NWA Florida
A Wrestling Odyssey
Friday, May 6, 2005
Sanford, Florida
-- Before the show NWA FL owner Joe Price held a ten-bell salute in honor of Chris Candido.
Match 1 – Josh Rich & Aaron Epic & Scott Stephens w/Ipuna defeated The Heartbreak Express & James Morrison w/Tower.
This match was originally supposed to be a match between the Heartbreak Express vs. Member’s Only, but it was changed to a six-man tag. I’m not even sure if the Member’s Only team still exists, as I believe that Leon Scott has quit wrestling. Anyway, Tower unintentionally stood in front of me at the beginning of the match, and I made the mistake of letting him know that he was in my way. He then stood directly in front of me for a majority of this match. The HBE and Morrison worked over Rich most of the match until he made the hot tag to Epic. I may be wrong, but I don’t think that Stephens was ever officially in this match. While the heels were beating down the faces outside of the ring, Epic hit Morrison with a Kryptonite Krunch for the win. This was definitely entertaining as the HBE are absolutely great in front of a crowd of casual wrestling fans. They eat up all of their act. This was a good start to the show as the crowd was really into it.
Match 2 – NWA FL X Division Champion Mikey Batts defeated Jerrelle Clark to retain his title.
I thought this match was a bit of a disappointment as this wasn’t one of Batts’ best performances. He was definitely off tonight. Clark looked good with his moveset though. There just seemed to be far too many miscommunication problems in this match that hindered it. To their credit, what was good was really good. It just seemed like there was enough things wrong that I couldn’t really get into the match. I’m definitely calling for a rematch sometime soon as I know that these two are capable of having some solid matches. Batts picked up the win when he hit his version of the Code Red. Even that looked awkward, as Batts appeared to be falling to the side as they were flipping over. Yeah well, it happens.
Match 3 – Amy Love & James Hendrix defeated Team Vision (Mister Saint Laurent & Chasyn Rance).
Before the match, MSL cuts a promo saying that he has a doctor’s note from his dermatologist saying that he’s allergic to leather, so this can no longer be a leather strap match. Much to my surprise, his excuse was upheld, so the match was no longer a strap match. This match stems from a feud between Love and Rance as she defeated Rance in a match in Davie, Florida, a while back. However, this match will probably be remembered for one thing and one thing alone. Early in the match while attempting his Flipping Toe Attack on Hendrix, MSL landed on and broke the bottom rope. I couldn’t believe it because the snapping noise of the rope breaking echoed in this venue, so it was extremely loud. Speaking of loud, this brings me to the two vicious chops that MSL gave to Love. Granted, the venue again could have played a part in making the chops sound worse than they probably were, but I know enough to know that they were definitely some vicious chops. Love retaliated by hitting MSL with a chop of her own, but he countered by poking her in the eye. I still can’t figure out why, but this spot was absolutely hilarious. On top of that, Love took a nasty looking leg lariat from Rance. Love is constantly taking a beating in the ring from men, so I can’t help but put her over in every match that she has. She has quickly become my favorite female on the entire Florida wrestling scene. It’s just a shame that Love doesn’t have any females to wrestle in Florida. MSL was holding Love as Rance delivered a superkick. Love moved causing Rance to hit MSL, which led to MSL being pinned by Love. Between the ring rope breaking, Rance selling his ass off for Love and the chops to Love by MSL, the crowd was really into this match.
Match 4 – Erick Stevens defeated Prettyfly.
This match wasn’t a squash like I expected it to be, which kind of surprised me. I understand that Stevens has a legit knee injury that Prettyfly worked over, but that happened in a different promotion than NWA FL, so the fans of NWA FL don’t even know about said knee injury. NWA FL appears to be building toward a big program between Bruce Steele and Stevens, so seeing Prettyfly taking it to Stevens kind of hurt Stevens in my eyes rather than build him up for the pending match between Steele for the NWA Florida Heavyweight Title. I guess I would have been fine with this had it been a member of the NWA Florida roster, but the thinking was that they brought in an enhancement talent in Prettyfly to put over Stevens strong. I didn’t get that from the match though. Stevens did hit his signature moves like the Exploder, Lariat and then the folding Powerbomb for the win.
Match 5 – Naphtali defeated Sedrick Strong in an Anarchy Rules match.
This was essentially a “referee shirt on a pole” match as they wrestled with no referee, so the wrestler that grabbed the shirt got to be the referee for the match. I’ve never liked this gimmick match, but as silly as the gimmick sounds I think that these guys pulled it off. First of all, this match was violent in so many ways. I haven’t seen the use of ladders and chairs like this on the indie scene in quite some time. I was surprised to see Strong taking so much abuse in this match because I’m not used to seeing it from him, but Naphtali taking it didn’t affect me because I’m used to seeing it from him. That has to be a bad thing. I don’t know how much longer he’s going to be able to keep going like this, especially the bumps to the outside. Nonetheless, the crowd was really into these sick bumps and chair/ladder spots. Next, they had a few entertaining spots as far as the use of the referee gimmick goes. Strong was the one that obtained the ref shirt from the pole, so he started beating Naphtali’s leg, which is in between the ladder, with a chair. He delivered a sick chair shot to his head and went for the pin. Naphtali grabbed the middle rope (bottom rope isn’t there). Strong delivered some more punishment to Naphtali, and he went for the pin. As he was counting his pin Naphtali grabbed his hand before making a 3 count. Naphtali eventually gets the ref shirt in his possession and delivers a Shining Wizard to a chair that Strong is holding that hits him in the head, which gives Naphtali the win. I was definitely surprised at the violence and some of the spots in this match. Hokey gimmick aside, I was thoroughly entertained by this match. The effects of this match didn’t appear to hurt Strong as he seemed fine afterward, but Naphtali suffered a broken finger as well as a bad knee as it gave out on him while attempting a double jump springboard moonsault.
Intermission
Match 6 – 911 Inc. (NWA FL Heavyweight Champion Bruce Steele & Rod Steel) w/Ron Niemi & Buck Quartermain defeated NWA Southern Heavyweight Champion Lex Lovett & Steve Madison.
Before the match, we get a promo from 911 Inc. talking about the feud between them and Steve Madison and Lex Lovett. I really liked this as I thought with them being in a new market with new fans that cutting promos should have been done more throughout the night. They really built up the feud during this promo, so when Lovett and Madison came out and everyone started brawling outside of the ring, the crowd was really into it. The highlight of the brawling outside was Madison delivering a piledriver to Rod Steel outside of the ring onto the floor. Damn, he must really trust Madison to take that. The match was decent, but I’m going to cut to the end because so much happened after the match. Following some interference from Buck Quartermain, Bruce Steele hit Lovett with his Steele Curtain finisher for the pin. 911 Inc. began to beat down on Lovett and Madison when Erick Stevens hit the ring. He took out Rod Steel, and then went after Bruce Steele. Bruce Steele escaped the Folding Powerbomb attempt and left the ring. 911 Inc. left with Bruce Steele taking his title along with Lovett’s NWA Southern Heavyweight Championship. Madison and Lovett cut promos afterward. Up until this point Stevens has been a ‘tweener, so he turns full face as he finally shakes hands with Madison. Lovett then gets on the mic and cuts a promo saying that Bruce Steele better return his title. He’s pretty much building up a feud between the two when he shocks everybody by saying that at this year’s Peterson Cup he’s going to have his very last wrestling match against AJ Styles. Now I don’t want to see Lovett retire, so forgive me if I seem inconsiderate toward his retirement announcement, but I’m shocked that they would build this feud up where it would be title vs. title to see which title is more important in NWA FL, but only to have Lovett announce his retirement thus totally blowing who is going to go over in his match with Steele. Before I go any further, I must say that I don’t think this is an angle because Lovett has already done the retirement angle in NWA FL and FIP. There is no way you let Lovett retire with the title, so losing it to Bruce Steele seems like the logical choice. However, had fans not known about Lovett retiring, then the winner of the match isn’t so obvious. Granted, I felt that Steele was going over anyway, but by knowing that Lovett is retiring all but confirms it for most people.
Match 7 – Homicide defeated Vordell Walker.
I looked at this match as a test for Walker as he was wrestling one of the best wrestlers on the indie scene in Homicide. I think he passed the test as I felt he hung with Homicide throughout the entire match. By watching Homicide wrestle you can tell that he was a good trainer because everything is so crisp with him, even the little things that most wrestlers don’t even give any consideration to. I was surprised by how over Walker was considering he’s technically a heel in NWA FL. Well, he may be a ‘tweener now because he was a heel while he was with Scoot Andrews and Antonio Banks, but since Scoot’s retirement, the NWA group has disbanded and Banks has been working as a face since NWA FL began working south Florida (Banks’ home). Other than a handful of smart marks that were cheering for Homicide, he was essentially turned into a heel for this match. He appeared to be visibly upset with some of the fans that were chanting for Walker. The strikes in this match were fantastic as the sounds carry in this venue, so they seem more painful. There were several false finishes to pop the crowd, and they worked. Homicide finally picked up the win when he hit a Lariat on Walker. This was a good match and was my second best match of the night. By the way, Homicide owes me 33 cents because he ruined my notebook while doing his tope con hilo to Walker.
Match 8 – NWA FL Tag Team Champions Double Deuce (Frankie Capone & Marcus Dillon) defeated the Market Crashers (Shawn Murphy & Joey Machete) to retain their titles.
Holy crap is Double Deuce over in Sanford, Florida. I believe Capone was the local promoter for this Sanford show, so he went all out in getting his family, friends and co-workers to the show. I think this made for a great crowd because there was a mixture of smart marks, casual wrestling fans and non-wrestling fans. The crowd popped for everything tonight. This match had an old school feel that slowed the match down significantly. The Market Crashers worked over Capone most of the match. Now, I don’t mind matches like these, but this one just seemed too slow. After forever of the Crashers getting heat on Capone, he finally makes the hot tag to Dillon. Dillon and Machete are the legal men and are wrestling in the ring, while Capone and Murphy are brawling outside of the ring. Murphy posts Capone in front of his family and friends, then goes to get back into the ring to help Machete. The only problem is that Dillon Schoolboys Machete for the win before Murphy can get there. Most of the crowd missed it because they were watching Capone get posted and selling on the floor. I was really surprised by the fact that Capone came out looking vulnerable in front of his hometown crowd like that. I thought that they would hit their K5/Spear combo finisher, but Capone hit the K5 earlier in the match, so you knew that he probably wouldn’t do it again. Double Deuce is starting to grow on me though. They are very entertaining, and I think a program between them and the Heartbreak Express might be a good way to go to get the NWA FL tag team division rolling again. I’m a big fan of established tag teams rather than two random guys thrown together for the sake of needing a tag team, so I would definitely enjoy a DD/HBE program.
Match 9 – AJ Styles defeated Roderick Strong.
During the first couple of matches I had the feeling that a certain vocal section of the crowd appeared to be non-wrestling fans, but it was confirmed when a huge section of fans got up and left the second that Double Deuce’s match was over even though ring announcer Lenny Leonard kept announcing that the main event was yet to come. That’s unfortunate because the Styles/Strong match was really good. Seeing AJ Styles wrestle outside of TNA Impact tapings is usually a treat because he’s capable of so much more than what he’s able to display during Impact’s ten-minute time limit matches. Styles got a lot of heat on Strong during this match, which was a bit surprising because I thought that Styles was the face and Strong was the heel. As the matches were going by everybody kept commenting how Strong still has to wrestle, and the way everyone else’s chops have sounded thus far, then Strong’s would be far worse than that. Imagine our surprise when we only get one chop out of Roderick Strong during this match. Styles put Strong in the Torture Rack, and then in possibly the move of the night, he swung Strong around into a sit-out Powerbomb. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that before. We go from move of the night to scary spot of the night when Styles hits Strong with the Styles Clash, but Strong’s head smacked the mat before the rest of his body hit. It was extremely scary to see because it looked like he seriously could have hurt himself. It appeared to be Strong’s fault as it looked like he didn’t duck his head when Styles went to jump forward. It was an excellent match though. It was my match of the night. AJ Styles might damn well be the best wrestler on the indies.
Final Thoughts
This was definitely a lot better show than their previous show during the doubleshot with FIP in Brandon, Florida. They drew a very good house tonight as the place was packed. On top of that, I thought the venue was very nice. The audios in this venue are exceptional. AJ Styles/Roderick Strong was very, very good. The Styles Clash bump was scary. Homicide/Vordell Walker was also very good. These are really two matches that could main event a majority of indie shows all across the country. Sedrick Strong/Naphtali was very violent, which overshadowed the silly gimmick match. I liked the buildup for Bruce Steele vs. Erick Stevens, but now with the Lex Lovett retirement announcement, the whole picture is clouded. I guess rather than Stevens challenging Steele for the NWA Florida Heavyweight Championship, he’ll be challenging him for both titles, as Bruce Steele most definitely has to defeat Lex Lovett. Either way, the main event picture eventually appears to be Bruce Steele vs. Erick Stevens, so that’s fine by me. The mixed tag match was entertaining. The opener was as well. The 911 Inc. vs. Lovett/Madison was an entertaining brawl as well as entertaining on 911 Inc.’s part as they have managed to become some hilarious wrestlers. Mikey Batts/Jerrelle Clark was off this night. The tag title match was too slow for me to get into it. Double Deuce is starting to grow on me though. There were a few things that I questioned (I guess they would pertain to certain aspects of the booking), but overall I thought it was a very good night of wrestling. I’m glad to see that the problems from their previous show didn’t carry over to this one. Between the close location to Orlando (my home), the nice venue and the nice crowds, I hope that NWA FL continues to run Sanford, Florida. They make their Sanford return June 17, so they must think that running Sanford is a good idea also.
Will Rivera
Wriv25@yahoo.com
AIM – willriv22
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