ACW held Franklin Fight Night 2 at Clark High School in Hammond, IN.  Or Whiting, IN.  Whatever.  If the name / location mix is confusing, it was a fundraiser for Franklin Elementary School.  But Clark HS has the big gym.  Or they’re better at cleaning out the bloodstains.

General Manager Michael Allen came out first, as always.  He called Arun to the ring, and explained that Arun deserves more chances in ACW, and if he is able to beat TK Zero in the next match, Arun will get a match against Cliff Caviar for the ACW Tough Man Championship next time.  (Apparently Hammond / Whiting is not luxurious enough a location for Caviar to make an appearance.)  TK Zero came out for the match, heckled children in the audience, and eventually lost to Arun by a move much like Chris Jericho’s Codebreaker.  Here, TK Zero wonders what he got himself into.

Next, Brently Alexander Dawson (BAD), Thomas Keith, and Kujo went at it in a three way match to become number one contender for Jared Kripke’s Intercontinental Championship.  This match was mostly 2-on-1, with BAD and Keith teaming up against Kujo, but of course when the moment of truth would come and one of them would attempt a pin on Kujo, the other would break it up.  The 2-on-1 scene allowed for quite a lot of blindside attacks on Kujo.  Poor guy.  Eventually Thomas Keith won with what I’ll call (until I learn better) and Underhanded Sister Abigail: he sets up his opponent like Bray Wyatt does for Sister Abilgail, but then hooks his arm underneath his opponents shoulders for extra oomph on the move.  I was so worried about Kujo, I forgot to take a picture during this match!  To make up for that, I’ll post extra pictures of the next couple of matches.

Match three had the Prince of the Raveyard Kyle Kaylor take on the Intercontinental Champion Jared Kripke.  To show he’s edgy and ravey, Kaylor came to the ring with a small flask, from which he took sips several times during the match.  I think Ref Zoran should have carded him.  Jared Kripke’s entrance music makes me irrationally angry, and I need to work on that.  In this match, Kripke and Kaylor traded submission moves (such as the one below right), going through the ropes to the outside (like below left), coming off the ropes (like pic 3), Ric Flair Whooo knife edge chop-slaps, and they almost knocked over one of the light poles.  When Jared Kripke finally won the match, Thomas Keith came out to remind him who his new #1 contender is, and gave him the “I’ll see you soon!” gestures.

Dave Allen and Billy the Kid have the pre-intermission slot locked down.  They came out for their Last Man Standing Match.  The action started in the ring, but soon went out of the ring, and even out of the ring area – they dragged each other around the perimeter of the chairs and along the bleachers, around 3 sides of the room.  Although you can’t see either competitor, below right shows a crowd of kids (and adults) with phone cameras blazing, following the two around the outside of the gym and to the bleachers.  They didn’t come over to my side, though, not wanting to disturb this journalist at work.  Knowing they were in a school, Billy the Kid helped the kids learn to count by having them count to 10 while he punched Dave Allen (below left).  A chain-wrapped baseball bat was involved (Billy the Kid brings it to the ring with him) when Dave Allen went outside the ring, picked up the bat and brought it in.  According to the Rules of Wrestling, then, you know that he eventually became the victim of the bat. Pictures 3 and 4 below here show Kid slamming Allen to the mat, and also showing off the bat he’s about to use. The match ended when Billy the Kid dragged Allen feet first to a corner, pulled his legs out past the ring post, then duct taped Allen’s legs around the ringpost, preventing him from being able to stand and answer the 10 count.  Clever!

After intermission, we had Phantasmo (perhaps making his first appearance) vs. Crimson Dynamo.  This match was pretty one sided, with Phantasmo dominating.  During this match I got a notification it was time to play Cash Show Trivia.  I could do this and watch the match at the same time, but I only got one picture (of Phantasmo) .  I know this is totally disrespectful to the performers, but I did win $0.02 in the trivia game, bringing my grand total winnings so far to $2.44, so get off my case.

Being a school event, ACW had the “teacher special” match – a Teacher Battle Royal.  A few of the regular workers participated to make sure things didn’t get too crazy, but the match came down to the same two teachers who fought last year as well (shown here posing before they got to it), and Mr. J took the win.  A good number of the kids then cleared out, and missed the main event:

Rockstar Jonny Nigh took on Drex Odell for the ACW Heavyweight Championship, which Odell has held for quite a while, much to the chagrin of General Manager Michael Allen.  Eventually this one went to a No Contest, as the ref could not get the men to separate from each other when battling in a corner.  Rockstar was desperate to get his hands on Odell again, so he offered a “career vs title” match at an upcoming ACW event, School’s Out  – if Rockstar wins, he becomes champ.  If he loses, he will retire from ACW completely.

The next ACW event is on May 11 at Lake Village Elementary School in Lake Village, IN.  Then the big annual event “Schools Out” is at Lincoln Elementary School at Roselawn, IN on May 18.

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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.