So admittedly, this took A LOT longer than I intended, mainly due to a combination of a busy work schedule and the sheer amount of shows I've watched. Regardless, here I am to present to you my experience watching almost all, or at least a fair portion of, the wrestling shows that occurred over WrestleMania weekend. It was good, bad, weird and incredibly exhausting, but ultimately a fantastic experience I'm glad I took part of (if only as a dude who viewed it all through a computer screen).
GCW Presents Josh Barnett's Bloodsport
This was my first stop on my journey, and a damn good place to start, if I do say so myself. Styled after the eponymous Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, the wrestlers competed in shoot-style matches with no ring posts or ropes to cut the ring off. Josh Barnett main-evented against Minoru Suzuki, with several matches featuring former MMA fighters (Barnett, Frank Mir, Phil Baroni, Dan Severn) as well as highly respected mat technicians in independent wrestling (Timothy Thatcher, Jonathan Gresham, etc.) And as for Suzuki? Well, you already know his name and know what he does.
A damn good show and definitely a step up from last year's Bloodsport, which was alright but kind of a mess. They really worked out the kinks and provided a fun show for those who love shoot-style wrestling. Top matches were Davey Boy Smith, Jr./Killer Kross, Masashi Takeda/Gresham, Thatcher/Hideki Suzuki, and MOTN honors obviously go to Barnett/Suzuki. If you're a mat wrestling purist, check this one out ASAP if you haven't already.
WrestleCon Presents The Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow
On my second stop, I decided to turn to the WrestleCon side of town and check out the annual Supershow. Typically one of the bigger independent shows that during WrestleMania weekend, this year was no different from the other. It was jam-packed with some of the biggest stars of professional wrestling then and now, spanning various promotions and creating some truly interesting match-ups in the process.
And with the promising card, Supershow definitely delivered. Aside from Will Ospreay vs. Bandido as the stellar main event, we're also treated to Zack Sabre, Jr./Shane Strickland, Rey Fenix/Pentagon, Jr. and Dragon Lee/Barbaro Cavernario, among others. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't also enjoy SoCal Uncensored/Best Friends & Orange Cassidy and Jushin Thunder, X-Pac & Hurricane Helms/Revolt! as well. An absolutely stacked show with plenty of good matches to pick from. Only two shows in and this journey has already been a blast.
Impact Wrestling: United We Stand
For my third show (in one night, no less) on my journey, I took a left into the land of Impact and their star-studded event United We Stand. Already containing the best Impact has to offer, the card also features talent from promotions such as AAA, Lucha Underground and Major League Wrestling (MLW). The card starts with a Ultimate X Fatal Five-Way and ending with a special attraction tag team match between the Lucha Bros (Fenix and Pentagon, Jr.) and the iconic Rob Van Dam & Sabu.
A fairly solid show. While nothing particularly mind-blowing, the show managed to keep my interest throughout. The Ultimate X match was a good way to start off the show, though I'm not entirely certain why they had their World Champ (Johnny Impact) take the W. All of the tag team matches were good, with the Latin American Exchange/Low Ki & Ricky Martinez. Tessa Blanchard/Joey Ryan was a fun intergender match and Rich Swann/Flamita for the X Division title gets MOTN honors from me. Not a bad watch.
Inter Species Wrestling presents Boner Jam IV: Balls Out
One of the smaller, less well-known promotions to have a show during WrestleMana weekend, I decided to check out ISW's fourth incarnation of Boner Jam. Given the implication of the name, I predicted it to be a somewhat silly, rather light-hearted affair. And given we had such characters as Fluffy The Killer Bunny and The Werewolf Of Wallstreet (my favorite), as well as a food-themed battle royal and a Lego deathmatch, it certainly seemed like it would live to such an expectation.
At live up to it did, providing us a 2.5 hour cartoonish cavalcade of wrestling. In the Food Fight Invitational, we saw a myriad of chips, bread and other goodies tossed around in chaotic fashion, including an excellent 3D spot through a table of ramen. One half of ROH's Coast 2 Coast fought a psychopathic bunny and everyone's favorite Danish building blocks were turned into gruesome instruments of violence. But outside the absurdity, the card also featured good standard matches; Daniel Makabe/Jae Rukin was a decent technical bout, and both of the tag team matches were quite entertaining. Not sure why I added so much detail here, but regardless, this was a solid, rather goofy affair to watch.
GCW presents Joey Janela's Spring Break 3 (Part One)
In a surprising turn of events, The Bad Boy decided one night wasn't enough for his Mania Weekend tradition and decided to turn his annual event into a two-night extravaganza, featuring rising stars in the American independent as well as legends of wrestling yore. In this show, we're guaranteed an invisible brouhaha, an insane deathmatch and a surprise appearance from a certain meatsauce-fueled character.
You never really know what to expect when it comes to these shows in particular, and that's the beauty of them. Of all the shows I watched from Mania Weekend, this was arguably the most entertaining out of all of them. From beginning to end, the fun I had with this show was immeasurable. For the all-encompassing wrestling fan, it had everything you wanted and then some. You want absurdity? Watch Invisible Man/Invisible Stan's excellent grudge match and Fuckmoney Virgil take possession of Ethan Page's soul while masquerading as Starman. Want in-ring excellence? Watch the Six-Pack Scramble (Jungle Kid being the overall MVP). Want a blend of both? Watch the opener between Joey Janela/Marko Stunt and Taka Michinoku/Orange Cassidy (a god among men). And for the more sadistic-minded, we have an excellent deathmatch main event featuring Jimmy Lloyd and Big Japan stalwart Masashi Takeda. Unequivocally, the absolute epitome of fun, which is exactly what professional wrestling should be.
NXT Takeover: New York
For my first "big name" show of my odyssey, I went into the familiar waters of NXT. Takeover shows (especially around Mania Weekend) have a reputation for producing a blow-you-out-of-the-water quality from top to bottom. Looking at the card, it'd be hard to argue with that statement, as we had a murderer's row of title matches: War Raider/Aleister Black & Ricochet for the tag belts, Velveteen Dream/Matt Riddle for the North American title, WALTER/Pete Dunne for the UK belt, Shayna Baszler/Io Shirai/Kairi Sane/Bianca Belair for the Women's title and last but not least, Johnny Gargano/Adam Cole for the vacant NXT Championship.
NXT outdid themselves once again, setting up a big fight feel for their show and delivering with each match. War Raiders/Blackochet (their unofficial name, of course) set a high bar at the very start of the show, delivering a piece of tag-team excellence. Having already earned a godly reputation on the indies, Riddle continued to build his stock in WWE while Dream delivered another stellar performance, proving once again why he's one of the wrestling's unsung heroes. WALTER/Dunne was an epic clash of power vs. technique, and a rather poetic way to end such a storied title reign. Baszler continuously proves why she's one of, if not the best women's champion in professional wrestling right now, and matches like this one prove it; aside from that, each competitor raised their stock in the company, especially Shirai, who is rightfully destined to take the belt from Baszler. And as for the main event, it was storytelling done to a SSS+ Tier. Johnny Gargano has been one of the best parts of NXT in recent time, and he proves it with continuously remarkable performances like this one. There's a reason why I put so much detail into this review, and it's because this show was that damn good, and might be one of the best Takeovers in recent time.
WrestleMania 35
Welp, folks, here it is. The Grandest Stage Of Them All (or whatever they call it); the pinnacle of the weekend, the show every wrestling fan comes to see, for better or worse. Surprisingly, this isn't the end of my journey, but hey, a weird work schedule and bizarre priorities will do that, I guess. Going into this, I was fully aware this going to be a rather daunting watch. With the number of matches totaling around the 14-15 range (I honestly forget sometimes), this was something I knew I had to fuel up for. So with a time-weathered friend and a fair amount of spiced rum, I charged headlong into it and didn't look back.
And it was an absolute blast, albeit somewhat exhausting. Admittedly I didn't watch the pre-show, but fuck it, that would've been absolutely ridiculous. Anyways, a fun show with plenty of good to great matches. Rollins/Lesnar was a superb way to start the show and Rousey/Lynch/Charlotte was an excellent way to end it (dodgy ending aside, of course). As for everything in between, there was plenty of good stuff to be had. Kingston/Bryan was an excellent world title with cinematic storytelling, The Miz/Shane McMahon was way more fun than it had any right to be, the Smackdown Tag Title match was chaotic fun, HHH/Batista had some good stuff in it and Balor/Lashley quick, snappy fun.
That being said, with such a long show, it was obvious there's gonna be some not-so-good stuff in it. The Women's Tag match was a mess (and not in a good way), Corbin/Angle was beyond unnecessary and I failed to see why I should've cared about Reigns/McIntyre. And while it wasn't bad, Styles/Orton was just average. And let's get back to the ending of the main event. Circumstances aside, it just didn't provide me with the emotional catharsis that was intended.
It had its ups, it had its downs, but altogether it was a fun ride and one that warranted the amount of detail I put into this.
Joey Ryan's Penis Party
Well, talk about a polar opposite as far as tone goes. I go from the Ben-Hur of wrestling shows to PHALLIC SYMBOL PHALLIC SYMBOL. Going into it, I knew it would be another light-hearted show that would provide some comical fun, putting the best independent wrestlers in situations both silly and intense. We have a DDT Ironman Heavymetalweight title battle royal, an animal-themed six pack, a death match between tag team partners and intergender confrontations aplenty. Yeah, you already knew it was gonna get weird.
And weird it was, but in a very great way. The battle royal was fantastic, Su Yung/Tracy Smothers was fucking hilarious, Bill Carr/Dan Barry was a well-executed death match, David Arquette continues to bless the world of professional wrestling with his glorious presence, Best Friends yet again put on comedy tag team gold with Tommy Dreamer and Colt Cabana (though I was heavily distracted by the sight of Mike Babchik's probably shit-stained tights), and the main event was...something else. Used condoms, bloody tampons, Session Moth Martina getting her bantz in with Val Venis, etc. It had it all. Excessively entertaining.
Rev Pro Wrestling: Live In New York
We've only got four more shows (including this one) to cover, people. Come on, we can do this. So one of the top promotions British professional wrestling today came to America over WrestleMania weekend, bringing some of their New Japan friends along for the ride. It was a unique card featuring loads of talent from the UK, Japan, the US and everywhere in between, ultimately creating a uniquely blended card. An interesting combination of styles, to say the very least.
A great show from top to bottom, and one of my sleeper picks for show of the weekend. They promised a stacked card and most definitely delivered. MOTN honors definitely go to Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki/ZSJ)/Hiroshi Tanahashi & Will Ospreay; it was an absolute banger of a tag-team match and I'm quite surprised it wasn't the main event. Other standouts include Tomohiro Ishii/David Starr, Ryusuke Taguchi/Rocky Romero and of course the main event between Aussie Open (Kyle Fletcher & Mark Davis) and Roppongi 3K (Sho & Yoh). Underrated is definitely the best possible term to use when describing my feelings towards this show. Absolutely stellar.
Joey Janela's Spring Break 3: Part 2
After the supremely fantastic night one, we're on to Part 2, where we get the most chaotic of all messes with The Greatest Clusterfuck battle royal, a fitting name if there ever was one. Basically a who's who of independent wrestling, it's a match where literally everyone ever fuck each other's shit up in an effort to see who's the last one left; to say this a packed match would be a monumental understatement. But aside from that, we've got other interesting content to imbibe; Joey Janela opens the show with Jungle Boy, LAX takes on the Rock 'n' Roll Express (seriously) as well as Masato Tanaka/L.A. Park.
Another fantastic outing, as per usual from God Emperor Janela. I honestly don't know he continues to do it, but he's an absolute genius, concocting these bizarrely awesome formulas for shows. Janela/Jungle Boy was an fantastic bout; JB has no doubt came onto my wrestling radar following his superb performances from this weekend. LAX put on a tag team clinic R'N'R Express, Ricky Morton showing he's still got it at age 62 with a suicide dive and (I shit you not) a canadian destroyer. Tanaka/Park was a fun bout and a excellent watch for chair fetishists. And as for the Clusterfuck, it's exactly what it implies. It was a wild, weird and at times a confusing experience, but altogether incredibly entertaining. Great, great stuff.
GCW Presents: Orange Cassidy is Doing Something, or Whatever, who knows?
The king of taking it easy, Orange Cassidy hosts this aptly-named event, providing a unique mash-up of matches and segments. We see a 7-out-of-13 Falls match, a drunken Last Person Standing match, a Swamp Monster Lumberjack match, a one-minute time limit match, Teddy Hart's Reading Rainbow and last but not least a Christmas-themed (for reasons, I guess) death match. A...fascinating show, to say the least.
Wacky? Of course. Kinda stupid, even for professional wrestling? You bet. Did I have an absolute blast with it? Hell yeah. Silliness aside, we got some legit great matches with Shinjiro Otani/Jonathan Gresham and the Six-man Scramble match between Jigsaw, Jake Atlas, Air Wolf, Dan Champion, Sonny Defarge and Tony Deppen (he's lowkey becoming one of my favorite personalities in indy wrestling). And as for the goofy shit, it was expertly executed. Session Martina got her bantz on with Nate Webb (thanks for getting Teenage Dirtbag stuck in my head, by the way), Teddy Hart read a book about cats Chuckie T and Beretta put on a one-minute classic and Nick (Fuckin') Gage brought the holiday cheer to Ultramantis Black.
An incredibly fun show from beginning. The uniqueness of the absurdity was truly something to behold. My only complaint is that MJF ruined a perfectly good game of dodgeball (I hold grudges, you know).
ROH/NJPW G1 SuperCard
It's Ring Of Honor's biggest show of the year as they team up with New Japan Pro Wrestling to sell out Madison Square Garden, the first time a wrestling promotion has done this in three years. Both promotions bring their best and brightest stars as several titles are on the line: we had the midcard challenge with Jeff Cobb (ROH World TV champ) vs. Will Ospreay (IWGP NEVER Openweight Champ), as well as Brody King & PCO/The Briscoes/EVIL & SANADA/Guerrillas Of Destiny for both companies tag titles. Mayu Iwatani defends her Women Of Honor title against Kelly Klein, and both world titles make up the main event: Matt Taven/Marty Scurll/Jay Lethal in a ladder match for the ROH World title and Jay White/Kazuchika Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight title. And several other titles I can't be asked to name off at this time. No doubt a stacked show.
A fantastic show, to say the least. It really lived up to its reputation as a stacked supershow. Cobb/Ospreay was fantastic, and it's truly a treat to see Cobb as a double champion; I'm beyond hype to see what both promotions do with it. The Junior Heavyweight Title match between Taiji Ishimori, Dragon Lee & Bandido was incredible, fast-paced fun, and it'll be interesting to see what they do with Bandido moving forward (Best Of The Super Juniors, perhaps?). Naito/Ibushi was beyond incredible, both men proving why they're two of the top performers in wrestling today. Zack Sabre, Jr./Hiroshi Tanahashi was crispy as hell; Based God ZSJ managing to kill it wherever he goes. The tag team title match was fun as hell, with Brody King & PCO putting an incredible performance; it really is a shame they didn't come out as the victors, because holy shit they deserve it (Guerrillas Of Destiny can fuck off, by the way). Both world title matches were absolutely fantastic as everyone involved put on the performance of a lifetime.
MOTN honors go to Naito/Ibushi, with Cobb/Ospreay and both world title matches closely following. My only complaints are the outcomes of certain matches (the wrong people won) and some disappointing ROH parts (knowing me, that was hard to admit). Iwatani/Klein could've been executed better and the Lifeblood & Flip Gordon/Bully Ray, Silas Young & Shane Taylor match was fine, but it was drawn out far longer than necessary. And it's especially disappointing knowing that this will be the lasting impression for people new to ROH. Regardless, an incredible show.
Overall Weekend Honors
Best Show: Joey Janela's Spring Break 3. This may seem the most absolutely smarkiest of smark choices, but of all the shows I watched, trust me when I tell you this was the most thoroughly entertaining piece of wrestling I viewed from a computer screen. Parts 1 and 2 didn't include a single dull moment from beginning to end. It blended serious wrestling with goofy shit better than any other show, and did so in a way where it didn't come off as trying too hard. Providing high quality entertainment without taking itself too seriously, there's no question this would be my pick.
Worst Show: ISW Presents Boner Jam IV: Balls Out. I feel like it's kind of mean-spirited to claim this as the "worst" show, as I actually kind of enjoyed it. It had solid matches and provided a good portion of fun. It's just that out of everything I watched, it was the least good, if that makes sense. It didn't provide me as much entertainment as other shows, and for that reason, it gets this distinction.
Best Match: Kota Ibushi vs. Tetsuya Naito, G1 Supercard. This was a tough one to call, as there were plenty I could've chosen from. But when it comes to overall in-ring action, this one manages to stand above the rest, if only by a hair or two. The chemistry was second-to-none, the near falls were well-executed and really felt earned and the finish was incredibly satisfying. With all of these factors taken into account, I have to make this one my pick.
Worst Match: Kurt Angle vs. Baron Corbin, WrestleMania 35. This was just sad to watch. Angle's been huffing air as an in-ring performer as of late, and it was especially apparent here. And while I like Corbin, there's no way in hell he out of any wrestlers should've been a retirement match opponent. Truly painful to sit through.
MVP: GCW, just as a whole. In terms of quantity and quality, they really blew me out of the water this year with just how diverse they could get. From Bloodsport to Spring Break to Orange Cassidy..., it was absolutely mind-blowing to see true creativity being executed so fluidly. They're really living up to their name and changing the game of independent professional wrestling. If you want proof of why they need to be on your radar ASAP, give their shows a watch and you'll be convinced. Truly remarkable, and absolutely deserving of this honor.
Whew, that was certainly a ride, wasn't it? The good, the bad and the downright confusing on full display here. Through all of it, I'm glad I took part, and I applaud all those who joined me on this journey. Rest assured I'll be back at it next year.
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