Connor McGrath
Welcome to the FINAL Wrestling On Fire recap of 2013. 2013 has been quite the hectic year for this little promotion that kind of, sort of sometimes looks like it can. In the past eight months alone, this promotion has changed its name three times; from NWA On Fire to Wrestling On Fire then from Wrestling On Fire to ECPW On Fire (to reflect its “alliance” with Northeast indy promotion East Coast Professional Wrestling) then back to Wrestling On Fire. We saw the end of Brian Fury’s 21 month WOF Title reign (and I’d venture to say his run in the company in general since we haven’t seen him since September but with this promotion, who the hell knows?). WOF’s biggest name, Puerto Rican superstar Apolo returned and then almost as quickly left for approximately the 58th time in this company’s six year history. We’ve also seen at least a dozen different people as “the voice of “WOF” in the commentary booth. Each one more annoying than the last. Heck, I think you might see me in the commentary booth at some point in 2014, at this rate.
Bill Apter also had a segment on here for a few months where they just allowed him to ramble on to no end for a good ten minutes of the show and occasionally interview pro wrestling greats of the ’70s and ’80s. It was rarely as entertaining as it sounds on paper although I’m a bit sad, it quietly disappeared. Especially as the last edition, they seemed to reformat it to actually be relevant to the company’s storylines and they reined in Apter and let him use his skills as an old school wrestling interviewer.
When I started recapping this show in the early spring, the WOF Tag Team division wasn’t any great shakes but it was one of the more stable aspects in a promotion that almost permanently stands on shaky legs. Now…the titles have been vacated for over three months with no rhyme or reason and there’s been no word on how or even if WOF will crown new champions. We also started an inter-promotional feud, which like all inter promotional feuds has devolved into a muddled, thorough and inexplicably confusing mess.
Speaking of vacant titles, WOF is finally working towards crowning its new champion after it being vacant for almost four months. The first round of the tournament to crown the new champ begins on December 27th. With the four participants announced so far being; Ricky Reyes, Crazy Ivan, Josef Von Schmidt and Ray Ray Marz. Let’s hope 2014 brings some more stability to the world of Wrestling On Fire. And let’s hope Culture Crossfire doesn’t cancel this column!
We start off with a recap of last week’s show (which wasn’t aired here in Portland) and the announcement of an inter promotional tag team at the December 20th show, pitting ECPW’s Matt McIntosh and WOF’s Ricky Reyes against WOF’s Kai Katana and ECPW’s Crazy Ivan! You got chocolate in my peanut butter, you got peanut butter in my chocolate! McIntosh and Reyes cut a promo, hyping the match to decide who the best dude in each promotion. See this is what they should have been doing all along. Just because you have two promotions working together, one side doesn’t have to be heel and one doesn’t have to be babyface. Shades of Gray (copyright Culture Crossfire columnist Stephen Gray)
Ken Reedy trolls one of the Savoldis on the phone in a studio segment but the audio quality is so bad, you can’t really tell what anybody is saying. This show is off to a great start.
We go back to the Paramus Elks Lodge where Doug DeVito is trolling some old pudgy guy and Andrew Anderson attacks old dude with a chain. Again, the audio is so bad at the start of this segment that I have no idea what anybody’s saying. I get a laugh out of the first words I understand being “And now you’re getting beat up with a chain.” Andrew Anderson issues an open challenge to anybody in the locker room for the December 20th show. Gino Caruso comes out and teases accepting the challenge before introducing Punisher Martinez.
Ken Reedy talks to a mystery man on the cell phone about how him and Mario Jr have Uncle Tommy under control in front of a mind bogglingly terrible green screen, depicting an office. Seriously, I can sort of understand using a green screen for some things on this show but they really couldn’t have found somebody’s office to borrow?
Crazy Ivan and Kai Katana cut a promo on McIntosh and Ricky Reyes about the match on December 20th. Simple, no frills but effective way to sell a match. I like the Kai and Ivan pairing but I’ve always had a soft spot for wacky tag teams.
Masks Vs Belts for the ECPW Tag Team Titles: Frankie Flow and Bandido Jr (c) Vs Masked Men
The Masked Men don’t have a name. Seriously,m the announcers just refer to them as “the masked men”. I think they’re wearing Jack Skeleton lucha libre masks. Which is fitting since this is the last show before Christmas. The match starts with the two teams brawling around the crowd. The referee asks the commentators what to do. I’m not sure if he was trying to be funny but manohman. They finally get to the ring. Reedy and Joey G make a lot of “Parts Unknown” jokes. This match is like something from a lame Southern indy show that I might have seen once. I just noticed the Masked Men are wrestling in slacks. How mysterious. We get a stupid finish with ref distractions and a third man attacking Frankie Flow with a crowbar to give the masked men the win. The first two masked men reveal themselves to be Sam Shields (a guy best known to me for getting constantly mixed up in my brain with TNA’s Sam Shaw) and The Dominican Diablo. Ken Reedy says “all H-E-double hockey sticks is breaking loose!” What is this? Elementary school. I can understand being family friendly but c’mon! Anyway, how appropriate we end the year in WOF with one of the worst matches we’ve seen all year. D-
A disoriented Frankie Flow unmasks the third man as his son Junior Flow and staggers back in disbelief. Of all the angles to reenact, Hulk Hogan unmasking The Butcher really isn’t one of them. Junior Flow scurries to the back. I have to say, I’ll give WOF props for uniqueness in one aspect. I can’t remember many Father Vs Son wrestling angles, outside of Shane Vs Vince. Oh wait, now I just reminded myself of Ric Flair Vs David Flair. God damn you memory. Frankie Flow does some Top Gun-esque manly crying in the ring. The audio quality gets weird again and is really echo-y and sort of sounds like the intro to KISS’ “God of Thunder”. Joey G tries to interview Frankie Flow but Flow shoves him away.
Punisher Martinez cuts a promo on Andrew Anderson. Punisher Martinez is a ripoff of Big Red Evil era Undertaker, which I feel I’m a big enough dork to point out the irony since The Undertaker briefly went by the name of the Punisher in his early days. Andrew Anderson responds by saying he tricked the world into thinking he broke Ken Reedy’s leg when he didn’t and he’ll outsmart The Punisher.
The show closes with Ken Reedy and Mario Savoldi Jr talking about how they outsmarted Uncle Tommy (who was the person Reedy was trolling earlier that I couldn’t understand. The incomprehensible nature of that segment suddenly makes sense) and gloating about how they’ll block the merger. Mario Jr says he’s got a mission for Reedy and tells him to go to a mysterious location overseas to pick up a special surprise that Gino Caruso and Papa Mario can’t do anything to stop. Is he picking up a heel Bill Goldberg? Mario Jr says he even got Ken Reedy’s wife a ticket. What a nice guy. And with that, 2013 comes to close for WOF TV.
This show wasn’t as bad as the recap reads. Outside of the first two segments, the non-wrestling stuff was perfectly fine “let’s hype our big show” promos if not particularly fascinating. But the one match and all of the technical difficulties really made this a subpar end to another subpar year for them. Well, so ends the last WOF recap of 2013 for me. During this holiday season, in the spirit of giving, remember NOT to give your pets a stomach ache by NOT feeding them chocolate! Thanks for reading and see you in 2014!
