Candice LeRae says goodbye, Brian Cage vs. Scorpio Sky, Jeff Cobb vs. Luchasaurus, and more!
To watch Bar Wrestling 8, check out Bar Wrestling on Pivotshare or the Highspots Wrestling Network.
Brian Cage vs. Scorpio Sky
This started out with some comedy. Sky challenged Cage to an arm wrestling match while using Rick Knox’s back as a table. Sky ended up biting Cage’s hand to start the match and later hit a chandelier while doing an insane Tope Con Giro. Moments later, Sky went for a Blockbuster from the middle rope, but was caught by Cage in midair. Cage would then hit a suplex on him. Later in the match, Cage hit his suplex from the ropes into the ring spot on Sky. During this, Sky’s feet hit a decorative curtain that was hung from the ceiling, causing it to fall. I fully approve of this sort of vandalism. The finish saw Cage hit Sky with several Powerbombs after a small botch.
This was a pretty fun opener. Outside of the small botch, both guys did great. Cage had some really impressive offense in this, and both guys played off each other’s styles really well. The pacing was also good, and there weren’t really any dull points in the match.
Rating: ***
The Killer Baes (Laura James & Heather Monroe) & Brody King vs Team Tremendous (Bill Carr & Dan Barry) & Taya Valkyrie
The crowd seemed to like the comedy spots in this. I wasn’t into them though. I’m not into this brand of cornball comedy. The match itself was a mixed bag. There were several sloppy moments, and some good sequences. You had your usual spots, dives, and shenanigans in this. Bill Carr and Brody King worked really well together, and busted out some Lucha stuff when they went at it. They were the best performers in the match along with Heather Monroe. Dan Barry was solid as well. As for Laura and Taya, well…
Let’s talk about everyone else instead. While Dan Barry is the type of guy who would do well in place like SoCal, I feel like Carr is so much better. Don’t get me wrong, Barry had a good showing here. He had a good sequence with Heather at one point. Heather also had a good performance in this match. Brody and the Baes got the win here. This was an okay match. I feel like it would’ve been better had it been Brody/Heather vs. Team Tremendous. I really want to see Brody and Bill Carr have a proper singles match together based on this. I bet they’d have a great match with each other.
Rating: **
Jeff Cobb vs. Luchasaurus
This match. Fuck yeah. This match ruled. It was short but was very everything I love about pro wrestling. Two big, scary looking dudes doing crazy shit and Lucha sequences. Luchasaurus showed off some agility, and Jeff Cobb yelled “FUCK THAT DINOSAUR!” after delivering a German Suplex on him at one point. Cobb would later call Luchasaurus “Yoshi” when they were outside the ring. Cobb was actually cussing a lot during this, which made it more awesome. Cobb threw Luchasaurus around like nothing, which was awesome to see. We need more of this sorta shit in pro wrestling.
Like I said, this match ruled and it was only like 5 minutes. They did a nice Lucha sequence, Luchasaurus flipped around, and Cobb threw Luchasaurus around while talking some shit. That’s all I need to be happy and satisfied. Cobb got the win with his Tour of the Islands finisher.
Rating: **3/4 (I’d rate this higher, but it was pretty short. It still ruled.)
Tornado Tag Team Match: Doomfly (Delilah Doom & Eli Everfly) vs Janelope (Joey Janela & Penelope Ford)
I heard a lot of hype regarding this match, and was genuinely interested in seeing it. Mainly because I wanted to see crazy shit. The match itself wasn’t the best. I thought Penelope was kinda awful and sloppy outside of doing gymnastics spots. Eli and Delilah had really good performances in this match. They were the more polished performers here. Janela looked solid here, but he’s not a guy known for being the most polished worker. He’s more known for his crazy spots, and God bless him for that. Eli and Janela did a bunch of crazy shit together in the match. The opening portions of the match saw them both doing apron spots. Eli hit Janela with a flying DDT onto the ring apron, while Janela did a Package Piledriver on the apron to Janela.
The match started to get awkward at one point when Janela and Penelope spent several moments doing nothing while Eli was down. Things started to fall apart a bit after that until Delilah Doom got things back on track. There was an awesome spot where Janela hit Eli with an Avalanche Sitout Tombstone Piledriver. Later on, Delilah had Penelope in a Powerbomb position to set up Eli to hit a Meteora on Penelope. Eli would then go for a Tope Suicida on Janela, only to end up taking a nasty fall after Janela stepped to the side and slapped him.
https://twitter.com/hee_bawn/status/954469353319153664
Eli and Delilah got the win after Delilah hit a German Suplex on Penelope and transitioned into a Camel Clutch to get the submission victory. While this match was somewhat sloppy (and had a really dumb spot involving Penelope doing a Canadian Destroyer on Janela by accident), it was still fun as there were some pretty crazy spots.
Rating: **3/4
Billy Gunn vs. Hot Young Briley
Before the match, Billy Gunn goofed off on the mic. He honestly wasn’t unfunny (double negative) and played to the crowd really well. He assumed that there were no kids in the venue (probably cause he’s on a show called “BAR” Wrestling) and wasn’t going to do a disclaimer. He was informed that there were minors in attendance, so he did his disclaimer before doing the “SUCK IT” gimmick.
After that, it took 10 fucking minutes for either guy to do anything. It was mostly just them playing to a crowd that was trying to get itself over. Then they had a match that was mostly comedy. When they weren’t doing comedy, they worked a basic match. Billy won with a Fameasser. The fans here were more into Billy Gunn than the fans at the NJPW G1 Special in the USA last year. He was more entertaining here too, but I still thought this match kinda sucked.
Rating: *
Triple Threat Tag Team Match: H.A.T.E (Peter Avalon & Ray Rosas) vs. The Carnies (Kerry Awful & Nick Iggy) vs. B-Boy & Willie Mack
This match was a sprint mixed in with some character work from the Carnies. I’m really not into that shit and thought it was the weakest element of the match. Aside from that, this was a good match. While I don’t care about the Carnies gimmick, they were solid in the ring when they weren’t doing lame character work. H.A.T.E shined early on in the match and had a nice showcase. That changed for H.A.T.E though once Willie Mack hit Ray Rosas with a killer Pounce on Ray, sending him flying across the ring.
The pace of the match kept things from being slow. There were a lot of double team spots in this, which made for an entertaining match. The match structure was also pretty good, as all the big spots were spaced out well throughout the match. At one point, Ray Rosas hit a running Yoshi Tonic on Willie Mack, which looked really cool. H.A.T.E ended up winning the match after hitting a bunch of double team moves on B-Boy. This was a solid match. It wasn’t the best I’ve ever seen, but still pretty good and on par with Sky/Cage on this show.
Rating: ***
Joey Ryan vs. Candice LeRae
This was Candice’s final appearance on the independent wrestling scene. Since this was her last indy match, Bar got her niece (I think, not sure what the relation is) to ring announce again. Joey and Candice had their entrances shown, Candice had a streamer shower, and everyone chanted for her. Her and Joey also did one last “hot tag” spot for old time’s sake.
After goofing off a bunch, the match started to pick up after Joey pie faced her when she didn’t want to hit a Pedigree on Joey. The fans ended up turning on him after that. Joey had a comedy spot (that was legitimately funny) where he tried to argue he got a pin fall victory after two near falls. His logic was that he got a 4 count. Joey kept his pervert shtick to a minimum here. Maybe he realized there were a bunch of kids there.
The latter part of the match revolved around a bunch of ref bumps from Rick Knox, and spots onto Gummy Bears. The match ended with Candice hitting a Mustache Ride on Joey for the win. The match itself was pretty solid. They did a showcase of what they usually do, and it was good. Not much else to say.
Rating: N/A (It was more of a novelty performance to give Candice a send off, so I didn’t rate it.)
After the match, Candice brought her nieces into the ring to sing “Happy Birthday” to her mom. Then Joey got on the mic to talk about his friendship with Candice. They hugged and Candice said goodbye to the crowd to close the show.
Final Thoughts
First the negatives.
The production for Bar shows really need to improve. I’ve talked about it before, and it seems like no effort has been made to upgrade things. Commentary was also abysmal here. Condron wasn’t annoying, but he wasn’t good. Louden Noxious sounded like he was high on heroin. Both guys are usually bad, but they were worse on this show.
The last time I reviewed a Bar Wrestling show, I talked about how dumb it is for Joey and Bar to have minors at shows since it’s a terrible look for them. I ended up catching heat for my views from various people. Our very own Steve even asked me about why I felt the way I did. He even offered his perspective as a parent.
Despite all that, my mind hasn’t been changed on this. Look, my only issue is I don’t want to see something happen because nobody thought shit through. I still believe it is a really bad look on a promotion called Bar Wrestling and markets itself towards drinkers of alcohol to have a show that allows minors. I truly feel it will open them up to scrutiny and would cause tons of problems if the wrong people (community activists, parent groups, Christians) got word of what was going on.
With independent wrestling becoming less fringe than it was before, people in the business need to start thinking about the possibility of shit going down. That’s the reality we live in here in 2018. Even if it isn’t someone bringing their kid to a show, it is only a matter of time before a Terry Rakolta type person fucks things up on the independent wrestling scene.
Now the positives.
Scorpio Sky vs. Brian Cage and Jeff Cobb vs. Luchasaurus were my two favorite matches, with the three way tag also being one of the better matches on the show. Joey vs. Candice was a good way to end things between them. The Eli/Delilah vs. Janela/Penelope match was sloppy, but Eli was the MVP of the show as he had a killer performance. Team Tremendous were also fun, and I’d like to see them in a regular tag match someday in Bar.
To watch Bar Wrestling, check out Bar Wrestling on Pivotshare or on the Highspots Wrestling Network.
