PWX
9/13
From Philly, PA
Refs: Kehner, Bryce, Finnegan, Bennett & "The Ref From Maryland"
Ring Announcer: Stephen D'Angelis
Crowd: Around 300

This is going to be a fast review folks, so away we go...

The show opened up with Stephen D'Angelis taking a moment of silence for the past stars of ECW and for Steve Irwin. The Cherry Bomb girls also came up and were pretty much used as "Juggy Girls".

Chris Daniels d. Jay Lethal
What a way to kick off the show- a main event caliber match as the first match. This match started off good, but the ring PWX rented, the CZW ring, had other plans. The ring ropes were very loose, and it was dangerous for the wrestlers to hit the ropes. This would be an on-going problem all night, as the ropes were complete shit, and after every match, the ring crew would have to tighten the ropes. The smart Philly crowd picked up on this quick, and had several chants of "FIX THE RING ROPES!"

Funny enough, Daniels was able to make light and turn a negative into a positive, as he mocked how bad the ropes were. Daniels would either hit the ropes very lightly, or catch the rope with his right hand before returning back to the middle of the ring. This made the match more comedic. While I'm sure PWX wanted that ROH-match type feel when booking this, the match gave you some real laugh out loud moments because of the shitty ropes. I guess that's a good thing.

The finish of this match saw Daniels get the win after the Angel Wings. The crowd seemed real supportive of the win, as some of the crowd was anti-Lethal for some reason. Also of note, Daniels' mouth was bloody after the match.
A very good opening match that was only flawed by ring.

The SAT and CA Elliot d. Sonjay Dutt/Ruckus/Altar Boy Luke
This was a crazy spot match that had the crowd on their feet. I couldn't believe some of the stuff these guys did, considering how bad and dangerous the ring was. The SAT's broke out some sick shit, as they did a Doomsday Device/Suicide Dive on the outside of the ring. It was pretty cool and got a holy shit chant.

While this match kinda lacked in the pyschology department, as both Altar Boy Luke and CA Elliot were powerbombed numerous times, only to get up 3 seconds later to do a head scissors, the match was fun. Ruckus has lost a shit load of weight from the last time I've seen him. He was on fire tonight, hitting all his trademark moves.

One of the biggest spots of the match saw Joel Maximo jump off a 10 foot laddder and splash Sonjay. The SAT's then hit the Spanish Fly on Sonjay for the 1-2-3. After the match, Ruckus looked at Sonjay, and gave a "fuck him" look.
Fun match here. I don't know how the SAT's were able to pull off the Spanish Fly on those shitty ring ropes.

At this point, the New Jack incident took place, and the first trickle of cops entered the arena. Meanwhile, Steve Corino w/Jack Victory came out to cut a promo on Teddy Hart. Corino said Teddy Hart no-showed. This led to Ruckus coming out to defend the honor of Ted Hart. Eventually this turned into a brawl, with Teddy making the save for Ruckus, setting up Teddy w/Ruckus vs Corino w/Jack Victory for later on. While this action was going on in the ring, some people's attention was diverted to New Jack outside of the ring.

Claudio Castagnoli d. Delirious
These two had the task of wrestling while Philly's police was flooding the arena. The crowd wasn't giving their full attention to the match, and I think that it hurt this match, as it just went too long to get any kind of reaction. Claudio, who will probably in the WWE one day due to his size, character and ability, wrestled the much smaller Delirious. If this was HEAT or Velocity, you can bet that Claudio would've squashed Delirious in 3 minutes, instead of the 15-20 minutes of arm wretching and submissions we had here. Claudio wins this match by submission after lifting up Delirious while he had him in a wristlock.
Not a bad match, but I don't get the whole small guy can slap around the big guy thing. Takes away from the realism of it all. I also admit I was watching the police and New Jack more than this match, as I found that more interesting than this match. Maybe because there was more believability & realism in New Jack than anything in this match.

40 Minute Intermission Due to the New Jack Incident- poor PWX, an indy dream card and a problem they could've never expected halted the show.

Mike Quackenbush/Shane Storm/Equinox d. Gran Akuma/Ice Cream Jr./Hydra
I must preface by saying I'm not a big Chikara fan because I think alot of what you see in Chikara is not real. Maybe that's just my jaded way of thinking. I don't care if Quackenbush knows 14838438 submissions, because if any of those 14838438 submissions were actually painful, he'd win all his matches after applying one of them. This match looked like Mortal Kombat come to life, except with the cool stuff of Scorpion or Sub-Zero.

I thought this was the worst match possible to come back with after the long break, because this just killed the crowd. Perhaps switching this spot with the hardcore tag match or with the TNA tag match would've been better. To me, this style of wrestling isn't wrestling, it's gymnastics in a wrestling environment. Some of these guys were wearing T-Shirts and Jean shorts and looked like they were better off in a Twisted Metal video game.

After lots of wrestling that didn't look especially painful, Quackenbush's team got the win. I'd say 10% of the crowd gave a shit. I'm sure however, if you were a Chikara fan, you would've liked this match, but this crap isn't for me.

Team 3-D d. Rhino/Abyss
PREMATCH: These four guys did a 15 minute promo which was great, and worth picking the DVD up for. Bubba really carried this promo and seemed to be genuinely having fun in the ring. I guess the only stupid thing that happened was that Abyss was constantly made out to be a big dumb retard instead of a gruesome monster, but that's what happens in Philly when you've made your name in TNA and not in ECW. A very fun promo here, that set up Team 3-D vs Rhino/Abyss rather than Rhino vs Abyss. Also of note, PWX storyline wise, Team 3-D called AJ/Daniels disrespectful for not answering their challenge.

As far as the match itself, it was about 10 minutes of the brawling you'd expect. The crowd was very into this match, especially when the weapons were busted out. Team 3-D picks up the win after a Dudley Death Drop.
Good match here that really lifted up the crowd when PWX needed it the most.

Wow this is taking forever to type, so let's breeze on through the last 4 matches...

Chris Hero d. Arik Cannon
PREMATCH: Nicky Benz made his ECW arena return, doing his stand-up act. Arik Cannon, who was the replacement for Davey Richards, came out and attacked him. Hero came out to face Arik Cannon as a result.
If you like stiff matches, this match was for you. I'm not a real big Chris Hero fan, as a guy his size should be focusing on bettering himself for a WWE look rather than taking stiff shots to the face, but hey it's his life. This match felt long, because the show was going long, so I was happy when Hero finally picked up the victory.
I'm sure IWA-MS fans would've enjoyed this stiff match. I don't like long matches for the sake of being long, because having a long match doesn't necessarily mean it's great.

Ian Rotten/Amy Lee d. Mana/Mickie Knuckles
After the New Jack stuff, the triple threat match was turned into this mix gender hardcore brawl. Interestingly enough, a few fans commented that they think this match was better than what was originally booked, so that was good for PWX. Everyone was bleeding here as there was blood and shards of skin flying all over the place. There was tons of weapons here, and Mana even got chucked through a table that he set-up. (You'd think in all the years of wrestling, that wrestlers would realize the odds of whenever you set up a table, there's a good chance that YOU, and not YOUR OPPONENT will go through it. It's just one of those things that wrestling fans accept, just like whenever a ref goes to check on a wrestler, on the third arm drop the wrestler will power back up.)

Anyway, Ian & Amy Lee pick up the win in a match that the crowd heavily appreciated. It might've been smart to put on this match after intermission instead of the flip floppy stuff.

AJ Styles d. Homicide
PREMATCH: Styles & Daniels came out to say that they aren't disrespecting the Dudley Boyz and looked forward to their match in the future. Giddy-up.

This was a pretty good match, although I've seen better matches between the two. I guess when you've wrestled the same opponent so many times, you want to shake shit up a bit, and that's what we got here, as we didn't see any of Homicide's or AJ's big time moves. AJ won this match after pinning Homicide with a Styles Clash out of no where. The crowd liked this match too.

Steve Corino d. Teddy Hart
This was your main event and had tons of crowd heat. Both guys wound up getting bloodied up. The use of blood in this match made this seem all more realistic, and wasn't senselessly spilled like you see in other matches. This match went with the "Montreal Screwjob" route, as Corino got the faux win after the ref said Teddy Hart gave up. I guess we'll be seeing a rematch soon or Teddy Hart spitting at Ronnie Lang on a future show.

This was a good main event that led up to the hype, and gives PWX several directions to go down.

Final McWord
This was a pretty good indy show, with the only flaws being things PWX couldn't have forseen taking place, such as the shitty ring and the New Jack incident. Both of those happenings affected the flow and pace of the show. However, the matches were all pretty good for the most part, with only one shitty match in my opinion.

The top billed guys lived up to the hype and delivered. I don't think any wrestler mailed it home because of the small crowd, which was nice.

Also have to give PWX props for having a great atmosphere set-up. The entrance way looked very similiar to the RAW ramp which was a good thing. It looked very professional.

A second show wasn't announced, but it is rumored. One has to wonder if PWX could support running another show financially and if the PWX staff wants to go through with another show after all the headaches they had with this one. At the end of the night, Ronnie Lang looked like he was just involved in a 10 round fight with Mike Tyson in his prime. (Although Ronnie did have both ears in tact.)

Overall
A fun night out. While the crowd number was disappointing, I'm sure who ever is making $ off of the DVD version of this show will clean up.

For more on PWX, visit PWXplosion.com

Sean "The MiC" McCaffrey
BULLSMC@aol.com