Watch the full episode at the bottom of this review.

The show starts off with a rematch from last Saturday Night’s special Champion vs Champion contest between Mid-Atlantic TV Champ Aric Andrews and PWI Ultra-J Champ Chet Sterling. As I said in my review of the Saturday Special, Andrews vs Sterling that night was good, but felt underwhelming because it was on the short side and had to follow up the Trevor Lee vs Alex Daniels classic. Tonight as the curtain jerker, it works superbly on its own merits without pressure to follow up another stunner. Sadly, there is still the issue of shortness as the match just slightly goes longer than last week’s 4-minute match. However, given that these are both incredible athletes, the two manage to do as much as they can in a small amount of time by basically going at it 15 miles an hour at each other from bell to bell. It works because it showcased both their quick fast abilities while simultaneously highlighting the understated feud which the two have had as of late. The final moments of the match saw Chet Sterling attempt his Blockbuster finisher off the top rope. Andrews ducks out of the way, but Sterling hangs on to the rope so that when Andrews turns back around, he runs right into a Blockbuster, giving Sterling the win at 7:11. If you want to see a breezy, yet exhilarating match-up to pass the time, this is recommended. Hopefully, we get a much longer bout from these two in a later episode.

To follow that up, All Stars personal ring announcer Jarry Caray gets some heat from the crowd before introducing his prospect, Arik Royal, as Royal is set to take on Nick Richards. If the match between Sterling and Andrews showcased an understated feud, Royal and Richards made it clear that they have a blood feud going on. Royal was looking to avenge his loss from last year when Richards defeated Royal to win the Johnny Weaver Cup for a guaranteed shot at the Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship—a shot which Richards still holds, lets not forget—so both men had a lot to prove. The match quickly divulged into an unadulterated brawl that went out into the crowd. These two spent a lot of time duking it out on the floor, Royal hit Richards with a fan’s crutch (which, for some reason, didn’t cause a DQ), and both men laid in some hard shots into each other. You really got the feeling that not only these two hated each other, but neither man could afford to lose and needed the win to continue their momentum. This helped make this already exciting contest even more captivating during the entire timespan. At the match’s conclusion, Royal went for his devastating tackle finisher, but Richards reversed it into a roll-up for the win at 15:29. Highly recommended. Right after the match, in a huge bit of news, Richards announced that he will be cashing in his Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship shot against Trevor Lee at CWF Absolute Justice coming up later in June, so we have that to look forward to this month. Can’t wait to see it!

From there, we move on to our main event of the evening. The Dawson Brothers challenge The Sandwich Squad for the Mid-Atlantic Tag Team Championships. The Dawsons have been racking up wins left and right as of late while riding a massive wave of momentum, while Mecha Mercenary and Aaron Biggs have held on to their titles for a year now and so this contest could’ve gone either way. Luckily for The Dawsons, it happened to go in their favor.Near the end of this grueling match-up, The Sandwich Squad attempt to hit their Sandwich Time finisher on Dave Dawson, but Dave ducks out of the way, causing Sandwich Squad to squash into each other. Dave blinds Mecha by turning his mask around. While the ref is dealing with that, Zane Dawson absolutely clobbers Biggs with a chair. Ref didn’t see a thing, but he did see Dave cover Biggs, which leads him to count 1…2…3! We have brand new Mid-Atlantic Tag Team Champions and they are The Dawsons! I really loved this match. It’s essentially a big hoss match, which that alone should make it great in itself—what’s not to love about four mastodons laying thick shots into each other?—but this is a match that is execute much better than one would think of it on paper. Nothing against the competitors, but a match like this doesn’t read well to fans who are more fond of watching lighter weighted wrestlers taking part in the kind of dives which Randy Orton loves so much. With that said, everyone in this match showed a surprisingly agile side to them that I’d never seen until now. Especially during this one spot where one of the Dawsons attempt a tornado DDT onto Biggs, which gets countered into a rolling fireman’s carry. There are a few crazy spots like that which cater to the wrestler’s surprising agility and brutal offense. It’s a must-see title match worthy of the main event spot.

All in all, this was a great episode of CWF which needs to be seen by any and everybody who loves independent wrestling and I think this could be an episode which also works as someone’s perfect introduction to independent wrestling. Watch this, show it to your friends, tell them to show it to their friends, and just support CWF by sharing. When they put out episodes like this, they deserve it.

 

By Joe Anthony Myrick

A photographer/journalist working out of Detroit.

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