Connor McGrath
Good morning/afternoon/evening/night! And welcome to the second to last edition of this column/recap for the Summer of 2013! When we last joined the stars of Wrestling On Fire (and to a lesser extent, East Coast Professional Wrestling), Mario Savoldi had declared the WOF title vacant after the controversial finish to the Brian Fury/Apolo match in front of a capacity crowd at the Parsippany PAL, ending Brian Fury’s 21 month reign with the WOF Title and declared the beginning of ECPW On Fire. Who will emerge in this new era as the face of Wrestling On Fire? We’ll hopefully see sometime before the start of 2015. That’s not a typo. I really I’m not sure I have enough faith in the consistency of this company’s long term storytelling abilities to trust they’ll crown a new champ sometime in the next year and a half.
I’m kidding, sort of.
We start with Mario Savoldi’s announcement from last week and ads for the Ken Reedy Show and one of WOF’s house bands, Truth in Needles. RIVETING START TO THE NEW ERA!
ECPW Tag Team Titles Match: Bandido Jr and Frankie Flow Vs The Fallen Angels (with Dante)
This is a rematch of a bout we saw a few weeks ago, I believe. Ken Reedy has the temerity to call the venue they’re holding this in “the ECPW Arena”. I do have to say that the venue that a lot of these ECPW matches are from is way cooler than the usual, drab middle school gymnasiums WOF does their shows in. It’s some sort of super small Elks Lodge or something with numerous CHANDELIERS and DISCO BALLS hanging. And it always legit seems packed with hot crowds. Anyway, this match is a significant improvement over their encounter we saw a few weeks earlier. Just a no frills, meat and potatoes “Dominant Babyfaces Vs Sneaky Heels” match. Champs go over when Flow hits a Full Nelson Slam on the bigger Angel. I can’t say I’m too impressed yet by Frankie Flow. He seems like just the kind of semi-immobile, big lunk WWE was salivating over and handing out huge developmental contracts to just until the past few years. Hopefully, MAYBE…we’ve moved past that era. Luckily, he’s paired with workers who can bump and move reasonably well to cover up his shortcomings and he still seems new in the game. B-
Sort of interesting to note we’ve seen Frankie Flow and Bandido Jr defend their ECPW Tag Titles numerous times on this program in the past two months or so and WOF Tag Team Champs Da House Party have held their belts for almost SIX MONTHS and I can’t recall seeing them on the show at all. Outside of their appearance in the opening credits. Just a thing that makes you go “Hmm”. Congratulations on your return to television/relevance, Arsenio Hall!
Apter’s Alley: This week, Bill cuts right to the chase and welcomes his guest, Former ECPW Champ “The Re-enforcer” Andrew Anderson. Woah. An Apter’s Alley segment that’s actually relevant to current WOF Storylines. Andrew Anderson goes through the story behind ECPW and Wrestling On Fire’s merger. I’m not going to call it ECPW On Fire though until they change the opening credits, by the way. And the TV guide still calls it “NWA On Fire”. Andrew Anderson is pissed at the merger because it means he has to start back at square one and vows to beat Apolo and Jumbo Joe Gunns to become the undisputed champ. This promo is pretty good outside of Anderson burying Gunns by calling him slow, old, and fat when Anderson is only slightly younger and just as slow and fat as Gunns. Anyway, this was an effective use of Apter, who plays a really good straight man to hysteric heel wrestlers. I can’t believe they haven’t had him doing this earlier. It’s way more effective to have him interview the guys on the roster who have competent mic skills and play up current storylines instead of having him ramble to no end about the state of the mat game and interview disinterested legends.
Anyway, the show this week…actually pretty decent. Unfortunately, I won’t be catching Wrestling On Fire’s returns to the Farmington Fairgrounds in a few days but hopefully, I’ll get a report back on it and we’ll definitely see some matches from the show…at some point before 2015. Anyway, as always, keep your head clear in this Culture Crossfire. And to all of my Jewish readers, Happy Yom Kippur!
