JHawk
Before I go into the final part of my review, I want to make a few quick comments about TNA’s release of Matt Morgan. Now, I understand that he wanted his release, and you probably don’t want to hold a guy there against his will because he won’t put his best effort in. However, there are a bunch of people on TNA’s roster that are simply wasting space now (Wes Brisco and Garrett Bischoff, I’m looking in your direction) while a bunch of people are getting paid a lot of money to have little to no impact. Hey, I love Sting and Hulk Hogan is a Hall of Famer for just about every wrestling-related Hall of Fame there is, but at this point in their career, they’re not adding to the product at all.
A guy like Matt Morgan? A lot of fans would say “Oh he’s good for a big man.” In my opinion, he’s just good. The guy is capable of good matches with the right opponent, he’s got a great look, and he can talk. No, he’s probably not capable of the five star classics like Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat were in their prime, but he’s certainly good enough that, with good booking and a few breaks, he could be a good enough draw to actually get people watching TNA.
Expect him in WWE by Survivor Series and languishing in the midcard by Extreme Rules.
Now, onto the end of the show.
Old School vs. New School CAPW Reunion Rumble Royale
The concept is pretty straight forward. Fifteen wrestlers representing the “old school” of CAPW and fifteen wrestlers representing the “new school” of CAPW compete in a Royal Rumble style match. Entrances are approximately 90 seconds apart in this one, and I remember them sticking pretty close to them. Remember that Canadian Bad Boy earned number 30 with his win over K.C. Blood in disc 1, and while that’s normally not as big an advantage as normal, in real time he’ll have had about four hours between matches by the time he comes out.
Photo by Wayne Palmer
These are nearly impossible to do good play-by-play on and do it justice, so I’ll end up just doing some observations as it goes along instead.
“Mr. Cool” Ryan Vaughn draws #1 and Eric Ryan draws #2. Vaughn actually hits a nice flying bodypress but tries for a pin, and of course pins don’t count in a rumble. Kenny Hendrix draws #3. Sherman Tank draws #4. Tank and Hendrix are both huge guys, so they stare each other down and start fighting each other. Beatnik Cage is #5 and lounges on the top rope. The announcers talk as if it’s a miracle he’s not in the Bushwhacker Luke role. Sherman Tank charges Jock Samson, but Samson low bridges him to eliminate him.
Marion Fontaine is #10, and he is by far the most over guy in this rumble. K.C. Blood draws #13, and everybody else in the match immediately gangs up and eliminates him. Isaac Montana comes in at #16, and he lays out everybody with Ace crushers, including a cute spot where Lamont Williams, the “President of Professional Wrestling”, sells to his feet, salutes, and drops to the mat. P.C. Lover (better known these days as The Duke) draws #17, immediately eliminates Montana, then gets attacked by several wrestlers. Mr. Cool is finally eliminated at 28:28. Jeremy Madrox is #22 and is immediately eliminated by Fontaine, which is funny because they are currently partners in Prime Wrestling. Fontaine eliminates two more in the next minute, and the place is going BANANA~! (tm Pat Patterson) for him!
Fontaine is eliminated shortly after to a round of boos, and then the ring empties to where it’s just DisCole Fever and John Thorne in the ring. There are still seven men who haven’t entered though, so the ring starts filling back up. Enigma draws #28, and his mask is pulled off as he enters the ring, so he takes the time to put it back on, prompting a discussion about what J.T. would do to him if he were there. Bo Barnes draws #29, and he brings some plundah (tm Dusty Rhodes) with him. Barnes uses salad tongs to the crotches of several wrestlers as Canadian Bad Boy makes his way to the ring. By the time he enters, we’re down to him, Barnes, and South Side Sinclair. Barnes tries to eliminate Sinclair, who lands on the apron. Sinclair stays on the apron as Barnes and Bad Boy fight each other. Bad Boy charges Barnes in the corner, and Barnes moves out of the way, the momentum sending Bad Boy over the top and to the apron. Barnes forearms both men off the apron for what was really an anticlimactic win at around the 44-minute mark (I didn’t hear the official time and forgot to stop my stopwatch, so there you go). Rumbles are hard to be bad, and this was more fun than most non-WWE efforts.
For the Mythical Six Man Tag Team Championship of the World: Afterblaze {Aftermath & Shawn Blaze} & Marion Fontaine vs. Club Munchie {Too Cool Abdul, The Bouncer & A Mystery Partner} (w/Dick Trimmins, Krystal Frost & Darren “The Dish” Davenport)
So let’s have fun with this one. Originally, Bouncer was supposed to team with Blaze and Aftermath. Dick Trimmins; Abdul and J.T. Lightning’s partner as the “mythical six man tag team champions of the world”, was to team with Abdul and the mystery partner. Trimmins was injured, so Bouncer was moved to the babyface team and Fontaine, the most over guy in the battle royal, was added to the heel team.
As for the mythical six man tag team champions of the world, it was a gimmick started by J.T. Lightning in late-2006/early-2007. Lightning and Da Munchies showed up in Turner’s Hall in Cleveland with a trophy one night claiming to have won the trophy in a worldwide tournament. Similar to how the Freebirds had run a similar angle, they rattled off a list of teams they had beaten in the fictional tournament. But they took it one step further, claiming to have beaten the Von Erichs in Dallas as well as beating a team including Johnny Powers at the Cleveland Arena, which had been demolished 30 years earlier. Some will look too far into the historical inaccuracy of it all, but I thought it was a brilliant heel move.
Photo by Wayne Palmer
There was a lot of speculation as to who the mystery partner was going to be. Given how many big names had come in through the years, most figured it would be some sort of surprise name. I had it pegged for Tracey Smothers. Before the announcement could be made, the heel team comes out and demand to know who it was. Cue the music, and…they play J.T. Lightning’s old music…and his son Mike makes his way to the ring for his professional debut. The pop is light as first and gets louder once people realize who it is. Mike then points to the back, and his sister Hannah accompanies him to ringside. I have to admit, this was really cool.
Now you’d probably think that this is the kid’s first ever match. It’s a show in honor of his father, and they want to make sure he doesn’t look bad, so he’s probably not going to do a whole lot, right? You’d be dead wrong. He starts the match with Aftermath and gets some basic but good looking offense in. After taking down pretty much the entire team, he tags out. Fontaine ends up in the ring with all three, and it’s Abdul with a camel clutch, Bouncer adding a Boston crab, and while both holds are locked in Lightning comes in with a sweet baseball slide style dropkick. Bouncer eventually plays face in peril and is worked over by all three opponents. After probably 8-9 minutes, Bouncer and Blaze are down with a double clothesline, and Abdul is given the hot tag.
Lightning comes back in moments later, hits a satellite headscissors to Fontaine, a gorgeous rana to Aftermath, then to take Blaze over with a sunset flip, exposes Blaze’s ass, literally, to the entire crowd. After a backdrop goes awry (the only obviously missed move), the only one in the ring is Lightning, who climbs up top and hits one of the most graceful moonsault planchas I’ve ever seen. Back in the ring, and everybody gets a big move in, culminating in Lightning catching Blaze in his dad’s old crossface finisher for the submission at 15:32. The crowd pops huge for this, giving Mike Lightning and his team a standing ovation.
Photo by Wayne Palmer
During the celebration, Krystal Frost tries to take over the celebration, then grabs the mic saying she was J.T’s personal advisor and not Hannah Lightning. Hannah slaps her, says “You might be his personal advisor, but I’m his blood,” then clotheslines her to a good pop and dumps her out of the ring. The kids take a curtain call, and even heel announcer Aaron Bauer says the kids did their dad proud.
In retrospect, this should have gone on last, as that was the emotional ending you’d want for a show like this. However, a second intermission was needed in order to get the last match set up. Way too many left the building at this point, so the building was about half full when we got to the main event.
CAPW Throwback Three Way Tag Team Ladder Match: Irish Airborne (Jake & Dave Crist) vs. Q & A (Virus & Unknown) vs. Faith In Nothing (Christian Faith & Vincent Nothing)
This is a rematch from a match that a lot of people considered the greatest in CAPW history, a match that aired on Sports Time Ohio in 2007. Pretty sure I have the original on DVD somewhere and might have to hunt it down. One of the old CAPW Tag Team Title belts is hanging from a wire which is connected to two poles. I remember the intermission being insanely long as they tried to make sure everything was fully secure, and it still looks like it could fall apart at any minute. The concept? Get the belts by any means necessary and be considered CAPW’s greatest tag team ever. By the way, “by any means necessary” would, almost by accident, become important later on.
Photo by Wayne Palmer
Early on, Dave Crist stands on Faith’s back and could have grabbed the belts, but backflipped into a modified moonsault. I can’t remember seeing that anywhere else. We have three or four dives to the floor in the first four minutes of the match. Dave Crist makes the first attempt at the belts, and Faith goes to bring him down. The ladder collapses under their weight. Faith recovers and goes for the belt, and Jake Crist takes him down with a modified enzuigiri. Jake goes up, and Nothing takes him down with a Russian legsweep. Virus goes up, but seeing that Faith is going to stop him comes off on his own into a rana. Unknown heads up, and Faith takes him down by power bombing him into another ladder. With one ladder against the ropes and one against a corner, Faith in Nothing whips Dave Crist into the corner ladder. This knocks the other ladder over. It hits Faith in the face and he runs across the ring and still connects with a forearm.
There’s a lot going on, and by the time I describe one move I’ve missed two or three. Jake heads up, Nothing brings him down with an Ace Crusher, and the ladder ends up landing on Nothing. Dave Crist has a ladder set up between the apron and guardrail and tries to moonsault Faith, but Faith moves and Crist literally breaks the ladder into two going through it. Not sure anything else that happens will top that for the “holy shit” factor. At this point we have at least three broken ladders, to the point that they push a ladder over instead of trying to use it to climb. This is where “by any means necessary” takes effect, as guys are trying to reach the belts by standing on a chair because there are no ladders to climb.
Eventually, they find another ladder, and they use one of the broken ladders across the ropes as a bridge. Dave Crist climbs, and Virus tries to run across the bridging ladder and it collapses. A table breaks outside as Jake Crist and Vincent Nothing are on the top rope. Jake takes him down with a superplex, then rolls through into a brain buster. Moments later, Vincent Nothing attempts to climb the ladder but Irish Airborne are back up. Faith takes one down. The other takes Nothing off the ladder, but the belt falls to the mat and Faith dives onto it for the win at 21:13. Most people would probably call it disappointing, but I can’t hold it against any of the workers. The match was slow in the middle due to the lack of ladders. The crowd wasn’t as good as it should have been because it was a very long and there were several points where someone could have grabbed the belts and didn’t, but it was very good. After the match, Irish Airborne and Faith in Nothing praise each other, and of course praise J.T. Lightning.
And so ends the longest card I’ve ever seen, but also the greatest card I’ve ever seen live. Seriously, find this DVD on either aiwrestling.com or smartmarkvideo.com. The matches are fantastic all around (even the “bad” isn’t bad at all), plus the commentary does a fantastic job of telling you who they are, why they’re on the show, and what their history with J.T. Lightning and each other is. I cannot praise this show enough.
Absolute Intense Wrestling has kept the tradition alive the last two years, hosting the J.T. Lightning Invitational Tournament over two days in May the last two years to keep his name alive. But this show, with all the emotion involved, led to everybody making their best effort in order to make the man proud. For some, he was a trainer. For some, he was a mentor. For some he was a friend or a brother. But to an entire generation of wrestlers and wrestling fans, J.T. Lightning was an inspiration and a man who will never be forgotten,
