WXW in Minneola, September 26th, 2009

[Blair Russell]

As always, this blog contains my opinion and does not necessarily represent the opinion of anyone else.

A rather out of the ordinary review, but that’s for a very valid reason.

This won’t be the usual review from me. The reason why is very significant. To do some copying and pasting from
my MySpace blogs

The main thing is something that came out of the blue. In the past I know I’ve talked about my grandfather, who is in his late 80’s now. For the past few years he has had dementia that turned into Alzheimer’s and he’s been taken care of in a nursing home. That is sad enough but Thursday afternoon there was a call saying that he was being taken to the hospital, but it was a “non-emergency” thing. It was just low blood pressure. Well, he gets there and it’s more serious than that. I won’t talk about the details but it’s something I’m upset about, needless to say. But, I’ll try to hold it together and if (I’ll never say “when”) something unfortunate happens I’ll make sure to tell you guys about it.

Yes, what I just wrote about on Friday has to be brought up now, as Saturday afternoon the awful news that I didn’t want to come true did come true. My grandfather, Bill Pioch, passed away. Needless to say I’m still upset by this news. He led quite the life. He was born in Germany in the early 20’s and he served in the German Army during World War II; he was captured during battle and he spent some time as a POW. After he was released, he spent a few more years in Germany before immigrating to Chicago in the early 50’s, where he then did various things and he was a fan of the Chicago sports teams. I’ll miss him forever but as he had Alzheimer’s the past few years so I guess he’s in a better place now.

Yes, I got that news a few hours before this show. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go to it or not but I ultimately decided to do so, as I needed something to cheer me up. I am very glad I made that decision to attend WXW (www.wxwwrestling.com)

I got there and the place was already jam-packed with people. It had to be the largest amount of people I’ve ever seen there, meaning clearly over 300 and maybe 400 or over. As it was their 1st anniversary show (of being in Central Florida) it’s a big deal… so much so that Afa himself wore a suit and he started off the show by thanking everyone for coming out to this event. Now, I wish that the crowd would shut up and not make noise so that they’d serve proper respect to him, but kids these days… no respect. Anyway, he brought out a surprise guest and no way in heck could I have predicted it beforehand. It was none other than THE ROCK there. Yes, Dwayne Johnson. The crowd went monkeyshit crazy. He was low-key rather than his Rock persona and he plugged the job that Afa and family have done for the community and all that. It was certainly a very memorable and a great moment seeing him there.

This review will be pretty truncated compared to the usual for me but I’m sure you can understand why given the circumstances of the past few days. People will probably be surprised that I’m doing any sort of review given the circumstances.

We had an interview segment with WXW Commissioner Ricky Santana and he brought out Sanora Snuka, the daughter of the great Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka. She said some things but then out came the guy formerly known as KAVA. Now he is… well, I believe he said “G.Q. Batts” (related to Mikey?)… it’s G.Q. something or another. He berated the crowd and now he’s a heel. His former partner Sulu Afi came out to confront him and they exchanged words.

By the way, the ring announcer for this was the guy who I’ve ID’ed before as someone who looks like they’re in the Nation of Islam.

1. Wolf-Puerto Rican Hound Dogg (w/ Simon Sez) defeated Frankie Capone-Ronnie Red. Frankie and Ronnie were the good guys and yet Wolf and the Dogg were the ones that the majority of the fans cheered for! I don’t know why Wolf is over as a face when he’s supposed to be a heel, but I guess if he’s over at all… I shouldn’t really complain.

2. TNT Motley defeated Simon Sez. “TNT Motley” is quite the name. He must be new. I mean, he started wrestling in WXW within the past two months. Simon was his usual cocky self and he squashed TNT for a few minutes, but kept on picking him up at 2. As almost always in wrestling, that’s a mistake, and when Simon did a cocky pin attempt, Motley rolled him up for the win. The crowd laughed at this. They didn’t laugh, though, when Simon was a sore loser and attacked Motley. He strolled out but then Ricky Santana threw him back in and TNT got some big moves on him. I guess Santana isn’t a fan of sore losers.

3. Malia Hosaka defeated Leva. This was a pretty good contest. As she’s a classic heel, she got the crowd riled up and they hated her. Leva-dressed this time like Freddy Krueger* and it was a nice back and forth contest but the ending came when Leva tried a move from the top rope but Hosaka moved and she landed on her tailbone. Ouchie! Seconds after that the old veteran Hosaka got the win.

• Speaking of that, the trailer to the new remake of Elm Street was just released online very late last night. You can find it with just a few seconds of Googling if you so desire. It looks to be a straight up remake of the first movie from ’84, which is odd as I heard it was going to go in a different direction instead, and Freddy just looks like crap compared to the one we all know and love. His face looks like an ape mask and he sounds… strange, as if he’s Col. Sanders! Given that it’s from Platinum Dunes, a company that has fouled up many of the other remakes they’ve done, and yeah I don’t have high hopes for it.

4. Sarona Snuka defeated Lace. Lace is the young lady who used to ref for the fed but now wrestles, but not for too long herself. Given the overall inexperience it was a good match. I mean, not too much to complain given the few matches they’ve had combined. Former ring announcer Kevin Grogan was the ref for this match only and he did fine enough. The other refs at this show were Scotty (i.e. Shaggy) and my good old buddy Josh Rich.

5. The British Lions defeated Afroboy-Sulu Afi. This was quite good. The crowd hated the mean foreigners and loved the smiling good guys. It went a good amount of time and it was fun. Afterwards, a schmozz happened which involved the (once again faces) Hatchet City All-Stars and some cowboy tag team that was two grizzled old veteran looking dudes but I have zero idea who they are. I guess there will be an 8 man involving these guys.

6. Brett Thunder defeated Jerrelle Clark, Mike Cruz, and Gus Money to win the WXW Cruiserweight Title. This was a very good contest and as I’ve seen before in this fed, their multiman matches where everyone goes at it at once was a blast and it was all-action. The crowd was into it and you had some big moves including some nutty high-flying from the likes of Clark and Cruz. I wish I could remember more but anyway, I gave bonus points to the ending, which to me at least was very original. There was a pin involving all 4 guys and in a contrived but awesome way, EVERY guy could’ve earned the win, legitimately. But, for whatever reason, referee Josh Rich decided that Thunder won the match and the title. I’d love to hear an explanation as to why he made that ruling; in any event I’m interested in seeing what happens next with this angle.

Intermission. It was like 25 minutes but much of it was taken up by something unique. Some students from the Trio Martial Arts Academy (triomartialarts.com) did a routine in the ring set to music. While it was lengthy it was still interesting and not something I have really seen before, to be honest. It was a group of several kids that look to be young teenagers, and then one girl who was still in elementary school. All of them did well with that routine, even the little girl, who was pretty awesome. The crowd and I enjoyed their routine.

Speaking of enjoyable, there was a big “corn-fed boy”, so to speak, who was there with his mom. I didn’t hear too much from them, unfortunately, but during one match, when the heel took over after a move, she yelled out, “Oh shit!”, and that made me laugh. What wasn’t enjoyable, though, was that there was a guy close by me who was there with a MEGAPHONE! No, really. And I had to hear that for much of the show. As I’ve said before, I sometimes think the world is playing a giant rib on me so I guess I can’t get too mad about it. I can’t explain Agent J’s behavior in any way, though, and yeah he was there and he even tried to talk to me but I blew off that idiot as always. It’s no surprise that at one point HE was using the megaphone, but the grace of God above allowed it to where he only used it for like one match. I at least can laugh at he and his buddies arriving there only *after* The Rock made his surprise cameo appearance, so hardy har har!

7. Da Biff defeated King Haku to win the WXW Hardcore Title. The only real thing I remember from this good match was that Haku used some very hard chops to Biff’s chest, and after Biff won he stated that he vanquished the old legend and now he’s a new legend.

8. Hatchet City All-Stars defeated Soulman Alex G-Pablo Marquez to retain the WXW Tag Team Titles. This was a good bout although some things did not look picture-perfect, I’ll put it that way. The challengers are from South Florida, so I was surprised to see him there. I know that G has trained various local guys but I haven’t seen him wrestle too much, if at all.

9. CJ O’Doyle defeated Richard J. Criado to win the WXW Internet TV Title. This was a pretty good contest and as always, the crowd loved to chant “Perfect Loser” at the guy who calls himself “The Perfect Creation”. This was a cleanly wrestled back and forth contest and CJ won cleanly, so that was different and the audience was happy to see him win.

10. Dylan Night (w/ Candi) defeated Sugaa to win the WXW Heavyweight Title. This was a pretty good contest and the main thing I remember is that there was a ref bump and at one point Candi got on the apron and she stuck ref Scotty’s head into her exposed cleavage! I’m sure Josh and Kevin were disappointed that they weren’t the ref of this contest. Candi interfered (what a pumpkin eater) and that allowed Night to get the win. Afterward, Sugaa got Candi alone in the ring and to cut to the chase, in exchange for letting her go, Sugaa got a rematch and Santana ordered the match to happen. So, Sugaa decides to tombstone piledriver (!) Candi anyway. What a valiant gallant babyface. Not to be snide here, but the crowd didn’t really pop for it… then again many of them left before this angle even happened. I don’t know if they were tired by this point and were waiting to leave or if they were pissed that Sugaa lost in that way, but alas.

Overall, this 3 hour show was a lot of fun and while I sometimes am puzzled by WXW storylines from show to show, it’s still a fun fed to attend and this show was a big success even without the major surprise at the beginning. I needed to have something to cheer me up on what was a heartbreaking day and I did feel better, so I am happy that WXW put on a nice show and I’ll thank them for that. I’ll also thank everyone who has given me well wishes concerning the passing.

Things are up in the air for me due to what happened this past weekend but as of now I still plan on being at FIP in Crystal River this upcoming Saturday.