From the A1 Message Boards: What I'd Do with Unlimited Money and Wrestling Desires

My top guy

Newish A1 user Rick Rude (great tribute handle, by the way), posted a thread asking what you'd do with unlimited funds re: building a wrestling promotion. Here's his original post:

Imagine a scenario where you have acquired a stupendous amount of money. You are set for life, as well as your children and grandchildren if you have any. You have so much money, in fact, that it's basically impossible for you to ever not have money again, even if you wasted ludicrous amounts on bad investments. I don't care if you won three state lotteries, or were discovered to be a long lost Walton love child, the money is yours to do what you want.

You decide that you might as well be a money mark since you love wrestling so much.

The WWE, as a public company, is out of bounds. Everything else is in play. What would you buy, or would you start up something new? Who would you hire for creative and for on-air talent? What would be your marketing plan? Where would you perform? What about a TV deal? Would you look to take down the WWE empire, or would you prefer to remain low key and simply recoup expenses?

And here is my reply:

I'd head up the booking team, because it's my fed, my vision. My booking team would probably consist of any combination of Brandon Stroud of With Leather, the Fair to Flair crew, Bill Dempsey, David Shoemaker (the Masked Man), jerseyboy (commenter) and/or Linus (Ingoldsby, A1 poster and TWB reader - because I'd have to consider European sensibilities if I wanted to have a following across the pond). Why people I know/writers? Again, something different. It's my money, I'll succeed or fail with the people I want to succeed and fail with.

My vision would be to combine old-school ideas and concepts with modern sport sensibility, bound together with a healthy sense of humor. Like Jamey "FATSEXY" Litton, no one from "the office" would make an appearance in storyline unless it's to introduce a new commissioner (no GMs, commissioners, because again, I'm old school) or some shit like that. In ring, I'd promote a safer style based on mat wrestling and storytelling. Big finishers are meant to be taken once every couple of months, not once every couple of spots in a match. I'd draw people in with strong characters and emphasis on unscripted but "guided" promos.

At first, I'd probably run February through November with a two month offseason that'd coincide with the holiday season/football playoffs. Give people some time to catch up with what they might have missed in DVDs during the two months we'd be off.

As for talent, again, since I'd want for guys to draw people in on a basis of a combination of character and sound fundamentals rather than ZOMG WERKRATE, I pick up guys who can cut promos or act out as great characters. So guys like Davey Richards who just like to kill and get killed in the ring to have the awesomest match ever? Get lost. But a guy like Colt Cabana, who has killer personality and a sound grasp on how to work a mat-based style? Welcome aboard. In fact, he's probably my top face. Austin Aries would be my top heel. He has a rep of being a ZOMG WERKRATE guy too, but he also is a great character and has worked a "sports entertainment" style in some matches to great effect. From there, I build outwards and pick up some established guys (AJ Styles, Beer Money - provided they don't balks at the idea to leave Impact - Jay Lethal, Mike Knox, Chris Masters, Kazarian, El Generico, Kevin Steen) and some under the radar guys (Kenn Doane, Lucky Cannon, Eddie Kingston, the RockNES Monsters, RD Evans, Brodie Lee). Throw in a choice veteran, say, Steve Corino or Tommy Dreamer, and then start developing stories.

I'd start slow, 10-15 shows a year, and then try to grow with television and such. Don't go all in early, don't expect to succeed and build on stories, three acts of varying development. Always have something really good happening at a given show. That's what I'd do.

Furthermore, I'd also put on an honest-to-God joshi division, really push tag teams as serious business and probably have an appearance by a WrestleCrap hall of famer every year or so, just to remind myself not to take myself too seriously.

Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography

Destination Success: Impact Wrestling and the Power of Margins

Note, I usually don't like to do pieces analyzing the business side anymore. I find that microanalyzing buyrates or ratings can get really pedantic. However, I feel like with this one, there's a great point to be made.

Brian Kendrick, foundation of a better Impact
Photo Credit: ImpactWrestling.com

Anyway, the buyrate numbers for Destination X are in, or as in as they can be for a company that is under no obligation to release its numbers publicly. Apparently, the buys were somewhat dismal, albeit comparatively speaking to their recent forays into PPV, they were par for the course. Conservative estimates place the number of buys at 8,000, about 500 fewer than their previous PPV, Slammiversary. That might sound like a failure, but as K. Sawyer Paul pointed out, it really wasn't in the grand scheme of things.

While the number didn't spike like some of us here might have hoped, I still think that DX was very much a success for the company, or at least a success for the maligned-by-management X-Division. We can very much agree that the difference between 8,500 and 8,000 is almost negligible in the grand scheme of things, right? So basically, DX and Slammiversary did almost the same number of buys. Assuming that the pre-wage overhead for both PPVs was the same, the rest of the costs are going to be determined by the monies paid out to the talent. The biggest name on the show in terms of a wage was Samoa Joe, Abyss or AJ Styles. Most of the wrestlers fall under the pay grade of "might have to apply for food stamps if miss more than one date", which means they're cheap. Meanwhile, Slammiversary had wages drawn by some of the heavy hitters in terms of salary. Ken Anderson, Kurt Angle, Sting, Scott Steiner, Bully Ray and one of the only Knockouts reputed to be making a decent wage in Mickie James were all on the card. Replacing them with guys like the Young Bucks, Austin Aries, Zema Ion, Mark Haskins, Shark Boy and Alex Shelley had to have brought costs down significantly, right?

So while the people who apparently don't like the X-Division in the front office might use this 5.9% as ammunition against putting more of a spotlight on these guys, what they don't realize is that it's very much a condemnation of the actual power the former TNA has in the marketplace, especially that of the supposed "stars" they have in the fold. If Angle and Sting and Anderson are only worth 500 more buys than Aries and Ion and Haskins, then is it fair to say that maybe their drawing power worth the exponential increase in salary, especially given that the former group has expenses taken care of as well while the latter group must self-fund to get from show to show? Looking at the margins, it has to make some kind of sense to people that maybe going cheaper and going younger might just be the road to take.

KSP closes his post with "The X Division guys aren't the ones who should be worrying about their jobs." In a fair world, that would be the case, but Impact Wrestling throughout its history has shown that don't make the best business decisions all the time. However, they really need to take a good, hard look at the way things are run. Maybe that whole "the Network is mandating the push for the X-Division" trope that ran on Impact last week is more shoot than not. Maybe the faith in Brian Kendrick, Shelley and Aries is real and a sign of things to come. But you'd have to forgive me if my faith in a bunch of stubborn men with their minds entrenched firmly in 1998 isn't as strong as it is in other promotions' booking (and I'm not even talking WWE here). If the rumors of spite and thickheadedness are true, then Impact is once again about to react to "bad" numbers in order to submarine change.

The thing is, for me, the best parts of Impact are when the X-Division is featured by itself. Not the bullshit Bischoff-is-trying-to-kill angle, but the one that's featuring Shelley and Kendrick dealing with a marauding Aries. To me, even when they're not wrestling, it's an intriguing angle. The quality's better, mainly because it's an issue among three guys based on a story that involves issues that are wholly in character. No one is shooting. No one is doing it for the respect of "the boys in the back" or for "stroke". All three, especially Aries who's awesome and Kendrick, whose character actually fits him, (key word, CHARACTER) are intriguing to me. The best part is that the blowoff is going to happen in the ring in what should be a match that at least tries to be innovative and entertaining.

I know some of that is subjective. I know that not everyone is going to go for the X-Division, but at the same time, forging ahead with the innovative in-ring stuff while having simple angles out of the ring, but teasing that direction has worked in the past. The Joe/Daniels/Styles stuff wasn't exactly fully capitalized on either. Meanwhile, the warmed over faux-Attitude/Monday Night Wars rehashing has been proving to drive the fan interest into the ground. So, when presented with two numbers that are somewhat similar, shouldn't you want to explore the thing that hasn't been tread upon instead of the thing that has been producing declining numbers over the months?

But again, Impact hasn't been known for its business prowess, especially when the money mark of an owner's representative eternally has a certain Noo Yawker in her ear about what makes good wrestling. It's a shame too, because Impact has a chance to try and give something to the fans while taking in something in return.

And hell, if the business model grew, maybe they could afford to pay Jesse Neal and the rest of the crew enough money so that they would get a paycheck even when they missed dates because of injury, y'know?

My Favorite Wrestlers Ever: #4

Austin Aries
Three Favorite Matches: vs. Bryan Danielson on HDNet (10/19/09), vs. Tyler Black at the 8th Anniversary Show (an EPIC carry job), vs. Kid Kash and Jimmy Rave on Impact
Three Favorite Moments: Doing a crazy Indian dance night 1 of King of Trios 2009, cutting a promo on the live crowd during HDNet tapings, snagging his contract at the end of Destination X

A Double is the most recent addition to the top five. I'll fully admit that I didn't catch wind of him until 2009, but he was really the first guy at my first indie show that made an impact on me as a fan. It was the start of a beautiful relationship between wrestler and fan. The next time I saw him, he was ROH Champion, walking out to Ric Flair's theme song, eviscerating the crowd at HDNet tapings. He was laying into me, and I didn't care. I was smitten, in a total fan way of course.

There has never been a time where I've seen Aries, on camera or in person, where I wasn't impressed beyond all impression. Even when he was on his way out of ROH (and he knew it too) and had to put over the newly heeled Roderick Strong even though Aries had been a heel for the last two years himself, he put on an impressive show. The guy just does everything well. He's the most eviscerating promo I've ever heard. Him with a microphone in his hand is rivaled by few. He knows how to chew scenery and to be a background character when need be. His first Impact back with the company this year, he not only wrestled in the match of the night, but he was a big part of one of the funniest segments in the show without really saying a word past the point when Eric Young came into the scene.

But the wrestling... the guy gets it. He knows not only how to employ a large workrate and do FLIPZ, but he knows how to make a match a show. Whenever he was wrestling in ROH, it was like he was auditioning to go to WWE, which made him stand out above nearly every other wrestler there, save a few exceptions.

A colleague of mine once said that it's easy to like Aries because he'll never make it to WWE, and thus can never really be considered a back-stabbing sell out. I'm not really the kind of fan who cares about that thing, so Aries never making it to WWE vexes me. He deserves to be there. He's more talented than half the current roster, especially many of the guys they bring up from FCW with no seasoning.

But hey, I guess there's always the chance that Impact blows up huge while he's there, and he's a reason for it. That way, he can succeed and get his day in the sun. He deserves it, and hey, I want to see him every week.

Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography

Future Endeavors 7/17 Power Poll: It's All About Destination X and RAW's Final Segment

The Most Intriguing Storyline in Wrestling, Well-Represented in This Week's Power Poll
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Welcome to yet another edition of the Future Endeavors Power Poll, a poll ranking wrestlers on a weekly basis based on how awesomely they performed or were portrayed on a Tuesday-to-Monday cycle. It is voted by a who's-who of wrestling bloggers, including my blogging Bro-ry McIlroy, PizzaBodySlam. I will list the top ten, and then post and comment on my ballot. Here goes:

1. CM Punk (Last Week: 2)
2. John Cena (1)
3. Austin Aries (NR)
4. Brian Kendrick (NR)
5. Mark Henry (7)
6. Randy Orton (3)
7. Alberto Del Rio (4)
8. Sheamus (5)
9. Christian (6)
10. Vince McMahon (NR)

And now, my ballot!

1. CM Punk - I don't feel like I need to explain this. If you need an explanation though, I'd like to congratulate you for waking up from your coma. Get well soon, and if you've been in there for seven years or longer, well, the Red Sox have won the World Series... twice. I know, shocking, right?

2. Austin Aries - I'd say I wouldn't need to explain this either, but I know that Impact is the red-headed stepchild of the wrestling world. Well no, that's not right, because that'd imply that the company didn't deserve the beating it takes on a sometimes-daily basis. Be that as it may though, A Double capped off an amazing month-long run with the Impact contract, and hopefully it means he'll get to be the star he deserves to be. That is until they pull the rug out from the X-Division again, but hey, it's good to hope, I suppose.

3. Brian Kendrick - OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER! ABYSS IS NO LONGER X-DIVISION CHAMPION! HOORAY!

4. AJ Styles - He won in the Destination X main event over his Fortune compadre, Christopher Daniels. I like AJ, I really do. In a perfect world, he'd have Sting-level fame, and I'm talking Sting in 1997, not Sting-doing-a-bad-hybrid-Heath Ledger-Jack Nicholson-impersonation in 2011.

5. Mark Henry - For the kicking of asses and the splitting of wigs, specifically the Big Show's, his own and Drew McIntyre's. Poor Drew though. He didn't even get the benefit of the giant air mattress for his fall.

6. Vince McMahon - I'd be lying if I said I didn't rank him this high because he said "LET'S HEAR IT FOR VINCE MCMAHON" again. So I won't.

7. John Cena - I docked him like two or three slots on the ballot this week because of his corny jokes to start the closing segment, but hey, he was still good mostly.

8. Daniel Bryan - Stock Daniel Bryan ranking.

9. El Generico - Steel cage win over Roderick Strong! OLE! -- EG WEB TRANSLATE

10. Jack Evans - He converted me from hater to admirer last Thursday by working a match and not thoroughly pissing me off during it. Good improvement!

Weekend Wrap-Up: Destination Success

I wonder if A Double demanded So Cal Val as part of his terms before signing his contract
Photo Credit: ImpactWrestling.com

- For once, Impact Wrestling was the buzz of the grappling world for a GOOD reason. Destination X was a critical success, a harkening back to the days when TNA was fun and before it was ruined by Vince Russo's vision for what sports entertainment should be. For the first time, an Impact PPV was talked about for the action rather than how bad it was or how fucked up one of its main eventers was coming out for a match. Brian Kendrick ended our long national nightmare of Abyss as X-Division Champion by upending him last night. Austin Aries won the Impact contract, and hopefully, third time's the charm for A Double. He really deserves a chance to make serious coin and be a national star. Shark Boy appeared and apparently won a match, which is a cool throwback. Alex Shelley won the Ultimate X match. In the main event, AJ Styles defeated Christopher Daniels. Lots of positive feedback for this one. Here's hoping that everyone who watched bought it and that a lot of people bought so as to send a message to Dixie and her cronies.

- NWA Hollywood tapings were yesterday, and as with other tapings, well, it's hard to find results online. However, two notes. One, Tom Ford attended and will most likely have a recap later on today or tomorrow. Two, the Tribe upended Natural Selection for the NWA Heritage Tag Team Championships.

- ROH toured the Mid-Atlantic Friday and Saturday. The Richmond show had somewhat of a skeleton crew working for it, as several talents (the Bravados, Adam Cole and Kyle O'Reilly, Mike Bennett) working two matches. Apparently, Chris Hero got stranded via weather, but it still seems like a light show for the country's top indie. On the Richmond card, Cole and O'Reilly defeated the Bravados (who scored a surprise, TWGTT-assisted win over the Briscoes earlier in the night) for a shot at Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas at a later date. Speaking of the Champs, they retained their titles against El Generico and Colt Cabana. In the main event, the American Wolves defeated Michael Elgin and Roderick Strong. They're really pushing the House of Truth as a major faction. Saturday in Charlotte saw the weather cooperate with Hero enough for him to be able to make the trip. He took out Cabana in his match. There were two non-title matches to headline the card, as Haas and Benjamin defeated the Bravados, and in the main event, Generico bested Strong in a steel cage.

- Site announcement! This week will be Punk Week on the blog. Why? Because this might be the last week CM Punk is in professional wrestling for a good long time. We must celebrate him! Expect some blogs to be dropped with him as the subject and for Punk to be the subject of a few of the features this week. All will culminate in a review of Money in the Bank, the show which may very well be known mostly for the Straight Edge Savior. Enjoy!

Destination X Matters

A Double Matters, Wrestling Matters

I asked Justin Henry on the latest episode of The Wrestling Podcast to sell someone who might not normally order an Impact PPV. He pretty much gave what I thought was the perfect pitch. Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, Sting, Jeff Jarrett, Mr. Anderson and the rest of the regular rabble were not advertised for it. They're building it around the guys you want to see, the "10 percenters" so to speak. For the first time since rolling it out, their slogan of "wrestling matters" actually rings true, not some hollow, trite phrase they use to troll WWE's mantra of "we're an entertainment company".

Seriously, the card is loaded. About the only thing that looks unappealing to me is the existence of Abyss on the card, but at the same time, his feud with Brian Kendrick has been entertaining (even if it's been carried by the former Spanky). There's AJ Styles against Christopher Daniels and Samoa Joe taking on Kazarian, a duo of matches that appeal to the old-school X-Division fans. There's a harkening back to one of the best in-ring feuds in ECW history with Rob Van Dam taking on Jerry Lynn. Douglas Williams has an open challenge. There'll be an Ultimate X match with Robbie E, Amazing Red, Alex Shelley and... ugh, Shannon Moore (okay, two unpalatable people on the card). Finally, in what's probably the most important match on the card, Austin Aries, Jack Evans, Shiima Xion (as Zema Ion) and Low Ki will be competing for a contract.

With that being said, this is the perfect opportunity for you to tell Impact that yes, this is what we want to see. It's this kind of wrestling that will make Impact a true alternative. The only way to send a message to Dixie Carter and company is to order this if you can. Obviously, if you can't afford it, then no, I'm not talking to you. If you're busy with other plans, then no, I'm not talking to you. However, if you've got the money and you want to watch this, then do it.

If you want to see the former TNA actually follow through, then buy this PPV. If more people buy this, then it sends an ultimatum to the people in charge. That ultimatum through your dollar is that you want to see more of this and less of the weaksauce bullshit they were giving you with the other PPVs. If you get the wrestling, you keep watching and buying. If not, you jump off-board. Simple as that. Because let's face it, Dixie and her cronies don't always listen to their fans. I mean, Hardcore Justice did good numbers last year, and it was business as usual within two months.

What you shouldn't do, though, is pirate this. More than any PPV, whether it's WWE, indie or Impact. A pirated view of this show is another voice that won't be heard. It also reinforces the stereotype that all the "10 percenters" don't care about spending money and will just steal everything. Plus, stealing is wrong, but that last argument never, ever stopped someone from pirating anything before.

Seriously, this is the perfect opportunity to send a message to Impact. Tell them that Destination X matters. Tell them that wrestling matters. It's a win-win. If they pay attention, then you get a better product to watch. If they don't, you can write Impact off forever.

Because believe me, if this PPV does good numbers and Dixie and Co. DON'T recognize that this is what people want to see? Then the company deserves to rot.

Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography

Davey Richards as ROH Champion: An Exercise in Open-Mindedness

Everyone else seems to love Davey... I'll try too.

I have not been enamored with three of the last four wrestlers who have held the ROH World Championship. Not since Austin Aries held the belt has ROH had a Champ that I could really get behind. Of course, @TypicalROHFan will argue that to the death with me; in one of his moments of lucidity, he had tried to tell me Aries' second reign was a dud. Maybe it's just that Aries was Champ when I started following the fed, so maybe it's the same principle by which I'll never fully hate Hulk Hogan, no matter how delusional, or how I can never be fully mad at Lenny Dykstra₁ regardless of indiscretion. I don't know, but what I do know is that Tyler Black, Roderick Strong and now Davey Richards really leave me flat.

Black and Strong have track records. You know my disdain for the currently-christened Seth Rollins. I don't have the Brandon Stroud-levels of disdain for Roddy. I like him all fine and good, but as the top guy in ostensibly the number three promotion in America, I'm not sure I buy him. He'd be a good points leader for EVOLVE, but for a ROH World Champion? I don't get it.

So that brings us to Eddie Edwards and Davey Richards. Edwards to me felt fresh at least, and I've seen him in good singles matches. I also think he's got more of a handle on how to be a viable out-of-ring character. Richards, however... well, he's a good tag wrestler. I've seen exactly one singles match featuring him that I really liked, a tilt against Kevin Steen at PWG's first Kurt RussellMania. Out of the ring, he's just so dry. I mean, his Twitter going up to the title match was him training. Not my cup of tea. I know that I'm one person, but this sort of testimony isn't exactly the best for a guy holding the biggest title in the company.

However, I will admit that DR as Champion is something that is a little over 24 hours old. I really can't judge his reign so much as I'm judging the idea of it. It's the kind of thing that people might find to be obnoxiously close-minded. Now, I like to think of myself as open-minded. So I'm going to give DR a chance.

I'll start with the match against Edwards. Maybe that'll surprise me. And maybe as Champion, he'll bring a new dynamic to the main event. The vibe I got from the title-change program was that it wasn't face vs. heel, but more like rival vs. rival, two guys cultivating fan followings. Maybe if we get a fresh vibe out of this, I can forgive the excessive matches if they happen.

But that's the rub, I've gotta give it a shot. I will, and hopefully, I'll be pleasantly surprised. With ROH coming back to television in a few months, I'll get plenty of opportunities.

1 - Dykstra was my favorite player on the team that tipped the scales for me as a sports fan, the 1993 Phillies.

Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!

Future Endeavors 6/25 Power Poll: Back and Feeling Good

It was supposed to be the Summer of George!
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Welcome to yet another edition of the Future Endeavors Power Poll, a poll ranking wrestlers on a weekly basis based on how awesomely they performed or were portrayed on a Tuesday-to-Monday cycle. It is voted by a who's-who of wrestling bloggers, including my blogging Jon Favrebro, PizzaBodySlam. I will list the top ten, and then post and comment on my ballot. Here goes:

1. CM Punk (Two weeks ago: NR)
2. Randy Orton (4)
3. John Cena (6)
4. Christian (3)
5. Rey Mysterio (NR)
6. Dolph Ziggler (NR)
7. Ezekiel Jackson (NR)
8. Alberto Del Rio (NR)
9. R-Truth (2)
10 (tied). Alex Riley and Kofi Kingston "TIE" (2, NR)

And now, my ballot!

1. CM Punk - SUMMER OF PUNK 2: PUNK HARDER

2. Austin Aries - Seriously, he made Impact, which was a better-than-normal edition anyway, into a really, really good show. I think that makes him a candidate for sainthood. Any other week, he woulda taken number 1. This week, well, he ran into the Summer of Punk 2: PUNK HARDER.

3. Christian - Holy shit, did he have a pretty good week in terms of matches. Also, he continues to be one of the best characters on Smackdown.

4. Daniel Bryan - Stock Dan... no wait, he won a few matches this week and is involved in an honest to God feud. Score!

5. John Cena - ...yeah.

6. Eric Young - Holy shit, him pinning Jason Hervey was so freaking funny. I usually don't like his humor, but this was really awesome.

7. Kelly Kelly - Yeah, I threw a sympathy vote for her first title win. Winning the pretty butterfly belt doesn't mean much because really, almost everyone's won it now, right? But still, yeah.

8. Dolph Ziggler - This one's for the US Championship...

9. Ezekiel Jackson - ...and this one's for the Intercontinental Championship.

10. Evan Bourne - YEAH HE GOT ON PPV!

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!

This Week in DVR: Woo Woo Woo, You Know It

WOO WOO WOO YOU KNOW IT
Screen Grab Credit: WWE.com

I watched what I couldn't watch live on DVR and the Internet. Here's what stood out:

Matches

Los Luchas (Zokre and Phoenix Star) vs. Ricky Mandell and Hector Canales on NWA Hollywood - This was an extremely fun tag match, featuring some really choice heel antics by Mandell and Canales as well as some really unique lucha offense by the face team. Early on in the match, Zokre busted out this really unique submission hold, basically bending Canales' knees, spreading his legs apart and sitting on them. You kinda have to see it to really appreciate what I'm describing here. Canales was really on point mocking Los Luchas as well. My only real gripe with this match was that the crowd didn't react to Zokre's hot tag to Phoenix Star, but that's more disappointment with the crowd rather than anything to do with the match. Highly recommended to seek this one out.

Joey Ryan vs. Brandon Parker, Qualifying Match for the "Be the Star" Television Championship Tournament, on NWA Hollywood - This was a classic David/Goliath match up, although Ryan as Goliath might seem hilarious to most. Then again, have you seen how small Parker is? Ryan played the bully well, and they really told the story of them having a former student/teacher relationship throughout the match with the counters and such. Parker had great fire. About the only thing that was mildly disappointing to me was that they teased the Moustache Ride. I love that move. I wanted to see it, dammit!

Natural Selection (Brien Cage and Shawn Ricker) (c) vs. The Tribe (Hawaiian Lion and Navajo Warrior), NWA Heritage Tag Team Championship Match, on NWA Hollywood - A very rare heel vs. heel match here. I kinda dug it. It was funny to see a tag match without any of the babyface tag team tropes in play. My favorite spot here was when Rickers was working over Navajo's arm, and then he went for a hammerlock body slam. He hit it, obviously, but then he pulled up with his back lame, playing up the size disadvantage. I liked the DQ finish, with both teams trying to cheat, but the Tribe being the ones caught. Very good fish out of water affair.

Zack Ryder vs. Primo on Superstars - This was an almost pitch-perfect match. It had a hot crowd. It had a pre-match promo. It had Primo heeling it up during the match and Ryder hitting some big babyface spots. Hell, it even had a story behind it, well, as much of a story as a Superstars curtain-jerker could have. Ryder played a surprisingly good babyface during this match. Maybe that's where his future lies, especially since he has fan support? Anyway, really cool, WWE-main event style match (weird because again, it jerked the curtain of the C-show) with a really good finish, going from the Backstabber attempt into the Ruff Ryder for the pin. Man, Zack Ryder really is over, isn't he? Shame he's wasting away off RAW because McMahon reputedly hates the Internet...

Drew McIntyre vs. Vladimir Kozlov on Superstars - A fun brawl. McIntyre spent a good portion of the match working over Kozlov's arm and then another portion just bumping his ass off for Kozlov's cyborg-style offense. Drew Mac did his best to make Kozlov look really good here.

Austin Aries vs. Kid Kash vs. Jimmy Rave, Destination X Tournament, on Impact - All three guys were good here, but the biggest star of this match was Aries. His test of strength antics at the start put the match on a good tone. His execution on his moves was crisp. He took the biggest bump, the STO on the apron from Rave. Basically, if this was a tryout to show his worth for something more than peanuts from Impact or a real live contract from WWE, then I'd say he passed with flying colors. Him getting a further tryout at the PPV is the right call.

Samoa Joe vs. Rob Van Dam, Bound for Glory Series, on Impact - Samoa Joe is a miracle worker. Seriously, there's only one guy in the whole world who consistently gets good matches out of RVD, and that person is Joe. I don't know whether Joe has a calming influence over him, but he's not sloppy. And even his contrived spots, like his step-through kick, look better when Joe takes them. This was a very fitting opener for the BfG Series, which is a cool idea. It's a tone-setter, and hopefully, it's not a tone that they'll screw up.

Christian vs. Sheamus, Spot in the Capitol Punishment Main Event on the Line, on Smackdown - Was it me, or did they just run a feeler for Sheamus as a babyface worker in this match? Well, up until the end, that is when they went into the finishing sequence. Anyway, this was a worthy main event, but you knew that was going to happen when it was announced. Two of the best workers alive right now going at it with a bunch of TV time to ply their trade. A well-worked size mismatch with a really cool finish. The sequence was great right from the start when Sheamus knocked Christian off his perch and then went to work with knee scrapes. That wasn't even the best part, with them jostling position into Christian giving Sheamus a modified stun gun by leaping from the top to the outside into the pin. Great improvised finish that really put a punctuation mark on the match.

Shows

NWA Hollywood - Very solid show this week. All four matches were enjoyable on their own level, and there was some good promo work. The sit-down with Adam Pearce was well done for the most part, although they should have maybe had more volume on Pearce's mic. The end of the show being similar to last week's (although not as crazy) was probably intentional. It seems like the start of an interesting story, where every tag team really hates each other and we start getting something like Tag Team Thunderdome going on. I can dig that. I also dug that Excalibur made mention at the start of the show that criminal charges would not be pressed against either the Cutlers or the RockNES Monsters. It's the little things like that that can turn a good show into a great one.

Superstars - Decent show with four okay-to-great matches on it. However, I did have a couple of issues with it. One, Ryder/Primo should have been the main event. I don't care if Kane was in one of the matches, Ryder's match had the hotter crowd and arguably the most over wrestler of the whole show on it. Two, I'm really over this whole manager-search angle for Tyson Kidd. I mean, what good is a manager when that manager is not going to get involved in any of his matches? It shows a fundamental lack of understanding as to what the role of a heel manager should be while the action's taking place in the ring. But then again, I guess that would require the failed TV writers to actually know something about wrestling, wouldn't it? Three, Matt Striker has become really bad lately. I know I've defended him on here, but there really is no defending him lately. Between his "dead air" problem seemingly getting worse and then this week, him saying "Revenge belongs to Kane" after he beat Kidd. Really, Matt? What revenge did Kane owe Kidd? Nothing. And if beating the top heel on the C-show is revenge for Alberto del Rio taking out Big Show, then man, I want to live in Striker's world, because I'd have so much easier times doling out retribution for my wrongs.

That being said, it still was an enjoyable show. Like I said at the top, the matches were mostly good. I liked that they gave promo time not only to Ryder but to McIntyre. This was his first WWE promo that I heard where he showed flashes of the charisma he had in that infamous ICW promo that I've linked on here a couple of times. I can dig him as "The Great American Nightmare". He finally has some character to catch up with his excellent ring work. The star of the show unquestionably was Zack Ryder though. Seriously, he owned the first part of the show, and he's showing everyone that it's not just a Youtube show and pedantic smark bitching that's part of his allure. He's actually an awesome performer.

Impact - Hit or miss show this week. A lot of people online have been raving about the Sting/Hogan segment, but again, it speaks to my problem of them bringing too much outside bullshit into it. Also, Sting was so fucking over the top, I couldn't tell if he was really pissed at Hogan or just trolling the shit out of him. I don't know. What I do know is that there were a few really good nuggets on this show, moreso than maybe the last month of Impacts combined. The two matches that were on the honor roll deserve to be there and then some. Then you had the Eric Young/Jason Hervey "match" segment. It was definitely funny, just how serious EY was treating it. To me though, Aries made the segment, just through his bewildered reactions to everything and his reluctant counting of the sham pinfall.

The Angle/Jarrett stuff though... I don't know how to feel about this. On one hand, ending on a pseudo-cliffhanger where Jarrett's intentions of leaving the country if he lost the brawl feels so fucking cheap to me. On the other, my guess is that he is gone, and I'm just happy to see Angle get closure to this feud finally and move on. This really hasn't been a feud that I felt should have continued for as long as it has, despite the fact that it's gone 8 months (8 months? That's insane, especially for Impact). I don't know, I'm ready for it to end and for Angle to get on with his title shot.

Speaking of which, I'm a huge fan of the Bound for Glory Series. While I really fucking hate that they play it up like nobody else thought of doing it when Chikara is doing a 12-man round robin tournament, I like the idea of them making this the lead-in to their biggest PPV's main event. It's part of building an identity. And if they can make this a vehicle to have good matches, like RVD/Joe or start stories like they're potentially doing with Scott Steiner and Bully Ray? Sign me up.

Smackdown - This was a really flat show. Nearly everything about it annoyed me, from Alberto del Rio pressing charges (my least favored of the storyline tropes) to making a big deal out of concussions (although in this case, them treating it more like a bad kayfabed injury rather than making it JUST LIKE the out-of-character debate over them made it more palatable to me) to Teddy Long being all over the show to the super-botched finish to the six-man tag match to bullshit parity booking with the Divas to Orton punting the shit out Sheamus (because I'm over the punt more than anything else).

I say nearly though because the main event match saved this show from being a total dud to me. Just a phenomenal match. Too bad there was really nothing else going for it. However, I will say this. The fact that that they pretty much destroyed Mark Henry and Sheamus during this show speaks volumes as to their faith in Christian to carry Smackdown as the top heel. That is encouraging to me.

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!

Exciting Times for Indie Wrestlers

Is WWE about to let Kings reign supreme over them?

It almost looks like paying your dues in the indies for the better part of a decade is starting to pay off, doesn't it? I'm not just referring to Austin Aries' star turn last night on Impact, where he wrestled in a three way match, garnered the approval of the Impact Zone crowd₁ and trended on Twitter. That was huge, even if it's just Impact Wrestling, a company that I and many other people malign on a regular basis. The fact is that Aries was presumably seen by over a million people at one time... which is way more people than would have seen him even on the most widely-purchased ROH iPPV. That's huge, very huge, but it's not the only big news.

Scuttlebutt around Twitter, which has yet to be confirmed by either party publicly but hey, at least one of the people talking about it are close to them, had Claudio Castagnoli and Chris Hero working out for WWE before their TV tapings this week. Yes, the Kings of Wrestling have circumvented that mythical WWE age barrier enough to get a look by WWE scouts in a WWE ring before a televised WWE event. And regardless of the outcome, I am beyond excited for both of them. The fact that the WWE at least looked at them speaks volumes to how far they both have come in their careers, to the point where not even the WWE can deny them a look.

I honestly can't think of three more deserving wrestlers to make it to greener pastures than those three. Yes, Aries is only contracted through Destination X at this point, and we all know how rough it can be in Impact for a guy who doesn't have the WWE or a similar mainstream company on his resume (note, being in TNA before is NOT the same). And we don't know how the Kings' tryout went at all, and we probably won't until it's a month or so later and they're either on their way to Florida or are still working indie dates not under the guise of being a farewell tour. Still, there's hope, and where there's hope, well, it can't all be bad, right?

Hopefully, that hope is justified. Even if not, well, it's at least a start. If Impact and WWE recognize that it's not just the "younger" guys who deserve shots in the bigs, then maybe, just maybe, there's hope for the wrestling industry yet. Experience matters, and the sooner people realize that, the sooner the mainstream product will get better.

1 - I know it's not hard to do that, but hey, small victories.

Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!

Austin Aries Back in Impact Wrestling

A Double - One last gasp in Impact

For those not in the know, Austin Aries used to wrestle in TNA as Austin Starr. Of course, those people not in the know are probably like me, folks who didn't pay much attention to either the indies or to TNA until recently. So suffice to say, I'm guessing a whole bunch of you out there knew that. Okay. Well, that's not the compelling news. What would be compelling? Well, if he went back, that would be pretty newsworthy.

Well, according to several reports, that just happened last night. There was a three-way match at the Impact tapings last night that pitted Aries against Kid Kash and Jimmy Rave, reportedly for a contract with the company. Aries won. Whether that was for a long-term deal or whether it's just through Destination X (since all three guys identify with the X-Division) is unknown at this point. However, I'm not really concerned with the news as much as I am with the implications here.

I always thought that Aries and the now-Impact Wrestling departed on bad terms. Then again, what bridge remains burnt in wrestling? Not many. It's no secret that Aries wants to make money in wrestling. He's at an age where he could either leave the business with his health intact and do something else with his life, cherishing his notoriety in the indies, continue on in the indies and degrade his body for no chance for more financial security or make one final play to get to the WWE or to make bigger money by breaking through in Impact. That's what this move says to me.

Now, whether it'll work or not is a different story. For as many times as the phrase "wrestling matters" is uttered in association with Impact, the actions in the ring don't show it. I mean, the top storyline is still about Sting feuding more with Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan, wanting to keep his title because of "stroke" rather than being the best in the company. With Destination X confirmed as being a X-Division themed event with the six-sided ring coming back one night only and everything, maybe there's a chance things turn around. Maybe they see the positive reaction to the event and start pushing guys like Aries and his brethren more meaningfully. But the former-TNA's track record suggests otherwise. You can't expect a leopard to change its spots until it actually goes through with the process, or else you set yourself up for failure.

Even with the lip service paid though, there's still a chance for A Double. Right now, both challengers for the top two WWE Championships made it in TNA before going back up North. They've taken fliers on Low Ki, Chris Harris, Consequences Creed, Lance Hoyt, Alexis Laree, Gail Kim₁ and other TNA talents to varying degrees of success. If using the month between now and Destination X is the audition that gets Aries by the mythical WWE age ceiling, then it'd be worth it, right?

Even looking at it that way, it might be a long shot. I wouldn't go back to Impact, but then again, I'm not a wrestler. I'm not Aries specifically either. I can't be in his frame of mind because I've never been in his position even in my own field of work. So if this is the way he wants to go, then so be it, it'll be the way he goes. If I get a month of things to actually look forward to on Impact because of it, then yeah, I can dig it. I can't get enough of A Double.

So while I don't have the highest hopes for his long term future, the immediate month will be something to enjoy. Hopefully, this turns out for the best for Austin Aries, because hey, he's one of my favorites, and I always want to see guys I like do well. Just don't expect me to be brimming with optimism about whether that will happen.

Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography

1 - I know most of those names flop, but at the same time, Aries is way, way, WAY more charismatic than all those names.

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!

18 Month Old Austin Aries Interview with Maybe Best Quote Ever about Wrestling

The man, from around the time of the interview

Dated December 1, 2009 from the Southtown Star Blog

I don't know why this interview is making the rounds on Tumblr now, but regardless of when it was posted originally, it's still salient. Read it:

People go to movies and they watch a great fight scene with Jackie Chan or a phenomenal fight scene without realizing these guys have five takes and 16 different camera angles. And here (with wrestling) is a live-action fight scene with drama and athleticism all rolled into one, and they kind of scoff at that. I can't understand why.

This is entertainment, but that doesn't mean there isn't competition going on within the matches itself, that there isn't compelling drama, good vs. evil. It's a lot of different genres rolled into one. It's acting. It's all these things. It's done live. It's like going to a live opera where they are putting on live fight scenes. Guys really get hit. Guys really fall. (People who think it's a) fake-out couldn't be further from the truth. I've got the X-rays and scans to prove it. If this stuff was fake, my spine would be in a lot better condition.

I don't think I could have said it any better myself.

Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!

Alex Shelley: Fanservice Personified

Alex Shelley is the man

PWG All-Star Weekend's first night saw Alex Shelley make two Earth-shattering challenges. The first was joining up with his Generation Next brethren, Austin Aries and Roderick Strong, to challenge Generation Me/the Young Bucks and a partner of their choosing at a future PWG event. The second was a challenge to Eddie Edwards after their match to make a date for a tag encounter in the future. He'd bring Chris Sabin, and Edwards would grab Davey Richards for a good, ol'-fashioned hoedown between the Motor City Machine Guns and the American Wolves. Both challenges were met with great jubilation by the Reseda crowd, and why not? The first is a dream reunion with perhaps the most hated faction in all PWG (only heels?) and the second is a bona fide dream match.

That begs the question... is Alex Shelley the ultimate fanservice wrestler right now? If he isn't, he's way up there. No doubt he had a hand in ideating those matches, and despite the fact that the latter one won't happen until Chris Sabin's knee heals up, well, the offer's still out there and 2012 will need some marquee matches to fill out slates. That one fits the bill more than any match I can think of this far out, depending on how the landscapes change in each wrestling company in the main consciousness of fans everywhere. Couple those with his announced teaming with James Storm at the next Impact Wrestling PPV (despite the fact that wasn't his idea), and man, talk about a guy who is the darling of the wrestling world right now.

That label is not undeserved. Shelley, along with his partner Sabin, tirelessly works the indies despite the fact that it probably comes at a great personal cost to him, or at the very least, not at that great a benefit given how the front office is reputed to handle outside bookings. It's why you don't see very many people outside the Bucks and the Guns doing that many indie dates. Yet, Shelley is out there, working for PWG, working for ROH, working for AAW (despite his next booking for the Chicagoland indie being pulled because Impact needs him on the house show circuit due to injuries).

Now, I'm sure he does it in part because of money. As a top indie name and a guy who has made his name in a national company, he probably commands a nice price. Again, without knowing exact numbers on how the former TNA scales their share from his outside booking takes, it's unknown how he benefits. But given that only a handful of other guys in TNA do take outside bookings is telling. And yeah, Amazing Red is working the East Coast feds with his former running buddies (and cousins) the Maximo Bros., which is commendable on his part.

Then again, Shelley's hotness is still new, and with all due respect to the Spanish Announce Team, his announcements excite me more than their teaming (although I will say I gained a new respect for Red at King of Trios). It may be a personal preference, but I still think it's pretty cool that Shelley was able to steal the show on the first night not just through his match (which I heard was excellent), but through promising wrestling fans all over future goods.

Given how much Shelley seems to relish delivering for his fans worldwide, I have full faith he'll keep his word.

Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!

The Experience Experience

Aries: About as old as Macho Man at his WWF debut age

When "Macho Man" Randy Savage showed up for duty at the newly-expanded-to-national World Wrestling Federation, he was a fresh-faced newcomer who was making his first REAL impact in the United States outside of Kentucky and Memphis.

He was also 32 years old with nine years experience as a pro wrestler.

If the WWF had the same standards then that the WWE today has now, then we may never have had the pleasure of watching Savage. It's rumored that WWE doesn't take on new signees over the age of 30. Whether that was a ploy by Gabe Sapolsky, who broke that news on his site, to garner more sympathy for the indie stars like Chris Hero and Austin Aries who for whatever reason aren't on WWE's radar or if it's true that it's policy is irrelevant, given that the company has trended towards recruiting guys at very young ages, sending them to FCW for however long they feel necessary and then debuting them on the big stage. From an institutional standpoint, that's a great plan. You want someone indoctrinated into the style your company purveys, then by all means, you should do it from the time they really start to learn how to become a "superstar" in their parlance.

But there does seem to be something missing from a lot of the NXT alums (Daniel Bryan excluded, obviously) and FCW call-ups that even the "new blood" of five years ago had in spades. Is the downturn in the wrestling business to blame? Or is it that maybe FCW isn't exactly the best environment in which to gain experience on how to break into WWE as a ready-to-go entity?

Really, a guy like Savage, or even folks like Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan (who coincidentally got part of his seasoning as part of the regional-era WWWF), Ricky Steamboat, King Kong Bundy, Ted DiBiase and other mainstays of the early national-expansion-era WWF got their experience from the territory system. It's a system that was struck a critical blow by the rise of WCW as an answer to the WWF, and it's something that we will probably never see again in terms of how important it was back in those days. How do you replicate that, a system where guys learn how to work, promo and do all the things that pro wrestlers do in order to manipulate crowds?

Maybe the answer does lie in the indies. Notice that the people who are really making splashes in WWE in terms of character, work or both, are all on the older side and have that experience. Dolph Ziggler was a throwback from the old developmental territories, where guys like Jim Cornette and Paul Heyman were calling the shots (making it feel like more of an indie fed rather than a precursor to WWE?). Daniel Bryan, Kharma and CM Punk all made their bones in the indies, especially in ROH. Wade Barrett, Sheamus and to a very limited extent in terms of character polish, Drew McIntyre, all came from Europe, where things work a bit differently. The only one that I can see that has risen up and really been given faith from the front office (even intermittently) that came from FCW was Jack Swagger, and even then, he feels way more polarizing to the smart fans I converse with than others.

It might seem that the point I'm making is that FCW BAD INDIES GOOD, but that's not really the case. I don't think that FCW in and of itself is bad, but I do think that maybe there's too much of an emphasis on rushing guys up from the fed and putting them into the spotlight at too early an age. I think that having Brock Lesnar and Randy Orton work out the way they did at young ages maybe turned the WWE front offices away from the fact that those guys were the exceptions, not the rules.

Maybe there should be more of an incubation time in FCW for these guys, unless an obvious exception to the rule comes along and deserves to get shunted up to the main roster. Maybe the indies should be scoured more and guys like Aries, Hero, Claudio Castagnoli and even Jimmy Jacobs (a guy of whom I'm not a fan but has appeal) should be considered. Maybe more experience is needed for guys coming in so that they have a handle on how to do things rather than needing to learn them on the fly on camera, which to me is too late.

Does it take shelf-life away from wrestlers when they start later? Maybe, but at the same time, look at how long guys from "back then" stayed around and were effective at playing crowds and drawing money. Either way, experience isn't a bad thing, and really, the WWE should be looking at getting as many good years as they can from guys, not as many years, no matter what the quality.

Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!

An Event That Lives up to Its Name: PWG All-Star Weekend Preview

WAR TOZAWA

The Southern California indie scene has a relatively new player in town in NWA Hollywood. They've generated a good buzz and made the rest of the nation aware that there's more to the greater Los Angeles indie scene than Pro Wrestling Guerrilla. Granted, it's using a lot of the same players, but with the TV exposure and the more regular storylines, well, it's the new thing.

That's not to say you can forget about PWG. Oh hell no, there will be no way that the elder statesman of SoCal indie feds should be ignored or diminished, and the big reason is that they produce cards like the one starting tomorrow night at American Legion Hall #308 in Reseda, CA. Yes, it's All-Star Weekend again, the eighth installment of their star-studded all-weekend long affair, and this year's proceedings have a lineup of talent that totally makes the fed justified in the name of their event.

You can find the full cards here, but I'll do you even better and preview some of what I feel will be the standout matches of the weekend. When you've got a talent roster of Claudio Castagnoli, Austin Aries, Roderick Strong, Chris Hero, the Young Bucks/Generation Me, Kevin Steen, Akira Tozawa, El Generico, Alex Shelley, Low Ki, Eddie Edwards, Chuck Taylor, Scorpio Sky, Joey Ryan and Ricochet among others wrestling for you, it would take a lot of aggravating factors for it to turn out to be average let alone bad, so yeah, maybe I don't need to sell you on the matches they have booked, since you could throw darts and create random matches from that lineup. But I am anyway. Why? Because I love PWG and I love writing about it.

Night One, which is tomorrow (Friday), is headlined by two pretty killer title matches. The titular main event is a Clash between Kings. Claudio Castagnoli defends his PWG World Heavyweight Championship. Both Claudio on his Twitter as well as the official PWG preview swear this match will remain friendly, as the two have been nearly inseparable since reuniting in ROH early in 2010. Things can be a bit different in LA-LA Land though, as wrestlers go there to change their images rather than be the same people they are, say, on the East Coast. Is that a guarantee that things will boil over? I can't read it right now, although with all the platitudes going around, I'd say it's a near lock that there'll be some kind of feud coming out of this. That being said, I don't think you could ask for a better Night One title bout than the one that the PWG faithful are going to see tomorrow night. These guys know each other and know each other's limits better than anyone else but themselves. I think this could be a serious MOTY candidate.

The other title match is, of course, the PWG Tag Team Championship match between the Bucks and the RockNES Monsters. While I'm not as sold on Johnny Yuma, the Rock half of the challengers, the NES half of Johnny Goodtime is more than adept at covering for his partner, as he's shown in several episodes of NWA Hollywood, where the Monsters are featured quite prominently. Given that they're in there against one of the best tag teams in the business in a match that should have plenty of heat, I think we have the recipe for what could steal the show or even get the main event slot given how protected the PWG Tag Titles and division on the whole has been. When the Bucks aren't forced to job to Matt Hardy in glorified handicap matches on Impact, well, they shoot fireworks. This match will get time, and I think it'll be really good.

The next two matches are the kinds of dream-type matches that make any PWG card must-see. The first will pit two guys that were riding on top of the world late last year in the big companies only to suffer precipitous misfortunes that ended up benefiting indie fans like you and me (and before you n00bs say anything, re: Shelly, I'm talking more about TNA's bright idea to tease a MCMG breakup, not his clavicle injury). Alex Shelley, still of TNA fame, takes on Low Ki, formerly Kaval, in what will definitely be a hard-hitting match with all the spotlight on it. The last Shelley tilt in PWG I witnessed with my own eyes was at As the Worm Turns against Chris Hero. It was, in a word, epic. Ki will have some big shoes to fill, but if anyone can, it'll be him and his lethal kicks of chest-reddening destruction.

The last match I wanted to highlight for Night One is not El Generico/Ricochet, mainly because if you don't know why that match is going to be awesome, or at the very least exciting if flawed, then you need to jump out of a window. No, the fourth match that I think will knock it out of the park is Akira Tozawa taking on Eddie Edwards. I had always been cognizant of Tozawa, but when I finally saw him live for the first time at King of Trios a month or so ago, the man blew me away with his ability. The Other Wolf is making his PWG solo debut (after making his total debut at DDT4 with partner Davey Richards), and I think he provides a great foil for Tozawa here. Bonus points will be had for this match if Tozawa has the same hairstyle and facial hair for this as he did at King of Trios. All the bonus points in the world will be had if he wears a keyboard necktie to the ring.

Night Two isn't slouching in the match quality department either. The title situations for this card will not be set until Night One is in the books, but all four potential title matches look like the goods to me. First up, Claudio will battle Ki in the titular main event right now, although if Hero wins the title and the Young Bucks retain on Night One, I can totally see the Tag Team Championship match taking the final bow of the weekend. Anyway, this is a classic size mismatch, which worked so well for Ki as Kaval in WWE during his NXT and mostly-Superstars run. The difference is that in this match, Claudio will actually sell extensively for the big-voiced-in-a-small-framed wrestler more than just in token style like Jack Swagger and the like were instructed to do. I expect a very physical, strike-based match with a lot of potential for Ki to bump like a pinball for Claudio's big move offense.

The other potential World Championship match might sound a bit unsure to you, but again, trust me on this one, it should be really, really good. Hero is slated to go against Willie Mack in this match. If you don't know who Mack is, well, he's a great story. He was actually one of PWG's original fans, going to all the early shows in the promotion's history. Then, he went and got himself trained, and now he's turning into SoCal's hottest property. He's wrestled guys like Roderick Strong in PWG and Austin Aries in NWA Hollywood, and now, he has the opportunity of a lifetime to impress the indie world at large, whether it's for the strap or not. Hero is about as big-name an opponent as they come nowadays, and I think that Mack, the guy who has a similar kind of look and style as Samoa Joe had in the indies, is more than game for the challenge.

The first of two potential Tag Title matches is a historic one. Should the Bucks retain tomorrow night, Saturday's match with Generation Next will be for the straps. If you don't know who Generation Next is because you're more of a neophyte indie fan, well, it's Roderick Strong and Austin Aries. Yep, in only their second match after reuniting for the first time in over five years (the first one is Night One against the Cutler Bros., one of my new favorite tag team acts by the way), Aries and Strong may have the chance to capture gold. Honestly, this may turn out to be the best match of the weekend. Bar none. It's must see. Seek out the DVDs for this match, even if nothing else interests you on the card.

Finally, the other potential Tag Title match will pit those RockNES Monsters against the Nightmare Violence Connection teaming of Tozawa and Kevin Steen. First off, can I tell you how much I love their tag name? It's a throwback to the AJPW tag team the Miracle Violence Connection, consisting of Terry Gordy and Steve Williams, and the changing of the first word to Nightmare only proves to perfectly exemplify the wrestling styles of both men. The funny thing is that they kicked so much ass at DDT4 that despite their ruthless heel aggression, they were pretty much got the biggest face reactions of the tournament. Go figure. Anyway, I can't wait to see the interplay between Goodtime and Tozawa here, as well as the sheer amounts of brutish thuggery that the NVC are going to whip out. I have a feeling that this one should be worthy of a classic PWG Tag Title defense should the belts go RockNES' way on Friday night.

As if In-n-Out Burger, the Grill 'Em All Burger truck, the idyllic warm weather year round and the massive amounts of hot women populating the region didn't make me jealous enough of Southern California, PWG takes the cake. If you're there, you need to go to Reseda and buy up a general admission ticket before they sell out, even if it's just for one of the nights. You don't need to be an over-optimist, a PWG apologist or really anything else but a realistic indie wrestling fan to know that your purchase will be well-rewarded, and that All-Star Weekend will more than live up to its name.

Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!