Championship Wrestling From Hollywood Episode 308 Review

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LAYIN’ THE LAW! ONCE AGAIN! PREPARE FOR WAR! CZW!

To watch this episode of Championship Wrestling From Hollywood, or to check out shows from promotions such as ROH and CMLL, check out the Fite TV app. They have a really good WCPW iPPV up featuring Rey Mysterio Jr. and Penta El Zero M. The Fite TV app is also going to be carrying the Canelo/Chavez Jr. fight this upcoming Saturday night.

This week on Championship Wrestling From Oxnard, we have two CZW title matches taking place. But since this show sucks ass at building up their shows and suck even more ass at knowing how to use their TV show to promote, you wouldn’t know that CZW World Champion Joe Gacy was defending his title against Tito Escondido, or that Yuma was defending the CZW Wired title. No. Instead this show wasted our time with dumb bullshit last week, and did nothing to hype this episode outside of social media. This is why these tapings always have loads of empty chairs and no crowd heat.

The episode starts with Katie Maddox (I don’t know if I spelled that correctly, oh lord please forgive me) interviewing Stevie Fierce, who is a guy from Freelance Wrestling and has never really word for CZW outside of a joint show with Freelance and CZW, talking about facing CWFH’s Yuma, who is the CZW Wired title, a throwaway belt nobody cares for. A lot of “no fucks” to give here. Fierce makes fun of Yuma’s mullet, and said he’s taking the belt. What a waste of TV time. These opening segments always suck, because there’s no life or energy in them. Shit just makes the show boring overall.

CZW Wired Championship Match: Yuma (c) vs. Stevie Fierce

The announcers played up a Freelance mini-invasion, which so far has seen two of their representatives lose matches. Unlike the last CZW Wired title match with Joey Janela and Yuma, the referee wasn’t wearing the traditional CZW Black & Yellow referee shirt. There was no real story or psychology in this match. It was just two guys having a boring wrestling match full of basic shit. I really can’t put into words how awful Yuma is inside the ring. There are no redeeming qualities about his matches. Stevie Fierce wasn’t really much to talk about. I can’t really give him a fair assessment based on this match since he was facing Yuma. Match ended when Yuma hit his stupid looking finisher in a match that would make some backyard performances look like Misawa/Kawada from 6/3/94 in comparison to this shit. Freelance Wrestling is now 0-3 in their insignificant invasion of CWFH.

After a commercial break, Joshua Shibata interviews the Pac 3. Cloach Flexo rambled about the match at Coastline Clash, which was already taped. Dicky Mayer is also injured. Also, I always thought his name was spelled “Maier” and not “Mayer.” Shit makes no sense.

Oliver Grimsly vs. Jervis Cottonbelly 

The match started out with Grimsly attacking Jervis Cottonbelly (Kevin Condron) early on and worked him over for several minutes. There was a small hope spot when Jervis did an airplane spin on Grimsly before Grimsly regained control. Eventually Jervis made a quick comeback before Grimsly hit a bunch of shitty looking strikes and a “Death From Above” on Jervis to get the win. This was boring. Yes, I know it was meant to build up a match with Grimsly and Bateman, but is was boring and lame. Just because it was telling a story doesn’t mean it was a good segment.

Post match shenanigans: Grimsly is interviewed by Josh Shibata. Grimsly proceeded to cut a really lame promo. Ugh. After this, the show went straight into a commercial for the same phone sex line that has been advertising on this show for awhile, as well as a commercial with George Foreman shilling a company that supposedly helps inventors. I wonder if they’re as credible or legitimate as Capnet?

Pac 3 (Dan Joseph & Dicky Mayer) vs. The Spirit and the Stars (Espiritu [Fidel Bravo] & Astro Viajero [Adrian Quest])

This match was meant to build up a match that took place six days before. This is another problem with CWFH. Their TV show is usually weeks behind, and they end up advertising or hyping a match that happened. It just goes to show that this promotion needs to be restructured too. The match itself was a good display of what some of these guys could do and a good way to advance the Mayer/Pac 3 storyline. The story was well told with Mayer nursing an injured shoulder, Viajero had a good showcase of offense, and Dan Joseph shows more and more improvement every time I see him, although they did botch a spot at one point in the match that resulted in an awkward stretch of time before they turned things around. Espiritu had a hot tag spot. There was a really stupid moment where Espiritu stood around with his arms out and was waiting for Mayer to hit a German Suplex on him. The match ended when Mayer missed a top rope headbutt, and was pinned after Espiritu put him in La Magistral Cradle. This was a pretty decent match aside from the botched spot.

Post match shenanigans: Pac 3 and Dicky Mayer were all upset. Then we went backstage where Kevin Condron (Jervis Cottonbelly) interviewed the CZW World Heavyweight Champion Joe Gacy. He cut a promo about his upcoming match with Tito Escondido and some shit about being a bad dude. After a commercial break, Scorpio Sky is at ringside cause there’s a #1 Contender’s Match for the UWN Television Championship. Again, CWFH fucking sucks are building, promoting, and hyping matches that if you were watching this on TV, you’d have no fucking clue this was going on, and no reason to care.

UWN Television Championship #1 Contender’s Match: Ryan Taylor vs. Ricky Mandel

Another reason why CWFH’s current business model sucks: they’re airing a match that was meant to set up a match that already happened. Ryan Taylor went after Mandel before the match started and was in control in the opening portion of the match before Mandel slowed things down with basic strikes and cheap heel tactics. Ryan Taylor made a comeback and hit a nice belly-to-back suplex on Mandel. When the match went to the outside, Mandel attacked Sky while he was doing commentary. Sky would then get on the apron, allowing Mandel to counter Ryan Taylor’s submission attempt, sending him into Sky, who flew to the floor and hit his head on the table. This was pretty lame overall, but Ryan Taylor had a decent performance here.

Post match shenanigans: Kevin Condron (Jervis Cottonbelly) was backstage near a door and interviews Tito Escondido before his match with Joe Gacy, his match with the DEEJ, DJ Hyde that already took place, and finally turned his attention to Peter Avalon.

CZW World Heavyweight Championship Match: Joe Gacy (c) vs. Tito Escondido

I found this somewhat amusing, as Joe Gacy was part of a legendary match that took place at CZW Tournament Of Death V where he faced the infamous backyard wrestling superstar George W. Baus in a tryout match to win a scholarship to the CZW wrestling school at the time. For those who don’t know who George W. Baus is, here’s a video to familiarize yourself with this hero of the Combat Zone. Man, were some really great times for independent wrestling.

And just like the opening match of the episode, the referee doesn’t have a CZW shirt on, making this match seem irrelevant when compared to the Joey Janela vs. Yuma match for the CZW Whogivesashit Title. There was noticeable fake crowd noise in this. Dave Marquez really needs to cut that shit out. It is so much worse now than it was before, and it killed this match. I mean, both guys were having a good match in the opening portion prior to a commercial break, but hearing crowd noise being played over the sound system was so noticeable. Tito was controlling the match before a commercial, and Gacy started to make a comeback after and worked over Tito’s arm for a bit to slow down (translation: make it boring) because people in wrestling that is a “good way” to get heat. The match picked up a bit, and Tito hit some nice moves like a Blockbuster and a Dragon Suplex, and Gacy hit a nice handspring off the ropes into an Ace Crusher. Tito won the match via DQ when Gacy hit Tito with the belt.

Post match shenanigans: Gacy called for Peter Avalon to come out. Peter would come out and loosened the top rope. Gacy went to attack Tito, but Tito was able to take down Gacy and began to strangle him with the top rope as the show came to a close, with Peter Avalon nowhere to be seen.

Final Thoughts

The CZW title match was honestly good, as was the Pac 3 vs. the Spirit and the Stars match. Everything else on this show were just examples of how most episodes of this show are loaded with shit that is a waste of time. Even with two good matches, this episode just makes me lose more and more hope in this product.

Again, don’t just take my word for it. Check it out on the Fite TV app and decide for yourself.

About the Author

Andrew
SoCal's favorite son. Won 1st Place in my division at the 2013 Gracie Worlds. 2019 East San Fernando Valley Water Champion. Keyboard Warrior.