Post by chaddydangerously on Mar 28, 2010 17:50:18 GMT -5
Great recap, Dweller. So you fed your sneaker to Sabian's head for Ruckus? lol. I know exactly where you were sitting now. Great spot, man. Our seats were pretty close to each other.
With the help of TomTom (shameless plug), finding the Riehle Brothers (Dive Bar) Arena was a piece of cake. I started out of the VI much later than I'd planned; hit the road at around 3:15 yesterday afternoon. I hit some snags. My wife had "accidentally" thrown away my tickets. They look like tickets, they act like tickets, they smell like tickets, so you'd think she'd know they were tickets? Apparently not. So after tearing the house apart and, as a last effort scouring the outside trash, there they were - soda stained, sitting at the bottom of a 30 gallon cinch sack on the porch for the trash man. So, now I'm late and in a rush, which means I leave without my cooler. No beer for the road. Luckily, things go better from here.
Made it to the Riehle right at 6pm. That's after a splash of gas and a beer stop at Bedrock Liquors and Fred's Fossil Fuel in Shadeland on the outskirts of Lafayette along Hwy 25. Shadeland must have some kind of fetish for the Flintstones, but nonetheless I now have three Bud Tall Boys for the parking lot and was ready for my first CZW live show.
I arrive, park my car in front of some storage rentals (the parking was horrible, but free) and finish my final beer. I walk in the front entrance of this dive bar and there's some kind of honky tonk sh-t playing and then I see the sign - "CZW Wrestling: Enter in Side Door." Alrighty then. Unfortunately I didn't get to hear the end of "Friends in Low Places" but I survived. The entertainment venue called the Riehle Brothers Arena is an old garage and it looks like a garage - a city garage - a big open shell with with a stage in the far back left corner. According to the door man I need a stamp if I'm going to drink because if I don't have the mark of the beast then I "won't get served a drop." Easy choice - stamp me. There was one card table with a few CZW gimmicks, mainly t-shirts. The general admission seating was in the bar area amongst some pub stools surrounding a few ledge leaners. The ring was setup with chair seating three rows deep. There were probably twelve chairs across the rows on all four sides of the ring. Small crowd early as Dweller mentioned, but I think everyone had arrived by 7 after the Wired matches had wrapped up. Wired matches kicked off around 6:15 or so with DP coming to the ring with a microphone.
The first match didn't exactly get the crowd going. Apparently these were two local guys getting a showcase. One dude was wearing a vest of steel body armor and kept screaming at the top of his lungs. Heel heat? Ah, but to no avail. I'm not sure if this was Jeremy Hadley or Brett Havoc, but I'll say Bret Havoc until I'm corrected. With the crack sound system I couldn't understand much of what DP was saying (this was probably a great thing though for the fans of the rap group coming in at 10). I'd give the two workers an E for effort and a D for quality. Whoever they were.
Next match got the crowd a little vocal. Lots of homo and gay taunts to Ashton Vuitton. Vuitton is a nice-looking kid, good physique and actually kind of resembles Randy Orton a bit in physique and face. Minus the ink. In fact, if Randy Orton ever changed his gimmick to gay heel they could body double at the next Boys Town Halloween Contest. But the young, clean cut babyface and his gay mannerisms sent the trailor parkers into an uproar, especially the toothless wonder couple behind Dweller that may have shared the mother. Hayme and Vuitton both have some talent, but they were inconsistent with some spots and the match didn't flow well. There were a few miscommunications, but unsure of who was at fault. Hayme was a flyer, Vuitton was a mat wrestler. Highlight of the match was the belly-to-belly release by Vuitton to Hayme on the floor and Vuitton following up with a "Who's gay now, huh? That's right." Match was ok - decent heat on Vuitton. I'd give the match a C.
Next match saw Poison Apollo Starr versus Aaron Williams. Poison comes out with outlaw bandanna covering his face and accompanied by Mr. Rodney Rush. Some decent mat wrestling from both guys. Match flowed pretty well. Williams, I believe, shares the same barber as ROH's Bison Smith. Apollo is a good heel. He works the outlaw bit well and just looks mean. He says Respect da skillz, but one fan did ask Apollo to "choke him with your mop." I guess the dude thought Apollo's braids looked like a mop. I'd give the match a B-.
And that draws Wired to a close. First intermission was promised by DP to be short and sweet at five minutes. It was a nice touch that waitresses actually brought beer to your seat. Budweiser, please and thank you.
DP announces the beginning of Dragon Night, the new show title in place of Welcome to Naptown. The title obviously a nod to the Naptown Dragons. Out comes a very very very very very very very (did I say very) extremely stoned Nick F'n Gage. And during the intermission there's been barbedwire wrapped around the ropes. And, yes, he wants to fight everyone, including me. Great. This is the guy that wanted to continue working his death match while literally bleeding to death from the abdomen. Uh, check please. Gage worked pretty well in the condition he looked to be in from what was some pretty badass chronic. Gage got a little juice from an OMB german suplex into the barbedwire wrapped plywood sheet. Brunt was taken on his left tricep and Gage was now opened up. That was about the only offense little OMG got the rest of the match before being ended by Nick F'n Gage. Out comes DJ Hyde to ask Gage what the hell he was doing by disrespecting and demasking OMG.
Impromptu breaks out between the owner and the stoner. Hard hitting but pretty quick match. Gage took most of the sick bumps but the owner puts him over in the end. Winner: Nick F'n Gage. How can you even grade a hardcore match? It's like ranking a hurricane or tornado. Decent stuff though.
So much for introductions because after Gage dropped the boss and worked over Oh My God some more, out to make the save is Ego. After Ego drives Gage out of the ring Azrieal hits the ring and it's on. Ego back drops Az onto the South section front row of chairs. An East and West Section flying wipeout by Ego. Az comes back once the action hits the ring, putting the boots to Ego and calling him a puto, just in case there were Spanish speaking blood marks in the audience. Oh, Az must be Spanish and that's why he said it. Anyhow, nice match.
Next match was great, in a different sort of way. Out comes Heeeeey! Heeeey! Kosher Club's Joseph Schwartz and he's over with the crowd. Heeey! His opponent is Greg Excellent with some really gay 80s entrance music. Comedy match of 2010. Starts out with verbal insult war. Greg Excellent: "You're a Jew." Schwartz: Yeeees? You're fat. Excellent: "You're cheap!" and so on. Some fun jew stuff from the crowd. Someone from the crowd asked if Excellent was hungry and Excellent responded "I'm always hungry." Another fan says "Greg, you looked blown up." Excellent responded, "Well, yeah, I made my entrance!" Good comedy by Greg Excellent. A sitdown bar fight became ensued and slaps flew. The horn spot that Dweller mentioned was my favorite where Excellent went to the outside holding his ear and screamed to a fan in the front row in his ear as loud as he could "I can't hear! I can't hear anything!" Back in the ring for the comedy spot called spot where Schwartz called for a shoulder block. "What?" "You want me to..." Shwartz says, "I SAID SHOOT ME OFF, SHOULDER TACKLE..." Excellent: "OK..." They try the spot and collide with a shoulder tackle and neither moves. Schwartz: "You screwed it up! You were supposed to bump." Excellent: "He that calls, falls." So then they rock/paper/scissors for who bumps. Then they argue and the comedy goes on. Somehow they get into a Candido a$$ spot where Excellent gets his pants pulled down to have his a$$ exposed the rest of the match. Schwartz gets a running Gregkishi buster with bare ass to nose in the corner. I don't even remember who won. Doesn't matter. I heard chants of "Match of the Year" to "This Sucks." I thought this was a fun match and a good way to bring the fans back after the rollercoaster we'd been through so far.
Zero Gravity match was really good. They flippy your a$$ to death. At a hundred miles an hour. Fox and Day were decent , but didn't seem to be up to Zero G's level. This was a nice match to follow-up the comedy match, which engaged the crowd beforehand.
Bathroom and beer break. I notice the entrance curtain and surrounding wooden structure was the only thing between the wrestlers and the fans behind the South section. No lockerroom. No private dressing rooms, no shower, no private bathrooms. Everyone was just kinda standing around back behind the curtain.
Notorious Inc. versus Veritas and Cole. Not a bad match. Something didn't click with me on this one, even though I was looking forward to seeing how a couple of these guys could go live. This match could've been better. The parts were greater than the whole.
Ruckus versus Sabian was good. Sabian worked the crowd by pointing at his crotch and saying that he was gonna give this to the white bxxches. Dweller gives Sabian the shoe after Ruckus call for it and then Ruckus hits the back handspring spot. Pretty impressive for a bigger guy. Both guys looked pretty sharp.
Drake vs. Masada was killer. First time I've seen Masada and he's the real deal. Some good mat wrestling from Drake and Masada. After the exchange Masada looked at the crowd and said, "Yeah, I can wrestle too." Masada is billed from Japan but is not Japanese and reminds me a bit of Raven in his bad attitude and similar dress. Masada was sporting the Suicidal Tendencies t-shirt and long jean shorts. Great strong style into some hardcore. After the mat wrestling exchange fans were chanting "We want blood!" and off to the races. Brutal chair shots by Masada. Masada later blasted a chair into the outside ringpost three times and broke off a support bar on the chair to use on Drake. Super match with Masada doing the job for Drake, but Drake gave Masada the spotlight at the end with a handshake and crowd sendoff.
Beer break, bathroom and stretch the legs to allow the ring crew to set up the main event mayhem.
The match was brutal. Scott Vortecz still had glass in his back trying to wash off after the show. Light tubes exploding like firecrackers. JC Bailey took one across the gut from a swinging Vortecz that looked painful. Blood starts to leak from the Celtic Lettered Bailey on JC's stomach. Brain Damage is a big intense dude who can dish out and take some punishment. Cult Fiction manager Billy Gramm had a classic shirt that read "Choke on'em Pus F-ck" and although Billy Gramm hit the cologne to hide the chronic smoke, it was heavy - d**n Billy. First time I've seen Billy Gramm - he's a good character. Has that Marilyn Manson/Alice Cooper look - big, tall, skinny, long straight hair, face painted white. Ghostly, man.
Back to the match - just carnage. Danny Havoc was hurt on the outside and had to be helped back by Drake after the match.
It started off like I was being set up for disappointment, but it ended pretty d**n good. Most times fans remember the last part of the show and CZW delivered. The venue wasn't the best, but it could've been worse. Smart Mark was there taping, but I hope the lighting was good enough for a decent dvd. The bar ran everybody out for the rap show coming in at 10 so the ring, the fans and the workers had to be out in 30 minutes. DJ Hyde came out and directed the ring crew. The Arena closed the bar down after the show until the rap show started so no after show drinks for anyone - No After Party there, as promised. Although, I had the chance to meet some cool fans in the process.
$15.00 ticket well spent. Wow, I've had college term papers shorter than this. I'm blown up. Later.
With the help of TomTom (shameless plug), finding the Riehle Brothers (Dive Bar) Arena was a piece of cake. I started out of the VI much later than I'd planned; hit the road at around 3:15 yesterday afternoon. I hit some snags. My wife had "accidentally" thrown away my tickets. They look like tickets, they act like tickets, they smell like tickets, so you'd think she'd know they were tickets? Apparently not. So after tearing the house apart and, as a last effort scouring the outside trash, there they were - soda stained, sitting at the bottom of a 30 gallon cinch sack on the porch for the trash man. So, now I'm late and in a rush, which means I leave without my cooler. No beer for the road. Luckily, things go better from here.
Made it to the Riehle right at 6pm. That's after a splash of gas and a beer stop at Bedrock Liquors and Fred's Fossil Fuel in Shadeland on the outskirts of Lafayette along Hwy 25. Shadeland must have some kind of fetish for the Flintstones, but nonetheless I now have three Bud Tall Boys for the parking lot and was ready for my first CZW live show.
I arrive, park my car in front of some storage rentals (the parking was horrible, but free) and finish my final beer. I walk in the front entrance of this dive bar and there's some kind of honky tonk sh-t playing and then I see the sign - "CZW Wrestling: Enter in Side Door." Alrighty then. Unfortunately I didn't get to hear the end of "Friends in Low Places" but I survived. The entertainment venue called the Riehle Brothers Arena is an old garage and it looks like a garage - a city garage - a big open shell with with a stage in the far back left corner. According to the door man I need a stamp if I'm going to drink because if I don't have the mark of the beast then I "won't get served a drop." Easy choice - stamp me. There was one card table with a few CZW gimmicks, mainly t-shirts. The general admission seating was in the bar area amongst some pub stools surrounding a few ledge leaners. The ring was setup with chair seating three rows deep. There were probably twelve chairs across the rows on all four sides of the ring. Small crowd early as Dweller mentioned, but I think everyone had arrived by 7 after the Wired matches had wrapped up. Wired matches kicked off around 6:15 or so with DP coming to the ring with a microphone.
The first match didn't exactly get the crowd going. Apparently these were two local guys getting a showcase. One dude was wearing a vest of steel body armor and kept screaming at the top of his lungs. Heel heat? Ah, but to no avail. I'm not sure if this was Jeremy Hadley or Brett Havoc, but I'll say Bret Havoc until I'm corrected. With the crack sound system I couldn't understand much of what DP was saying (this was probably a great thing though for the fans of the rap group coming in at 10). I'd give the two workers an E for effort and a D for quality. Whoever they were.
Next match got the crowd a little vocal. Lots of homo and gay taunts to Ashton Vuitton. Vuitton is a nice-looking kid, good physique and actually kind of resembles Randy Orton a bit in physique and face. Minus the ink. In fact, if Randy Orton ever changed his gimmick to gay heel they could body double at the next Boys Town Halloween Contest. But the young, clean cut babyface and his gay mannerisms sent the trailor parkers into an uproar, especially the toothless wonder couple behind Dweller that may have shared the mother. Hayme and Vuitton both have some talent, but they were inconsistent with some spots and the match didn't flow well. There were a few miscommunications, but unsure of who was at fault. Hayme was a flyer, Vuitton was a mat wrestler. Highlight of the match was the belly-to-belly release by Vuitton to Hayme on the floor and Vuitton following up with a "Who's gay now, huh? That's right." Match was ok - decent heat on Vuitton. I'd give the match a C.
Next match saw Poison Apollo Starr versus Aaron Williams. Poison comes out with outlaw bandanna covering his face and accompanied by Mr. Rodney Rush. Some decent mat wrestling from both guys. Match flowed pretty well. Williams, I believe, shares the same barber as ROH's Bison Smith. Apollo is a good heel. He works the outlaw bit well and just looks mean. He says Respect da skillz, but one fan did ask Apollo to "choke him with your mop." I guess the dude thought Apollo's braids looked like a mop. I'd give the match a B-.
And that draws Wired to a close. First intermission was promised by DP to be short and sweet at five minutes. It was a nice touch that waitresses actually brought beer to your seat. Budweiser, please and thank you.
DP announces the beginning of Dragon Night, the new show title in place of Welcome to Naptown. The title obviously a nod to the Naptown Dragons. Out comes a very very very very very very very (did I say very) extremely stoned Nick F'n Gage. And during the intermission there's been barbedwire wrapped around the ropes. And, yes, he wants to fight everyone, including me. Great. This is the guy that wanted to continue working his death match while literally bleeding to death from the abdomen. Uh, check please. Gage worked pretty well in the condition he looked to be in from what was some pretty badass chronic. Gage got a little juice from an OMB german suplex into the barbedwire wrapped plywood sheet. Brunt was taken on his left tricep and Gage was now opened up. That was about the only offense little OMG got the rest of the match before being ended by Nick F'n Gage. Out comes DJ Hyde to ask Gage what the hell he was doing by disrespecting and demasking OMG.
Impromptu breaks out between the owner and the stoner. Hard hitting but pretty quick match. Gage took most of the sick bumps but the owner puts him over in the end. Winner: Nick F'n Gage. How can you even grade a hardcore match? It's like ranking a hurricane or tornado. Decent stuff though.
So much for introductions because after Gage dropped the boss and worked over Oh My God some more, out to make the save is Ego. After Ego drives Gage out of the ring Azrieal hits the ring and it's on. Ego back drops Az onto the South section front row of chairs. An East and West Section flying wipeout by Ego. Az comes back once the action hits the ring, putting the boots to Ego and calling him a puto, just in case there were Spanish speaking blood marks in the audience. Oh, Az must be Spanish and that's why he said it. Anyhow, nice match.
Next match was great, in a different sort of way. Out comes Heeeeey! Heeeey! Kosher Club's Joseph Schwartz and he's over with the crowd. Heeey! His opponent is Greg Excellent with some really gay 80s entrance music. Comedy match of 2010. Starts out with verbal insult war. Greg Excellent: "You're a Jew." Schwartz: Yeeees? You're fat. Excellent: "You're cheap!" and so on. Some fun jew stuff from the crowd. Someone from the crowd asked if Excellent was hungry and Excellent responded "I'm always hungry." Another fan says "Greg, you looked blown up." Excellent responded, "Well, yeah, I made my entrance!" Good comedy by Greg Excellent. A sitdown bar fight became ensued and slaps flew. The horn spot that Dweller mentioned was my favorite where Excellent went to the outside holding his ear and screamed to a fan in the front row in his ear as loud as he could "I can't hear! I can't hear anything!" Back in the ring for the comedy spot called spot where Schwartz called for a shoulder block. "What?" "You want me to..." Shwartz says, "I SAID SHOOT ME OFF, SHOULDER TACKLE..." Excellent: "OK..." They try the spot and collide with a shoulder tackle and neither moves. Schwartz: "You screwed it up! You were supposed to bump." Excellent: "He that calls, falls." So then they rock/paper/scissors for who bumps. Then they argue and the comedy goes on. Somehow they get into a Candido a$$ spot where Excellent gets his pants pulled down to have his a$$ exposed the rest of the match. Schwartz gets a running Gregkishi buster with bare ass to nose in the corner. I don't even remember who won. Doesn't matter. I heard chants of "Match of the Year" to "This Sucks." I thought this was a fun match and a good way to bring the fans back after the rollercoaster we'd been through so far.
Zero Gravity match was really good. They flippy your a$$ to death. At a hundred miles an hour. Fox and Day were decent , but didn't seem to be up to Zero G's level. This was a nice match to follow-up the comedy match, which engaged the crowd beforehand.
Bathroom and beer break. I notice the entrance curtain and surrounding wooden structure was the only thing between the wrestlers and the fans behind the South section. No lockerroom. No private dressing rooms, no shower, no private bathrooms. Everyone was just kinda standing around back behind the curtain.
Notorious Inc. versus Veritas and Cole. Not a bad match. Something didn't click with me on this one, even though I was looking forward to seeing how a couple of these guys could go live. This match could've been better. The parts were greater than the whole.
Ruckus versus Sabian was good. Sabian worked the crowd by pointing at his crotch and saying that he was gonna give this to the white bxxches. Dweller gives Sabian the shoe after Ruckus call for it and then Ruckus hits the back handspring spot. Pretty impressive for a bigger guy. Both guys looked pretty sharp.
Drake vs. Masada was killer. First time I've seen Masada and he's the real deal. Some good mat wrestling from Drake and Masada. After the exchange Masada looked at the crowd and said, "Yeah, I can wrestle too." Masada is billed from Japan but is not Japanese and reminds me a bit of Raven in his bad attitude and similar dress. Masada was sporting the Suicidal Tendencies t-shirt and long jean shorts. Great strong style into some hardcore. After the mat wrestling exchange fans were chanting "We want blood!" and off to the races. Brutal chair shots by Masada. Masada later blasted a chair into the outside ringpost three times and broke off a support bar on the chair to use on Drake. Super match with Masada doing the job for Drake, but Drake gave Masada the spotlight at the end with a handshake and crowd sendoff.
Beer break, bathroom and stretch the legs to allow the ring crew to set up the main event mayhem.
The match was brutal. Scott Vortecz still had glass in his back trying to wash off after the show. Light tubes exploding like firecrackers. JC Bailey took one across the gut from a swinging Vortecz that looked painful. Blood starts to leak from the Celtic Lettered Bailey on JC's stomach. Brain Damage is a big intense dude who can dish out and take some punishment. Cult Fiction manager Billy Gramm had a classic shirt that read "Choke on'em Pus F-ck" and although Billy Gramm hit the cologne to hide the chronic smoke, it was heavy - d**n Billy. First time I've seen Billy Gramm - he's a good character. Has that Marilyn Manson/Alice Cooper look - big, tall, skinny, long straight hair, face painted white. Ghostly, man.
Back to the match - just carnage. Danny Havoc was hurt on the outside and had to be helped back by Drake after the match.
It started off like I was being set up for disappointment, but it ended pretty d**n good. Most times fans remember the last part of the show and CZW delivered. The venue wasn't the best, but it could've been worse. Smart Mark was there taping, but I hope the lighting was good enough for a decent dvd. The bar ran everybody out for the rap show coming in at 10 so the ring, the fans and the workers had to be out in 30 minutes. DJ Hyde came out and directed the ring crew. The Arena closed the bar down after the show until the rap show started so no after show drinks for anyone - No After Party there, as promised. Although, I had the chance to meet some cool fans in the process.
$15.00 ticket well spent. Wow, I've had college term papers shorter than this. I'm blown up. Later.