Swooping in for an athletics fundraiser, ARWPRO took over the gymnasium of Gavit High School in Hammond, IN on Saturday November 4, 2017 at 7:30pm.  I almost didn’t make it to the show because right on the corner by the school is The Wheel restaurant.  This is one of those Greek owned diners that have 25 page menus and breakfast all day.  I had flashbacks to when my wife (then girlfriend) lived right up the road from here, good Lord it was a bit more than 20 years ago, and we’d eat breakfast there almost every weekend I visited.  Damn, it was good.  Double damn, was I eating breakfast at The Wheel with my wife before Rancid Joey Rak was even born?

Anyway, this particular show was important to a few alumni of Gavit who are on the ARWPRO roster.  This included our first two contestants, Kevin Graves and Marcus Portrait.  Graves comes out with a Gavit letter jacket, which he immediately takes off to reveal a Whiting Oilmen shirt – athletic rivals,  I guess.  Then he gets on the mic to run down Gavit and its students and athletes.  Marcus Portrait (normally part of The Picture Show, but they’re both in singles competition tonight) comes out to fight for the honor of Gavit.  And he wins, to shut up Kevin Graves.

The next match features Gavit alumna Moxie Mollie.  This is her rematch against Renee Van Peebles, with the added stipulation that Van Peebles’ manager Chazz Moretti was banned from the building due to his shenanigans at the previous ARW show (which you can read about right here …. on this web page!).  Without Moretti to cheat on her behalf   offer strategic advice, RVP is not able to overcome Moxie Mollie’s moxie, and Mollie gets the win by making RVP tap to a submission hold.  The Mollie does a victory lap around the audience and gives kisses to the cheeks of young boys.   This picture shows Moxie Mollie in the middle of a cannonball while the chump in the grey hoodie ignores the action and plays on his phone.  I’ll bet Mollie didn’t kiss him after the match!

The third match has Dakota Prodigy defending his Indiana State Championship from X-Caliber.  Now X-Caliber is usually with The Family, but he came out alone this time.  He offers a quick handshake to Prodigy.  Something is up.  Eventually X-Caliber pins Prodigy after a spectacular 450-splash.  Then he gives Prodigy a little sportsmanship afterwards.  Something is definitely up!  King Bishop notices this, and comes out to congratulate him on the win, since he did it by standing up on his own and not using The Family.  King Bishop assures X-Caliber that he, and also the ARW fans, are proud of him for doing it with class.  Well, the Family patriarch Charlie Junior is pretty pissed about this development and tells X-Caliber that he’ll get what’s coming to him at the next show on November 22 (Black and Blue Wednesday).

The last match before intermission has Angel Armani and Johnny Swashbuckle teaming up against Mr. 3% Jon Hudson.  I don’t know why this was originally set to be a handicap match.  This is Hudson’s final ARW match before he moves out west for the gold rush.  Joey Boom Boom comes out to tell Hudson that he’ll be joined by an old friend of his, Johnny Showtime (the other member of The Picture Show).   In the left picture below, Armani shows Hudson what he thinks of his last match.  Eventually during the match Showtime and Swashbuckle end up brawling outside the ring, and the brawl moves backstage – leaving Hudson and Armani to get some time in the spotlight for a while.  But before too long, they come brawling back out and Showtime throws Swashbuckle into the chairs right in front of me (below, right).

 

Hudson ends up getting the pin, and afterwards he bids a tearful farewell to the ARW roster and fans.  He says the promotion he’s going to in California (not named) will allow him to continue to work the indies, and so he’ll be back sometime.

It’s intermission time!  And then we resume with The Family (Old School Manson and Rancid Joey Rak, with Charlie Junior and whatshername) vs The Mexecutioners.  Here (below left) we see Charlie Junior getting ready for some shenanigans on Santana Starks while the ref is not looking.   The Mexecutioners win this one.

Next, Anthony Toatele (without Kenzi) makes his ARW debut by going against Nick Cutler.  Don’t worry, Anthony, all your opponents from here on out will have less body hair.  I didn’t get any interesting pictures of this one, just the one above taken while Cutler was having words with some people in the front row.  This match ended oddly, as Cutler basically headbutted Toatele in the naughty bits in full view of the ref, and told the ref to do his job …. and so the ref DQ’d him, and Cutler stomped off to the back.

Finally in the main event, we have Ruff Crossing and Max Holiday teaming up against tag team champs Aggravated Assault (B.O.W. and Punisher 747), who are also without the services of Chazz Moretti.  It’s a non-title match, though.  To start the match, the two teams do the “see who gets more cheers” bit, during which one team actually gets boos.  When it was Ruff Crossing and Max Holiday’s turn, they raised their arms to the crowd, and about  two seconds after this picture was taken, they got clobbered by their opponents.  This was definitely a heavyweight match, with the big men doing big men things and making the ring bounce and shake.  Crossing and Holiday lose after a mishap in which Holiday ends up accidentally giving Crossing a face full of boot (or something like that, it was three days ago, and I’m tired).  After the match, Crossing makes nice with Holiday and says he will not get his revenge the way everyone thinks he will, but rather he’ll do it like a man and offer Holiday the rematch he is due for Crossing’s World Title (which he’d won from Holiday in the first place).  Crossing adds, though, “Just one more thing … never trust a cowboy!” and clobbers Holiday.  Ruff Crossing ends the show standing tall.

The next ARWPRO show is on Wednesday November 22, 2017 at 7:30pm at the “ARW Arena”, a.k.a. the American Legion 100 in Lake Station, IN.

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If you’re so inclined, check out the Northwest Indiana Wrestling Action Program (NWIWRAP) broadcast Sundays at 9:30pm, right after Mostly Metal, which runs Sundays from 8:00-9:30pm 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.  Because WRESTLING!