Review of The Trinity from June 10, 2017

The Trinity’s show was held at the House of Grace Church in Whittier, as an outdoor event. The weather was really nice, there was a cool breeze and the sun was out at 5:00 pm. They had a grill and wrestling on the menu.

“High Flying Sensation” Steven Andrews, Riki De La Paz & Lucas Riley vs. Azrael, Mike Gotch & Dark Usagi 

Steven and Riki both tried working the crowd for a reaction as soon as they got into the ring. Azrael seemed to be leading the charge for the bad guys, and was doing the opposite, trying to antagonize the audience. The match started right away and Riki and his team end up attacking Azrael’s group. The action spilled to the outside and Steven, Lucas and Riki all hit outside dives (mind you this was on gravel). Lucas’ springboard turnbuckle dive was impressive as well as Steven’s springboard flip off the ropes to the outside. When the dust finally settled, its Gotch and Usagi that started beating on Steven and played keep away tactics with him from the rest of his team. Nice looking overhead belly to belly by Azrael, and a good looking big boot from Gotch. Lucas finally gets tagged in and does a nice cross body on both Gotch and Usagi. Gotch also doesn’t look too bad for a guy that has just started wrestling. I think his biggest deal is placement of himself in the ring. Lucas then gets overpowered and now is the guy in distress for a bit. Nice looking assisted leg drop by Gotch and Azrael during this part. Riki eventually gets a hot tag and cleans house.(he also hits Gotch in the balls with a dropkick during this)  Riki had a nice triple belly to back suplex sequence that stood out. Lucas had a smooth suicide dive to the outside, then Riki nailed Azrael with a codebreaker. Lucas then climbs the turnbuckle and gives Azrael a blockbuster from the top. Riki then collects the win.

This was a pretty fun match with a few rough (but hilarious) spots. Considering the ground, these guys were really fearless. This was a good quick ten minute opener.

“El Chido” Hector Canales vs. “The Urban Juggernaut” Sean Black

This match had Hector really trying to pump up his game to match the size of Sean Black. He posed several times, with a “Me Stronger” quote and pose. Hector’s got a great look, but I’m not sure if the fans were buying his claims. He also claimed Sean pulled his hair quite a few times as well. The match started slow, with Sean trying to show his physical dominance. Sean had a couple of nice armdrags that sent Hector outside for a while. Sean finally grabbed Hector’s hair, but got hung up on the ropes by Hector. He took control for a couple of minutes and did the ten punches on the turnbuckle bit, but gave him a hip thrust to the face for the tenth (David Starr’s Look at It). There was also a bit where Hector was choking Sean, pretending that they were pin attempts. The ref wasn’t fooled, however. The second attempt at the thrust didn’t work as Sean reversed it with a reverse atomic drop for Hector’s reward. Sean made a good comeback with a reverse splash in the corner, and another reverse atomic drop. Hector then got Sean into a pretty impressive sidewalk slam to pick up the victory.

This match was slow at spots, Sean played mainly the damsel in distress after showing strong at first. I was somewhat entertained with Hector’s work with the comedy spots. I wished he’d show how strong he really is in the ring more though. Sean’s work looked smooth, what there was of it.

True Grit (Hoss Hogg & Jesse James) vs. Shannon Ballard & Richie Slade 

Shannon Ballard gets tremendous heat, even more than his last showing for Ruben’s promotion. He also mentioned that his brother couldn’t make it, so Richie Slade was his replacement. The fans immediately booed him as well. Richie exclaims “But you don’t even know me!” My guess was that it was guilt by association. True Grit had some fans out there, some of them were wearing their new shirt. True Grit looked really strong in this match, Shannon and Richie had some good double team spots, a double team suplex and some sneaky tricks up their sleeves, to isolate Jesse. Hoss really wanted to get into the match, but the ref kept him out there. Jesse countered a cross body with a huge overhead released fall away slam. Hoss finally gets in and clears house with some scoop slams and nice sidewalk slam. Jesse with a nice discus forearm. Good looking slingblade by Richie. Hoss nailed a huge lariat to take it after Jesse provided backup from the outside. Shannon and Richie controlled a large portion of the match but True Grit really took it to both of them when given the opportunity.

Fairly solid match. Richie and Shannon controlled Jesse for quite a while, but it really helped with the momentum for Hoss with the hot tag. The fight basically turned into a brawl the last few minutes, with True Grit coming out on top. Sneaky top 3 match of the night. Promotions should start looking at True Grit if they haven’t already.

Fatal 4 Way Elimination match for the FCW XRT Division Championship:
Delirious vs. Seabass vs. Ruben Iglesias vs. The Vegan Superman Jorel Diez (champ) 

The match barely started when Ruben came out and he was blindsided by Diez immediately and beat on continuously until he had to be helped to the back. The funniest part was Ruben’s pastor openly laughing at Ruben taking a shot into the concessions area. The match then continued on as Seabass and Delirious got out and started fighting. Seabass comes out running with his Macho Man Impression (which is spot on) and ends up getting a few guys in an impressive gorilla press. Seabass doesn’t last long though, and ends up getting eliminated first by Ruben’s tilt-a-whirl lungblower. Both he and Jorel end up taking turns wrestling Delirious. Both wrestlers battled back and forth with him, trading signature moves, Ruben going for his lungblower, and his sharpshooter.  Ruben was eliminated next by Jorel. Ruben did manage to get in a discus forearm to the back of Jorel and an over the shoulder neckbreaker. Smooth looking Michinoku driver by Jorel. Jorel steals a cane from a fan, Delirious returns it. Jorel nailed Ruben with his belt when the ref isn’t looking and eliminated him.

One exceptionally funny spot when it was just Delirious and the Vegan Superman and Delirious ends up force feeding him a hotdog more than once second time around was some ground dog. (Jorel’s Kryptonite!), along with some fire hot Cheetos. Another high spot was having Jorel taking chops from Delirious out in the crowd. I also did not expect a Vegan Superman to be sitting on my lap while this happened. I can tell you, I felt the chops through his body. I highly recommend the experience if you want more reality in your wrestling.  The cane came into play late, but was returned once more. Jorel hit a low blow when the ref is returning the cane. Jorel retains.

Another fun match, having a belt up for grabs made it more interesting. Wrestling for the most part was solid. The Vegan Superman gets incredible heat wherever he’s at. The best parts of this match was the fighting outside the ring and the forced feeding by Delirious. Ruben hanging in this match was a nice surprise as well. The pacing was good too, as it was about as long as it should have been I felt, enough to tell a decent enough story.

“The Emo Behemoth” Pinky vs. Hunter Freeman 

This match was a pretty good affair, as Hunter Freeman showed he wasn’t intimidated by Pinky’s size. One of the issues with this match is that it came after the four way, so it had a tougher act to follow. Pinky takes this with his “Choke to Sleep” finisher. There were some nice moves in this, Freeman had a nice looking spear, Pinky had some powerful lariats thrown in. I felt like this was a decent, but not great match. I think it being placed right after the crazy four-way and the pace just didn’t do it any justice.

“Uptown” Andy Brown def “The Illusionist” Jarek 1:20 

This started off with Jarek doing a pretty nifty card trick before the match, where somehow he managed to switch cards with someone while they (a volunteer fan) held their card in their mouth. This card also showed up later in the match. Andy is so talented, and Jarek is a solid technical wrestler so this made for one of the more entertaining matches on the card. A ton of counters of moves, reversals and such until Andy nailed his cartwheel to drop kick to high elbow to knee drop combo. Andy really was on all day in this match. There was a nice looking draping lungblower off the ropes by Jarek. Jarek then slowed things down with a backbreaker and some stomps. Andy turned it around with a great looking spinebuster. Jarek also managed to pull a coin out of somewhere on Andy. Andy had a great looking roll into a cutter.  At one point, Andy got up after getting nailed by Jarek and manages to cough up the card that Jarek used for the trick earlier with the fan. (this blew some kids away at the show) Andy nails a jumping knee and then a rushing knee across a kneeling Jarek gets the win.

This match was one of the better ones on the card. Andy’s at the top of his game, and Jarek was also solid in this match. The magical antics didn’t seem too out of place, and added a fun element to the match.

SoCal Crazy vs. “The Mirror Image” Ricky Mandel (w/Lacy Von Porter) 

This match had Ricky coming out with LVP and it started off slowly, with LVP getting involved as much as possible to make things difficult for SoCal. SoCal managed to fight through most of it and managed to get Ricky to bump into LVP to claim victory when he was distracted. SoCal had plenty of his signature moves in action, his springboard kick and his deep lucha arm drags. Ricky kept trying to show his strength in this match LVP was a factor until it backfired on them in the end. LVP reminds me of Emma a bit with her aviator glasses and look. Ricky managed to get his finisher in, but SoCal still managed to kick out of it. I was impressed by SoCal kicking out, but also how unprotected Ricky’s finisher is.  This match was good, but it was probably third best on the card.

Final Thoughts

I thought this show was solid. There were 3-4 good matches, and the others were decent. The change of venue was sort of last minute, but they still managed to draw around 70-75 fans. The atmosphere was good, and the weather was agreeable. His shows run a little earlier on Saturdays at 5:00 pm, which isn’t a bad thing if you want to bring your kids. The wrestling was good at times, hilarious at others. I’d suggest checking one of his shows out, as you’ll see some good local talent, and he usually pulls some interesting wrestlers for each card, this time being Seabass and Delirious. I’m hoping if his promotion keeps running and is successful, they’ll have a championship belt to fight over, or maybe a brick.