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!