Connor McGrath
Last week, we took a look at what might lie ahead for WOF’s future and it’s somewhat fitting that we take a look at WOF’s past this week. Three weeks back, Angelo Savoldi, five time NWA Junior Heavyweight Champion, father/uncle of WOF’s owners, and wrestling star of the ’50s and ’60s passed away at the age of 99. This week, we take (another) break from the current WOF action, to pay tribute to the patriarch of the WOF/IWCCW/ICW dynasty.
We open the show with a moving ten bell salute that shows some of the highlights of
Angelo Savoldi Vs Hector Serrano
Savoldi is the heel here as he often was during his career. Fun (?) fact: During a match with Danny Hodge (Jim Ross’ hero!, Savoldi was stabbed in the back with a pen knife by Danny Hodge’s father. Ah, when wrestling was rasslin’! Anyway, when watching classic wrestling from the black and white era, I’m always impressed by how much they treated it like legitimate competition. Savoldi goes over when he catches Serrano coming off the ropes for a shoulder block with a bodyslam. That was a fun trip to wrestling yesteryears. B
I guess it’s not going to be entirely a Angelo Savoldi Tribute Show cause we cut to current action. They probably don’t have a whole wealth of footage as sadly, a lot of the pre VCR wrestling has been lost, floating out there in the ether with the 97 lost episodes of Dr. Who and the Bollywood remake of Godzilla.
“The Machine” Sam Shields Vs Junior Flow
The venue they’re in looks ridiculously small but apparently, it’s the normal Parsippany PAL Building. Maybe they curtained off half the gym for an intramural basketball game they had that night or something. Ken Reedy hypes being in the corner of Geno Caruso in his match against Andrew Anderson. Reedy says he regrets it had to come to this but hey, it was his time for the yearly “Wrestler Vs Announcer” storyline that Wrestling On Fire loves to do. They keep referring to Sam Shields as “The Machine” during this match. What is this, 1986 WWF? Actually considering they’ve brought Koko B. Ware, Tony Atlas, and Bob Backlund for cups of coffee, WOF might actually bring in the actual Machines. These guys do a competent big heel Vs feisty cruiserweight babyface match. Shields wins with a big clothesline off of the top rope. C+
Ricky Palmer Vs Kenny Bengal
This match is JIP and is another “showcase”/time filler match. Palmer is a black dude with a faux hawk and Bengal is an ex football player of some sort. You know the Parsippany PAL Building crowd is like the bizarro version of the Meadowlands Arena crowd the night after WrestleMania (except 500x) smaller, they do a lot of chants but they’re all kayfabe (and actually related to the match they’re watching) but none of them are really that clever. It’s more like instructions to the ref. It’s kind of weird. Of course, when I went to a Wrestling On Fire show back in 2010 and me and a bunch of wise ass heel fans chanted at Apolo to “Hold The Rope” during the tag team main event because he just absent mindedly wandered around his corner without holding the rope in the corner. ANYWAY, I digress! Bengal demonstrates his strength and goes over here with a double underhook slam followed by a powerbomb. Some young WOF/ECPW fans dance in the aisles in celebration. Bengal, physically, looks pretty impressive. He’s obviously in the very, very early stages of his career and could use a bulk sized can of polish but looks like he should someday be a force in WOF/ECPW. C
Anyway, this was a fine show to return to the Maine airwaves with. Given that they’ve had three weeks to produce this, I would have liked to see a bit more footage of Angelo Savoldi or barring that, maybe some interviews with his family and some of the wrestler he’s influenced, about his influence on the wrestling world to give the tribute a little bit more context. On the other hand, they don’t have a lot of footage and quite frankly, that sort of thing might not interest the younger fans. These tribute shows are sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t type proposition and I thought they did a fine job of memorializing Papa Savoldi while still getting some time in to push the current product.
