Revolution Championship Wrestling (RCW) held Born to Rise at the O’Brien Recreation Center in South Bend, IN at 7:00pm EST on Saturday, March 04, 2017.

I had planned to tweet results as they happened on the @nwiwrap Twitter account (hint hint) but I could not get cell reception in the venue (which was a nice gym, but in the basement of the main building).  What I lost in cell phone reception was made up for by the wonderful smell of hot dogs being cooked at the concession stand.  Yum yum.  (Not to be confused with Cutler Yum.)

The fun began with a pre-show match featuring The Slobberknockers (Hardcore Harry & BD Smooth) vs Jayden Quick and Jymmy W.  I’d like to report the winners, but apparently my recall has been affected by my defense mechanisms kicking in to block any memory of seeing The Slobberknockers without shirts on.  To the crowd’s good fortune, their ring entrance for this match did not involve body oil, like the last one I saw at FWF Rampage.  I think the Slobberknockers won, but who knows.  [update: Editor in Chief Ryan Anderson corrected me that Jayden and Jymmy won.  See what the powers of the Slobberknockers do??] I mean, look at this, it’s just wrong on so many levels!

The opening bout of the main show was Tank vs Officer Rod Street.  The winner of this match will get to pick the stipulation added to the match for the tag team titles between The Police Department (champs) and the Midwest Monsters on April 7 at RCW Seven at The Roosevelt Center in Elkhart, IN.  Rod Street was accompanied by SWAT member number 40-whatever and Lt Eva Lonis, whose ring attire clearly shrunk a lot in the wash.  Tank came out the winner, but was attacked afterwards by Street’s cohort; Brutus Dylan, Tank’s partner, came out to chase them away.  He and Tank conferred and decided the tag team title match at RCW Seven will be a cage match, to even the numbers game.

In a triple threat match, Mance Warner defeated JC Bunyan and Keith (Kef?) Sweat (at first, I did not catch that third name; I asked Tiffany Tilli – who knows everyone! – and she said it sounded like his name was announced as Keith Sweat.  The only Keith Sweat I can find on Google is the R&B singer, but Ring Announcer Ryan Anderson came to the rescue on Facebook, saying that he was introduced as “Keith Sweat”, but also goes as “Kef” pronounced “Keef” so “Keef Sweat / Keith Sweat”).  Whatever he goes by, he had a few sweet moves, and I definitely want to see him again.  But the power of Lariats and Lite Beer overcame the power of Timber and whatever phrase Kef has!

Shady Chris Xion had an open challenge for anyone in the back.  Out came Roger Lanier!  Chris Xion started regretting his decision and tried to claim that Lanier wasn’t cleared to wrestle, but no luck.  The match started and it didn’t take very long for Lanier to dispense with Chris Xion.

Kevin Storm took on Noah Walker and Theo Storm in a handicap match for Kevin Storm’s RCW US Title.  This match started before it even got to the ring as Walker and T-Storm jumped Kevin Storm as he approached.  This was the first match to have an edge of serious intensity to it.  The numbers were too much for Kevin Storm, and Noah Walker got the pin.  He is now your RCW US Champion.

During intermission I said Hi to Eric King, who [cheap plug alert!  skip past the italics if you don’t care] will be my guest on the Northwest Indiana Wrestling Action Program on WVLP at 9:30pm CST Sunday March 5. You can listen at 103.1FM in Valparaiso, or streaming on http://www.wvlp.org and the Tune In Radio app.  This half hour segment is part of the 2 hour show Mostly Metal 8-10pm.  If you miss the broadcast, it repeats on Wednesday night at 10pm, and will also be archived on the NWIWrap  Youtube channel. [end cheap plug] I also bought 4 wrestling action figures from Ox Baker, Jr, who was having way too much fun playing with his inventory while I was browsing :-).  Did you know that you can buy a battery operated vibrating Kevin Nash doll from him?  Ladies, check it out at the next show.

By the way, while I’m typing this, I’m watching the DVD set “Greatest Cage Matches of All Time” by WWE, which my dad bought me (thanks Dad!)  A WCW cage match between Lex Luger and Ric Flair is on, and Flair is wearing the proverbial “crimson mask”.  This is interesting timing because of the next match listed here…

The Iron Demon Shane Mercer defeated Luke Lawson.  This was my favorite match of the night.  Mercer and Lawson took the fight into the bleachers, and Mercer hit Lawson with two of the loudest Flair-whooo chest chops that I think I’ve ever heard.  Mercer’s finisher is great.  I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s like a fallaway slam from the second rope in the corner; but instead of both men landing on their backs, Mercer flips around 180-degrees during the fall so that he lands belly down on top of his opponent.   Just before the end of the match, Jason Saint from Horrorshow came out to try to distract Mercer.  And then Adam Bueller snuck out to attack Mercer.  Mercer tossed Saint over the top rope into Bueller, and they crashed into chairs in the first row.  Adam Bueller wins the “Most Efficient Use Of a Wound Award” as he got more blood out of a horrible looking forehead would he suffered the night before in a death match in West Virginia (he went from WV on Friday to NWI on Saturday, dude’s a road warrior).  I think we’ll be seeing more of Horrorshow vs Shane Mercer.

Team Legend-Dairy (Matt O’Hare and Alexander S Kirk, with Synnamon) defeated The Maltese Tiger and The Great Akuma.  This was the first time I’d seen the Great Akuma.  He has a, well, a Great look but he didn’t get to do a whole lot here.  I’m curious to see what he can do if he’s really let loose.  BTW, my spelling of “Synnamon” is just a guess, Matt O’Hare made a point to yell at the crowd that it was with a capital S!

In the RCW Heavyweight Title match between champ Jack Thriller, Nick Cutler, and Anthony Toatele, Thriller got help from Toatele in retaining the title.  No, don’t worry, it wasn’t intentional! Rather, Toatele had the upper hand and gave Cutler what should have been a finishing move for the win, but Thriller took advantage and tossed Toatele out of the ring right after Toatele had put Cutler down; this allowed Thriller to get the pin on Cutler.  During the match, Thriller dared to put his hands on Kenzi, hopefully Anthony Toatele will not let that stand!

In the final match, Super Diva wrestled for his last time, against Brutus Dylan.  Three Divas in training came out first to dance around the crowd (Chet Urblanski, Hardcore Harry, and a third I don’t know).  Then the real Super Diva came out and spent a lot of time going through the crowd on his way to the ring, so much so that Eric King, at the sound table, had to repeat his full intro song at least 2 or 3 times.  But it was all good fun!  This was a no DQ match and some of the action came out to the crowd – most notably, when Diva put Dylan in a chair and then took a running body press at him, which took both of them violently to the floor.  Back in the ring, Brutus Dylan’s sympathy for Diva almost cost him; he “owed” Diva a chair shot from a previous match, but as he raised the chair twice, each time his gentle conscience got the better of him.  Diva and his back up force (can we call them The Pinkertons?)  took advantage with a DDT of Dylan on the chair.  But as all of them tried to pin Dylan together, he tossed them off (phrasing!) and eventually went on to get the pin.  After the match was a nice tribute to Super Diva with lots of the performers representing outside around the ring.

The next RCW-related events are

• XSE / RCW Saint Patrick’s Day Brawl, Friday March 17 2017 at 7:00pm EST at the Battell Center in Mishawaka, IN
• RCW Seven: Friday April 7 2017 at 7:00pm EST at the Roosevelt Center in Elkhart, IN, featuring Kelly Klein, Matt Striker, and Colt Cabana.