Last night at EWF, it seemed as if they were hell bent on feeding the fans a steaming helping of shit in the hopes they would all say, “Yum, this is delicious.” The show was so bad that Bobby Bradley Jr. has asked me to state, for the record, that he had nothing to do with it. They had Handsome Johnny Starr somehow involved with 80% of the show, accompanied by two thugs. The first and third matches had the same finish, the main event had no finish, and they failed to deliver on the promise of two minis. They merely put a short wrestler in a mask and billed him as a mini. This was the worst show I’ve been to since Krane’s backyard fiesta that ran until midnight a few years back at the marketplace. The difference was that Krane’s show delivered a good main event. This will be a brief review, as the show doesn’t merit the effort I usually put into these articles.Rudy Luna and Under Pressure vs. Johnny Starr and Alex Pincheck started the show. After a little of offense by rudos Starr and Pincheck, Pincheck was tapped to play Rickey Morton for the West Coast Ryders. After Pincheck getting his ass kicked for a few minutes, Starr walked out on his partner, and the Ryders finished Pincheck off with a DVD from Rudy. Post match, Starr came out with two thugs and said he was taking over as head of EWF, and it was now HWF: Handsome Championship Wrestling. A few months ago Starr was the heel referee, and now he’ going to run the company? Give me a fucking break. He then had his thugs beat up EWF Jeff and force him to put over Starr and heel on the crowd. Starr announced he was going to do live mic commentary for the rest of the show. Wonderful.
They announced that the next match was a mini match, but Starr insisted the word midget be used instead. What a great way to generate heel heat. The first mini was Mini Love Machine; the second was a familiar looking SoCal superstar in a mask. Way to be honest with the fans. Despite the lie, it was a good Lucha match, but the horrible shit spewing from Starr on the microphone took all the heat off the match. Instead of watching the match, the crowd was telling Starr to shut up. All this time the two in the ring were performing brutal mat work. This match would have been well received at Frank & Son’s or the marketplace, but here it was just filler, done for the sole purpose of putting some bum over on the mic. Most of his witty remarks were Elton John queer jokes directed at EWF Jeff and telling the crowd to shut up. Love won with a rollup out of an abdominal stretch on his opponent, and no one there cared but me.
At this point Starr was yelling about how he took over, and Jesse Hernandez came out. They argued, and then Jesse got beat up. Like we really needed this shit. Bino Gambino and Mad Mackintosh wrestled Psycho Silly Willy and Jason Castro. Castro and Willy pearl harbored their opponents. After a scuffle, Bino and Mac were on the outside, and Willy did a somersault plancha, but they failed to properly catch him. Willy’s back landed square on the cement. All this time Starr was still babbling on the mic, doing his talking about pretty much anything but the match in the ring. Back in, Bino was beaten down by both his opponents, and when he made the hot tag to Mac, Mac “accidentally” hit his own partner. Starr then gave Bino a chair shot the referee didn’t see, and Bino was pinned by Castro after a DVD. Mac then joined the opposition for a beat down on Bino, jealous of Bino being named Rookie of the Year. Starr joins in, and they beat the hell out of Bino. Mac has joined Starr and the thugs to take over the company. At this point I used the men’s room, and when I came back Starr and Jesse were arguing again. Somehow Starr was persuaded to leave, and I hoped it was the last time I saw this idiot. My hopes failed to come true. At this point I’d like to say that this angle might have worked with a wittier guy on the mic. Someone with a gift for ad lib would not have had to keep using the same material over and over. Off the top of my head, I can think of 5 guys who would have been better in this role: Excalibur, Kevin Lyons, Lucky, Adam Pearce, and Paul T.
Krazy KC and Ragin’ Dawg wrestled El Negro and Big E Biggs. Without the idiot running his mouth on the mic, fans were finally able to concentrate on the show. Dawg started out by pummeling El Negro with punches, and hitting a big backdrop. KC came in to drop elbows and legs, and Negro high tailed it out of the ring. Biggy locked up with Dawg, and Dawg fell victim to a spine buster. Negro and Biggy tagged in and out, working Dawg’s neck. Biggy hit an unbelievable somersault splash, and then did some choking behind the referee’s back. Dawg started a rally, which was cut short by a spinning heel kick by Negro. Dawg started to rally again, but when he attempted a lionsault, he landed on Negro’s knees. After the landing, Dawg was lucky enough to roll into the friendly corner and make the tag. KC used a bunch of power moves like slams and brutal punches; he basically beat the hell out of Negro. KC slapped knee hold on Negro that made it look as Negro’s knee was going to snap in two. After throwing Biggy to the outside, KC pump handle power slammed Negro, and then tagged Dawg for a pretty frog splash for the win. Despite how bad the show was up to this point, this was a nice little match.
Kayam wrestled Jason King for the EWF American title. Enigma de Oro was at ringside, and announced Jesse Hernandez as the special referee. Jesse and the Chivos have heat, but they wanted him to referee anyway. Kayam immediately worked King’s left knee, but King escaped. After a criss cross, Kayam thought he had the upper hand. As Kayam yelled, “Chivo power,” he got a bulldog from behind. Kayam took a powder, but returned to work the knee. Kayam tried to pick up the win via sharpshooter, but King muscled out. King applied a crippler cross face, but Kayam made the ropes. After a ref bump, Oro tried to throw powder into King’s eyes, but hit his brother instead. King covered Kayam, but as a recovered Knox mate the count, Oro stopped it at 2 and said King threw the powder. As he said this, Oro dropped the paper that had held the powder, and the Chivos were disqualified. This was another bullshit finish to a title match. Thanks, Jesse. In a related note, here’s another thing to thank Jesse for in advance, Jesse will be out of retirement soon to wrestle a match. It wasn’t clear weather it’s Jesse vs. Enigma, or Jesse and King vs. Chivos. The mic work was hard to understand.
At this point I saw Liz from Lucha Va Voom, and I told her I’d mention that they are running at the Mayan Theater on Feb. 12, doors at 7pm. At this point it was intermission, and as usual a few baby faces were in the ring to do $5 Polaroid’s with fans. After about 10 minutes, here was the asshole on the mic back to run his mouth. He said the fans wanted pics with him and his group, so they got in the ring and wasted another 10 minutes. Something about Starr is starting to remind me of Charles Steele and Freddy Valentine, except that Starr isn’t the promoter.
Vizzion and the Iceman had a match. Iceman attacked from behind, and took control early with a slam, a clothesline, a snap mare, and a fisherman’s suplex. He hit a nice dropkick, and after working Vizzion’s shoulder, hit a spinning heel kick. Vizzion took over with the 10 punches in the corner. Soon Johnny Starr’s merry band of warriors came in and cost Iceman the match. They offered to let Vizzion join up, but he said no. This was yet another bullshit finish to a match. For the record, that’s five matches ruined by these jerk offs. Who the hell had the booking pencil that approved this crap? It’s like the old WCW Nitro shows where the NWO came out like 13 times a night.
Are you ready to read about the last match they ruined? It was the main event. Yes, the most important match on the card that is supposed to have a legit finish, or finish with a build to an important match next time around. The little wrestling that happened was good, and Bo looked to be on fire tonight against Steve Masters. Bo had all the offense, with a few chops, some top rope choking, and a sidewalk slam. The crowd started out being into Masters, but in a few minutes a whole section of the crowd was doing the Bo Cooper hand signal. At one point Bo decided to get all Super Dragon on Masters and do the violence party, but Masters blocked the 2nd chop. I double dog dare any worker in SoCal to do that to Dragon. After Bo missed a 2nd rope splash, here were the same clowns who ruined the rest of the show were here to make our main event a no contest and thus make the whole evening a complete waste of my time. They asked Masters to turn against the fans and join them, and managed to take all the focus off the title. Isn’t the champ supposed to be the top guy in the fed? It made no sense for the “invading” group to ask the guy who just got his ass kicked royally by the champ to join them, while the guy who just kicked his ass was still at ringside. WTF??????????? I usually like EWF, but they need to offer good matches and interesting finishes, not bullshit storylines that take all the focus off the wrestling. A lot of the workers busted their asses last night, and this negative review is not about the workers, it’s about letting the wrestling take a backseat to a bunch of uninteresting guys trying to get over without the verbal tools to do so. I have heard a lot of rumors about the aftermath of this show, but I’ll allow EWF to air their own dirty laundry, I’m not gonna do it for them. I may go to another EWF show, but if they present another show like this, I’m not sure I’m going to attend EWF any more.
In closing, I’d like to mention that Joey Ryan Fan told me he was going to EWF, and I’m bummed he wasn’t there. He’s the one SoCal fan I think I could have sat with and actually had fun. I’m sure the shit he would have yelled would have been funny as hell. He could have shut down Starr before he ruined more than three matches.
Anyone can have a bad show, but by intermission it was clear that this angle was not working, and on the fly booking would have been appropriate. Maybe next time things will be better thought out. Again, I’m ready to give them another shot.
Thanks for reading,
Benjamin Tomas
The Worlds Biggest Mark
