Originally shared by Nathan Paoletta
AAW Take No Prisoners
A wrestling show review, part 1 of 2
I don’t know if this will be interesting to anyone else but I feel like talking about this show I went too, so here goes! It was a big card so I’m breaking it into two posts.
Some context: AAW is a Chicago-area promotion that seems to be in the conversation of “top tier indies” based on the talent pool they share with other promotions like IAW, PWG, Ring of Honor, and so on. This could be local bias on my part! I’ve been to one of their live shows before, about a year ago, and since then the production quality and overall talent level has gone way up.
But it is a local thing and there’s local wrestlers who I imagine are never going to travel and end up in “the circuit,” but who I’ve seen a good amount at various Chicago promotions.
So I actually had context for the majority of the personalities in these matches. I also went with a friend, so the combo definitely elevated my overall “fun” level.
The Show
There was a “dark match” that was going on while we were getting in our seats (a match that goes on before the main show to warm up the crowd), and wrapped up right when we sat down, so we pretty much missed it.
Opening Match – 6-Way, Winner Gets A Match stipulation (Davey Vega vs. Tony Kozina vs. Matt Cage vs. Candice LaRae vs. Louis Lyndon vs. Gregory Iron)
I’ve seen Candice LaRae a lot recently (she’s part of intergender World’s Cutest Tag Team with Joey Ryan), and Cage and Lyndon are both established local guys. Gregory Iron is a wrestler with a withered arm from cerebral palsy who I’ve seen work once or twice, he’s a midwest institution. I didn’t know the other guys, but Tony Kozina looks scarily like the illustration of the Jobber from WWWRPG and was doing full comedy shtick, so I was an immediate fan.
This was a fun, high energy match that handled the mix of talent really smartly. LaRae, Lyndon and Iron were fan favorites, Cage was the main heel and the other two guys supported the action and set up some cool spots. LaRae got her signature ‘rana and ballplex spots in. Louis Lyndon ended up with the victory after beating out Cage, I think, which felt pretty satisfying.
After the match he cut an in-ring promo saying he’s coming for the Heritage title, which is the mid-level title in AAW.
Allysin Kay vs. Heidi Lovelace – This was prefaced with a promo from Kay, who I don’t know, that seems to following a storyline from SHIMMER, which AAW does split show shows a couple times a year. I had high expectations, I really like Heidi Lovelace and the promo was pretty vicious!
Unfortunately this match felt flat to me. A lot of the action was on the outside (where we couldn’t really see). I’ve seen Lovelace (who’s tiny) do more technical matches, and this was more of a brawl, and when you get right down to it’s hard for me to suspend my disbelief when there’s not a lot of weight behind the punching and stomping, you know? I LOVE women’s wrestling, but I just didn’t think Kay was that great, and this style of match didn’t do Lovelace any favors.
That said, (a) there were some serious Kay fans in the crowd so it’s not like they lost us entirely and (b) the match ended with a VICIOUS discus lariat from Kay that looked like it MURDERED Lovelace. Huge pop for that finish. I wish the rest of the match had had that level of impact.
AAW Heritage Championship Match – Christian Faith (c) vs. Marcus Crane
These are two of those “local guys” that I mentioned above. I never know what to expect from Crane because he plays different “crazy” characters in different promotions, and I haven’t seen Faith before (he’s a big monster in a mask, so I guess maybe I have, but not as this character at least).
Crane is super hateable – he’s scrawny, terrible tattoos, has shaved his belly hair into an upside-down cross – but he was the babyface in the match. Faith is the definition of an e-fed/backyard “cool idea” in full Hot Topic Pants glory. I expected it to be total garbage, to be honest
And you know what? These guys went high impact and it got me into it! Crane got thrown into a wooden post (the venue has big wooden support beams), tossed around in the audience, powerbombed into the turnbuckles, but he kept getting back up and scrapping and fighting and by the end I was all in. I don’t remember many individual spots but there was a lot of “ooh shit that must have hurt” moments.
Christian Faith retained in a match that exceeded my expectations.
CJP vs. Ethan Page
Ethan Page is half of Monster Mafia (a hot indie circuit tag team with Josh Alexander, who was in the championship match later). CJP is CJ Parker, formerly of NXT and back on the indies (by his choice, apparently).
I. Love. CJ Parker. I think that character (asshole environmentalist jerk) is great and the guy was in a spot in NXT where he was being used really well (a heel to get new guys over), but was almost too good at it, which meant he was never going to get a push on his own terms, you know? Other NXT claim to fame: he broke Kevin Owens nose.
Anyway, I was super excited to see CJP compete.
They both cut promos before the match – “All Ego” Ethan Page basically running down the crowd, CJP coming out to a hometown welcome (he’s from Illinois originally) and calling out Page. His ease on the mic is really remarkable, and he has that room-filling presence you would expect from someone who’s done what he’s done.
And the match was fine! Classic in structure, with Page getting the early advantage and getting his heat on CJP, lots of crowd jeering and mocking spots, a nice comeback from CJP. But honestly I don’t remember much of the match. I think I expected some kind of blowout, and it was “merely” good. I don’t know how much was their chemistry, or if one of them wasn’t on the others level or what. I enjoyed watching the match but have retained none of the details.
I will shout out here, though, to the 12-year-old kid in front of me who was cheering for the most improbable mix of wrestlers, but LOVED CJP and was giving him the peace sign the whole match. He got a peace back when CJP went up to the top turnbuckle near the end of the match and it BLEW HIS YOUNG MIND.
Ethan Page won, and I don’t even remember with what.
Shane Hollister vs. Silas Young
A year ago Shane Hollister was the AAW champion. I think he’s been out with an injury for awhile, and this was his big return match. I’ve seen Silas Young “The Last Real Man” in AAW before, and I think he’s done some ROH stuff as well.
Good thing first: Young is an AMAZING heel. He’s like a sleazy uncle in terrific shape and just has natural “you should hate me” heat. He comes out Journey and as soon as everyone puts their goddam cell phones down they boo him. It’s great.
Hollister was…not as great. I did like how he was working a little slower style and really taking time to look out and connect with the audience (again, he’s a known quantity and people wanted to cheer for him), but he also might have been a little rusty and went to the “lift my hands to get the people cheering” well a little too often for my taste.
This might have been the longest match on the card, I think it went almost 20 minutes, and felt self-indulgent to me. I understand wanting to have a big return match, but it was in the middle of the card and didn’t really build in tempo, so it became a slog to me, as someone not invested in either guy in particular.
Hollister won with some kind of package driver, and then there was actually some pretty nice post-match stuff:
– His old manager, Scarlett, comes out to mock him, and brings…
– … Matt Cage (who was in the first match) to beat on him and work his injured leg, which brings out…
– … Louis Lyndon, who beat Cage in the first match, to save Hollister, which brings out…
– … Christian Faith, who Lyndon called out with his match opportunity!
Lyndon gets the Dragon Sleeper on Faith and the heels retreat, good guys stand tall.
It was a nice piece of following through on what was established earlier in the show, not too much to lose the crowd, but enough to get some heat going forward for all those guys. It was well-executed basic show-level storytelling, and I liked it a lot. I’ve had this experience at indie shows where all of a sudden a bunch of wrestlers show up and they’re following through on storylines but I have no idea what they are, so I appreciate taking the effort to connect the dots inside the single show.
If there has been an intermission, it should have gone here, but there wasn’t! But this was the switch to the real good stuff, in my eyes.
Part 2 coming soon!