Connor McGrath
Good afternoon, folks! Hope all of you had a splendid Thanksgiving weekend. My readers outside the good ol’ US of A can go suck a lemon! For many promotions, Thanksgiving has been the backdrop for important moments and ECPW/Wrestling On Fire is no different is today, we’ll see the “summit” between WOF’s “meanie weenies” Ken Reedy and Mario Savoldi Jr and Uncle Tommy Savoldi and “The Voice of ECPW” Joey G. It actually aired last week but somehow we got it as a rerun.
Anyway, Mario Jr and Reedy try to convince Tommy Savoldi to join their side and block the ECPW/WOF merger. I get way too excited at the prospect of a heel Tommy Savoldi. Uncle Tommy gets really flustered. I like how they’re capitalizing on the fact that he’s a confused old guy by making his character a confused old guy. Tommy, at one point, admits he has no idea what’s going on. Me and you both. The summit ends with the baddies storming 0ff and promising a “giant surprise” at the next ECPW show and one of them talks about how they’re going to burn the ECPW Arena in Lake Hiawatha to the ground which seems a bit over the top. I would say the segment ending with Joey G saying the summit didn’t really solve anything and things were just as confusing as ever would be kind of meta if it wasn’t WOF we were talking about. This angle really brings back bad memories of the worst of Vince Russo when he would try to book an angle with lots of twists and turns and just ended up booking an angle where even they’re not sure what’s going on.
An almost teary eyed Joey G is hosting the show by himself this week. He says Mario Sr had Thanksgiving with Gino Caruso while Tommy was off having a Swanson’s frozen dinner by himself and Ken Reedy, Andrew Anderson, and Doug DeVito are on a three day cruise somewhere, beating up people and stealing their turkeys (!?). Ya know…most promotions wouldn’t book a family feud right after one of members of said family dies. Then again, it is pro wrestling so yeah, most promotions would.
Punisher Martinez Vs Dominican Diablo
Here’s one from the vaults and by the vaults. I mean they’re talking about Halloween during the entrances. Punisher is an Undertaker-esque badass face, right down to wearing tights that look like Big Evil Era Taker’s. . Diablo despite the evil sounding name is just a goofy heel, who does the Carlton dance for some reason. Mario Jr is on color commentary and pulls a Tony Schiavone by spending the first half of the match talking about other story lines. Joey G compares Diablo to Johnny Rodz and starts waxing poetic causing Mario Jr to flip out. Match ends with Diablo weaseling his way to a countout victory after Big Bad John throws him into the turnbuckle while Diablo distracts the referee. This match seemed like a knockoff of a Razor Ramon-Undertaker matchup that was on a gazillion Coliseum Videos in the early ’90s except for way worse. And that Ramon-Taker match wasn’t very good to begin with! D
Joey G hypes up a Big Bad John-Punisher Martinez match down the road.
ECPW Light Heavyweight Title Match: Dan De Man (c) Vs Eric Alvarado Vs Johnny Dozaki
We’ve got a disproportionate amount of triple threat matches for the Light Heavyweight Title matches and they’re all the same. It’s all the sneaky heel veteran outsmarting the green rookies. Dan De Man tries to look arrogant during his entrance but just kind of looks bummed out here. Dan De Man is actually one of my favorites on this show but they sure give him a thankless task with these multiman matches with recent graduates of ECPW’s wrestling school. We know Alvarado is a heel too because he has an INTENSE stare down with a fan with Downs Syndrome during his entrance. We get a close up of an eight year old kid flipping off Alvarado, looking embarrassed because the camera caught him throwing up the swear finger before shrugging and going back to giving Alvarado the business! HAH!
Dozaki is a scrawny white dude who loves anime. Even the announcers bury his physique (or lack thereof) and when the announcers on this show are pointing out your poor physique…Joey G confuses Alvarado and Dozaki despite them looking nothing alike (and one being one white and one being Hispanic). Alvarado and Dozaki end tensions between Latinos and anime loving nerds by teaming up on De Man but that ends just as quickly when the heels decide to beat down Dozaki. Oh well. De Man steals Dozaki’s headband and does a crane kick. De Man wins with his modified urinage finisher on Dozaki. This was fine…as it always is. C+
For some reason, Joey G doesn’t mention Dozaki in his post match/end of the show wrap up and just talks about how Alvarado came up short in his title shot. Even though Alvarado was only tangentially involved in the finish. Joey G promises to get the bottom of this situation with the Savoldis. He promised that last show. He might as well to promise to not compare any wrestler on the show to a WWWF mid-carder of the ’70s. Not gonna happen. Joey G ends the show by thanking the troops for making Thanksgiving possible. I think he’s confusing his American holidays that happen in November just like he confuses graduates of the ECPW Training Center.
Well, this year, I’m thankful I don’t have to watch ECPW On Fire until next week! I hope you enjoyed this recap and remember to keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars. One final note; brothers, I know you’ve got the Christmas spirit in you, but wear condoms!
