Friday shows are a strange brew, but not one you can find in a red Solo cup for two and a quarter. AAW held “Path of Redemption” this evening, with an uneven, unfinished card to offer, and that was my mind-set heading into the building: How would the fans, who were braving Part 17 of the Polar Vortex, respond to what they had been given? Or had not been given?
Entering the building super later – I mean, no line at the doors, everybody-in-their-seats late – the first thing I noticed was the house. It was half the size of the ones Kevin Steen helped build in November and December, but I was told to just wait. More people would file in. But if they ever did, I wouldn’t have noticed. Just from the look of it, I could tell fans weren’t flocking to the Eagles for a potential Colt Cabana/Shane Hollister title match, especially if it was going to be the main event. There’s zero chance of Colt winning, and his comedy character doesn’t exactly mesh well with Shane’s all-or-nothing intensity. In previous contests, their styles clashes so much that it was the wrestling equivalent of an old married couple talking past each other.
Talking past each other would still be more appreciated than what the fans offered the night’s performers. After the first handful of matches, the crowd hit a wall and never quite recovered. But, hey, at least they showed up for an hour or so, which is more than a lot of crowds can say at… sigh, I’m not going to cheap shot TNA. No, sir.
Anyhow, the first match of the night was also one of the finest, as Matt Cage defended his coveted Heritage Championship against Juntai Miller (nee: Mister). Miller was set to receive a shot on a show late last year, but had to call off due to a death in the family, so it was a little feel-good moment seeing him back in the ring at full speed and working a title match.
Both men came firing out of the gate, setting a tone for the rest of the match, and the few that were to follow. The big upside to Cage’s championship run thus far has been that frantic, nonstop pace, and while Miller isn’t as quick on his feet as ACH (few are), he more than held his own here. Miller got in a grab bag of offense, and he was able to showcase his finer points for the duration while Cage played from behind, essentially.
The strikes were stiff enough to keep fans on their toes, the slaps audible enough to be heard outside the building, and that seems to be Cages’s style as of late. He’s not a known striker, and I don’t think he’s known for being stiff, is he? Because a lot of his shots are bordering on concussive, and even my trained eye can’t tell whether he’s actually decking a dude across the face or he’s doing more of that wrestling magic we all thought we were too cool to still fall for. Whatever rabbits “The Money” keeps pulling out of his hat – bath robe? – they’re working.
Bath robes = heat, by the way. In more ways than the one.
This match was difficult to follow, and I wasn’t sure about AAW asking the two teams it did to give it a go. But The Irish Airborne (now calling themselves Ohio Is 4 Killers, kewl) and the debuting Los Ben Dejos actually did a fine job of keeping things fast and free-flowing. Got to be honest: I didn’t know what to think of Los Ben Dejos. Nobody in the audience did, either, except one guy who heard the word “Mexican” and stood for the rest of the match with much self-pride and beer in hand.
They weren’t much to look at – imagine Teddy Hart tagging with Tommaso Ciampa, sorta – but they were surprisingly crisp and clean in the ring. The two paired well against Dave and Jake Crist, who haven’t seen the inside of an AAW ring for several months, though you couldn’t tell from the look of it. Both Airborne hit all their usual spots, jawed with the fans, so on and so forth. Standard fare.
It was Los Ben Dejos that impressed. They received a “please come back” chant for their efforts that was loud enough and sustained for long enough that it might actually work. After last year’s tag tournament, and Men of the Year and Monster Express closing last month’s event, it is exciting to see AAW continue to bring in teams and bolster its already fledgling tag division.
Silas Young was out next to jack up two jamokes before the third, and hopefully, mercifully, final chapter in his beef with Eddie Kingston. The first two matches were nothing special, and my hopes for the third are… well, I don’t know how to type it out, but I’m making that little side-to-side motion with my hand as if to say, “Meh.” It’s possible they were saving the best for last, and everything else for last, but I’m actually enjoying the story enough to leave the matches alone. The blow off needs to work, however, or this will have been, what, a year’s worth of work for naught?
Silas took about five minutes to topple Markus Crane and Dan Lawrence. Extended squashes with purpose I can get behind, and these two were entertaining and didn’t suck up too much time. Can’t argue there.
A four corners match between Marek Brave, Ty Colton, Knight Wagner and CJ Esparza was to follow, and this, bar a few potentially massive hiccups, was fun. The contest was for a shot at the Heritage Championship on March 29 in Pontiac, IL, so the finish was pretty obvious since Colton’s a newb, CJ’s a tag guy and both Wagner and Cage are heel. Brave is baby and has unfinished business with Christian Rose, who was, ahem, banned from Berwyn (see where this is going?).
And I’d be lying if I didn’t say Brave looked the best here. I’m enjoying Wagner’s month-to-month progression, with his little tweaks to his wardrobe and character, and Esparza can fly. Woop. But Ty Colton, Johnny Wave, my man, we need to talk. There were several points in this match, as well as his previous match for AAW, where the guy just looked lost out there. There was a moment where he literally stopped in his tracks, grabbed Brave (I believe) by the head and asked him what to do. Or maybe he was just calling a spot, whatever. It looked really bad.
Brave’s return has been hit or miss for me – mostly miss – but he’s a damn good worker. He’s safe. And everybody else in that match was safe, except for Colton. It’s not the botches or the slip-ups I am concerned about; it’s his in-ring awareness. If you can’t be safe in that ring, you really shouldn’t be on a card, much less the main show. I like Colton, and I think he has potential, but safety needs to come first.
A promo between Shane Hollister and Colt Cabana followed, with Daryck “Thank You For Spelling My Name Right, Derek” St. Holmes in the middle to moderate. I normally don’t like to mention promos, but this one helped turn my mind on the title match I honestly had zero interest in previously. Both Shane and Colt were able to lay out a few points about the evening’s match, with Shug pulling the “you failed in WWE card,” while Cabana mocked Hollister’s sick skull tat. Funny and effective.
The second title match of the evening hit next, pitting Ethan Page and Michael Elgin’s Men of the Year against Louis Lyndon and Marion Fontaine’s Kung Fu Manchu. I had argued on Twitter that this match should have main evented, given Page and Elgin’s insane chemistry and audience captivation factor, but as the minutes wore on, I was proven more and more wrong.
On its surface, the match was fine. Told the right story, had the right winners, even set something up for next time. But the crowd was dead. Not “Hollister vs. Cannon in October” dead, but next level dead. I tried, upward of five times to get a chant going, to no avail. Anybody else chanting heard it die instantly. And, in a bit of an awkward moment, the wrestlers started jawing back at the fans. The babyface wrestlers. I recall one particularly cringe-worthy moment where someone told Elgin he looked bad, or something to that effect, and Elgin stared him in the eyes and asked him if he could do any better. The fan, almost immediately, backpedaled, repeating, “You’re the best. You’re the best.”
This all happened inside that 20-minute bubble that can only be described as “constant uncomfortable silence,” or CUS. This is the same silence that plagued one of the Monster Mafia’s matches at Bourbon Street last year, and is typically saved for the women’s matches. But tonight, it reared its ugly yet oddly quiet head, and it clearly affected the four involved. It affected Colton’s confidence, and the rest were worse because of it. “When Audiences Die” would be an interesting FOX Special, if only to publicize the various ways wrestlers respond to operating in an oort cloud of sadness.
Marion Fontaine has always been one of my favorites, but tonight, I don’t know. And, last month, I didn’t know. He hasn’t looked himself as of late. Tonight, he tried jumping off his partner’s back and he slipped, then he followed that with a half-hearted moonsault to the outside that barely connected, if at all. Can somebody give him a talking to, maybe ask what’s up? Because when you pair him with someone like Lyndon, and against teams like Team Ambition and Men of the Year, he gets exposed. Or he gets nervous. Whatever that little mental yip is, he needs to take care of it.
This wasn’t a Match of the Year candidate, but no fault of the performers. Even Fontaine’s slip ups were covered up and forgotten about in due time. But I saw people yawning during big spots, looking down at their texts during others. Some people were just talking to one another, mingling with the fans next to them, or even behind them. Really? Because a half-hour prior, everybody was popping huge over Men of the Year’s backstage promo. I don’t understand life anymore. And I no longer am sure I even want to.
In a bizarre twist, at least in my own little brain, the crowd was louder for the match after intermission than the one before. ACH and the returning Rich Swann put butts back in seats before they tore the damn house down. And they did it in the center of a vacuum not too dissimilar from the one that overtook the tag title match. So, the people were dead, but not WCW dead. These folks still had enough life in them to cheer for the flippies. When all else fails, you thank the Lord for the flippies.
That considered, these two deserved much, much more. Fans spent more time trying to figure out which black actor Rich Swann most resembled instead of appreciating these men’s work for what it is. And as these two beat the fuck out of each other, just going as hard as hard can go, the crowd reaction was not where it needed to be. In Reseda, this match would have fans, front to back, in hysterics. It’s a first-time matchup, get hyped! In Berwyn, on a Friday? Not so much.
Eddie Kingston next took on a wrestler I created on my “SmackDown 2” video game 14 years ago, though not named “Meow Man,” and not hailing from “The Litterbox.” I’d never seen Lince Dorado before, but my first thought of him was, simply, “yuck.” He’s got the “grumpy cat” meme emblazoned on his gaudy black and yellow entrance jacket and the word “MEOW” scrawled across his tights, and that was really all it took to make up my mind.
Looks deceive, it turns out, because Dorado was really damn impressive. He may look stupid as Hell, but of anybody tonight to compete in that ring, I would have to say this kitty cat man was the sharpest of them all. (Yes, kitty had claws.) He just hit his spots in such a crisp, understated fashion, and it was the quality of his spots, too. For one, he did a moonsault from the ring to the entrance area, which any AAW fan knows is a serious risk due to those low ceilings. Nine lives, though, eh?
[Future editor’s note: Siiiiigh…]
Kingston’s charge, I am going to call her at this point, Jordynne Grace, she is another young wrestler who is bleeding green. She has a good head on her shoulders, and she attracts a ridiculous amount of heat, I will admit, but she is far too rough around the edges to be featuring on your main show, in your main feud. I know she exists only to be dropped on her head by Silas somewhere down the road, but tonight she dropped Dorado on his head and nearly shook his spine. It made everybody in the building uneasy, and stuff like that cannot, and I emphasize, cannot, go ignored.
Kevin Harvey showed up after that, with Tweek Phoenix, Keith Walker and new theme music. No Lamar Titan and no Nikki, so it was just us white skinheads tonight! (They, uh, they know how bad they look, right?) Harvey opened up a challenge and the League of Super Extraordinary Rasslin Superstars (L.O.S.E.R.S.), Moondog Bernard and Sea Man, accepted.
Now, I’m no creative whiz or nohin’, but it was my idea to move to these two to the main card and have them get squashed by a few heels for ultimate heat, and I will toot my own horn in this regard until that horn is plum out of toot. As I had predicted, Moondog and Sea Man got the biggest pop of the night. And We Are Here received the biggest heat of the night for doing the deed.
Tony Rican, who found the ring gear Knight Wagner had chucked in the trash in December, stormed the ring to attempt a save, only to get one of them customary Tony Rican beat downs. Before the show, Rican explained to me how thrilled he was to get in the ring and work with some of these guys, and he said all he was good for was bumping and selling. Be that as it may, I like Tony, and he does a solid job when and where he has to.
After Rican was laid out, JIM LYNAM came to the ring and was promptly flattened by Harvey. I really, with all my might, pray we aren’t heading down the road that puts either, or both, Lynam and Harvey opposite inside a wrestling ring. I don’t want to see a power struggle for the company. Not between these two. Harvey was in charge before and he “Blue” it, and since he switched from commissioner to manager – and since Lynam bought the place – the shows have only been getting better. Not a Blue Meanie or a Billy Corgan in sight.
Oh, Boz was there, too. He saved Tony and clashed with Big Keith Walker who, wait. Wasn’t this dude ripped like, three months ago? He was in the best shape of his life and now, less so. Much less. That makes me less excited about a potential Boz/Walker showdown, and that makes me super sad, because never should anyone be bemused by a hoss fight in the making.
Shane Hollister and Colt Cabana put on a decent match that the crowd actually perked up for, though they honestly sort of blew their wad at the Sea Man (isn’t it usually the other way around?). Surprised by it I was, but these two actually brought some heat to this one, not relying on Colt’s comedy tactics or Shane’s flunkies to get the job done. There was some actual hate there.
That was the first seven minutes of the match, give or take. Then The Hollister Effect set in, with Scarlett getting involved, Dan Lawrence getting involved, Markus Crane getting involved. There was a ref bump to PJ Drummond, which he didn’t even know if he should sell (he did, briefly, before vaulting back into the ring for a cover). Did I mention the match ended via low blow? Because it totally did, buddy. And it stunk. The overbooking of Shane’s title reign, and now reigns, is becoming obvious to even the most casual of fans, including the people seated behind me, whom I had never seen at a show before. Even they were shitting on the end of this match and show.
This wasn’t a barn-burner of an offering by any stretch, and not quite up to AAW’s usual bar of B+ or so goodness, but they didn’t have too much to work with. As much. In that context, it was enjoyable, but Cabana/Hollister and Men of the Year/Fu Manchu were your choices for main, and neither one drew too much fan interest, all told. At the end of the evening, it took Colt being Colt to will the fans awake, at least enough not to be completely hushed before the final bell.
Next month’s “EPIC: The 10 Year Anniversary Event,” as it is so titled, promises to have a solid card “from top to bottom,” according to Lynam in a taped promo he shot with Rican. With most of its core roster back, and the addition of Alex Shelley – whose return announcement drew a sizable pop – AAW is reloading for what is shaping up to be a show worth going to if you’re in the Midwest. It’s a Friday show again, so we shall see, and hear, if the fans are up to the task.