Originally shared by Nathan Paoletta
AAW Take No Prisoners
A wrestling show review, part 2 of 2
The real good stuff.
Tag Match (not sure if it was a championship match) – OI4K (c) vs. Zero Gravity
Zero Gravity are two tiny guys who wrestle all over the place up here. They are a great technical/flippy/high flying team, but I think I’ve seen them wrestle 4 times now and they’re just…kind of boring to me? They do great stuff but I still have no sense of character other than “the flippy guys”.
OI4K (stands for Ohio Is 4 Killers) are the AAW tag champs, and I think they used to compete as Irish AirBorn. Anyway. They’re bigger bruiser types, (I typecast them as “Illuminati Vikings” based on their gear and hair) and I didn’t really have expectations set for them.
This match was great! OI4K have an explosive quality to them that I find really compelling, where bigger guys can just snap out big power moves from nowhere, like some great suplex’s and powerslams. Great base for Zero Gravity to fly from, through and around. The spot of the match was when one of the OI4K guys jumped down from the top turnbuckle to springboard off the second rope into a catch-him-in-midair Diamond Cutter, sending the Zero G guy pogoing OUT OF THE RING. That was the peak of the middle third of the match, and then it crescendo’d with this crazy tandem corkscrew splash bomb…thing from the top turnbuckle that sent all four guys flying. Amazing work.
I really appreciated how both teams had tandem offense that made sense – like, Zero Gravity has a move where they tag, the illegal man then snap suplexes the opponent and the legal man grabs his head into the sitout part of a sitout powerbomb, putting him in the pinning position right there. Smart stuff.
Anyway, OI4K won with their tandem tombstone piledriver (one guy holds the opponent, the other doublestomps on his back on the way down). Great tag match.
Backstage video where the manager of another tag team, the Hooligans, challenges OI4K for their titles. Now THAT is gonna be a bruiser of a match.
Tommaso Ciampa vs. Davey Richards
I was looking forward to match perhaps the most, and wow. It did not disappoint.
I saw Ciampa at the last indy show I went to and he was great, but clearly working down to the level of the (young) local guy he was working with. He had a match at the last AAW show with Tommy End that everyone was gushing about. I was super pumped.
Davey Richards I don’t know much about, except that he’s half of the TNA tag team American Wolves. Turns out he is really fucking great.
There’s a lot to say about this match so I’ll try to stick to the highlights.
First off, let’s talk about tone and contrast. This match started with some genuinely funny comedic stuff that I’m pretty sure was vamping on the crowd response. Ciampa’s “standard chant” is Ciam-pas Gon-na Kill-You, which we were doing, and then he spread his arms and the crowd switched to Ciam-pas Gon-na Hug-You and it turned into an extended thing where he kept offering hugs to everyone (fans ringside, the ref, etc) and Richards kept shaking his head no. So basic, so effective. Richards (OBVIOUSLY) finally went in for a hug and turned it into an armbar submission, and we were off to part 2 – the matwork.
These guys can fucking wrestle. There was probably 5-6 minutes (!) of really stiff amateur-style submissions and submission counters, interspersed with another humorous Ciampa spot where he grabs the rope and yells ROPE BREAK, then yells when his opponent grabs the rope – I dunno, you probably need context, but just great stuff. There were some moments where my buddy and I were pretty sure they were shoot wrestling because it got really sloppy but in a very natural manner, if that makes sense?
These two styles were obviously appealing to different parts of the audience. They segued back to the hugging bit to reset, and went from there into more expected pro wrestling moves and interactions, but kept doing little callbacks to earlier moments and fan interactions (Richards kept going to the top turnbuckle and flipping off one particular guy, stuff like that).
It was really, really compelling. The tone started with this comedic thing and naturally morphed through the technical prowess to turning into a serious, these-guys-are-going-to-kill-each-other intensity. Ciampa comes big with knee strikes and Richards just has great submissions and power moves, and their chemistry was fantastic.
They did a little bit of finisher-trading and then Ciampa countered Richards into a small package for the win.
This wasn’t a match that the crowd was automatically into. There wasn’t a title or anything at stake. But these two guys had the charisma and the structure to their match to bring it from zero to everyone on their feet across 16 minutes, and it was really, really fun to watch. My clear favorite for match of the night.
Ryan Boz vs. Justice Jones
When these guys came out I joked “follow that, boys” to my friend, and then ran to the bathroom. When I came back, they were almost done. Two big hoss’s that I don’t know, and I am kinda sad that I missed it, because the last minute was pretty fun, including a corner cannonball into a waiting steel chair! But yeah, obviously a cool down match. Ryan Boz won.
Johnny Gargano vs. Chris Sabin
I’m a Gargano mark. “Johnny Wrestling” as he’s known, works all over the indie scene. He’s just reliably entertaining, seems like he can work with everyone and I always enjoy his matches. I’ve heard of Sabin but never seen him and didn’t know what to expect.
This was a good match! They’re both smaller guys (aka “normal human who’s in good shape” size), and they were working what I would call “the indie style,” lots of strikes and slaps, dives to the outside, interspersed with matwork. Lot’s of false finishes.
It was funny, I started out clearly cheering Gargano (who was the babyface for the match), but Sabin does this “Hail Sabin!” thing that popped me, since I apparently mark for Satan. So I ended up in the “I like both these guys” camp.
This match might have had more sustained audience engagement across it’s entirety than the Ciampa/Richards match, but it didn’t hit the same emotional height, for me. I did really like it and it introduced me to a new cool wrestler that I’d like to see more of (Chris Sabin). Solid match, glad it was on the card, but probably not going to remember it very well as time passes.
Main Event – Samoa Joe vs. Josh Alexander vs. Eddie Kingston (c)
For those who don’t know, Samoa Joe is essentially an indie wrestling fan legend. He was in in TNA for a long time and the line on him there was that he seemed to coast through a lot of his matches, but before that he was in the Daniel Bryan/CM Punk league of indie talent. Since leaving TNA he’s doing a victory lap (essentially) of the indies before a (rumored) move to NXT in some capacity. I wasn’t watching wrestling when he was first around, so one of my big motivations for going to this show was to see him in a big spotlight match.
Eddie Kingston has quietly become one of my favorite wrestlers. He’s a big jock from Yonkers with a gut and an attitude. He anchored Chikara for YEARS as their Grand Champion, in stark contrast to all the high-concept lucha-style comic characters. He has a great promo and a room-filling presence.
“Walking Weapon” Josh Alexander is the more serious, technical half of Monster Mafia and is on a hot streak across the board right now. I saw him down at Dreamwave in their title match and liked him there, but don’t have much other context for him.
So, high expectations for this match. And it delivered! It was an elimination match, which I prefer to the Triple Threat, and was very high-impact from the get-go. Kingston instigated things with some eye rakes and then powdered to let the other guys go at each other, and from there there was good flow of guys coming in and out from the floor. All three guys are just crazy strong and I was legit afraid the ring might collapse in some moments.
But! I don’t know if something happened or there was some venue-relating time issue, but the match was really short! Samoa Joe put out Kingston with his signature Muscle-Buster about 6 minutes into the match, and it felt abrupt (and felt like a swerve – I think we all expected Alexander to get eliminated first). Joe and Alexander just beat the hell out of each other for another 5 or 6 minutes, Joe hit Alexander with the Muscle Buster but Alexander kicked out and I think hit Joe with a piledriver for the win? I expected a false finish so was already mentally moving on when the ref counted 3, so I don’t remember exactly. The whole match was only 12 minutes or so.
That sad, it was an intense 12 minutes and those guys sure went all-out. After the match Kingston came back, shook Joe’s hand and snapped the belt onto Alexander! Classy move and the crowd was into it.
Your NEW AAW Champion is “Walking Weapon” Josh Alexander!
Samoa Joe has amazing ring presence. He’s just so intense and captivating. If you have a chance to see him, do it.
The last bit was Alexander’s tag partner Page coming out to congratulate him, and he kept grabbing the belt and holding it up like it was his, taking selfies, etc, and it was great little tease to DISSENTION AMONG THE TEAM as Alexander wouldn’t actually let go of the belt and just kept giving Page this severe side-eye. Again, not a big thing, but enough to tease how their relationship is going to change. Good stuff.
And then we left to beat traffic!
Even with a few misses (for me) early on the card, it was a really fun show and I got what I wanted out of it. I’m glad I went, will definitely be going to more in the future.
Good job AAW!