At the start of the show, we’re reminded of the upcoming Team CL Party vs Team All Stars where the winning team captain gets to be the permanent host of CWF Worldwide. CL Party says she’s sick of being called a flusie and being run out of the ring by Coach Gemini and Jarry Caray. She confirms that she has her team together and she’s going to shut up The All Stars once and for all in the Ultimate Survivor match in a few weeks. Before she can announce our next match, Carry and the Coach come out and interrupt. Just like how they sent Allie Kat back to her litter box, they’re going to send CL Party to the laundromat. They announce the first member of their team to be the new rookie of the All Stars, Mace Li. CL Party fires back by naming Snooty Fox as the first member of her team, and Mace Li’s opponent tonight.
Snooty Fox vs Mace Li turns out to be a short, but impressive contest. Particularly, Mace Li. This was the first match where I was really impressed with his work. Considering he got most of the offense in the match, this seemed to be a showcase match for the rookie more than anything else, and boy, did he deliver. He combated Snooty’s strength with his own technical ability, often targeting the leg throughout the match. This went on until the end when Snooty finally had his comeback spot and, eventually, hit his Spear for the win. Again, short, but sweet.
Outside of the arena, we see a newly clean shaven and nicely suited Aric Andrews campaigning for another shot at the CWF Television Championship. He’s passing out “Andrews 4 TV Champ” flyers and telling people that Adler cheated in their title match. This new gimmick looks interesting. From the looks of it, in just a brief glimpse, the gimmick looks like it suits Andrews well. Anxious to see more of it.
We then get a backstage interview/staredown between Michael McAllister and Nick Richards. Richards admits that him and McAllister have been lost souls among the locker room, but if he had a choice on which lost soul he’d wrestle against in the ring, he’d choose McAllister. He merely means that he trusts McAllister more than most guys in the locker room, but McAllister takes it the wrong way and thinks that Richards is taking him lightly. McAllister promises to prove him wrong.
This immediately leads us to Michael McAllister vs Nick Richards in the ring. That pre-match promo did this match a lot of good by adding a story to the match that was worth getting invested in. In between the back and forth wrestling, McAllister was fighting like he needed to win this match; like he had something to prove. That urge to win pushed McAllister to wrestle a more aggressive style. The more aggressive he wrestled, Richards wrestled even more aggressively. Then, before we knew it, this wrestling match turned into a fight. It worked and it actually surprised just how entertaining this match turned out to be just seeing these two sluggers duke it out. Throughout the match, McAllister was fighting to prevent Richards from hitting the Cutter. Sometimes that led to him simply pushing Richards away, and in others, he countered the Cutter into a Cobra Clutch, which was cool. Eventually, in the end, after avoiding a Sliding D, Richards hit McAllister with the Cutter for the win. After a damn good match, Richards shows respect by raising McAllister’s arm.
As Richards walks to the back, Cain Justice comes out from behind the curtain to cut a scathing promo. He says this match sucked and they’ve been doing the same thing for the last decade. Himself, on the other hand, has risen up the ranks faster than anybody else. All things considered, he can’t understand how such “stupid inbred idiotic people” can buy into Richards pandering to them. He promises CWF is going to be his place in no time. Such a good promo from Justice, and it sets up what has potential to be a solid feud between himself and Richards.
We then get a backstage promo from Ethan Alexander Sharpe marinating on the CWF Rumble. What should’ve been his coming out party turned out to be a bittersweet night for him. Not only did he not win the CWF Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship, but the champion Trevor Lee broke Sharpe’s Iron Man record in the CWF Rumble match. Sharpe also points out how plenty of records have been getting broken lately and many achievements have been made, such as Dirty Daddy becoming the first 2-time RGL Champion, Jesse Adler becoming TV Champion, and Cain Justice coming just a hair shy of winning the Heavyweight Championship. Sharpe blames himself for his shortcomings because he spent most of this year emulating Andy Kaufman in comedy schtick with a girl. But he promises when the next CWF Rumble rolls around again in October 2018, he will reclaim his Iron Man record, reclaim his spot as #1 guy in the company, and take out anyone who gets in his way. Man, this was an awesome promo. This is the most intense I’ve ever seen Sharpe. The guy has really come into his own since breaking away from his comedy character. He’s been bringing his A-game in the ring and, clearly, his promos. If he didn’t come off as a legit main eventer before this, he does now. Hopefully Sharpe is right and big things happen for him in 2018.
Up next is our big main event of the evening: Arik Royal vs Chet Sterling. Damn, these two had some great chemistry together. I expected two athletes of their caliber to tear the roof down, but this was really great. Sterling made an excellent babyface you pull for till the end, and Royal being the perfect foil that he is, he made for an amazing jerk who you want to see fall on his face. These guys wrestled so well together and right up until Royal beat Sterling with his signature Tackle over 20 minutes later, we closed out a great episode of CWF with a great main event. Not just a great main event, but one of the best CWF matches of 2017. Check it out below.