3PW [Pro Pain Pro Wrestling]
2nd Anniversary Show
Viking Hall, Philadelphia, PA
2/21/04

I'm really late filing this, so let's get right into it.

Crowd looked to be in the middle 300s or so, way down from what I was told they drew the last 2 shows. There were empty spots visible in my section of ringside, even in the front row. Bleachers looked fairly packed, though they just use the standing ones and not the ones you pull out of the wall. Viking Hall itself is, thankfully, always the same. It's great that at least one classic dump of a wrestling building still runs shows. Remember when XPW was gonna shut everybody out of the building? Gee that doesn't seem to have worked out. I guess sometimes bad things do happen to bad people. With Tony Luke's right down the street, you can't go wrong with Viking Hall for a show. If you're ever in the area, do NOT pass up Tony Luke's. I took half a dozen cheese steaks home with me to freeze for future fine dining.

Our ring announcer was Bob Artese and the refs were John Finnegan and Jim Mollineaux. It's always a pleasure to watch these guys work. Less of a pleasure was the security guy who kept standing up and blocking my view all night, and some of the photographers [NOT Bob Payes tho] and officials who did the same. Next time the hell with front row, I'm going back to the bleachers.

You can't see squat up here!

Derek Wylde defeated Rob Eckos in the opener. Odd to see Eckos go from midcard back to working the opening match and having no particular storyline. Crowd didn't know Wylde and consequently hated him. Eckos played the heel but the fans were so not into Wylde that Eckos almost came off as the face. Decent match that served its purpose of warming up the crowd.

After this Joey Matthews came out and talked about winning big matches in 3PW [which he has indeed done lately] and wanting some respect. Raven came out, announced that Roadkill couldn't make it and therefore Sabu needed an opponent, and added Sabu to the #1 Contenders' match of Matthews vs Jerry Lynn. Raven's still playing the heel here and the fans are still just NOT going with it and continue to cheer everything he says or does. I suspect that one of the reasons the Raven/Punk feud that was done elsewhere got over so well is that someone figured out that the fans simply don't want to boo Raven at this point in his career. Segment got over the point that Matthews was becoming a major player in 3PW.

Slyk Wagner Brown (w/April Hunter) beat Kruel with the Holy Slyk. Good solid match as you'd expect from these two. I believe this was SWB's debut match in 3PW.

Roderick Strong (w/Ron Neimi) beat Mikey Batts to win the vacant NWA Florida X Division title. Match of the night. Crowd had NO idea who any of these people were, so Neimi got on the mic and ripped the fans to make sure he and his man got the proper booing - and it worked. Batts is a very small Paul London type cruiserweight [only smaller than London] with an array of very quick, sharp, speed and aerial based moved. Strong was a bit larger though still small by, say WWE standards, and used a lot of more basic but effective offense. Manager Neimi looks a little like a smaller, less scary Tank Abbott dressed in REALLY ugly clothes - and for me to even notice such a thing you know they had to be very very bad. [I'm the guy that looks at "That 70s Show" and thinks everybody looks kinda cool.] Batts is one of the best sellers I've seen on the indy circuit and part of why this match worked was that he made it look like simple punches, kicks, slams etc were KILLING him to the point where you wondered if he was going to be able to get up. One of Batts more interesting moves was when he it a "Stone Cold Stunner" and, still maintaining his grip on his opponent's neck and head, reached up and kicked Strong right in the face! Great looking stuff. Match overall was very paced with the advantage switching several times. They really never slowed appreciably the whole time. These guys must have great wind. Batts seemed to have gained the upper hand when Strong hit his finisher almost out of nowhere for the win. I don't know the proper name for the move he did, but if you watch the segment in "Beyond The Mat" where a bunch of guys in WWE/WWF are standing around watching tape of Mike Modest's tryout match, he hits this weird kind of reverse cradle neckbreaker for the win and one of the WWE guys says "I'm stealin' it", well, that's the move Strong won with. I don't know if this match sold even one ticket for this show, but when word of mouth gets around I'll bet a rematch would sell some tickets next time. I'd definitely go see it, and both of these guys were new to me as well. I gather from 3PW's prematch publicity that these two have worked this feud for some time down in Florida.

The Sugar Shack with Jasmine St Clair and "Sugar Daddy" Todd Gordon was next. They came out with sex slave Talia and began berating her for something (unseen by me) that happened at the last show. They forced her to strip; well basically they tore the clothes off of her leaving her in bra and panties. [Woo hoo!] They continued to abuse her when all of the sudden the familiar strains of "Hail To The Chief" burst out on the PA. To the rescue came.........The Macho Man Matt Striker! Oooh yeah! Dig it! Yup it's Striker in full Randy Savage regalia, including sunglasses, wig, and a star safety pinned to the back of his tights. "The Macho Man" grabs a mic, says he's got enough money to buy Talia away from Gordon and Jasmine, and support her, and she doesn't need to put up with them any more. Dig it! Striker cuts a long, hilarious promo with perfect Randy Savage voice, gestures, and mannerisms, including punctuating every sentence with "Dig it!" Dig it! Macho Man Striker put Talia up on his shoulder a la Savage and Elizabeth and they did the classic Savage/Liz pose for the crowd. Dig it! This was just friggin hilarious and the fans ate it up, including doing a massive "Hogan sucks!" chant. Reaction was probably better than they would have gotten if the REAL Randy Savage had come out and for a few minutes it was the 1980s again in the ECW Arena.

Dig it!

Ruckus vs Damian Adams went to no contest when both men went for moves off opposite top rope corners, fell backwards, and crashed through tables they had set up earlier. Good while it lasted. Both men got stretchered out and it seemed like Ruckus might have gotten hurt legit as it took a long time before they carried him out. Crowd was a little confused by the finish, like they couldn't tell if this was supposed to happen or not. After both guys fell to the floor the ref went out to check on them, then quickly rolled back in the ring and made a VERY fast ten count, but no result was formally announced and they abruptly went to intermission. Hopefully they were just working us and Ruckus is okay. Definitely a downer after the demented antics of the Macho Man Randy, er, Striker, in the previous segment.

Intermission. Bought a tape of the December show. I hear they had some guy on it who thought he was Rowdy Roddy Piper.

Rockin Rebel and Jack Victory beat The Blue Meanie and CJ O'Doyle in a long comedy match. Match gets about a 2 for wrestling but a 9 or 10 for comedy. The fans were really into booing the cowardly antics of Rebel and Victory who were funny as hell. This was actually one of the more enjoyable matches on the show, albeit maybe a little too long. I still think they need to do something to exploit the fact O'Doyle looks like Rob Schneider. I kept waiting for a "You can do eet!" chant. The heels won after O'Doyle accidentally clocked the Meanie. After the match refs Mollineaux and Finnegan jumped in the ring, rolled up Rebel & Victory - and Meanie counted the double pin. So I guess the referees won this match.

Macho Man Matt Striker (w/Miss Talia) defeated Monsta Mack with, what else, the flying elbow off the top. Striker was announced as "hailing from Sarasota, New York". He threw Slim Jims out to the crowd before the match. Dig it! Monsta Mack probably got his best heel reaction to date in 3PW as the crowd, loving "The Macho Man", hated Mack and wanted him to get beat. Striker got on the mic and wanted to know why he was wrestling King Kong Bundy. Dig it! After his wig got knocked off during the match, Striker briefly got confused and started channeling the Honky Tonk Man, throwing a Shake Rattle And Roll on Monsta Mack and getting the ref to sing the harmony parts on "I'm Just A Honky Tonk Man". One of these days I am going to bust something from laughing at this guy. The Macho Matt and Miss Talia did the Savage/Elizabeth pose again after the match. Dig it! Clearly 3PW had abandoned any thoughts of keeping Striker a heel as he was the straight up babyface here and the people loved him. Dig it! Snap into a Slim Jim! Dig it!

Raven retained his 3PW World title against Pitbull Gary Wolfe in dog collar match. Lots of out-of-ring brawling as you would expect, including an extended sequence (which I couldn't really see) on that platform right below the stage where ECW always did these things. Raven came back from the out of ring brawling with bleeding from his forehead. Raven got the win when Jack Victory interfered and gored Wolfe through a table. Okay match that delivered a reasonable amount of violence but probably isn't going to make anyone forget the Pitbulls vs Raven/Richards dog collar match(es) from the 90s, which this was sold as reprise of. Both men are heels here so the crowd reaction was a little flat since they had had no one to really cheer for. Every time the fans got behind Wolfe he'd flip them off and yell at them to show his new attitude. It's hard for me to evaluate this one since large portions of it took place out of my sight.

Joey Matthews defeated Jerry Lynn and Sabu to become the number one contender to Raven's 3PW World heavyweight Championship. Yes you read that right. Fans, except for a contingent of females, booed Matthews soundly throughout this match. It was almost like a Shawn Michaels type reaction in terms of the gender split. However the place popped pretty good for his win and seemed to somewhat accept him as a top guy. I have HATED Matthews ever since he became a single and wasn't big on him as a tag team guy either, but I have to admit that held his own very well here with two of the top indy wrestlers in the world. Sabu isn't quite the Sabu of old but he seemed noticeably faster and more energized working with these guys than in the Raven/Sandman/Sabu match back in November and he had a damned good showing here. Lynn was Lynn; you know he's always going to be good. The majority of the crowd seemed split about 60/40 in favor of Sabu over Lynn. Everybody hit their signature spots including Sabu doing a spectacular dive out of the ring into about the 2nd row on Matthews and Lynn. Lynn hit his cradle pile driver on Matthews but Sabu broke it up. The stories of the match were one guy having another pinned only to have the 3rd participant break it up, and Matthews alternately sneaking around and going toe to toe with the legends. Finally Sabu hit a top rope Arabian Facebuster on Lynn, and Matthews swooped in and stole the pin for the 3 count.

After the match Raven hit the ring, confronted Matthews, actually shook his hand, and then laid him out with a Raven Effect. Raven flipped off the crowd and left.

Overall this show seemed to lack that certain extra something to put it over the top that 3PW shows have normally had in the past. Maybe it wouldn't have seemed that way if this hadn't been touted as a 2nd anniversary show. However it was solid show with a very good match in Strong vs Batts and a great combination of wrestling and insane brawling in Sabu/Lynn/Matthews. 3PW present a nice mix of styles. There is some science, some brawling, some comedy, a nod to the old school [dig it!], and some T&A.

3PW return on Saturday March 20 with, obviously, Raven vs Joey Matthews for the world title. I'm not sure how well that's going to draw but I give them credit for rewarding Matthews' recent fine work with a serious push. No other matches announced as of yet, but keep checking here and at www.3pwrestling.com.