I’ll be guest reviewing this week’s Championship Wrestling from Hollywood episode as Andrew is on a journey of rediscovery and the Himalayan temple that he is learning ancient forms of meditation from a 107 year old monk only has limited Wi-Fi coverage. In the interest of full disclosure, I watched this episode partially on television from the CW6 broadcast in San Diego and partially on the Fite TV app.
Championship Wrestling from Hollywood airing on CW6 in San Diego has been nothing short of a disaster. If ACC football goes long, which it always does, it pushes everything that airs after it back. That makes it impossible to DVR the show as it is never starts at the advertised time. Now rather than just starting it late, they have been just starting the show in progress. So if everything is pushed back 30 minutes, 30 minutes of CWFH is preempted. Then it ends promptly at 5:00 so they can air an entire episode of Ninja Warrior (which if you’ve seen 1 episode you’ve seen every episode). 4:00 pm on Saturday is already a terrible time slot. There is no way they are building any sort of viewership by airing partial episodes that don’t start on time. People I’ve spoken to at wrestling shows, who are more likely to be more hardcore fans who are already familiar with the wrestlers if they are going to indy shows, have told me they’ve given up on trying to watch it. I can’t even imagine how they’d expect to bring in any new fans to the product. I’m not placing blame on CWFH, as I’m sure their choice would be to have a better time slot and for the entire show to air, but as it stands right now having your show preempted for some wrinkle remover scam infomercial makes your product look bush league.
With that out of the way, on to the show. The first half of the show was watched several days after the second half. I watched the second half when it aired, and the first half on Fite TV.
The show started with Grant interviewing Jervis Cottonbelly. I’m not a regular watcher of the show (see the previous paragraphs) so I’m not 100% sure what went down, but it seemed like the Hobo is possibly mad at Jervis for throwing in the towel in a match. Anyway, I thought Jervis was pretty funny in this, especially when he said “guard your loins, I’m going to shoot your waist and take you down.”
There is a birthday party for Jarek 1:20. He is opening up a bunch of presents and apparently they were all things used to harass Yuma like a Go-Pro and various handcuffs. The announcers called a harness “ankle cuffs” for some reason. The announcers mentioned Jarek tried to take Yuma’s life? Did Jarek actually try to kill Yuma on a previous episode? Why is he not in jail? I guess the police have CW6 and missed that episode. Anyway, Jarek had his masked henchmen with him, one turned out to be Yuma, he cleared the ring after hitting Jarek with a chair. This was fairly predictable, though I expected Yuma to be in one of the presents. I wasn’t really familiar with the angle too much and this didn’t make me more interested in it in all honesty.
Eric Watts versus Joe Gamble was the opening match. The announcers put over how Eric Watts, as the holder of the PP3 cup, has the right to challenge for any title and hasn’t cashed in that right yet. They mentioned this was Joe Gamble’s return from injury. Watts controlled most of the match but Gamble did get some offense in and even took Watts down at one point. Watts won the match with a chokeslam and then his finisher.
A Big Duke interview was next. He hyped his match later in the show against Ryan Taylor and Hammerstone and mentioned that he isn’t done with DJ Hyde. This was fine.
Jervis Cottonbelly versus Buddy Royal was up. The announcers made a big deal that Hobo didn’t come to the ring with Jervis. Levi Shapiro interfered and the ref ejected him from ringside. Lots of talk about Jervis’ face. They announced a Friendship Express versus Classic Connection match coming up that not only will the titles be on the line but it will be a hair versus face match. The match itself was fairly basic. Nothing bad but nothing great. Jervis reversed a submission by running up the ropes and then pretty much just falling on Buddy Royal for the pin.
Grant interviews Ryan Taylor next. Ryan Taylor is Jesus apparently. He even says he was “rebirthed from death.” This was to hype the main event. Ryan Taylor did a good job in this.
Hudson Envy vs. Ruby Raze was up next. Apparently they were tag-team partners on a earlier show, and Hudson got the pin and that upset Raze who wanted to get the pin. That lead to this match. Some nice elbows to start. Raze takes Hudson down with a headbutt. The announcers put over how Raze is there for the money and Hudson taking the pinfall in their previous match cost Raze money. I guess in CWFH tag team partners are paid differently based on who gets the pin. Hudson takes Raze down with a kick and gets a two count. The announcers mention that is the first time Raze has had a two count against her. They trade lariats, then Hudson does a Matrix like duck of a lariat. Raze hits Hudson with a spear to get the win. This was some good stuff but I wish it would have been longer.
The main event is Big Duke versus Hammerstone versus Ryan Taylor. Taylor is doing lots of meditation and yoga in the match. Duke was in control of Hammerstone to start. Hammerstone hit a nice drop kick on Duke. Ryan Taylor finally gets back in the match and hits a bicycle kick on Duke who is on the top rope. Taylor works Hammerstone’s arm over. Taylor keeps kicking Duke when he tries to get in the ring, keeping him out. The announcers put over that Taylor has extra senses now because he’s one with nature. Taylor continues to work Hammerstone’s left arm. Duke finally gets back in and hits a boot to Taylor’s face. He knocks him out of the ring then goes over the top but Taylor gets out of the way. Hammerstone then does a flip over the top rope and connects with Taylor. Lots of pretty good back and forth action between all three guys. Their pace really picked up a lot towards the end. Even though Taylor had been working Hammerstone’s left arm, he gets the right arm in an arm bar. The announcers say “he’s got that left arm in an arm bar, he’s been working that arm the whole time.” Hammerstone powerbombs Taylor from the armbar (likely because it wasn’t the left arm despite what the announcers said). Hammerstone hit a Stone Breaker on Taylor but Duke pulled him out. Duke got the win with a rollup on Taylor. I thought this was a good match. All three guys looked pretty impressive in this.
I didn’t care for the stuff between Yuma and Jarek and I thought the first two matches were OK. The last two matches were both pretty good. I was disappointed there was no Josh Shibata in the episode, but I thought the interview sequences were well done. Overall I thought the show was pretty good.
