So, even though I still cannot believe it…
So, even though I still cannot believe it…
I’m going to a NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING show next month. As part of the CEO Gaming weekend in Daytona, the #CEOxNJPW show is Friday, June 29th.
NJPW is coming to me. (I live ~30 minutes from the Ocean Center.)
I never thought in my life that I’d get to see a live NJPW show.
I have a 2nd row ticket!!!
Of course, I think it’s only appropriate I wear my ‘bootleg’ EVIL shirt… what say you, Nathan Paoletta?
Starting to get excited.
Starting to get excited.
“Wrestlemania” week starts tomorrow.
I’m not even that excited about Wrestlemania. I’m not seeing it live, though I do live about 30-40 minutes from the location.
HOWEVER.
I AM seeing TWELVE shows live over the next five days.
Tomorrow, Wed 3/29, 8pm – “Punk Goes Wrestling, Vol 1”, the inaugural show of PUNK PRO WRESTLING. Really excited about this one. I’ve seen about half the wrestlers before, heard of most of the rest, but there’s a couple who are complete unknowns to me, so that’s fun, too.
The rest of my Wrestlemania week is the WWN Live “More Than Mania” package.
Thursday, 8pm – EVOLVE 80
Friday, noon – PROGRESS Wrestling (their US debut) “Progress Orlando”
Friday, 4pm – EVOLVE 81
Friday, 8pm – CHIKARA “Turn Left”
Friday, 11:59pm – Kaiju Big Battel “Civil Wars”
Saturday, noon – SHIMMER 91
Saturday, 4pm – CHIKARA “Bad Wolf”
Saturday, 8pm – “WWN Live Supershow: Mercury Rising: EVOLVE vs PROGRESS”
Saturday, 11:59pm – Beyond Wrestling “Caffeine”
Sunday, 10am-6pm The Hardy #BROKENTailgate Party
BBQ food, two wrestling shows, and “other surprises”
11am – American Combat Wrestling
2pm – Full Impact Pro
The list of wrestlers that I’ll get to see live for the first time is super long. This will be the first time I’ll see SHIMMER, Kaiju, Beyond, ACW and (obviously) Punk Pro and Progress live. I’ve seen 3 EVOLVE shows live, 5 or 6 Full Impact Pro, and 2 CHIKARA shows before.
If you haven’t had the chance to see this, it’s on Netflix.
If you haven’t had the chance to see this, it’s on Netflix. It’s definitely worth seeing. (And if you don’t have Netflix, I’m pretty sure they’re still doing the one month free trial thing, so there.)
So, it seems like more than a couple of us go to live wrestling shows, either regularly or irregularly.
So, it seems like more than a couple of us go to live wrestling shows, either regularly or irregularly. I’m just curious what promotions/federations y’all have seen live and any notable shows you might have seen?
I’ll start. I’ve been attending live wrestling shows since I was a young teen (late pre-teen?) in the early 80s. I’ll try to keep them more or less chronological:
CWF (Championship Wrestling from Florida – NWA affiliate) – I’m not sure how many, but I’d seen a few of their shows in the early to mid 80s. They usually played high school gyms, national guard armories and the like. Guys I grew up on, Blackjack Mulligan, Harley Race, Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Barry Windham, Kevin Sullivan, Mike Graham, and so many more. Notable shows – all of them, they were so much fun.
WCW – Saw more than a couple of their shows over the years. First one was in the Ocean Center, Daytona Beach, right after Turner bought out Jim Crockett Promotions and rebranded it as WCW. The main event in the show was Flair defending his title against Luger; it was shortly after they’d done match on a PPV and the match was almost step-for-step the same match from the PPV, which I found highly disappointing. Other notable shows would have to be, of course, my first PPV event ever, BASH AT THE BEACH 1996, where the nWo was formed, and the first ever WCW Thunder, both of which aired from the Ocean Center. Also saw a few WCW house shows in Orlando, can’t say anything about them was terribly notable, except for maybe seeing Terra Ryzing (Triple H). Oh, yeah, Hogan was at one, too, but meh.
WWF/E – First WWF show was a house show in Orlando, early-ish 90s, I think. I remember Ultimate Buffoon, er Warrior, vs Kamala. Tatanka was there, too, I believe. Not sure whom else. In the earlier 2000s, saw both a RAW (late 2002) and a Smackdown! (2004, I believe). The Smackdown! was more memorable, as it had The Undertaker, Eddie Guerrero, Kurt Angle, and many others. The latter two shows were nosebleed seats, so wasn’t really the best experience.
ECW – Quite possibly my favourite promotion of all time. Saw a lot of their shows in Florida – Orlando, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, multiple occasions in each city over the mid to late 90s. Saw the Hardcore Heaven 1997 PPV from the War Memorial in Ft Lauderdale, such a great show.
MLW – early 2000s, Major League Wrestling, billed as a hybrid wrestling company – extreme and puroresu and American and Lucha influences. Saw a couple live shows they did in Orlando. Really enjoyed meeting the wrestlers pre-show at the merch tables. Was amazed how much I towered over Dr Death Steve Williams, whom I loved in the late 80s into the 90s. Really nice guy. Also, Hack Myers and Raven, too. Fun shows, shame company went under. (Now they’re a podcast thing using same name.)
CHIKARA – one of my all time fave companies, they did two shows in Florida, Tampa and Orlando back in 2013. I wrote a couple articles on them for BIFF BAM POP, which I’ll try to link to as comment. Really, truly fantastic shows, great promotion, SOOOOOO much fun.
Vintage Wrestling – caught about 6 of their shows in 2014, really had a lot of fun, and they were only about a 20 minute drive away, which was awesome, since it was a work night. (Also, they didn’t go past 11pm, which also helped.) Good crowd, good stories and in-ring. Small but fun company. Sadly, they went on a hiatus for most of 2015, did one show in September which I attended, and went back on hiatus. Supposedly, something is in works, possibly for this month, but…
Full Impact Pro – been aware of this company for a good 7-8 years, seen a couple of their events from the early 2010s. Caught Night 2 of Fallout 2015 in October in Orlando (night 1 was in Tampa.) Centerpiece was the Six Man Showcase, a tournament of six man/trios teams. The teams were representing companies from all over the US, including Tier1 out of NY, Proving Ground Pro, Atlanta Wrestling Entertainment, WWA4, and others. Oh, yeah, and The Viking War Party. (They’re so cool.) Got to see my Hooligans, briefly, for the first time live, so that was super exciting. I’ve caught a couple of their iPPVs recently, too. They also had a “Kickoff” show prior to Evolve 52, which I saw live (see next entry.) And, then, last month (and later this month), saw them put on a show in a comic book shop! Gods and Monsters So much fun. (Also had a feature match with Kaiju Big Battel, which was just super fun.)
Evolve – I’ve been following this promotion since they started, watching the events when they were released for download. Watched most of the first 20 or so events, then less regularly. Attended EVOLVE 52 in Orlando, November 2015, was a great show, so many stand out moments. In January, for Royal Rumble weekend, they had 3 shows, Friday EVOLVE 53 in Tampa, then Sat/Sun EVOLVE 54/55 in Orlando (Sunday was an afternoon show so people could attend that and the Rumble if they wanted, or go home and watch it on the WWE Network, as I did.) Met Jason Jordan and Chad Gable at a photo op co-promoted with NXT, great guys. The main thing at the Evolve weekend was a tag team tournament to crown Evolve Tag Champs and the matches were crazy good, as were the non-tournament matches. Lots of fun, can’t recommend highly enough.
Tonight is the final event for Squared Circle Wrestling (2CW) and they’re streaming it live and free on Ustream.
Tonight is the final event for Squared Circle Wrestling (2CW) and they’re streaming it live and free on Ustream. Huge names, great promotion, sad to see them go. 2nd set due to start, well eight minutes ago, but hey, it’s indie wrestling…