AWS ran their 2nd Ladies Night show on September 24th and it was a really good show. I really felt the show compared well to other top women’s shows in the United States such as Shimmer and Shine. Because the top women’s promotions are East Coast based, I don’t think a lot of West Coast women’s wrestlers get the hype they should. Wrestlers like Hudson Envy, Thunder Rosa, Holidead, Sage Sin Supreme, etc. should really be considered among the top women’s wrestlers in the indies.
I didn’t think there was a bad match on the show. I didn’t want to write a full review as I’m working on getting an interview transcribed and a few other things, but did want to give a few thoughts. I’ve mentioned this in prior reviews, but I’m constantly impressed in how savage, for lack of a better word both Thunder Rosa and Holidead work in their matches. When I watch them wrestle it seems like they really want to kill their opponent. If you’ve only seen Thunder Rosa as Kobra Moon in Lucha Underground you are really missing out, as she wrestles differently as Thunder Rosa and there is a lot more violence to her actions.
While their match was fairly short, I thought Holidead brought some of that out in Buggy Nova too. Thunder Rosa and Lufisto had a great, strong style type match that really stole the early part of the show. It almost felt like there should have been an intermission after because of how intense it was, though the match between Tyler Bateman and Shigehiro Irie managed to keep that intensity level up in their match as well.
In a match featuring two non-West Coasters, Santana Garrett and Taeler Hendrix had a really good match on the show as well. Taeler Hendrix is so good at telling a story through her facial expressions. She and Santana worked really well together, but I wish we would have gotten the advertised match with Hendrix versus Sage Sin Supreme, but with Sage doing a run in hopefully that will happen on a future show.
The title match between Hudson Envy and Nicole Savoy was also a really good strong style type match where they were trying to kill each other. I thought Hudson and Shayna had a really good match at last month’s AWS show, but this one topped it. Prior to the show I did an interview with Hudson and we talked about how long she’d been AWS champion, and then she drops the title and makes the interview out of date…
The main event was Team H.A.T.E versus Team Raze and was really good and entertaining as well. The H.A.T.E angle has been playing out throughout SoCal this year and has been really good. One problem with these “invasion” type angles is they usually stop working pretty fast because they quickly don’t make sense. Why would a promoter book guys that are trying to take over or ruin their promotion or whatever. I remember CCW had an invasion angle with UIWA and UIWA’s guys came out and they had entrance music. I guess the sound guy was in on the invasion. At least as far as AWS goes, there has been a logical reason for them to be there based on an angle setup at the previous show, plus Ray Rosas having won the #1 contendership to the title etc. H.A.T.E has also managed to keep things fresh by doing things such as using Mondo Vega as their personal announcer. Hopefully they keep finding ways to keep it going.
It’s great that AWS is back and bringing shows like this that are so completely different than anything else out there.
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I was asked about why we aren’t calling out promotions who don’t pay wrestlers and mentioned that stuff like that I don’t really want to do it unless we can present both sides and not use anonymous sources. Here we go.
A couple of weeks ago Grindhouse ran a couple of shows as part of the Dabolition Derby and at least five wrestlers, including Eli Everfly did not get paid for the shows. To make matters worse the promoter ended up taking off before the show ended and wasn’t responding to the wrestlers, who waited around three hours after the show ended to get paid. When he eventually did respond he had several different excuses including he was waiting for the bank to open, this despite telling the wrestlers he would PayPal them. This isn’t the first time there have been issues with Grindhouse where wrestlers haven’t been paid either. Because of not being paid, the wrestlers on the show who held titles are keeping their titles until they get paid. Maybe we will be seeing some titles for sale on the merch tables at upcoming shows?
When we reached out to the promoter Andrew Philips for comment he said that the actual promoter of the event was supposed to pay the wrestlers and that he was “dealing with a family health issue.” He stated he did not steal any money and that some wrestlers are “demanding double pay or else.”
Obviously there are two sides to every story, and this isn’t directed at any one promotion, but as a wrestling promoter when you book talent for a show you are entering into a contract with them. Even if nothing is written down, it is still a verbal contract that you have to honor. The wrestlers by working the show kept their side of the contract. Stuff happens and I know a lot of times promoters will pay wrestlers out of the gate. If the show isn’t making enough money, change the way you run the show, book different wrestlers, sell DVDs of your show to bring in extra money, whatever you need to do. But pay the wrestlers. Have the money for the show up front and don’t rely on the gate.
Also, if you are a wrestler and a promotion keeps not paying you, stop working those shows.
Indy wrestling is like this wild west world where the barrier to entry is really low and people with no business sense can put together a show and call themselves a promoter. It is really easy to do badly at promoting and lose money. If they ever decide to remake the movie Brewster’s Millions, where Richard Pryor (I know it’s a remake and the Richard Pryor version isn’t the original, but it’s the better version) had to blow millions of dollars in a month in order to get a hundred-million dollars, they should have Brewster start an indy wrestling promotion.
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I want to congratulate Brody King on his marriage this past weekend.
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WWE is running a house show in Palm Springs next Monday the 3rd opposite Raw running in Los Angeles. This is after a house show in Ontario on the 2nd, which really isn’t that far from Palm Springs. Pam Springs seems like a really small market for a house show, especially one on a week night going against Raw. I wouldn’t be surprised if some indy shows draw better than this house show and no doubt both NXT shows in SoCal at the end of October will.
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WWE is giving out lots of free tickets for both Raw in Los Angeles and Smackdown in San Diego. I know in San Diego alone several different radio stations are constantly doing ticket give-aways.
Brother, where do you find the time to watch movies?