| 9:30p |
JAPW in Rahway, 1/7/06
This past Saturday was my first-ever Jersey All-Pro Wrestling show, held at the Recreation Center in Rahway (conveniently right next door to my place of work!) First, here's Rev Ray of DVDVR's recap of the results:
Doors were supposed to open at 6:45, they opened past 7. Show was supposed to start at 7:30, started after 8.
World Wide Matches :
The Dead Presidents (the former boogalou and I think former Low Ryda) over guy with Infamous on his tights and Bandido Jr with a Razor's Edge type move from Lou and a diving thing from Ryda on Bandido, looked ugly.
Danny Demanto over Corvis Fear via top rope Senton
Main Show :
Mercedes Martinez over Alicia w/ Johnny D via DQ when Rhino ran in and gored Martinez. Jay Lethal and Teddy Hart made the save when Rhino was threatening to hit the Rhino driver on Martinez.
Monster Mack over Trent Acid via frog splash
Frankie Kazarian over Xavier via the Wave of the Future
Monty Brown over EC Negro via the Pounce
The Maximos over The Outcast Killaz and The Briscoe Brothers in a 1 fall triple threat match when the Maximos hit the Spanish Fly on Diablo Santiago to retain the JAPW Tag Titles
Teddy Hart won a light heavyweight guantlet match to win the JAPW Light Heavyweight title. Azriel started vs. Arcadia, then Javi Air entered, then Quiet Storm, then Grim Reefer, then M-Dogg 20, then Teddy Hart
Javi out via top rope double stomp while he was sitting by Azriel
Arcadia out via top rope DDT from Reefer
Reefer out via a spinebuster move out of a gory lock by Teddy
Storm out via a Shooting Star Press by M-Dogg
M-Dogg out via Teddy corkscrew 450 with Azriel hitting him and stealing the pin
Teddy over Azriel via Shooting Star Elbow drop
Rhino over Jay Lethal via a Rhino Driver through a door set on two tables. Teddy tried to help Jay at one point and Jay got upset. Post match, Teddy was trying to help Jay up but he wanted nothing to do with him.
Now, some feedback from me. Since this was a new fed to me, and quite a different experience from my NWS shows, I opted not to take notes:
I'll vouch for the delay in the door opening, no fun with the cold that night! I did get to talk with a small group of fans, pretty much became a round of remembering old WCW angles.
AWESOME merchandise tables...I couldn't help but max out on DVDs (MX and Horsemen comps this time, plus Bash '87) This would be inspiration in itself to return to the Rec Center shows.
Saw Gino Moore of NWS in attendance, oddly enough. I think I also saw the (in)famous "Green Lantern Fan."
I do know Colvis Fear from the last NWS show I went to...he was in a triple threat with Gavin Quest and J.D. Smoothy that was really good. But yeah, the Worldwide stuff were train wrecks and a lot of people in the bleachers shat on it accordingly. Many spots that led to demands of "What was THAT?" as much of the stuff seemed messed up, and/or took +15 seconds to set up.
Sound system definitely needed some work. That made things worse since I didn't know many of the guys.
I liked the tag and light heavyweight title matches in particular, plus Kazarian vs. Xavier. Frankie has great entrance music, it's the "You're the best around" song from Karate Kid. Great to see another occasional NWSer in Archadia (who I REALLY am a fan of) there. Him and Alicia, who was managing Rhino but did manage Archadia on an NWS show.
I think twice, a fan in the front rows in front of the bleachers got wiped out by a highspot; one was from Teddy Hart I believe.
I didn't care about the match itself, as there was just something cool about seeing Monty Brown in person. Is there always anti-TNA sentiments among the JAPW crowd? They seemed as divided on Brown as they were/are about Teddy Hart. Many catcalls directed towards him, TNA, and Jeff Jarrett. And the Teddy thing, oh boy. There is apparently a contingent on the indy circuit that he is unpopular amongst...as I understand, this has to do with incidents on other shows (one Ring of Honor, one TNA, I believe) where he was accused of trying to show up the rest of the guys. He has his fans, and isn't a BAD worker from what I saw, but took his share of abuse too. Same thing with Jay Lethal, when he was up against Rhino. Back to the Monty Brown match, however, the hecklers led to Brown challenging various fans in the front row between parts of his promo.
Call it just another markout, but I did get a kick out of seeing Rhino in person too (you can put Kazarian in this group as well, BTW). I can see where some people would call his title win a surprise for the sake of a surprise/pushing a "name." But the choice of Rhino did not strike me as a necessarily bad idea. Of course, I was marking when it happened at the time.
Someone conducted an interview with Teddy the show, he was ranting about Owen Hart's spirit allowing him to do his high-flying, kind of stole Sable's old catch phrase, and closed up about God and the kids. He sounds a little like Owen voicewise, actually.
Overall, I was happy. Things did pick up by mid-show after a few misses. I think once I do my homework and know who's who and what's what, this will be another indy for me to enjoy. |