APW LA – 31 May 03
This is the first show for APW LA, since changing
it’s name from GSCW and officialy teaming up with Roland Alexander’s
All Pro Wrestling. The attendance was a little down from the last
couple shows, which can be attributed to no Sabu, who was there
two shows ago, and possibly Kaos bringing in a few people last show to
see him outside of XPW. Plus the NorCal versus SoCal angle had
a lot of buzz going for it, but that was killed off.
The show started with Hardkore Kidd, El Jefe, and
Adam Pearce coming out. They did a drawing of all the workers
names to see who would get a title shot tonight, and Pearce won.
Hardkore Kidd was upset Pearce would take the shot and he and
El Jefe jumped Pearce. Pearce versus Hardkore Kidd was set for
later in the night.
Gallinero 4 & Infernal over Silver Tyger
& Quicksilver [7’33]
This was a really strong fast paced opener. Gallinero and Quicksilver
both worked earlier in the day at the AWS show and neither looked
particularly good there, but both were on here. Silver Tyger is
really progressing. I remember about a year ago people would say
that Silver Tyger is good for a couple minutes of the match but
then he falls apart after that, but that has certainly changed.
Infernal also looked good in the match. The openers job is to
get the crowd into the show, and this match really did a great
job of that, especially since it was about 90 degrees in the building
and maybe a third of the crowd had already watched three hours
of wrestling at AWS earlier in the day.
Next up was one of the most pointless angles in
wrestling history, as Blade, known to the police as BJ Darden
and known to inmates at the state penitentiary as “bitch”, got in
the ring and started a promo on promoter Henry Luna. That brought
out Dave Getz and they had some sort of inaudible back and forth,
which brought out Dynamite D who wants to be commissioner. Some
stuff happened, the crowd chanted “this is pointless”
and “boring” and James Watkins ran out and choked out
Blade. Henry Luna came out, he got a few “You sold out chants”,
and told D they’d discuss it in the back, obviously due to seeing
the crowds absolute hate for this angle.
Bo Cooper over Billy Blade [6’53]
If you are unfamiliar with some of the wrestlers on this show,
Billy Blade isn’t the same person as the previously mentioned
Blade, who spent over a year in jail getting traded around like a Mookie Wilson baseball card.
Billy Blade is a pretty decent worker who is also the promoter
for APW Central Coast. I think Bo is a very underrated worker
too. The match itself was solid, except it had one major flaw
to it. A couple of shows ago when Joey Ryan faced Bo Cooper the
match was clearly aimed at pushing Bo as a huge monster, actually
that’s how Bo has been booked since he started in the promotion.
Therefore it makes no sense at all for Bo and Billy Blade to work
a match where Billy Blade is giving Bo Cooper arm drags and such.
All that work of building Bo as a monster goes down the drain
in one match. A lot of times there’s more to a match than the
in-ring work, like the story behind it and the ongoing story in
the promotion. Plus it’s plain unrealistic for a guy Billy Blade’s
size to be over powering a guy like Bo Cooper. The match was technically
sound, it just lacked in sense.
Disco Machine over Melissa by submission [6’35]
Melissa came out and complained about not having a match, so out
comes Disco Machine, and now she has one. I thought this was a
pretty decent match, but one problem I had with it was Disco seemed
to be going to light on Melissa. When he wrestled Nikki (Sara
Del Ray), he didn’t hold back at all, but with Melissa you could
really tell he was. Melissa however didn’t hold back and her strikes
didn’t come off as weak and she’d actually follow through on a
clothesline. It could be argued that in storyline Disco is reluctant
to hit a girl, but then why was he so stiff on Nikki. If they
are going to book intergender matches the female wrestlers should
take the same punishment, and I’ve seen Melissa take it before.
Other than that minor nitpick it was still a fun match.
Scorpio Sky over Chris Bosh [7’37]
A really good match. Both of these guys are really coming along.
Sky is already becoming one of the top guys around. Within a year
people will be talking about him on the same level as B-Boy, Super
Dragon, etc. Chris Bosh has looked real impressive every time
I’ve seen him and he’s a real strong contender for rookie of the
year, though it’s a little early to start talking about that.
Normally when you have two guys with their experience level in
a match, it really leans towards the spotty side, but this match
incorporated a lot of psychology into it and Scorpio has really
improved on his transitions. I’d like to see a match with these
two a year from now just to see how far they progress.
Joey Ryan over Lil’ Cholo [9’41]
This was really an off match for these two. Both guys are normally
really good and work together well, but this match was a real
mess at times. Most of the blame appeared to be on Joey, who I’m
guessing was a little shaken still from his match with Bigg Babi
Slymm the night before, as he didn’t look to be himself at AWS
earlier in the day too.
Scott Lost over Excalibur to retain the APW LA
Lightweight title [10’20]
I thought this was an excellent match. The only thing that could
have made it better would be more explosions, and a possible appearance
by Mecha-Godzilla. Scott won thanks to some interference by Joey
Ryan. These guys really worked well together and it was a terrific
match.
Hardkore Kidd over Adam Pearce to retain the
APW LA Heavyweight title [7’01]
This was another great match. It started out as Hardkore Kidd’s
best match in GSCW/APW LA. Pearce is just so intense in his matches.
I didn’t care a lot for the finish, but at least it did have a
purpose behind it, and keeps Pearce and Hardkore Kidd together
as a team. I still would like to see a match between these two
somewhere down the line.
B-Boy over Super Dragon, Bobby Quance, and Jardi
Frantz [29’35]
-Super Dragon was eliminated by Jardi Frantz at 25’03
-Jardi Frantz eliminated by Bobby Quance at 25’52
-Bobby Quance eliminated by B-Boy at 29’53
This was as expected the match of the night, but it was far from
perfect. The tag match featuring the same four on the last show
was better, as was B-Boy versus Jardi Frantz a few shows ago.
One thing that always gets me about elimination matches is when
they break up other people’s pins. Why would you stop someone
from getting eliminated? There was a lot of submission moves in
the match also, but none ever built to anything. Still the match
was innovative at times and at one point B-Boy went for the shinning
wizard on Dragon and Dragon was able to roll back and turn it
into a half crab, which came off real well. It’s probably time
to start pushing these guys off in different directions, rather
than burning everyone out on matches between these guys. Super
Dragon and Rising Son wrestled so much in 2001 that I don’t think
anyone wants to see that match again still to this day.
Overall a very good show, but I think it came up
short of the last two GSCW shows. I think one of the main things
APW LA needs to work on is cutting down the promos, as the fans
at the shows obviously care much more about the actual in-ring
work, and a lot of their angles throughout their history have
really fallen flat. And the other thing is consistency with their
characters, such as Bo Cooper going from being a monster to getting
tossed around by Billy Blade, although that might not be on the
bookers.
—
The Rock is scheduled to be at WWE Raw in San Diego
tonight, and Kurt Angle should be making his return to WWE Smackdown
Tuesday night in Anaheim. If anyone reading is going to either
show and wants to send in a report, especially of the dark matches
featuring regular SoCal guys, please feel free.
—
FUSION is supposed to be running three shows in
June, and we should have the lineups and venues up in the next
day or so. They’ll be running in Los Angeles, Bakersfield, and
Indio.
—
We are looking for EWF results from City of Industry
on May 31st and Bakersfield on June 1st if anyone has them. Please
send them to results@socaluncensored.com.
—
WPW will be running a “Best of the West”
tournament on Saturday July 19th at the Anaheim Indoor Marketplace
(most likely indoors which is actually a nice venue). The show
is supposed to feature top wrestlers from all over the West Coast.
—
WCWA’s next show is most likely going to take place
on July 25th at the VFW in Lemon Grove.
—
If you haven’t had a chance yet, be sure to pick
up a copy of the second issue of SCRAP Magazine. This is really
a fantastic magazine that is a great thing for the SoCal scene.
Rick Knox does a real top notch job with it. For ordering info
contact Rick Knox at whoknox@pacbell.net.
—
With the site still being worked on, and the 2003
SCU Road Trip coming up this week, there will be a little delay
between Steve’s Views. They should be back to being weekly by
mid-June.
—
Starting Wednesday the 4th up until Sunday the 8th
send all reports, columns, and whatever else to Scrub@socaluncensored.com
as I’ll be in Las Vegas for the UFC show.
—
Right now the plan for my next column is another
SoCal history piece, but this time the history of the SoCal internet
wrestling scene, unless something else comes up that pushes that
to the back burner. I think it’s something important to look at
because over the last five years the Internet has probably done
more for, and more to shape SoCal than any other territory in
indy wrestling.
-Steve
