IWA-MS March Massacre 2007

This review is another from the archive: I’ve not had a lot of time to review new stuff recently, but I hope I can have something properly new done within the next few days.

Your commentators for this event are Ben Jordan and the other spots rotates between Sal and Vito Thomaselli, Mike Quackenbush, Nate Webb (why wasn’t he wrestling?), Tasty Travis (a referee) and Brandon Thomaselli

Jack Thriller cuts a promo before the first match running down the people of Indiana and his opponents

Match 1
Jack Thriller vs Zach McGuire vs Chris Hybrid
I have seen Thriller wrestle before, but I’ve never seen the other two. Zach McGuire is deaf apparently, so I wonder how much this hinders him in the ring. This match was decent,. but sloppy in places and the crowd was completely dead. These three just aren’t quite there yet, they lack experience but they’ll get better with time. The best move of the match would have to be Thriller hitting a Banshee Clothesline on McGuire who was holding Hybrid who got German Suplexed. Thriller makes Hybrid tap to the Figure 4 Leg Lock to win the match- *3/4

Match 2
8 Man Lucha Tag Team Match – CJ Otis, Hillbilly Jed, Indiana Kidd Jr and Jeff Brooks vs ‘Diehard’ Dustin Lee, Vortekz, OMG and Jimmy Shalwin
I’ve seen some of these guys before and some I haven’t, so it may be hard for me to keep track of who’s who. I thought this was a lot of fun, it topped my expectations which weren’t that high to begin with. The match did have some problems, as there were some botched spots and sloppiness at times, but the match also had some good high flying wrestling, and power as well from Otis and Hillbilly Jed, although it had little mat wrestling and was basically a spotfest. CJ Otis would win the match for his team with the Burning Hammer. Very decent lucha tag match- **1/2

Match 3
IWA Light Heavyweight Title Match- ‘The Trendsetter’ Josh Abercrombie (c) vs ‘The Impact Bully’ Brandon Thomaselli
These two have wrestled a lot in the past as well as teaming together, so I expect that this should be good. This actually ended up being heel vs heel, but the dynamic seemed to work, and Josh adapted to playing the face in peril role. And the match was very good, with great matwork and some high flying in there as well, and the two seemed quite evenly matched. Josh slightly slipped on the pinfall to win the match, as he bridged while Brandon was on the ground to get three- ***

After the match, Brandon Thomaselli shakes hands with Josh Abercrombie, but turns on him and leaves. Nate Webb (Josh’s partner in the Trailer Park Boys team) comes to help him.

Chuck Taylor cuts a pre-match promo (for some reason Chuck’s voice reminds me of The Rock’s), throwing insults around about the crowd, then issuing an open challenge to two wrestlers to challenge him for his belt. Ricochet is first to answer the challenge, then Billy Roc comes out to be the second wrestler in this match.

Then before the match starts Chuck Taylor cuts another promo saying he hates Ricochet more than the fat kids in the crowd and says Billy Roc has been ducking him for a year, so he will beat both of them.

Match 4
IWA Heavyweight Title Match- Chuck Taylor (c) vs Billy Roc vs Ricochet
Another good match, I enjoyed this one and it topped my expectations. Taylor has improved a lot in the ring and he wrestled a slower, technical style with lots of cheating compared to Roc who used a mix of high flying and technical wrestling, while Ricochet was going for all out high flying with some innovate offense, and generally there was a lot of innovative moves here. Ricochet botched a few things near the end that hurt the ending, but Taylor got the win with the Omega Driver to retain the title- ***1/4

Chuck Taylor cuts a third promo after the match, saying he did what he said he was going to do, and then challenges Low-Ki to a Street Fight. Taylor’s heel promo’s are excellent.

Jim Fannin cuts a promo towards Jimmy Jacobs, saying he’s had increased the bounty on his head for putting the IWA Title in the trash, then says The Barbarian will be coming to the IWA to take him out.

Match 5
The Iron Saints (Sal and Vito Thomaselli) vs The Basham Brothers (Doug and Danny Basham)
This is my first time seeing The Basham Brothers wrestle outside of the WWE, so I have no real idea what to expect, but I heard great things about Doug in OVW so I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do. A good match, nothing overly special but still good. The Bashams are good wrestlers, although to me they still wrestle pretty much the same way they did on TV, and I didn’t see enough of Doug to see how good he is. The Thomaselli’s were practically dwarfed by the two of them though. So a good, mat based Sports Entertainment style of match. Vito pinned Doug with the Californication after Doug was pulled down from the top rope- **3/4

After the match Danny beats up the Thomaselli’s for cheating him out of a win.

Match 6
Barbed Wire Bat Match – Ian Rotten vs Freakshow
This simply isn’t my thing, so I don’t plan to review it since I can’t give a good account of this style of match- no rating

Match 7
‘Lightning’ Mike Quackenbush vs ‘Double C’ Claudio Castagnoli
The reason I bought this DVD, as these two have had classic matches around the independent scene and I expect no different here. This was yet another great match between these two men, as while they did wrestle this slightly slower than their earlier match, they had more time so were able to build more, and as a result I was able to enjoy this just as much, if not more than their previous encounter. They did some insane stuff as you would expect, too much to mention, but if you liked their first encounter then you’ll love this one. Claudio got the win here once again with a backslide with a bridge Match of the night- ****

Match 8
Four Corners Of Pain Match- Drake Younger vs Insane Lane
Again, this sort of match just isn’t my thing, and I don’t plan to review it, so please buy the DVD and watch for yourself- no rating

Overall this show is solid, and the match that you should buy this DVD for is the Mike Quackenbush-Claudio Castagnoli match, as they had yet another great match. Besides that, there’s not a lot else that stands out as must see, but there are two good matches in Abercrombie-Thomaselli and Roc-Taylor-Ricochet. Mild thumbs up for this event.

IWA Mid South A Phenomenal Invasion II

No new review today, because my day has been pretty bad and I’m simply not in the mood (let’s just say I made a big mistake by even the most idiotic of standards). So here’s another from the archive.

Your commentators are Ben Jordan and Jimmy Jacobs (recovering from his knee injury).

Match 1
Joker w/Eddie Kingston vs Gran Akuma
A meeting of two hard hitters in this one, and a first time meeting. A really enjoyable opener here, with some strong mat wrestling and fast paced action, as well as the hard hitting kick and chop exchanges that you would expect these two to have. I am impressed by Joker, and he is someone I want to see more of, and Akuma impresses me more and more every time I see him (he really need to be in ROH full time). Joker got a rollup out of nowhere when he had Akuma in an Armbar to get the three count. Great match, topping my expectations- ***1/4

After the match, the two wrestlers shake hands.

Before the next match, Joey Eastman decides to do the introductions for his team (he used to be the IWA Mid South ring announcer, but turned into a heel manager recently)

Match 2
Pretty Unreal (Michael Elgin and Ash) w/Joey Eastman vs Naptown Dragons (OMG and ‘Diehard’ Dustin Lee)
I’ve only heard good things about Ash and Elgin, so I’m looking forward to seeing what they can do. I thought this was a decent tag match, with some good wrestling, but you can tell these guys are inexperienced and they messed up a few moves. Ash and Elgin have some way to go but I see potential in them and they will do well on the indy scene in the next year or two. After a good final few minutes, Elgin and Ash won when Elgin pinned OMG after a Razors Edge-Neckbreaker combo double team move- **1/4

Z-Barr cuts a promo saying he’s tired of people not cheering for him (I wonder why people don’t cheer for him? Maybe because he’s an awful wrestler). He then tells Jimmy Shalwin that he won’t cheat tonight, but subsequently cheats.

Match 3
‘The Hype’ Jimmy Shalwin vs ‘The Most Hated Man In IWA History’ Z-Barr
If I remember correctly, the whole point of Z-Barr being on the roster is because he makes people go to the concession stand to buy stuff. That tell you how good this match was: not very good at all. Press the skip button on your DVD, there’s nothing to see here. One interesting note though: Jimmy Shalwin was apparently the person who told Jimmy Jacobs to wear the furry boots for his Huss gimmick. Jimmy Shalwin pinned Z-Barr with the Moonsault- 1/4*

Again, Joey Eastman does the ring announcing for his wrestler CJ Otis.

Match 4
7 Man Lightweight Rumble- CJ Otis w/Joey Eastman vs Jack Thriller vs Ricochet vs Zach McGuire vs Human Tornado vs Josh Abercrombie vs Billy Roc
This sort of match is always a lot of fun, and this was no different as this proved to be a great high flying bout. The entrants didn’t seem to know when to come out since the ring announcer wasn’t very thorough in his explanation, plus the match suffered from the usual indy spotfest syndrome of everyone getting eliminated within a minute of each other to take the match down to the final participants. Tornado was hugely over with the crowd, the most of anyone in the match. Once Abercrombie came in the match turned insane and got really good, although as I said earlier this was an indy spotfest plain and simple, although a damn good one. The eliminations were as follows-
Jack Thriller by Human Tornado
Zach McGuire by CJ Otis
Ricochet by Billy Roc
Billy Roc by CJ Otis (with an awesome Burning Hammer-Double Stomp combo alongside Human Tornado)
CJ Otis by Josh Abercrombie
Josh Abercrombie and Human Tornado were the final two, and had some great wrestling exchanges, before Josh Abercrombie won a title shot with the Taliban Backpack. That may have been a spotfest, but I loved it and it was done very well- ***1/2 (I know I shouldn’t rate it that high, but I loved it that much)

Before the next match, AJ Styles takes his turn to cut a promo, saying that he doesn’t care who Tiger Mask is and doesn’t care about the fans cheering or clapping him.

Match 5
AJ Styles vs Tiger Mask IV
I wonder why this was so low on the card, as I would have had this as the main event. A good match, but not an excellent, standout match that you would expect these two to have. It just seemed a bit too slow, and AJ seemed to calling in his performance rather than giving his 100% best. Not to mention Tiger Mask was not a spectacular opponent, and was sloppy in his offense at times. But there was some good mat wrestling and high flying at points in this match that helped make this match a decent contest overall. Tiger Mask rolled up AJ to get the three count- **1/2

Match 6
Joey Mercury vs Tyler Black
I always thought Joey was underrated when wrestling the indy’s the first time around, simply because he didn’t do hundreds of flips, but the indy scene has changed and people now appreciate him a lot more after his exploits in WWE. Tyler has also evolved as a performer considerably since I saw him last in the 2006 TPI. This was a good match, and Joey can go despite having some ring rust, and for me looked a few levels above Tyler in terms of ring skill (which is a big compliment considering how good Tyler is). A quick paced match, with lots of high flying, high impact offense, but also some very good matwork, and some close nearfalls towards the end. Unfortunately my DVD messed up and I missed the finish, but – ***1/4

Match 7
‘The Impact Bully’ Brandon Thomaselli vs Jigsaw
A good lightweight bout, although nothing spectacular. Jigsaw wrestled his usual fast paced, high flying lucha style, and was very much the underdog to Thomaselli who cheated at every turn and also used a slower, more power based style. Jigsaw at one point held Thomaselli back so that a fan could chop him. It could maybe have been shortened a little, since it could have been a more effective match for me that way, but besides that I have no real complaints since there were no botches of any kind, and the match flowed well. Brandon Thomaselli retained his title with a move I believe he called the McGuillicutter (it was an Implant DDT of some kind, I am probably wrong wit the name, so e-mail me so I can correct it). Good bout that I actually enjoyed more than Styles/Tiger Mask- ***1/4

Match 8
Chuck Taylor vs Devon Moore
I’ve only seen Moore compete once before, in PWU where he had a great match with Azrieal. Another good match, which was very fast paced, as Moore wrestles a high flying, spotty style while Taylor wrestles quick but uses more heelish tactics and uses everything he can to get the advantage and get the crowd booing him, as well as putting some submission holds to use. Moore is a good wrestler but he still needs some seasoning as he made a few botches here, but was a good opponent for Chuck. Despite some near falls, Taylor was able to retain the belt over Moore when he pinned him with the Omega Driver- **3/4

Match 9
Falls Count Anywhere- Axl Rotten vs Tank
As I stated in my previous IWA review, I am not a fan of this sort of match, so I feel I cant’ give a good account of it, so you’ll need to watch this if your a deathmatch fan to see what you think- no rating

Match 10
Hotstuff Hernandez vs Eddie Kingston
Great, hard hitting main event. Kingston looks to have lost a good deal of weight, he’s almost slim now. Both of these men threw hard forearms, chops, knees and just about everything else, hitting each other very hard and holding nothing back. Both men also used a variety of submissions and power moves, with Hernandez throwing Kingston around like he was a light-heavyweight. And that was much of the story of this match: Hernandez overpowering Kingston, while Kingston tried to fight back with hard hitting strikes and some power moves of his own. Hernandez and Kingston both came close to winning this near the end, but it was Hernandez who would win this in the end with the Border Toss. Best match of the show for me.- ***1/2

This was a very solid show overall. There were no MOTY candidates or excellent, outstanding, must see matches, but the show features 2 ***1/2 and 3 ***1/4 matches, with the rest of the undercard solid barring the Z-Barr match. So this is an easy recommendation.