NAWF Extreme Encounter
Notre Dame HS, Fairfield, CT
11/8/03
Guesstimated attendance: 100-120

This was the first NAWF show I've seen since July's "Boiling Point" and it was a marked improvement. This was a well-paced, enjoyable show.

The high school gym provided a good setting for a wrestling show. One side of the gym was a curtained stage area, perfect for entrances and exits. The stage had a screen hung from the ceiling in front of it, and the promotion used the screen to do video replays of angles from the previous show. That was a smart way to get new fans up to speed and refresh the memories of old ones.

Crowd was small-ish and I'm told they were mostly pretty dead, although I was seated next a group of families with little kids who were screaming their heads off at everything so it was hard for me to tell.

The only minor debits to this show were the sound system, which kept feeding back horribly all night, and the absence of Danny Doring, who had been advertised for the main event vs Xavier. [Hence the title "Extreme Encounters".] However they did bring in a worthy substitute so in my opinion the NAWF showed good faith and tried to make sure the fans got their money's worth. The show started a little after 7PM and was over at around 10, so they kept things moving pretty briskly with a minimum of stalling or shilling, which had been an issue last time out.

Show opened with Thornn over Bert Williams. Oddly, both men were not announced until after the conclusion of the match. Both guys looked really young but put on a short, crisp opening match.

Nocturne beat Jack Holiday with a DDT in a very good match. Nocturne really shouldn't have lost since he had his foot on the rope throughout the three count but the ref counted the pin anyway. Nocturne put on yet another solid effort here and Holiday was just as good. And I'm not just saying that because Holiday gave my date his hat when he did his ring entrance. Nocturne is becoming one if those guys I look forward to seeing.

Next Don Montoya came out and cut an old school heel promo on NAWF champ Rick Fuller, saying that he would take Fuller's title because Fuller couldn't chokeslam someone of Montoya's weight, er, I mean size. Fuller came out and not so respectfully disagreed. Good basic stuff to set up an issue for their match later on. Since I saw him last in the 90s Fuller has ditched the lumberjack look and gone for more intimidating looking, slightly biker-ish gimmick. Fuller is one big dude, and looks even bigger among the mostly cruiserweight sized NAWF guys. WWF and WCW fans with good memories might recall Fuller doing some jobs for those companies on tv in the late 90s and early 00s.

BS Eddy and Jose Perez lost to El Mascarado and Bad Leroy after Perez unintentionally nailed his own partner with a kick leading to a quick rollup. Mascarado seemed noticeably less smooth in his execution than the other three. Perez is a New England area mainstay who recently wrestled on Ring Of Honor's last NJ show. Leroy has a look similar to D Lo Brown and works the CT area a lot.

Mark Gore beat AlexXx Stone with a Texas Cloverleaf. Nice seeing that finish in an indy match, and Gore did it well. Well executed, enjoyable match with Gore getting some decent crowd support.

Iron Eagle came out, with a WWII video playing on the screen behind him, and cut a promo about how he was glad to be wresting for NAWF again after coming back from a knee injury and touring, and how he was happy that he was finally in a fed where The Punisher doesn't wrestle. Hmm, why do I think he's in for a disappointment?

Rick Fuller beat Don Montoya with 2 chokeslams to retain his NAWF heavyweight title. And they do mean HEAVYweight, both of these guys have to be crowding 300 lbs legit. Your basic big man match [which I like], made enjoyable by Montoya's heel tactics. Montoya really worked the crowd well.

I read on another board that Montoya is talking about retiring. That would be unfortunate if true. The guy is a good heel and he definitely adds something to these NAWF cards.

Iron Eagle beat Genesis. Decent match but very little fan reaction. After the match, The Punisher came out of the bleachers, grabbed a microphone, said Iron Eagle couldn't hide from him, and challenged Eagle to a match in the NAWF, but Pun said only he would decide where and when. Then Punisher left thru the front door. Again a near zilch reaction but not a badly executed angle.

Intermission.

Bobby Panther beat Icarus via armbar submission in an abrupt finish to a match which saw Panther [aka Bobby Vee] dish out some stiff looking shots to the Steve-Simpson-like Icarus. A few of you old World Class and Global fans will get that reference. Again they didn't announce the competitors until after the match ended. Icarus had a VERY high energy running ring entrance, a la Ultimate Warrior but without the stinking up of the ring afterwards.

Night Shift retained the NAWF tag titles over The Conundrum [Jigsaw & Rorschach, "from the resin factory"] in a fast paced match that the crowd dug. Night Shift looked 1000 times better here than they did in July, so maybe I caught them on an off day the first time. Hood city here as 3 of the 4 combatants wore masks, which gave the bout a bit of a lucha look. Jigsaw did a lot of good verbal heat getting throughout the match. Nice vocal projection, especially considering that he was talking through a full face mask.

Next they did an angle between Jay Fitch and NAWF Vice President [in storyline] and owner [for real] Fred Yale. Yale came out to talk about his new role as VP. Then Fitch came out, showed footage of himself getting a BRUTAL neckbeaker and stretcher job at the last show courtesy of Xavier, and demanded to know why, when the NAWF brass knew he wanted to redeem himself, he wasn't even booked in this show. Ended up with Fitch and a security guard [has someone been watching NWATNA?] attacking Yale, who was subtly playing a heel role, and the ring announcer. Jack Holiday and some more guards came out and made the save for Yale and the announcer. The rest of the security team dragged off Fitch and his security guard ally. Obviously this is building to something at a future show. This makes a certain amount of sense as Holiday's cheap win could now be seen as the beginning of heel turn in teaming up with Yale, even though both aren't quite playing full fledged heels yet.

NAWF Television Champion Spider vs "Lightning" Mike Quackenbush went to a double count out. Match of the night. They started out with a double knuckle lock into about 5 minutes of very nice chain wrestling, a good expansion of wrestling styles for the normally more highspot oriented Spider. They finished the chain stuff with a double kip up to a nice pop. This was followed by some more technical wrestling leading into an exchange of aerial moves including a Spider suicide dive onto Quackenbush on the floor. Back in the ring, and soon back out of it again as Spider went over the top and into the front row of chairs. Quackenbush then did a running dive over the top rope and WIPED OUT Spider as both men landed somewhere in the 3rd row. I thought they killed themselves for real for a minute. Both were unable to drag themselves back to the ring before the 10 count, leading to the double countout. Great match. Crowd hated the finish and I didn't care for it either, but one understands why they probably chose to go that way. A well put together match with a nice ebb and flow to it. Best match I've seen from either man to date, in fact. Look for a DOI Spider interview soon.

Luis Ortiz beat Gran Akuna with a Death Valley Driver. Ortiz got about the best match he could get out of Akuna but deserved better after his good performance against Xavier last time out. Match ended after Akuna went for a tope and crashed into, instead of through, the ring ropes. Tough to say if it was planned or not since it lead right into the finish, but it looked pretty bad.

Krazy K defeated Justice in a highspot oriented, semi lucha type match. Fast, enjoyable match with both men working hard and keeping the crowd into it. Based on his performance in this match, I'd say K's poorly received effort at ROH "Death Before Dishonor" was a result of nerves and/or reaction to a hostile crowd, as he wasn't bad at all here. If he keeps having matches like this I don't see why the East coast fans wouldn't accept him. I just re-watched that ROH Hardy/Matthews/Krazy K match before I wrote this review and K was definitely much much better here in NAWF, seemingly almost a different guy. I believe Justice is an import also but I'm not familiar with him or his home fed if so.

Xavier retained his Connecticut Cup over John Brooks and The Technician Tom Carter [aka "Reckless Youth" and subbing for Danny Doring] in the main event. Lots of 3-way spots including double headlocks and double submission attempts. Good match. Would have been fine even if it was just Brooks vs Xavier but it was the right move for the NAWF to make up for the missing Doring by adding another well known [and talented] name to the mix. It kind of evens out in a weird way, since Carter was advertised for the July show but had to drop out at the last minute due to a back injury. Crowd was stone dead for this match, which hurt it, but what was in the ring was solid and entertaining.

Return date was announced as December 12 in West Haven, CT.