This past Saturday night SoCal Pro held its annual Rumble in Oceanside, which is a show built around a Royal Rumble styled match. The winner of the Rumble is able to challenge for the title of their choice as well. The show also featured the long awaited returns of Joey Ryan and Devin Sparks to the promotion, and the debut of Sinn Bodhi.
With lots of competition including the MLB playoffs and locally the biggest San Diego State football game in years, I thought they still managed to draw pretty well. I’d estimate the crowd to be maybe a little more than 200. Like most SoCal Pro events, the show started pretty much right on time, which is always nice.
Ju Dizz & Joe Gamble over Fidel Bravo & Ty Ray [10’44]
Ju Dizz and Joe Gamble are The Rebel Renegades and this was their first time teaming in over a year. They got a really good reaction from the crowd. Originally Peter Avalon was supposed to team with Fidel, but he had to miss due to Championship Wrestling from Arizona. I think this may have been Ty Ray’s debut in the promotion. Fidel has been having a really good year, holding the EWF and DPW titles and really stepping it up in terms of match quality. There was a really cool spot where Fidel goes to spear one of the Renegades, but they move out of the way and Fidel ends up doing a tope onto his manager/bodyguard Chuco. This ended up being really good, with the crowd really hot throughout.
Destro over Motros Jungle [3’33]
This ended up just being pretty much a squash of Motros. I’m not sure if something went wrong, or if the match was planed this way but something seemed really off from the start. Motros had his mask pulled off and laid in the ring covering his face while Destro put his foot on him for the pin.
Joey Ryan over Dirty Doug [6’38]
This was Joey Ryan’s first match back in SoCal Pro in years and he probably got the loudest reaction of the night. I know Joey has his detractors, but every time I see him on a show most people are eating up everything he does. Dirty Doug covered his hand in dirt to try and counteract Joey’s dong, but it didn’t work but he was able to get free before getting flipped. He did eventually manage to hit the YP Plex (or whatever it is called these days) on Doug. When Joey went for the Sweet Tooth Music, Doug’s manager Everett Scott tried to stop it but he got the lollipop from Joey’s shorts in his mouth. Then Joey hit the Sweet Tooth Music on Doug to get the pin. This was a quick fun match.
Ricky Mandel over Sinn Bodhi to retain the SoCal Pro Heavyweight title [12’13]
This was Ricky Mandel’s first title defense since winning the belt at the last show. The match was solid, but not very exciting. The crowd didn’t seem to really be into it either, though there was brief times it seemingly came back to life. I mean it wasn’t a bad match, but it wasn’t really good either. It just was.
“Uptown” Andy Brown wins the Rumble in Oceanside [38’27]
If you’ve ever seen a Royal Rumble before, this was structured pretty much the same way. Wrestlers would enter supposedly every 90 seconds (though there was only a countdown for the last five seconds so I don’t know strict they were with the 90 second rule) and there were 20 wrestlers instead of 30.
The participants in the order they entered were: Ju Dizz, Dirty Doug, Dark Usagi, Joe Gamble, Super Beetle, Red Stanley, Funky Fresh, Ty Ray, SoCal Crazy, Devin Sparks, Andy Brown, Mike Camden, Ruben Iglesias, Fidel Bravo, Chuco, Snake, Kitana Vera, Hunter Freeman, Ric Dynamic, and Motros Jungle.
This was pretty much your standard rumble match. There were lots of wrestlers going over the top, but managing to hold on or roll back under the bottom rope. It seemed like the eliminations went in groups, with no eliminations for awhile, then a flurry of them followed by another lull. The first wrestler wasn’t eliminated till 13:28 when Ju Dizz eliminated Ty Ray. Then Dirty Doug eliminated Super Beetle at 13:50, Ju Dizz eliminated Funky Fresh at 14:20, Ju Dizz eliminated Red Stanley at 14:25, Dirty Doug eliminated Joe Gamble at 16:05, Ju Dizz eliminated Dark Usagi at 16:46, Devin Sparks took out Dirty Doug at 16:55, and Devin Sparks eliminated Ju Dizz at 17:57. The first eight entrants were all eliminated in the span of about four and a half minutes then there wasn’t another elimination for seven more minutes.
Mike Camden had been announced as the 12 entrant before Ju Dizz was eliminated, but he hadn’t entered the ring yet. After Ju Dizz was eliminated he went crazy and got back in the ring and took everyone out. Camden stood outside the ring and clapped and looked on approvingly. Andy Brown took out Ruben Iglesias at 24:10 to start another flurry of eliminations. Chuco eliminated Snake at 25:05, SoCal Crazy took out Fidel Bravo at 28:52 then Chuco at 28:55 when he ducked and they went over the ropes, Camden eliminated Ric Dynamic at 30:08 after Dynamis was in the match for about 10 seconds, then Camden eliminated Kitana Vera at 30:42 and SoCal Crazy at 31:11. After Camden eliminated Motros Jungle at 33:02 that left only Mike Camden, Andy Brown, Devin Sparks, and Hunter Freeman.
With it being down to the last four things started getting good. Camden has really stepped it up a notch in terms of intensity since his heel turn. I thought he and Freeman matched up really well. Devin Sparks and Andy Brown looked good in this too. When Devin first entered he never had a chance to take his jacket off and probably wrestled 15 minutes with it on before getting it off. Freeman eliminated Camden at 38:27 and Sparks eliminated Freeman at 38:31. With Andy Brown and Devin Sparks the last two in the ring, I think most people were expecting Sparks to win. Sparks hadn’t been in the promotion for years, but his return had been built up through some promo videos and his return was presented as being a big deal, while Andy Brown had been around here and there but when he was here he wasn’t getting much of a push. Brown sent Sparks over the top rope, and Sparks held on but the ref ruled his foot touched the ground and Brown was declared the winner. Brown immediately challenged Ricky Mandel for the Heavyweight title.
The show was pretty fun overall. The opener was really good and Joey Ryan and Dirty Doug was entertaining. It’s hard to have a great Rumble match, as the format makes it hard to do a whole lot for a large portion of the match. Still it was entertaining and the last five minutes were really good. The promotion seems to be really heel heavy, especially if Ju Dizz turns, so adding Andy Brown to the title picture along with Hunter Freeman is a good stop gap while Anthony Idol recovers from surgery.
