Shootin' with The Snapshot

What a weekend for pro wrestling. Friday night I returned to USA pro wrestling after a few years absence. They run a great building called the Amazura Ballroom. The location is pretty bad. I always wonder if I am going to get my car stolen in bad areas. Somehow Jay Lethal boxed my car in so I felt a little safer about that and that they would steal his car before mine. Jay thought I would not be able to get out of the spot. He did not realize that I am a professional driver and that's what I do for a living. Needless to say I got out. I got there early so I beat a lot of the traffic. Once everything got going I looked at the board and saw 17 matches. I felt like taking a valium. The crowd was light early but they started to pack them in as the show went on. They were off from there normal crowd but nonetheless had a decent size crowd. In the match of the night, Chris Candido and Mike Kruel had a 5 star off the chart match of the year candidate type of match. The psychology was so good that I have to say it is one of the best matches I have ever seen. Every indy worker should get this tape and watch this match as it told a story. It also showed the right way to work a match. The crowd popped when it was supposed to. The only thing I did not like was the end Tammy was telling signaling to the fans to give them a standing ovation. That should have come naturally. Homicide and DLO Brown had a great match. A scary moment took place as Buff E from the CSC got injured. The end result I believe was a stinger but there was major concern for a far worse injury. The love and support from the locker room was amazing. Most of the boys especially the dog house crew were right there tending to him. When injuries occur the morale goes down. Later on I will have a lot to say about injuries. Unfortunately New Jack could not attend due to a legal problem and someone with a big mouth. Somehow when the masked maniac announced this the crowd really did not seem to mind much. There was so much going on already. By 1130 I had enough and with like 50 matches to still go and the valium I felt like taking earlier was wearing off I decided I had enough and left. USA pro has a good crew but they run so dam long. If you go to a movie it last no more than 2 hours, a Broadway play is 2.5 hours, a basketball game is 2.5 or so hours, the circus is the same. 6 hours is a bit long. I wanted to see some the later matches but I had seen enough already. No disrespect to the boys who worked late but I just had enough. They use ticket sellers which is the necessary evil in all promotions but they use to many of them.

The second night of my double header weekend was the JAPW show in Rahway, NJ. JAPW has come a long way and has a great product. Saturday night showed why. They had a very healthy house that was very vocal. Some of the stuff I liked was the Homicide Vs Teddy Hart match. It was short and set up future angles. Both guys are super over and Homicide is one great worker and it showed here. Dan Maff who is a super great guy and totally down to earth had a great match with Trent Acid which included some sick chair spots. I just made t shirts for Maff so when you see him look for and buy his new shirt it is a good design. In the match of the night Jay Lethal beat Azriel in a ladder match that had some creative and sick spots. Speaking of sick there was another injury last night in that Sonjay Dutt was at first thought to have broken his arm but after reading what Ray Sager posted I along with everyone else is glad that it is not that serious but at the time of injury it looked very bad. Again the locker room showed great support for one of there own. To get the morale back up for the fans they had a 4 way high flying match which got the fans back into it. Other fan favorites included Super Dragon and B Boy. This was one hot show which was proved big time by the last few matches.

It seems like injuries are becoming more frequent these days. The boys are taking high risks and doing insane moves just to get the holy shit chant or to just get praise from the fans. Unnecessary injuries are occurring such as the two I listed above from the past weekend. If you knew how to work a match and not rely on the high spots then injuries would go down. I love the high spots but doing them all through out the match and every match is not right. If you see the first match the next 4 are the same thing if you have young flyers in there. You need to slow down, tell a story and show psychology. That is old school wrestling. Set up for one or two big spots and not give them anything. I think the boys watching the Japanese and Mexican tapes and trying to emulate this has hampered the business just a bit. Doing a bunch of high spots with no psychology or meaning to it just looks like gymnastics. Learn to work and build to your high spots and the crowd will appreciate it more. You need to reeducate the fans.

Eric Simms
www.esspromotions.com
ess316@aol.com