On September 17th SoCal Pro held their 10th annual Super Clash show, with a main event featuring a five-man ladder match for Ju-Dizz’ Golden State title. The show took place at the Oceanside Boys & Girls Club, and I remember the first time I went to a CCW show there 16 or 17 years ago and seeing the mural they have on the wall. For those who have never been, there is a mural that circles the entire inside on the building showing what I guess is supposed to be children playing sports and as it goes on they become professional athletes. However the artist did not quite know how to do humans, and most of the people look like they either just escaped a concentration camp where they had not eaten for months and were forced to undergo bizarre torture, or are aliens from outer space. The very last person in the mural may in fact be the Leader from Marvel comics.
Prior to the show I was looking through the small program they give out (which I think is a great touch) and they were mentioning their 10th anniversary is coming up next year and are asking for suggestions for their hall of fame. For their inaugural hall of fame class my choices would be Al Katrazz, who is one of, if not the biggest indy stars in San Diego over the last 20 years, Jason Redondo, and SoCal Crazy.
Normally SoCal Pro has a pre-show match, but there was none tonight. Unless they had it more than 45 minutes before bell time. As always, the show started right on time which is a nice change from a lot of shows.
Ricky Mandel over Jorel Nelson [7’55]
This was a pretty good match to start the show. Ricky Mandel is a guy who should be getting a lot more bookings. I’m surprised we don’t see him on more shows. Jorel Nelson is starting to really get his name out there as well with his work in EWF and CWFH. Mandel did really good as the heel in the match making it really easy for Nelson to get over as the face.
Anthony Idol over Ryan Kidd [5’43]
This was an interesting matchup as Idol works more of an old school style and Kidd usually tries to work a hybrid indy and lucha style. If this was the early 2000s I could see Idol being a top guy in UPW, and I’m not sure why he isn’t still in Championship Wrestling from Hollywood as his character and style would seem to fit in perfect there from what I’ve seen. Kidd with the size disadvantage started the match with a dive on Idol, but once they got in the ring Idol controlled a lot of the action with Kidd trying to counter with his speed and more high risk moves. Idol hit a falcon arrow for the win. This was pretty good but could have been better with more time to develop.
PBR (Hunter Freeman & Ryan Walker) over Tommy Wilson & Motros Jungle and Wildsiders (Dark Usagi & Andre Machievski) to win the SoCal Pro tag-team titles [10’16]
I haven’t really been too impressed with anything I’ve seen the Wildsiders yet. I mean for the most part they were fine in this, but the match seemed a lot better when it was a member of PBR and either Wilson or Motros Jungle matching up. Motros Jungle looked to have some new gear and a new mask. The match was setup where only 2 of the teams were involved at a time, and it started with PBR and the Wildsiders. Tommy Wilson was really playing up being a face, even giving Ashley Grace, who came out with PBR a hug. Once he got in the ring he was on fire and even hit a pretty nice tope con giro. PBR got the pin on Motros, so it looks like we’ll get some more PBR versus Wildsiders since they weren’t actually beat. PBR has been a pretty good team and it’s good to see them get a chance in the spotlight with the titles.
Post match Tommy Wilson turned heel and attacked Motros for costing them the win. PBR came in to help and he took them out too with the help of a chair, even hitting Ashley Grace with a super kick. I think Tommy Wilson makes for a better heel so this was a pretty good move.
Mike Camden over Sasha Darevko to retain the SoCal Pro Heavyweight title [15’49]
I think this was their fourth or fifth match in the San Diego area this year between SoCal Pro and FCW so they had to do something different and went with a no-DQ fall-count-anywhere match. Last month they had a 2 out of 3 falls match at SoCal Pro with 2 DQ falls and a fall where Camden was unconscious and was pinned in 3 seconds, but both of their FCW matches were fine, with the second one being pretty good. I thought this was a pretty fun match. They did a lot of brawling at the start, and at one point they were near long time San Diego wrestling fan Moana, who used to get into it with “Cruiser” Eddie Williams years ago, and Camden held Darevko and Moana got a few chops in causing Camden to break character and start laughing a little. The brawled throughout the crowd and even went under the ring where we could hear lots of banging as if they were fighting under the ring. Camden got busted open (not sure if intentional or by accident but the cut required staples) and Darevko was rubbing Camden’s blood all over his chest. Camden eventually got the win after hitting a tombstone on Darevko. I thought this was a good ending to their feud and while maybe not their “best” match in San Diego this year (that would go to their 2nd FCW match) it was their most unique and fun match.
Paul London over SoCal Crazy [11’15]
Paul London came out in what appeared to be a suit designed to jump out of airplanes in. Pre-match Paul London made a comment about SoCal Crazy’s (and I think every other heel in SoCal Pro’s) manager Everett Scott having a purse, which he replied that it “was a satchel.” The crowd started chanting it’s a purse. For the record, it’s clearly a satchel. This was a decent match, but I think I went in expecting more from it. There was a lot of brawling outside, and Paul London took SoCal Crazy around and let every kid chop him. After London got the win Everett Scott turned on SoCal Crazy and the Wildsiders ran out and started beating Crazy down too. Anthony Idol came in the ring and stopped them, but then hit Crazy with a falcon arrow.
Dirty Doug over Ju-Dizz, Adrian Quest, Andy Brown, and Big Daddy Destro to win the SoCal Pro Golden State title [23’24]
This was a five-person ladder match. When the match started everyone started brawling, except Adrian Quest who went right for a ladder and tried to get the belt right off the bat. Ju-Dizz had his left leg worked over and was “injured” and couldn’t get up and had to be helped to the back during the match so it was just the other four guys for most of the match. They built up a weird contraption with two ladders standing up in the ring, then two ladders bridging from the standing ladders to the ropes, but didn’t really do anything with the bridged ladders. Maybe they were for stability as the ladders seemed pretty rickety. Andy Brown and Adrian Quest fought each other for a bit and Andy Brown hit a package piledriver on Quest onto a ladder. At one point Destro set a ladder against the ropes and made like he was going to run up the ladder to do some sort of dive to the outside but instead just tossed the ladder. As Doug was climbing the ladder, Ju-Dizz ran out from the back and climbed up to stop him. Dirty Doug carries a plastic trophy around and while he and Ju-Dizz were brawling on the ladder he threw dirt in Ju-Dizz’ face then hit him with what looked like a really weak hit with the trophy causing Ju-Dizz to do a flip off the ladder to the floor. Dirty Doug was able to grab the title and get the win.
Overall I thought this was a fun show. There wasn’t anything great on the show, but there wasn’t any bad matches either. They did a good job of setting up a few interesting match ups for upcoming shows as well, such as Tommy Wilson vs. Motros Jungle and Ju Dizz vs. Dirty Doug. Their next show will be on October 15th and is their Rumble in Oceanside show.
So we had a double turn (in different matches). Tommy’s made no secret of the fact that he prefers being a heel. Not sure of SCC’s opinion.
I think that one thing that makes Mandel an effective heel in SCP is that he is NOT part of Everett Scott’s stable. That and his over-the-top facial expressions.