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[1997-04-19-APW-Bombers Chance at Revenge] Manny Fernandez vs Robert Thompson


Loss

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  • 4 weeks later...

This was really good. I wasn't sure what to expect from Manny this late, but he still has a lot to offer. Sadly, "This is not the 80s", "Make him work" and "Stay retired" chants show that wrestling just didn't have much of a place for guys like him anymore, because wrestling fans had turned into idiots. This isn't worked or paced like an indy match at all. Thompson is green, but he's being led by Manny and looks good. The commentary in this amuses me, trying to hoodwink people into thinking Sabu, Rob Van Dam, Rey Misterio and Rick Rude may be heading to APW, and crediting Paul Jones getting ahead of Manny years ago and putting him on a bad path for his attitude. I enjoyed this match. If this is a sign of what to expect from APW, I can't wait for more.

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I wasn't sure what to expect from Manny this late, but he still has a lot to offer. Sadly, "This is not the 80s", "Make him work" and "Stay retired" chants show that wrestling just didn't have much of a place for guys like him anymore

Random pointless fact, 16 years later, Manny is still out here in the Bay Area, helping train at & run a local lucha promotion and still wrestling ocasionally.

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This was really good. I wasn't sure what to expect from Manny this late, but he still has a lot to offer. Sadly, "This is not the 80s", "Make him work" and "Stay retired" chants show that wrestling just didn't have much of a place for guys like him anymore, because wrestling fans had turned into idiots.

I'm ashamed to say there was a point I was one of those guys that figured paying to see an indy show gave me license to act like a jackass in front of 100 people. Looking back I really don't know what the hell I was thinking, and wouldn't be at all down with that now. Watching fans do that sort of thing now really gets on my nerves.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

They seem to be squeezed into someone’s basement. All the fans get a front row seat. Actually, it may be someone’s garage they are wrestling in.

Yeah, the name of the building is the APW Garage. I've been to dozens of shows thear, it's basically a converted mechanics garage in the industrial district on the outskirts of town. Seats between 60 - 150 or so depending on if they feel like letting fans sit up top on the balcony and opening up the garage door so fans outside can watch.

 

First time I went was when they brought in Mariko Yoshida for the 1st time. Maybe 50 fans thear I think, one of which was Dave Meltzer.

 

Thompson was really green and was lead to a decent if basic match.

He'd only been wrestling 2 years at this point. By 99 - 2000 he was one of the best indy wrestlers in the country. One of those guys who'd have been a much huger name had he been willing to travel or come along a few years later. The story going around was that he got offered an ECW deal to come in & team with New Jack around the same time they brought in Spike Dudley & were looking at Crash Holly but he turned them down because he didn't want to leave/move his family. And by the time the mid 00's indy boom really got going he wasn't wrestling on as regular a basis anymore. He also was one of Sara Del Rey's original trainers in another random fact...

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  • 1 year later...

Okay-ish match, with Manny busting out some new surprises despite being near 300 pounds. Couldn't believe he did a twisting somersault off the turnbuckle. This is the very first true '00s-style Smark Crowd on a Yearbook--somehow I don't think even the ECW Arena would be chanting "this is not the '80s" and all that other shit. Maxx Justice runs in and they DDT Thompson off the turnbuckle through a table, before Mike Modest makes the save because he hates foreign objects, or something. Thompson was raw, Manny held it together, but overall not bad.

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  • GSR changed the title to [1997-04-19-APW-Bombers Chance at Revenge] Manny Fernandez vs Robert Thompson

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