BEER ONE: Premier Wrestling Federation has impressed me, because usually northeast indys are just flippity floppity shit by itself, with maybe Prince Nana or King Kong Bundy thrown in for good measure, plus some hardcore Jersey style bullshit garbage matches. But the PWF brings the southern respect, due to Corino cutting his teeth and his forehead down in North Carolina early on in his career. North Carolina is God’s Country, and at one point, was the most fertile ground for independent wrestling. In the early ‘90s, you couldn’t fuck throw an empty RC can out the window of your Maverick without hitting a telephone poll with a wrestling poster staple gunned to it. To me, that’s good shit. You should be afraid some redneck is gonna kick your ass in the parking lot after a wrestling show, just because you look funny. That type of fear keeps us honest, and maintains that natural beast in us, that doesn’t get all egofied nerdy and proud to know some dumb shit about something that most people could give a fuck less about. That’s wrestling. Most people could give a fuck less about it. You say wrestling, and people laugh and think of a Hulk Hogan cartoon, not Low-Ki and American Dragon, or even Beautiful Bobby Eaton and Sweet Stan Lane. To mainstream America, wrestling is a fucking joke. I don’t know what I’m getting at, but there’s this tape, and I expect it to be great, because Steve Corino is behind it, and he understands the nerd, and he understands the redneck, and he understands working stiff and working the crowd, and you need all of that to make wrestling bonafide quality wrestling. At least, how I see it, you do. Anyways, let’s watch some wrestling. On the agenda is the Lockdown in Pottsdown, and wrestling in buildings with ceiling tile always rules. They’re bringing out all these guys who are small and gonna be in an elimination match for the Jr. Heavyweight title later. Quiet Storm looks like a pizza delivery guy, and Red is so fuckin’ young looking, I imagine he’s NAMBLA’s favorite wrestler. And I don’t know who he is, but I’m rooting for the guy with the shirt that has a mouse with big ears on the front and in home-done spray paint on the back “ABSOLUT LATINO”. And hey, there’s an old guy in a cowboy hat there talking to people, plus fat bald guys on the other side of the ring. This is a true wrestling crowd here in Pottstown.
BEER TWO: Joey Matthews and Christian York, eternally looking like the 16-year-olds they are not, along with Donnie B., who is best described as an evil Nova in appearance. And there is nothing more glorious than being billed as “former WWF developmental talent”. Donnie B. is great; there just aren’t enough shitty heel managers in this World, especially ones wearing Hawaiian print shirts. The PWF tag champs, the S.A.T., come out, and we have a top-notch curtain jerker between two top-notch indy tag teams. Matthews & York look like kids with alcoholic parents, hanging out in the parking lot of the Hardee’s, pimping a Dodge truck with 20-inch chrome knock-offs, listening to Tupac, talking shit to the same stupid bitches every weekend, every Friday and Saturday night, trying to get some free six dollar burgers out of the deal. This is a two out of three falls match, and Donnie B is rubbing oil on Joey Matthews, to bring the everhating homophobic rage of the crowd. That is old school, and there is not a thing wrong with it. The 16-year-olds hit a double burning hammer on one of the Super Crazy Jr.’s and wins the first fall. I don’t mind the S.A.T. so much when Red’s not around, he just looks too young. Maybe he should go out west and work a program with Vic Grimes and get some scars or some shit, maybe some facial tattoos. Then, even though he’ll look twelve still, he’ll be a bad ass looking 12-year-old. The thing I hate about wrestling now, is this is a decent enough match, but it lacks something, notably HEAT. I don’t care because the crowd doesn’t care, and they don’t care because the workers don’t care. It’s all fine and dandy they want to be great athletes and bust some innovative wrestling moves, but if it doesn’t fall under the context of either pissing off or pumping up the fuckin’ fat asses in the seats with gin on their breath, it doesn’t mean shit. I’m all about workrate, but I’m not gonna appreciate workrate for workrate’s sake, because it’s just one part of the whole formula. It was neglected for so long in sports entertainment fake reality that nerds have mistakenly thunk it’s the key ingredient. Somewhere, I missed the second fall, but the S.A.T. took the third fall with the Spanish Fly on York. Some ugly chick with thick glasses is marking out for the S.A.T. and it makes me happy, as that’s wrestling. Ugly chicks who are way into Journey (that’s dated by my days as a youngster hating my weird aunt’s choice in music, I imagine today’s ugly chick is way into something like P.O.D. instead of Journey). A little kid is mocking Donnie B. as they go back through the dressing room door.
BEER THREE: Billy Bax comes out and he looks like a volunteer firefighter whose job is landscaping at the local college. Landscaping is a great word for cutting grass. Holy fuck, there’s a giant fat guy with all sorts of bad tattoos, and Road Warrior Hawk hair styling, coming out. He’s jawjacking, and fuck, the Straw Hat Guy is there in the crowd talking shit, I hope the fat dude, Super Slam is his name, beats the fuck out of Straw Hat Guy. Fuck famous fans. The old cowboy hat guy talks shit, too. I love when the crowd hates a fat guy with tattoos. Billy Bax is outweighed by two riding mowers, and is leery of entering the ring. Super Slam rules; he’s like the missing link between Vader and Bastion Booger. Slam wins the tattoo war, as Bax has that same goofy tribal design that kids get from temporary tattoo machines at K-Mart on his upper spinal chord. Slam has some drippy ominous shit all over his upper arms, very pro-Metal Church looking. Super Slam wins, and then some fat guy in the front row runs up and exposes his belly to Super Slam, and Slam teases a Greco-Roman lock-up, then points at the guy and calls for security. I love heels. That makes me fucked up, because you’re supposed to hate the heels. Rapid Fire Maldonado comes out, and he is all evil Latino. The announcers say he superkicked a fan a few months ago and got suspended. Maldonado talks some pro-brown shit, and Julio Dinero rushes out with his long hair to defend the babyfaceness of Hispanic people everywhere. Julio Dinero is a recurring theme in my life, being the guy who was “the Freakin’ Puerto Rican” heel at the Chesterfield County Fair when I took my pregnant wife to go see wrestling, and the crowd chanted “Taco Bell” at him and some little girl in front of us on the hay bale bleachers was stoked to be getting five bucks off her pops to get an autographed Polaroid of “Taco Bell”. And then when he got in my face at the NWA Virginia show at a bar in Harrisonburg, which probably wasn’t a good idea, but luckily, I’m a sport, and when he made fun of my name Raven, I said, “Thanks, Mr. Corino,” things went downhill from there. He wanted to mock me, and he did, and the 14-year-olds with replica ECW belts laughed heartily at me, but they weren’t old enough to drink beer and they didn’t have a wife with big titties to suck on at home either. Life works out how it’s supposed to if you let it. Or something. So Maldonado and Dinero are getting outside the ring ugly on each other, and the crowd of drunk whites are chanting “BORING! BORING!” because there’s no white people in this match.
BEER FOUR: Dinero is sanchezing up and hits a sunset flip, but Maldonado is not to be dominated. They are doing the back and forth thing, where they try and elbow the fuck out of each other, turn by turn, just a little tough man trading shots thing going on. I hate the high clotheslines and elbows heels do when the face is supposed to duck. Motherfuckers should do that shit like you normally would and it should be up to the face to duck low enough or get fuckin’ clobbered. Dinero yells “Come on!” and nobody responds. Maldonado has a loaded boot, and hits an enziguri. Man, I can’t get enough of a loaded boot gimmick. The Commissioner character brings out the kid who got superkicked by Rapid Fire a few months ago and is demanding an apology. The kid is Red’s older brother, I bet. Hahaha, of course, Rapid Fire attacks the kid, and is picking him up and slamming him like a maniac. Small people bump well. Old cowboy hat guy is all riled up over Maldonado’s evil tactics. “One half of the Northern Rednecks, Matt Vandal” says the commentator. Let’s see, handkerchief bandana? Check. Upper arm tattoos, including barbed wire? Check. Pleather pants? Check. His opponent is Platinum Mike Preston, who is way too cocky to be a face, with his shiny pants and dyed blonde hair, yet there he is, slapping hands with fans. Wait, I had the heel/face structure backwards, as I wrongly assumed a guy who was part of the Northern Rednecks would be a heel. I forgot, this ain’t Brooklyn, it’s Pottsdown. You know, the North is just one big place I don’t want to have to drive through to me. Platinum Preston stopped the standard hiptoss thing off the ropes by Vandal, then instead of doing some crazy reverse, or anything you’d expect, he punched him in the stomach and hit a neckbreaker. That rocked. Preston hits a schoolboy for the win, and Lou E. Dangerously is great on the color commentary, like Cyrus, just not quite as good.
BEER FIVE: It is my nemesis, Biggie Biggs, who is Dusty Rhodes mixed modern with hip hop. Any guy wearing an upside down visor should get beat down by drunk clowns, in my opinion. Biggs’ partner is Lance Erickson, and their manager/second is Simon Rothschild. Biggie Biggs has a t-shirt tan, and is out of shape, which makes his hip hop gimmick even goofier. I would assume it was him trying to be a cheap heel, but I’ve seen him do the hip hop thing as a face before live, so he thinks it’s real. The Damned comes out, and they wear black and face make-up, but more importantly, they have a hot valet in black. I think they said her name is Demonica, and her black t-shirt has a skull on it. This is pure indy, with fat guys and bald guys and longhaired guys in black and former strippers and guys how used to referee in ECW, all in one match. If I wanted to create pain for myself, I would form a Virginia indy tag team of Biggie Biggs and Shorty Smalls and they would come out to some shitty Jay-Z song. Luckily, I don’t have power like that to torment myself, so I just sit here and get drunk and watch wrestling. That’s not painful at all. God, I’m a fuckin’ loser. Then again, this match sucks, which I’m sure has me questioning my motivation to do these 12-pack reviews, and in turn questioning all the dumb shit I write, so it’s all Biggie Biggs fault. Fuck him. The Damned wins, and that is over, thank God. But The Damned talks shit on the mic afterwards, for a while, and this leads to police sirens, which means Mafia and Monsta Mack come out and beat the fuck out of everybody. I like the Hit Squad, because Monsta Mack looks like he ain’t afraid to get goofy and smoke a joint with his cousin’s girlfriend, and plus Hit Squad makes me think of E.P.M.D.’s crew, which makes me think of “The Headbanger”, which makes me think of Redman’s debut where he acts like he’s rhyming like a someone who’s retarded. “Give it up for beer, helping people have sex since 1893,” say Lou E. I’ll give it up, Sign Boy.
BEER SIX: Next match should fuckin’ rule it, as Jonny Storm, with his corset waistline, goes up against Jody Fleisch. Unless you are Chris Adams in Texas supplying cocaine to Kerry Von Erich, you cannot have a British accent and actually talk and be a good guy in wrestling on American soil. Fleisch I’ve never seen as Fleisch, and only as Dakko Chan in Michinoku, but he’s out of control insane. Out of control insane. He’s skinny and young and will almost smash his brain on the floor, I am sure of it. Fleisch is fast as fuck as the match starts. Holy fuck, that was fast and great and the best nobody-can-get-the-upperhand-because-they-know-each-other-too-well thing I’ve seen in a while. Fleisch is so lanky, plus spastic in his movements, it makes all his nonsense more luchariffic. Storm is outside the ring, which means…YES! Springboard shooting star press to the outside. Storm hits a spinkick from the top rope, and for the first time, Fleisch chills the fuck out and is not moving around like a white crack baby half-grown up without his Ritalin dosage. Fuck, out of nowhere, Storm drops Fleisch on his brain in a Michinoku piledriver. Fleisch is outside the ring, and Storm waves the ref aside and does a double jump senton nonsense all sloppy like, but hits it. Storm clocks Fleisch with a chair. Storm hits a Reversensteinter, to drop Fleisch on his face. Storm wins with some crazy backwards hurricanrana thing that looks dangerous as fuck, and was spot-tastic, yet served its purpose at dropping jaws, thus opening them up for alcohol. A yes yes y’all. Rockin’ Rebel comes out, the other half of the Northern Rednecks, a guy who was in ECW during it’s non-popular days, along with guys like Tommy Cairo and J.T. Smith. Rebel is a goomba fuckwad who couldn’t become a cop because of his juvenile record. “That alfalfa crackhead…” says the Rebel, which was a great line, but I still hate him. There are kids in the crowd and the Rockin’ Rebel is cussing and talking about sex and all sorts of shit. So Rebel is fighting Danny Rose, in a match that’s like The Sandman had a big cookout in the park for his son’s thirteenth birthday, and Rebel and Rose are the two drunken uncles/cousins who get to fighting over by the monkeybars, yelling “FUCK” in front of three-year-olds, all because they are mad and can’t control themselves.
BEER SEVEN: The super ten-man elimination junior match is starting up, with Red and Quiet Storm as the suckers who drew the 1 and the 2. Quiet Storm is great, but again, he’s like five foot five. I don’t care how much you jump around real good-like, if you’re shorter than my sister who started smoking at age 13, then you suck as a wrestler. The third guy in the ring is Adam Flash and both of the other guys are a foot shorter than him. Flash holds up Red on a long time suplex Candido style, and I bet it’s great working a munchkin like Red or Storm, where you can pretend you’re super-strong and hold a guy up in the air. Chi Chi Cruz comes out and is the fourth man in this elimination match. Cruz is the Absolut Latino, which means he’s my fave in this exhibition.
BEER EIGHT: Some dude Striker comes in next. Rob Eckos is the sixth man out, and Adam Flash does a nice plancha off the top rope to the outside. Some hick named Jack Miller is the seventh dude out, and nobody has gotten pinned yet. Gino Giovanni comes out to join the melee, and somehow Adam Flash is eliminated. Chris Devine enters as the ninth man, with only Jay Briscoe awaiting entry. As far as I remember, the only person out is Flash. Last man in the match – Jay Briscoe. I’m not really paying attention to this match, just sort of hiding out, like Quiet Storm and Red are doing. I think Briscoe just paralyzed Striker, but it wasn’t as cool as you degenerates would think when I say he was paralyzed. Red pinned Briscoe with a top rope vicious sunset flip. It was sick and hardcore and fucked-up all at once. So the first two guys are the last two guys, and hopefully they’ll wrap it up fairly quickly as I don’t care. Simply Luscious comes in and her big ass is hanging out her blue go-go shorts and I can dig on that. Except it has nothing to do with the match at hand. Gratuitous ass. Quiet Storm wins the match, and Simply Luscious has a masculine ass, but that’s okay because she’s a woman. The cage is up, and six dudes are gonna get all fuckin’ ill on each other. Coming out first is Guillotine LeGrande and Jack Victory. Guillotine on the stick fuckin’ rocks. Chris Hamrick and Dylan Knight, more importantly with Candi, come out next. I like Knight testing the cage, that’s what you’re supposed to do when you come out for a cage match, and be in awe of it. Hamrick is an old redneck in shiny leather. The third team is Steve Corino and C.W. Anderson, old school as fuck and ready to cause trouble. God Bless Corino, who has built up tremendous scar tissue on his forehead, considering nobody really does that anymore. He truly is Old School, like Wahoo McDaniel.
BEER NINE: C.W. is great for a small bald guy, but he really needs to not do that hand thing. Corino and Knight start up outside the ring, Hamrick and Anderson get involved, and Jacko and LeGrande hang loose inside the cage, being the sneaks. Once the others hit the ring, it’s punch time with Jack Victory and Guillotine LeGrande. This is a bonafide old school cage with the mesh and poles, none of that goofy super-designed shit you see on the WWF. The worst cage ever was that type the WWF used back in the days of the Hulk Hogan/Paul Orndorff war, with the giant squares that was more for climbing than maiming. Cages are for maiming. Speaking of which, Corino maims Victory camera side into the mesh, and follows it up with some bites. That’ll be blood in a second. Hamrick and C.W. are rubbing each other in the cage; in goes Corino face first NWA style. Hamrick goes in face first, and Corino again. It looks like Corino is starting to bleed, and Hamrick has a crimson mask already, a bloody mess. Corino is as well now, that scar tissue not taking long to spurt the money red. C.W. Anderson pins Dylan Knight which means the lovely whore Candi has to leave ringside. Holy shit, Corino is not afraid to blade a fuckin’ gusher. Victory goes face first into the cage, and this cage is not gonna hold together I think. It’s rattling apart worse than that shitty Mexican one that Psichosis dove off of and they used that burning baseball bat on Leon Negro. Hamrick hits Confederate Currency off the top rope onto LeGrande, and the Guillotine is eliminated. Hamrick is bleeding more than Corino right now, and that’s a shitload. Holy fuckin’ shit, Chris Hamrick climbs on top of this raggedy cage and drops the giant Confederate Currency legdrop from the top of the cage, for the loving eyes of the 30 people in attendance. You got to love that. His reward? C.W. spinebusts and pins him. Then Victory pins C.W. rather abruptly, leaving just Corino and Victory to finish this match. Jacko is bloody now, but not the sick mess of dyed hair and plasma that Corino has become so adept at. Mr. Old School hits a DDT for a quick victory, and this match had all the makings of a great one, but the pins came rather fast at the end, and the fans didn’t seem to really care. Lou E. Dangerously nails Corino with the PWF belt afterwards, then Hamrick nails C.W. Victory, Dangerously, and Hamrick whip Corino and Anderson with a belt inside the locked cage, of course. All the other workers come out to do the attempt to climb the cage gimmick, but most of them just stand there watching, as everybody seems unsure of attempting to scale this haphazard structure, which makes Hamrick’s top of the cage legdrop all the more nuts. The top of C.W.’s bald head is bleeding. That’s always nice. Corino recovers to get on the mic and challenge Victory to a lumberjack match where the lumberjacks have straps. Nothing like a good whippin’ being promised at the end of the night. I got half a beer left.
EPILOGUE: FIRST STAR OF THE TAPE: Rapid Fire Maldonado. In this day where fuckers want to be cool to the crowd even if they’re a heel, it’s nice to see a guy just being a complete asshole around the ol’ squared circle. SECOND STAR OF THE TAPE: Chris Hamrick, even though it’s kind of creepy to see an old guy like him wear that shiny leather shit. If Hamrick’s been wrasslin’ for 20 years, where the fuck was he back in the late ‘80s? I don’t remember seeing him around back then. THIRD STAR OF THE TAPE: Donnie B. That guy is money in his Hawaiian print shirt and white suit and slicked back ponytail; a modernized hip Sir Oliver Humperdink. He should get somebody who blows mist from the Orient to do his evil bidding. Too bad Tajiri’s in McMahon’s La La Land.
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