April 27th was the debut show of ACTION Wrestling. ACTION Wrestling is based out of Tyrone, GA, which is about 45 minutes away from me. When the card was announced on Twitter, I was thrilled because I recognized many names from CWF. Cain Justice, Arik Royal, Donnie Dollars, and more all came from CWF.
I would like to take some time to talk about the non-wrestling side of ACTION Wrestling. Matt Griffin is the man behind ACTION. Matt was a Marine for eight years and has volunteered with Make-A-Wish GA for 5 years. All of the profits, poster proceeds, and T-shirt proceeds went to Make-A-Wish-GA. That night, they raised almost $4,000 for Make-A-Wish-GA!
Long before he ran ACTION, Matt wrestled under the ring name Jayce North. He’s duked it out with current WWE Champion A.J Styles and Southern wrestling legend Tank. Matt is more than just a fan living his dream and supporting a good cause, he has a great understanding of the business because of his experience wrestling.
The show starts with an old-school heel promo by AC Mack. He has this swagger about him that just rubs you the wrong way. I was there live and can say with confidence that he got one of the biggest, most passionate, hate- filled reactions from a hot crowd. The only wrestler that matched him in that way was a certain rhinestone cowboy who came out to Miley Cyrus. I’ll get to him later.
Mack is doing battle with the beloved Joey Lynch. This is a really fun fast-paced opener. AC tries to ground Joey by working over the knee. Joey attacks the arm in an attempt to weaken his opponent’s grip strength. The match itself is pretty even. I would give Joey a slight edge in power and striking. AC might have the edge in speed by a hair.
AC seemed to have the more effective game plan. However, Joey definitely got in his fair share of offense. The eight-minute sprint came to an end when a submission move was reversed into a quick cradle for the 3!
Next, Arik Royal faced Michael Spencer. Royal is a CWF mainstay and has done a fantastic job getting his name out there the past few years. Spencer is still relatively young in his career. Arik had a size, power, and experience edge. Spencer must use his speed to get the win. Unfortunately, Arik never gives Spencer the opportunity and decimates him to get the win relatively unscathed. This match left me wanting bigger competition for Arik. There’s this one guy in the main event I’d love to see Arik go at it with. I think it would be a great hoss battle!
Our next match is an Action Scramble Fatal- 4 Way match. James Bandy, Adrian Hawkes, Ethan Sharpe, and Donnie Dollars do battle to impress the crowd. Dollars and Sharpe are both regulars for a promotion I’m extremely familiar with in CWF Mid Atlantic. They use this familiarity to make a temporary alliance. Neither man wants the other coming back to CWF with all of the glory.
This had a tag team feel to it. Dollars and Sharpe were extremely entertaining dysfunctional alliance. Donnie had the match won but Ethan broke up the pin. Both guys want to be heroes for their home promotion! For me, both of them were MVPs of the match. Sharpe is a fantastic arrogant, sneaky heel. He almost reminds me of Ogawa. Whenever I watch Donnie, I have flashbacks of Test. Two big guys that are deceptively quick and have somewhat similar move sets. The match ends when Adrian Hawkes catches Donnie with a surprise schoolboy.
The next match screams old school Southern wrestling. Charismatic high flyer Cam Carter battles the rhinestone cowboy, Billy Buck. Cam does a really fantastic job of getting the crowd behind him. He finds the balance between captivating fans with high flying offense and being an underdog fighting insurmountable odds.
You see, Buck has his associates, Team TAG with him all match. For the first seven or eight minutes of the match, Buck did a fantastic job grounding Cam. He would also throw Carter the outside every few minutes and distract the ref to allow Team TAG to get in cheap shots. Buck is a surprisingly great strategist. When you wrestle A high flyer, most people would assume to go after the legs. Billy Buck is definitely not like most people.
The biggest weapon in Buck’s arsenal is his Buckshot superkick. If Cam can’t use his arms, he has no defense. One Buckshot equals guaranteed victory.
I know I’ve talked a lot about Buck but Cam definitely did more than his part. He was the perfect underdog foil for the dastardly cowboy. Even though he was an underdog, there were several moments where it looked like he would overcome the odds. The best example of this would be after he took Buck and Team TAG out with a slingshot plancha.
Carter would capitalize with a beautiful, yet believable springboard 450 Splash for an exciting 2 count! Eventually, the aerial underdog succumbed to the numbers game and fell to a nasty buckshot superkick.
After intermission, we have Matt Sells battling Big Bite Martinez. Sells kinda has this old school Joey Ryan vibe to him. I’m not quite sure what Martinez is supposed to be. From his appearance and mask, I would guess a shark. The match itself never really got underway as both were attacked by Team TAG. TAG were mad that they didn’t have a match. After a heated discussion with the boss,the two were granted a match at the next show on June 29th.
Up next, we have the co- main event. Rising prospect Cain Justice makes his Georgia debut against Fred Yehi. This was my MOTN. Of everything on the card, this was my favorite because it felt like a big fight. It was almost like a wonderful mix of an MMA fight and an old school southern pro wrestling style brawl on the outside.
Yehi had the advantage on the mat, but the North Carolinian in his sophomore year definitely held his own. I felt that Cain had a slight advantage in standup. When things got dirty, both wrestlers had their moments.
The determining factor was Cain’s inexperience. Cain has that youthful confidence that sometimes gets him in trouble. When he was in control, it got in his head and messed with his concentration. Because of this,he came out with the short end of the stick against a much more seasoned opponent.
Lastly, we have the main event: Gunner Miller vs Dominic Garrinni. Both wrestlers had support from the crowd. However, Miller, the larger competitor, would subtly play the role of the villain. In the beginning, he was very dismissive of the smaller Garrinni. This would almost haunt him as Dom briefly had him trapped in an armbar in the beginning moments of the match.
From there, the story was clear. Garrinni wanted a mat based match and Gunner wanted to use his power to keep it a more traditional match. After ten grueling minutes, Gunner won after countering a guillotine choke into a jackhammer.
Earlier, I mentioned that I’d love to see Arik Royal go against one of the main eventers. That wrestler would be Gunner Miller. Both are highly athletic big men. However, what intrigues me is the difference in personalities. Royal has the funny showman charisma while Miller is quieter but has a big presence. Think of The Rock and Goldberg, respectively .
Overall, I thought this was a fantastic debut show. The next show is June 29th in the same venue. If you can’t be there live and in person, no worries because the event will be streamed on Powerbomb TV!
Here’s the announced card:
Arik Royal vs Tracy Williams
Cain Justice vs Anthony Henry
Cam Carter vs Slim J
Aja Perera vs Tragedy
The Lynch Brothers vs AC Mack and Ike Cross
Billy Buck vs Cabana Dan
And 2 other matches yet to be announced