411’s OVW/HWA Recap Extravaganza 10.08.06

Hello everybody, and welcome to the first ever OVW/HWA Recap Extravaganza! The Cincinnati CW affiliate airs OVW at 1 PM & HWA Adrenaline at 2 PM every Saturday, so I figured I’d watch it and recap it best as I could for you guys. Unfortunately, the first few of these are probably going to be pretty tough for me to do since I don’t know much of what’s going on in OVW at the moment and I really have no earthly idea what the HWA’s been up to. So…here goes nothing!

Ohio Valley Wrestling

We start out in the parking lot watching OVW Champion Chet the Jet arrive in his not exactly luxury car. I guess being OVW champ doesn’t pay as well as being WWE champ, but my thoughts are cut off when Jacob Duncan comes in and starts beating the holy hell out of Chet and takes his title belt. I think Sullivan was high on this Duncan character, but I remember him as Trytan in TNA and he really sucked when he was there. We’ll see if he’s improved any in the weeks to come.

Dean Hill & Kenny Bolin are your hosts. Dean is noted for having the best mustache in the business and was Louisville’s first K-9 police officer. He got his start in wrestling by working security at the Louisville Gardens and eventually getting hired to be a ring announcer. He’s been in OVW since the beginning and while he might not be the best announcer out there, he is beloved by the fans. Bolin is a despised manager and makes *insert fat announcer here* look skinny.

Match 1: Steve Lewington vs. Vic D Vine

Lewington is from England, and you can tell it from the way he wrestles. He works the arm early on with a bunch of fancy wrist locks like every British wrestler ever except for Big Daddy & the British Bulldogs. Dean says hi to Cincinnati, which is nice of him to do, but Kenny mentions how Carson Palmer isn’t very happy this week and I am sad. Wow, Lewington does a really fancy headscissors after a sequence that is very difficult to describe. I am impressed. Vic gets the advantage for a little while, but Lewington fights back and hits a Union Jack neckbreaker, followed by a butterfly suplex. Somebody’s been watching his Regal tapes. Lewington has a very nice dropkick, and a running version of it is good enough to get the 3 on Mr. Vine.

Nice opener here. I’d like to see Finlay or Regal get a hold of Lewington and see what they can get out of him. But, I’m a mark for European wrestling so I may be biased.

Backstage, Gunner Scott complains about Charles “The Hammer” Evans screwing him over the last couple of weeks in OVW TV title matches. I gotta feel sorry for Scott because he was one-half of those well-received matches with CM Punk a few months back, and now he’s back in Louisville while Punk is becoming a star of some level in ECW. Some guys have all the luck, right Gunner? Anyway, tonight is a lumberjack match, and I wonder if the old “babyface makes the heel stay in the ring with him by having the bookers make it a lumberjack match” ploy has actually ever worked.

After the commercial, Cody Runnels & Shawn Spears feel bad about knocking Cherry, the valet for their rivals Deuce & Domino off the apron last week, so they decide to send her a card. Awww.

Match 2: Romeo Roselli vs. Paul Burchill

I thought the Heart Throbs were history, and I have a feeling that Romeo is going to wish he had stayed history after this match. Besides, there is no way he would pass a Wellness test at this point. It should be noted that Burchill has dropped the pirate act and is now a badass that curb stomps people. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a step in the right direction. Burchill immediately takes it to Romeo, but Romeo gets the advantage by botching a dropkick. OK then. Burchill returns with a clothesline, but Romeo does the ol’ carnival ride to Burchill. Kenny Bolin comments he hasn’t seen that move in 20 years…obviously he doesn’t keep track of things on YouTube like I do, otherwise he would have seen the match with Traci Brooks and Lexi Lane by now. Anywho, Romeo actually puts up a better fight in this match than I was expecting, including doing a flip dive onto Burchill onto the floor, and busting Burchill wide open. Burchill doesn’t take kindly to this, and moves out of the way of a flying body press before finishing Romeo off with the Curb Stomp. You don’t kick out of that, my friends.

Burchill looks good. Whether they’ll do anything with him this time around or not remains to be seen, but the man can be an impact player if given the chance.

We’re backstage and Cherry (w/hurt ankle propped up and cleavage on display) receives the card from Runnels & Spears. She seems touched, but hides it before Deuce & Domino come in straight off the set of “Grease”. The Fonz would be proud, I’ll say that much for them. They act all chauvinistic and tell Cherry to buff their jackets for them. This is art imitating life…the good guy never gets the girl. Believe me, I know. But, one does wonder what would happen if Cherry actually did join with Runnels & Spears. My guess is that one or the other wouldn’t be down with the whole threesome thing and things would go downhill from there.

Holy crap, a Jim Cornette voice-over!

We take a look at the Wick’s Pizza Party Zone. Impressive.

Match 3: El Areo Fuegeo vs. Real McCoy

Bolin says that Fuegeo is a “hot Mexican”. Well, whatever floats his boat, I guess. McCoy gets some early offense, but this match is all about the mysterious luchador, who after a minute or two hits a spinning heel kick and a running enziguri for the win. Yeah, that was pretty much it. Dean Hill did make a nice joke about Bolin’s buffet habits, though.

Match 4: “Bad Seed” Shawn Osbourne vs. “Silverback” Ryan Reeves

Holy shit. I know I’ve already used this line once in this recap, but there’s just no fucking way that Reeves passes that Wellness test either. Bolin compares him to a monkey, and he does kinda have that ape kinda look to him. And before anybody says anything, Reeves is white. Just thought I’d get that out of the way. And he hails from the Congo. Whatever. Osbourne cost Reeves a match last week, and Reeves is none too happy about it. Osbourne tries avoiding Reeves, but apparently Reeves gets him and beats the shit out of him for awhile with your standard WWE big man offense. The highlight is when Reeves gorilla press drops him Warrior Warrior style and Osbourne nearly gets killed on it. It doesn’t look pretty. In any event, Eddie Kraven comes out and distracts the referee, and then Mike Kruel comes in and knocks out Reeves with some brass knucks. I’m starting to wonder if Regal was the special guest trainer this week. Osbourne wins the match, surprisingly enough, and this issue with Reeves, Osbourne, Kraven & Kruel is not over.

Match 5 (OVW Ladies’ Title Match): Serena vs. Beth Phoenix

I swear that Beth took that outfit she’s wearing right out of Trish’s closet during her cup of coffee with the Raw brand. Serena is all hot and bothered about something, and I wouldn’t mind getting all hot and bothered with her but apparently Beth Phoenix wants no part of it. She tries a powerbomb but Serena turns it into a very ugly hurricanrana. Beth goes outside and Serena baseball slides right into the back of Beth’s head. Pulls her back in and gets a 2 count. Serena’s attempt at a flying body press gets nothing but ropes, and then Beth suplexes her gut-first onto the ropes. This leads into a lengthy debate on the size of Serena’s gut between Hill & Bolin, and I side with Hill on the issue. Beth dominates for awhile and hits a nice butt to the face move, but after she misses a running charge it’s all Serena. Nice monkey flip. Serena tries a spear, but Beth moves and Serena takes out the referee. Beth hits a very nicely done Michinoku Driver, but the ref is still down from the spear. Serena spears Beth right into the referee, and Beth takes advantage of her newly found position on the floor by crawling over to the desk and getting the title belt. One belt shot to Serena’s head later, and we’ve got a new Ladies’ Champion in Beth Phoenix! Good effort from both ladies here, though Serena was a little spotty early on she pulled it together as the match continued.

Match 6 (Lumberjack match for the OVW TV Title): Charles “The Hammer” Evans vs. Gunner Scott

Scott does some very nice matwork early on with some front facelocks, and eventually he hones in on Evans’ arm in order to set up his finish, the Crowbar. Evans gets pushed out of the ring, and the lumberjacks push him back in. Scott works on the arm, Evans fights out, ends up outside again, lumberjacks toss him back in. Suplex by Scott gets 2, a cross body also gets a 2 count. Scott punches away on Evans as we go to commercial…

We return and Scott is still working over that arm. Good strategy, that’s smart wrestling right there. Unfortunately Scott’s strategy is cut off by Evans fighting out and Kraven & Kruel crotching him on the ring post. These kids Kraven & Kruel just aren’t very good people, are they? A cover gets 2, then Evans tosses Scott outside so the heel lumberjacks can stomp Scott down. The faces make them back off and help Scott back into the ring. Bolin points out “what’s good for the goose is good for the Gunner”. Hey, I chuckled. After a resthold, Evans tosses Scott back outside and the heels beat him down some more. Cover gets 2 and Evans goes on the offensive with a side slam and some headbutts before Scott fights back. Scott gets a cover on Evans, but Kraven & Kruel are up on the apron distracting the referee. Evans goes back on offense briefly before Scott hits his second wind with a german suplex, fists, clotheslines, and a baaaaaaaaack body drop. Evans knees Scott in the gut and tries a vertical suplex, but Scott slips out and gets Evans in the Crowbar! All of a sudden we are joined by ODB, who is not Old Dirty Bastard, but One Dirty Bitch who at one point or another shared a residence with Traci Brooks. And I plan on mentioning that every week, so get used to it. She takes off her coat and shows everybody her bikini. Since apparently nobody on the roster gets laid, everybody is distracted except Evans, who reaches into his pants for something…um, well maybe he’s looking at her too. But he is cut off by El Areo Feuego, who tries to kick Evans, but Evans ducks and Feuego takes out Scott instead! Evans gets rid of the Mexican wrestler and covers Scott for the three count!

You know, I’m starting to wonder about this El Areo Feuego guy. Something’s not quite right about him…could he be somebody we’ve seen before? Or just somebody who occasionally makes a mistake? Maybe we’ll find out in the weeks ahead, but it won’t be this week because it’s time for….

HWA Adrenaline

Oh boy. First of all, the audio on this show is really, really bad, so I had to look online to figure out who the announcers even were. I think they were CTB, Hooks & Amanda Fire, but don’t quote me on that.

We open with two people in the ring who appear to be running the place. Looking at the website, I think Tim Tatum is the man with the microphone, and he announces that we’re starting off with a 6-man. This brings out The Crew, consisting of Pepper Parks, Dick Rick, and Cannonball Callihan. Tatum makes some matches for HWA’s big show coming up on October 20, incuding Pepper taking on HWA Champion Chad Collyer, and Callihan & Dick Rick in a tag team match with Brian Beech & Brian Jennings. This sets up the first match:

The Crew vs. Brian Beech & Brian Jennings

Well, it was supposed to be a 6-man, but for some reason Chad Collyer didn’t show up. I have no idea. Anyway, it’s a Pier 5 brawl most of the way, with the Brians getting the best of it for most of the match. However, the Crew’s cheating ways eventually get them the victory. The camera missed the finish, but it was some kind of double team move.

Next we had J.T. Stahr talking about how the HWA television title has never meant more because he has it. The only problem is that he isn’t actually the champion. Is every fucking promotion doing this angle now? TNA has Joe with the NWA title belt, OVW just had Duncan trying to steal the OVW belt, hell, ROH had the Kings of Wrestling steal the tag team titles for a week. What the hell?

Match 2: Tarek the Great vs. HWA TV Champion Scotty Murray

OK, this match is what really set me off. And it has nothing to do with these two guys, because frankly they tore the house down and had a really, really good wrestling match. But then J.T. Stahr comes in and hits Murray with the TV belt for no good reason and ruins the whole damn thing. Terek takes exception and starts fighting with Stahr, and eventually Tatum comes down and says Stahr can have a shot at the TV title if he can beat Chris Carnage tonight. Carnage is a jacked up fella that looks pretty damn tough, so I’m thinking it won’t go too well for Mr. Stahr.

Match 3: Neveah vs. Heather Owens

For some reason Owens doesn’t show up. This actually does get explained later, but right now Neveah wins by countout. Neveah is hot, but this sucked.

Then we get a non-sensical backstage promo with guys I’ve never seen before name-dropping Shark Boy & Cody Hawk. Maybe it made sense with better audio, but I got nothing out of this.

Then we had Josh Rafferty beat up two black guys, and then Sean Casey came out and acted like he was going to beat up Rafferty before beating up the black guys some more. Apparently there will be 3 more people in their group. Hmmmmmmm.

Match 4: Dr. Bones vs. Tack

Well…this was also something. Tack wins by countout, but then Dr. Bones asks Tack if he’s scared. Um……Tack won the match. Why would he be scared?

So apparently Heather Owens didn’t show up because the Irish Airborne beat her up. Yeah, let’s have a tag team beat up a woman. That’s a good way to get me to put your show over, guys. Especially the IA, who I like just about as much as I like herpes. And now I can’t even enjoy Neveah because apparently she’s with one of these idiots. Great.

Match 5: Chris Carnage (w/Cricket) vs. JT Stahr

Remember how Stahr ruined the other match, so he could get a title shot if he beats Carnage? Well, Carnage beat him in about two minutes. So he ruined a match and we got to see him get squashed in a complete waste of TV time. Tremendous.

Cricket, who happens to be a midget, talked with what appear to be the Mavericks, who want backup against somebody. He seems interested in having Carnage help their cause.

Match 6: The Mavericks & Hippies vs. Irish Airborne & Foreign Intelligence

This was actually pretty fun. I like the Hippies, who I remember from those NWF shows I went to last year, and the Mavericks seem ok too. Still think the IA are the most overrated act in the midwest, though. But it wasn’t a bad match, though the ending with Cricket coming out was suspect.

Well, let’s sum it up. OVW was fun. HWA, not so much. I’m willing to give HWA another chance because they are an indy promotion and they’re not going to have the best in production, but they’re going to have to do much better than this in the future to keep me watching and keep this from being an OVW exclusive recap.

Until next week, keep your stick on the ice.