Connor McGrath
Well we’re halfway through Wrestling On Fire’s “summer tour” and almost halfway through the month of August! Last week, the merger between Wrestling On Fire and East Coast Pro Wrestling was announced. We continue to showcase ECPW’s talents with two matches featuring champions from that promotion. Let’s go right down to ringside to start the action.
ECPW Light Heavyweight Championship Match: : Dan De Man (c) Vs “Irish” Matt McIntosh Vs “The Dominican Diablo” Rade Ravello
Ken Reedy and Charlie Savoldi are the commentators this week. The announcers talk about scouting ECPW talent and speculate how Wrestling On Fire light heavyweights would fare against these wrestlers. Dan De Man wears a Nature Boy robe and demands that the fans stand and cheer for him to let everybody know he’s the heel. McIntosh and Ravello clobber him and then decide to do some push ups for some reason. De Man stalls and lets Ravello and McIntosh pummel each other for a while. Charlie Savoldi calls the ECPW/Wrestling On Fire merger a “monumental event”. Monumentally mundane maybe. Rade Ravello blows out his knee and we get a close up of him, sitting and sulking in the aisle way as a few security guards stand next to him with puzzled expressions. Oh but it’s all a ruse as Ravello runs in and hits a Scorpion Death Drop on McIntosh and throws Dan De Man on top of him. Ravello repeatedly screams “It’s all about the money!” as he hands De Man his title. The announcers speculate if Ravello and De Man had some plan all along. Of course they did, you puds! De Man’s circa 1987 Memphis heel schtick was entertaining and the other guys were fine if not a bit too spotty but that finish felt off. In theory, it’s a fine idea but it fell apart with the execution. I blame it on the commentary team, which is usually fairly decent and has markedly improved since they took Uncle Tommy out of the booth. I think wrestling commentators can’t be TOO smart but you also can’t miss the obvious. C+
ECPW Tag Team Championship Match: Bandido Jr and Frankie Flow (c) Vs The Fallen Angels
We get another look at some ECPW stars. Fallen Angels are a generic masked teaml. Reedy and Savoldi speculate about a Titles Vs Titles match between Bandio and Flow and Wrestling On Fire Tag Team Champions Da House Party. You know…I still haven’t seen Da House Party on this show and they’ve been champions for 3-4 months. The Angels’ manager distracts the babyfaces and the heels use tomfoolery to take control of the match. Somebody or something knocks into the camera, allowing Chalrie Savoldi to make a “Don’t adjust your set!” joke. Flow gets the hot tag and nimbly throws around the Angels. It’s a Malfunction at the Junction as we get a pier six brawl. The bigger Angel throws Flow out of the and Flow falls out gingerly. A masked man (that’s not one of the Angels) runs out and hits Flow with a foreign object and The Angels get the count out victory. One of the Angels mask gets knocked off and he poses to the crowd doing the oblivious heel celebration before panicking and putting it back on. This one was not so good. Against green opponents, Flow looked pretty awful and Bandido doesn’t have the experience or skills quite yet to carry three other opponents. This was a generic formula tag team done pretty mediocre. I don’t know what it says that it makes me yearn for one of the 1018 Da M1nutemen Vs Da Hoodz matches. D
Well, I’m not ready to outright dismiss this merger but the last two shows have been very generic and very forgettable. At least, they show some semblance of trying to set up story lines. Some momentum is better than none but again, I’d really like to see them try and showcase their own stars somewhat soon. Brian Fury has been MIA for how many weeks? Scotty Slade hasn’t been on in a month or two and Da House Party hasn’t been on the show at all. The end of these reviews sounds like a broken record. With a few more Wrestling On Fire shows in the can, hopefully, we’ll get to see one of Maine’s best only indy wrestling promotions in action here soon!
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