ThomasFromIowa

The hall of fame show was really fun. I was unable to attend the rest of the hall of fame activities due to work, but the show was dang good. Another match to look for when (if) Midnight throws more on YouTube is the Legend Killers vs Zero Gravity match. It was just a really solid tag match between two of the better teams in the midwest. Also, Bob Backlund's interview with Midnight Guthrie was truly something special for the live audience. I'm intrigued by this weekend's Metro Pro card in Kansas City. The Vic Capri vs Ace Steel match is something I really want to see. Also, they have a hoss fight with Kevin Lee Davidson vs Redwing which will be awesome too. This card is as good as anything I've seen Metro Pro put out so I'll be eager to hear how it goes. For other shows that have got me hyped, Dreamwave is running Bucky Collins vs Little Guido which is like a full on dream match for me. These two are good enough to have me transitioning from the edge of my seat to howling with laughter so I'm just ready to see it next weekend. Dreamwave is also running Prince Ali vs AR Fox. Ali's last number of outings at Dreamwave have all been matches that have been dramatic and sucked me in. Usually during Fox's matches I'm just entertained, but not quite involved with the match like I am when Ali wrestles. I'm interested to see if Ali can bridge the gap with Fox and bring me home as pleased as I've been after his matches with Cage, Rose, and the ladder match. Also, I'm excited for the SCW anniversary show. Not as excited, but still excited. The Connor Braxton vs Shane Hollister match should do really well as both are the most over heel/face in walcott and really good in those roles. I'm also pumped for the return of Funky Munky Wrestling (head to twitter and check out the poster for Return of the Judi as it is something special), which is my favorite promotion. Its not their upcoming show that has my eye, but the Bucky Collins vs Matt Cage ladder match in September. If you haven't seen them, check out the Bucky vs Cage matches on Funky Munky's Youtube. They are as good of matches as you'll find on the indie level in the midwest. These guys just don't disappoint and now they will be following up those matches with a ladder match. I'm beyond pumped.

I actually like the Kerry-Borne feud quite a bit. They seem to have a natural chemistry and Borne is interesting enough to make this more than usual boring Kerry stuff.

I came to this board to read the GWE stuff and stuck around. I think GWE is only ever going to interest people who make a point to try and watch every style of wrestling which isn't a large amount of people. But I think GWE is a project that really does serve as a reference point for people within that interest.

I found this disturbing. Like, I know its World Class, and these are the fans that stuck around through all of the crazy Von Erich wackiness, but I can't figure out why the crowd loves Dundee here. This feels like the beginning stages of Dundee being booked on the Jerry Springer show. Also, I find it humorous that Lowrance is assisting Dundee in this angle right after he informs the audience (assuming this is in order) that he's leaving to become a pastor.

I thought this was one of the best things I've watched on this yearbook so far. I'm legitimately sad. Also, I'm convinced Mr Rogers stole his goodbye speech from Lowrance.

Martin Short and Maya Rudolph's show had a skit with Cena/Short being cast as Hogan in a Hogan vs Gawker movie and it was very funny.

Lots of big things happening right now in midwest wrestling. - Freelance had another great show and keeps building steam. I didn't see the show as I was at a show in Des Moines, but all reports say the show was excellent. - Pro Wrestling Revolver was actually good. I was very skeptical about a supercard without storylines being ran in Des Moines, but the show was awesome. A dude did a 20 foot balcony dive during the 8 man scramble that was just so crazy. Hardcore Holly vs Sami Callihan was actually really good and I think how good Holly is at his age is really understated. I've seen him 4 times post WWE and his intensity is unmatched by anybody I've ever seen live. Also, Arik Cannon vs Tommy Dreamer had an unexpectedly great match. Dreamer cut an A+ promo after the match about how Cannon told him that before the match that Dreamer was the only person to ever call him back from a big company and say something good when he first started wrestling and put Cannon over as somebody who would be a household name if the people in power appreciated talent. It was really odd how much this promo had me, but it was really powerful.This is the second in a row of absurdly good wrestling from Cannon in Des Moines. A couple weeks ago he had a really good match with Redwing. Also, John Morrison messed up what state he was in during the go home promo. There's debate amongst those of us who were there live as to if it was intentional or not, but I"m pretty sure he actually thought he was in Ohio, because we then had Sami Callihan running to the ring and giving an actual go home promo. Also notable was how well Billy Gunn moves for his age and Trevor Lee admitting that TNA sucks, but saying he's the biggest star there. - Scott County Wrestling out of Walcott announced Seth Rollins was going into the SCW hall of fame. There's no word if he'll actually be there or not. I'm leaning not as they didn't push that, but there's always a chance as it is the promotion in association with Black and Brave. This also kicked off a good angle where Shane Hollister was upset that he wasn't one of the first two members of the HOF with Tyler Black and Marek Brave. Hollister then proceeded to say he wanted to wrestle right now to take out his frustrations. Out came 120 lb comedy gimmick B&B graduate Rip Studwell. Hollister destoyed him. The Brainbuster looked lethal. Hollister got on the mic and said he had it with Black and Brave and asked for another opponent. Out came Dantay Leone (am definitely spelling that wrong). Dantay is probably the guy to watch out of the last group of B&B graduates as he sells incredibly for a guy who's had under a 25 matches. Hollister beat the hell out of him too and said he would be back later tonight and he was as he ruined the main event by costing B&B standout Connor Braxton his title shot. Braxton is EXTREMELY over in Walcott (without the hoverboard btw. He's three times the wrestler without the damn thing.) so the angle went over hot and I just had to talk about it here, because its great to see good wrestling. Also, Matt Cage returned to this company and was set up as the third main heel behind Hollister and champ Mason Beck. The highlight outside of Hollister was Cage getting into a screaming contest with an 8 year old girl. They were both standing on top of chairs and yelling at each other. - NOW This is Wrestling, which is the new company out of Omaha that has Vince Russo as their storyline GM, put up a video this afternoon with Vince Russo announcing that Bobby Lashley will be on their debut event. This company's Youtube videos are so bad its good gold and I'd encourage everybody to watch them. - There is an Omaha indie wrestling war going on social media between PWP Live and Magnum Pro owner Jaysin Strife. Strife pulled his champion from the PWP Live show and PWP put out a Facebook rant in a press release styled document talking down about Magnum. Strife fired back with "fuck PWP" and also a "fuck NOW" on a Facebook post. This is a lot of fun to watch as a midwest indie fan as NOW is Vince JRing both companies anyway, but they decide to fight amongst each other instead of working together. Both companies have strong upcoming shows as Magnum is probably the better company by a slim margin and have Shelton Benjamin and Damien Sandow on their next show and PWP is delivering a strong main event on their next show with Hype Gotti's return vs Sonjay Dutt. I'd advise watching Hype Gotti's Twitter for all upcoming developments in this story. - This weekend is going to be awesome as I'll be getting very drunk at Wrestlepalooza Friday and can't wait for it to come and then hit IPW Saturday where they are having a "20 man falls count anywhere ladder royal". I don't know what the hell that means, but the Riegels are on the card, so that means we'll be getting crazy ladder spots. Also, Proving Grounds Pro is having a hell of a show in central Illinois next weekend, but the drive is near 4 hours for me and I can't justify making it when I'll be hungover and IPW is right around the corner. - EDIT: Magnum Pro just put a video on Youtube of Redwing doing Omaha Dancing with the Stars. The indie wrestling Gods just keep delivering today.

My god, JJ Garrett (Gareaux!) is doing Prince of the Deathmatches. He posted this promo for it that had me chuckling pretty heavily.

Yes, I will be. I missed the show last year as I was moving that weekend, but the card seems like a must for anybody who lives in around these parts with the usual IPW roster plus Ricochet and Dirden and an indie cage. I'm really pumped to see Dirden live for the first time.

Chicken Wing, I just saw Pro Wrestling Battleground has a show this weekend in the twin cities area. They were really hot about six months ago (to make it short, they were bringing in guys from throughout the midwest and had a really hot angle where they retired Horace the Psychopath to a cowardly heel), and though I haven't heard much about them lately they have a show this weekend in the twin cities and are known to always have good shows and a lively crowd. I'm stuck in a position where there isn't a live show within three hours from my house until June 10th and it has me freaking out and considering stupid road trips. The show on the 10th is the Pro Wrestling Revolver show which has Billy Gunn vs John Morrison, Jack Evans vs Scotty 2 Hotty, Hardcore Holly vs Sami Callihan and a ton of other unfortunate pairings. After that, I thankfully get Wrestlepalooza on the 17th which I am super pumped for. At the first Des Moines show I didn't necessarily care for the wrestling, but I was trashed and had the best time and I'm hoping to live that again. God bless Arik Cannon for Wrestlepalooza.

My goodness, I made a hateful post about this match to talk about another match between these two. Now, I hate myself. This was a damn good match.

There's a really interesting company opening up in Omaha called Now This is Wrestling and Vince Russo involved in at least an onscreen level. He did this promo that is either great or awful saying he is the matchmaker of the company. While this group feels like it could be a wreck, they have won me back over with their first match announcement, The Reigels vs Zero Gravity.

I attend Dreamwave somewhat regularly and always enjoy the show, but I feel like they don't get attention because they just aren't that exciting. Like, they are exciting for this part of the country, but on a nationwide perspective, booking AR Fox vs other superindie guys just isn't breaking ground stuff anymore. It feels like they are always about a year and half behind the hot indie wrestling trend. I think Ali doing the cruiserweight series is going to be a good bump for them though, as they just made him their new champion/main attraction.

Cannonballs into the corner. If anybody who is heavy or explosively athletic does this move it is awesome to watch.

I feel like we might have enough footage from the different periods of Robert Fuller's career to make the Bockwinkel assumption and just assume he was good during the years we don't have on tape. The thought of a 20 year career of him working well throughout it makes him feel like a guy who really got lowballed in this project.

Historical ramifications aside, I thought this was a really good match. It was a crazy cage match that served to get in the way of the babyface getting his hands on the man that betrayed him. I find that to be really cool and unique storytelling. Also, Buzz Sawyer was awesome in this match. His bump on his head when bouncing off the cage was sick, as was his splash.

Yes, that is me.

Funky Munky just tossed the match I was championing in my first post onto Youtube. This one builds to the closing spots, but boy does it pick up. Also, I'm on tape marking for the dixieland destroyer's destroyer for a solid 30 seconds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6z1R92lfOg&feature=youtu.be

I'm gonna drop my rankings for the month's matches here with some reasoning for each match. Its pretty scatterbrained. More of a journal than a scientific response to why I like each match. 1. Jushin LIger vs Naoki Sano - This was clearly the match of the month to me. Really the only match that pulled me out of my seat. It was as if I could feel the energy from the audience inside me. Kind of hoping it doesn't serve as my match of the year though, as the finish didn't quite leave me as stimulated as the hope spots did. I understand the big shooting star at the end, but could have hoped for more. 2. Rockers vs Powers of Pain - I'm hoping I'm not just an old school WWF mark as I do these. A hope of mine is that I gain a larger understanding of other styles as I watch these yearbooks. But, in what was a very modest month in wrestling I find this as my second favorite match. I thought that the Jannety selling was crazy and the Powers of Pain looked like as legitimate of a tag team as they ever will. 3. Fantastics vs Kawada and Fuyuki - I'm shocked to see this match not coming in higher from other people. I thought it was a damn good wrestling match. I'd only seen Fantastics stuff from the south and wasn't quite aware that they were going to go in and have any style of match outside of the traditional southern match or a little brawl. This delivered far past that. I thought that the offense from the fantastics was fantastic. Just watching them stand in and duel with Kawada and Fuyuki popped me enough to love this match. 4. Flair vs Eaton - I didn't really like this match all that much. But it was still better than everything below it. One thing that has me ranking this match so high was that even though I knew Flair was going to end, I still got caught with a false finish and was left believing that the heels would be able to give enough interference to maybe pull out the win. One thing going against the match for that hurts to admit is that I didn't like the commentary. I normally love Lance Russell, but something was just off in this match. 5. El Hijo Del Santo, Yoshinari Asai, & Gran Hamada vs Negro Casas, Blue Panther, & Fuerza Guerrero - Gonna fully admit this is my first time seeing all of these guys except Santo and Asai wrestle. A big part of why I'm purchasing this set is because it allows me to catch some lucha highlights without diving in to just watching lucha. I half heartedly follow modern lucha and have seen stuff here and there from the past, but this is where I will be building a lot of my base for lucha knowledge from. And this match was pretty fun to watch. It didn't blow me away and seemed like a pretty standard bout. But, I didn't like a lot of matches from this set, so its sitting in my top five. 6. Hulk Hogan & Ultimate Warrior vs Mr Perfect & The Genius - Feeling like a homer for putting this so high, but I've always enjoyed this match. Its really one of the matches that shows Perfect's worth as a performer as he is in there doing everything he can to make this match enjoyable. Also, we get what is basically peak Genius and an enjoyable Warrior bout. 7. Jushin Liger vs Owen Hart - I'm feeling like this match is getting pushed down rankings because it was overbuilt. Sure, its clunky and not one of Liger's finest works, but its still a good wrestling match. I heard about this match growing up and it didn't quite deliver. 8. Akira Hokuto & Yomika Hotta vs Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita - This is my actual joshi debut. I've seen a few matches that happen in the US and the World War III match probably 30 times due to owning the VHS as a child, but I'd never seen anything from Japan. I'm not sure if I can elaborate to much on this as it really just seemed like a basic match. But that's where I'm at in the rankings. Throwing out matches I generally enjoyed rather than because I received a huge emotional reaction from watching it. 9. Ron Garvin vs Greg Valentine - I like a lot of Ron Garvin, but WWF Ron Garvin just doesn't do it for me. He always seemed awkward and extremely out of place. This is probably his best match, but even it feels awkward and out of place. I remember watching it as a child and rolling my eyes at the theatrics of Garvin as he waved the shinguard around. I'm still stuck with that view of this match. This match is good though. Just that it bugs me to watch it. 10. Arn Anderson vs The Great Muta - This was a disappointment. I sat up in my seat when I realized this match was starting and was underwhelmed until it ended. However, it was decent. I'm not sure what was off in this match, but it just didn't quite work for me. 11. Jumbo Tsuruta & Tiger Mask vs Genichiro Tenyru & Ricky Fuyuki - I know this is going to sound absurd to a lot of people on this board, but Tenyru is the first great "find" for me as I watch these. I'd really only seen his WWF stuff and old man Tenyru at this point and with nothing to base old man Tenyru off of he always seemed really absurd to me. Now I get it. He's a badass who beats the shit out of people. He's like the actual version of what people act like Haku is. Also, this set is cementing my idea of what I figured Jumbo to be. I'd seen young Jumbo on Youtube because I went on a 70s AJPW run for whatever reason and I'd seen grumpy Jumbo and I have to say that I'm in love with grumpy Jumbo. I could watch these two fight forever. Like I'd like to see them show up at like a pizza ranch or something and just destroy the place. This is just so much fun to watch. However, I didn't rank it higher, because the match itself wasn't to fantastic. 12. Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, & Sting vs Buzz Sawyer, Dragon Master, & Muta - Boy, was Sting over in front of this crowd. This match never really got moving though. I'm not much of a Buzz Sawyer fan, but I enjoyed him in this match. The rest of the heel team seemed a little unsure against these guys. 13. Genichiro Tenyru & Toshiaki Kawada vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Isao Takagi - Imagine seeing you had to work with Tenyru during this run. Dude is just nasty. Not really much of a match, but its worlds of fun watching Tenyru and Jumbo do their things. 14. Arn anderson vs Buzz Sawyer - This match was kind of a letdown. We got a good spinebuster out of it. It seems like Buzz is in Abby mode where he is more determined to get his character over than to have a good match. But he's not Abdullah so its way less understandable. 15. Roddy Piper vs Randy Savage - Another letdown. The Macho King wasn't quite Macho's best run. This match felt uninspired. 16. Jeff Jarrett vs Billy Jo Travis - I saw somebody else in this thread championing this match, but I'm not going in with them. I felt it was too plodding. It seems like Jarrett just isn't quite there yet as a babyface and Travis just isn't anything beyond average as a heel. I didn't find this match enjoyable. 17. Bill Dundee, Chris Adams, & Eric Embry vs Billy Travis, Gary Young, & Skandor Akbar - I don't want to look like I'm underrating Memphis, as I really do appreciate the style. I'm just going to consider this a down time for the promotion in ring wise and move on. I'm currently wading through old Memphis stuff on Youtube and loving it. I'm probably just gonna have to wait for some of the hotter angles to really get invested in the matches. 18. Rock & Roll Express & Dynamic Dudes vs Midnight Express & Fabulous Freebirds - I don't think I've seen a Freebirds match post 85 that I've liked. Just not my guys. This match never got off the ground for me. Was very disappointed. 19. Akira Maeda vs Nobuhiko Takada - I'm becoming worried that I may not get into shoot style. I'm hoping to write off these two matches as just not a good example of the style. 20. El Hijo Del Santo & Blue Demon Jr vs Eddie & Mondo Guererro - Not really much to say about this beyond that it wasn't the best wrestling match. 21. Cactus Jack vs Lee Scott - I only ranked this to accentuate the line between the Guererro match and the next two. 22. Jerry Lawler vs JYD - this match was just bad. Lawler tried, but he was in with the aging dog and there wasn't a ton for him to do. He went with the chain gimmick and it all just seemed so lame. 23. Kazuo Yamazaki vs Yoji Anjoh - I didn't find anything to enjoy in this match. The Lawler match at least had beloved announcers. This match put me to sleep once and I didn't like it more the second time. Thumbs down.

I thought this was great. I love this angle and haven't seen any of it in over a decade so its great to revisit it. I think this is some top level classic wrestling storytelling. Also, Flair throws the same exact right hand as he does five years later.

I was at the Wrestlepalooza show in Des Moines in January and it was a cool experience. I got pretty drunk and had a great time. I'm pumped to see the lineups roll out as there is a lot of cool talent for them to use. At the Des Moines show they had a four way hoss battle between Kody Rice, Chainsaw King, Redwing, and Venom that was pretty fun to watch in person. It also led to this great moment from Chainsaw King and burlesque dancer Sigourney Beaver on local television http://www.weareiowa.com/news/local-news/stars-of-wrestlepalooza-on-good-morning-iowa

No, I haven't watched any of their shows. I do follow via social media though as a lot of the guys I really like get booked there frequently. I really like what I've seen from John Wayne Murdoch as he shows so much heart in the ring. He had a match with Matt Cage this past Friday that I guess went twenty minutes so I'm probably going to try and catch it at some point. I'm also on the Kongo Kong bandwagon as I saw him live a couple times and he has a huge aura around him. His match with Justice Jones from AAW Vanguard is probably in my top five live matches I've seen in person. I'm also down for the Hooligans crazy brawls as they are something truly unique in wrestling. I don't really know a lot about the rest of the guys on the roster beyond Ian, Corp, Page. I see lots of good stuff said about Shane Mercer, but have yet to sit down and watch a match.

Yesterday I went to Funky Munky Wrestling's Champion's Choice at the Latin American Social Club in Sterling Illinois. The main gist of this show is that every year the champion gets to be the GM of the season finale. This year Matt Cage was holding the big yellow belt coming into the final show. This show was really good. A day after the show my mind keeps going back to the huge four way. It was Bobby Houston vs Waylon Beck vs Mason Beck vs Dixieland Destroyer. The match was nonstop action with each person in the match wanting to get a piece of Bobby with Bobby and his manager Zeke Zshe eventually getting the three into fighting each other instead. The match had an insane highspot as the 400 pound Dixieland Destroyer did a dixieland god damned destroyer from the second rope onto Waylon Beck. (Link to destroyer here: https://twitter.com/funkymunkyfun/status/726825200302575616) Another thing that made this match very cool was the post match promo by Waylon stating that the family is done and that it meant a lot to him and the fans. There were lots of meta references thrown in that referenced to this also being a turning point in the way Funky Munky would be doing business. Since Funky has been drawing bigger and only around half of their original roster is still there, this promo got an actually emotional reaction from the fans who had been going to these shows for years. This show also featured the Matt Cage vs Bucky Collins iron man match which resulted as a swerve when Bucky's enforcer Fat Stanley revealed himself to be the general manager and then destroyed Matt Cage so Bucky won the title in sudden death of the iron man. Also featured was Ruff Crossing's debut which got over very well and a good match between Swag Tag (JJ Garrett and Harvey Bower) vs Stephen Wolf and Moondog berard. Other notable events would be an awesome Zicky Dice corner cannonball and the latest class from Black and Brave working the preshow. Funky Munky is a company to watch in the future as they continue to draw well (200-300) and run the best angles in the midwest all while using only local talent.

Discuss midwest indies here. This is my main interest and I don't really have a place to talk about it, so I'm making this thread.

I think this is the way to go. This has been my main site for reading wrestling lately and I came here today after hitting a really good indie show yesterday and couldn't find a place to talk about it. So I'd suggest going that route where you have separate threads for "midwest indies", "southern indies" "British indies" etc...