Friday Josh, Jesse, Mikey, & Roy arrived at the house before noon for our journey south for a fantastic weekend of professional wrestling. After I made them look at all my stuff, I don't get to show off my wrestling collection, we headed out. Roy made up this game where you pick a championship title, for instance the European championship, and we take turns guessing who held the championship and are awarded point based on title reigns. In this case Shawn Michaels is worth 5 points for his single title run where as D'Lo Brown is worth 20 points for his 4 title reigns. It was a pretty awesome game and it made the 3 hour drive fly by.
Jay was already at the hotel when we got there. We got checked in and spent couple hours kicking back and in our room Jay, Mikey, and I watched some PWG. As we had Bodyslam Packages we got in two hours before show time. It took us 45 minutes to drive the 7.4 miles from the hotel to the venue because of rush hour traffic.
Doors opened 15 minutes late and it was cold outside but it's independent wrestling so that's expected. Once we got in we picked out our seats and I sat in the same seat through-out the weekend. The first thing that I noticed was how low the ceiling was. I was very surprised as to me this was not a good venue for wrestling, you can't come of the top rope so high flying was right out the door straight away. In the second match of the night Friday Devin Blaze did a corkscrew plancha from the ring to the floor and kicked a chandelier breaking the glass which cut a fan on the face. However, other than this instance and a few times some feet hit the ceiling tiles the wrestlers did a great job working around this major obstacle and presented some great wrestling matches.
We all got autographs and photos with different wrestlers this evening before bell time. Myself I got photos with Tessa Blanchard, Colt Cabana, Biff Busick, & Frankie Kazarian. I also got one with Chris Hero but retook it Saturday as the focus was off. I also got a few cards signed, and Colt signed my Wrestling Road Diaries Too DVD insert.
It was a great night of professional wrestling. I was super happy to see Tessa Blanchard wrestle live as she just maybe the greatest woman wrestling on the American independent scene. She and Alexxis Neveah had a great contest where unfortunately Tessa lost. I'm sure she won't last long on the indy's before WWE signs her to a developmental deal, but I hope to see her again in the future.
I was also very pleased to see veteran Maverick Wild in action one more time even though it was a loss to upstart Anthony Greene. Greene is excellent in the ring and his star is only going to rise as the years go on.
The Main Event was the Boston Classic Tag Team Gauntlet featuring The Kingdom, Team Friendship, Spirit Squad, Biff & Ted's Excellent Podcast Adventure, and The Addiction. It was a great tag match with the Addiction getting the win last eliminating Biff & Ted. During the scrum with Biff & Ted vs. The Kingdom they wrestled all around the ring, Ted was whipped into the guardrail in front of me and it smashed into my knee and that hurt a lot! My knee bruised and swelled causing me discomfort the rest of the weekend. It's not the first time something like this has happened to me at a show and it won't be the last.
The show got out late and by the time we got back to the hotel not even domino's would deliver as they were short staffed and too busy. After the stunning revelation that Mikey wanted pepperoni and cheese on his pie I drove to guys over to pick the garbage up. We finished the night watching some more PWG.
Friday Night results:
Pre-Show
“The Dynasty” Beau Douglas & Tim Lennox defeated “Boston
Bad Boy” Jason Rumble & Dan Terry when Lennox pinned Rumble
Matt Magnum pinned Devin Blaze with a powerbomb
Main Show
“All Good” Anthony Greene pinned Maverick Wild
Alexxis Neveah pinned Tessa Blanchard
Michael Sain defeated Jason Blade
Alex Chamberlain pinned Julian Starr
Vinny Marseglia defeated Sean Burke
Bob Evans pinned Nick Westgate
The Boston Classic Tag Team Gauntlet
The Kingdom: Mike Bennet & Matt Taven w/ Maria defeated
Team Friendship: Mark Shurman & Scott Slade
Biff & Ted’s Excellent Podcast Aventure defeated The
Kingdom
Biff & Ted defeated The Spirit Squad: Kenny & Mikey
The Addiction: Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian
defeated Biff & Ted to win the match.
Saturday I was up and ready to go early as I was anxious for our second day of wrestling. The intercontinental breakfast was quite good and had a nice variety. I made sure to fill my belly as I knew it was going to be a long day.
We were able to get into the Venue at 11am for the afternoon matches. Today I got several cards signed and my photo with Kevin Sullivan, Ted (Gregory) Edwards, and we got a group shot with Biff Busick, Biff is the man! The FBI signed a TNA card that neither had ever seen and Tony Mamaluke was really excited about it. I referred him to Huskerhav's to get one. The FBI and Joel Gertner were so cool to talk with, as was everyone. I found no one to be unapproachable at all, all weekend.
The opening match was Biff Busick vs. Mike Mondo in a phenomenal match up that went to a time limit draw and in overtime Biff got the pin for the win. This was the match of the weekend with out a doubt. The guys and I are all really into Biff Busick so we were very vocal for Biff and I feel that our energy was spread through the rest of the crowd as they were so loud and lively that afternoon.
The main event saw The FBI: Little Guido Maritano & Tony Mamaluke drop a tag team match to Justin Credible and The Masshole Mike McCarthy. It was cool ECW style match and Credible got the pin on Guido.
Saturday Afternoon results
Biff Busick pinned Mike Mondo
JB Elf defeated Romona Ramano w/ “Pimp Daddy” Mike Paiva
Joel Gertner promo
"Real Deal" Brandon Lock w/ Adam Barisano defeated Alex Chamberlain
Happy Birthday Rap by Oscar of Men on a Mission
"Kingpin" Brian Milonas pinned Nick Westgate
Handicapped Match: Michael Sain defeated The Heavy Hitters:
Shady Shay & Frank Champion
Justin Credible & Mike McCarthy defeated The FBI: Little
Guido Maritano & Tony Mamaluke
We had 45 minutes before the Art of Wrestling live podcast taping began and this was something that I was not going to miss, other than Chris Hero and the Rock N Roll Express the podcast was one of the things I was most excited about.
We left the hall to find something to eat and stopped at the first place we came it. It was quite unimpressive on the outside with a sign that read Roast Beef and Pizza. Inside though was a different matter. It was clean, smelled great, and had large and reasonably priced menu. I got a large bacon italian with pickles, extra tomatoes, cheese, and mayo. Talk about good, damn! And it was packed with tomatoes! So good! Everyone liked was they got in fact. I was anxious to get back so I only ate half before heading back into the venue to get seats, we manged front row, excellent!
The podcast recording was everything I though and hoped it would be. I was tasked with being the official photographer to tweet him photos of the recording and Mikey was asked to give his impersonation of Tony Atlas' laugh. We didn't know who the guest were and was surprised as he called each on up. Justin Credible, Mike Mondo, Oscar, Biff Busick, and Chris Hero as the closer. The podcast ran just over 90 minutes which I was pleasantly surprised about. I wonder how long the final podcast he releases will be.
The end of the podcast basically coincided with the time the doors would open for the Bodyslam Package VIP's so we just stayed in the building. I got a my image captured with Chris Hero and I got a couple cards signed. At the end of the weekend I got 12 cards signed to add to my collection. Josh was my official photographer as he was able to properly take photos to my liking.
Their were a couple vendors with various wrestling collectibles for sale. I bough the new Candice and Joey Highspots DVD special that just came out last month for $5, and it was an original copy and not a bootleg. I'm not 100% sure how many DVD's Roy bought, but I'm guessing 8 - 10, which is pretty low for him. Both Mikey and Josh bought both of Colt Cabana's Wrestling Road Diaries documentaries which were wise purchases as I have them both and they are fantastic.
The Saturday night matches was a great night of wrestling. Colt Cabana and Chris Hero had a great match that started with some comedy and then got into a serious wrestling match and ended with Colt getting a quick pin on Hero. It really showed what two seasoned ring veterans can do and make it look so effortless while they do it. We got to see Biff wrestle for a 3rd time this weekend which was just awesome. Main event was a falls count anywhere match that saw "Real Deal" Brandon Locke get the upset victory over the "Taskmaster" Kevin Sullivan. It was cool to see Sullivan wrestle live but at 65 years old it was what it was.
Saturday Night results
Showcase
Antonio Atama defeated TK O’Ryan
Main Show
Keanu The Flying Hawaiian pinned Kenny Dykstra
Michael Sain pinned Steven Verano
Kongo pinned Mikaze
Colt “Boom Boom” Cabana pinned “Knockout Artist” Chris Hero
Biff & Ted’s Excellent Podcast Adventure defeated Dave
Cole & Billy King w/ Marshall McNiel
Tatanka pinned Brian Milonas
Falls Count Anywhere: “Real Deal” Brandon Locke w/ Adam
Barisano pinned “Taskmaster” Kevin Sullivan
When we got back to the hotel I messaged Spencer to see what time the Q&A Luncheon was Sunday as I hadn't seen what time it was scheduled only that the last set of matches started at 4pm. I was quite surprised when Spencer replied that he was cancelling all of Sunday's events. Sunday morning I read on Facebook that basically they didn't make enough money on Friday and Saturday to pay for Sunday.
We were all pretty pissed off because we paid for a full weekend of shows, essentially 6 events with the 4 wrestling shows, the podcast, and the luncheon Q&A and a third of those events were cancelled at the last minute. I don't promote wrestling shows because I can't take that risk of losing money, but to me if you are planning an event like this for a year I would think that it would be paid for, or at least the majority of it, before tickets went on sale and not rely on ticket sales and monies received the first two days of a 3 day event to pay for day three.
I will admit that Friday and Saturday were fantastic, and Saturday was one of if not the best day of wrestling I have ever experienced. However besides the podcast the big selling point of the weekend for me was being able to see the Rock n' Roll Express wrestle live and that didn't happen. It probably will never happen now.
Jay won the 50/50 raffle on both Friday night and Saturday afternoon shows, which is just absurd. It was also nice to see JD, Ceej, Scott King, Mad Dog, and others, also nice to meet Tanya of TC Tapes as I used to buy tapes from her back in the day.
On the ride home more fallout from the abrupt cancelling came out on twitter and Facebook and I'll let you find those for yourself. Needless to say the rumors of what did or didn't happened spread fast.
On the ride home more fallout from the abrupt cancelling came out on twitter and Facebook and I'll let you find those for yourself. Needless to say the rumors of what did or didn't happened spread fast.
On the ride home we had to stopped in Boston to get Kate an Italian Night Club sub from Jimmy John's as she had been craving it since January and there was no way I was going to not get my pregnant wife this. I didn't take into consideration that PAX East was literally right around the corner from the Jimmy John's I went to so parking was difficult.
I was also shocked out terrible Massachusetts was at plowing and removing snow, they are a New England state, but they have no concept of snow removal or pushing back the snowbanks.
We stopped at Kowloon for a bite to eat that added to the mystique of the wrestling weekend as this is and was a hot spot for WWE wrestlers to eat at when they are in the area. Their are signed photos and posters all over the entrance way of wrestlers and other celebrities.
It was a great weekend of wrestling that will sadly, mostly be overshadowed by the fact the last day was cancelled so abruptly.
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