GSCW Review - March 29th, 2003
By Benjamin Tomas

GSCW 3-29-03 American Legion Hall
Newhall, CA

I arrived shortly before the doors opened, and had a good chat with my friends. Everyone outside the building seemed primed for an evening of fun and mayhem, so it looked like my kinda place. The doors opened soon enuff, and I was ushered in to find a seat. I wound up sitting with Jason Bennett, Preston Scott, and Aaron Procter. A good crew to watch a wrestling show with, if you like that sort of thing. I grabbed a Diet Coke, and the show was underway. Diablo, Luna, and some APW dude came to the ring, and they called off the NoCal-SoCal feud. This is cool, as the US has more important conflicts on their mind. I like the idea that a few feds can get on the same page, so this was nice. Following this, a dude came out to sing, "Star Spangled Banner." He wasn't the best, but he tried. Everyone booing him should have shut up. This is America. We should be proud he stuck up for our freedom.

The opening match kicked total ass. Infernal and Silver Tyger put on an intense match to get the crowd pumped. Tyger hit a massive top rope triple jump backward/forward jump into a rana, only to get tiger bombed for his efforts. This might not sound exciting, but it looked frigging beautiful. The two of these WPW mainstays wrestled their hearts out, running complex sequences and doing so at full speed. The intensity of the two was at an all time high; I hope to see anything half this good tomorrow at the Marketplace. To cap it off, Tyger hit a huge dragon rana, and although Tyger's hand was raised, the real winners here were the fans. This is the kind of match that makes you wonder, "Who are the saps that have to go on next?"

The answer to the question was the Enterprise. Whoo hoo, let's all mark out for the group of former Black employees. GQ Money acted like a dude with energy and brain cells to spare, and Veronica Cane was what we expected her to be. Next was Kaos, a guy who needs a booking. They acted like dummies for a bit, and then Messiah hit the ring. The stuff that followed was as close to a shoot as we will see locally, and fueled by emotion. Messiah basically vented his disgust over a former "friend" and then they started throwing haymakers. BTW, Messiah said "fuck" a lot in his promo, offending the people next to me.

After the ring was clear, Joey Ryan came to the ring. He said he deserved a good opponent. Out comes my favorite SoCal wrestler of all time, Super Dragon. They locked up, and Joey got all the stiffness that the stay in Japan has taught the Dragon. Dragon did the chest stomp, and then hit a clothesline followed by multiple kicks to Ryan's face. Around this time, the people next to me left, as to avoid the profanity. I hope they had a nice evening at home. Joey hit a string of rolling German suplexes, and began to work the arm of Super Dragon. At some point after this, Joey was on the top rope, and Dragon attempted a leg-scissors type move, ant it ended with Dragon landing on the canvas face first. This was the only spot he blew, and I'd not point it out were he anyone but Dragon. Joey attempted a Rude awakening style neck breaker off the top, only to get thrown to the canvas and receive a Dragon stomp off the 2nd turnbuckle for his efforts. Dragon followed it up with a top rope senton splash. After Joey turned it around, he finally hit that neck breaker off the top, but to no avail. Dragon recovered and did a pump handle into a psycho driver, and the Ryan kid was done. Ryan clearly stepped up to the plate tonight, and I'm glad he did. Ryan can only go up from here. Great match to showcase how far Ryan has come along. After the match, Bo Cooper emerged from under the ring and power bombed Ryan. Al Katrazz then ran in on Cooper. Bo put away Al via the Minichinoku driver, and stormed out.

There was a lot of drama in the ring and they made the semi main event Jardi Frantz and Bobby Quantz vs. Dragon and B-Boy.

Shawn Riddick came out to prove he deserved his rookie of the year award against runner up Scorpio Sky. I think Sky has come farther than any SoCal guy recently, and was happy to see him tonight, getting a shot at Riddick. Sky used to be horrible, but unlike his partner who went to jail, Sky went to wrestling school, and it shows. Sky is a hot rookie. The two had a few quick opening exchanges, and in a total old school move, Riddick grabbed the ropes while he had Sky in an abdominal stretch. To further the old school, the referee kicked Riddick's hand off the ropes. Good stuff. Riddick later hit an awesome missile dropkick, which he followed with a 9 second long delayed suplex. After hitting the Of Da Hook, the SoCal rookie of the year got the victory.

The next match was the one that nearly put me to sleep. Melissa wrestled Mr. Excitement. I want to reiterate that I have no clue as to what makes this wrestler exciting. He hits the ring, and once he's thrown the tear away pants out of the ring, he's got no gimmick left, other than he is Puerto Rican. The name Mr. Excitement makes as much as Aaron Aguilera calling himself the Hardkore Kidd. I can think of like 7 hardcore things he's actually done. Melissa looked as tasty as ever, and though the match wasn't great, the view was. They did a spot where Mr. E grabbed Melissa's ass, and got slapped. Melissa also missed a moonsault that looked like she could have snapped her neck. This match would have been much better, but Melissa didn't sell very much at all. She'd take a massive move, and get right up. I know this a staple of Japan's strong style, but it looked out of place here. The two went to a time limit draw, and they tried to get the crowd to yell for more. The crowd chanted, "No more minutes", effectively killing the heat they were trying to build. I got the impression that the crowd was supposed to want more, but it didn't work. Here is a guy who beat Super Dragon twice, and can't beat Melissa. This was a stunning display of psychology as dreamed up by the booking committee. I suppose that now Melissa is the odds on favorite to bring this year's J-Cup back to the Bay Area. The participants went to the back and that was that. Did I mention how hot Melissa looked?

The match for the GSCW World Heavyweight Championship featured Aaron Aguilera vs. Frankie "The Future" Kazarian. Aguilera came out and cut a promo on the fact that APW's representatives were all lightweights, referring to their guys as the JV squad. He asked where the varsity guys were, and then said, "Oh, I remember, they are in Pro Wrestling Iron." This made the NoCal fans groan, because when the writing's on the wall, there is no reason to speak it aloud. Frankie and Kidd went on to have a great sports entertainment style match that would have looked right at home in any Raw telecast. These two are the guys who know that Indy wrestling is a steppingstone, and not a place to cater to the Indy mentality of the Internet smarties. I get shit all the time for being a Hardkore Kidd mark, but truth be told I'm no different than the kid who has sleepovers at his house with American Dragon. Aaron's never been to my house. The reason that this match kicked ass over a lot of recent Kidd matches was the fact that unlike other guys wrestling a sports entertainment style match; Kazarian can keep up with Aguilera.

With an opponent who was on the same page as himself, Aguilera was able to turn his amp up to 11. (Spinal Tap reference) They gelled and proved why Frankie has an impending WWE deal resulting from his match at the Galaxy with John Cena. During this match there was a sequence where Kazarian hit a clothesline coupled with a back trip for a rock bottom effect. He followed up with a great missile dropkick and a huge leg drop he jumped over the ropes from the outside to hit. Kidd fired back to hit that backwards elbow off the top to Kazarian's face and popped the crowd like he did last month at Staples Center using the same move. The finish saw Aguilera hit what looked like a full nelson slam, which mutated into a sit out pancake to get 3. Awesome match for both men.

After a brief intermission, James Choi wrestled Excalibur. The intermission was way too brief, as I missed all of this but the finish, which saw Excalibur get the pin following a Tiger Driver '91. I'm sure Steve's review will have the details.

The semi-main event brought un a terrific strong style encounter between SoCal and NoCal as Jardi Frantz and Bobby Quance wrestled my favorite wrestler Super Dragon and B-Boy. The first part of the match saw Quance being beaten by both men, totally being in peril. Dragon hitting a very painful looking belly to back. After Quance made the tag, B-Boy got knocked down and there was a major double team on Dragon. Once Dragon recovered, he hit a sick double arm suplex into a brain buster, which looked like he knocked Quance into the middle of next week. For the finish, Quance and Frantz had both opponents on their backs in the ring. Quance hit a shooting star, and Frantz hit a 450 splash. Frantz hit a Van Terminator. After a melee, B-Boy hit a flying knee to Quance's head, busting him open wide and knocking him out for the 3.

For the main event we had, in my opinion, the greatest homegrown wrestler in SoCal, Little Cholo, in a ladder match with up and comer Scott Lost for the cruiserweight belt. The two locked up and played out a short sequence where both wrestlers went hold for hold and staying about even. After a few minutes of grappling, Cholo hit DDT, and he got the ladder out. After there was a bit of ladder use, it fell to the side as the wrestling resumed. Cholo hit standing back elbow to Lost's head, and it was absolutely devastating. So brutal that Cholo had time to tie his shoe and get back to his feet while Lost was stunned. The thing that made this match so good was that the ladder was a prop, and they only used it sporadically, making the wrestlers, not the ladder, the star of this match. At some point, Lost brought a table into the ring and setup in a corner standing on one end. After some nice wrestling, the ladder was draped across the middle ropes, and Cholo went face first into it when Lost used a slingshot type maneuver. Jason Bennett described this as, "Face crunchingly delicious." Later, with the ladder still there, Lost had Cholo on the top rope, he stood on the ladder to attempt a superplex and slipped to nut himself on the ladder.

After Lost recovered and some more wrestling, Lost dropped an elbow off the top of the ladder to a winded Cholo. Cholo barely made it to his feet, and got in a few punches to buy himself time to recover. He eventually got the upper hand and hit the 187, so it looked as if victory was his. He put the bottom rung of the ladder over Lost's throat to ensure he went nowhere, and started to climb. As Cholo reached the top of the ladder, Lost found the strength to tip the ladder over, sending Cholo crashing through the table to the mat. Lost made his way up the ladder to retrieve the belt, but fell without grabbing it when the belt got caught on the thing holding it. He climbed again and got it, and he is the new Cruiserweight Champion.

Fun show. A few weak parts, but I had a very good time. I loved the burying of the hatchet between the two factions, as last week I wrote about community. In a time of war, people need to keep it copasetic on the home front. I was guilty of saying a few mean things on these boards leading up to the show, but it was an honest attempt to build heat, and I'd like to thank Drawls for playing along and making it a lot of fun. I met him at the show, shook his hand and thanked him for the fun. I also thought that despite the naysayers, the opener and main of this showed the vitality of WPW and their place in the SoCal scene. Just remember they own the ring, and lots of feds depend on it to even have a show in the first place.

I missed McCord, and if he wasn't either getting laid or dead, he shouldn't have missed this show. He is a very fine official, despite what Bennett has to say. I also liked it that there is a female referee. That kicks ass, and although she told me her name, all I remember is Deanna. I just wanted to give her a shout out and say how cool it is to see a female in a predominantly male role. It's like the redhead who used to work for WWF back in the day. I'd also like to sat that Bo Cooper is the man for being under the ring for the first hour of the show, and recommend next time he does it to bring a flashlight and a book.

I'm not reviewing WPW this week, as this monster took all my time up and it's Wrestlemania weekend. I left WPW early to see the PPV, so it would be incomplete anyway. Matrix won the cruiser belt from Scott Lost, and that's the big news there, based on what I saw. I hope everyone had a great 'Mania weekend, and I'll be happy to see everyone at a show real soon. Like the shirts and stickers say, "Support Indy Wrestling." It's the best thing going on, and if you catch the Indys, there just might come a day when you see a dude on Raw or Smackdown and you can turn to your friends and say, "I met that dude 3 years ago when he wrestled in front of 30 people, and he wrestled his heart out because he loves what he does, and the few fans there paid good money to see him." Those stories are priceless, and they show how badly the guys who get it wanted it. Big ups this week for Cena, Kendrick, Victoria, Bell, and all the others. Hopefully the list is going to grow and I'll have a laundry list of names. The West Coast is the best, regardless of what city you live in. I am proud to live in California and be a mark.

Thanks for reading,
Benjamin Tomas
The World's Biggest Mark