Revolution Championship Wrestling (RCW) held the Revolution Rumble at 7:00pm Saturday September 15 at the Century Center in South Bend, IN.

This event is called Revolution Rumble, but it also contains a match called the Revolution Rumble.  If I was like WWE,  I would be sure to say either “Revolution Rumble Event” or “Revolution Rumble Match” every time the phrase comes up, but since I like to think we’re all smart enough to tell the difference by context … credit that WWE apparently does not give to its audience.

The Century Center is a really good place to see a wrestling show … mostly.  I like the auditorium style seating.  I don’t like the absence of hot dogs.  The arena has a good capacity, and so crowds can look pretty thin, but I think if this event was back at the usual Battell Center, it would have looked quite full.  The crowd was quite vocal, regardless.

The first match was a Five Man Mayhem Match, featuring Scotty Young, Anthony Lee, Jeremy Hadley, Mojo the Voodoo King (I like the name “Mojo McQueen” better), and Tank.  The idea here was the winner of the match would get the final spot (#25) in the Revolution Rumble, and the loser (the person getting pinned) would get spot #1 in the Revolution Rumble.  (See, now I just talked about the Rumble, and I did not specify I was talking about the Revolution Rumble MATCH rather than EVENT, and yet I’ll get it made total sense to you anyway.  See?  We can do it!  Take note, WWE.)  At some points in this match, all five were slugging it out in the ring, and other times a couple of people would be laid out outside the ring, leaving only two or three in the ring, so the pacing stayed sharp and something interesting was always happening.  Below, left, Hadley and Young team up on Tank, while and Lee takes on Mojo.  Below right, Tank topples a tower of doom, slamming three other people at once (Jeremy Hadley was smart enough to stay out of the ring for that one).  Mojo the Voodoo King won this match by pinning Anthony Lee.

Next, Melanie Cruz defended her RCW Women’s Championship against Samantha Heights.  Normally I’d cheer for Cruz, but Samantha Heights is from Cincinnati, and so I have to go with my hometown girl.  But, much like the Bengals and the Indiana University Hoosiers, my support is a curse, and although Heights overcame some brutality from the much larger Cruz and mounted a comeback, she was met with a big boot to the face and got pinned.  Below left, we see Cruz dragging Heights back out from under the ring; I think Heights lost a contact lens down there, and was going under the ring to look for it, but Cruz didn’t let her; if Heights’ vision was impaired, that gave Cruz an unfair advantage!  Below right, Heights launches an aerial attack onto Cruz.  Cruz may or may not have just caught her in mid air and thrown her down.  That’s not the point, look at the high flying style of Heights!  (See, I’m trying really hard here for my homework hero!)

Match 3 was Douglas Stout vs Kevin Storm for Storm’s RCW United States Championship.  Kevin Storm was still remembering what Stout did to him at the last event, and attacked Stout immediately by coming to the ring and launching a suicide dive onto Stout, who had cleared the ring for Storm’s entrance.  Soon after, Storm got the referee to turn towards the audience, and landed a low blow on Stout, repaying him for that very action.  The match ended when Stout’s valet Nicole distracted the ref and slipped her purse to Stout; the purse must have been loaded with all their loose change, because one whack with purse KO’d Storm.   And so Douglas Stout is now your RCW United States Champion.  Below right, he admires his new prize.  Below left, Storm lands a dropkick earlier in the match.

Next, Brian Pillman Jr (also from Cincinnati!) took on Noah Walker.  Walker put up a good fight, but Pillman got the pin.  Below left, Pillman leaps over the top rope on his way to kick Walker in the face; below right, Pillman admires the work of Walker.   Being from Cincinnati, Pillman displays good sportsmanship.

After intermission, the second special guest appeared, and we had Brutus Dylan taking on Madman Fulton (most recently AKA Sawyer Fulton).

Dylan and Sawyer were evenly matched; below left, they both pause for a breather after a long sequence of matching each other move for move.  Sawyer also got his heart-rate up by trying a few power moves on Dylan; gravity in South Bend must be stronger than he’s used to, and he had trouble getting Dylan up on the air a couple of times.  On the other hand, he was able to jump pretty high; below right, he’s coming off the ropes to kick Dylan).  Dylan eventually got the pin.

Next, it was time for the Revolution Rumble!  (And I’ll bet you know that I’m talking about the actual rumble match, and you’re not confused that the actual event is just now starting … suck it, WWE!)  This was a 25-man over the top battle royal with entrants coming to the ring in one minute intervals.  I tried to keep track of the order of entrants and elimination; when a lot of people got eliminated close together, I may have gotten a couple of pairs out of order, but I think overall the list is OK.  The names are in order of entrance, with the order of elimination in parentheses.  The winner of the match would face Nick Cutler afterwards for the RCW Heavyweight Championship.

1. Anthony Lee – having lost the mayhem match, he got the #1 spot.   (5)
2. Roger Lanier (2)
3. Chase Wilder (I think) (1)
4. Samantha Heights (8)
5. Noah Walker (6)
6. Shady Chris Xion (9)
7. Fireball (3)
8. Cletus Farmer (4)
9. Brandon Smooth (7)
10. Brutus Dylan (15)
11. The Polish Heartthrob (10)
12. Chris Rains (11)
13. Jimmy W (12)
14. Dusty Bottoms (14)
15. Super Diva (15)
16. Kevin Storm (17)
17. Douglas Stout (13)
18. Tank (20)
19. Madman Fulton (16)
20. Brian Pillman Jr (18)
21. Jeremy Hadley (19)
22. Anthony Toatele (23?  24?)
23. Scotty Young (23?)
24. Russ Jones (22? 24)
25. Mojo the Voodoo King (21)

Note that Nick Cutler was in the timekeeper’s area for the match, offering commentary as he saw fit.  He was particularly obsessed with stressing that since the match is no-DQ, there should be lots of crotch shots.  He encouraged many of them.

Brutus Dylan eliminated everyone left in the ring when he entered, so that he was alone when The Polish Heartthrob came out.

The end of the match got a bit confusing.  The final three participants were Anthony Toatele, Scotty Young, and Russ Jones.  After their eliminations, Tank and Mojo kept going at it outside the ring, causing a distraction.  It looked like Toatele had eliminated Jones on the far side of the ring during the distraction; but either both feet never hit the ground, or he just took advantage of the refs not seeing it, because he re-entered shortly after.  Once Toatele and Jones were the final two left in the match, they got into a spot outside the ropes, on the apron on the near side of the ring.  Nick Cutler snuck into the ring and knocked them both off the apron and onto the floor.  His theory was that since neither of them won the match, he would not have to face either of them.   RCW GM Jon Blackwell disagreed, and his ruling was that now Cutler would have to face both Toatele and Jones, in a triple threat match for the championship.  Here, four participants survey the scene, and Tank might be getting eliminated.

During the main event, Nick Cutler tried to defend his RCW Heavyweight Championship from both Anthony Toatele and Russ Jones.  Each of Toatele and Jones got to take turns giving retribution to Cutler for interfering in the Rumble (Jones is getting his turn below left).  Cutler kept up his fascination with groins, yelling “Crotch!” a few times.  I see new t-shirt options in his future.  Eventually, Cutler was able to pin Toatele by using the second rope for leverage with his feet.

The next RCW show is Friday October 12 at the O’Brien Center in South Bend, IN.

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If you’ve read this far, you might like wrestling?  So maybe, check out the Northwest Indiana Wrestling Action Program (NWIWRAP) broadcast Sundays at 9:15pm*, right after Mostly Metal, which runs Sundays from 8:00-9:15pm CST, on WVLP 103.1FM in Valparaiso, IN. If you’re not in Valpo, catch it streaming on http://www.wvlp.org and the Tune In Radio app. Rebroadcasts happen Wednesdays 10pm – midnight, and NWIWRAP is archived on YouTube, just search for NWIWRAP. You can find @nwiwrap on Twitter. And you can subscribe to the nwiwrap.wvlp@gmail.com Google calendar, where I try to keep up to date calendar postings of shows in and around the NWI region.

* or 9pm, or 9:30pm, or anytime before or after, depending on how much stuff there is to cover! 

ACME Championship Wrestling (ACW) took part in Shelby, Indiana’s Rust Belt Rebellion auto show event by putting on a wrestling card on site at 6:00pm Saturday August 18.

I had no idea what to expect from a “Rust Belt Rebellion” auto show in Shelby, IN, especially since I had never been to Shelby, and the address on the flyer for the show was not something like the Lake County Fairgrounds or other municipal location, but looked just like the address where Amazon would deliver new socks to some dude’s house.  Google was no help whatsoever, as it kept wanting to redirect me to the Indianapolis area.   Luckily, on the approach to Shelby, there was good signage to the Rust Belt Rebellion; the signs directed me to a residential street and …. holy shit, this thing is at some dude’s house!  Cars of attendees were parked up and down the street.  Some neighbors had “no parking” signs near their curbs.  But wait, it got really interesting.  The property behind the house opened up into a large partially cleared forested area that was set up with a lot of permanent structures to host this event, or other events like it.  It was like a mini Renaissance Fair lot, but for tattooed men with cars instead of for nerds with plastic swords.  There was a playground for kids with the features built from car parts and with an auto theme; there was a replica gas station front (pictured below), there were a couple of open structures for food sales.  And, at the heart of it all, there were a couple of open areas where people had lined up their old cars and popped the hoods for others to gawk at.  And finally, towards the back, was the wrestling ring!

The first match was X-Calibur vs Thomas Keith.  Apparently Thomas Keith does not like being in Shelby, and he made that clear to the crowd.  During the match, Ref Zoran got clobbered and fell down. Keith grabbed a water spray bottle and sprayed the ref to help revive him; during the confusion, X-Calibur got the upper hand on Keith and got the win.  (Below left, Keith suplexes X-Calibur off the turnbuckles.)

The second match was started at the insistence of Billy the Kid, who is still pissed at Phantasmo for events at the last show which closed out ACW’s “school year” earlier this summer, School’s Out.  GM Michael Allen agreed that Billy the Kid deserved a match; Phantasmo came out and they got started.  Below right. Phantasmo finds himself in a precarious position.  But. eventually Phantasmo won; this did not make Billy the Kid happy, and the two went at it again, resulting in a pull-apart brawl that required the ACW security guards and wrestler Arun to separate (this picture is a couple of paragraphs below, left).  I think we can expect more from Phantasmo and Billy the Kid.

There was a little girl in front of me who saw the guy at ringside recording video, and asked her mom, “Are they recording for TV?”  I’m glad kids still know about TV and not just YouTube.

Kujo came out for his match against Cliff Caviar for Caviar’s Tough Man Championship.  As Caviar came out, he had his “Insurance Policy” TK Zero with him, as always.  As they circled the ring, Kujo jumped out and knocked TK Zero into the guardrail, neutralizing him at least for a while.  Smart!  But, this only paid off temporarily.  Below right, Kujo was not impressed by Caviar’s right hook, and so shows Caviar where he could hit him a second time.  Later on, Kujo had Caviar knocked loopy; TK Zero entered the ring, hit Kujo from behind, and dragged Caviar onto the prone Kujo so that Caviar got the three count.  All this happened in full view of the ref,  but the Tough Man rules have a no DQ stipulation, so the ref can do nothing but count.

After this match cleared out, TK Zero remained in the ring for his scheduled match against Jesus, er, rather, Dakota Prodigy – who is nicely rocking the long hair and beard now.  Below left, TK Zero tries to squeeze Dakota through the guardrail early in the match.  Dakota didn’t get in a lot of offense, and was pinned pretty quickly after he tried to get the upper hand with a jump off the top rope shown below, right.

Next up, hometown hero from Shelby, Crimson Dynamo, took on Kyle Cross.  Not only did Cross have to defend against Dynamo, but also from a kid who’s mom came up with a megaphone for the kid to shout with.  (I don’t think the boy had or used it up until this point.)  Dynamo won the match when he caught Cross with a right cross out of the blue.  Below left, the ring lights give Cross a spooky glow; right, Cross gives Dynamo a neckbreaker across the top turnbuckle.

The Top Gunns made their ACW debut against Kyle Kaylor and Venom.  Venom was a masked wrestler whose mask looked exactly as you’d imagine it would for a wrestler named Venom.  The Top Gunns coordinated well together for some fun offense on their way to victory, and developed a new number one fan in the front row who basically demonstrated he was having a religious experience from the match! Below left, Highball dropkicks Kaylor.  Below right, Ace is carrying and is about to backdrop both opponents at the same time!

The second to last match had Dave Allen taking on Arun.  I think Dave Allen’s Grandmother was in attendance; I mean, he kept calling one woman in the crowd “Grandma”, and if she wasn’t really his Grandmother, that would have been totally disrespectful.  A small boy kept getting more and more upset with Allen’s words and antics to the point of tears.  Poor kid.  Below left, the action is outside of the ring.  This match had a nice intensity to it; somehow Arun got a cut on the top of his head and had blood on his face, which gave a really good extra look to the match.  (Per Facebook posts, it seems he needed stitches … hope you heal up nicely, Arun!)  Arun did get the win with a surprise roll up.  Below right, you can see the true face of disappointment.

The main event was Rockstar Jonny Nigh defending his ACW Heavyweight Championship against Xavier Black.  Below left, Nigh is escaping from a headlock, and below right is celebrating with his fans after his successful title defense.

The next ACW show is coming in late September, be sure to give a Like to the Facebook page “ACME Championship Wrestling – ACW” for updates.

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If you’ve read this far, you might like wrestling?  So maybe, check out the Northwest Indiana Wrestling Action Program (NWIWRAP) broadcast Sundays at 9:15pm*, right after Mostly Metal, which runs Sundays from 8:00-9:15pm CST, on WVLP 103.1FM in Valparaiso, IN. If you’re not in Valpo, catch it streaming on http://www.wvlp.org and the Tune In Radio app. Rebroadcasts happen Wednesdays 10pm – midnight, and NWIWRAP is archived on YouTube, just search for NWIWRAP. You can find @nwiwrap on Twitter. And you can subscribe to the nwiwrap.wvlp@gmail.com Google calendar, where I try to keep up to date calendar postings of shows in and around the NWI region.

* or 9pm, or 9:30pm, or anytime before or after, depending on how much stuff there is to cover! 

RCW (Revolution Championship Wrestling) held The Devil Cannot Die in the Battell Community Center, Mishawaka, IN at 7:00pm on Friday June 29, 2018.  All proceeds from this event went to support regional favorite and enemy to light bulbs everywhere, Adam Bueller, in his fight against lymphoma.  Per RCW’s Facebook account afterwards, over $1300 was raised for the cause.  Good work, folks!

The evening started when Brutus Dylan led the RCW personnel out to ringside to make a statement about the purpose of the show, and to lead a very long and loud chant of “Adam Bueller!”.

The first match was JC Bunyan vs. Jacob Brawn, won by JC Bunyan.  I think Brawn must have expected a different outcome based on the look he had after the pinfall had been counted (below left).

The second match was a Fatal Four Way featuring Aidan Blackheart, Brandon Smooth, Fireball, and Cletus Farmer.  In a strange turn of events, Brandon Smooth actually had control of the match for a while; as you can see (above right), everyone else is down while he ran around kicking everyone in the face.  Later on, it looked like Cletus might get the upper hand on everyone, but Jacob Brawn ran out from backstage to distract him; while Cletus went chasing after Brawn (Fireball did his best to draw Cletus’s attention back to the ring, to no avail), Aidan Blackheart managed to get a pin and win the match.

Match three had Hardcore Harry taking on Tank.  Harry had a nice long entrance, with a lengthy musical prelude courtesy of Journey, and then trying to arrange his safety from the man-crazed females who were surely to rush the ring when he took off his t-shirt to reveal his forestry.  Once Tank came out, it didn’t take him long to do away with Harry.  And for the record, no women (or men) rushed the ring when Harry took off his shirt.  Or when he dropped his straps.  Or any other time he was out there.  I didn’t get a picture from this one, sorry guys!

The last match before intermission was between Brutus Dylan and Kevin Storm.  The reason they needed intermission after this match was to clean up afterwards .. since it was a No DQ Lego Deathmatch! This was a fitting tip of the hat to our friend Adam.  Before the match started, Dylan pleaded with the audience to remember not to try this at home!  Then he and Storm wondered, What the hell have we gotten ourselves into? and then they got to work.

During this match we saw fat whiffle bats with Legos glued to them, a cookie sheet with Legos glued to it, a steel chair with those big fat Legos glued to the seat, two fabric bags filled with mini Legos, a large plastic bin filled with Legos, and finally a piece of shelfboard with “Suck It” written in glued Legos.  A second chant of Adam Bueller rang out at one point when Dylan empited both bags of Legos onto the ring and then bodyslammed Storm onto them (above right).   Storm also got backdropped onto the steel chair, and oh yeah, dove out onto Dylan at ringside – who redirected him even farther into the chairs at ringside (below left).  Here you can see the helpful crowd members putting the chairs back into place once they knew it was safe to return to them.

Dylan won the match after he slammed Storm onto the “Suck It” Lego sign.  After the match, Dylan got on the mic and admitted that he and Storm had lots of battles, but this was one of the dumbest ideas of their lives.  Then Storm offered to put aside their feuding … at least until the Heavyweight Title was on the line.

After intermission, the action was led by Luke Lawson vs. Ryan Epic.  These two put on a long, lively, and high impact wrestling match.  Below we see Lawson attempting the “Turtle Defense” until he was able to sucker Epic in and deliver a kick; we also see Epic clobbering Lawson.  The pictures don’t really do the match justice, as both men spent a lot of time and energy coming off ropes and turnbuckles, too!  Luke Lawson got the win.

Next, we had tag team action, with Scotty Young and Russ Jones vs. Rick Vidal and Tony X.  We all had to wash our ears out with soap after Vidal and X’s non-family-friendly entrance music.  Below, Young comes off the corner onto Tony X, while Vidal stands aside being thankful it’s not him about to be clobbered.  I think Vidal had just knocked Jones off the apron, which is why he’s nowhere to be seen.  Young and Jones got the win.

The main event of the evening was Shark Boy vs. Nick Cutler.  If the Dylan & Storm’s Lego Match was the Spectacle of the Night, and Lawson and Epic gave the Match of the Night from a more traditional wrestling perspective, then this match was the Sports Entertainment of the Night.  I was very much Sports Entertained by this one.  Shark Boy was a favorite with the kids, and Cutler wasted no time getting into it with many fans – usually having something to do with his chest hair, and most particularly with one fan who came prepared with one of those printed t-shirts designed to look like a hairy chest.  Cutler was appalled by it!   You know, having seen both of them on the same card this night, I wonder: how is it that Nick Cutler and Hardcore Harry have never teamed up?  You know, as the Fuzzy Fanatics, or the Wooly Warriors, or the Shaggy Shockers, or the Hirsute Heroes?  This stuff writes itself, guys, just run with it! And oh yeah, Nick Cutler got the pin after delivering a sneaky low blow to Shark Boy.

The next RCW Event will be “Slam Cancer! 11” at 7:00pm EST on Friday July 27 at the same venue, the Battell Community Center, 904 N Main St, Mishawaka, IN.  The event will be another fundraiser, this time for a regional hospital or hospice organization.

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If you’ve read this far, you might like wrestling?  So maybe, check out the Northwest Indiana Wrestling Action Program (NWIWRAP) broadcast Sundays at 9:15pm*, right after Mostly Metal, which runs Sundays from 8:00-9:15pm CST, on WVLP 103.1FM in Valparaiso, IN. If you’re not in Valpo, catch it streaming on http://www.wvlp.org and the Tune In Radio app. Rebroadcasts happen Wednesdays 10pm – midnight, and NWIWRAP is archived on YouTube, just search for NWIWRAP. You can find @nwiwrap on Twitter. And you can subscribe to the nwiwrap.wvlp@gmail.com Google calendar, where I try to keep up to date calendar postings of shows in and around the NWI region.

* or 9pm, or 9:30pm, or anytime before or after, depending on how much stuff there is to cover! 

This is intended to be very brief, but I wanted to get it out there in case it actually comes across anyone interested in the second night of this two night ARWPRO engagement.   My usual recaps are called “Outside the Ropes”.  This is a fraction of the length of a usual one … what do you call something that’s very short and leads nowhere?  One Count!  Now when I get tired of writing longer recaps, I have a name ready for short ones.

Anyway, ARWPRO is having a two night exhibition at Live in the ‘Ville, Hessville’s fourth annual summertime street festival.  The portion of Kennedy Ave between 169th and 165th is blocked off, and it’s pretty fun to walk up and down a road that’s usually a four lane main city artery.

The first half of this exhibition was on Friday June 01, 2018 at 6:30pm, and the second night is Saturday June 02, same time.  The first night had three matches (well, there was a “pre show” match between a dinosaur and a chicken, and I think the chicken won, but that doesn’t count … the chicken did not have merch and obviously isn’t serious about this business).

• Drex Odell vs. Johnny Showtime.  Winner: Johnny Showtime
• Dave Allen and Carlos Corona vs. Max Holiday and Santana Starks.  Winner: Holiday and Starks
• Moxie Mollie (c) vs. Sierra for ARWPRO Women’s Championship.  Winner: Moxie Mollie.

If this comes across your screen and you aren’t doing anything else Saturday June 02 (which is tonight! as I write this), go support ARWPRO and Hessville’s street festival.  Besides wrestling, you can find arts & crafts, street performers (we saw hula hoop people and fire jugglers), music, and yummy food – pierogies, pretzels, elephant ears, BBQ, beef sandwiches, hot dogs, tacos, and so on.  There’s a beer tent, too!

Xtreme Sports Entertainment (XSE) held Battle for Plymouth at the Life Plex Gymnasium complex in Plymouth, IN at 7:00pm on Saturday, May 26.  As you drive from Valpo to Plymouth, you know the intersection where the Hacienda Mexican Restaurant is?  The large building a bit farther behind the strip mall is Life Plex, and it is a really nice & spacious fitness and rehabilitation facility!

This was an exciting night of wrestling, power outages, notably drunk or stoned attendees stumbling around, and Ring Announcer Ryan Anderson laying the smack down on someone who didn’t listen to his instructions the first time!  Here’s the recap:

The first match featured Officer Rod Street versus Fireball.  In his usual pre-match remarks, Officer Street pronounced the name of the town “Ply” <rhymes with Fry> – “Mouth” <as in Mouth of the South>.  That was funny.  Rod Street’s posse didn’t use the numbers game to their advantage enough, and Fireball got the win.

Cletus Farmer came out to try to have an episode of “The Barnyard” and conduct an interview with Ames about his match later in the night with Scotty Young, but things got derailed pretty quickly, and with the addition of Travis Trendbender in the ring, it was decided that Cletus would get a make-over later on.  His combination of overalls with flip flops was particularly offensive to Travis.

Having recovered from his first match, Rod Street came back out with the rest of The Police Department (this time with Eva Lonis) to have an 8 man tag match against the team of Jorge Bravo, Moxie Mollie, Akira the American Yakuza, and Anthrax Rudo.  After a bit of chaos, Moxie Mollie pinned Eva Lonis.

The Rat Pack was introduced before the third match, some music played, and … one guy came out.  If I’d been to more PWK shows recently (shame on me!) I’d know his name.  But does one man really equal a pack?  Anyway, he was dressed snappily (Travis Trendbender would approve, I’m sure) and carried a clipboard.  For the rest of the night, he was wordlessly observing matches – is the Rat Pack open to new recruits?

The third match was Rick Vidal against Russ Jones.  This was an intense match, and I’m sure both guys were sore afterwards.  Russ Jones got the win, but I don’t think it was as easy as he thought it would be!  Below left: Russ Jones tries to pop off Rick Vidal’s head like a bottle cap.

During intermission, some guy picked up one of his sons and pretended to slam him on the edge of the ring.  And we all know that theapronitsthehardestpartofthering!  This is a good way to accidentally hurt your kid, and an even better way to draw the wrath of Ring Announcer Ryan Anderson, because who wants to be sued for negligence, anyway!  Ryan gave a stern warning for people to not touch the ring, and as he was saying this, the Dad picked up his other son and started to do the same thing.  Ryan was about to give him some hands!  So yeah, intermission was exciting I guess.

After intermission, the Midwest Monsters came out to defend their RCW Tag Team Championships against Mitchell Taylor and Anthony Lee.  I didn’t hear his partner’s name clearly, and even Mitchell Taylor admitted then only reason his partner was there was because Taylor hired him to do all the work.  Eventually Taylor realized he wasn’t getting his money’s worth, and the Midwest Monsters defeated the other pair.  Below left, you can see that Mitchell Taylor didn do nuffin, and below right, he is about to become two dimensional.

Before Match 5 got underway, Cletus came out to display his new wardrobe, which consisted of his same overalls, some sneakers exchanged for the flip flops, and a blue sportscoat.  The clothes make the man, Mr. Farmer.

Match 5 was a high energy match between Ames and Scotty Young.  Ames promised to kiss Young on the lips before the match was over, and the crowd was more eager to see this than you’d think they’d be.  The match was interrupted for a few seconds when the power briefly went out, causing Scotty Young to yell, “Who put me in the dark match?!” Not only did he get the punchline, he got the win.  Well, he did get kissed by Ames, too, so how much winning is that in the long run?

The main event of the night had Nick Cutler vs Jake Omen.  This was a match full of clever stalling tactics, loud & impactful strikes, near falls, and jokes from the crowd about Cutler’s chest hair.  Jake Omen eventually got the pinfall.  If we kept score in wrestling, the total number of counts would have been about 51-50 in Omen’s favor.

In the picture above right, Cutler is about to chop Omen; Omen moved out of the way, and Cutler smacked the ring post with a shot that echoed off the rafters.  Ouch!

The next XSE event in Plymouth will be on Saturday August 04, with special guest Ricky Reyes, AKA Cortez Castro from Lucha Underground!

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If you’ve read this far, you might like wrestling?  So maybe, check out the Northwest Indiana Wrestling Action Program (NWIWRAP) broadcast Sundays at 9:15pm*, right after Mostly Metal, which runs Sundays from 8:00-9:15pm CST, on WVLP 103.1FM in Valparaiso, IN. If you’re not in Valpo, catch it streaming on http://www.wvlp.org and the Tune In Radio app. Rebroadcasts happen Wednesdays 10pm – midnight, and NWIWRAP is archived on YouTube, just search for NWIWRAP. You can find @nwiwrap on Twitter. And you can subscribe to the nwiwrap.wvlp@gmail.com Google calendar, where I try to keep up to date calendar postings of shows in and around the NWI region.

* or 9pm, or 9:30pm, or anytime before or after, depending on how much stuff there is to cover! 

ACW held School’s Out at the Lincoln School in Roselawn, IN at 7pm Friday May 18, 2018.  Fortunately, they had the show in one of the small pockets of time I have available this weekend.  Thursday: 5 different rehearsals for graduation ceremonies; Friday: Repeat.  Saturday: two of four actual graduation related ceremonies (Law School and Grad School) plus and evening reception (and the short time in between the two afternoon ceremonies is the only reason I have time to do this!).   Then Sunday, a morning ceremony and then the big kahuna with almost 800 graduates in the afternoon.  This isn’t to make you feel any sympathy for me, but rather to explain why parts of this recap are sort of brief!

This was a big blowout show, marking the end of ACWs main “year” until they resume shows over the summer.

Rockstar Jonny Nigh came out to reiterate the stakes in his match later in the evening with Drex Odell.  If he does not beat Odell for the ACW Heavyweight Championship, then he will retire from ACW.  But he is not ready to retire!

The opening match was a two-of-three-falls match between Brently Alexander Dawson and Kujo.  After his own entrance, B.A.D. waited by the entranceway to ambush Kujo as soon as Kujo entered the ring area.  But all this scheming must have exhausted B.A.D.’s ability to plan ahead, as Kujo got a pretty quick and easy pin very soon after.  The second pin took quite a bit longer, and went to B.A.D.   Kujo picked up his second and winning pinfall after he pulled B.A.D.’s vest up and over his head to blind him.  And then when B.A.D. was complaining to the ref about it, Kujo gave him a big spear for good measure.

Cliff Caviar came out with TK Zero to learn from GM Michael Allen who his opponent would be.  Allen admitted that Caviar got away with one against Arun the previous week, so let’s see how he would do without TK Zero at ringside, and TK was sent to the back.  Arun and Caviar went at it for a while (below left) until we learned that Caviar had another stooge in his back pocket, as Dave Allen came out to pounce on Arun.  The matches for the Tough Man Title are No-DQ, so this was fair game, and Caviar got the win.

Next, X-Calibur got a win over the long absent Dakota Prodigy (above right) in a match that was not nearly long enough.

Dave Allen took on ACW newcomer El Muchacho.  Here, Arun got a bit of revenge as he came out and distracted Allen, allowing Muchacho to get the 1-2-3.

The fifth match before intermission was the match “five years in the making!” between Maverick Cage and Jimmy Holmes.  Well, rather between Cage and his entourage, and Holmes and the random folks who would run into the ring to give him a hand!  It was a No-DQ match, after all.  Maverick Cage had his personal ring announcer, who came out and rudely took the mic from the classy Chris Guzman, and who rudely insulted all the fans in attendance before introducing The Physical Specimen Maverick Cage, who came out accompanied by two extras.  Then Guzman was able to introduce Holmes, who came out alone.  A couple of times, Cage took advantage of the no-DQ rules and tossed Holmes to the wolves waiting outside the ring.  He also introduced a ladder (below left, Jimmy Holmes is about to splat into it).  A while into the match, Cage punched Ref Paper Harley, who went down.  This allowed some chaos to ensue, with Holmes being attacked until a friend of his came out to make the save, then disappear (I can’t remember his name from previous appearances, but he’s sort of a Hilbilly Jim type of character).   This overall-clad hero actually made a couple of appearances during the match.  After Paper Harley went down, Ref Zoran tried to come out and restore order, but he was held at bay by Cage’s crew.  Macho Del Silver, who had been sitting at ringside, got involved at one point to try to even things out.  Eventually, Holmes got the upper hand on Cage due to use of a steel chair – below right, you can see it, and you know how it goes:  Cage held Holmes so that his pal could hit Holmes with the chair, but Holmes ducked out of the way and Cage ended up getting hit).  Ref Socks Off O’Grady came out to count the pinfall for Holmes.  After the match and during intermission, Jimmy Holmes got a picture with all the kids in the audience who had been ever been in one of his gym classes.

After intermission, things got back on track with an Intercontinental Championship match between champ Jared Kripke and challenger Xavier Black.  This was a very evenly matched content, and several times the two of them used matching moves at the same time.  Kripke was able to hold onto his title.

Next, we had a tag team matchup, with David Forrest and TK Zero taking on Crimson Dynamo and Billy the Kid.  A group of kids at ringside were giving TK Zero the business; normally, I’d be in favor of this, but then the kids started yelling at TK Zero that he was old, which makes me ancient by comparison, and that hurts my feelings.  Stupid kids.  Maybe TK Zero is right about them.  Anyway, here you can see TK stepping on Dynamo’s head while discussing the weather with Ref Z, and while Billy the Kid shows no concern about his teammate’s situation.  Then later Billy the Kid plays with David Forrest while TK Zero trades insults with the kids at ringside.  And oh, the match ended when someone’s music played (I have no idea who’s) as if a run-in was about to happen, which distracted Crimson Dynamo and allowed TK Zero to pin him.  Then after the match, a masked man (Phantasmo?) came out and attacked Billy the Kid.

The main event was the Career vs Title Match featuring Rockstar Jonny Nigh and current ACW Heavyweight Champion Drex Odell.  This picture of him is here only because, hey, I thought it was a pretty good one.

Odell kicked out of Rockstar’s Pedigree-type finisher once.  Then later Rockstar took a clothesline from Drex Odell that normally would have ended the match, but he kicked out – below left, you can see Drex Odell in disbelief.  And eventually Rockstar was able to hit Odell with his finisher again, and get the win.  Your new ACW Heavyweight Champion is Rockstar Jonny Nigh!  Drex Odell took the loss like a star.  He has some nice words for the crowd, the organization, and for Rockstar, and then he handed over the belt to the new champ (below right).

I don’t know when the next ACW show is.  I know it’s listed on their Facebook page somewhere, but I’m too lazy to go dig it out right now.

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If you’ve read this far, you might like wrestling?  So maybe, check out the Northwest Indiana Wrestling Action Program (NWIWRAP) broadcast Sundays at 9:15pm*, right after Mostly Metal, which runs Sundays from 8:00-9:15pm CST, on WVLP 103.1FM in Valparaiso, IN. If you’re not in Valpo, catch it streaming on http://www.wvlp.org and the Tune In Radio app. Rebroadcasts happen Wednesdays 10pm – midnight, and NWIWRAP is archived on YouTube, just search for NWIWRAP. You can find @nwiwrap on Twitter. And you can subscribe to the nwiwrap.wvlp@gmail.com Google calendar, where I try to keep up to date calendar postings of shows in and around the NWI region.

* or 9pm, or 9:30pm, or anytime before or after, depending on how much stuff there is to cover!