Steve's View #107
By Steve
In Steve's View #106 I ran the first
part of what will be a three part history of XPW and where they
went wrong covering the beginning of XPW through early 2001 when
they stopped running at Patriot Hall. Today I'm doing part two
which will cover their debut at the Grand Olympic up to when they
announced they would be running at the ECW Arena in Philadelphia,
PA.
On April 21st, 2001 XPW made it's
debut at the Grand Olympic Auditorium, easily the most historic
building in SoCal history, and the venue ECW the Heatwave pay-per-view
where the confrontation with XPW took place. So XPW aptly named
their show "Scene of the Crime".
XPW had booked Konnan and Shane
Douglas for the show, but neither could appear due to their guaranteed
contracts with Time Warner that they were given while in WCW.
XPW did however announce that neither wrestler would be there
several weeks before the show, but they still continued to over
hype the show.
When all was said and done, the
show was by most accounts a failure. While the show featured a
hot opener, and a respectable main event, the rest of the card
was quite awful and the total lack of surprises kept the show
from coming anywhere near to approaching the hype. The show ended
with loud "refund" chants in the crowd.
XPW came back in May 2001 with "Redemption"
which also saw the debut of the Insane Clown Posse and Vampiro
in XPW. While the show was widely thought of as being better than
"Scene of the Crime", it still wasn't up to the shows
XPW was running just two months before at Patriot Hall. This show
also saw the Messiah, who was easily the most popular wrestler
in XPW at the time, next to Sabu, capture the XPW Heavyweight
title. Messiah was already the XPW King of the Deathmatch champion
and was receiving a monster push in the promotion.
In July XPW ran a show titled "Rapture",
which will be remembered most for Supreme being badly burned due
to XPW's negligence, totally overshadowing what is probably one
of the best deathmatches in Southern California history. During
a deathmatch between Supreme and Kaos, the Enterprise (GQ Money,
Steve Rizzano, and Veronica Caine) came out and attacked Supreme
and attempted to setup a flaming table spot. Veronica Caine who
was lighting the table, was having a terrible time trying to get
the fire started, mainly because charcoal fluid, which is harder
to burn, and extinguish, was being used instead of lighter fluid.
In an attempt to get it started Caine kept putting more and more
fluid on the table. Finally the table was lit, and Supreme was
put through the table. Due to the pools of fluid on the table
Supreme's clothes quickly caught on fire. XPW did have someone
stationed at ringside with a fire extinguisher, but they chose
to put out the fire on the table before putting out the fire on
Supreme who was running around screaming. The total time Supreme
was on fire was probably about 20 seconds, which is enough time
to become badly burned. Supreme was taken from the building by
ambulance and didn't wrestle again until October (though he did
take part in the next XPW show in August 2001).
"Rapture" also brought
XPW some heat from ICP and their fans when Pogo the Clown gave
Violent J a really sloppy clothesline, legit injuring him, and
causing ICP to walk out of the show. ICP then later trashed XPW
on their website.
In August of 2001, while it was
a big story at the time, no one knew it that it was just the start
of what would arguably be the biggest story in recent SoCal history,
and one of the biggest stories in wrestling for 2002.
XPW ran it's show "Damage Inc.",
which was supposed to feature Rob Black and the Messiah versus
Josh Lazie and Sabu, which would result in Sabu leaving XPW if
their team lost. At the start of the show a video aired, supposedly
of the Messiah, though it was obvious to everyone in the building
at the time that it wasn't him, telling Rob Black that he had
to go back to Heaven and would be unable to compete any longer.
Rob Black ended up going the match alone, and with help from Webb
was able to win and banish Sabu from XPW. Also on the same show
Konnan debuted and Kaos won the XPW TV title in a tournament.
After the show Internet speculation
started to go wild about why the Messiah was out of XPW. Then
Kfir Hezroni at xpw1.com posted that Messiah was fired from XPW
for sleeping with Lizzy Borden. While XPW and the Messiah officialy
denied the rumors, unofficial everyone involved in XPW was backing
them up. Reportedly Black first caught on by comparing Lizzy and
Messiah's cell phone bills, which he paid for both, and when Lizzy
was confronted she admitted the affair. Still, Messiah denied
the rumors in an interview with Cal Manska and Lonnie Hill here
on SCU shortly after he was fired from XPW, but he never gave
any other real reason his departure, and later Messiah freely
admitted to sleeping with Lizzy, but more on that later.
XPW next ran in Pico Rivera, at
the Pico Rivera Sports Arena and ran what they billed as the first
exploding ring match in the United States (though matches with
explosives in the US, or even SoCal were nothing new, as Freddy
Valentine's ACW had been doing various types of explosion matches
throughout their history). The show itself was met with decent
reviews, as some matches were real sleeper hits like GQ Money
and Angel. The exploding ring presented a nice visual, but the
match itself was really bad to the point where Supreme no sold
the ring exploding.
"Retribution" in November
2001 is most notable for it's small crowd, which could largely
be attributed to running on Thanksgiving weekend.
In what was a major turning point
in XPW's relationship with their fans, XPW ran "New Year's
Revolution 2" in January of 2002, and hyped a surprise that
would change wrestling history. There is a lot of speculation
that the surprise was Scott Hall, but shortly before the show
he signed with the WWF. Whatever the planned surprised was, it
didn't happen, and rather than admitting it before the show, XPW
tried to run it as an angle. They had their main heel faction,
The Enterprise bring out two bums and say that was the surprise
to start the show. Of course no one bought it and waited all show
for the surprise. And none ever came. After the show, rather than
calming their fans down with an explanation, XPW went on the defensive
attacking their fans. It was the beginning of some of their most
hardcore fans in SoCal turning on them.
February 2002 saw XPW run a what
is considered the highest scaffold match in U.S. wrestling history,
where Vic Grimes took one of the most dangerous bumps ever in
wrestling. The show also saw XPW run a "buck naked match"
where the loser would be stripped nude. While Veronica Caine was
really stripped nude, the lights were out and very few fans were
able to see, resulting in loud boos and the "refund"
chants once again. While no one should have really expected to
see any real nudity, it seemed to have left a bad taste in peoples
mouths for the remainder of what was already considered a lackluster
show, until Vic Grimes fell from the scaffold.
Over the next four months XPW ran
two shows, one at the Grand Olympic, and their return to Pico
Rivera, where the exploding ring match was held in October 2001,
which while attendance was down, is largely considered XPW's best
SoCal show of 2002.
However, at the same time a new
problem was arising that would further the rift between XPW and
some of it's most hardcore fans. That problem was EPIC pro wrestling.
EPIC was started by Gary Yap, who
was a huge XPW fan, and even tried to become a part of XPW in
a creative capacity. When that fell through he began to look at
other options into the wrestling industry. He tried to invest
in Revolution Pro, but when that fell through, he teamed up with
a few other people involved in the Southern California wrestling
scene, having no real experience in wrestling himself, and created
EPIC.
Two of the people Yap teamed up
with were Paul T. and Josh Lazie. Paul T. being NOSAWA's manager
(in gimmick), who was an active wrestler in XPW at the time, and
Josh Lazie who was one of the top guys in XPW from the start but
had parted with them in August 2001.
One of the first matches EPIC announced
involved four current (at the time) XPW wrestlers; NOSAWA, Psicosis,
Damien 666 and Halloween. Obviously XPW wasn't happy.
As soon as the match was announced
Paul T. was contacted by XPW and he was informed that if NOSAWA
worked for EPIC he could no longer work with XPW. Paul relayed
the message to NOSAWA, and while NOSAWA wanted to remain in XPW
he wanted to honor his contract (EPIC had signed contracts) with
EPIC.
Damien 666, Psicosis, and Halloween
were also given the same choice and all chose XPW.
Then at EPIC's debut show New Jack,
who at the time had been wrestling for XPW showed up, and cut
a promo trashing Rob Black and XPW and holding a copy of a bounced
check that he received from XPW. The check was actually for a
future show, that XPW pulled the funds from the account because
of New Jack's going to EPIC, though the audience didn't know and
it's doubtful they would have cared. Large "fuck Rob Black"
chants broke out as New Jack continued his tirade. Also during
his promo New Jack mentioned that Messiah gave Lizzy Borden the
"ding dong", which lead to Messiah later saying "she
loved it" to chants of "you fucked Lizzy".
Around the
same time as all of this was going on, XPW started to want to
control what was being said on fansites devoted to XPW, as a lot
had jumped on the EPIC bandwagon and were printing negative XPW
news. In an e-mail that XPW vice president Kevin Kleinrock sent
to xpwlive.com (at the time the largest XPW fan site, and one
of the biggest supporters of EPIC) he stated the following: "Fan
sites are one thing, but some often go beyond the call... a site
that has the name XPW in it and uses the company's trademarked
name is really being granted permission by XPW... and there is
a line we have drawn. Sites that are supportive of XPW and only
feature XPW news and info will be allowed to use the XPW name.
Sites that feature outside news, trash talking, and more importanty
unauthorized images (from adult movies) and sell tapes that are
illegal... what I'm getting at is that if XPWlive would like to
continue to flourish, then those in charge need to make a decision
on whether to continue on the path they're on... or keep XPWlive,
keep supporting the cause, and get on board with the program."
While a lot of people thought it
at the time, and everyone knows it now, EPIC was doomed from the
start, and if XPW would have sat back and not reacted, they might
have been done even sooner rather than having publicity generated
for their debut show and drove even more supporters of the product
away from XPW. The growing dissent among XPW fans, and among wrestling
fans in SoCal overall was about to become apparent.
XPW wanted "Night of Champions" on
July 20th, 2002 to be their biggest show ever to that point.
It was their third annual King of the Deathmatch tournament,
which is pretty much XPW's biggest show of the year, they had
the unannounced surprise of Shane Douglas returning, and they
gave out hundreds of free tickets to try and fill the venue.
With the recent developments with the fansites and EPIC, the
free tickets might not have been the best of ideas.
Shane Douglas made his return to XPW to a decent
pop, and challenged Webb for the XPW title. During the match
they quickly lost the crowd and a beachball appeared in the
general admission part of the stands. XPW security grabbed the
ball and popped it, but then another beach ball appeared. XPW
security then got a hold of this ball also and popped it, which
started large "beach ball" chants. Then "EPIC"
chants broke out, then "this match sucks", "asshole"
and everything else. At this point no one in the arena was watching
the match as all the action was going on in the stands. People
then started throwing stuff from the general admission to the
floor, which got the people on the floor yelling back and throwing
stuff back towards general admission. As it was too much for
XPW security to handle, Pico Rivera security (who are armed)
got involved and broke it up before it had escalated further,
but the damage was done as far as the match went.
After the match Shane Douglas, who joined up
with Lizzy to "takeover" XPW for storyline purposes,
announced he was bringing XPW to the ECW Arena in Philadelphia
on August 31st, 2002. An announcement which would lead to what
is arguably the biggest blunder in XPW's history, and what has
to be considered a huge failure all around.
In part 3 I'll cover XPW from their
debut in Philadelphia to the present, as well as updates on their
current situation.
--
To take advantage of the recent
press in Rolling Stone magazine (the issue with Lisa Marie Presley
on the cover) the next Lucha VaVoom show has been moved up to
June 26th.
--
Los Chivos will be in the main event
at FUSION's May 4th debut and not at the EWF show in Bakersfield.
Both promotions had advertised them for the main event.
-Steve
