EWF held a show they were calling “The Big Event” in Corona on October 6th and I made a last minute decision to check it out. The show was being held at the M15 Concert Bar & Grill and coming from the south it really seemed like this place was in the middle of nowhere. After exiting the freeway I traveled down a long road that appears to only have huge warehouses, then out of nowhere a small strip mall appeared and there was the venue with flashing lights and EWF’s famous inflatable luchador in front.
The venue ended up being pretty cool though a bit on the smaller side. I don’t imagine you can get more than 150 or so in there for wrestling with the ring taking up so much space, and that might be pushing it. There was also low hanging ceiling fans that the wrestlers had to keep a lookout for. Other than that, like I said it was really nice. Reminded me of a smaller version of the Galaxy where UPW used to run.
Archimedes over Tommy DeFazio [1’40]
Not much to this match. Archimedes dominated and won in a minute and forty seconds by submission. DeFazio was heckled by the crowd by being called several different country singers, which was fitting, though I could swear I heard him being announced from Yonkers, New York.
Adrian Quest vs. Douglas James went to a no-contest [11’02]
This match started off with a really good opening sequence where they kept countering each other and neither wrestler could get the upper hand. After that they traded offense for the match and had some pretty cool sequences including a sort of modified lung buster James hit with Quest going across James’ legs rather than up and down. Douglas James was sporting a shaved head which made him look a little more mean. There was a funny sequence when Quest went up the ropes then realized one of the fans was above him and said “oh shit” and had to jump to the side to modify his attack. I thought for the most part the match was better than their first match a few months ago at one of the EWF Covina shows. Adrian Quest hit a 450 splash rather than his normal 630 senton but Fidel Bravo and Chucho came out and attacked him and the match was declared a no-contest. This was to setup Adrian versus Fidel which should be good.
Friar Roman over Super Beetle [11’32]
Friar Roman comes out and cuts a promo about how he prayed about this match or something. Once Super Beetle comes out Friar attacks him right off the bat (well, after Super Beetle had the chance to dance with a few fans) to start off the match and they do some brawling outside the ring. Friar Roman was on offense most of the match. There was one point where Friar Roman had a Fujiwara armbar on Beetle in pretty much the center of the ring and then just let Beetle out of it for some inexplicable reason, unless I missed something from my angle. One thing that hurt the match with Friar Roman being on offense so much was that it seems Super Beetle hasn’t quite mastered selling while being a masked wrestler, so Beetle’s peril didn’t come across as well as it could have. Expressing emotion while masked is harder than not wearing a mask obviously, and that’s the only knock I’d put on Beetle. He looked pretty crisp for the most part given his experience. Eventually Super Beetle hits a lariat then a drop kick, does sort of a reverse lung blower, then goes to the top rope and hits a cross body. However, when the ref wasn’t looking Friar Roman hit a low blow and got the pin. I thought the match was OK overall.
Anthony Idol over Jorel Nelson to win the EWF American title [10’59]
With this match not taking place at a birthday party or a bris or whatever I was surprised we got a title change here. I thought this was pretty good. Jorel Nelson really sold Idol’s offense well, and at one point after taking a spear while hanging upside down on the ropes he was acting like he was going to cough up a lung. Late in the match Idol was down and Nelson went to the top rope, but the ref was checking on Idol and in his way and Nelson was pushed of the rope by Idol’s manager. That allowed Idol to hit a Falcon Arrow and pick up the win and reclaim the American title.
Keneisha Moon & Maritza Janett over Ashley Grace & Diosa Athena [9’42]
Keneisha Moon and Diosa Athena are from Mexico’s WWS promotion and are in the area for Sabotage. Athena is actually the WWS champion. Maritza Janett is coming out of EWF’s School of Hard Knocks and just made her debut about a week prior to this match. In EWF’s long history its success with women’s wrestlers gets seemingly overlooked, but three of the most successful wrestlers to come out of their school have been Melina Perez, Shelly Martinez, and Awesome Kong. The match started with Diosa and Keneisha Moon squaring off, then it was Ashley Grace and Maritza Janett. While Ashley Grace looks so young and innocent she’s a natural face, but I think she does an even better job as a heel. Someone yelled something about her being a princess or something and she said “I’ll show you how a queen does it” and the way she said it was perfect. Maritza Janett looked pretty good in the match too. You wouldn’t know she just started. Maritza got the pin on Diosa Athena. This was a pretty fun match.
H.A.T.E (Che Cabrera & Rico Dinamita) over Espiritu & Ty Ray to retain the EWF tag-team titles [9’32]
H.A.T.E came out with Ray Rosas. Che took a liking to a girl in the front row and offered his “latino meat” to her. I thought this was a pretty good match. Espiritu has been doing a lot of good work this year. Ty had some pretty nice offense too including a nice looking lung buster on Che. It seemed like a lot of lung busters on the show. H.A.T.E won clean and Rosas didn’t play into the finish.
Scorpio Sky over Chavo Guerrero Jr. [11’15]
Chavo was super over of course. Most the crowd was chanting “Chavo” and Sky tried to get a “chocolate” chant going, but to no avail. This was a really good match. There was lots of really good mat work and both guys traded offense throughout the match. They worked more of a WWE style than an indy style. The ref got in Chavo’s way when he was about to finish Sky and when he went to move the ref Sky grabbed Chavo and rolled him up while holding the tights for the win. The crowd wasn’t happy about Chavo getting the loss, but post match Chavo hit three suplexes on Sky then with the crowd chanting “Eddie” he hit a frog splash.
Chavo then cut a promo about how he is from SoCal and talked about his high school and thanked the EWF and how he loves wrestling and gave a shout out to Eddie while taking a knee. Like I mentioned, this was a really good match and Chavo’s promo was a nice touch.
“Uptown” Andy Brown over “Mega King” Tommy Wilson to retain the EWF Heavyweight championship [12’00]
This match was billed as a come-as-you-are street fight. Mega King came out first and he had a pair of scissors and immediately started cutting the padding off a turnbuckle. As you’d expect with this type of match, there was lots of brawling outside the ring. To emphasize it was a street fight, they were using street signs as weapons. Mega King borrowed a fan’s replica WWE title to hit Andy, and the fan looked super worried about his title the entire time. They beat each other with a chain as well. For being a street fight there was nothing really extreme or anything that would separate it from any other match aside from the street signs. Andy Brown won with a kick to the head.
Post match H.A.T.E came out and Ray Rosas cut a really good promo. I’m not sure if there is anyone in SoCal as good at promos as he is. Anyway, he challenged Andy Brown to a match for the EWF title and managed to put over Brown, that it would be their first match, and the importance of the EWF title while still remaining a heel.
Overall this was a pretty good show by EWF. Aside from the opening squash match, every match was at least entertaining and the show had a really good pace to it. The crowd was probably a little smaller than they’d hoped for, but hopefully they’ll run some more shows at this venue and the crowds will pick up. EWF has been releasing a lot of their shows on YouTube so hopefully this one will be available too, especially for Sky and Chavo.
