This past Saturday, May 18, just a few days after announcing that the promotion would stop running events at the end of the year, AWS held its Ladies Night #3 event. The event was part of the fourth double-shot weekend with RISE, with RISE running on Friday night, and the two promotions sharing a lot of the same talent.
The first two Ladies Night events took place in 2015 and 2016. With AWS running a women’s wrestling tournament most years, the Ladies Night events have taken the place of the tournament in the years that it has run.
Simone Sherie over Leslie Iris [6’42]
Both wrestlers were making their AWS debuts. Simone Sherie is a somewhat recent graduate of Santino Bros. Wrestling Academy and also wrestles as Princess Aussie on WOW. Leslie Iris is from the mysterious world of the Arizona wrestling scene and has been around a couple of years. Iris has been showing up on various shows in Southern California lately, which should help her improve as the women’s wrestling scene, and wrestling scene in general is much stronger in Southern California than in Arizona. This match was kept pretty basic and it was fine for an opener. Sherie won with a frog splash in a short match.
Rating: **
Vipress & Miranda Alize over Heather Monroe & Aerial Monroe [9’05]
Heather Monroe had a really good weekend. I thought she had the stand out performance in her match at the RISE show on Friday, which is amazing considering Cheerleader Melissa, Nicole Savoy, and Taya Valkyrie were all in that match too. She followed it up with another really strong showing here. She has been good for some time, but I’m not sure if it’s just getting a chance to work with elite wrestlers like Tessa Blanchard at Bar Wrestling or if something just clicked, but she has really stepped it up lately. Everything is looking so much crisper with more speed on it. Vipress also did really well this weekend and has shown lots of improvement. Alize and Monroe looked good too. This match was a lot of fun. The finish was a flatliner followed by a Shinning Wizard on Heather Monroe.
Rating: *** 1/4
Rosemary over Ashley Vox [9’04]
I thought this was disappointing. I hadn’t seen Team Sea Stars prior to RISE on Friday, but I thought they were great there. There is a ton of natural charisma. Rosemary is coming off an injury and may not be at 100% yet or maybe they just didn’t mesh. Parts of this just felt really slow paced and awkward. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t as good as I was expecting it to be. Rosemary won with a neckbreaker.
Rating: ** 1/4
Zoe Lucas over Delmi Exo to retain the Phoenix of RISE Championship [8’20]
Delmi Exo is the other half of Team Sea Stars. Zoe Lucas was really impressive this weekend as well. She has a ton of charisma and is a fantastic heel. The real shame of losing AWS and RISE deciding not to come back, is we are going to lose matches like this. Neither of these wrestlers are probably known enough yet for other local promotions to take a shot at bringing them in, but AWS and RISE have managed to bring in unique talent that would never be in the area otherwise in their four double-shot weekends. Zoe Lucas won by submission. This was good.
Rating: *** 1/4
Shotzi Blackheart over Cheerleader Melissa and Ruby Raze to win the AWS Women’s Championship [12’14]
This was the only match on the show that was actually built up to, as all the others had no back-story at all. At the last AWS show, Shotzi Blackheart and Cheerleader Melissa had a double count out and got too close to Ruby Raze at the merch table causing her to get involved in the post-match brawl. So, of course, this match spilled out into the audience and featured a lot of crowd brawling. Like most three-way matches there was a lot of one wrestler being out of the action while the other two fought. I think any of the three would have been better in a singles match, but this was still good. Blackheart pinned Melissa. There was a big reaction to the title change with “you deserve it chants.”
Rating: ** 3/4
Taya Valkyrie over Jake Atlas [13’18]
This was the first match back from intermission and it was great. Jake Atlas was a last minute replacement for Mariah Moreno, and there is no chance that the original matchup would have been anywhere near this level. Atlas controlled a lot of the early match, with Valkyrie getting in the occasional offense. At one point she hit a curb stomp on Atlas that resulted in a short “Super Dragon” chant in the crowd. This was fast paced and hard hitting and the best match of the weekend up to this point. Valkyrie hit the Road to Valhalla for the win. AWS hasn’t been great at getting footage out, but when this is available it is worth checking out.
Rating: ****
Hector Canales, Watts, Suede Thompson, Fidel Bravo, & Jesse James over Buggy Nova, Sandra Moone, Ayoka Muhara, & Desi Derata [23’37]
Following the last match was going to be tough for any match, but this wasn’t good. Every Ladies Night or Women’s Tournament AWS holds a five-on-five intergender match (though this year was four on five). Justin Borden was the referee and he always refuses to count the pins for the women’s team. The match had the same story as prior years. That’s fine if Borden is finally going to get his comeuppance, but he didn’t. And AWS is shutting down so he never will. Everyone is fine on this on their own, and no one looked bad, it just structured bad and drug on.
Rating: *
After the match, Hector Canales was trying to give a speech, and a fan was booing loudly non-stop. Everyone in the crowd was yelling at him to shut up, but he didn’t and was eventually ejected. The guy had been awful all night and has been awful at past events. Hopefully, he doesn’t return. After the fan was ejected Canales brought a girl into the ring who beat cancer in a touching moment.
Mercedes Martinez over Nicole Savoy to retain the AWS Heavyweight Championship [24’14]
This was completely different than anything else on the show, or the weekend. They slowly built up the intensity throughout the match and really built to the big spots late. Savoy and Martinez have met a few times in Shimmer, and Savoy even defeated Martinez for the Shimmer title, which I guess is the storyline reason for this match taking place, as Savoy lost her last match in AWS and there is no other reason she should get a title shot. Martinez won with a fisherman’s buster. This was great, and probably the best match in AWS so far in 2019.
Rating: **** 1/4
Aside from one match, this was a really good show. The Jake Atlas versus Taya Valkyrie and Mercedes Martinez versus Nicole Savoy matches are worth tracking down when they come out.
