Doug Williams’ finisher finally gets a show name!
It’s time to take the wayback machine back to January 22, 2010. An earthquake hadn’t yet made the citizens of Illinois poop themselves. The Saints were winless in Super Bowls, and Davey Richards could still work for both DG USA and Ring of Honor without both companies acting like kids who wet their diapers. Little did we all know much would change the next three weeks.
-Taped from Berwyn, Illinois
-Your hosts are Phil Colvin and Derek St. Holmes
-Flashback to House of Truth’s beatdown of Dash Phoenix. Creepy background music is added in a very WWEesque moment. And that’s a compliment just for the record.
-AAW champion Silas Young makes fun of Jimmy Jacobs’ name and basically admits to tanking two non-title matches. Heel bravado at its’ best.
-Jay Bradley vs. Kyle O’Reilly
Bradley beals O’Reilly, but the little Irishmen strikes back. Bradley tosses O’Reilly into the guardrail. A fine way to start the night. Toss into the corner and a chop by Bradley. Stiff forearm and a whole lot of other strikes. Snap suplex. O’Reilly reveres an Irish whip and kicks O’Reilly prone in the corner. Spit flies into the crowd. Series of kicks, forearms, and a tornado DDT by O’Reilly. Missile dropkick only gets two. More kicks and knees, but a knee strike by Bradley konks O’Reilly. LARIAT! 1-2-3!
Winner (s)/Time/Rating: Jay Bradley/4:30/*1/2
–Bout as good and fun as a four minute match can be. Good debut for O’Reilly, and I hope we see both of them again.
-#1 Contender’s Match for the AAW Heavyweight Championship: Lewis Lyndon vs. Flip Kendrick vs. Hallowicked vs. Gran Akuma vs. Trik Davis vs. Jigsaw
Winner gets a title match the next night at Dragon Gate USA. Think this will be a spotfest? Lyndon and Davis have a nice sequence that concludes with a dropkick that sends Davis outside. Wicked and Skuma are next, and they could do their Lucha spots in their sleep. Jigsaw hits a top rope rana on Wicked . Kendrick comes in, and immediately botches a spot with Jiggy. They recover nicely and applies a couple of submission moves. Davis comes in and applies one of his own. Wicked comes on and kicks him in the face. Akuma breaks that up. Lyndon dives on the five men outside with a top rope moonsault. Jigsaw does a forward dive. Kendrick spirals to end the series of dives. Davis and Lyndon back inside. Davis with a TKO that would have ended the match, but Jigsaw breaks the pin up. Big superkickby Jigsaw. He and Akuma have a roll-up sequence. Akuma drops Jigsaw on the knees, and Lyndon breaks that up. Two big kicks by Lyndon. Wicked with Go 2 Sleepy Hollow. Kendrick breaks that pin up and hits a tornado DDT. Kendrick climbs to the top rope, but Akuma kicks him out of the way. Another Go 2 Sleep but it’s blocked. Rydian bomb by Hallowicked gets three.
-Winner (s)/Time/Rating: Hallowicked/8:11/**3/4
-Some sloppiness brings the rating down slightly, but this was another solid match, and I’m glad Wicked won since he’s an underrated guy on the indy scene. He would go on to lose his title match the next night on the bonus card of DG USA.
-Jimmy Jacobs talks about pinning Silas Young twice and dares the champion to bring his cronies.
-The Chan Clan comes out for a birthday celebration. McEntyre, Wagner, and Wisdom bought a birthday cake (all the way from Italy!) for Chandler McClure. McClure immediately realizes what happens when a birthday cake is in a wrestling ring. He knows it’s going to be him since he’s the main character. While trying to leave, AAW Heritage Champion Colt Cabana comes out to make the prophecy about birthday cakes comes true. Chandler gets to have his cake and eat it too… if you will.
-Arik Cannon beats up Cabana to end the fun and games. He calls Cabana’s title reign a joke in so many words. Johnny Gargano, Cabana’s opponent for the night, comes out. I guess the match is on.
-AAW Heritage Championship: Colt Cabana (champion) vs. Johnny Gargano
Gargano almost immediately gets a three count since Cabana has been beaten down. Gargano controls the early part of the match until Cabana gets a belly-to-back suplex. Blind charge gets Gargano back in control of the match. Cabana with a DDT variation and the crowd gets back into the match. Cabana comes back with some wind-up shots. Gargano tries to run away but gets an elbow to the head for his troubles. Cabana suplex off the ropes. Chops. Series of reversals leads to Gargano getting a Diamond cutter. Cabana felt the bang there. Face buster almost gets the championship for Gargano. Spear attempt but Cabana gets knees up. Flying apple misses. Gargano goes to the top, but Cabana drops Gargano on the turnbuckle. Flying Apple. Welcome to Chicago ends the match.
-Winner (s)/Time/Rating: Colt Cabana /7:07/**1/4
-Even though two stars isn’t that impressive, it’s still a better rating than I’ve given most Cabana matches recently. Good short match that kept the comedy to a minimum.
-Davey Richards vs. Super Crazy
The crowd cheers passionately for both men before the bell rings. Then the bell rings, and oh what a disaster. These two were not wrestling the same match. They weren’t in the same building. Hell, I’d question whether they were both doing professional wrestling. I’m not even sure if this could be concerned a styles clash, but these two did not jive AT ALL. They exchange moves, and the psychology goes nowhere. There’s no flow. There’s just two guys doing moves, and some of them are executed correctly. I can’t believe I said this was almost a three star match in my live report. I was wrong. This time around, I could see the point in which Crazy has his thumb injured. It’s one of two kicks toward the end of the match. Not sure if they went home early, but it’s pretty clear Crazy was legit injured. Davey ends a disappointing bout with a DR driver that Crazy appeared to sandbag him on. Shocked Crazy did the job here.
-Winner (s)/Time/Rating: Davey Richards/9:19/**
-As much as the crowd was into the match to start, I think they were disappointed too.
-Long promo with Tyler Black and Shane Hollister talking about their match later. Shane isn’t happy about being in Tyler’s shadow. Tyler mentions Shane not being able to win the big one in a wicked case of irony.
-The Phoenix Twins (Dash and Tweek) and Dan Lawrence vs. The House of Truth (Josh Raymond, Christian Able, and Mason Beck)(w/Truth Martini and Valerie Malone)
They don’t even wait for entrances. The brawl is on immediately. The faces stand tall in the ring before Dan Lawrence does a kamikaze drive on the tag team champions. Twins double clothesline Beck out of the ring. Absolute chaos throughout the Eagles club. Bell finally rings with the Twins double-teaming Able. Things settle down. Able hits Tweek hard with a clothesline and the HoT do some double-teaming of their own. YEAH!!! I guess Beck makes it three. Faces come back and once again apply some teamwork. Double atomic drop on Beck followed by a step-up bulldog by Lawrence gets two. Lawrence almost gets stuck in the corner, but he fights back and gets an armlock. Raymond suckers Lawrence in and Able knees Lawrence in the head. Triple-teaming and cheating by HoT. After a few minutes, Lawrence gets a headscissors from the top rope and tags in Dash. He goes crazy and now both teams go back and forth. Cool spot as Beck does a fallaway slam on Tweek and Lawrence. Unbelievable spots done by both teams. Everything was spot on, and Lawrence in particular didn’t seem to miss a beat. Truth Martini tries to interfere but that fails miserably. Sweet twin music by the Twins on Able ends it. Excellent tag team match.
-Winner (s)/Time/Rating: The Phoenix Twins and House of Truth/16:08/***1/2
-I’m not sure whether this was as good as the six man tag at Us vs. The, but this was in the ballpark. Dan Lawrence is underrated. He’s shined the last two months and shown why he’s the longest reigning member of the roster. His size likely prevents him from going farther, and that’s a shame.
-Chandler McClure tells the other members of the Chan Clan that they’re on their own for the next match.
-Ryan Boz and Nick Brubaker (w/Danny Daniels) vs. Jordan McEntyre and Knight Wagner
I actually missed this match first time around because I was off interviewing one Johnny Gargano. As it turns out, I didn’t miss much. Hollister did go after Daniels and Boz as a distraction toward the end of the match. What I did miss was THE CHAN CLAN WINNING A MATCH! HOLY CRAP! I’ll give this match an extra star just for that.
Winner (s)/Time/Rating: The Chan Clan/4:08/*1/4
-Boz comes in and kills the Chan Clan. Then he and Daniels turn on Brubaker for being a loser and not being able to beat the team that never wins.
-Krotch doesn’t have a tag team partner, and he complains to owner Jim Lynam. Lince Dorado was flown in from San Juan ,Puerto Rico, and isn’t on the card. Lynam mashes this situation together to get PussyKrotch. These tag team nicknames really do write themselves.
-Irish Airborne (Jake and Dave Crist) vs. Zero Gravity (Bret Gakiya and C.J. Esparza)
No one seems to want to wait for the bell anymore. Dives by both members of Gravity. Back inside and more domination by the babyfaces. P.J. Drummond takes a shot as things settle down. Gakiya plays odd last name in peril. Gakiya tags in Esparza and Zero Gravity is back in this thing. Zero Gravity gets better with each passing month. Gakiya moonsaults Jake. Flippy cup only gets two. They place Jake on top, but Dave saves his brother in time. Dave turns a moonsault into an attempted piledriver. Gakiya reverses but ends up being superbombed. Gakiya made it look BRUTAL on the selljob. Esparza goes to the top, but Airborne throw the referee into the ropes. Spike piledriver. Done.
-Winner (s)/Time/Rating: Irish Airborne/7:50/**1/2
-Shane Hollister vs. Tyler Black
This is an unofficial number one contender’s match. This was somewhat similar to Silas Young and Bryan Danielson from Us vs. Them in that this wasn’t a grudge match but two guys just having a wrestling match. I firmly believe Hollister had his breakout match that will once and for all put him on the big stage. His match with Cannon did a great job building credibility with the AAW audience. The match with Trik Davis at Young Lions Cup for CHIKARA got him some east coast exposure, but this was a great match with an established independent star.
As far as Tyler Black goes, I think this match dispels the myth that he’s not all that great of a work. I get so tired of Ring of Honor fans bitching about this guy. The bookers are solely responsible for cooling him off to the point where no one cares about him winning the world title. His in-ring work is above average, and since coming back from neck surgery, he’s been even better. Are his promos the greatest? Probably not, but I think he’s improving in this area too. These two had a great back and forth match that is reason alone to buy this DVD. Black plays a subtle heel that I think served the match well to get people behind Hollister. Not sure if anyone actually believed Shane could win the match. Black noticeably grimaces multiple times as a way of selling his neck injury. Great ending sequence. The last five minutes of this match were awesome as Hollister Rolls up with a modified crucifix for three.
-Winner (s)/Time/Rating: Shane Hollister/19:36/****
-The Iowa connection shake hands after the match.
-Arik Cannon and Darrin Corbin (w/Nikki Meidei) vs. Lince Dorado and Krotch
Lince and Cannon have great chemistry together, so this turns into as pretty good little match. Unfortunately, I think the crowd was getting burned out after a long night of action. It sucks too because this match came out really well. Definitely something that plays better on DVD as opposed to love. The heat segment is on Krotch for much of the match. Once Lince comes in, he brings excitement to the match, since Krotch doesn’t do anything of the sort. He just humps people. Cannon gets a brainbuster and glimmering warlock ends it.
-Winner (s)/Time/Rating: Arik Cannon/10:54/***
-Colt Cabana wants him some Arik Cannon, but Cannon wants to wait until Bloody Valentine.
-AAW Heavyweight Championship: Silas Young (champion) vs. Jimmy Jacobs
I was expecting a decent to good match, but I was shocked by how epic this heavyweight title match turned out. The run-in by Irish Airborne took me out of the match a little bit because I thought that would end up being the finish. Thankfully, Black and Hollister ran them off, so these two could settle it. I like the idea of Young constantly beating his challengers with his opponents’ finishers. This happened once again here as Young made Jacobs pass out with his own End Time. I wasn’t sure if this was four stars or not, but what settled it for me was the fantastic ending. I enjoyed this match a great deal, and I loved how well Silas came off in the end. This is a man who’s lost the big one numerous times in AAW, and he’s never really gotten a consistent chance to be a star around the country. If he continues having title defenses like this, it’s going to be awfully hard to hold him back from receiving a push in a company like EVOLVE. With the departure of Davey Richards, EVOLVE needs new blood to shine. I’d say Silas is as good a name as any to be the man.
-Winner (s)/Time/Rating: Silas Young/20:07/****
-House of Truth promo. Truth talks about things that should never happen, their team losing being one of them. Able cuts a hell of a promo by himself about beating the Phoenix Twins. Wow, that was a shocker.
Final Thoughts: If you’re not an AAW fan, this is the show you should buy. While I take nothing away from Us vs. Them, this was a true representation of the best this company has to offer. I’d argue that the best matches in September were had by the guest stars. The CHIKARA guys, Bryan Danielson, and Young Bucks. Obviously, their opponents were AAW regulars, but I think you should understand what I’m getting at. This was a show that also had guest stars, but the best matches featured the same guys who wrestle in the Eagles club every month. Shane Hollister broke out against Tyler Black. The six man tag stole the show. Silas Young showed why he deserves to be the champion.
You can get this DVD for 25% off at Smart Mark Video by virtue of them being the promotion of the month. Take advantage of the opportunity. If you buy no other AAW DVD for the rest of your life, buy this one because this is not only a great AAW show, but an excellent independent wrestling show. Period.
For more information on AAW, go to aawrestling.com
“If you’re not an AAW fan, this is the show you should buy.”
Figures I miss an AAW show for once… where's my DVDs…?