Southern Championship Wrestling
Presents: Redemption
June 19, 2004
Altamonte Springs, FL

-- Show opens up with the SCW commish, Michael Cade, along with Ker's Winghouse girl, Samantha, coming out to welcome everybody to SCW. Ker's Winghouse sponsors SCW shows run in Altamonte Springs, so you have the wing girls all over the place during these shows. The girls serve no real purpose to the show other than they are really hot.

-- Next, we have Cade call out Jason Hexx and Thump Dupree to talk about their main event tag match against Brian "The Blade" Gamble and Ryze. This was your typical heel promo. Hexx hates Ryze and they have no chance against them.

-- Everybody leaves the ring. We now have music playing and smoke coming from the curtain. Who is coming out now? Maybe the tag champs, Axis & Python? Perhaps the SCW Florida Heavyweight champion, Vordell Walker? Nope, it's the ring announcer, Ox. Ok, whatever. I'll have more on Ox during my final thoughts. While Ox is preparing to make an announcement, SCW owner, Chris Carson comes out to make an announcement of his own. He states that Brian "The Blade" Gamble will not be able to wrestle in the main event tag match because there was an incident in the back sending him to the hospital. If Ryze does not find a partner then this will become a handicap match. What does this mean? It means that Gamble wasn't even in the building, that's what it means.

Match 1 - SCW Florida Heavyweight Champion "The Shooter" Vordell Walker defeated "The Perfect Creation" Rich Criado to retain his title.

Normally, this match would be somewhere along the lines of a semi-main event. However, I believe Vordell Walker had prior arrangements, so he had to curtain jerk for this show. In my opinion, this was probably my match of the night. At first, I questioned Vordell's psychology in the match, as he was working the leg the entire match and his finisher has nothing to do with that. Well, he won with a rolling leg bar submission. Who am I to question him. On a side note, Vordell Walker is the guy that wrestled Hector Garza on the last TNA Xplosion. He's a star in the making. As for Criado, I was equally impressed with him also. His selling was very good, and he certainly was working the crowd. It was a very good match, and I'd really like to see Criado back in the future. SCW could really get some good use out of him.

Match 2 - "The Most Important Man Alive" Mister Saint Laurent w/ So Cal Val defeated Johnny Schumacher

This was their second match up during their mini feud. MSL came out and was introduced with his streamers from the crowd missing. So Cal Val looked hot as usual. I'm almost positive SCW considers MSL a heel, but the crowd reaction would definitely make him a tweener. We started off with a little chain wrestling, but quickly jumped into a wicked strike exchange. I'm not sure what it is about Schumacher's chest, but whenever anyone chops him they sound extremely loud and look extremely painful. Both of them end up on the floor where Schumacher runs MSL into the post and proceeds to deliver an elbow from the ring apron a la Cactus Jack. This is very uncharacteristic of Schumacher. Eventually, they head back into the ring where they tease Schumacher giving MSL a German suplex. At the time I was thinking, "MSL outweighs him by almost 150 lbs. There is no way he'll take this." Again, I was wrong as Schumacher gave MSL a nice looking German suplex. This eventually leads to Schumacher going for a moonsault and missing. MSL ends up winning with a Tiger Driver 91. It was a decent match.

Match 3 - Heartbreak Xpress w/ Gorgeous Gary Garvin defeated "Simply" Kevin Devine & The Lord of Discipline

The Heartbreak Xpress came out to enormous amounts of heel heat mixed with few cheers. If you haven't seen them before, they come out dressed in pink and purple and wear pink and purple boas. The one member, Sean Davis, is extremely rotund and it is something else to see him strut around the way that he does. They get on the mic and announce that they have brought with them a manager named Gorgeous Gary Garvin. His nickname is Gorgeous and he's a heel, so of course he had to be ugly looking. He comes out rocking the mullet and the crowd gets on him about it immediately. The match itself was no wrestling clinic, but you don't expect that from a Heartbreak Xpress match anyway. They pretty much worked Kevin Devine the entire match leaving the Lord of Darkness out of the ring. That was the best thing they could have done in this match because when he was in the ring it wasn't pretty. I'm told that he is getting up there in age, and I guess it's starting to show. Anyway, finish of this match comes when Sean Davis removes his boot and hands it to his brother Phil who knocks out Kevin Devine for the pin.

Match 4 - "The Rebel Rocker" Towns Ellis defeated "The Untouchable" Leon Scott w/ Tiziana

Ok, from time to time a certain something happens to me while writing these reviews. I completely forgot most of this match. The reasoning I don't remember is because it wasn't very good to begin with. I've been told that Towns Ellis used to be a decent worker, but that is no longer the case. All I remember about this match was bitching about how Leon Scott was stuck wrestling Dale Williams last month and now Towns Ellis. I'm not sure if Scott/Ellis is going anywhere angle-wise, but if it is I hope its sole purpose is to put over Leon Scott. Scott is decent on the mic, has a hot valet and his facial expressions rival William Regal. His wrestling has improved every chance I get to see him. I'd like to see him get pushed up the card, or at least given a meaningful storyline. By the way, Ellis ended up getting the win.

Match 5 - SCW Cruiserweight champion Aaron Epic defeated Josh Rich via DQ to retain his title.

Josh Rich comes out holding what looked to be a bong. Well, he came out to Outkast's Bombs Over Baghdad and his whole gimmick is supposed to be that he thinks he's cool, but he's really a dork, so at first I thought it was one of the cups that Lil' Jon always has in hand. Anyway, it turned out to be a model of the Apollo 11 rocket ship. I guess that does make him a dork. He cuts a promo saying his career is going to sky rocket to the top. Epic comes out throwing tootsie rolls into the crowd and spraying silly string, except that the cans didn't work. This is a rematch of their encounter last month in DeBary, FL. Epic is a decent wrestler, but there is one big knock on him and that is that he "borrows" alot of other wrestlers moves. For instance, when he and his opponent are outside of the ring he places them sitting on a chair and then does a running kick into their face. Who does that remind you of? Well, here's a hint. Epic's music starts off with the chant of olé, olé, olé. Back to the match. The finish came when Rich was stumbling near the turnbuckle by the ring announcer's table. As Epic was running towards him, Rich grabbed the Apollo 11 model, which was on the announcer's table, and smashed it over Epic's head resulting in the DQ finish. Personally, I think their match from last month was better, but I liked the finish of this one more. The cruiserweight division in SCW is really thin right now, so I don't see the point of a baby face champion running roughshod over the heel opponents.

Match6 - Manny "The Man" Montana defeated Dagon Briggs w/ Se7en

Dagon Briggs and Se7en come out to cheers from the crowd. Manny Montana comes out and does his staring gimmick with the crowd. For those of you who haven't seen it, he walks methodically to the ring and stares at the fans. It's funny to see the fans genuinely scared of him. This is what wrestling is missing and desperately needs more of. I was looking forward to this match because I am very high on both guys. In fact, this was my pre-show match of the night. They started off with some chain wrestling which isn't a surprise because Montana loves it. Briggs looked alot better this show compared to the last one, but that is only because last month's match was a tag and he was held out of the ring for most of it. He actually got to showcase his talent and show why TNA continues to bring him back for Xplosion matches. The first 10-12 minutes were excellent with the chain wrestling mixed in with some brawling outside of the ring. I would have been perfectly content with the match ending here. However, the match went an extra 10 minutes, I believe. It kind of took away from the match that they were having. During the first half of the match, there weren't enough rest holds for them to regain some energy, so they appeared extremely blown up during the last portion of the match. Even Montana's Dragon Suplex was uncharacteristically sloppy. By the way, the Dragon Suplex was the finish of this match.

Match 7 - Ryze & "Classy" Chris Nelson w/ CCN security man Fish defeated Jason Hexx & Thump Dupree

The team of Hexx and Dupree are in the ring along with Ryze waiting to see if he had a tag team partner. Out of no where, we hear Barry Manilow's Copa Cabana playing. No, it's not what you guys think. It's actually "Classy" Chris Nelson coming out with his gear on while singing along. The fans, myself included, did not see this one coming. Nelson had wrestled in a match in April where they worked an angle that he was severely hurt during the match. In reality, he actually had legit injuries and was looking to retire. That's why I was surprised to see him because I thought he was done for good. I don't know whether those reading this or not will believe me, but I honestly can't name too many people that can work the crowd better than Chris Nelson. He had them eating his whole shtick up. His entrance was a good 5 minutes long. Hell, he sang the entire Copa Cabana song. They explained that he took this match because he wanted to get back at his former partner, Thump Dupree, for not being there while he was injured. I thought it was a good storyline, as Nelson had left as a heel but returned a baby face. Ok, now for the match. It was your typical tag match. Nelson took most of the heat from Dupree and Hexx, while keeping Ryze out of the ring. Ryze was looking to get at Hexx because they were former partners before Hexx turned on him. I'm not sure at what point it happened, but Nelson bladed midway through the match. Finally, he makes the hot tag to Ryze who hits Hexx once and he powders. That leaves Ryze to work on Dupree. Eventually, Ryze gets a hold of Hexx and hits him with a Back Suplex Uranage for the pin.

Final Thoughts
-- The Walker/Criado match was very good, as was most of the Montana/Briggs match. MSL/Schumacher had its moments. The Heartbreak Xpress should be the tag champs. This was definitely the first SCW main event that I enjoyed. Most of their cards are excellent undercards followed by a weak main event. It was nice to be solid from start to finish.

-- I'm going to take this time to address the ring announcer Ox situation, in hopes that the SCW owner Chris Carson is reading. I guess it's fine if they want to have their ring announcer have a personality. Personally, I think it's dumb, but it's not my promotion. However, the big thing about Ox is that he insists on having to put himself over and stealing heat from the crowd while the matches are going on. I'll cite several examples to make my point. First of all, whenever Ox exits the ring he decides to hold a conversation with the women seated ringside. He'll stand in the way of the folks behind them who are trying to watch the match. he continually did this until my friends and I began yelling for him to sit down and shut up. Also, while the Epic/Rich match was getting underway, Ox grabbed Rich's Apollo 11 model to show these very same women it. He was showing it off to them and playing around with it. Luckily, he had enough common sense to place it where he found it. What would have happened had he not done so? He would have killed the entire match because that model was involved in the finish. Last, but certainly not least, during the Heartbreak Xpress match the crowd was chanting "mullet" at their manager, Gorgeous Gary Garvin. Out of no where, Ox grabs the mic and announces something along the lines of, "I'd like to remind you that he hates it when you call him mullet." I understand why he did it. He was trying to get the crowd into it. However, the crowd was ALREADY into it. It was unnecessary and really has no business in wrestling. If anyone from SCW is reading this, please understand that I am not the only one who feels this way. Several in attendance felt the same way. I'm sorry, but I am just voicing my opinion. I am a paying customer and I'm just letting you know that I am being turned off of your product, and the booking or wrestling have nothing to do with it.

Will Rivera