Been really busy the last few days, so I'm sorry this report is so late.
I'm just going to report on the Joshi matches, but suffice it to say the men put on a great show as well. If you are a fan of the unique, but haven't seen "The Centerfold" Mathew Palmer, you need to. Mojo Bravado (JoJo Bravo & Jordan Jensen) are fun as hell too. And Scot Summers, who just arrived home from CZW, murdered a man for our pleasure.
Anarchy Championship Wrestling Presents the American Joshi Queen of Queens Tournament 2012 from Hooligan's in Live Oak, Texas 6/24:
1st Rd Match #1 Athena v. Su Yung:
Su Yung was clearly at a disadvantage here. Athena still made this a pretty decent opener anyway.
Athena by leg lock submission to advance to rd. 2
1st Rd. Match #2 Veda Scott v. Christina Von Eerie
Veda comes into the ring and grabs the mic because CVE is nowhere to be found. Veda suggests they look for CVE back in the bar, because she's probably getting drunk. CVE comes out to a HUGE pop with the "Oi Oi Oi" chants in full effect.
Veda then goes into interview mode and starts "interviewing" CVE, but is really just continuing to berate her. When CVE heard enough, she starts throwing blows at Veda, and the ref calls for the bell...
This was a better match than I thought it would be, since I've never seen Veda Wrestle. CVE obviously helped make this match, mostly a brawl, work pretty well. I must say, Veda has terrific facial expressions and her bratty gimmick propelled the crowd's obvious love for CVE to the heavens. CVE eventually got the win, because punk rock > hipster every time.
1st Rd Match #3 Rachel Summerlyn (w/ her protege Machicko) v. Jazz.
I always thought Rachel Summerlyn was totally wasted in Shimmer, and this match proved me right again. Jazz is actually pretty petite in real life, but her physique is all-muscle, ripped to sheds and she's still got every bit of that scary as hell attitude. She earns the title "baddest bitch" in this one too, as well as the "YOU'VE STILL GOT IT!" from me. Jazz stalked the ring for a bit, her "Down South Wrestling" championship belt draped across her knotty shoulder.
This would turn out to be my match of the night, and easily the best match I've seen live all year.
Jazz broke out the mat wrestling. I mean some really AWESOME mat wrestling. Rachel responded in kind. Rachel's selling here was pitch-perfect. Lots of cool transitions, leg scissors, Jazz with the Boston Crab, ect. The mat wrestling alone was good enough to simply force the crowd to respond with "THIS IS WRESTLING!" chants. Jazz then upped the ante by riding Summerlyn's back on the ground, and laying in a series of BRUTAL crossface forearms to Rachel's pretty face. Summerlyn though is no stranger to brutality, and eventually recovered, escaping the mount and then going to work on Jazz's leg.
At some point in this exchange, some of Jazz's fans started giving Rachel a bit of the business, prompting Rachel's protege at ringside, the young Machiko, to tell those fans to fuck off. A sign guy with a whiteboard behind Machiko then quickly made a sign that said <---SO MUCH ANGER with the arrow pointing at her, and there was much laughter from the peanut gallery.
Eventually, after a series of moves that stunned Jazz, the action spilled out to the floor, and as Jazz draped semi prone on the apron, Rachel charged...only her kick, aimed for Jazz, missed as Jazz moved out of the way, and Machiko fell victim to the mighty blow. As she lay unconscious on the floor, the same sign guy, quickly wiped his sign and rewrote "NO MORE ANGER" with an arrow pointing down to Machiko's near lifeless body.
The laughs were not long-lived though, as Jazz started pounding the crap out of Summerlyn in a brutal fashion on the outside. Eventually, the action got back in the ring, and in a spectacular transition move I am not really able to describe here, Summerlyn turned the tables, and got the pin via Gory Bomb.
What a fantastic match. Everyone in the crowd really appreciated the work of both women, and would have gone home pretty happy with just that. "PLEASE COME BACK" chants all around for Jazz.
...
Summerlyn's joy in victory would be short-lived however, as the dastardly monster Lady Poison emerged, dismissed Machiko, poison kissed Rachel (think green mist, with a more direct delivery system) and then began choking Summerlyn with the long red tendrils she has wrapped around her hair.
Lady Poison's facial expressions here were fantastic, as she smiled the most evil smile the whole time.
The refs were too scarred to get in there and break it up, as nobody wants to get poisoned (although personally, I'd probably think pretty hard before turning it down) so Rachel was just getting torn up here until the music hits and...OUT WALKS JESSICKA HAVOCK, IN A GASMASK/RESPIRATOR AND FULL "UMBRELLA CORPORATION" GEAR!!! After every Resident Evil geek in the audience had time to stop squeeling like a wee little girl, we noticed a pretty decent brawl going on. Which brings us to....
1st Rd Match #4 Jessicka Havock v. Lady Poison.
This was fun for obvious gimmick related issues, and also for the fact that Lady Poison is fucking awesome as hell. Actually, Lady Poison is so awesome, I wanted to see way more of her here, but the entire story of the match was kinda built around her needing to get that damn respirator off Jessicka's face so she could deliver the poison, and Jessicka not allowing that to happen. Even with the gimmick-imposed limitations of the match it was still good, as both women can really go.
Even better, while all this was going on, Rachel Summerlyn was STILL SELLING THE GREEN MIST LIKE A MOTHERFUCKING CHAMP. It was probably five minutes into the match before I saw her head poke up from the ring apron, and then she slowly, agonizingly, started working her way around ringside. Just awesome. That was pretty much the standard that defines the American Joshi division. Everybody sells like it's the damn Tokyo Dome.
Eventually, just as Poison was going to secure a victory by creeping death, Rachel summoned the energy to distract her, and Havok was able to secure the win. This led Lady Poison to FLIP THE FUCK OUT, and it took half the locker room of guys to get her out of the ring, using great caution.
This, of course pissed me off to no end, because I wanted Lady Poison to win, but whatever. Havock moves on to Rd. 2 and earns my hatred, which still burns like 1,000 suns.
After the match, there was a little intermission, so my buddy and I got to go around and see some of the wrestlers selling gimmicks and meeting fans. Good times, then back to wrestling for...
THE SECOND ROUND:
Christina Von Eerie v. Athena
This was sooooo good too. Crowd was over-the-top in LOVE with CVE. I'm an Athena fan so we disagree, even though Christina coming out to "Gimme Gimme Gimme" by Black Flag makes me not hate her. Test of strength, a little brawly stuff, then into a neat exchange with CVE going from a knuckle lock into a beautiful flippy lucha armdrag. Athena, not to be outdone, goes into the "oldschool" lock herself, climbs the ropes and armdrags CVE back. "¡Arriba!"
The action eventually spills out to the outside and, well, some girls might like diamonds, these bitches like steel chairs. Both girls pick up steel chairs and the clash begins. They both try to hit each other, but one chair shot parries the other, thankfully. Chairs get thrown. Eventually, CVE posts Athena and gets her hands on a cookie sheet. She swings for the fences but Athena ducks. Next thing she knows, she's got a chair in her hand and she's looking for Athena, who is streaking towards her face with a flying side kick, over a pile of chairs. It's like a VanDaminator but no spin, so the chair goes right into Von Eerie's face, busting her open hardway right below the nose.
Back to the ring, and into some smart matwork to cool the crowd, and to sell CVE's busted face. I mean, it's the little things, right? This was pitch-perfect again. And...just in case there was someone in the crowd who didn't notice that she was busted open, as soon as Christina got the advantage, as she's kneeling over a stunned Athena, Von Eerie wiped the blood from her face, slowly looks down at her hand, selling it so every precious drop of blood counted and meant something then, with a perfect expression like "WTF did you do to me?" she takes her bloody hand and wipes it across Athena's body.
Did I mention that these performers know how to sell?
I'm a Christina Von Eerie fan now, damn it.
Eventually though, Athena climbs to the top, and hits her patented "O-Face" finisher (the flipping, half-twisting Diamond Dust-style stunner as seen in my preshow post of Sat.)
At this point I think, in a promo that was a big deal to the local San Antonio wrestling fans, after a men's match, the promoter for the rival River City Wrestling promotion comes in, and challenges Rachel Summerlyn to a match with their women's champ, Alissa Flash (Cheerleader Melissa) at a show in August. Everyone was happy with this.
Rachel Sumerlyn v. Jessicka Havock
Crowd is red-hot for this. I want Jessicka Havock to die in a fire for cheating to win against my sweet, misunderstood Lady Poison. The crowd disagrees, and sees Havock as not a despicable cheater, but as someone to be cheered, until she immediately starts cheating and beating the crap out of Summerlyn. The powerhouse Havock immediately throws Rachel into a Camel Clutch and starts just laughing like the ref's count is the funniest joke she's ever heard. She laughs, and laughs, and laughs. The crowd then gets the hint and boos and boos and boos.
Both women kinda went into an Amrican Strong-stle kinda vibe here, and it was good. Summerlyn had Havock up for the Gory Bomb, but Jessicka squirted out, reversed to the Air Raid Crash, and got the win. Neat match.
This set up the American Joshi Title Match, Angel Blue (c) v. Portia Perez.
This should have been a weird one, of course, because Portia is over as a babyface, but Angel Blue is absolutely hated. She is a hateful little ball of hate that everyone hates. And she has a foul mouth. And she cheats. And she probably has a fake handicap parking sticker in her car.
A pretty good match with Portia kinda doing what Portia does, made much better by Angel Blue being a fucking despicable human being and using every dirty trick in the book all while wearing the sourest face imaginable and cursing out the fans.
Blue eventually tries to throw a beltshot at Portia, but Portia ducks it, and makes her pay. Perez picks up the belt, but has second thoughts about cheating to win. This was when Portia Perez went from kinda having a middling match for her and kinda being helped along by Blue, and started being fucking awesome. Her facial expressions told the whole story. She decided to win it the right way, put down the belt and went for the Superkick.
But before Portia can hit it and win the title, the PA starts going nuts, and a telephone voice mail is heard. IT'S ROBERT EVANS! He explains he was sorry he couldn't be there to see Portia's return to Anarchy, but he was busy...WITH HER SISTER!
Of course, Angel Blue uses the distraction and rolls her up for the 1-2-3.
Not the best finish, but it sets up a return of an awesome feud. And afterwards, Portia looked so absolutely crushed it was just awesome. She sold all of it--the losing the title, the Evans thing, so perfectly. I'm stunned at how good she is as a babyface.
Now, on to the finals!
Athena v. Jessicka Havock
A terrific end of a good tourney. Classic story of Havock, the big powerhouse, vs. Athena, the acrobatic technician.
My favorite move in the ring was Athena's flippy, roundover back-handspring thingie into the corner which doesn't end in a splash, it doesn't end in a back-elbow, or anything else youve ever seen...no, it ends with a PERFECTLY-PLACED SUPERKICK to Havock's chin. I'm still trying to figure out how she does it.
When the action spilled out onto the floor, it got CRAZY. Jessicka bailed to the outside to buy some time, and Athena climber to the top rope for a crossbody dive. Jessicka CATCHES her (yeah. I said she was a powerhouse) and drives her back-first into the corner post. Then she goes nuts on everyone seated there, and begins piling up the steel chairs. Like two rows of steel chairs.
More action ensues, including Athena going for an in-ring O-face, and Jessicka kicking out.
Action again spills outside, and Athena ends up diving through the top and middle rope, and dropkicking a chair into Havock's face, leaving her crashing down on her own bed of chairs. As Havock staggers back to her feet, Athena throws a char right at her face like Terry Funk.
Then, to set up the sickest spot of all, Athena starts lining up chairs, about three feet from the apron, with the backs of the chairs facing the ring.
As she's doing this, the crowd starts chanting "SABU!!! SABU!!!" So what's a girl to do? She stands on a chair, and points to the heavens, naturally!
Anyway, Jessicka starts to recover, and Athena gets on the ring apron. As Havock staggers toward her, Athena dives off the apron, does a flip, and a half-twist, and catches Havock for the O-Face, RIGHT ACROSS THE BACKS OF THE CHAIRS!
Athena then rolls Havock's lifeless, killed-dead corpse into the ring, and pins the late Jessicka Havock 1-2-3 to become your NEW American Joshi Queen of Queens!
If you are a fan of the Shimmer, and that kind of stuff, I'd recommend getting this DVD when it comes out on SmartMark.
In the segment breakdown, CM Punk vs. Kane vs. Daniel Bryan lost just 30,000 viewers from the opener. Big Show vs. Brodus Clay gained 50,000 viewers while Santino Marella vs. Jack Swagger lost 167,000 viewers. John Cena's interview and the return of Chris Jericho gained 803,000 viewers for a 3.69 quarter rating - up from the usual 10pm growth this year.
Psycho Sid's return didn't see the same success that Vader's did as Sid's win over Heath Slater lost 607,000 viewers. Dolph Ziggler vs. Alberto Del Rio in the #1 contender's match gained 202,000 viewers while the Divas Bikini Battle Royal lost 238,000 viewers. The main event with Chris Jericho vs. John Cena gained 567,000 viewers for a 3.57 overrun rating.
Christina Von Eerie made a fan outta me. Her selling that blood that way was one of those touches that really shows she's got it.
Oh, I forgot to mention one of the things Veda Scott did that won me over too. At intermission, when there was a bit of a lull, Veda got on the mic and did her thing and started encouraging the fans to buy gimmicks from the girls. She said she needed to buy food for her cat when she got back home, and Christinia Von Eerie needed to buy food for herself because she's probably starving. It was great. Im a huge fan of that part of the business. So Veda Scott gets the honorary Don West/Colt Cabana Award.
I was a big fan of Jessica James in Shimmer, ect. I thought her match vs Sara Del Rey was probably my favorite women's match of the year. When you've actually got the crowd believing "Lil Jessica can WIN this!" when everybody starts off thinking it's gonna be a squash, you've done something. I had never seen the Lady Poison character until I saw her do it at an Austin Music Festival called "Fun Fun Fun Fest". It's all kinds of fun, and it completely nullifies her size disadvantage.
She's always had the crowd in the palm of her hand, so this doesn't surprise me one bit.
Yeah. I guess it shouldn't surprise me that Portia Perez is good, and not just a good heel.
I hope you enjoy Angel Blue as much as I do when you get a chance to watch this. . She's a horrible person, and I thoroughly enjoyed her work. She had a bit of a wardrobe problem during the match, when one of her flares that covers her kickpads got tangled up. After she finally ripped them off (exposing EPIC zebra-striped kickpads that instantly gave me "Zubaz and fanny pack" flashbacks of past wrestling greats,) she IMMEDIATELY started choking Portia across the throat with the now loose article. It wasn't planned, but it was done like she had been waiting all her life to do it.
Don't know about the US, but in the rest of the civilized world we have now accepted that love triangles that include one woman and two men don't make the women sluts by default. Last I checked AJ only exchanged kisses.
Maybe over there it's still only acceptable for men to casually see more then one woman without being called a manwhore.
Plus, would you rather she took Eve as a role model?
Thanks for that write-up, Pristine_Condition. Probably my favorite recent post that I can remember outside of what Bootaaay normally provides. You sold me on the DVD.
On A different note, I got this in the mail the other day and can't wait to get it framed -
Thanks for that write-up, Pristine_Condition. Probably my favorite recent post that I can remember outside of what Bootaaay normally provides. You sold me on the DVD.
On A different note, I got this in the mail the other day and can't wait to get it framed -
The artist, Box Brown, had the image on the inside of the 2nd issue of The Atomic Elbow Fanzine. They decided to make it into a print. There is also a print for the 1983 rankings.
The 'zines are $5 each, and totally worth the price. The guy who makes them always throws in cool extra stuff like old WCW trading cards, random fliers, etc. Box Brown also did a comic in the first Atomic Elbow issue. I know that BillRiccio and myself have mentioned these before, but I really hope more of you decide to check the zines out!
I'm obviously no ratings or TV expert, but I wonder if opening with great wrestlers putting on a great match is the best way to open the show. If I can make a parallel to game design, Bungie (and I'm sure several other studios do this) actually design the first level of the game LAST. The idea is they take everything they've learned over the course of the development of the game, and put it into the first level to make sure it hooks you. You still have a bunch of really great moments throughout the game, and the last level is generally going to be an intense climax, but at the same time, you want the game to start off with a bang to make sure people don't just turn it off after the second level.
Anyway, I think that sort of thing can work for RAW as well. Instead of starting off with a 10 minute bullshit promo and then a commercial break, put on a great match. Everyone's going to watch at the start anyway. If you have great wrestlers doing their thing, it's most likely going to hold people's attention better than if Del Rio comes out and reminds us what his name is and how he wants to win the WWE title because obviously that desire is unique to him and I had no idea people competing in a sport would want to be the champion of that sport. I don't even think it needs to be Punk/Bryan every opener. Other guys they have that are great in the ring; Dolph, Del Rio, Christian, Sheamus, Cody, Jericho, etc. You could even have Cena in there and have a heel run in to screw him over to keep the kids interested. Maybe I only think this is a good idea because I actually like wrestling, but it's something I'd like to see them try.
I'm obviously no ratings or TV expert, but I wonder if opening with great wrestlers putting on a great match is the best way to open the show. If I can make a parallel to game design, Bungie (and I'm sure several other studios do this) actually design the first level of the game LAST. The idea is they take everything they've learned over the course of the development of the game, and put it into the first level to make sure it hooks you. You still have a bunch of really great moments throughout the game, and the last level is generally going to be an intense climax, but at the same time, you want the game to start off with a bang to make sure people don't just turn it off after the second level.
Anyway, I think that sort of thing can work for RAW as well. Instead of starting off with a 10 minute bullshit promo and then a commercial break, put on a great match. Everyone's going to watch at the start anyway. If you have great wrestlers doing their thing, it's most likely going to hold people's attention better than if Del Rio comes out and reminds us what his name is and how he wants to win the WWE title because obviously that desire is unique to him and I had no idea people competing in a sport would want to be the champion of that sport. I don't even think it needs to be Punk/Bryan every opener. Other guys they have that are great in the ring; Dolph, Del Rio, Christian, Sheamus, Cody, Jericho, etc. You could even have Cena in there and have a heel run in to screw him over to keep the kids interested. Maybe I only think this is a good idea because I actually like wrestling, but it's something I'd like to see them try.
Doesn't matter that much where it is, but making the whole show about wrestling combined with good promo's and storytelling makes for good television. You can see the ratings drop are always around guys that aren't build that well or are joke characters. Viewers don't take them seriously, so they simply don't watch em. Also, condition them long enough that the only high points of Raw are at the start, top of the hour and main event points and they'll only watch that. Ruin an entire division (Divas and Tag-team) by not doing anything proper with them for over a year, people tune out.
But alas, mentallity in WWE is look at last weeks ratings and book the next show around those findings. Which is why we end up with silly Raw's that have Cole revert back to full Heel mode and have their top face bully him and undress him. They don't take time to build anything and they have apparently forgot that the Attitude Era didn't draw 6.0-8.0 ratings from the first second. It took some time to build, and they can't be arsed to do that nowadays.
Anyway, I think that sort of thing can work for RAW as well. Instead of starting off with a 10 minute bullshit promo and then a commercial break, put on a great match. Everyone's going to watch at the start anyway. If you have great wrestlers doing their thing, it's most likely going to hold people's attention better than if Del Rio comes out and reminds us what his name is and how he wants to win the WWE title because obviously that desire is unique to him and I had no idea people competing in a sport would want to be the champion of that sport. I don't even think it needs to be Punk/Bryan every opener. Other guys they have that are great in the ring; Dolph, Del Rio, Christian, Sheamus, Cody, Jericho, etc. You could even have Cena in there and have a heel run in to screw him over to keep the kids interested. Maybe I only think this is a good idea because I actually like wrestling, but it's something I'd like to see them try.
I agree with this. Open with a quick vignette announcement (less than 15 seconds) about Cena, HHH, or whatever their big silly angle for the night is, and follow up with a quality 15 min opening match. There can be a promo prior to the match, but it'd be best if it was a short promo when one of the opponents comes to the ring.
That also trains the little jimmies that the WWE isn't just about Cena making stupid jokes, but about *wrestling*.
Seth Rollins vs. Jiro
Jinder Mahal vs. Jason Jordan
Leo Kruger vs. Aiden English
The Usos vs. The Ascension
Richie Steamboat vs. Rick Victor
Antonio Cesaro vs. Dante Dash
Johnny Curtis vs. Derek Bateman
Seth Rollins vs. Jiro
Jinder Mahal vs. Jason Jordan
Leo Kruger vs. Aiden English
The Usos vs. The Ascension
Richie Steamboat vs. Rick Victor
Antonio Cesaro vs. Dante Dash
Johnny Curtis vs. Derek Bateman[/QUOTE]
I liked last week's episode a lot more... hopefully that Wyatt guy debuts soon