Cheap Wrestling for Cheap People 09.14.06 NWA Virginia Strikes Back
Posted by Ryan Byers on 09.14.2006
Another trip down south brings us tails of chopping hands and
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Cheap Wrestling for Cheap People. As always, I'm Ryan Byers. This week, we're headed back to the fabulous world of indy wrestling being broadcast on the internet. Normally I don't review the same web show twice, but today I'm giving NWA Virginia a second look. Why? I got a very polite e-mail from the company's promoter, Rick O' Brien, asking me if I'd take a look at the latest edition of their Action Zone program. Being nice gets you far in my world, so his request is fulfilled. On top of that, this provides me with an opportunity to remind any indy promoters or wrestlers out there that I essentially have an open door policy when it comes to reviewing material. DVDs, web shows, whatever, if you've got a way of sending it to me I'll consider it for inclusion in an upcoming review.
With that out of the way, let's start the show . . .
We open up on action from the NWA Virginia FAN CAM~! It's joined in progress I can't tell exactly what's going on due to lack of commentary. However, four men are brawling, and there's a ladder in a ring, so we definitely have a wrestling show on our hands. One man backdrops his opponent in to the ladder twice, but the opponent comes back with a couple of chairshots and then pulls a scaffold up to the ring. He climbs the scaffold . . . AND MISSES AN ELBOWDROP IN TO THE RING! Well, that's one way to welcome your fans to a show. The man who did not take the insane bump puts a choke on his opponent, and that secures him the victory. He is then attacked by two more unidentified men, who give him a Veg-O-Matic. A quick trip to NWAVirginia.com tells me that the man who won the match was Sean Denny, though I can't figure out who the bump machine was for the life of me.
Afer that, it's opening video package time.
Match Numero Uno: Jeff Early & Chris Sharp vs. Masked Superstar II & Mike Booth w/ Damien Wayne
Masked Superstar and Mike Booth are the gentlemen who did the run-in at the end of the previous segment. Based on the commentary, Superstar is actually NWA Virginia star Preston Quinn, who has decided to don a mask for reasons that are as of yet unexplained. Superstar starts with Early, and he gets caught with a kick and a rana that sends him to the buckles. Sharp and Booth come in after that, Sharp getting in rana number two of the match before getting caught in an armbar. Mike gets in a nice beal and brings the Superstar back in, with the masked man unloading some strikes in the corner and snap maring his man in to a kneedrop. Now it's back to Booth, who holds his man for a reverse neckbreaker, which Superstar compliments by coming off of the top rope with a double sledge to Sharp's face. There's a back elbow from Booth after that, and he stands on his opponent's head in a submission attempt. There's a butterfly suplex from young Michael, and the bad guys hit a version of the Smoking Gunns' old Sidewinder on Mr. Sharp. Now Booth's back, and Sharp provides us with a glimmer of hope by attempting a sunset flip. The announcers have started calling him Jeff Early now, so either they mixed up the names or I missed a tag in here somewhere. I don't, however, miss the tag to Superstar, who unloads on his man with a big boot to the face before missing an avalanche. That gives us the hot tag, and the man who may be Early or Sharp hits a leg lariat on Booth but gets his comeback cut off with a lariat. Now both of the bad guys are in the ring, and Superstar gives him a swinging neckbreaker to set up the Veg-o-Matic for the victory.
Match Thoughts: The announcers mentioned that both Sharp and Early just started their careers, with this being the first match for one of them. If that was the case, they both looked very good in their roles. In a couple of cases their offense could have used a little bit of work, but they seemed to have a firm grasp on ring positioning and how to move about the squared circle, which is (sadly) more than you can say for a lot of guys in their first indy match. Hell, it's more than you can say for a lot of guys in their fiftieth indy match. Moving along, the Superstar/Booth team also did well here, hitting a few nice double team moves en route to their victory. This was a perfectly acceptable squash, though it may have gone on a bit longer than necessary. 3/4*
Wayne, Superstar, and Booth are all interviewed after the match. Wayne actually sounded like he was pretty decent in the few seconds of stick time that he got, and I wouldn't mind hearing him do something that's a little bit more involved. The group hates Sean Denny and plan on taking his championship belt from him. I've seen wrestlers with worse plans.
Match Numero Dos: Lazarus vs. Scotty Blaze
Blaze is the NWA "Alpha Champion," though his title is not on the line here. His gimmick is that he enjoys chopping people as hard as he can. Well, it beats Cryme Tyme, that much is certain. Before anybody e-mails me, let' me just say that no, this is not the same Lazarus who worked with a drag queen character in NWA Wildside a few years back. Scotty weighs in at what looks to be a legit 330, and Lazarus' skinny-yet-somewhat-toned indy frame may not be able to take him. The big man actually goes for some technical wrestling early on, applying a hammerlock. For a second I thought that the hammerlock caused Lazarus to bleed from the forehead, but then I realized that he's got some kind of odd bruise/birthmark/god knows what on his there. Damn, and I was actually hoping to have a winner for the "World's Least Appropriate Bladejob" contest. Lazarus briefly gets his man in to the corner for a couple of chops, but Blaze manhandles him and responds in kind. There's a lariat from Scotty, and it gets two. Laz responds by biting his opponent and connecting with some forearms to the back before trying to take out his larger opponent's knees. He gets in an avalanche as well, and there's a couple of headbutts and a nice back elbow to the kidney region. Lazarus follows up with some choking on the ropes, and he continues to focus on the lower back. He heads up to the second rope and . . . completely misses whatever he was going for. It looked like a senton, but Laz overshot his man and landed on his ass a couple of inches away from him. He maintains his composure and puts on the camel clutch. It only lasted a couple of seconds, so I guess it's just a mini-humbling. Blaze comes back out of nowhere with a big boot, some forearms, and a few stiff chops. A second lariat connects as well, and Scotty finishes him off with an airplane spin in to a facejam.
Match Thoughts: I like the concept of Scotty Blaze, as he's a guy who has an incredibly basic move built up as a major part of his offense. It's smart booking, because he barely has to do anything and can get a reaction because the company has allowed something that takes so little effort to mean so much in its storylines. As far as the match itself was concerned, I don't know that much about the pecking order in NWA Virginia, but it seems like Blaze was towards the top of it while Lazarus is towards the bottom. If that assumption is true, I don't know that I would have had Lazarus keep up as well as he did here, especially given the size difference between the two men. However, if he had to have the offense, it was done in the smartest way possible, as he actually isolated a body part and worked it over so that the crowd could understand why exactly this tiny man was getting heat on a giant. 1/2*
Now we've got a Blaze interview. He wants Brandon Day in the ring because, a few months ago, Day broke his CHOPPING HAND! That's a hanging offense in some states from what I hear. The Blaze interview wraps up our show, and NWA Virginia promises to be back in two weeks with more from the Old Dominion State.
Overall
This edition of the Action Zone wasn't quite as good as the last edition that I reviewed. The main reason for that is that the last edition felt a bit more important, as it contained competitive matches involving the company's champions as opposed to the couple of squashes that we got this week. I understand that promoters will most likely want to save their big stuff for the live shows that people actually pay to see, but I think there's a balance that can be struck between making money off of live attendance and giving the TV audience a more exciting program. And, in fairness, the massive bump that the company showed us at the beginning of this program was nothing to scoff at. Aside from that, for the types of matches that NWA Virginia provided this week, the two bouts were actually not bad at all. I don't know that I'd go out of my way to watch this particular episode again, but I'd be willing to give NWA VA another chance based on the excitement that they provided on the last episode and the fact that this week's was not actively bad by any stretch of the imagination.
