Watch the entire episode at the bottom of this review.
Kicking off the first in a long line of retro episodes for CWF’s 80’s Week, we’ve got Ethan Alexander Sharpe teaming up with Dan C. Rockingham to take on Dirty Daddy and Rob McBride. Just your standard tag team match, which worked mainly as a showcase for McBride’s strength and his tandem tag team offense with Dirty Daddy. Everyone played their roles well and the match stuck to the basic heel vs face tag team formula. Daddy and McBride get the win at 8:19 after a double elbow drop on their opponents.
After that, we get a CWF Update–which rivals the old WWF updates that Mean Gene used to do back in the day–that leads into a promo from Alex Daniels, who challenges Trevor Lee for his Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship. We’re promised a response from Lee later on.
Up next, Big Donnie Dollars takes on Kool Jay. It’s strength vs speed and brains in a classic David vs Goliath bout with Jay clearly out of his league from the offset, but valiantly uses his agility to try to get some moves on the big man. That doesn’t last long before Dollars just demolishes the poor sap and gets the pinfall in 2:59 following a military press slam into the mat.
Afterwards, we get the charismatic Keith Mac vs the deranged Joshua Cutshall. Like the previous two matches, this was more or less a standard, average contest, but I really loved the contrasts of styles and character here. Despite the short timespan, it led to an interesting dynamic and some entertaining spots. Not much more can be said apart from that, but it worked for what it was, and it was short and sweet. It made me want to see more of these guys and whether it’s against each other or other members of the roster, I hope we see more of both men in CWF. Cutshall wins with the Realization Elbow (which is a Rainmaker-like go-behind turned into a brutal elbow to the face) at 6:38.
Next, Cecil Scott cuts a backstage promo against Cain Justice, promising that him and Justice are not done yet and that he has no respect for Justice for attacking a retired announcer and trying to break his arm.
Following that, we get the newcomer team of Upper Echelon (P.B. Smooth and Colby Redd) taking on Zane and Dave Dawson in tag team action. This worked as both a showcase for the new tag team and a highlight for the dominating Dawsons. P.B. Smooth really impressed me the most as he was extremely agile for a 7-footer. I definitely expect to see more from Smooth and Redd in CWF’s future and maybe they’ll rack up some wins as well, but tonight wasn’t to be. In the final minutes, Redd gets the visible pinfall over Dave Dawson, but the ref was too distracted by Zane to make the count. This allowed for The Dawson Brothers to get the lead back and before he knew what hit him, Redd was hit with a massive lariat from Dawson for the win at 9:36.
That gets followed up with the Trevor Lee response we were promised earlier. The CWF Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Champion says that Alex Daniels reminds him of himself when he first arrived in CWF as a hungry rookie. For that reason, he respects Day for having the gall to challenge the company’s top dog and for that reason, he accepts Day’s challenge for this week’s special Saturday episode of CWF.
Then, we get Snooty Fox vs The Blue Devil. This was merely a showcase for Fox’s strength, agility, and ability as he gets the win in 1:38 after a big ole Spear. This didn’t even pass the 2 minute mark and Fox’s opponent literally had no offense so there’s nothing more to say.
Immediately after, a very special edition of CWF Mid-Atlantic is announced for this Saturday at 11:30 on Youtube where Roy Wilkins will take on CWF Mid-Atlantic Tag Team Champion Mecha Mercenary in a match where both man’s tag partners are banned from ringside. Wilkins’ partner, Arik Royal, comes in to point out that Wilkins is good enough that he doesn’t need Royal’s help. In passing, he also mentions that he plans to become a 2-time Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Champion when the time is right so Trevor Lee better watch his back.
For this episode’s main event, Nick Richards wrestles Otto Schwanz. After a dominating display from Otto for the first few minutes, Richards hits a babyface comeback that leads into his Cutter finisher for the win at 6:31. Standard underdog face vs monster heel match. I hate that I’ve been saying “standard” for much of this review, but that’s how most of these matches have been tonight. Keep in mind that standard doesn’t mean bad, but it just means by-the-numbers and rather predictable. That’s how all of tonight’s matches went down and this one was no exception. What wasn’t standard or bad was Richards’ post-match interview where he said that he’s tired of waiting to cash in his CWF Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship opportunity that he earned from winning the Weaver Cup Tournament. Looks like he’ll be looking to cash in his shot sooner rather than later.
Overall, this was actually the first underwhelming and disappointing episode of CWF that I’ve seen in a long time. Just about every match felt like a standard, basic match. Nothing too impressive and nothing to recommend. I’m not going to say you shouldn’t watch this episode, but if you do skip this episode, I’m just saying you won’t be missing much. If there’s anything positive I can say, I’ll say that this episode gave us a lot of intrigue into the Heavyweight Championhip picture. Guys like Nick Richards, Arik Royal, and Alex Daniels all made big claims for Trevor Lee’s title and it gives us a lot to look forward to for the future of CWF’s main event scene. As for now, it was just a standard episode. Everyone played their parts well, the right people won, but it made things predictable nonetheless. Hopefully, things can pick back up for this Saturday’s special episode.