ARWPRO held Red, White, and Bruised at the American Legion Post 100 in Lake Station, IN, at 7:30pm on Saturday, July 8, 2017.

Edit: You can catch a video recap of this show by Ref Dave and King Bishop themselves at:  PART 1 … PART 2.

On my way to the show, I realized I was driving on Ripley Street.  This was an amazing coincidence because on the next night, July 9, I would be helping out at a Porter County Special Olympics fundraiser at Zao Island in Valpo, which featured 5 bands playing – including Ripley Street, named after this very road!  I had two thoughts, one that Joey Boom Boom is very in tune with the idea of community and has supported many charity events, so maybe he’d let me plug the fundraiser in Valpo at the ARWPRO show.  And also, since I was stuck at that long-ass traffic light at Central and Ripley, I had time to take a picture of the Ripley Street sign and pass it along to the band.  Well, both missions were accomplished, thanks Joey!

The first match features Kevin Storm vs. a returning Shane Fury.  Kevin Storm lets us all know he hates coming to this place, and Shane Fury lets us know he was happy to be back.  They banter a bit to add to the entertainment value of the match, but in the longer run Storm works over Fury’s leg several times, until Theo Storm strolls to ringside with King Bishop in tow.  Storm # 2 creates a distraction to  Storm # 1 so that Fury can clobber him with a spinning elbow, and then Fury gets the pin.  In the picture to the left, it’s going to suck for both of them, but since Fury is upside down, I think he’s going to get the worst of it. 

Uncle Charlie brings out the entire Family, which seems to be growing – perhaps by adoption or hostile takeover of other families, I don’t know.  Out here for this match is OSM (Old School Manson, the disciplinarian), Lilith (for gender equality), X Caliber (the combatant), and Twig (the mascot).  Or rather, Stick, since Uncle Charlie generously upgrades Rancid Joey Rak from the Twig of a branch of the Family to a Stick.  This match is to be X Caliber vs. Theo Storm.  Storm is unfazed by the numbers game.  As you can guess, Kevin Storm comes out to show “two can play at that game” and interferes in the match when he jumps in the ring to attack Theo.  This causes X Caliber to get disqualified.  Good grief, the one time the Family *doesn’t* cheat to get the win, and they get DQ’d.  In the picture to the right, Uncle Charlie prepares to catch the giant beach ball descending from overhead. 

A sad King Bishop comes out to do a hard thing, which is call out Moxie Mollie and Dakota Prodigy for the purpose of stripping the Indiana State Championship from Dakota Prodigy, who (a) looks to have gained 10 pounds of hair, and (b) is unable to defend it after his injury at the last ARWPRO event.  Of course, Dakota and Moxie are aggravated by this until Moxie comes up with a grand plan:  since she is an integral part of the “team” now (as Dakota agrees), she should be allowed to defend the title in Dakota’s place!  Dakota and the crowd think this is a good idea that could not possibly go wrong now or later, and so King Bishop is swayed to allow it.  KB introduces Moxie’s opponent, Dante DVS.  Now Dante is in disbelief that he has to wrestle “a girl” and makes it known through many sexist comments; I hope he doesn’t have a wife or mom to go home to!  He says he is not afraid to beat up a girl and shows it by controlling most of the match. However, Molly takes advantage of a sudden opening and gets the pin.  Now I wonder, if Molly is able to defend the title until Dakota is ready to have it back, will she hand it right over, or will there be trouble in Team Moxikota?  (I just made that name up for them, since I don’t think they have a name.)  Hmmm…

Prior to the fourth match, a sparkly purple sequined jacket starts walking to the ring. Inside the jacket happens to be Moretti Agency manager Chazz Moretti, but the jacket is the real story here.  It’s amazing!  King Bishop has to do ownership things again, and because The Jacket’s team Fatal Attraction has not defended the ARWPRO Tag Team titles in a long time, he is stripping them of the titles, and having a tag team match between Punisher 747 & Brutus Owen Wesker, BOW (with Ratt J Flywheel) and The Picture Show, the winner to be the new ARWPRO Tag Team Champions.  Of course, The Jacket … I mean Chazz Moretti (I’m sorry, but the sheer magnificence of The Jacket makes you forget the details, just look at it!) is very aggrieved by this, and warns King Bishop that “the only thing worse than a psychotic is a well-funded psychotic, as you’ll find out later!”  With those ominous words, The Ja … dammit, Chazz Moretti departs and the tag team match begins.  Eventually, the size of Punisher 747 and BOW becomes too much for The Picture Show, and Punisher 747 and BOW become your new ARWPRO tag team champs … and their first action is to beat down their long-time manager Ratt J. Flywheel and replace him with Chazz Moretti!  So when it’s all said and done, the tag team titles stay with the Moretti Agency.  Well played, sir!  In Moretti’s own words from his Facebook page, “KB Chuck Hines, I hope you learned something last night. You cannot take what belongs to The Moretti Agency!!! I always have contingency plans for everything. Last night I put the world on notice that soon every ARW Pro Wrestling Championship will reside in my trophy case!!!”  By the way, see the cameraman in the picture above, and how upright he is?  Keep that it mind for later on. 

After intermission, Joey Boom Boom comes out to start the proceedings, and announces the following match will have a 20 minute time limit!  I didn’t remember if the first half matches had time limits announced, but when I heard this next one did, cynical me thought, “Well, a time limit got announced, so that means the match will be a time limit draw!”  Nick Cutler is out to take on Superbad Santana Starks.  And Cutler eventually gets the win with a low blow to Starks, well before the time limit expired! Sorry, no picture here, I was too busy eating a hot dog and trying not to get mustard on my nice new Power Ranger themed Dark Horse Nation / Nick Cutler shirt!

The second to last match features Mr. 3% Jon Hudson against Willie “Da Bomb” Richardson.  Again, Joey Boom Boom goes with the announcement of a 20 minute time limit, so surely this one will go that limit, right?  Both men come out with shirts saying “Action, Reaction, Consequences” in different styles – they have a bit of fun with that, and then get down to business.  The match starts with gentlemanly one-upsmanship (see below: Hudson’s gentlemanly arm bar, along with Richardson’s gentlemanly elbow drop) but gets a bit snippier and snippier as things go along.  Eventually, Hudson’s temper starts to get the better of him; when the ref suggests he should chill the hell out, Hudson shoves the ref … and gets disqualified.

EDIT: Mr. Hudson has pointed out – somewhat impolitely, I might add, but I guess that’s what’s to be expected of him now – that the DQ actually came from before, when he “kicked Willie in the balls”.  So he’s right, I did not remember that correctly, but what I do remember correctly is the name of the person who will teach Mr. Hudson not to get so full of himself, on August 05, 2017 at Headlock on Hunger (Texas Roadhouse, Portage IN): Buff Bagwell. Anyway, carrying on with the original recap: 

This sets Hudson off completely, and he clotheslines the ref.  A group of people come in to check on the ref … including the cameraman shown above in the picture with The Jack- dammit! – Chazz Moretti and King Bishop.  In his rage, Hudson starts mixing it up with the people checking on the ref.  He picks up the cameraman and with a suplex, flips him backwards and completely overhead in a full circle like a propeller.  Remember in A Christmas Story when the narrator talks about how when knocked to the ground by bullies, little Ralphie “laid there like a slug, it was his only defense”?  That’s the cameraman.  More people come out and help clear away the mayhem.  Hudson gets on the mic and rails against ARWPRO management and locker room.  For his trouble, he gets a match made for him by Joey Boom Boom against Buff Bagwell at the upcoming outdoor ARWPRO event (see below).

A somber side note, it turns out that the cameraman, hereby known as Victim B, is the son of Ref Dave, hereby known as Victim A.  Victim A had this to say on his Facebook page:

This is my 22nd year as a pro-wrestling referee. I’m having the most fun, thanks to my family at ARW PRO – that is, until last nite. I met a wrestler named Jon Hudson (Mr. 3%) a couple of years back. We immediately had that “connection”, one that rarely happens between an official & a wrestler. I became his referee for all of his matches & we quickly became good friends. That all changed during an action-packed show in Lake Station. Something “snapped” inside Jon Hudson. He showed us a dark side, one that I, our fans, & the entire ARW PRO crew have never seen before! He went ballistic after I disqualified him for giving a blatant low blow to Willie “The Bomb” Richardson. He seemed to calm down a bit & even shook my hand, a handshake, however, immediately followed by the hardest, stiffest clothesline. It knocked me off my feet with such force, it flipped me over on to my front! My son Josh Innes – (ringside videographer) – & “The Picture Show” ran into the ring to check on me, intervene, and to calm Hudson down. Hudson would have none of it, manhandling Marcus Portrait & Johnny Showtime like they were rag dolls! As I was being helped out of the ring by referee Mike & our top-notch ring crew, Hudson proceeded to give my son Josh a German suplex that literally flipped him 360 degrees. I yelled, “Jon, that’s my son!” – still too banged up to even try to help him. Jon Hudson had his “moment” on the microphone, Joey Boom Boom & King Bishop quickly let him know who REALLY runs ARW PRO, & Hudson, well, he couldn’t care less! So, Jon, I hope you read this post & that you’re paying close attention: WE ARE DONE! I always had your back, but you stabbed me in mine. You’re going to be fined for putting your hands on me & I hope that it’s a lot more than you have in your Malibu piggy bank. Referees never get respect in the Squared Circle, & that’s okay. But, what’s NOT okay is what you did to my son! I’ll forgive you eventually, but I will never – EVER – forget!

Note that this match, the second in a row to be announced as having a 20 minute time limit, also did not go that time limit.  What is with these mind games, Mr. Boom Boom???

Finally we had the main event, featuring Ivan Manson vs. Max Holiday for the ARWPRO Heavyweight Championship.  The first thing the ref did was try to even the odds by chasing away most of the Family, although Uncle Charlie and Lilith were allowed to remain at ringside.  Ratt J Flywheel, after his beating earlier, was still able to accompany Max Holiday to the ring. At the end of the match, Lilith comes up with a keyboard from somewhere, and passes it to Manson in the ring, while Charlie distracts the ref.  Now foreign objects in wrestling are like magnets.  If the person the object is intended for is, say, magnetic North, and the opponent is then magnetic South, the object will always also be charged North, thus being repelled from the person it was intended for and into the hands of his opponent. Don’t argue with me people, there are Laws of Thermodynamics, and there are Laws of Wrestling.  And so, per this inviolable natural law, the keyboard gets into the hands of Holiday, who cracks it over the head of Manson while the ref was still distracted.   And Max Holiday retains his title!

While Uncle Charlie and Manson were grousing to Joey Boom Boom about Holiday’s cheating ways, Joey decided that he could make things right by putting Manson in a 4 Corners of Doom No-DQ match against Tommy Dreamer at the upcoming ARWPRO event.

And so this evening comes to a close, and the next ARWPRO event is Headlock on Hunger, at 12:30pm Saturday August 5, at the Texas Roadhouse on Rt 6 in Portage.  All proceeds go to the Portage Food Pantry, although I feel it would be right for a small portion to go to securing a proper storage method for Chazz Moretti’s jacket to ensure its safety.  Announced matches so far are:

• Angel Armani and The Police Department vs. The Picture Show and Al Snow
• Mr. 3% Jon Hudson vs. Buff Bagwell
• Ivan Manson vs. Tommy Dreamer in a 4 Corners of Doom No-DQ match.

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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 8-9:30pm, 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! 

Fire Pro Wrestling held Fire Pro 135 at 6:30pm on Saturday June 17, 2017, at Impact Christian Church in Merrillville, IN.

To start the show, Drex O’Dell came out with his manager, who berated Drex for being an embarrassment at the last show, where he wrestled without his partner Mustafa and lost.  His manager (you’d think I would have learned his name by now!) said that he went out and found Drex a different partner for tonight to get different results.  That partner:  The Punisher.  The opponents: The Bambino Family!  During the match, The Punisher stepped aside when Drex needed some help with a tag; Drex tried his best (see the pic to the left where Drex is working hard and Punisher is standing off to the side taking the rest of the match off.  Eventually Drex got pinned.  After the match, Punisher came in and decked Drex with a chain-wrapped fist.

The next match featured Austin Fury against an unnamed (at least for me, maybe he was introduced but I missed it) masked opponent.  Austin won pretty quickly, and then got on the mic and asked for some better competition.  Out came Roach!  Roach and Fury tore the place up until the bell rang to announce the end of the 20 minute time limit.  It’s a draw!  One pic below shows Austin dropping onto the unnamed opponent in black, and the other shows Fury getting dropped on by Roach.

Next up we had The Cavalier Club of CK1 (with no fancy robe, booo) and Stone Hands Slater Wallace taking on Flash Harris and his partner … Mike Strong?  I know his name was Mike because Flash got the crowd to chant Mike! Mike! Mike!, and he had “Strong” down his tights.  Here we saw lots of dastardly heel work, ref distraction, and temper tantrums from The Cavalier Club, and they eventually got the win.  Here they celebrate afterwards.  Giddy up.

Johnny Motley defeated Kyle Cross in a good match, then got on the mic to demand higher level championship opportunities.

In the final match, Jeremy Hadley defeated Flawless Dave Allen to retain his FPW Heavyweight Championship.  The quote of the night came from Dave Allen, who yelled – having just kicked Hadley in the face – “Now that’s how you kick a dude in the face!!”  After the match, the Cavalier Club ran out to beat on Hadley.  When the FPW general manager got on the apron to give Allen the business about all these shehanigans, Allen slapped him (wow, it was a loud slap!) and drew a 30 day suspension for that.  Since FPW shows are a month apart, I’m expecting we may see Dave Allen back and still up to no good at the next show.

Now this was the first local show I dragged my wife and kids to, they agreed to go along since the next day was Father’s Day and this was their king’s wish.  They all said it was better than they thought it would be 🙂 ; I checked with my daughters for their reactions, and here is a summary of the categories I offered and their answers:

• Best match: Fury vs Roach
• Hottest wrestler:  “Zebra Pants” aka Johnny Motley
• Least hot: Stone Hands Slater Wallace because of his “nip slip outfit”
• Who you don’t want to meet in a dark alley:  Punisher
• Best wrestler to take home to Mom: Flash Harris
• Most likely to be arrested:  Austin Fury, CK1 (don’t blame me, I just report it!)
• Most likely to be on a TV sitcom:  Roach, Flash Harris, or CK1
• Best outfit:  Zebra pants, Punisher’s chain
• Most likely to quit wrestling and become a preacher:  Mike Strong (someone please correct me on his name if needed!)

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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 8-9:30pm, 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@gmail.com Google calendar, where I try to keep up to date calendar postings of shows in and around the NWI region.  Because WRESTLING! 

Pro Wrestling King (PWK) held A Sudden Impact on Skull Island at Bourbon Park Pavilion in Bourbon, IN at 7:30pm Saturday June 17, 2017.  I’m pretty sure that in the planning meeting, one group wanted to call the event “Sudden Impact” because of the two Impact Wrestling starts scheduled to appear, while another group was like, “Hell no, we’re calling it Skull Island, because, you know, Kongo Kong is on the show!”  Their fight over the matter went to a time limit draw, and thus we have the title we do.  Either that, or Eric King just likes to have fun with his titles.

The “pre-show” match that started at showtime was Jackie Chen vs. Tank.  Here is Jackie calming himself with a fidget spinner before the inevitable result.  That inevitable result was Jackie Chen getting squashed by Tank.  And I don’t mean that in the figurative wrestle-speak sense, I mean that in the literal sense … Tank squashed him with all his might because that’s what Tank does!

The first match on the official card was for the unified PWK Title, and it featured champ Theo Storm vs The Maltese Tiger vs Ox Baker Jr.  Theo pinned The Maltese Tiger after a springboard stunner, but then took a heart punch from Ox Baker Jr afterwards for his trouble.  It made me happy to see a heart punch (sorry Theo) for the first time in person.

Next out was Cletus Farmer and JC Bunyan vs Team Legend-Dairy.  I don’t know what he ever did to them, but The Section was giving Bunyan the business!  It seems to me that all four of these guys should be in a stable because of their farm and forestry related themes.  (Get it?  Farm related … STABLE?  Nevermind.)  Cletus and Bunyan came out to what may be the most visually disturbing entrance video I’ve ever seen.  Seriously, what’s up with that rabbit?  Oh, by the way, Team Legend-Dairy got the win.

Jayden Quick and Jordan Quick had an intense battle of brothers, in which Jayden came out the winner.  Thanksgiving must suck at their house.  Jordan promised another match would come along.

Special guests DJ Z and Robbie E came out as The Bro-Mans to take on Pat Monix and KLD (Kevin Lee Davidson), making their first (?) PWK appearance.  Monix provided the mouthy sass of that team, and KLD provided the “holy crap, I do not want to run into him in a dark alley” part of the team.  The Bro-Mans took the win to make everyone happy.  Here you can see them turning KLD upside down, it took both of them to do it:

Shady Chris Xion beat both Officer Rod Street and the American Eagle, with a swanton bomb onto Eagle.  I used to have a suspicion that Rod Street was the American Eagle, but now that I’ve seen them both in the same place at the same time, I have to reconsider.  Dammit.  As an aside, I’d like to send out a belated Happy Father’s Day out to Shady Chris Xion since it looks like his baby came just in time for this one.  (You learn way more than you probably should about people’s personal lives from Facebook, you know?)

The Clean Cut AntiChrist Adam Bueller beat Lightning Bolt Johnson for the PWK Michiana On-Line (and Out of Sight) Championship.   After battling in hard-hitting fashion for a while in and around of the ring (where even a Rock action figure got involved), they took it outside the pavilion, with a large segment of the crowd following them out.  I stayed by my seat because the fan blowing near me felt too good.  I understand a dumpster also got involved before they came back into the ring.  Here Bueller crashes onto LBJs back while LBJ ponders what career choices have brought him to this moment.

After a great match, Nick Cutler got Matt Knicks to submit.  I really had fun watching this match; both guys were very fluid and put together nice sequences.  There were some seriously loud knife-edge Ric-Flair-whooo chops in this one, and it seemed from his reactions that Referee Tony Lynn felt them more than Cutler and Knicks.

In the final match, Fireball – god bless his hearty soul – tried to knock off Kongo Kong.  I’ll give him credit, Fireball actually got Kong off his feet three or four times, but eventually this happened (see picture below).  If Kong likes you, he’ll shake your hand after he flattens you into a pancake.  If he doesn’t …. well, that’s better left to the imagination.

PWK had another card the next night at the same location, you can see Eric King’s Facebook page for a list of results.

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fboombaby1970%2Fposts%2F10212086762257298&width=500

Their next event coming up is in Knox, IN on July 1 as part of a city festival there (I’m short on details), then the show Hot-n-Spicy, at 6:30pm Saturday July 8, 2017 at Fisher’s Tips & Chips in Niles, MI.

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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 8-9:30pm, 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@gmail.com Google calendar, where I try to keep up to date calendar postings of shows in and around the NWI region.  Because WRESTLING! 

ARWPRO was Live in the ‘Ville – Hessville, that is – on Sunday June 11, 2017 at 2pm under a 93-95 degree blue sky.  And on a black-top road surface.  So yeah, it was hot.  This event was part of a 3-day community festival in Hessville on Kennedy Ave.  If you haven’t sat in the middle of Kennedy Ave on a 95 degree day to watch wrestling, you haven’t lived.  It looks like this town party grew from an “every Saturday night for a month” thing to “screw it, let’s just shut down Kennedy Ave between 165th and 169th for three days straight!”

Well, this event was more of a wrestling exhibition than a full on 2+ hour show, which is good, because sitting in that heat any longer would have been unbearable.  I did start the show off right, though, by getting a yummy cupcake from the Weekend Baker‘s truck right next to the wrestling area.  There was a pierogi truck a ways farther up too.

The first match was the artist formerly known as Rancid Joey Rak vs. Dakota Prodigy.  Joey was introduced by Uncle Charlie as “the twig on a branch of the family tree” which drew a few “Twig!” chants through the match.  After   some punches and flips, Dakota injured one of his arms and left the ring to seek attention.  The ref had no choice but to count him out!  So The Twig got a relatively easy victory.  Hopefully when Dakota has recovered, he’ll get another chance at a Family Feud.  This picture to the right shows him when he had two working arms.

Match 2 had the newest Family member X-Caliber take on Santana Starks.  Since it had been proven at a previous show that the Masked Cubbie was not Starks, no matter how badly Dante DVS wanted it to be, the ARWPRO owner King Bishop has re-instated Starks to make up for him being unjustly accused of shenanigans. In his first match back, though, Starks went down to X-Caliber, and the Family is 2-0 on the card so far!

In Match 3, the Arabian Sheik tried to win the ARWPRO Heavyweight Title from Max Holiday.  Silly man.  The Arabian Sheik came out with headwear, bright green Saudi Arabian type flag, and – most importantly – pointy toed boots.  It didn’t take Max long to finish him off.

Match 4 was a tag team match, The Picture Show vs. newcomers R.O.W.  I did not catch what R.O.W. stands for.  They were a lot of fun, had good interaction with the crowd, and I want to see them again … maybe in a battle of the entrance music with Mr. 3% Jon Hudson. This was probably my favorite match of the night.

Match 5 was a Battle Royal, in which just about everyone who had wrestled already came out (except Dakota; get better soon, dude!) with a couple of people who had not been on the show.  There were about 8-10 people altogether, I think.  The winner after about 10 minutes was OSM, Old School Manson – making the Family 3-0 … not bad for a day’s work, I think Charlie deserves a raise!

The next ARWPRO show is on Saturday July 9, at their usual Lake Station American Legion home base.

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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 8-9:30pm, 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@gmail.com Google calendar, where I try to keep up to date calendar postings of shows in and around the NWI region.  Because WRESTLING! 

Fire Pro Wrestling held Fire Pro 134 at Impact Christian Church in Merrillville, IN on Saturday May 20, 2017 at 6:30pm.

We lost this intelligent creature today, but he went peacefully and comfortably in his soft grey doggie bed.  What better way to distract from pet owner sadness than to write about wrestling!  (RIP Happy the Pug, we-have-no-idea-of-birthdate to May 22, 2017.)

This was a brave event to hold on this night, with Wrestling for Warriors to the east in Ft. Wayne, and NXT Takeover: Chicago to the west.  But several of the FPW regulars were there.  The first match was The Gypsy King Ritchie Rothchild vs. Fireball.  Fireball has been showing up a lot in the South Bend / Warsaw circuit, and I think this was his first time at FPW.  Sadly, Ritchie had the home field advantage and won the match with a stunner.  I like the way Ritchie laughs villainously while he toys with his opponent.  Here, he is seen making sure Fireball does not get caught under the bottom rope.  (The Word Press spell checker is telling me that “villainously” is not a word, but fuck Word Press, what do they know?)

The second match was Nicco Antonelli vs. Jonas Keith.  Nicco’s entrace music was almost totally inaudible, and that was a problem for most of the night.  I’m pretty sure that Mr. Keith was last seen by me having his face smushed into the mat courtesy of Mustafa and Drex O’Dell at Fire Pro 132.  I’m glad to see he’s recovered.  Well, that recovery was short lived as Nicco won this match when Jonas went for a splash and missed.

Match 3 was a 3-way between Austin Fury, The Sleepless Gentleman Adam Bueller, and Johnny Motley.  Fury’s Impact Championship was not on the line.  So I’ve been trying to get my kids interested in coming to shows with me, but with no luck so far.  My older daughter, 15, says she’s not interested in sweaty fat guys with tights slamming into each other.  I decided to play the cute guy card, and showed her a picture of Johnny Motley; “Look at this guy, he’s not fat, and he’s a favorite with the ladies in the audience!”  My daughter replied, “Yeah, he’s hot, but he’s not Arrow hot”.  I’m sorry, Johnny, my daughter apparently has high standards and you don’t measure up to Stephen Amell.   If you’re wondering what happened in the match and not my house, the three guys went back and forth in fun fashion for quite a while until eventually Motley pinned Bueller.  After the match, Bueller gave Fury a low blow.

You know your show is going to be short when the intermission comes after just half an hour.

After intermission, The Gentlemen’s Club (CK1 and Dave Allen) took on Stone Hands Slater Wallace and Flash Harris.  Poor Flash got worked over for a loooong time; CK1 and Allen played the sneaky tag team quite well, getting Wallace to try to come in the ring, and then double teaming Harris while the ref was busy shoving Wallace back to his corner.  To the left is Dave Allen gently setting Flash Harris down.  Eventually, Harris tagged in Stone Hands … who proceeded to slam his own partner Harris down to the mat.  The Gentleman’s Club now has a third member!  This turn happened before Tomasso Ciampa’s turn on Johnny Gargano, so for the record, FPW was first!

Because he knew the audience wanted more, Nicco Antonelli came to the ring and complained that his earlier match wasn’t enough competition, and he laid out an open challenge.  Out came … Johnny Motley, for his second round of the night as well.  The two smacked each other around until Motley won.  On his way to the ramp after the match, Motley gave a superkick to Antonelli for his troubles, and then a second one for good measure.

Our next feature was a wrestling match staged against a match between the ring announcer and his note cards.  Drex O’Dell, “from Massachussetts, England” had given his tag team partner Mustafa the night off, and was happy to take care of business on his own.  His opponents were either the Bombito Family or the Bambino Family, depending on whether you believe the ring announcer or their actual ring names.  Fresh off their appearance at the last ACW event, the Bambino Family are trying out more of the NWI scene.  Despite his eagerness to go it alone,  Drex O’Dell got pinned by the Bambinos.  I wonder what Mustafa will say when he hears about this?

Right before each main event, the pastor of Impact Christian Church comes out to invite the crowd to give his church a shot on Sunday mornings.  I think it’s cool that he does this, and really appreciate that he’s not pushy about it, but just like, “hey, you know we’re a church, and you’re welcome to come hang out with us”.  Tonight his invitation made me smile because he talked up the current lesson series on managing anger in the family … which is sort of funny at a wrestling show.

Our main event was Tank vs. Jeremy Hadley for the FPW Championship.  Tank’s another one who is usually seen farther east, and it was good to see him here.  One of the funniest / cutest scenes of the night was Jeremy Hadley’s daughter giving Hadley himself a big boo and thumbs down during his entrance, and chanting “Let’s go Tank!”  To impress the crowd, Tank gave us his rendition of “If I Were A Rich Man” from Fiddler on the Roof

but then later Jeremy Hadley let Tank know that he sucked by dropping him from the corner with a Frankensteiner.  This was a terrific big guy / little guy match, with Hadley using speed and agility to strike at Tank, and Tank just clobbering the bejeezus out of Hadley.  There were lots of nice near falls to keep us guessing.  Eventually Hadley won with a big frog splash.  After the match, the Gentlemen’s Club came out and attacked Hadley.  I was hoping Tank would let his conscience get the best of him and intervene, but nope.  The Gentlemen’s Club left Hadley laying in the ring, as well as two refs who did try to regain some order.    In the spirit of selling the hell out of a good beating, Hadley and the refs continued to stay down while the crowd started filing out of the church.

Up next: Fire Pro 135 will be held at 6:30pm on Saturday June 17, 2017 at Impact Christian Church.

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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 8-9:30pm, 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@gmail.com Google calendar, where I try to keep up to date calendar postings of shows in and around the NWI region.  Because WRESTLING! 

Pro Wrestling King held Sir Lancelot at LaVille Jr-Sr High School in Lakeville, IN on Saturday May 14, 2017 at 7:00pm.  This was a fundraiser for the school’s special needs program.

Note that Sir Lancelot is not a casting call for a remake of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but it is a wrestling show!  The name actually makes sense, because a previous event was “Camelot” (It’s only a model!), and the new name was able to continue that theme and also work in the school’s team name, which is the Lancers!   An upcoming show is titled “Legend of the Sword”.   Someone has been watching too much Merlin.

At the last PWK event at this school, the big bleachers were down, but this time seating was set up in 3 rows of chairs around each side of the ring, and one small section of small bleachers.   I think this helped, because having a relatively small crowd spread over bleachers in a large gym makes things seem more empty.

To start the night, I noted that Ring Announcer Ryan Anderson not only was limping from his bad knee but also sounded like he was dying of pneumonia, so Ryan, I hope you’re feeling better!  He called all the announcements from the music & bell table away from the ring, except for one time when a certain wrestler – see below – pulled the dastardly move of making him walk over to the ring to hand off the mic.

A special pre-show match started things off so that those of us who can tell time and arrive a bit before the start of the show would get a treat.  It was a somewhat trimmed down over the top battle royal, featuring about 8 wrestlers including Irish Whip O’Doul, The Maltese Tiger, Jayden Quick, Jackie Chen, and the Celtic Nightmare (with one or two others I did not know).  Some of these guys would return in other matches later on.  They came out, did their thing for a few minutes, and the Celtic Nightmare ended up the winner.

The opening match on the main card was delayed while we observed the surprise match between Eric King and his laptop as he worked a bit to select the proper entrance music! He was probably nervous with Ryan Anderson looking over his shoulder.  But then we got underway with a six-man scramble, featuring the Maltese Tiger, Irish Whip O’Doul, Jackie Chen, the Celtic Nightmare, JC Bunyan, and Ox Baker Jr.  JC Bunyan was excited to see superfan Colton D. wearing a JC Bunyan shirt.  Also on the apparel side of things,  it turns out that tonight, JC Bunyan’s green plaid shirt almost matched the Celtic Nightmare’s green plaid kilt, and I’m so glad one of them was not wearing both items … although I see a tag team possibility in their future, perhaps the Fashion Nightmares?   After much pounding on each other and people diving onto other people standing outside the ring (“Goddammit!”  — Randy Orton), the Maltese Tiger scored a pinfall while 4 other bodies were still lying on the floor outside the ring.

Next up was tag team action, the Total Radicals Max Beardslee and Zach Mein vs. BD Smooth and Devin Shaw.  Sometimes a match with lots of silly dialog between the folks in the ring can be quite entertaining, and this was such a match.  Shaw in particular also showed off some moves.  Shaw and Smooth got the win.

In the third match, another tag team match, Tony Thunder (with Mr. Tiddlywinks) and Jorge Bravo defeated Cletus Farmer and Big Fish Remboski.  I had not seen Big Fish before and he was pretty smooth for a big man (and big in terms of tall and hefty, not big in terms of overflowing the tights in all the wrong places).  For those of you counting at home, at this point on the card, we’ve had three matches and have seen 14 wrestlers.  (This goes up to 15 or 16 if you count the pre-show match.)

Match 4 was Ames vs. Shady Chris Xion.  This was a lot of fun, although after the first three matches, with this one having only two people in the ring, it seemed like a lot of wasted space.  That’s a lie, these guys used ALL the space, inside, out of, and above the ring. Either one is always crowd pleasing each time I’ve seen them, (although with Shady, you have to take “pleasing” quite loosely, maybe “crowd antagonizing”?) so having them together in a match was a good time.  A minor wardrobe malfunction did not get in Shady Chris Xion’s way, and he got the win with the use of a chain while the ref wasn’t looking.  (His name is Shady, after all…)

During intermission, I had a match of my own, me against one of Hardcore Harry’s world famous meatball subs – their presence at the event was announced in advance on Facebook to great fanfare.  My battle was trying to eat it without making a mess, which was impossible.  But damn, it was a good sandwich.  No pictures, though, I have my dignity.  However, remembering that I could take pictures with my phone, I can now provide visual evidence of the matches in the second half.

We continued with DW Kelley taking on Sadon.  I like Sadon more each time I see him; and, I gather that DW Kelley is relatively new on the scene, but it looked like he held up his end of the bargain quite well.  That’s him in the green tights, by the way.  Sadon got the win.

Now, up until this point in the evening, Ryan Anderson had been able to do all his ring announcing from the comfort of the music / bell table by the curtains.  But the Police Department came out for their match, and Rod Street needed the mic in the ring, and so the meanie made Ryan start walking on his bad knee to the ring, until a sympathetic bystander carried the mic the rest of the way.  And then, after that, Street cut his intro short because when he asked “Do you know who I am??”, several people yelled “YES!” and so he just said, “Well, … OK then.”  Meanwhile, Deputy Dave was the victim of budget cuts as his spool of Caution tape ran out before he was done wrapping the ring.  Oh, by the way, the Police Department (Rod Street, Deputy Dave, and Lt. Eva Lonis) were taking on Team Legend-dairy (Matt O’Hare, Alexander S. Kirk, and Cynnamon) in a 6-person tag match.  Eva Lonis and Cynnamon did some pretty good scrapping, especially outside the ring.  Pictured here is Deputy Dave heroically trying to make a tag to his partner.  The Police Department wins after spraying Kirk with mace.

Steven Drochner, PWK Champion, comes out with his manager Damien Saint, and they complain about the open challenge forced on them by promoter Eric King.  The person accepting the open challenge is … Fireball.  Fireball gave it a good try, but it didn’t take long for Drochner (and Saint and his cane) to overcome him so that Drochner could retain the PWK Title.

And now it was time for the main event, a match that apparently grown men voluntarily participate in, and other grown adults (like me!) enjoy watching – a barefoot Lego death match!  It’s Adam Bueller vs. Jayden Quick.  When he came to the ring, Quick was followed by a tall guy in a purple shirt, and I have no idea who he was.  As the two got closer to the ring, purple shirt guy was attacked by Damien Saint, who must have still had issues to work out after the last match.  From the ring, Quick saw his pal being clobbered by Saint, but was like, “<shrug> You’re on your own, dude.”  The match started with a nice game of “lock up around the outside of the pile of Legos and try to get the other guy into it”. But eventually we got around to them stepping on Legos, falling on Legos, getting slammed on Legos, and throwing Legos at each other. Yes, both of those men in the picture are barefoot.  Yes, those colored specks are Legos.   I’m 50 years old, and I just typed “Lego” multiple times.  I love wrestling in all its craziness.  This match went on for a good while, and Adam Bueller ended up winning.  Afterwards, Jayden Quick vowed to find a way to defeat Bueller eventually.

For the final tally, on the main card we had:  8 matches, 28 wrestlers, 3 managers, one teddy bear, one ring announcer in need of a doctor, one can of mace, one set of ripped pants, one meatball sub, and hundreds of Legos. Not bad for ten bucks.

It looks like the next PWK shows in Northern Indiana are a double-header on June 16 and June 17, 2017, with both shows at Bourbon Park Pavilion in Bourbon, IN.  One June 16, Kongo Kong and Robbie E guest star in “A Sudden Impact on Skull Island”, and on June 17, the usual cast of characters such as in this recap appear in “Legend of the Sword”.  Keep up at http://www.pwk1.com/ 

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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 8-9:30pm, 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@gmail.com Google calendar, where I try to keep up to date calendar postings of shows in and around the NWI region.  Because WRESTLING! 

Fire Pro Wrestling held Fire Pro 133 at Impact Christian Church in Merrillville, IN on Saturday April 22, 2017 at 6:30pm.

We had a big match right off the bat as Flawless Dave Allen took on Scotty Young.   The newly christened CK1 accompanied Dave Allen to ringside.  Scotty gave it his best with lots of high powered offence, but could not overcome the numbers advantage and Dave Allen got him with a roll up after a bit of interference from CK1.  I mean, just look at that!

Nicco Antonelli (any help on correct spelling is appreciated!) got a surprise and pretty quick win over Stone Hands Slater Wallace with a roll up & perhaps a pull of the tights?  I guess poling all those gondolas down the canals of Venice has paid off for Mr. Antonelli!

Team Blackout (Mustafa and Drex O’Dell) came out; their manager said that after they ran through all the other FPW tag teams, he needed to go out and get more competition for Team Blackout – and he introduced Fighting Irish and someone whose name I did not catch, but will forever be known to me as Mushface. That’s because after they were done toying with Fighting Irish (pictured, left) and this other gentleman, Team Blackout pulled out a finisher that involves Mustafa holding their opponent in a surfboard while Drex O’Dell stomps onto the opponent’s back with both feet, driving his head into the mat.  Now if you haven’t seen Drex before, he’s not a small individual.  And on this night, I think he was still angry about the night before at ACW, because that poor guys head and face got Mushed into the mat so hard,  I swear I saw a circle of cartoon stars swirling around his skull.  They are still pulling strands of his hair out of the fabric of the mat.  Poor guy, we hardly knew ye.

We had a very brief match of Adam Bueller vs. his entrance music.  His music started to play, and he came out.  But then his music turned heel and shut off, leaving him stranded, and then restarted again.  So Adam also restarted and came out again.

Adam Bueller and Austin Fury then carried on with a long match that was just spectacular. You know how when you watch a good TV show and everything around you just disappears as you get sucked into watching the screen?  That’s what this match was like for me.  It was a brutal match (in a good way!) with lots of intense and painful looking moves.  At one point, Bueller tossed Fury towards the corner as if for a “buckle bomb” but Fury came up just a bit short and to the side of the corner, landing into the ropes; I thought for sure he was knocked loopy, based on the glassy look in his eyes as he stared at the ceiling for a bit.  For a good portion of the match, it was kind of one sided as Austin Fury continued to show knee soreness from prior matches, and Bueller worked it over really good.  Eventually, Fury was knocked out of the ring to the floor, and Bueller came off a top turnbuckle to the outside to stomp on Fury.  Both men lay on the ground for the 10-count, and the match ended in a double count out.  Fury slowly recovered and went to the back, while Bueller had to call for assistance to get up and moving to the back due to a hurt knee.  When the match was done, I snapped a picture of Adam Bueller clutching his knee, and I started having visions of pasting it together with the famous Peter Griffin image.  But then when it began to look like a legit injury, I started to feel like a dick – here was Adam Bueller possibly seriously injuring himself for my entertainment, and I was taking pictures of it and starting to think of silly things to do with the picture.  But via the magic of Facebook, it seems like after it all, Bueller is dealing with soreness and maybe a bit of limited mobility, but hopefully nothing broken, shattered, or otherwise disassembled.  So even though I still feel a bit like a dick, I built the image anyway!  It’s at the end of this write up because I didn’t want to put it here and spoil the paragraph 🙂 But yeah, he and Austin Fury put on a great, great match.

“The Gypsy King” Richie Rothchild made surprisingly quick work of Kevin Graves.  I wonder if both Graves and Wallace need some retribution at the next FPW show for their unexpected losses tonight.

Johnny Motley beat Kenny Kage.  This was a fun match and both guys did a lot of good work with the crowd.

The final match was Jeremy Hadley defending his FPW Heavyweight Championship from CK1.  For symmetry with the opening match, Flawless Dave Allen accompanied CK1 to the ring.  Allen provided ample ref distraction and undetected interference to keep it interesting.  Eventually, though, he tried it one too many times, got caught red handed, and got CK1 disqualified.  So Jeremy Hadley remains FPW champ!

I would like to present a special but valueless Endurance Award to the FPW referee (Jeremy?) who worked every. single. match.  Your efforts did not go unnoticed, sir!  Even Dave Allen gave him a little indirect praise, telling him – after what Allen thought was too much time to get into position to start counting a pin for CK1 – “Look, I know you’ve been working all night and are tired, but come on!”

The next Fire Pro event will be on Saturday May 20.  I’m not sure if Adam Bueller will be on that card, but if you see him between now and then or follow him on social media (such as @adambueller on Twitter) send him good cheer and healing thoughts!

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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 8-9:30pm, 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@gmail.com Google calendar, where I try to keep up to date calendar postings of shows in and around the NWI region.  Because WRESTLING! 

… also known as, “TK Zero beats more people up and gets paid, best night ever!”

… more accurately known as, “TK Zero gets beats up, but at least he got paid!”

ACME Championship Wrestling held Franklin Fight Night at 7:00pm on Friday April 21, 2017 at Clark High School in Whiting, Indiana (Hammond? I’ll let them fight about where one ends and the other begins).  This was a fundraiser for Franklin Elementary School.  Wrestlers:  they’ll punch you in the face, but they’ll also help raise money for your kids!

The show started with Drex O’Dell out to complain about GM Michael Allen making him jump through hoop after hoop before being granted a title match against ACME World Champ Austin Fury.  Michael Allen says title shots have to be earned, and O’Dell isn’t done earning his.  Allen has brought in a new competitor to try out Drex O’Dell – Excalibur!  Drex O’Dell eventually overpowers Excalibur for the win.  Is Drex any closer to a title shot now?  We’ll see!  Now the very next night on April 22, there was a Pro Wrestling King show a couple of counties east.  That PWK show was called Camelot.  Was Excalibur on that card?  If Excalibur did not appear at Camelot, that would be disappointing.

The second match shows The Executioner against Mountain Man in a hardcore match.  My ears are still ringing from a couple of the chair shots delivered to the back of The Executioner by Mountain Man.  The Executioner grabbed a chair first, but – perhaps a bit leery of the age difference between himself and Mountain Man – didn’t put his all into the delivery.  Mountain Man, though, seemed to say, “Son, stand here and let me show you what a chair shot is supposed to look like.”  And WHAMMO!  Mountain Man gets the win.

Next up was an entertaining 6-man tag match:  TK Zero, CK1, and Cliff Caviar vs. Jared Kripke, Kyle Kaylor, and Crimson Dynamo.  (Cliff Caviar should change his nickname to CC2, so his team would be TK Zero, CK1, and CC2.  Think of the possibilities!)  After some good action and bodies flying through and off ropes, the good guys take the victory when Jarek Kripke pins Cliff Caviar.  TK Zero did get in some good beatings as he promised, but ended up on the losing side.  Sorry TK!

Dakota Prodigy challenged ACW Intercontinental Champ Xavier Black for that title. Dakota may have been getting the edge in this back-and-forth match until the ref got bumped and Black took the opportunity to deliver a low blow.  Dakota could not recover from that, got pinned, and now has to get different sheet music in his church choir.

With issues unresolved from their match in March, Flawless Dave Allen and Rockstar Jonny Nigh got set to battle again.  Once more, Allen came to the ring carrying a bass guitar.  As he looked about to start into another song specially written for Nigh, Jonny suggested that he should have a chance to sing instead.  Now normally I would be cheering for the Rockstar, but we were robbed of another Dave Allen Opus!  Shame! Allen was bothered, too, because he clobbered Nigh before Nigh got a chance to shine.  Late in the match while the ref was distracted, Allen picked up the bass, tossed it so that Johnny Nigh caught it, then fell to the mat acting as if Nigh had struck him.  When the ref turned back and saw Allen on the mat with Nigh holding the murder weapon, he DQ’d Nigh.  Dave Allen is a genius! Nigh had enough, and challenged  Allen to a “Rockstar Rumble” at the next event on May 5.

The Teacher Royal Rumble happened next.  In this event, a bunch of teachers, aides, and safety officers from Lincoln Elementary (and Clark High?) got into the ring.  You have not lived until you hear a gymnasium full of elementary school kids screaming while their teachers beat each other up.  This match was a lot more fun than it should have been, and the three final competitors made a good showing for themselves!

Rod Street defeated the Maltese Tiger after spraying him in the eyes with mace, while the ref was distracted by Lt. Eva Lonis.   Rod Street matches are always fun, but you know how they go…

Jeremy Hadley challenged Austin Fury for Fury’s ACW World Championship.  This match contained some serious old school build-up, as Hadley worked on Fury’s leg and knee very consistently through the match.  Fury battled through it, though, and ended up retaining his title.  Great match!  However, after the match, Drex O’Dell snuck out to ringside and battered the champ, threatening to do even more damage unless granted his title match.  GM Michael Allen had no choice but to acquiesce.  And so Drex O’Dell will take on Austin Fury for the title at the next ACW event, which is Friday May 5, 2017, at Lake Village Elementary School in Lake Village, 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 8-9:30pm, 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@gmail.com Google calendar, where I try to keep up to date calendar postings of shows in and around the NWI region.  Because WRESTLING! 

Pro Wrestling King had a celebration of their 10th anniversary at the Bourbon Park Pavilion in Bourbon, IN on Saturday April 15, 2017 at 7:30pm.

I have to say that this was the most comfortable I’ve ever been at a wrestling show recently.  The weather was perfect, and the pavilion is set to be nearly wide open, with large doors open on all sides.  (For those in Valpo, imagine what the Butterfield Pavilion would be like if it was open to the evening breeze on 3 sides.)  And, the plastic folding chairs were slightly more comfortable than the metal folding chairs present at a lot of other shows.  I also love that wrestling gets me out to nice little towns like Bourbon, which I might never otherwise visit.  I hope the chamber of commerce knows this!

Anyway, this was a long night (a little too long, but what the heck, it was a birthday party) with 10 matches.  The first match featured two well known stars, in Nick Cutler vs. Flawless Dave Allen.  Of course I was pulling for Dave Allen because he has been a guest on NWIWRAP, but Nick Cutler got the win by pulling on the tights.

The next match pitted Idol Heinze vs. Jorge Bravo vs. Shady Chris Xion in the battle of inappropriate wrestling footwear.  Idol Heinze confirmed his shoes were the best non-boots by choking out Jorge Bravo.  (OK, Shady’s might have been OK since they looked boot-sih but were hard to see under his long pants.  But if his footwear was really the best, he should have won, right?)

In a tag team match, Kip Michaels and Cletus Farmer took on newcomers DW Kelley and Jason Storm.  (I think he was announced as Storm, I didn’t hear it clearly.) I had never experienced Kip Michaels before this show, and now I’m sad I have not seen him more.  He was a riot. The match ended when Kip and Cletus each pinned one of the others simultaneously.

Theo Storm, probably mad that yet another Storm showed up in PWK, came out and made an open challenge for his PWK On-Line Championship.  (I hope I didn’t use too much cellular data viewing this match.)  Accepting the challenge was … Adam Bueller! After a nice match involving action in and out of the ring, and shenanigans involving chairs, Adam Bueller came out on top.

Next up, Jayden Quick, Kenny Kage, Cam, and Sadon had a 4-way elimination match to determine who was the #1 contender for the On-Line Championship just won by Bueller. Kenny Kage spent a good part of the early match beating up Jayden Quick outside the ring, with the help of his mean cane-wielding manager. Cam was accompanied to the ring by Spirit of Detroit, who also entertained outside the ring via live streaming on Cassidy’s phone.  Cam and Saleh remembered this was a wrestling match and stayed in the ring for a while.  Saleh and Cam eventually were eliminated, leaving Kage and Quick, and Quick got the final pinfall.  Chants of “Bueller’s gonna kill you!” followed him to the back.

After intermission, Shawna Reed faced Hayley Shadows and Heather Owens.  For a while, this seemed like a 2-on-1 match as Shadows and Owens worked together to take out Reed.  But, eventually, Shadows and Owens started bickering with each other and Shawna Reed got the win.

With Brutus Dylan injured, Tank picked up partner Lightning Bolt Johnson and they challenged Spirit of Detroit for SOD’s PWK Tag Team Titles.  Late in the match, LBJ had Jon’tae Kieth tied up in a corner, while at the same time Cassidy Kieth had grabbed a chair to try to whallop Tank in the opposite corner.  Tank moved, and Cassidy’s attempted chair shot bounced off the corner turnbuckle and back into his own head.  As he spun around, dazed, Jon’tae was coming out the corner with a superkick intended for LBJ or Tank, but it missed and hit Cassidy.  Even the imposing Cassidy Kieth can’t stand up after both an inadvertent chair and a kick; down he went.  Your new PWK Tag Team champs are Tank and LBJ, known as Electric Warfare. The Spirit of Detroit immediately call for their rematch, which is set for this coming weekend (same time, same place) in a Detroit Street Fight … which probably means the winners are determined by the first team to drop their opponents into a pothole.

Hardcore Harry comes out for his match with Dick the Bruiser Jr, to the tune of Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey.  That’s an odd song to come out to for a heel, I’m just saying.  I prefer to keep believing Harry will keep his shirt on, but no such luck!  During the match, Samson White comes out to ringside to get involved on behalf of Harry, and Fireball comes out to even the odds.  In grand WWE fashion, as we return from commercial, this has turned into a tag team match, which Dick the Bruiser Jr and Fireball win.  A funny & adorable scene played out during the chaotic part of the match, as Bruiser Jr was outside the ring.  He picked up an empty chair to try to take into the ring, and was immediately followed by a young kid yelling, “Hey, that’s my dad’s chair!!”

In the final match, Steven Drochner successfully defended his PWK Kingdom Championship against Ames in a Street Fight.

The next PWK event is already this weekend; PWK Camelot is Saturday April 22 at 7:00pm Eastern at this very same Bourbon Park Pavilion in Bourbon Park, 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 8-9:30pm, 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@gmail.com Google calendar, where I try to keep up to date calendar postings of shows in and around the NWI region.  Because WRESTLING! 

This past weekend was an epic weekend for Northern Indiana wrestling fans, as there were 3 events in 3 days across the top of the state.  They were not organized east to west, but oh well.  On Friday night, there was RCW (Revolution Championship Wrestling) Seven, at the O’Brien Recreation Center in South Bend.  On Saturday night, there was Smashfest, at Inman’s Bowling and Recreation Center in Valparaiso.  And on Sunday night was Heroes of Might and Magic – wait, that’s for gaming nerds –  Heroes and Legends VIII at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Ft. Wayne.  I did not go to the third event, but did see the first two, and here’s what happened at them.

RCW Seven

RCW Seven was aptly titled, for being on April 7th and a celebration of the company’s seventh anniversary.  They messed up the theme by moving the start time from 7pm to 8pm, but I’m sure there were good reasons.  Also, tickets weren’t seven dollars, which was disappointing, but on the other hand hot dogs were also not seven dollars, so fair is fair.

(Note I’m writing these notes a couple of days after the fact, and I’m 50, so if you trust my memory, you’re ridiculous.)

To open the show, Dru Skillz came out before his match with Sugar Dunkerton and tried to get serious, telling a sad story about meeting a kid outside a gas station nearby, and the kid having been abandoned by his dad.  Further, his dad beat him regularly.  When Dru asked him if there was someone he wanted to be taken to, the kid answered Sugar Dunkerton – because Sugar Dunkerton couldn’t beat anyone!  Oh, swerve!  And it was on.  Sugar came out and entertained the crowd, and went on to get the better of Dru Skillz with a bit of trickery – playing possum and then getting the roll up.

Next Jorge Bravo and Johnny Cyanide came out to begin a 2-on-1 handicap match against … Kongo Kong!  Kong was accompanied by his manager Jason Saint. (Check out Kong’s debut on Impact Wrestling this week, 4/13/17!) I don’t know what they were thinking.  Jorge Bravo got out of there relatively unscathed, but poor Johnny Cyanide … may he rest in peace.  Kong was not pleased that Cyanide kicked out of his big  splash, and tore into him in and out of the ring.  RIP Johnny Cyanide, who hasn’t been seen since.

Guns and Aggression (Luke Lawson and Mance Warner) took the #1 Contender spot for the RCW tag team titles with a win over The Newer School (Theo Storm and Noah Walker) and the team of The Maltese Tiger and the American Eagle.

Ruff Crossing defeated Caleb Stills.  This match was really fun.  I will say this, though: Ruff Crossing needs more Blue Oyster Cult.  (I hope some people get that, it’s really damn funny!) I think he may be my new favorite wrestler, because anyone who wrestles as a cowboy but then comes to the merch tables afterwards wearing an Obituary shirt is awesome.

Kevin Storm came out to no opponent since Matt Striker was unable to make the event.  Or the one the next night.  Or the next.  However, Noah Walker came out to offer his services.  GM Jon Blackwell said this impromptu match would be for Storm’s US Title, and Theo Storm was barred from ringside.  Of course, this means that Kevin Storm eventually won the match by DQ when Theo Storm came to ringside and interfered.  Being rightly pissed that his instructions were ignored, Blackwell said that on May 20, Kevin Storm and Walker would meet again, and Theo would be handcuffed to a ring post.

After intermission, The Police Department (Rod Street, Deputy Dave, and Eva Lonis) took on the team of Lightning Bolt Johnson, JC Bunyan, and Tank.  And the stipulation was that if either of LBJ or LC Bunyan pinned on of them, that duo would get the RCW Tag Team titles.   You knew it was serious because Eva Lonis took off her sunglasses.  Eventually, TPD got up to their shenanigans and maced JC Bunyan in the eyes when the ref was distracted, and he was pinned.  Tank tried to help JC by pouring some water on his eyes, but I’m pretty sure that’s not recommended first aid procedure for that kind of injury.  Tank then promised retribution on the Police Department at a later date, when his partner Brutus Dylan was also ready for action again.

Next up, Adam Bueller (w/ Jason Saint) took on The Iron Demon Shane Mercer for the Strong Style Championship in a no DQ match; this one went into the bleachers, onto a merch table, used a garbage can, and eventually came to the ring.  It ended badly for Bueller when Mercer took advantage of the bag of thumbtacks (!!) supplied by Jason Saint, and originally intended for Bueller to use on Mercer.  Mercer carried Bueller to the corner and up the ropes, and Mercer used his amazing finisher to land Bueller on the tacks (I still don’t know what that finisher is called, but it’s like a fall-away slam from the second rope in which Mercer flips around 270 degrees and lands belly down on his victim).  Afterwards, Jason Saint got dumped on the tacks, too, for good measure.

Did I mention that somewhere in South Bend there’s a hotel owner sitting in his office wondering why he’s getting no business, when Friday is usually such a good night? It’s because the little silver ding-a-ling bell next to the “Ring Bell for Service” sign was stolen for use at RCW Seven as a ring bell!  Even the injured Brutus Dylan couldn’t get any authoritative ring bell sounds out of that sucker no matter how hard he pounded on it.

Anyway, the next match was a triple threat for the brand new Revolution Strong Women’s Title!  Here it was Maria James (with Jason Saint, who managed to hobble out to the ring after the last match), Kelly Klein, and Madi Maxx in the mix.  Maxx was the bubbly crowd favorite, but Maria James ended up with the win, and she is our first ever Revolution Strong Women’s Champ!  (In the process Jason Saint got beat on / slapped a bit more … poor guy.)    Remember this if you’re still reading below about Smashfest.

The finale of the night was Nick Cutler against Colt Cabana.  Confession time, I’ve heard Cabana’s name many times, but I’ve never seen wrestle before.  And now I’m sad that I’d been missing out all this time.  Cabana and Cutler were absolutely hilarious and put on a great crowd pleasing show.  We learned way too much about Cutler’s chest hair in the process.  Cabana got the win, and this match alone was worth my one hour drive and $10.

Smashfest

On Saturday, we had Smashfest, at Inman’s Bowling and Recreation Center in Valparaiso.  I’m not much of an autograph & picture guy and did not take part in the meet & greet stuff, but here’s what happened in the matches.  I’ll keep some descriptions shorter, since there were so many!

A good part of the crowd was already in the seating area at 4pm, so by 5pm or so, they were getting restless.  Fortunately Ryan Anderson began the proceedings with two pre-show matches.  Sugar Dunkerton defeated Jorge Bravo, and Tank defeated Officer Rod Street.

By 6pm, the place was packed and the poor Inman’s folks had to go get extra chairs from their grandmother’s houses, the local church, and wherever else they could scrounge them up.  The main show started with Legion (Malice and Nitro) taking on Abyss and Rosemary – Decay.  Rosemary wasted no time spraying mist into Nitro’s eyes, taking him out of the action.  He eventually recovered; Malice had retrieved a table from under the ring, and eventually, Abyss put him through that table, leading to a win for Decay.  (Best of luck to Nitro as he gets his ankle worked on!)

Next was a Battle Royal, the winner of which receives a shot at any SPW title they want.  This was where some of the guests came out for their ringtime – Hornswoggle was in it, Zach Gowan, Rob Conway, and … Kikutaro, the guy with the mask that freaks me the F out every time I see it, I mean really, this is like Stephen King’s IT levels of freaky, and it doesn’t even look scary.  Why am I so bothered by it?  Fresh off his victory the night before, Shane Mercer won this thing.  He had to take out Stephan Bonnar to do it, which was no small feat.  Anthony Toatele held on to his SPW US Title over Craig Mitchell.  Kevin Storm and Noah Walker (who are cool with each other in the SPW universe, but not the RCW universe) lost to JC Bunyan and Cody Deaner.  I’m glad JC Bunyan recovered from the mace attack the night before.  Rick Baker, Ryan Howe, and Brent Myers had a three-way match, and Ryan Howe got Rick Baker to tap out.

At this point, there was an impromptu match between the SPW staff and the web cam shooting the action for iPPV on the Fite network.  The camera was stationed on a small speaker platform high on a wall overlooking the ring, and it fell off.  After a few SPW staff tagged in and out, they eventually got the web cam to submit and stay where it was damn well supposed to, but I’m pretty sure they cheated and used a foreign object: duct tape.

Adam Rose came out with local Rosebuds and without his hair, and defeated Mr. 3% Jon Hudson, who I believe is now officially a lemon.  Then, having just had an intermission because of the web cam, we got another (planned) one.  During intermission, I interviewed 5 kids in the crowd about their favorite wrestlers, you can hear them at about the 22 minute mark of this week’s episode of NWIWRAP.

After intermission, Mordecai prayed for the power from above to defeat Lightning Bolt Johnson.  And what do you know, prayer works!  Because Mordecai got the win.  I was disappointed in LBJ because Mordecai ran down Valparaiso pretty bad, and LBJ didn’t stand up for us enough.  Well, gosh, the next time someone talks smack about Warsaw, I’m going to let them!

In a battle to determine the first SPW Hardcore Champion, it was Fireball, BD Smooth, Cletus Farmer, Elijah Mcfly, and Shannon Moore (did I forget anyone?) in a hardcore match.  They really couldn’t do much truly hardcore because of space constraints, so the extent of the hardcoreness was use of a garbage can, a traffic cone, and some aluminum cookie sheets (that make a nice noise against a skull, it turns out) in and very close to the ring.  BD Smooth got body slammed onto the garbage can courtesy of Shannon Moore, which was pretty cool.  I’m not sure who will get the bill from Inman’s.  Your new SPW Hardcore Champion is Fireball!  I can’t believe no one used a bowling pin or bowling ball in this match.  Now that I think about it, why has there never been a professional bowler gimmick?  Someone could be “Mr. 300” and come out with those bowling wrist braces that conceal hidden weapons.  Why do I have to think of all this stuff, come on, people!

In what could have been the match of the night, Ames and Cody Jones lost to Marshe Rockett and Acid Jazz.   Da Soul Touchaz showed off some great moves, Ames was fun as usual, and Cody Jones was really intense.  The end of the match was really clever, Acid Jaz spit powder (hot chocolate?) into Cody Jones face; being blind, Jones clobbered and attempted to pin his own partner Ames.  Rockett and Jaz indicated the audience should play along, they counted 3 themselves and had the audience cheer for Jones as if he had actually won.  Still blinded, he stood up to celebrate and was greeted by a clobbering from Da Soul Touchaz who pinned him for real and retained the SPW Smashmouth Titles.  Fun stuff!

Now I said this could have been the match of the night, and the reason it was not was because to achieve perfection, Rockett and Jaz should have had a guest manager!  SPW had sold off guest manager spots, and lots of other wrestlers and teams, both before and after this match, were accompanied to the ring by their guest managers.  Maybe their guest manager pulled a no show.  Or maybe their idiot guest manager was sitting off to the side at his little “radio station station” recording stuff from the show, and missed whatever clue bus he was supposed to get on in order to be ready at the right time.  Can you guess who the guest manager was supposed to be?  I heard Ryan Anderson paging the guest managers for matches before intermission, and other matches after intermission had managers who apparently actually paid attention to whatever I didn’t.  Oh, well, screw it, I guess I didn’t need that fifty bucks anyway.   I’m just worried that Marshe Rockett and Acid Jaz went home thinking their guest manager didn’t care enough to show up.  I’m sure they were really worried about it.  And also, those WWE scouts in the audience missed out on that next big thing.  Sorry guys!  😦

Anyhoooo, Maria James next went 2-for-2 in capturing brand new regional women’s titles by winning a 4-way elimination match for the first SPW Women’s Championship.  She outlasted Paloma Starr, Shawna Reed, and Laura Van Ness (wrestling under a different name , I think, I didn’t catch it, I was still pouting about the whole guest manager business).  Maria James is now both the Revolution Strong and SPW Women’s Champion.  Jason Saint is manager of the year so far!

And finally, Dru Skillz outlasted GPA, Will Huckaby, Troy Miller, Sugar Dunkerton, and Bushwhacker Luke in a 6-way elimination match for his SPW Heavyweight Title.

And that did it!  I did not go to Heroes and Legends in Ft. Wayne on Sunday like a lot of the more dedicated die hards, I had a WVLP fundraiser to attend in Valpo.  And plus, 3 days in a row of being away for wrestling may have resulted in locks being changed on our house doors.  My three big take-aways from the weekend were: Sugar Dunkerton is amazingly fun.  Shane Mercer is amazingly powerful and intense.  (I can watch either of those guys for hours.)  And hats off to Maria James for taking both of the brand new women’s titles that were up for grabs.

To wrap up, I will channel the spirit of Mordecai to address something that I’ve noticed as a widespread issue at many of the events held by regional wrestling companies: Oh Heavenly Father, as you look down on these Indiana wrestling promotions struggling to make it in a crowded and competitive business, please grant them the resources to not only have proper ring bells in place, but also select proper angelic warriors who can wield a mighty hammered weapon to strike those ring bells with Heavenly Fire at thoust appointed times!  Lo, let us not anymore hear light little ding dings as those which announce the arrival of dinner in the monkey house at the zoo,  nor have distracted bell attendants so caught up in their own prayers to your Holiness that they don’t even notice the referee calling for a bell to start a match.  Yea, oh Lord, let us hear the loud and thunderous peals of the bell, as to rival the trumpets surrounding the walls of Jericho.  In short, O Lord, cause them to smite the hell out of thy bell such that all are aware of its greatness.  Amen.