Somebody Call 911! Connor is Watching ECPW On Fire (11-2-13)

Your eyes aren’t fooling you, longtime readers (reader?) of this column….the good folks at Wrestling On Fire have re branded themselves for the second time in less than six months.  The promotion has been referring to themselves as ECPW On Fire, to reflect their alliance with East Coast Pro Wrestling, for several months but on this week’s show, we got the debut of new opening credits and graphics. So if the graphic and opening credits say ECPW On Fire…I will too. Even if the Facebook page says “Wrestling On Fire” and the digital guide still calls it “NWA Wrestling”. Anyway, hope Magnum TA’s on today’s show!!!

 

The Fallen Angels (with Dante)  Vs Frankie Flow and Junior Flow

Frankie Flow is one half of the ECPW Tag Team Champs with Bandido Jr but is taking a break to team up with his son Junior, for some reason. Frankie and Junior look about as much alike as me and Taylor Lautner. Frankie’s faced off with the Fallen Angels twice on the show with Bandido. One of the matches was fairly decent and one was fairly crappy. We’re joined in progress here, just in time for Junior to get the hot tag to his father. Not sure who’s on commentary with Ken Reedy today but it’s a dude who sounds like a Paisan from Jersey. Another Savoldi maybe? Anyway, Frankie bulldozes the Angels but gets powder thrown in his face by the Angels manager Dante and accidentally whacks his son. One of the Angels rolls up Frankie for the win. After the match, Frankie and his son have a heated argument and the color commentator pleads “JUNE-YAH, THAT’S YA FAWTHUH! C’MON JUNE-YAH!” Anyway, we only get the last minute or two of this match so I can’t really properly grade it. Incomplete.

 

Ricky Palmer Vs Big Bad John

Big Bad John looks and is dressed like an obese version of Kevin Steen. Palmer stupidly tries to match strength with John and gets squashed for his troubles. I get a chuckle out of Reedy calling a move “he hits him with an…uh…ass to the midsection.'” Didn’t know they could swear on this show.  The commentators bust the referee’s balls for his goofy selling. The venue they’re at for this week’s show looks like a cross between the ECW Arena and any number of black box college theaters that have been subjected to my acting. John wins after catching Palmer from the top and hitting him with a modified Rock Bottom. The announcers temporarily become distracted, waxing poetic about Andre The Giant’s strength during the finish. This was what it was. A good old fashioned hoss squash match. And while it didn’t reach the heights of my homey Andre (RIP), it did do its job of introducing Big Bad John as the kind of fat tub you don’t want to mess with. I’ll give it a generous B-

 

Next, it’s the return of Tommy’s Corner, Tommy Savoldi’s interview segment which we haven’t seen in some months. He interviews someone slightly less comprehensible than him, ECPW’s resident nut case, Television Champ Crazy Ivan. Ivan calls out WOF Television Champion Ricky Reyes and Savoldi says he can’t beat Reyes which causes Ivan “to lose it”. Savoldi talks like someone who types in ALL CAPS WRITES. (Or maybe more accurately like a sixty something dude who’s hearing is shot)  JUST YELLING ALL OF THE TIME FOR NO REASON!

“The Re-Enforcer” Andrew Anderson (With Doug DeVito) Vs Mo Sexton

It’s main event time. It seems that this week’s show is directly addressing the criticisms that this show hasn’t featured that many matches this week but the show’s only a half hour. If it only has one 12 minute match that’s well built up to, I’d prefer that over three tossed off four minute matches. Both men are former ECPW Champs. Sexton is billed as a half Italian, half Croatian sensation. That kind of random ethnic gimmick reminds me of Aldo Montoya: Portuguese Man of War.

Both guys address the name change issue by saying the merger between ECPW and Wrestling On Fire hasn’t been made official…look, if the graphic calls it ECPW On Fire. That’s what I’m going to call it. Both men stall interminably. Both guys are doing a good job of working the crowd by doing as little as possible. Reedy compares Doug DeVito to Vince Lombardi which causes Paisan Commentator to get all huffy and say DeVito is more like Mary Lombardi and Reedy is enraged by the comparison to a made up person. Getting the crowd worked up without really doing much seems to be Anderson’s MO, which seems like an insult but makes a lot of sense for a dude in his forties working small indy shows. Anyway, the match ends when Ken Reedy attempts to interfere by whacking Saxon with a chair but Gino Caruso walking down to ringside to chase him and DeVito off. Saxton hits Anderson with a superkick and frog splash to score the upset victory. The show closes with DeVito arguing with the color commentator (who we finally out that his name is Joey G…yeah, definitely Italian American) and to drive that point home, DeVito accuses Joey of robbing a Brinks Armored Truck. Sexton celebrates in the crowd to end the show. This match wasn’t anything to write home about. C+

We get a preview of next week’s matches. I guess we’ll be seeing ECPW Television Champ Crazy Ivan and ECPW Light Heavyweight Champ Dan De Man next week.

I’m already seeing an improvement here in terms of production and show layout. Every match presented either presented a storyline or introduced a new character. I mean it seems simple but WOF all too often has been guilty of segments where it was just presented as “Here’s two wrestlers wrestling. Let’s watch them.” Also, this was definitely presented as a clear and concise half hour show rather than the chopped up version of their hour show. I might not have liked all or even the majority of what they’re presenting it but how they presented it this week was a marked improvement over previous shows. A lot of these things you’d think would be obvious but you’d be surprised how many smaller promotions mess them up and I’m glad, at least for this week, ECPW On Fire isn’t messing them up.

 

Well. We’ll see if this name change takes for another week. Until then, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars and don’t feed your dogs chocolate!