What can make 2 guys (my friend & me) rapidly approaching 40 & their glory days long gone, if they ever had any, travel from their homes in Southeast Kentucky near the Tennessee & Virginia state lines to drive through Louisville, cross the Ohio River into Clarksville, Indiana, on a Sunday afternoon? The first reason was the stacked card at the IWA-MS show that evening. The second reason is that there’s nothing to do in Southeast KY on Sunday unless you’re a churchgoer and/or there’s a sporting event to watch. Third, & the more important reason, is that there were people working at the show that my friend & I would watch at PWF that we have grown to respect & consider friends (every one of them).
Once we located the place the show was being held at which is actually a roller rink (for those of you who immediately scoff, may I remind you that ECW held their shows in a bingo hall & PWG runs at an American Legion?), we set off to our evening meal at a nearby restaurant that is a chain famous for chicken wings & buxom staff. Not much to say there except that the biggest boob in the joint was the manager who held up orders & yelled at the staff to compensate for his own mistakes. If you go there, the service is good.
Returning to the venue (Jammerz Rollerdome for those of you keeping score), we see a familiar face walking down the street; it was our old friend Kaden Sade who probably came close to having a heart attack seeing an SUV come to a sudden stop & hearing the people in the van yelling at him to come over to him. Once he recognized who it was, you could tell by the way he was walking he had loosened the grip on his sphincter and breathed a sigh of relief. For those of you who have never seen him just think of 2 words: Young Ricochet.
Get back to the venue where there is now a line. Walking towards the door you see the man who some say is a leader of hardcore & independent wrestling and almost anyone who has made their mark in wrestling over the past 15 years has wrestled in his ring. Others say he’s a vile piece of carnie shit who is the reason that independent wrestling has a bad reputation and antics are the reason his as well as many other promotions can’t run in Kentucky without massively changing their product and his mother should have sat on a coat hanger when she was carrying him to term. For those of you who don’t know, I’m talking about Ian Rotten. What’s Ian doing at the door? Like any good promoter, he’s out selling tickets before the doors open. Did we need his help? No, bought them from his fairer half earlier in the week.
So, get our tickets, walk in the door, it looks just like any other wrestling show I’ve been to. I saw a ring (before any of you chime in, EVERY show that I have been to date has had a ring), chairs around the ring, and tables where many of the evening’s entertainment were selling much of their merchandise. Sounds like any other show I’ve been to where the promoter is making sure anyone who wants to see the show has the opportunity to buy a ticket, they’ve given you a place to sit, they made sure you have food & drink, as well as access to a toilet. Doesn’t sound all that special does it? To me, it was & still is.
I look at all the tables & see that it’s a plethora of people you see on the internet. I follow almost all of them on Twitter & am friends with most of them on Facebook. Some I’ve never met in person before, others I’ve had dinner with, drank with, & with whom had many a laugh & shared many a story. I think this should be the time to point out that we also brought my friend’s children; 1 boy & 2 girls, aged 13, 11, & 9 as of March 9, 2014. The reason I point this out is because the 9-year-old is a huge wrestling fan. A huge independent wrestling fan. One of the first ones she wanted to meet was Michael Elgin who must have been shocked that a 9-year-old girl wanted to meet him. He is accompanied by his wife whom I noticed no one asked her for her autograph (if you don’t know who she is, Wikipedia’s article on him is pretty accurate) which I found strange. Next guy is the current PWG BOLA winner who they met at last April’s NWA Smoky Mountain Cup and enjoyed this apparent fighting drunken Irish MMA fighter gimmick he was trying on that particular night. Would you believe she also wanted to meet Matt Tremont? You know, the same guy who put both he & DJ Hyde through several panes of glass at Cage of Death 14? That happens to be a match she enjoys. One person she didn’t get to meet is Jimmy Jacobs. Yes, she loves Jimmy Jacobs. She did however get to meet Drake Younger, who is genuinely one of the nicest, friendliest, and one of most humble people I’ve met and deserves what he just got.
Walking towards our seat, shortly after meeting a guy heading down to Florida we walk past a guy who just came back from Florida to something that caught my eye. Besides Jacob’s chair, sat Thunderkitty who has a gimmick of lady’s wrestling from decades past (I love it BTW), to someone more modern. Looking at the table I see these pictures available for autographing by this barely legal sexpot named Jordynne Grace. Looking at the person sitting in the chair must have been one of the ugliest women I have ever seen. Seriously, Mickie Knuckles working around the clock using the most advanced series of Photoshop with the assistance of Heidi Lovelace couldn’t make that girl passable after a bottle of Old Crow. Then I realized it was one of the Cutter brothers sitting in her seat. I’m glad because I thought she had to have really let herself go.
The first match starts around 7:30pm with a bunch of buys I have never seen before. The second match was a tag team match. Now, I’ve never been in the business of burying anyone because I think wrestling has too many people trying to put over one promotion while burying another which weakens the business as a whole as well as Internet smarks who go out of their way to show how much they know & how clever they are. But, these guys were green. I mean like Hulk green. Evergreen green. Baby shit after eating mashed peas that have mold green. If any of the guys who were in the match are reading this, keep working. Even the guys in the WWE sucked in the early days. But I will say: love The American Viking. 
I see him & I imagine Johann Gregg from Amon Amarth decided to become a wrestler & looked to Bruiser Brody for inspiration. To my surprise: these were preshow matches! The card had 11 matches total! Damn you Ian Rotten! I have to be at work at 8AM & you said you’d have us out by at least 10:30! But I didn’t say anything; I decided to stay & watch the show. Well, my friend was the one who drove.
First match on the official card was a Fight for your Spot card featuring 4 guys working to get a spot on the roster (duh). Interesting matchup, all the guys showcased their talents and even had a surprise ending with 2 men getting the pin. Could this lead to a match between the 2 to see who will be the one who gets a spot? Time will tell.
Next up was the match between The Hooligans & Team IOU. When I last saw Kerry Awful & Nick Iggy, they were at PWF & were huge babyfaces. In IWA-MS, they have the same gimmick but have modified it to where they are now heels. The matchup that occurred could be best summed up as 2 of the best on the cusp teams in the southern & midwestern U.S. showing what modern tag team wrestling should be. I knew what to expect from IOU, a young team that works very well together. The Hooligans? Never saw them before, but think they are amazing now. The double team moves they did? You seldom see today. Even though IOU won, I could watch these teams have rematches for months any promotion they work.
People are suckers for a classic story. The one many go for is David & Goliath. In this tale David is played by Danny Cannon who looks like he was spliced together by the DNA of Davey Richards & Low Ki. As Goliath? If I said Michael Elgin, would you be shocked? If you are, surprise! It’s Michael Elgin! The match was very good, playing to both men’s strengths but it was Cannon who came out as the victor.
Next is a 5 team match (yes, 5 teams) where there 10 people, 8 men & 2 women, who had themselves a match. I know they were trying to get everyone some ringtime, & my only criticism is that the match was too short & felt rushed & cluttered (even though I got to see Kaden Sade do a shooting star press in the match). There was also a match between Johnny Rotten Sixx against vet Todd Morton. I’m hoping that Morton abruptly getting disqualified as well as all the ring psychology is merely leading to something more on future events.
Another matchup featured members of the ROH faction Decade (BJ Whitmer & Jimmy Jacobs) facing the team known as White America who had Reed Bentley handcuffed to a fan who won the opportunity in a drawing. One member of the unit was absent but had one of the participants in the 10 man tag as a substitute. I hate to say it, but I kinda saw what was going to happen coming. The substitute actually hurt Jacobs a few times in the ring in which Jacobs did retaliate. Now, I may not be a wrestler, but I know what a receipt is & thought Jacobs was justified (not that he needs my approval). White America wins which leads to Whitmer making a request that ties into the next show.
The 6 man tag match I found to be entertaining & has a soft spot for me because it also features PWF alum Shane Mercer & Hy Zaya (whom I spent some time talking to afterwards–we never talk about wrestling BTW). Also, first ever live match watching Necro Butcher who is exactly what you would think he’d be like. I couldn’t help but enjoy it. Even though Hy Zaya, Necro Butcher, & Matt Cage won, I wouldn’t be hurt if the other team won because well, I like Shane too.
Now, being from Kentucky, we don’t get many gimmick matches. So when they said barbed wire bullrope match? Well, that was something we definitely had to watch. Add Matt Tremont into the mix? And we have a 9-year-old who had to be there. What we got reminded me of the old barbed wire matches they had in the days of JCP. Had a sense of nostalgia watching 2 guys slug each other until the blood runs. Even though Tremont won, John Wayne Murdoch is no one to sneeze at.
The 4 way was as good as expected considering the talent involved. Christian Rose I feel we will be hearing more from in the future. B-Boy I believe is more of a West Coast guy, and I love his work so it’s a treat to watch him. Kyle O’Reilly’s career has exploded since I saw him April 2013 in Kingsport, TN to winning what I believe is the most prestigious tournament in North America. As for Drake Younger? It feels like this stage of his career was written by a screenwriter. You know, a guy who decides to no longer work in deathmatches which prompts the promotions that he seemed to build his reputation on to no longer book him, moves to California for multiple reasons, has what could be considered a tryout with the promotion that has one of the best in ring products on the planet to become one of their biggest stars in under a year to now being signed to the largest company in North America. Needless to say, Drake gets the win. After the match Ian Rotten comes out and after telling Younger that he never wants him to come back because he wants him to own the E, his last IWA-MS match will be against BJ Whitmer!
Going to PWF shows, we were only treated to one women’s match & I think that was because the women were the girlfriends of friends of the previous booker. Aside from that lone exception, there was only one woman on the roster so we were treated to partial intergender matchups. We were treated to an intergender 6 person stretcher match that was more insane than many other places offer their fans for a hardcore match. What I saw made a multicar pileup involving an ambulance, a van full of nuns, & a school bus full of blind kids look like a mishap involving bumper cars. For those who think that women don’t deserve a spot in wrestling because they aren’t as tough, I saw women throw themselves through the crowd into the standing chairs, & Heidi Lovelace who is about the size of one of my legs be put through a table by a man who dwarfs the One Man Gang.And Mickie was well, Mickie (I mean that in a nice way).
The main event was a knockout or tapout match between White America’s Reed Bentley & who may not be the Patron Saint of Independent Wrestling but could also very well be Everyone’s Favorite Uncle of the Indies: Chris Hero. Bentley does show that he’s tough & shows that he can hang with someone the caliber of Hero, but as one of his entrance themes says: Chris is Awesome. You didn’t have to know that those 2 have faced each other before to know that this was a bitter rivalry which has come down to both men having to beat the Hell out of each other. Honestly, I think the Indies lost a part of its soul when Hero was signed. Although I would love to see him there again (I’m still holding out hope to see my dream 4 way elimination tag match at ‘Mania one day), I think being the guy to carry the flag of independent wrestling is his calling. That & training.
Anyone who has ever been to an IWA-MS show knows the names of many of the people on the show. They also know the names of many people who buy the tickets. One part of the show Ian called a rowdy fan by name & told him to “sit the fuck down”. These are the same people who will point that Ian Rotten will stand at the door and shake the hand of everyone who show and thank them for their time. Ian Rotten may be guilty of the things he’s been accused of in the past, but it is not my place to judge him nor will I criticize him for any of the stories I have heard from either rumors or facts from valid sources as they are not relevant. I will say, I was extremely impressed with his show and no one can say they felt cheated for what they got for the money they paid. So as I walked out the door, said you’re welcome as he thanked me for coming, got a dead fish handshake, & said to myself what so many have over the years, “I’ll be back.”
Seriously Ian, 11 matches? Some of us have to go to work in the morning!
All joking aside, go check out a show near you sometime.
All images were captured by Mike Simpson & Adam Jordan from Marked Out Photography. Used with permission.
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P.S.: Yes, the DVD is out, & I could technically consider this a DVD review even though I haven’t seen or watched the actual DVD.