Championship Wrestling from Florida
Saturday, July 3, 2004
Auburndale, FL

-- The show opens up with the National Anthem. Again, I am impressed with another promotion using the Anthem. I'm sure it being the Fourth of July had something to do with it.

-- Next, we have the CWF Heavyweight champion, Brett Bonnaduce, come down to the ring to cut a promo. He comes out to the Partridge Family music and is acting like one of the Partridge kids. What disturbs me is that Bonnaduce is lucky if he weighs more than 135 lbs. How is he the Heavyweight champion? Even more disturbing is the fact that his valet is a little girl no older than 8-years-old. I'm not a big fan of children being involved in wrestling. Anyway, in the middle of his promo Thump Dupree and the rest of his XXX faction come out. Dupree and Bonnaduce have a title vs. title match tonight. While Bonnaduce has his back turned, out comes the Renegade Outlaw to help him out. All of XXX leave the ring and Bonnaduce thinks that it is because they are scared of him. It is at this time that it hits me that having the strap on Bonnaduce must be some sort of inside joke.

-- We are now set for our next match. Oh wait, no we're not. White Scorpion comes out to cut a promo. Scorpion has two belts with him which is strange because they never say what titles he holds. There is nothing even mentioned on their program. Scorpion is a rip off of Sting except that he comes out to Flair's music instead. During Scorpion's promo, Punisher comes out to cut one of his own. Punisher also has a title, but again nothing is said as to what title he holds. Punisher ends up attacking Scorpion which leads to XXX and Renegade Outlaw returning to the ring. Now we are ready for our first match.

Match 1 - The Chunkydales defeated Bill & Phil Crude w/ Jumpin' Jack Flash by DQ.
I'm assuming that the Chunkydales are supposed to be overweight Chippendale's dancers. They are two fat guys that come out dancing. One of them, Kool-Aid, actually takes off his shirt and reveals to the crowd the biggest gut that I have ever seen. I must say that it is funny, though, when overweight guys dance. Why else are they always over with the crowd? The match itself was not good. As entertaining as the Chunkydales were on their way to the ring, they were equally as bad as wrestlers inside of the ring. Kool-Aid couldn't run the ropes properly, and he actually fell over when he attempted to give one of the Crude brothers an Irish whip into the ropes. It wasn't a pretty sight. The Crude brothers lose when their manager interferes. After the match, they attack the Chunkydales with Flash doing a top rope splash and a second rope leg drop. This was not a good way to open up the card.

Match 2 - M.O.B. Mercenaries and the York Brothers w/ Mr. Hammer wrestled to a No Contest decision.
The Mercenaries are three guys who wear fatigues and masks, and they come out to the A-Team's theme music. Damn that took me way back. The York Brothers come out by working the crowd for some heel heat. It's not too tough to work the crowds here because most of them don't know that wrestling is a work. There was one senior citizen in attendance who needed to be held back by security because one of the York Brothers told him to shut up. Yeah it's that type of crowd. The ending of this match was terrible. The finish was a member of each team getting a pinfall on the other via sunset flips. The referee made the count for both pinfalls. The bad part is that both legal men were the ones being pinned rather than the ones making the pin. After the match, the York Brothers attack the Mercenaries. I hope that this doesn't happen every match.

Match 3 - Spanky Malone defeated White Scorpion to become a double champion.
Spanky Malone comes out with a title, but I believe that he is one half of the CWF tag team champions with Ryze. Scorpion comes out to Ric Flair's music again except this time he is now screaming like Sting. He's also got the face paint like Sting. I'm confused because I thought Scorpion was supposed to wrestle Punisher. Well, Punisher makes an appearance during this match by distracting Scorpion which leads to Malone getting a school boy pinfall. Malone is now the champion of......Well, I'm not sure what he's the champion of, but all I know is that he gets the belt that Scorpion brought to the ring. This was another not so good match. There were several blown spots and, to a fan, there is nothing worse than a blown spot because it takes away from the illusion of wrestling. Punisher gets into the ring and challenges Scorpion. Scorpion accepts the challenge. We have an impromptu match.

Match 4 - Punisher defeated White Scorpion to become a double champion.
Scorpion must have been really blown up from the previous match because he started the match by giving Punisher the Stinger Splash in the corner and wanted to do another one to him. The only problem is that this splash was more reminiscent of King Kong Bundy's Avalanche rather than Sting's Stinger Splash because he barely left his feet. Scorpion then hit a couple of 'rana's on Punisher, one of which was a nice looking one from the top rope. However, it was to no avail because Punisher won with a piledriver. He is now a double champion. Scorpion managed to lose two belts that the ring announcer never acknowledged. After the match, Punisher and Scorpion hugged and played to the crowd. Ok, Punisher was a babyface at the start, then turned heel during the opening promo, and then turned back to babyface at the end of their match. All of this happened in one night.

Match 5 - El Guapo & Donnie Lightning w/ Biker Babe defeated Matt Bane & American Kid w/ Little girl valet
XXX (Guapo & Lightning) come out with Biker Babe who is waving to the crowd. She also pushes a kid in a wheel chair around the ring to wave to the crowd. I thought they were heels? I guess they are because Guapo just told someone in the crowd to kiss his ass. Now the old guy wants to fight Guapo. Damn, I love these types of crowds. Bane and American Kid come out and look to be really young kids. Finally we get something that is worth watching. This Bane kid looks to be a future wrestling star, and I don't just mean on the Florida indy scene. His bumps are excellent, as well as his selling. His strikes were strong. They were so much better than anything I had seen prior to this match. Everything just looks crisp with this kid. He needs to work on his psychology, but that is something that comes with time. He hasn't been wrestling that long, so it is expected that his ring psychology wouldn't be great. This kid is going to be good. Remember that you heard it from me first. We get some more 'ranas from Guapo. I think that the total so far has been five. Guapo and Lightning pick up the win, but I'm not sure how it happened. The match was way too long, so I can't remember it all. There must have been like 3 hot tags during the match, so that is never good. The average age in this match must have been around 18-years-old.

Intermission

Match 6 - Kahagas defeated Deathrow Jethrow w/ Bill & Phil Crude
I believe that Deathrow Jethrow's gimmick is that he is on death row, but he is allowed out on work release to wrestle. I may be wrong, but you can't get work release if you are on death row, can you? Kahagas comes out with kendo stick in hand. This match was so much better than anything else on this card, so far. I guess it helps when both guys know how to properly run the ropes and actually work a match. I'm not even sure how good this match really was. It just blew the first five matches away that you would have thought that it was a five star match. Anyway, the finish comes when we have a ref bump which leads to the Crude's interfering in the match. Somehow Kahagas' kendo stick comes into play. Kahagas turns the tables and hits all three men with the kendo stick. Kahagas gets the 1-2-3. After the match, the commissioner grabs the microphone and announces that he should fine the Crude's $5,000, but since they received a beating then he's just going to let it slide. How much would it suck to go to work knowing you're only going to be making a few dollars, but then you leave work having been fined $5,000?

Match 7 - CWF Cruiserweight champion Thump Dupree defeated CWF Heavyweight champion Brett Bonnaduce by DQ.
The strange thing about this match is that Thump is the Cruiserweight champion and Bonnaduce is the Heavyweight champion. Bonnaduce can't possibly weigh more than 135 lbs. and Thump weighs in at about 225 lbs. Thump comes out with Biker Babe. I'm not sure that Biker Babe realizes that she is supposed to be a heel. Thump comes out with this menacing look on his face and yelling at the crowd. He's playing the total heel. At the same time, his valet, Biker Babe, is patrolling around the ringside pushing kids in wheelchairs. It makes no sense at all. Bonnaduce comes out dancing along with his little valet. The match gets under way, and I immediately acknowledge that Bonnaduce is better than I anticipated. He looks to have some talent. He still shouldn't be holding the Heavyweight title, though. Honestly, I can see him and Matt Bane working some decent matches for the Cruiserweight title, and having Thump feud with someone else for the Heavyweight strap. Thump gets the upper hand on Bonnaduce with some stiff shots. Thump places Bonnaduce on the top turnbuckle and hits him with a vicious drop kick square in his face. I can't lie. I thought that there was no way Thump was going to connect on that, but he drilled him right in the face. I felt that Thump may have given Bonnaduce too much in the match. We eventually get a ref bump, so that leads to XXX coming out to interfere. Thump hits a wicked looking Gory Special on Bonnaduce, and XXX continue to work over him. The Renegade Outlaw makes his way to the ring and gets caught interfering, so Brett Bonnaduce is disqualified. The Outlaw and Bonnaduce challenge XXX to a match for next month. It was a good match. I knew that Thump could work, but I didn't think that Bonnaduce could. It was definitely better than I thought it would be. It was definitely a stupid ending to the match. The whole card seemed to put over the Renegade Outlaw. I am now convinced that Dusty Rhodes booked this show.

Match 8 - Chris Michaels defeated God in a 2 out of 3 hardcore - tables, chair and thumbtacks - match.
No, that is not a typo. I wished that it was, but that is not the case. Chris Michaels really did wrestle someone named God. For the record, I can think of only a handful of guys that can pull off wrestling under the name of God and this guy isn't one of them. The match starts off with Michaels giving God the school boy, while he is kissing his valet, for the first pinfall. The first fall couldn't have been longer than ten seconds. I honestly don't remember what happened the second fall. I'm sure it was something hardcore because at this point there were trash cans and all kinds of stuff in the ring. We're now at one fall apiece. The final fall comes when God is slammed through the thumbtacks. Ladies and gentlemen, God did the job. Now I know wrestling is a work. This was your normal garbage hardcore match. I hate them with a passion, but the fans get into them so they can't be all that bad. For what it's worth though, this match wasn't even that hardcore. It was a lot tamer than what most fans would consider a decent hardcore match. There was a lot of blood, though.

Final Thoughts

-- This show is a prime example of how weird the Florida indy scene has become. With the exception of maybe 2 matches and one wrestler from another match, this was, perhaps, some of the worst wrestling that I have ever seen. However, this was one of the biggest crowds I have seen in Florida. I was even told that this was actually one of their smaller crowds which I believe because it was raining heavily most of the day. Now how crazy does that sound? It is bad wrestling that continually draws large crowds. The booking for this show was horrible. Three of the matches ended in a DQ or no contest. The Heavyweight champion is almost 100 lbs. lighter than the Cruiserweight champion. There were quite a few wrestlers who couldn't run the ropes or bump properly. I'm not saying that running the ropes or bumping is easy either, but I'm not in the ring trying to wrestle. If you step into the ring, then you should at least be able to run the ropes and bump. The valets are younger than 10-years-old, and the only one that isn't doesn't know if she is a face or heel. The strap really needs to be taken off of Bonnaduce and given to someone with more creditability as a heavyweight wrestler. They also need to name any titles that are defended on their shows. A positive for this show was the crowd. They were great most of the night. I know alot of promotions that would have killed for this crowd, and that includes most promotions in the Northeast. Matt Bane looks to be a star in the making. Watch out for this name in the future.

Will Rivera