Connor McGrath
Well, it’s been a busy last few months for the newly christened ECPW On Fire. Just last week, I came to the understanding that Apolo, the most recognizable regular with the company, has parted ways with them again. This isn’t a surprise at all but boy, do I feel stupid for posting a positive “Hey, maybe Apolo’s finally turned a corner and isn’t going to walk out on the company again” post a month and a half or so ago.
In fact, Wrestling On Fire seems to mostly exist as Ken Reedy and Mario Savoldi Jr’s heel faction. Apolo’s gone and we haven’t seen a lot of the other regulars (Brian Fury, Ray Ray Mars, Makua, Scotty Slade) in weeks if not months. All of the advertised shows on their website are for ECPW shows. Usually they would have announced some holiday shows by now but I think The Savoldis are gonna let Gino Caruso do the bulk of the promoting while they focus on their video library. Pure speculation there as I really don’t know anything about the inner workings of the company. I lost my password to their message board years ago! I don’t even know if it still exists.
We start with the last few minutes of the Mo Sexton-Andrew Anderson main event last week and watching it again, Sexton has a terrible frog splash. He looks more like he’s belly flopping into a pool or something.
“The Escort” Erik Andretti Vs Joey Simone
Erik Andretti is a male stripper character we saw a few months week back. Joey G is puzzled by Andretti having dollar bills sticking out of his tights and thinks he should be glad he’s not wrestling him because he’d pull them out of his tights and book it. Ken Reedy puts this over as a “Mentor Vs Student” match making me wonder if there’s a Magic Mike story line going on that we just haven’t seen. This match is not very good. Andretti seemed to be working at quarter speed and Simone looked green as hell. Andretti’s moderately entertaining gimmick was the only notable thing about this match. D
ECPW Light Heavyweight Title Match: Dan De Man (c) Vs Sonny Justice Vs Timothy Plezma
Sonny Justice is a skinny black dude with a flamboyant gay gimmick. Justice starts the match off by dancing around the ring while De Man stares at him incredulously. . It says how far we’ve come as a country that Justice is the babyface in this match. Plezma is a dude with a vampire gimmick. A Black Nature Boy, a gay dude and a vampire in the same match? That’s indy rasslin. Joey G shows his age by comparing Justice to Ed Wood (and trying to make the comment wrestling related by putting over Tor Johnson as an all time great) and Rikki Starr. De Man is wearing Captain Marvel themed tights and yells Shazam when he throws chops. The finish to this match is really cool/unique in concept but not very well executed and really sort of stupid/dangerous if you really think about it. DeMan hits a Rock Bottom on Plezma, who was in the middle of hitting Justice with a DDT. Everything about this match seemed thrown together and random. De Man and Justice are both entertaining, compelling personalities but haven’t really put it together in the ring quite yet. Justice should form an oddball tag team with Erik Andretti! C
Ken Reedy is in Tommy’s Corner. Apter’s Alley might have gotten shuttered. Tommy goes over Reedy’s heel turn and says it “really let the air out of his balloon”. Tommy criticizes Reedy for inserting himself into the in-ring action and not just doing his job and commentating matches. This is monumentally silly because Tommy’s been involved in a number of storylines over the years. Reedy tries to convince Tommy to join him and Andrew Anderson in saving Wrestling On Fire but yells “Everybody lives in a different SPOT and I don’t happen to live in the spot that he (Reedy’s) living in!” Tommy is such a compellingly awful interviewer. Half of what he says doesn’t make any sense and he just sounds like his hearing aid is broken and he’s compensating by YELLING every word. So he’s like what Psycho Sid Vicious will be like in twenty ten years.
ECPW Television Title Match: Crazy Ivan (c) (with Doug DeVito) Vs Matt McIntosh
Joey G tries to get to the bottom of Reedy and DeVito’s new alliance and DeVito ends up antagonizing G. The moment Joey G and Doug DeVito have a match is the moment this article becomes “Somebody Call 911! Connor is Watching Ring of Honor”. Crazy Ivan can actually work and busts out some chain wrestling during this match. McIntosh is also sloppy but energetic so this match is a lot better than the other two bouts. There’s a cool spot where McIntosh goes for a leap frog but gets hit with a Sky High by Ivan. Joey and Reedy mention that Crazy Ivan actually has a tag team partner who is still in the pen. They really kind of oversell Ivan’s “craziness” by talking about how they’re afraid he’s going to rip the skin off McIntosh’s face when he has him in a chinlock and wear it as a mask. I get a chuckle though out of them cracking a joke about Doug DeVito hanging out with a hooker (not Erik Andretti, I assume). Finish comes out of nowhere when Ivan hits McIntosh with a clothesline. Huh. Well, match was fairly decent beforehand. B-
I don’t recognize on the wrestlers in the “Next Week On…” montage but one of them wears a bowler hat and monocle and walks around carrying an umbrella so should be pretty awesome!
Again, my review of this show is almost the same as last week’s. I like what they did in concept, they addressed a lot of criticisms I’ve heard about the show; too much non-wrestling filler (three matches again tonight), shows being presented in the right order (this should be something to simple to get right but this company failed to do it consistently until very, very recently), titles being presented as something somewhat important. But at the end of the day, two out of three matches just weren’t very good and I’m still not sure why an announcer is now the #1 heel in the company (though I got to say Reedy’s improving nicely as a character even though the storyline so far is dumb). They’re showing signs of momentum but I’m not sure yet if I like where they’re going.
Wow. That’s like last week’s review and pretty much every review I’ve written for this show in the past six months!
