ARWPRO held a fundraiser event for Edison Jr / Sr High School’s wrestling club, at Edison Jr / Sr High School, Lake Station, IN at 7pm Sat March 09, 2019.

The most important part of attending a wrestling event is knowing where it is. Usually, ARW shows are at the American Legion Post 100 in Lake Station, and that’s where I headed – only to find an empty parking lot … at which time I remembered that the show was somewhere else this time! Fortunately, the actual location is almost literally right down the road from the normal location.

Before the show started, Joey Boom Boom came to the ring with ARW mainstay Nevada Slick. Joey said that there will be some changes, as he needs to step away from in depth involvement to handle other responsibilities – and therefore, he is naming a new ARW Commissioner. That new commissioner is Marcus Portrait – from The Picture Show tag team with Johnny Showtime. Marcus came out in a nice outfit, complete with vest and tie! He cleans up nicely.

Marcus Portrait’s first action as commissioner is, unfortunately, to ask Ratt J Flywheel, representative of The Scumbag Army, to relinquish the tag team belts, as the team who holds them has lost a member and is down to only one – The Machine. In return, Portrait said, Machine will get a non-title match against current ARW PRO Heavyweight Champion Ivan Manson tonight – and if Machine wins, he will then be able to challenge for an actual title match at any time of his choosing. Further, all Family members except for Charlie Jr will be banned from ringside. Ratt, speaking on Machine’s behalf, grudgingly accepted he arrangement.

Above, we see Ring Announcer Greg Hansen honoring his Irish ancestors in this St. Patrick’s Day season. Way to represent, Greg! The first match has Dave Allen defending his ARW PRO Indiana State Championship against Jon Hudson. At some point during the match, Hudson seemed to have injured his left arm or shoulder, which came into play later in the evening. Allen won this match by pinning Hudson with the aid of two feet on the ropes. I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture of that as evidence for a dispute, but I did snap a shot right afterwards, where you can see Allen explaining to the crowd that he most certainly did not cheat!

Next, we had a “SCW vs ARW” match to continue the feud between the two
promotions (somewhat) neighboring each other across the IN / IL state line. (Build the wall??!!??) SCW’s representative is Andy Black, who is introduced by SCW’s Doug Keast. Representing ARW is Jake O’Neill, who is introduced by King Bishop. The original ACW ref, who was now nicknamed “Flat Top”, was replaced by an SCW ref at the urging of Doug Keast … for fairness, you know. This is all to say the ringside got very crowded as everyone hung around during the match. The match ended when Andy Black accidentally kicked the SCW ref, who went down – leaving an opening for ARW ref Dave to leap back in the ring and count a pin on Black by O’Neil.

The third match was a chain match, with Max Holiday attached to B.O.W. by a long chain with leather cuffs on each end. Well, that’s how it was supposed to work, but Holiday started off the match by hooking his cuff to the top ring rope rather than his own wrist, leaving B.O.W. with nowhere to hide. The ref eventually took control and the match returned to normal (whatever “normal” is for a chain match!), and B.O.W. got the win after continually working over Max Holiday’s left knee.

The nice thing about having an event at a large high school like this is that they often open their concession stand to make more money, and those concession stands often have a larger variety than the average wrestling venue. In particular, the gold standard of a good concession stand is if they have soft pretzels and cheese for sale. This one did, $2.25. That’s enough about intermission.

After intermission, we started off with a tag team match: Nick Cutler and Angel Armani against the Caribbean Connection. The Connection likes to dance, and Armani is not a big fan of that dancing when he gets involved with a little bump and grind. Come on, Angel, loosen up a bit! Cutler and Armani left the ring for some back and forth with the “special” seats in the crowd held by SCW fans, and they stayed out there so long that they got DQ’d. Well, the Caribbean Connection said they didn’t come to ARW to win by DQ, and they wanted the match restarted. The ref agreed, and the match resumed, and eventually the Caribbean Connection won the right way – by pinning Nick Cutler. (The picture below is from mid-match.) There was a nice spot in the match where one of the CC guys had Cutler in the near corner and Armani in the far corner. He started hauling Cutler away from the near corner in a headlock while Armani started coming out of the far corner, and he gave Cutler a bulldog while simultaneously giving Armani a clothesline with the other arm.

Next it was time for the match advertised at the opening segment: a non-title match between Machine and Ivan Manson. The whole Family gang started coming out to ringside, but Marcus Portrait was quick to assert his new authority by sending them all to the back (except Charlie Jr, who signaled his lack of respect of Portrait’s authority by messing up his tie. Show some respect, man!) Manson bailed from the match after taking a couple of clotheslines, but Machine dragged him back in, and they proceeded to have a quite good big man match for a while … until Ratt J Flywheel got smart while Charlie Jr was yet again trying to distract the ref. Ratt had a bottle of ketchup from the concession stand (did I mention they had soft pretzels?) in one hand, and tossed his ubiquitous baseball bat into Ivan Manson in the ring. While Manson caught the bat, Ratt squirted ketchup onto Machine’s face. When the ref turned around to see the “bloodied” Machine on the mat and Manson holding a baseball bat, there was only one thing he could conclude – and so he called for a DQ on Manson. And now Machine can have a title shot at an upcoming show. I neglected to get a picture of this match, maybe I was finishing my pretzel.

The final match of the night was a 4-way elimination tag team match for the recently vacated ARWPRO tag team championship. The four teams in order of announcement were: (1)Rancid Joey and Brawn the Lumberjack representing the Family; (2) Stacey Shadows and Melanie Cruise, a.k.a. Maidens of Iron (cool name!); (3) Arabian Sheik and Jay Harris, a.k.a. The Unholy Alliance, representing SCW; (4) the irregular pair of Jon Hudson and X-Caliber. Hudson came to the ring favoring his shoulder.

The first team eliminated was The Family. Rancid Joey challenged the women, but didn’t get very far and he was hit with a combo dropkick / suplex by the pair – which led to his pinfall. He was woozy when getting dragged to the back – as shown here:

During a frenzy of action, Arabian Sheik did that thing where one tag team member runs around to another’s corner and yanks the feet of the opponent standing on the apron, causing the other to fall and hit the ring apron. Well, he did that to both X-Caliber and Hudson; when he pulled out Hudson’s feet, Hudson landed on his left side, which had the injured shoulder. Ouch! Next out of the match were the Maidens of Iron when they hit a low blow on Jay Harris, and were DQ’d. Even though they were no longer in the match, they stayed at ringside to support their ARW pals against the SCW team. While the Unholy Alliance was left facing X-Caliber (who was mostly now alone, since Hudson was hurt), Jay Harris threw X-Caliber up and over in a suplex, and X-Caliber landed on his feet! That was a sweet move. At one point, X-Caliber got in too much trouble and he had to tag in Hudson. Hudson tried his best and was helped out a lot by Jay Harris when Harris accidentally hit his own partner – Hudson was able to then roll up Arabian Sheik for a pin. And now your new ARWPRO Tag Team champions are Jon Hudson and X-Caliber!

The next ARWPRO show is Saturday, April 13, back at the normal location – American Legion Post 100 in Lake Station, IN.

ACME Championship wrestling held Tecumseh Takedown at Lincoln Elementary School in Roselawn, IN at 7:00pm Friday March 08, 2019; the show was a fundraiser for the school’s annual trip to Camp Tecumseh. There was a lot at stake on this card – Would Dave Allen leave with his ACW World Championship? Would Jared Kripke remain Intercontinental Champion? Would Billy the Kid be out-toughed? And most importantly, would Jimmy Holmes be forced to go to on the school trip to Camp Tecumseh later this Spring with all those misbehaving, annoying, smelly kids?

The show started with Billy the Kidd defending his ACW Tough Man Championship against a new-comer Kota (he has a last name, but I didn’t catch it properly; he was one of a few new faces on the card tonight). Kota started the match off with an immediate attack on the distracted Kidd right at the ring of the bell, but once Billy recovered, Kota didn’t really last all that long afterwards. Below left, Billy is taking a breather after his victory.

The second match featured TK Zero against another newcomer, The Masked Dragon. The Masked Dragon wore a shiny white mask, a nicely laundered white karategi*, and ratty black sneakers. Dragon got in almost no offense and I think TK Zero worked up more of a sweat aggravating the kids at ringside (above, right) than in defeating The Masked Dragon. Hopefully we’ll see more of The White Dragon and he’ll be able to beat someone up soon … I recommend Cliff Caviar. * I have to admit that I googled “What do you call a karate outfit” to find the name of his gear, because I didn’t want to sound like a doofus and just say “karate outfit”. But maybe this was actually a judo outfit, which has a different name, I don’t know the difference. Look, if you’re coming to this page for your martial arts fashion knowledge, you’re severely lost!

Next, ACW Heavyweight (World?) Champion Dave Allen came to the ring, but not in ring gear. He had a mic in one hand and a slice of pizza (which looked pretty good!) in the other. Apparently, his opponent for the night didn’t show up, so he’s decided he has the night off. General Manager Michael Allen has another idea, though: Dave Allen will defend his title against a mystery opponent later in the main event!

Match three was Jeremy Hadley vs. Jon Scrutch. Scrutch is another new face to me, but he got a pretty good response from the crowd, so maybe he’s familiar to them, or he had really good entrance music. Anyway, Hadley really had the kids in the crowd going in favor of Scrutch, but Hadley won with a big frog splash (above, right). After the match, an unseen Drex Odell had a video promo challenging Hadley to a blindfold match at the next ACW event, Hebron Havoc, in April. Odell wants revenge for Hadley spraying something in his eyes during their previous match in February. Even though Odell prepared a video promo. he remained mostly unseen because the video was filmed in very low light and did not show up well on the “screen” in the bright light of the school auditorium.

The last match before intermission was Jared Kripke defending his ACW Intercontinental Championship against Rick Raid. Raid reminded the crowd that (a) the last time he faced Hadley, Hadley left with a concussion, and (b) in his last two matches at Lincoln Elementary, he ended the ACW careers of two different people – most recently, in a ladder match against Macho Del Silver … so Raid thinks the odds are in his favor. The match went back and forth (below left, Raid tries coming off the ropes onto Kripke). But at some point Raid’s knee got injured, and Kripke worked on the knee long enough for a Figure Four Leg Lock to be effective (below, right); Raid tapped out to the move.

After intermission, the show resumed with a triple threat tag team match between High Society, Kenneth James & Arun, and Xavier Black & Sanji. Sanji is the third new face for me tonight. Before the match started, the ref was checking everyone’s gear as usual, but not as usual, he actually found something! Arun was trying to sneak in a chain, and Kenneth James had brass knuckles under a kneepad. Shame on those guys! During the match, we saw a triple suplex involving all six men. Three lined up facing the other three with arms linked like a chorus line,, and one set of three heaved the other up and over all at once. Eventually High Society got the win after Young Money hit a leg drop off the top turnbuckle. After the match, Thomas Keith brought a small cake into the ring to celebrate Young Money’s birthday. Of course, you know the rules about wrestling and cakes! Kenneth James dropkicked Keith into Young Money, and Money ended up wearing the cake.

The cleanup of cake continued as Dave Allen came to the ring for his match against a mystery opponent. Michael Allen, Greg Hansen (ring announcer), and ref Zoran were working hard on getting the frosting mess off the ring canvas while Allen stood around watching. Now, Dave Allen comes to the ring carrying a nice white towel – but did he use the towel to help? Noooooooo (below left) . After the cake was cleaned up, El Muchacho was announced as Allen’s mystery opponent. He put up a good fight (below right), but came up short as Allen retained.

The final “match” of the night was the annual fan service event set up for Jimmy Holmes to try to get out of going to camp with all these noisy, annoying kids! Holmes hates camping, and if he and his team of Brentley Alexander Dawson and one of the school teachers (Mr. Williams?) defeat their opponents, then Holmes will not have to go to on the trip to Camp Tecumseh! The opponents are about half a dozen other teachers. They each come out one or two at a time and are pinned through trickery and treachery by Holmes’ team. But at one point, Holmes accidentally hit his partner B.A.D. with a chair; after he recovers, B.A.D. came back in the ring and clobbered Holmes, allowing the teachers to cover him for a pinfall! And so, Jimmy Holmes now has to go to camp with the kids.

This ending part sounds totally silly, but the kids love it, and it is effective. On my way out of the building, two boys were talking and one said, “I am definitely going to camp now!”

The next ACW event is Hebron Havoc, on Friday April 5 in Hebron, IN.

ACME Championship Wrestling opened their 2019 season with “Shades of War” at their home base, the DeMotte Boxing Club, at 7pm Friday February 8.

The show opened with a bang (almost literally), there were lasers! A video screen! FIRE!! A couple of fire pots erected in the center of the ring launched burts of flame synchronized with the house music. Pretty cool! Or rather, pretty hot! But it felt good, since there was cold air coming in from the entryway.

General Manager Michael Allen greeted the crowd as always, then the action got underway.

(M1) ACW’s first match of 2019 was an energetic contest between High Society (Thomas ‘the Benjamins’ Keith and Young Money) vs Arun and Sadon. High Society let everyone know that DeMotte was not on their list of favorite places, or favorite people. They also displayed many tag team shenanigans; Ref Z had his hands full with this one. Each team got control of the match for a while, but it ended when Young Money hit a leg drop from the top turnbuckle onto Arun.

(M2) Match 2 was for the Tough Man Title, with title holder Billy the Kid taking on challenger Kenneth James, who was making his ACW debut. The ref in this match seemed to be trying to enforce a lot of rules for a No DQ match, such as yelling at James when he was gouging Billy the Kid’s eyes. Billy the Kid retained his title, and Kenneth James gave a handshake of respect afterwards. On his way out of the ring, Billy the Kid held up his title and yelled something at me over the ropes … I think I might have been challenged to a match, but I’m not sure. We’ll see at Hebron Havoc, I guess. But if I’m going to come out of retirement for that, first I have to train to learn how to work in the ring, then work in the ring for a few years, and then retire the first time. That seems like too much effort, so I might have to politely decline.

(M3) The third match was another tag team match, this time between Top Gunns and The Main Attraction (whose names are, I think, Cortez Knight and Rodney Jackson). They came to the ring straight from baseball practice, carrying wooden bats, and dressed for the ring in khaki shorts, t-shirts, and sneakers. The Top Gunns controlled a good portion of the match, although The Main Attraction got their licks in. Eventually, though, they got frustrated with not making headway, and one of them grabbed a chain, wrapped it around his wrist, and hit Highball in the back of the head – causing a disqualification. He bled a little through his mask after that …and he was pissed. He challenged The Main Attraction to a No DQ match at the next ACW show, Hebron Havoc, and General Manager Michael Allen set the match. This was Ref Z‘s second tag match, and the second one that was hard to control.

(M4) Match 4 was Theo Storm challenging Jared Kripke for his Intercontinental Championship. This was Kripke’s first match back since getting his bell rung at the last ACW show in 2018. Theo Storm seemed to enjoy a lot of verbal back-and-forth with the crowd. Both guys took a lot of punishment, at at various times, I was convinced that Kripke got, in order, another concussion, a broken neck, and another concussion again. But, he ended up retaining his title. (The third picture below is not sideways, that’s Theo Storm going up to kick Kripke; the fourth picture is how Theo Storm keeps from getting pinned.)

(M5) After intermission, the show got underway with a Fatal Four Way match for a chance to be the next to take on Jared Kripke for his Intercontinental Title. The four in the match were X-Calibur, Xavier Black, Johnny Motley, and the -new- Cliff Caviar, who has exchanged his green blazer for a sparkly black overcoat with gold trim, and a black flat brimmed hat – a cross between a circus ringmaster and a bull fighter. On his way out to the ring, he threw his old green coat on the ground and stomped on it. Although he has new attire, he has his same old attitude, though. As expected, these four took each other all over the ring and out of the ring. Once, I got splattered by water from Xavier Black’s wet hair as he went flying over the top rope to the outside. After the match had been going on for a while, it was interrupted by TK Zero, who came out and attacked all four men in the ring … even Cliff Caviar, who he used to protect. He exclaimed to GM Michael Allen that he did this because HE should be the one getting matches and chances like this. Having caused his destruction, he retreated – and at this point, Xavier Black and Johnny Motley also vanished, leaving X-Caliber and Cliff Caviar to finish the match. X-Caliber ended up with the win, and so he is now the #1 contender for Jared Kripke’s Intercontinental Championship. As X-Caliber soaked up his victory, Kripke came out for a friendly stare down, and it was very sportsmanlike all around.

(M6) Jeremy Hadley took on Drex Odell in the next match; this match was mostly a contest of pride and history, with Hadley being upset that Odell has put his own stamp on ACW more recently, although Hadley was one of the old timers. These two pummeled each other pretty well; I tried to take good notes, but it was hard because I was afraid Hadley would yell at me for being on my phone, as he did to a couple of other folks in the audience. The match ended in a DQ win for Odell when Hadley, having been thrown out of the ring, came back in with a spray can of something smelly – cologne or deodorant? – and sprayed Odell in the eyes with it. The spray messed Odell up badly enough that he couldn’t see and had to be helped to the back. (Note: Odell caused an incident at Backbreaker Wrestling the next night – listen to the audio recap! – wearing an eye-patch. Hmmmm.)

By the way, Drex Odell has a new nameplate for the video screen, but it unfortunately had a typo in it. I’ve fixed it for him at no charge, below is before (left) and after / fixed (right). You’re welcome.

(M7) The main event was a defense of the ACW Heavyweight Championship, with champion Dave Allen and challenger Kujo. Kujo had a chance at the title at the last ACW event of 2018, but that was spoiled when Johnny Motley interfered. This match proceeded cleanly for quite a while, until Ref Z got caught behind Dave Allen in a corner while Kujo was about to splash Allen; Allen got out of the way, and poor Ref Z took the splash. While he was down, Johnny Motley made a return, this time with a chair. He took Kujo out of action with the chair, and when Ref Z recovered, Dave Allen was able to get the pinfall and retain his title.

In summary, let’s appreciate the hard work and punishment that Ref Z went through, with two out of control tag matches and then being on the receiving end of a flying splash from Kujo in the last match. He is the evening’s MVP.

The next show announced for ACW so far is Hebron Havoc, on Friday, April 5. Matches we already know about are a No DQ tag team match between The Main Attraction and Top Gunns, an Intercontinental Championship Match between Jared Kripke (c) and X-Caliber, and I’m guessing we might see Kujo vs Johnny Motley.

ARWPRO held their first card of the year at 7:00pm Saturday January 12, 2019, at the usual spot of American Legion Post 100 in Lake Station, IN. To report on this show, I’m having my first all-out battle with the new WordPress editing environment, and it’s not going well, so the formatting is going to be a little wonky.

To start the night, Principal Boom Boom called a school assembly to tell us all about the good stuff happening to ARWPRO recently, such as raising about $2000 total for the Daniel Chavez Memorial Fund at the end of 2018, receiving a thank you plaque from an organization for the support of ARWPRO, and superfan Megan Lewter running roughshod over the competition at the Hammond City Middle School Championships.

As his first order of business, ring announcer Greg Hansen introduced a special guest – the President of Southland Championship Wrestling, known as The Sentinel. Our guest came out and let us know he was not impressed with ARW or its fans (I mean, he had a point, the crowd was quiet, but come on, it’s the first show of the year and we’re still digesting all that holiday season overeating). And be brought someone from his roster, Jay Harris, to show us what a real wrestler looks like.

The owner of ARWPRO, King Bishop, came out to stand up for everyone, and he introduced ARWPRO’s first ever champion, Johnny Showtime, to take on Jay Harris. However, Harris eventually got Showtime to submit to an arm bar submission hold.

The next match featured Moxie Mollie defending her ARWPRO Women’s Championship against Melanie Cruise. Moxie Mollie had a few shining moments, but eventually was overpowered by Cruise. In the picture to the right, she just got clobbered pretty good, and it must have hurt! The final pin came when Cruise had Mollie down near the ropes; the ref was a bit out of position, and Cruise took advantage of that to get both of her feet up on the ropes for extra leverage. Moxie Mollie got robbed! She needs a rematch!

The third match of the night had the most action, as Joey Rancid and Brawn (*) the Lumberjack (representing The Family) took on newcomers The Thieves of Greatness – Theo Storm and Sadon, managed by Damien Saint. Brawn the Lumberjack dresses nothing like a lumberjack! As is normally the case when Charlie Jr and The Family is involved, there was a large amount of shenanigans outside the ring, and the eventual distractions led to The Family getting the pin. But, as you can see, the Thieves of Greatness stick together even in defeat! (*) Thanks to Editor Supreme Aimee Renee who gave me the correct name, I had misunderstood hearing his name as “Rod the Lumberjack”. Fixed!

After intermission, what should have been a nice, long match of fundamentals and skill between Mr. 3% Jon Hudson and The Flawless One Dave Allen got going and out to a medium length, but then was interrupted by a return visit of The Sentinel and Jay Harris. When Harris got involved in this match, Hudson and Allen went from being foes to friends, as they warded off the incursion from SCW.

The semi main event of the evening featured Nick Cutler and Maverick Cage teaming up to go after the Tag Team Titles held by The Mexecutioners (Machine and Santana Starks). Below we see Maverick Cage avoiding the ceiling while about to come down on Santana Starks, and then a move about to end badly for either Cage or Machine. You know, since I took the picture, you think I’d remember whether Cage took Machine down in a head scissors or whether Machine eventually picked up Cage for a powerbomb, but, well, I don’t remember! (The picture on the left should have Cutler standing in the right corner and Machine to the left, but the picture is getting cropped when I display it side by side with the other one.)

The main event of the night had ARWPRO Heavyweight Champion Ivan Manson defending against Max Holiday, who really wants the title back! The ref decided that waaaay too many Family members came out with Manson, and chased a few of them off, but Charlie Jr and OSM Old School Manson got to remain at ringside. Now this match also ended with interference after a ref bump, but not from the direction you’d think. The ref got caught in the corner during a splash by Manson onto Holiday and dropped over. While the Family was still outside the ring wondering how to take advantage of this, Brutus Owen Wesker (BOW) ran out from backstage and clobbered Manson, declaring that he was sick of Manson getting the spotlight. Then Manson pinned Holiday and the ref recovered enough to swim over to the pinfall and count 1-2-3.

The next ARWPRO show is Saturday February 9 at the same place, American Legion 100 in Lake Station, IN. Will Moxie Mollie get a rematch after Melanie Cruise had her foot on the ropes to win and take the Women’s Title? What will Max Holiday have to say to B.O.W. after his interference in the main event?

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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! 

I probably attended more than three dozen wrestling shows during 2018. It would be hard to go back and get an exact count; I maintained a page of most of the wrestling shows I knew about in the Northwest Indiana region during 2018, but I certainly didn’t attend all of them … and to look back to early 2018 and try to remember which ones I actually saw would be too much for my 52 year old brain. I collect recaps of most shows I attend, either by simply talking about them on the radio or actually bringing equipment and recording delayed radio coverage of the event. For some shows, I write up a recap and post them here on this web page, and below are links to some of those write-ups, too. I plan on continuing this into 2019 and have some pages already prepared – such as this (currently small) list of shows coming up in 2019.

If you want to relive some excitement from 2018, you can find a list of NWIWRAP Episodes (which contain recaps or delayed audio coverage) of many events in the top level NWIWRAP menu item to the left; also, there is a more compressed list at the bottom of this post. Or, you can go look at written recaps through the blog post archives in the left menu here; also, there is an itemized list at the bottom of this post.

So that we can all keep track of what’s going on, here is a list of many regional promotions, their current titleholders that I can remember or could find out about, and their first announced show in 2019. I don’t remember exactly who calls their main title a “World” title or a “Heavyweight” title or a “World Heavyweight Supreme Commander of the Universe” title, so for these purposes, they are all called the Heavyweight Title:

ARWPRO:
Heavyweight: Ivan Manson
Tag Team: The Mexecutioners
Indiana State Championship: X-caliber
Women’s: Moxie Mollie

First show of 2019: January 12, 2019, 7:00pm Central, at American Legion Post 100 in Lake Station, Indiana.

ACW (ACME Championship Wrestling)
Heavyweight: Dave Allen
Intercontinental: Jared Kripke (get well soon!)
Tough Man: Billy the Kid

First show of 2019: Friday February 8, 2019, 7:00pm Central, at DeMotte Boxing Club, DeMotte, IN.

Backbreaker Wrestling:
Heavywight: Trog the Caveman
Tag Team: Top Gunns

First show of 2019: “Hammerlocked”, Saturday February 9, 2019, 6:30pm Central, at St Mary Hildebrandt Hall, Griffith, IN.

Black Label Pro:
Heavyweight: All Ego Ethan Page
Indiana Championship: Kobe Durst

First show of 2019: “BLP Unplugged”, Saturday February 2, 2019, 4:00pm Central, at Rds Gym, Crown Point, IN.

NGW (New Generation Wrestling Indiana):
Heavyweight: Justin Myers
Tag Team: Pinnacle FC
Hoosier State: Brentley Alexander Dawson

First show of 2019: Saturday January 26, 2019, 6:30pm Eastern, at Morgan County Fairgrounds, Crawfordsville, IN.

PWK (Pro Wrestling King):
Prime Heavyweight: Jake Omen
Prime North American: Mitchell Taylor
Prime Tag Team: Rat Pack (Diesl Tracz, Steven Drochner)
Prime Ladies: Moxie Mollie
Heritage: Jayden Quick
Legends Live Women’s: Sadie Vandercamp
Legion Ladies: Shawna Reed

First announced show of 2019 (but may not end up being the first on the calendar): “Wrestling Legends Live”, Saturday March 23, 2019, 7:00pm Eastern, at Century Center, South Bend, IN.

RCW (Revolution Championship Wrestling)
Heavyweight: Russ Jones
United States: Douglas Stout
Tag Team: Brutus Dylan and Kevin Storm
Women’s: Melanie Cruise

First show of 2019 : “Call To War”, Saturday March 23, 2019, 7:00pm Eastern, at Battell Center, Mishawaka, IN.

Recapping 2018: Recaps or delayed audio coverage of several events in 2018 broadcast on WVLP 103.1FM in Valpo:

• Episode 67: delayed audio coverage of NGW Dec 15 2018
• Episode 65: delayed audio coverage of ACW Nov 30 2018
• Episode 64: delayed audio coverage of NGW Nov 10 2018
• Episode 63: recap of BLP Big Trouble in Little China
• Episode 62: delayed audio coverage of Backbreaker Oct 20 2018
• Episode 60: delayed audio coverage of PWK Oct 06 2018
• Episode 58: recap of RCW: Revolution Rumble
• Episode 57: delayed audio coverage of Backbreaker Aug 25 2018
• Episode 56: Recap of ACW at Rust Belt Rebellion
• Episode 54: audio recap of RCW: 11th Annual Slam Cancer Benefit Show
• Episode 51:  Recap of ACW School’s Out, XSE Battle for Plymouth
• Episode 49: Audio Recap of NGW 10th Anniversary Show
• Episode 48: Recap of ACW Friday Fight Night 2, Audio Recap of Backbreaker Wrestling: On the Ropes
• Episode 47: Recap of ACW Hebron Havoc 3 and ARWPRO at Morton HS
• Episode 46:
  • Part 1: Audio Recap of NGW Shamrock Shakedown, first half
  • Part 2: Audio Recap of NGW Shamrock Shakedown, second half

Recapping 2018: Written recaps of several events in 2018 posted here on metalprofessor.com:

• Outside the Ropes: Black Label Pro November 03 2018 #BLP10
• Outside the Ropes: XSE / PWK A Night of Havoc, Friday Oct 19, 2018
• Outside the Ropes: RCW Revolution Rumble, Sat Sept 15, 2018
• Outside the Ropes: ACW at the Rust Belt Rebellion, Sat Aug 18
• Outside the Ropes: RCW’s The Devil Cannot Die, Fri June 29, 2018
• Outside the Ropes: ARWPRO at Live in the ‘Ville, Fri June 01, 2018
• Outside the Ropes: XSE: Battle for Plymouth, Plymouth, IN – May 26, 2018
• Outside the Ropes: ACW School’s Out, at Lincoln School, Roselawn, IN, May 18, 2018
• Outside the Ropes: ARWPRO at Edison High School, Lake Station, IN – May 12, 2018
• Some pics to go with the audio recap: NGW 10th Anniversary Show, April 28, 2018
• Some pics to go with the audio recap: Backbreaker Wrestling – On the Ropes, Sat Apr 21, 2018
• Outside the Ropes: ACW Franklin Fight Night 2, Friday Apr 20, 2018
• Outside the Ropes: ARWPRO at Morton High School, Sat Apr 14, 2018
• Outside the Ropes: ACW Hebron Havok 3, April 13, 2018
• Outside the Ropes: FWF Crossfire, Saturday March 24, 2018
• Outside the Ropes: ARWPRO, Saturday March 10, 2018
• Outside the Ropes: ACW March Meltdown, Fri Mar 09
• Outside the Ropes: ACW St. Valentine’s Day Bash, Fri Feb 16, 2018
• Outside the Ropes: Backbreaker Wrestling – Winner Takes All, Sat Feb 03, 2018

And as always, if you want to try to keep track of regional shows with me, you can pull in the NWIWRAP Google calendar into your own; I try to keep it updated with the events I know about; just go into your own Google calendar and the search for / import the calendar associated with nwiwrap.wvlp@gmail.com.

Black Label Pro held Big Trouble in Little Crown Point on Saturday, November 03 2018 at the On the Square Sports Academy in Crown Point, IN.  This was the last BLP show of the year, before they start gearing up for a couple of early 2019 shows and then their big show on Wrestlemania weekend in New Jersey.

(Stealth edit: You can watch the show on Powerbomb TV: https://powerbomb.tv/promotion/Black-Label-Pro)

1. The Warhorse Jake Parnell defeated Darby Allin.  Both of these guys are nuts. Darby Allin is soooo smooth with his moves.  (a) Darby Allin leaping over the top onto Parnell; (b) Parnell throwing Allin (he’s the blur) into chairs at ringside.

2. Allie Kat defeated Kylie Ray with a piledriver.  This started as a fun romp with both ladies being happy and sportsmanlike (sportswomanlike?), but you know how that goes after a while.  Kylie Ray is the happiest person I’ve ever seen wrestle. (a) Kat about to elbow Ray; (b) Ray getting out of a twisting armbar.

3. PCO defeated Dasher Hatfield.  PCO is amazingly acrobatic for a big stocky dude like him; he’s a brick house.  (a) Wrestling! ; (b) PCO is upside down.

4. Kevin Ku defeated Gary Jay by using Ring Announcer Sara’s stepladder which he hates so much.  I think he used the stepladder before locking in a submission, but this was over 12 hours ago and I’m old, so I might be misremembering.  I’ve never seen someone with such hatred for an inanimate object.  Kevin, how did those steps hurt you?  Sorry for the crappy out of focus shot.

5. #NoNewFriends defeated Space Pirates, the Riegel Twins, and Five Foot Pack Hunters in an 8-man / 4 tag-team battle that had a lot of non-stop action, much of it going from in to out of the ring, as seen below.

6. Bryan Alvarez defeated Marko Stunt.  Alvarez plays a great arrogant SOB (is it playing?), and Marko Stunt has been one of my favorites on the card both times I’ve seen him now.   (a) Alvarez gives Stunt a chance at an uncontested armbar; (b) Stunt slaps the hell out of Alvarez.  These guys both chopped the hell out of each other.  Actually, lots of people chopped the hell out of each other.  If I used a stopwatch to time the percentage of the ring time dedicated to chopping and slapping in all the matches so far, it would probably be about 10-15% or more.  Not that that’s a bad thing.  I’ll include a bonus picture at the end of Alvarez’s red and bleeding chest.

7. Puma King defeated Gringo Loco.  You know, “You Give Love A Bad Name” is a strange entrance song for a cat from Mexico City. This was a fun, high flying match. Gringo Loco doesn’t look like he should be able to pull off the moves he does, but he is amazingly agile. (a) Puma King about to deliver a flying hurricanrana; (b) the yellow blur is Puma King coming off the top ropes onto Gringo Loco.

8. Jeremy Wyatt defeated Marcus Crane.  Jeremy, as long as you use Rainbow in the Dark as your entrance music, you will be my favorite in any match no matter what I’m supposed to think about your dastardly shenanigans.  Both of the blurs below are Marcus Crane – this tells you either how fast he is, or how bad at photography I am with my cellphone.

9.  Kobe Durst retained his BLP Indiana State Championship against Rory Gulak.  This match was “AMAZING!”  (a) Durst about to clobber Gulak.  (b) Durst suplexing Gulak over the top rope and onto the outside; this move ended with Gulak going over but also then carrying Durst over the top rope with him.  Props to these guys for not only doing a move usually just teased at, but building it into a double whammy.   Random fact: Kobe Durst has his own personalized entrance music.

10. Ethan Page defeated Jordynne Grace in a falls-count-anywhere match to become the BLP World Champion.  This match involved chairs, bleachers, tables, cement walls, and several splintered wooden planks that were not tables, but looked like really big dining room table extenders.  (a) Jordynne suggesting a test of strength; (b) Jordynne putting Page through one of the mystery planks.

After going around the perimeter of the venue at least one and a half times, the match finally ended on the entrance stage when Page put Grace through another mystery plank.  Then Page was joined by his car crew Kobe Durst and the Space Pirates to suggest that (i) Page and Durst enter the upcoming (early 2019) BLP tag team tournament together, and since that will also involve the Space Pirates, there’s a good chance the 4 of them will hold every BLP title going in to Wrestlemania weekend, and (ii) at the Wrestlemania weekend show, Page wants Durst to get a shot at the BLP World Title.  Page also put over Grace big time, and made it a point to shame (with the crowd’s agreement) whatever dope yelled “Wrestling is for men!” during the falls count anywhere match.

Misc Ramblings:

Overall, every single match was good and had something memorable in it.  The workers definitely put it all on the line in each match.

The show ran almost 3.5 hours long, which at my age is starting to get a bit lengthy; I’ve noticed that no matter where I am or what fed I’m watching, the 2h45min hour mark is about where I start to switch from thinking about what matches are still coming up to counting down how many matches must be left before I can get out of those uncomfortable seats.

For all the emphasis on family friendliness and asking patrons to be careful with language, boy are some of the entrance themes seriously uncensored!  I mean, I don’t really care about that, but the crowd almost turned it into a game, by saying “Oooooh” every time a very clear “fucking” or “mother fucker” got heard during an entrance song.  That was funny.

Not directly related to this show, but I was listening to Jeff Hawkins on the Shake Them Ropes podcast (part of the Voices of Wrestling network) when he was discussing how Evolve was not as unique an entity as it used to be, with the rise of “super indies” … and he specifically mentioned Black Label Pro as one of the “super indies”, which was cool.

Here are a couple of extra pictures.  (a) shows the chest of Bryan Alvarez after his match with Marko Stunt.  (b) Shows that there’s good news and bad news about falls count anywhere matches:  the good news is that the action can go anywhere, such as close to you; the bad news is that the action can go anywhere, such as where you can’t see it!

Edit: Whoops, I totally forgot the pre-show match in which Steve Manders defeated Graham (someone help with the last name? Evers?) who comes to the ring with his trusty flamethrower.  Since I feel bad about not knowing his last name, I’ll make sure his picture is BIG!!

XSE and PWK held “A Night of Havoc” at the Lifeplex Center in Plymouth, IN at 7:00pm Friday Oct 19.

This was one of those tough decision nights for me because ACW was also running a show, and I also love going to see the folks in ACW as much as possible. But, XSE had this date nailed down for a long time, so they had dibs on my schedule. Plus, as you might tell from the title of the event, they had a special guest … Matt Cross! I’m sure the ACW guys killed in on their show, too.

The opening match was for the PWK Heritage Championship, and featured current champion Jayden Michael Quick against challenger Jake Omen (above). I certainly don’t know all the matches JMQ has had during his career, but I’m sure facing Jake Omen was one of the toughest. The larger, more powerful Omen controlled a lot of the match, but Jayden Michael Quick retained his title after catching Omen with a second frog splash, and getting the pin.  Below left: JMQ in a predicament.  Below right: JMQ about to miss his first frog splash.

Next, Jordan Silver (who used to be Jordan Quick, and so Quick … Silver is a pretty clever name change!) took on Matt Starr. After several minutes of competition, the match was interrupted by Psycho coming out slowly to the ring, looking spooky in his dark blue asylum-style coveralls and black eye shadow, and distracting Matt Star – allowing Jordan Silver to get the pin. This follows a similar event at the last PWK show Halloween Mania V a couple of weekends ago, so there is clearly something brewing between Star and Psycho.  Psycho drew a fork out of his boot and threatened Star with it, but did not follow through. Below left, Jordan Silver is about to get planted.

Current PWK North American Champion Mitchell Taylor defended his title against Tony Thunder, representing the Rat Pack. Like at the last PWK show, maestro Eric King played an old commercial Burger King jingle, much to Taylor’s chagrin (above right). The match ended in a disqualification when Taylor’s ring pal Duchess got involved. She tried to distract the ref while slipping Taylor a chain (with proof in a picture, below right!), then coming in the ring, then getting accidentally clobbered by Taylor in the corner. Ultimately Taylor got the DQ, and retains his title.  Below left, you can’t see Taylor’s left arm, but from Tony Thunder’s expression, you know where it just hit.

KO Kendra took on Travis Trendbender (introduced only as “Travis”, so maybe he’s losing the adjective) in a match to determine the #1 contender for Moxie Mollie’s PWK Women’s Championship, with that match to take place at the next show. Travis played a lot of mind games during the match, ducking out of action a lot. KO Kendra came out on top, so she will face Moxie Mollie soon.  Travis was a sore loser; the poor guy on the floor (below right) just came out to help Travis get to the back after his match, and was repaid with a kick to the face.

After intermission, Nick Cutler took on Keith Creme – the latter became known as Krispy Kreme after he made it clear what he thought of the audience. I had not seen Creme before; he was bald and with absolutely no body hair, but Cutler had enough for both of them. Although Cutler was on the receiving end of some brutality here and there, he was clearly having a good time managing Creme for most of the match, and ended up getting the win.  Below left, Creme tries to get some protection; below right, Creme had Cutler in a submission hold, but Cutler escaped by deadlifting Creme from off the mat.

Just A Mazing defeated Russ Jones in a match that pitted the high flying A Mazing against the brick wall of Jones.  After the match, Just A Mazing told the crowd his story of coming back after a serious car accident, and thanked Jones because having a match against Jones was one of his bucket list items upon his return.

The main event was a fatal four way in a match for the Key to the Kingdom – the holder of which can get a title match at any time.  The entrants were Steven Drochner, Scotty Young, Jared Kripke, and special guest Matt Cross.  Why Matt Cross would want a Key to the PWK Kingdom was not explained.  The match ended when Matt Cross did his shoulder-springboard back off  the ropes into a stunner on Jared Kripke, but Steven Drochner quickly rolled Cross out of the ring and got the pin on Kripke himself.  And so Steven Drochner now holds the Key to the Kingdom.  After the match, Kripke and Cross had a short moment of mutual beard appreciation.

Picture 1: Cross taking care of business on the outside.  Picture 2:  Kripke taking a breather while Cross takes care of business on the inside.  Picture 3: Cross doing a tower of doom and slamming all three other contestants off the corner turnbuckle.  Kripke is the one totally upside down. Picture 4: Cross jumping onto Drochner.

Bell Ringer Greg Garrett posted results from this show on his Facebook page (linked), so give it a like!

The next XSE / PWK event is on November 24, 2018 in Knox, IN.  Follow the XSE Facebook page for more information!

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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!