobby Quance now. It was a different Dragon match than usual, with Dragon working on Melissa's arm, trying to lock submissions every chance he got. Earlier in the match, it seemed like the two were equals, which would be dumb, in my opinion. But Dragon did gain the upper-hand, by slapping on countless arm submissions, weakening Melissa. This then setup for Melissa's rallying come-back baby face role, which was well done and received well by the crowd, hitting ranas and rollups very smoothly and very crisp. Melissa held her own in there with Dragon, and looked really awesome in the ring. At this point, if I were to compare Melissa and Sara's performances in May, I'd have to give the nod to Melissa. Both girls were in the ring with Dragon, but Sara was hindered to a tag match. Sara also seemed to be not as crisp as she used to be, while Melissa looked more crisp than ever. Maybe that tag for Sara was a bad day, while Melissa's singles match was a good day, who knows. Though this month, the nod goes to Melissa. Dragon looked good in his match as usual, but this time, he decided to utilize and showcase his mat game and his submissions skillz. Adding a "Z" to any word makes the word coolerz. Really good match from the two. Too bad none of SoCal got to see that match.

- Chad Collyer vs. Bobby Quance was the other reason I decided to make the drive to King City. I'll admit I haven't seen much of Chad Collyer, but I've heard so many great things about the guy. That, and he was trained by Dean Malenko, so he has to be good. Quance will always be one of my favorite guys, so him vs. Collyer was definitely something that I was looking forward to. And this match did not disappoint. Really good match that was built to very well. Good execution. Good matwork. Good strikes. Good everything. YEAH!!! Finish saw Quance hit his lovely Shooting Star Press to retain the Universal Title. I could definitely see the Ring of Honor crowd loving this match. I'd like to break this match down a lot deeper, but my last name ain't Crast. In fact, I don't even have a last name…

- Little Kato vs. Bobby Dean was actually very good! Maybe I thought it was very good because I really wasn't expecting much at all from this match. I was expecting the typical Midget Match, and I got nothing like that at all. Even if they weren't midgets, this match still would have been really good. The crowd heat for this match was insane. The midgets got the loudest pops of the night. Bobby Dean looks like a tiny miniature Jerry Lynn. I was waiting for Dean to do the Jerry Lynn pose and growl for me. OOOOOOOOOOOOOH! *scary*. I was surprised to see that this match turned out the way it did. Really good match. Good wrestling plus some really great comedy sequences involving both participants and APW's very own Max Marquez. Very entertaining match, and the King City crowd loved every minute of it, as did I.

Overall, 4 alright matches and three good matches. That really doesn't constitute a card worth the drive. But the road trip alone definitely made my trek to King City worth it. A lot of fun was had on May 17th, whether it was due to the in-ring action, or the Denny's parking lot.

Scrub
Key Maker es mi abuelo!
scrub@socaluncensored.com