There is just a little bit of time to back the Olympic Auditorium Project, the hours are running out. Why didn’t my favorite wrestling promotion get a nomination? Award season is fun, this week I explain why your favorite wrestler/promotion/match wasn’t nominated for a year end award. Plus I share my first three votes for the 2014 Year End Awards Ballot. Along with the UWN Network Updates, I explain what the United Wrestling Network is. Plus this week’s scheduled wrestling action.
The Olympic Auditorium Project
Only a few hours (5 1/2 at time of publishing) to get on board with the Olympic Auditorium Project Kickstarter Campaign. The group behind this documentary have already collected the $60,000 they were looking for, but backing this project has some pretty unique rewards, like a digital copy of the movie when it’s finished (sometime in 2016), t-shirts, plus copies of the biography of Gene LeBelle and others. From a historical standpoint, the Grand Olympic was the last true mecca of wrestling venues on the West Coast. I was happy to see both ECW and XPW at that arena, but I would have loved to see the days of Tolos and Blassie or the Guerreros and Piper. This is a documentary that I’m happy is being made and I look forward to the movie very much.
2014 Year End Awards
Award season for SoCalUNCENSORED is both one of the most exciting and fun times while simultaneously one of the worst times to be working on this site. There is a lot of positive. Guys are campaigning for support or thanking the fans for being nominated, truly make the experience rewarding. But then there is the vocal minority, who always take the fun out of things. “There sure seems to be a lack of women wrestlers in your award nominations.” “Why isn’t there a separate category for Lucha?” “How did (insert favorite promotion, wrestler, match, tag team) not get nominated?” “Why do you hate (women wrestling, lucha libre, etc.)?” It’s funny how recognition can bring out the best and worst in people. From our currently unavailable Wiki page… “The SoCal Pro-Wrestling Awards are a series of awards used to honor the best in Southern California wrestling for each calendar year. The awards are made up of several different categories that honor individual wrestlers, tag teams, promotions, rookies, and matches. The SoCal Pro-Wrestling awards can be traced back to 1999 when Socal-Wrestling.com held their year end awards. After opening in 2001, SoCalUncensored.com held its own awards and is the only website that honors the best in Southern California every year. The SoCalUncensored.com voting is made up of webpoll voting on the SoCalUncensored message board, which makes up 35% of the total vote, ballot votes submitted by various entities in the Southern California wrestling community, which makes up 65% of the vote.” This six categories that are awarded are; Wrestler of the Year, Match of the Year, Most Outstanding Wrestler of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Tag Team of the Year, and Promotion of the Year. February 11th we were seeking nominations for each of the six categories. We solicited facebook pages, twitter, and asked for nominations to be posted on this message board or to emailed Adair. We even specified “to include as many points of reference as humanly possible, please pass this information onto fans/wrestlers/promoters who may not visit this board on a regular basis.” Clearly we wanted your nominations. If you chose not to make them, or if you’re fans did not make them, please understand that this democratic process is not to blame. We will be attempting to make the year ends awards a bit smoother this year. Start campaigning now for the 2015 Year End Awards. We will open up the nomination process in the late fall, perhaps November of this year. If you feel your favorite wrestler or promotion should have been represented; write about them, talk about them, put up youtube matches, and be proactive. For everyone who participated, thank you very much. You’re involvement makes these awards meaningful. We will not be creating any additional awards. Luchadors have every opportunity to win these awards as non luchadors. Last year Candace LaRae was the runner up in the “Most Outstanding Wrestler of the Year” award and Sage Sin was the runner up to “Rookie of the Year.”
Jay’s 2014 Year End Ballot
This is not the official SCU Year End Awards, but it is the glimpse of the ballot that I have submitted for consideration of the Year End Awards. This week I’m focusing on Promotion of the Year, Wrestler of the Year, and Rookie of the Year.
Promotion of the Year: Alternative Wrestling Show.
16 Shows total between South Gate and Hemet. AWS partnered with Pro Wrestling Bushido (Nor Cal), UIPW, and Santino Brother’s to provide some very unique match ups that otherwise we might not have seen. The Alternative Wrestling Show has also become home to Woman’s Wrestling in Southern California as there is no place right now that is producing as good of Women’s match ups than AWS. The Yearly Woman’s Tournament along with the Five on Five Intergender Match again give something different that isn’t being done in any of the other promotions. AWS is known to bring in some top tier talent from out of the area too, Sabu, Sonjay Dutt, Adam Thornstowe, Chris Hero, Rocky Romero, Timothy Thatcher, Sinn Bohdi, Nicole Savoy, Cheerleader Melissa, Lufisto, and honestly too many too list. Every show you get a taste of everything. There will be comedy, there will be death defying spots, there will be serious mat wrestling, hardcore, women, almost always there is something for everyone.
Wrestler of the Year: In 2002, B-Boy won the Wrestler of the Year Award. Now some 12 Years later, there isn’t a more deserving guy in Southern California to be called Wrestler of the Year in 2014. That year was very kind to B-Boy, who defended his AWS Heavyweight Championship successfully over the course of the year eight times against 12 different men, including; Sabu, Joey Kaos, Willie Mack, Drake Younger, Rocky Romero, and Tyler Bateman. B-Boy worked at 11 different SoCal Promotions including Pro Wrestling Guerrilla. The veteran made his debut for Lucha Underground under the name of Bael, as part of the Cartel. B-Boy challenged for the Lucha Underground Title in the Aztec Warfare Match, the SoCal Pro Heavyweight Championship, the SoCal Pro Golden State Championship, and the UIPW Internet Championship. Clearly B-Boy’s ability to work in so many different promotions is a credit to his viability and professionalism. B-Boy is currently on top of the Online Polls.
Rookie of the Year: This was a very tough category for me, because there were two wrestlers in the poll that clearly standout. My vote goes to probably the oldest rookie nominated in Southern California. Anthony Idol is no spring chicken. His training for wrestling started back nearly a decade as part of the Ultimate University. Idol never having an official debut match, never lost his eligibility for this award. Since debuting, Idol has become a fixture for SoCal Pro, being the reigning Goldenstate Champion, a regular in EWF, and has wrestled for a handful of other promotions in San Diego. Idol is currently trailing Mike Camden in the Rookie of the Year Online Polls.
United Wrestling Network
What is the United Wrestling Network? How is this connected to the NWA? Do they have a World Heavyweight Champion? The past few months I’ve been writing about the United Wrestling Network Powered by Patreon and have been encouraging my readers to sign up for this unique service for as little as $2 a month. New content is added weekly, typically the Saturday before its 3AM airing on KDOC-TV. In the past few weeks I’ve had more than a few people send me questions regarding what UWN actually is. The United Wrestling Network (UWN) is a cooperative group of professional wrestling promotions from across the United States. Formed in 2013, nine wrestling promotions created a new wrestling body, the United Wrestling Network. The initiative was spear headed by CWFH Promoter, David Marquez. It is in no way affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance. Other promotions in the group are; New York Championship Wrestling, Ultra Championship Wrestling (Utah), Future Stars of Wrestling (Nevada), Metro Pro Wrestling (Kansas), River City Wrestling (Texas), New England Championship Wrestling (Massachusetts), Vintage Wrestling (Florida) New Frontier Wrestling Alliance (Alaska), and Steel Domain Wrestling (Minnesota). Originally a World title tournament was to be crowned, however many of the committed wrestlers to the tournament found themselves with Network Wrestling Contracts. In the interim, UWN powered by Patreon is currently showcasing matches from the David Marquez Vault as well as the latest from CWFH. The last update to the now more than 36 hours of wrestling is the May 29th Episode, which featured; Cold Cold Word w/ Caesar Black vs. Eli Quick & Mike Dalite, a CWFH Television Title Match, Champion Kevin Martenson vs. Douglas James, former partners collide when Dan Joseph and Todd Chandler go toe-to-toe and in the Main Event, CWFH gets EXTREME in a Steel Cage Match w/ Weapons Brought By Fans, James Morgan w/ Stu Stone look to put an end to Othello. If you’re out of the markets of KDOC TV and YooToo America or just don’t have a DVR, this is the best way to stay up to date with CWFH. Episodes start as far back as July and are being updated all the time with the shows before they air on KDOC or YouToo.
Upcoming Events in SoCal
EWF in Covina, TONIGHT @ 8:00 PM
Creature Feature Web Show’s “One WYLD Night” in Los Angeles, Saturday @ 6:00 PM
Knokx Pro “FREE EVENT” in Huntington Park, Sunday @ 11:00 AM
Lucha Libre VIP in Cudhay, Sunday @ 3:00 PM
The views and opinions expressed in Jay Cal’s View are those solely of the author. These views do not necessarily reflect the views of the website. As always please Jay Cal with any questions, comments, or concern.