KEY:
MH: Marcel Hillie.  Drove, sat next to Rippa.

RD:  Rev Ray Duffy.  Road with Cel, sat next to Pete and in front of Rippa

TKG: I am DMX

PP:  Pogo Pete Stein.  Drove up with Ray and Cel after taking the Amtrak to DC.  Sat next to Phil S and in front of Rippa.

PS:  I am Spartacus

PR: I am Tiger Woods

BACKSTORY
MH:  My day begins early, as I somehow manage to roust myself out of bed at 4:30 AM on Saturday morning to hit my favorite Pub for the World Cup draw, broadcast live on TSN.  Why yes, I am a freak.  Besides, this only happens once every four years, and they had OJ and donuts out for us.  (Sidebar  - The US has a big task in front of them, but that was going to be the case regardless of who they played.)  I head home, grab a couple hours of sleep, and head back to the Pub to catch the first half of Derby County/Liverpool before I pick up Ray and Pete off the subway.  Somewhere in here, Rippa calls to tell me that he’s lost his keys.

PR: That should more read that my wife decided to take both sets of apartment keys. Now, I could have chanced it with my people hating dog but the wife isn’t too keen on that idea so I have to make a side trip to Union Station. I also note that I do was up at 4:30 to watch the draw on the net. Barnwell and I had a grand old time dorking out in the chat.

RD:  Pete and I recover from the ICW show the night before and catch the Amtrak down to DC so we can catch the ECWA show.  Ki/Dragon and the SATs have their work cut out for them to work on best match of the weekend with Ki/Eddy and the SATs vs. the Briscoes coming on the night before's show.  Rather uneventful trip down, consisting a lot of sleeping on the train.

PP:  I got NO sleep the night before, but nevertheless we get to Penn Station with plenty of time as I no-sell Emi’s stall tactics for a change.  En route I field-test my new RioVolt player and I finally get some mileage out of the data CDs I burned when I spent the night at Casa De Naimark this past August.  My day is promptly made at Union Station as I find a good-sized Ghana flag for half its NYC going rate.

PS: I stumble out of bed and pull some chairs into my room for some wrestling watching, watched some kick ass JAPW, as Elax and Deranged actually have a fun wrestling match, which only required Elax to die a couple of times. Insane Dragon/Homicide vs. Da Hit Squad was the Squads best match ever, although it got smoked in the White boy named Dragon teamed with short potatoing Puerto Rican against Puerto Rican twins who throw great lariats sub-genre by the tag match at ECWA.

MH: I take Ray and Pete over to Schneider’s and we wait for the others to show up.  We watch some JAPW (Your new favorite wrestling promotion) and some EMLL.  Tom stumbles in, tourniquet still wrapped around his arm and bottle of Wild Turkey sticking out of his pocket. Rippa’s managed to go get his keys.  We’re all here, so we’re off.  I hit 90 a couple of times on the way and actually manage to beat Rippa driving somewhere.

PR: By about two minutes and that was because I had to break a $20 at one of the 8612 Toll Booths in the state of Delaware. Cel also forgets that if it wasn’t for me, they would still be stumbling around trying to find his way out of Adams Morgan.

RD:  The JAPW stuff was fun.  We discuss how their shows have been good and I realizes by saying this, we've probably jinxed the Friday night show to be a real shitburger.  We watch a good Hit Squad vs. Homicide/Insane Dragon match before heading up to Delaware. Cel tries to break the sound barrier a few times on the way while discussing soccer, which I break up with some of the wrestling discussion, including a suggestion that Val Venis should have come out in a cheese porno gimmick ever week.  The cable guy, the pizza delivery man, the plumber, the librarian, the traffic cop, etc.

PP:  We manage to pull Cel away from his soccer pub before the Scum United/Chelsea game starts (Note to Scum fans:  BWAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA) so he can take us over to Phil’s pad where we watch JAPW and the new EMLL with the TJ invasion.  Pretty soon we’re on the road where Cel and I put Ray to sleep with World Cup talk (consensus: The US got DEEPLY lucky with the draw) and Champions League talk and UEFA talk and MLS talk and Premiership talk and…

TKG: I stumble in and we’re off. I’d remind Marcel that it wasn’t Wild Turkey but rather the Wild Turkey knock off, Fighting Cock Bourbon (with the picture of the bloody beaten down gamecock on the bottle). We manage to tune into to DC101 for the entire trip (we loose it about two blocks from Sizzler). I was surprised at the range that the local station went. I’d like to take this time to say “screw you” to Cathy Hughes of Radio One who canceled all go-go programming on her stations in 1990.

PR: Schneider, Tom and I cover a wide range of topics from Buffy the Vampire Slayer vs. Homicide (the TV show not the wrestler), Mormom girls (I think we talk this every road trip) and the types of drunks that we hate.

MH: SIZZLER!  Due to our fast, fast driving, we arrive well ahead of schedule and are able to gorge ourselves at our leisure as opposed to the rushed manner in which we usually do. I’m bummed that Dean couldn’t make it, so while eating, I give Dean my own personal shout-out by wasting some steak sauce on myself - you see, it has to happen at least once on every road trip and usually Dean does it.  A leisurely trip back to the Parish and we settle in for the show.

RD:  Since we have so much time, I actually get the salad bar and have a chance to taste my food without fear of missing the all important ECWA Tron recap piece.  Have time to kill rules.

PS: I had the ribs at Sizzler, not the best ribs, should have gone with the Steak. We had the full on thrash metal guitarist waiting on us. Tom mentioned that he might have huffed paint with him in the past.

PP: We had way too much time not to absolutely gorge ourselves on food, even popping for ice cream since we had that much time.  In retrospect I’d like to think that the food coma I subsequently slipped into was responsible for the fever dreams I that the J-Team ruined a potential indy MOTY.  The little boy at the next table becomes my hero by using a gigantic soup mug for his ice cream as opposed to the teeny sundae glass.

PR: Plenty of time and didn’t get lost. There is a reason I am brought along on these trips.

THE SHOW
PS: Everyone’s favorite unbalanced tape dealer Rob Feinstein was working the tape table with former semen depository current bootlegger beard Kristy Myst. I initially didn’t recognizer her with out a cock in her ass. She has the prequisite comically fake boobs and the total cover-up-acne pancake makeup. I find it amazing that with her current role as Feinstien sidekick she found a job more demeaning then porno.

PP:  That said it was perversely amusing to see how much more covered up she was than she’d been at the ICW show the previous night.  I’m pretty sure most of the kids in the house thought she was just another one of RF’s beards - er, nice ladies helping Mr. Feinstein sell tapes.

RED vs. BILLY BAX vs. JET JAGUAR
MH: Before the show started, the routine ECWA video montage warned the SAT that they hadn’t seen the last of the J Team. We all start wondering how they’re gonna screw up the Tag match.  This match was kinda there.  Red looked good, as you’d expect.  Bax was surprisingly okay, as he had his critics amongst the Playaz.  Jet Jaguar was…bad.  He did manage a cheap pop out of us by doing a Double Claw.  Red gets the W.

RD:  Bax does the heel "beg the people not to call me Opie" deal before the match.  This results in us getting to hear the Andy Griffith theme.  Jet Jaguar comes out and makes fun of Bax's hair and says he's the best looking and then Red comes out and says in Spanish that he's cuter than both of them.  Red was working for three tonight and was entertaining as he busted out his new run up the back of the guy kick them in the head spot.  They do a spot where Jet gets the double claw on Red and Bax, who then break the claw and force Jet to give himself a groin claw.  Bax and Jet work on Red's knee, but even though Red wins the match, he gets his leg worked over some more.

PP:  ECWA was outright BEGGING the fans to chant “Opie” at Bax, even to the point where he was announced as Billy “Don’t Call Me Opie” Bax in the pre-match video feature.  In his defense he looked quite decent here and was the second-best guy in the match.  Jaguar did nothing for us other than the double-claw spot, but he had great tights with what appeared to be the Orlando Predators helmet logo on one leg.

PR: I will note that Pete accidentially typed Bix in the previous paragraph. I found it very entertaining and almost left it in.

TKG: Bax has appeared horrible in all the tape I’ve seen of him, but he appeared totally serviceable in this match. Jet Jaguar wore a glove for the CLAW, which the ref never checked. That was poor reffing, “HIS GLOVE IS LOADED! HIS GLOVE IS LOADED!” Also was disappointed that Jaguar didn’t use the dreaded KNEE CLAW when working over Red’s leg.

PS: Billy Bax was flat out awful in the stuff I had seen of him before but he was passable in a generic Indy junior kind of way. I was willing to cut Jaguar some slack, as in his last ECWA performance (at the 2000 Super 8) he concussed himself in the beginning parts of a bad match with Jeff Peterson. He must have dropped a paint can on his head in the back or something, cause he sucked as much here.

PR: Well Jaquar didn’t look good on any of the WCW Sat Night stuff I saw when he was working under his real name. It could be that he just isn’t very good.

JOHNNY MAX/THUNDER vs. MR. OOH LA LA/MOZART FONTAINE.
MH: Pre-match angle here, as Fontaine rags on Ooh La La for blowing the Poetry In Motion.  This of course means that they will lose doing this move.  During the match Fontaine and Ooh La, La actually both hit the move (taking waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long to do so), but Ooh La La Schoolboys himself on the still-kneeling Fontaine and gets pinned.  After…. some…micwork, it’s hashed out that next month will have Fontaine/Manager ES Easton vs. Ooh La La/Manager Barry Casino.  Yep, Abdullah the Butcher’s white third cousin.  Strike One.  Funny thing - during this match, someone behind us screamed out “FIVE OH OH!”  at Ooh La La.  We looked for Jeff Strauch, be he wasn’t there.  So, we have another reader in the house.

RD:  This wasn't the type of match that going to propel Ooh up the 500 as we'd hoped.  It wasn't as much Ooh La La bumping as we've seen with other shows.  This was really to build up what we think is an Ooh La La face turn.  Fontaine/Ooh La La might be a guilty pleasure type match, but adding ES (though he does throw a good punch for a manager) and the practically immobile Barry Casino can't be good.  I'm figuring that there's either a heel turn by Barry or he does the Loch Ness Elbow for the finish.

PS: I am interested to see how Ooh La La works as a face, Maxx and Thunder are beyond bad, and this wasn’t a good showcase for the La La/ Fontaine team. I think they hot shotted the turn a bit, as I would like to have seen some more tag matches before the turn. I really wanted to see Ooh La La / Fontaine vs. Red /Abudani but that will be one of those dream matches we will never get to see.

TKG: I was psyched about this match and agree that they hot-shotted the turn too quickly. The “Handsome Boy Modeling Academie Internacionale” worked the team of Thunder and Johnny Max. Mozart Fontaine mostly worked Max, since Max was capable of taking Fontaine’s offense. Thunder wasn’t capable of much, certainly not taking any offense so Ooh La La was stuck with him. Max also had a larger bosom than Kristi Mist and spent a lot of the match adjusting his top trying to make sure his nipples weren’t exposed. Ooh la La did the comedy bit were he flexes in front of Nise Glen Osbourne. The amusing thing was Ooh La La actually had better definition than Thunder. I would have liked to see Ooh La La and Fontaine use more healish double teams. Nothing really too modern looking, simple old school stuff: maybe a full nelson/ hangman’s neckbreaker combo, a second rope fist drop into abdominal stretch or maybe that Russian leg sweep/super kick combo that all the ECW fans used to mark out for. The team was split up too early as I have seen Fontaine in singles and I think the two were better than the sum of their parts. They already were better than the J-Team. Splitting them is an opportunity missed but ECWA is not being booked for me, as the rest of the card would prove. Oh and Easton has good mic skills and continues to impress.

PP:  Tom gets off this great line about how E.S. has mastered the JJ Dillon “stand in the background and discuss strategy with your wrestler while someone else pontificates on the microphone” routine.  The breakup makes even less sense when Fontaine’s beef was that Ooh hadn’t won a match “in years,” yet Ooh was the guy who picked up the pinfall in the trios match last month.  We realize we have another fan in the house as someone behind us does the one-man “500” chant for Ooh… postmatch, DVDVR reader Zubaz wanders over and ‘fesses up.  Nice to meet you, Zubaz- now get your ass to the S8 in February.

PR: Seeing Barry Casino do the Boogie Woogie Brown style bumping of hitting an elbow and then not being able to get back up is not going to get me to come back in January. And Zubaz was also yelling the equally annonying “Get some tassles” and varying points of the night. Also, someone explain the Thunder dog collar to me.... and second thought – don’t.

VINCE GOODNIGHT/STRIKER/BUCK WYLDE vs. XAVIER/RYAN WING/ROUGHHOUSE RIVERA
MH: I was all excited to see Xavier live and he didn’t disappoint, bringing the matwork and submissions.  I called this his audition, as to say that if he could do something with these loads, more would be in the cards for him.  Xavier was Far.  And.  Above.  Everyone else in this - mission accomplished, now give him a better match next month.  I will give Striker credit for being a prototypical 80’s babyface.  The others?  Eh.

RD:  The rudos were going to have to do a lot of carrying in this.  Rivera was sort of the odd ball in this, we were suggesting pre-show that Striker should have brought in as a heel and we could have had the "Those guys" gimmick with them as a heel stable.  Xavier did this neato neck snap move on Goodnight when he ran up the ropes and flipped over, snapping the back of Goodnight's neck on the top rope.  Striker was pretty funny on the apron.

PS: Xavier and Ryan Wing had a great frat boy rapist look about them. They should team as the Rock and Roofie Express. This had the look of one of those undercard Monterey lucha trios matches, with one great worker stuck in the middle “There is Silver Star, there is Orlando Santa Cruz... hey what the fuck is Zumbido doing here?” Xavier was head and shoulders above everyone in this match and looked totally world class. Stryker was freaking hysterical as he worked to the back of the Tokyo Dome with his exaggerated expressions. My favorite was exhorting Vince Goodnight to “Put Em to Sleep VINCE!!”

TKG: Stryker ruled here. One of my complaints about modern tag wrestling is that very few people seem to know how to play the Robert Gibson/ Bobby Fulton role. Guys seem to merely stand on the apron emotionless never reaching for the tag never really playing a role in selling the action in the ring. If the guy making hot tag doesn’t care about what’s going on with the face-in-peril, why should we? Stryker RULED on the apron. He sold the action in the ring better than most of the actual wrestlers who were in it. He got excited by the faces hope spots, got upset with the heels cheating, complained loudly to the ref any time a spot involved the heel holding the face against ropes for more than five seconds, reacted with grimaces when someone was hit. Stryker on the apron was able to tell the whole story of the match, he made sure you knew who had the momentum and when the momentum was turning.  Stryker was just an amazing scene chewing actor. I can’t even compare him to Shatner or Adam West. Stryker makes West look like a method actor, and makes Shatner look as understated as Dustin Hoffman. Thankfully Stryker appeared to be totally serviceable in the ring as well, and worked a bunch of mat sequences with Xavier.

PR: The best was that after the match, Stryker bowed to the crowd. I was ashamed that we didn’t have a bouquet of roses to throw him.

PP:  Xavier was easily the class of the match, busting out all sorts of tricked-out moves like the tornado stun gun and working some cool sequences with his ICW/USAPW confrere Stryker.  Hopefully he’ll move up the card some… an S8 appearance wouldn’t be out of the question by any means.  Stryker works the same babyface shtick he does at the Elk’s Lodge, but here it’s much more effective as the ECWA crowds aren’t nearly as jaded as the ones up in Gotham.  Wing busts out the sleaziest vertical suplex ever on Wylde, forcing a Pepsi spit-take out of me when Rippa yells that Wing should’ve bought him dinner first.

PR: That was my personal highlight of the night.

JAPANESE POOLBOY vs. ABUNAI
MH: I was kinda expecting something from Abunai here, but he didn’t show me much here.  Poolboy was all gimmick, as usual.  I headed out for a shot of Sierra Mist during this and missed the finish.  I hear it was clean, though.  While getting my soda, I see through to the dressing room and see the J Team, one whom has the door closed when they see me (Does it really matter which one it was?  They’re both horrible).  If I knew then what I know now, I’d have rushed the room and tried to take out their knees.  I’d have taken getting tossed if it meant preventing what happened later.

RD:  Uh, I don't know why they would put Pool Boy over someone clean.  I mean, he's a comedy undercard gimmick.  I like Abunai, but don't think he's at the level to really cover for someone and if they're not up to speed to do high spots with him, he's sort of in trouble.  I'm guessing Pool Boy and Abunai were in the ring when we showed up at the building as they do a spot we saw two guys working.  Pool Boy wins with a spinebuster type move clean and we were all like "Huh?"

PS: Abudani sure is short, however as US midget workers go he is demonstrable worse then Little Bobby Dean.

PR: Actually – the word is tiny. Abudani is tiny.

TKG: Pool Boy is watching a bunch of tapes as he does Kasai style snap mare and bodyslam. But his gimmick no longer gets the response it once did.  He desperately needs to re-gimmick. For a heat killer match, Robert Fuller vs. Madusa was worked better.

PP:  <TJN mode> The word from backstage was that Abunai was supposed to win the match, but Japanese Pool Boy refused to do the job and Kettner had no choice but to have Pool Boy go over.  </TJN mode>

THE SPANISH ANNOUNCE TEAM vs. LOW-KI/AMERICAN DRAGON
MH:  Well, this was as great as we expected to start, with a really long first fall that established the fact that the SATs are in for one hell of a fight and have to work up to their opponents, which they do after a while.  Tons of great stuff in this, extremely stiff and smartly worked.  Great moment was when Ki and Dragon teased dissension over the proper method of kicking Jose in the back, leading to 6-7 HARD kicks to Jose’s spine.  SATs steal first fall, champs equalize in the second, and we’re all cautiously optimistic. Up to here, this was the best match the SATs have had up to now - that is, until the MOTHERFUCKING WORTHLESS J-Team runs in to break up this great match with beltshots.  Then they paraded around the ring and generated tons of “Get the fuck out of the ring” heat as opposed to heel heat.  They, when it was apparent that the match was over, the crowd died.  I cannot believe that this match was booked this way.  I understand wanting to put the team that’s been there into the mix but dammit, wait until after the match.  The next day, and I’m still pissed.  Strike Two.

RD:  The first two falls of this match were fucking awesome.  American Dragon gets big props for his selling in this because he took the Joel Lariato of death and when he finally made the tag out, he sold that move for a good 3 or 4 minutes before getting to his feet and then sold it some more.  The Maximos took one hellacious beating during this, with both of them getting their t-shirts under their jump suits ripped off and getting chopped up by both guys.  The teased dissention between Ki and AD over who can punt a Maximo the hardest was great.  The Maximo's take the first fall with a roll up on Ki, I think it was Joel over Ki and I think it was either the same move Ki used to beat Eddy or the Maximo countering it.   The finish of the match makes me forget how Ki and Dragon evened this up.  I do remember a spot where they teased a double submission where Joel had Ki in the Dragon Clutch (his finisher) and American Dragon cranking in his bridged armbar move on Jose.  Then, we get our scheduled run in the J-Team.  At one point, there was discussion by the group of us that the 5 of us could probably rush the entranceway and tackle them and stop them long enough for the good of the match.  We chickened out and we suck for letting these choads get in the ring and shit on what was an Indy Match of the Year Candidate.

PS: The ending was excretible, but we did get nearly 30 minutes of super wrestling and it is hard to fault that. The opening was full on lucha libre, with Ki and the Maximos trading elaborate armdrags, lucha Ki rules it as much as all the other types of Ki. Too many highlights to mention, but the super monkey flip spear on American Dragon folded him up like a tent tarp, and there was some really choice matwork by American Dragon, who did look like the best guy on his team. I am exited to have the perpetual Modest vs. Danielsesque debate about American Dragon and Low-Ki as my opinion of which is the better worker shifts constantly. Low-Ki jobbed in the first fall, and for you Low-Ki is indy Nash conspiracy theorists, that is three straight ECWA jobs for Low-Ki. He has also lost three straight to American Dragon.

TKG: There was a lot to like about the body of this match. One of the things that plagues current wrestling, is constant counter wrestling (They’ve got counters for the counters) when the audience has no idea what the original move the wrestler was going for was, or the audience simply knows that it won’t work. In this match the counters always were out of moves that the audience understood. Joel tried to set up Ki for the Crown’s Gate, the audience pops in anticipation… Ki gets out of position to take it and counters the hold, audience pops for counter because it has meaning. I was on my feet smiling over the opening collar and elbow, and the fighting for dominance/advantage in the collar and elbow. Joel comes into this match with a hurt ankle and works up to his opposition, including at one point sacrificing a tuft of hair for the good of the match. Not enough can be said about American Dragon’s selling. I especially liked how he constantly reached for the tag whenever Ki was up against the ropes, while still selling the earlier damage. As someone who dislikes US style criss cross rope sections, I dug the hell out of them pulling out full on lucha style rope running. There was also a great colliding Big Boot section where American Dragon and Jose ape a Test v. Kane spot and make it look awesome. The run in finish pissed off the audience to no end and killed the heat of the card. In the sub-genre of wrestling matches involving a Puerto Rican brother team vs. a stiff Puerto Rican and a white guy named Dragon, the Hit Squad vs. Homicide/Insane Dragon had a far better finish.

PP:  No words on my part can describe how fucking HIDEOUS this finish was.  I mean if you have to have the run-in, set it up so one team gets the pin at the end.  I mean I could’ve bought the J-Team coming out to attack the Maximos as revenge for losing last month, with Ki/AD getting the win “unaware” that they interfered.  Then afterwards you can set up the three-way with the Maximos pissed off at both teams (J-Team for interfering, Ki/AD for “going along with it”).  At the very least they gave us lots and lots of the quality wrestling.  Ki sure does an awful lot of jobs for someone who refuses to do jobs.

PR: The guys covered most of the ground but I did want to mention a couple of things. For a really great wrestler, American Dragon sure has some ugly ass tights. They look like they were a by product of a 2nd grade art project. There was a ton of great stuff during the match – my favorite was at one point while Dragon was on the apron selling his beating and Ki was taking his own – every time Ki would get whipped into the ropes, Dragon would lunge out to tag him despite being in no condition to wrestle himself. I was really marking out for that. I guess that you can only have a clean finish in Japan because I wanted a clean finish and I was told that I wanted a Japanese finish.

INTERMISSION
MH: They promise a “resolution” to this mess after the break.  Schneider calls Dean and gives the update so far.  We all read Pete’s Japanese puro mags and the Sumo Mook he managed to come across.

PS: I go outside to call Dean, on my way out I see that someone has bought the Krysti Myst shoot. Questions float through my mind “Is this about her Wrestling days or about Porn?” “If it is about wrestling, does anyone really give a shit whether White Trash Johnny Webb is a prick backstage?” “If it is about porn, does anyone really care whether T.T. Boy is a cokehead or not” “Also by shoot, does this mean she does vaginal squirting?”

PP:  “Tera Patrick?  Oh, she’s a real cocksucker… and I mean that as a compliment.”

RD:  I talk for a bit with Zubaz during the break as everyone else goes outside and generally mill around.
 

A VERY SPECIAL INTERVIEW
MH: Well, here’s the “Resolution” we were promised to all this.  What is it, you ask?  See, American Dragon and Joel have showered and dressed, while their partners have not.  So, Kettner sends them back out to work the J-Team.  Huh?  Oh man, this ain’t good.  So anyway, they have a match for a bit (We were praying for Ki to stiff these loads into next week.)  Eventually, after the J-Team gains domination, Dragon and Joel head on out to save their partners.  Here’s where Dragon endears himself to us even more than he already has by stuffing the fuck out of JJ?  JR?  Hell, I don’t care.  Dragon elbowed the fuck out of Suck One and then blasted Suck Two in the corner with a Running Kick.  Kettner gets called to the ring to settle this.  Kettner comes out (Man, he’s getting a lot of time in the ring tonight) and ordains for a next month a Three Way Dance in a steel cage.  Oh great, these two teams get stuck in a clusterfuck cage match in the small ECWA ring with The Load Team?  Strike Three, they can run the January Show without me in attendance.

RD:  This gets really bad as Sebastian Knight cuts a promo about the J-Team infecting the night of good wrestling or something or other.  They cut to taped stuff with Kettner, who talks to Red prior to talking to the teams in the title match.  Earlier in the evening when Prince Nana came out in a suit (I guess he's Goodwill Ambassador to Ghana, William Nana) and interrupted a taped Cheetah interview, broken the tape and said something about "contractual obligations" being the reason that he wasn't going to work Cheetah tonight.

PP:  Another example of how truly great Nana is in the gimmick.  I mean he flew from Queens, NY all the way to Ghana, West Africa after the ICW show just so he could come out and say he flew in that night from Ghana, West Africa for ECWA.

RD: I'm guessing that Jim's talking to Red was to set up this contractual match.  I can't hear what's said on the tape, but I'm guessing it's something to the effect of "do you want a piece of the J-Team?  Hey, Jose and Ki, you're both dressed, go out there".  The J-Team works over Jose for the whole first part of the match.  Eventually Ki gets the tag and gets in a bunch of spots on JR, I notice this because it seemed to be JJ was running away from Ki like he didn't want the beating that was going to be dished out to him.  They do a spot where Ki goes for the Tidal Crush on one of the J-Team in the corner, but Jose is stuck in the corner behind the guy, the J-Team member gets out of the way and Jose takes the spot.  This builds to a spot later in the match where the J-Team tease the Double spear and Jose shoves Ki into it.  This builds to the partners going at it, then we get Joe L running in to save his brother and then getting beat up by the J-Team.  American Dragon comes out and teases that he still hates Ki and pretends like he's going to nail him, only to turn around and hit a stiff as fuck rolling elbow right into JJ's useless face.  Ki gets on the mic and tells Kettner to resolve this and it leads to the announcement that next month they'd face in a 3 way cage match.  I can tell you I have no confidence in this main event.  First off, it's a small ring, earlier in the night, they tried to do a triple back drop spot and they had guys bumping into each other.  Whenever they do six way matches, it seems they always result in stuff out on the floor to make room in the ring.  Second, as I noted earlier, JJ is not one on the taking of the beating and selling stuff.  As much as the others seem to not like JR Ryder, I don't have a problem with him, he's the one that will sell, he's the one that will bump (he took the Spanish Fly last month) and he's got the better offense, JJ is just useless.  And my worst fear is that the J-Team is going to win the belts in that match.

TKG: Sebastian Knight comes out and tries to do a really dark pseudo gothy promo, while the J Team pose. Lots of mentions of “darkness”, “doom” and “THE Sickness”. He mentions that after the last match Ki/Dragon and the Maximos were “infected with THE sickness”. I guess, that explains what Feinstein was doing during the intermission. The crowd doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the post intermission match that Kettner sets up. At this point, the crowds been killed and they just want to see J Team legit hurt. If the J Team had beaten up both teams post match, I’m sure this crowd would have eaten up the possibility of returning next month to see a Jose/Ki vs J team match. But instead the J Team ran in during the match, and people felt ripped off and the Crowd was too pissed to get into the match. I can’t imagine the three way being any good, and given the rope problems I fear the cage.

PS: I fear for the life of the Maximos and Ki, as you know they are going to try a Spanish Fly off of a cage and the ring is too small, and the cage will be too poorly constructed for it to come off well. Man alive to the J-Team stink, they are like a bush league Indy Kronik. There were some idiot ECW fans actually chanting for a “3-Way Dance” I can’t imagine that there is anyone who would actually want to see that. For all of the whining about Lo-Ki working too stiff, American Dragon totally out potatoed him in this match just murdering J.J. with an elbow. Not even close to "just right" stiffness. I was bummed that Lo-Ki wasn't hurting him more during his sections, and then after that Elbow I actually felt sorry for the Nise Brian Lee, he is going to be shitting bicuspids for a week. When Sebastian Knight stated that Ki/Dragon and the SAT’s had been infected by the sickness, I guess that explained where Kristi Myst went during the intermission.

PP:  I take back everything I said in the ICW report about Ken Sweeney… at the very least, he was willing to sell and take bumps.  OTOH, Ki gets a hot tag from Jose and starts to lay shot after stiff shot on JR in the corner.  JJ moseys in, takes one chop from Ki and IMMEDIATELY takes a powder so poor JR has to take more shots.  Steaming pile of orangutan feces, thy name is JJ.  As for the cage match, I’m in the minority here but I think they can save it if they do escape rules where the first team to hit the floor wins the match.  That way you can have one guy from each team duking it out on the floor while the other three work in the cage (“work” being a wrestling term and not an actual description of what JJ does).  You can also AAA the heck out of it by having guys climb back in to save their partners as necessary.  It’s going to be a cluster no matter what, but at the very least the escape stip would allow for less congestion in that tiny ring.

PR: A few days after the show, I was talking with Dean and I was still trying to get over the booking when Dean reminded me that Kettner – while a great guy – often has goofy booking like this and only seems to get it right at the Super 8.Oh well. I still wanted a clean finish. Stupid J-Team. Hate World. Revenge Soon.

SCOOT ANDREWS vs. SLYK WAGNER BROWN
MH:  I was on the Scoot bandwagon for a while, quite a bit longer than I apparently should have been, as Scoot has not been delivering for a while now.  While I don’t have the Full-On Hate that Schneider does, it seems more and more to me that Scoot’s good matches have been down to his opponents.  That said, this wasn’t horrible or anything.  Scoot retains via heel miscommunication leading to the Force Of Nature.  This ain’t the match to get the crowd back after all that in the last match.  We spend a lot of time talking about the lifts these guys are wearing.

RD:  This was ok wrestling, but not great.  Scoot looked better the night before, but I think that had a lot to do with the fact he was working with Red and he could throw him around.  Slyk is a lot bigger (especially with the Kane/Jericho level lifts in his boots).  Scoot has returned to doing the Force of Nature and he got Brown with it which was a suprise.

TKG: Slyk wears preposterous lifts for an indy worker. I guess if you hope to make the WWF, you better start learning how to work on stilts first.

PR: Jesus – I never noticed the lifts on Brown in the New England stuff but Dear God. And this match had too too much April Hunter nonsense in it too.

PS: This had about a minute and a half of nice mat work and the rest ate ass. Scoot freaking sucks.

PP:  This was decent, but we were still mumbling about the three-way setup so this was hard to get into.  I’m guessing that Slyk has the .9 Frankenstein lifts to hide the fact that he’s shorter than April Hunter.

CHEETAH MASTER vs. PRINCE NANA
PR: Since I had missed the last show, I get caught up on the whole Cheetah/Nana feud and I laugh at the “destruction” of Cheetah’s gym. “Oh no! Not the towels. Paul Newman’s gonna have my legs broke.”

MH:  Earlier in the night, Nana interrupted a Cheetah promo for this match to say that he has “Contractual Issues” with Kettner that will force this match to be called off.  Well, this match starts with Nana being obligated to work Red - As Nana comes up, Pete breaks out the Ghanaian Flag that I help him hold up.  Nana sees us and freaks out, probably figuring I’m from Ghana or something, but wondering what the hell Pete’s deal is.  And am I supposed to believe that Ketter double-booked Red?   But Red, still feeling the effects of his knee getting worked over in the opener, doesn’t put up much of a fight.  Red gets helped out, and Nana has no opponent, until Cheetah’s music starts up.  Cheetah then comes out to and poses in and around the ring for the…entire…duration…of “Welcome To The Jungle.  I fall asleep.  Anyway, the match is a perfectly fine grudge match, Cheetah beats him up a bit, Nana makes a comeback - one of us realizes that we need to pass Nana the Ghana Flag to place over Cheetah while he’s out of it.  Sadly, we’re too far away before Cheetah makes his comeback.  Eventually it breaks down and goes to a no-contest. Cheetah then rambles on in the ring - YEAH! YEAH! - and calls for a cage match.   Ketter comes out (ECWA - All Ketter, All The Time!) and makes it so for next month.  For next month.  Not enough for me.

RD:  I'm baffled why Red was sent out to get beat up by Nana.  I guess because they wanted him to get some more heel heat.  I don't know how you can get more heel heat than going to someone's gym and throwing around their towels.  Cheetah comes out and does his usually 8 hour entrance.  I suggested that Nana hopped in his car, go back to Cheetah's gym, trash it again and then head back to the arena.  I was so not into this match.  It had a lot to do with the fact it was like 90% Cheetah on offense and there was a lot of time where he was vamping with the crowd and stuff.  Not that playing to the crowd is bad or anything, it was just taking way, way, way too long (like holding Nana, touching fists with someone in the crowd and then punching Nana a number of times).  So basically, it's a lot of Nana getting his ass kicked, Cheetah hits his top rope splash and the ref gets pulled out by ES Easton and the DQ is declared.  This wouldn't have been a problem if the match wasn't declared a No DQ match prior to it starting.  So we get the locker room clearing and then Cheetah asking for a cage match next month.  This sucked for the forgetting of the stip prior to the match and on top of it, Nana got no heat in this match.  I would be fine if he got beat up the entire way and if they did the angle where Cheetah gets DQed for going after him or if Nana does something really evil to him (fireballing him, repeated piledrivers on a chair, juicing him, SOMETHING).

PS: They had to throw little Red out there to get squashed by Nana, cause no one pays to see them little Cruiserweights. Nana didn’t get enough offense to establish himself as a danger for Cheetah, as CM was full on HHH in his lack of selling anything. Thus why should the crowd want to see Cheetah get his revenge, when he already dominated Nana. Great robe by the Prince though.

TKG: I had less of a problem with this match than the rest of the Playaz. I do agree that Nana needed a much longer period on offense to make it meaningful and I would have loved to see them do the “HE PUT THE FLAG ON THE CHEETAH! HE PUT THE FLAG ON THE CHEETAH!” angle. But outside of that this was worked the way one works super over local babyface matches. All of Cheetah’s offense seemed ok, fine punches, solid circa 96 high spots. As build to a cage match, it wasn’t smartly layed out but it was a fine match for what it was (other than the ref calling for the DQ bell, that was just inexcusable).

PP:  Nana’s “prince” gimmick may or may not be a work, but the Ghana part is definitely 100% legit based on his reaction of complete and utter shock upon seeing the flag.  He yells something along the lines of “Where did you get that?” at us and I picture Cel trying to justify his complicity in this bit by brushing up on as much Ghanaian trivia as possible for the next time Nana shows up.  In the meantime, that flag is SOOOOO getting taped up on the Elk’s Lodge balcony.  The match proper was OK, but Nana REALLY needed to go over here if they were planning on the rematch for January.  Cheetah was getting so much offense in that we figured Nana was going to go over in the end somehow, by hook or by crook… the no-contest finish made zero sense given the announced stips unless Nana was going to do something truly despicable to warrant it.  The fact that Cheetah was still fine and dandy after the smoke had cleared doesn’t make a boatload of sense either unless Nana’s going over next month (ha ha).

PR: I as the blown finish hit so I could call Dean and updating him on the rest of the card. I did laugh at Cel and Pete arguing over the proper way to hold the flag. I still also haven’t figured out the Russoish light-heavies get beat down a lot throughout the night theme that was going on.

EPILOGUE
MH: We get back to DC and I try to watch some MPW at Schneider’s before tapping out to sleep.  Always fun to hang out and watch wrestling together, especially when out-of-towners make the trip, but yeesh, I left that show with a sour taste in my mouth.  Bad, bad, bad. I’ll not be crossing the Maryland border into Delaware before the Super 8.  Bah.

PR: I provide drinks for the car ride back so all three of us don’t fall asleep. Somewhere on the trip back, Schneider admits to liking Creed. I laugh.

RD:  I wouldn't be jazzed about the next show, but there's a chance the Los Lurkers Locos might go to the show just so we can have a get together and see some wrestling, but I'm not optimistic about the end results of that show.

PS: I got too much good wrestling to try to attend to waste my time going to the next ECWA show. Kettner superbooked himself out of my $14. I’ll be back for the Super 8, lets hope he doesn’t book the shit out of that.

TKG: Yep I really have no interest in going to next show. OTOH I will gladly go to see Stryker in local community theatre Tennesse Williams production.

PP:  I’m willing to give Kettner the benefit of an off-night, and I’ll be back with Ray next month provided the LLL reunion goes down as planned.  Post-show we get back down to Phil’s place and watch him FF through an entire MPW show to get to the Cubanitos and the Super Dragon-Jardi Frantz match.  Ray and I tap out at that point and somehow I get some sleep on his tiny couch.