I had the chance to find this DVD on Ebay a while ago and just got around to watching it. It’s interesting to see the evolution of this company to where it is now. You can see a lot of things that they do right that they did even back then.
Mike Krease w/The Kobra Kai vs. Ribis w/Mr. Myagi
Wow, AIW, I see what you did there. AIW has come a long way. Of course I am a huge Ribis fan. It had good comedy. I do believe Mr. Myagi was a very young Dave “The Potato” Dawson. It was a really short match. This served to get Kobra Kai over as a heel faction.
Van Hughes vs. Brandon X
If I remember correctly, I once saw Brandon in an IWS-MS deathmatch tournament. Hughes has a Steelers gimmick. He would be #1 heel in Cleveland. He’d also be #1 in Dallas too. Brandon had a nice attitude that gave him an edge. Hughes is a good heel. This crowd was pretty rabid. Somebody threw in their beer. Then everybody did. It’s like I was watching WCW Nitro from 1997.
We had a promo with Deviant and Matt Cross. We had a homophobic f-bomb. I understand that heels do it for heat. Whatever. Get better. I know wrestling has changed quite a bit over the years and it’s not fair to hold somebody guilty for something that happened 6 years ago. Let’s just hope we’ve moved on. I still mark out for New Jack. But just to be fair, he said some pretty homophobic things too. It was still a pretty wild segment that reminded me of an old ECW card.
Tyrone Evans w/The Movement vs. The Savage
Evans would later become NXT/Nexus member Michael Tarver. You can see early on why Evans would become Tarver. Savage did a plancha. That is a big man to do a plancha. Evans was such a physical specimen. This was not a bad match. It lasted a little longer than I would have like it to. It was a screwjob finish and helped to keep Evans as a heel.
Six Pack Scramble Match-Jay Violence vs. Shawn Blaze vs. Jason Gory vs. Starless vs. E. Side Eddie-San vs. Dios Salvador
Violence had a nice little guy look and was over with the crowd. I’ve seen Gory before as well as Salvador. I like both of their work. Starless and Salvador worked well together. It was really good high-flying wrestling. I think it was Gory who climbed up the beam and did the moonsault. Violence won and I did not see that coming.
Vincent Nothing vs. Marion Fontaine
Wow, a pre-mustache Marion Fontaine. Fontaine has so much personality. I think I’ve said this before, but what he lacks in size, he makes up for in personality. Nothing was a great wrestler. Fontaine has the ability to convey so much emotion with his face. It’s a great gift. Plus he has that high-flying capabilities. Now with the power of the stache, the guy is a force to be reckoned with.
John Thorne vs. Thrillbilly w/Aaron Bauer
Thrillbilly is huge. And wow, could Thrillbilly give a lot of punishment. Thorne was a great seller. Revelation 13 used to have a Suicide Girl named Madison who used to escort them to ringside. Why aren’t there more Suicide Girls in the more underground promotions (like the Anarchy ones)? Sounds like a match made in Heaven. It was a pretty nice short, story-centric match.
Kano vs. Raymond Rowe w/The Path of Resistance
Both of these guys had nice size. This must have been a crazy feud because Kano flew in on the attack. Kano had some good innovation. Rowe had a good ring presence. He was the big relentless guy. It was Rowe slowly taking apart Kano. I was really impressed with both. This was a really good match, easily best on the card. After the match, there was some heat-getting and some more homophobic stuff. It seems to be part of the past so I won’t dwell on it too much. I did enjoy seeing a young Facade as one of the members.
Alpha Beta Duke vs. The Vinos vs. The Cut Throat Crew
I had the chance to see CTC a few months ago for the first time on a Mid West Wrestling DVD. While I don’t think their gimmick could be any cheesier, they are fun in the ring. The Duke knows he is a ground-based wrestler and never pretends to be something else. And the guys bump their tails off for him so he must be something really impressive. These 6 really tore down the house. And it ended in a DQ?
The Deviant Michael Hutter vs. M-Dogg 20
I think this is the Battle of the Chiseled Abs. The pace was a lot slower than I thought it would have been. But they went quite a long time. It was really hard to follow the previous two matches. It turned out it was a really good, strong match.
Christian Faith vs. New Jack
You can pretty much guess what this match was like. Poor Faith must have lost the Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament at the production meeting. For, like, the six of you out there who remember XPW, their color commentator Larry Rivera used to have a saying: Brutality at its most brutal. I think that is a perfect way of describing this match.
All in all… Again, it was very interesting to see the early AIW atmosphere. They really aren’t even the same thing anymore. Early AIW was more of an underground atmosphere. You can still see the same passion and commitment to giving their shows the best shows possible. To me, the match of the night was the Triple Threat Tag match. And I do have to point out that Aaron Bauer has not aged a day since 2006.
