PP: I hit the Hall at 12:30 to see Rev Ray already there, as we both made fantastic time getting to Bayonne. This would turn into a motif throughout the day. JAPW photographer/chauffeur Dani shows up at 1pm in an SUV with the seats removed in order to squeeze TWELVE people inside. We sit there scrunched up and broiling just long enough to convince Paul (aka GhoulyMad in the chatroom) that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea for us three to drive down to Seaside in his car instead. With that arranged, we're off. The folks in the van jetted before we could swing around and get back to them, but that doesn't matter as we wind up beating them to Seaside by an hour. We purchase tickets and since it's coverup season, Ray and Paul head inside to play videogames while I hit the beach and splash down to the far
end of the pier, then walk back on the boardwalk. Along the way I try a couple of games, but sadly I don't get the Hong Kong Phooey or Towelie dolls I saw. I comfort myself with the "world's largest pizza slice" and a perfectly fine lime rickey before heading in and getting Joanne the Gong magazine with the K-Pro pics. The sun soon goes down and it's a beautiful night for rassling under the stars. It should be noted that JAPW rented an Avis truck as they apparently lost the deposit on the Ryder truck from the previous show. More on this later.

RD: Ever since I've started going to the JAPW shows, I've gotten on the kick of picking up whatever collectable cups they have for some goofy reason... Ok, that reason being I'm too lazy to do dishes and I need as many cups and I can possibly fit in my house so I can put off cleaning them as long as I can. Anyway, I opt for the X-Games Carey Hart motocross cup and get a groan from Pete when I told him I got the cup because Hart must ride with his Sunglasses at Night. The van was comically filled, and we were still missing like 3 people while we were sitting outside. Since Paul is concerned about the parking situation in Bayonne anyway, it doesn't take too much to convince him to just drive. I ended up walking up the boardwalk scoping for pinball to play since my last time at Seaside proved that my video game skills are not what they once were. I was happy to find an "Attack From Mars" pinball machine which is one of my personal favs. I was able to pull a high score despite a bad right flipper. I end up picking up 2 of the Chikara tapes and got to my seat.

THE SHOW
Match 1: JAY LETHAL vs. STRYKER
PP: The announcer asks us to rise for the national anthem, but of course this segues into Sheik Martinez' theme music which is played so loudly that my fillings hurt. Sheik limps out (he's in a walking cast for some unexplained reason) and announces that someone will be joining his reign of, well, "annoyance" as he hasn't been particularly terrorizing. Lethal and Stryker come out and Stryker tells Sheik to sit and spin. Match proper goes back and forth and is fine, although there were a few clowns behind us loudly yelling for Lawler and puppies... thankly, these shmoes were in the VAST majority. Finish has Skinhead Ivan come down and distract the ref while Sheik hits the ring. Stryker and Lethal get ready to take him out, only for Stryker to TURN ON AMERICA~! as he toasts Lethal with a clothesline, hits the Overdrive and puts Lethal in the Happy Monkey for the submission. Postmatch we're all set to hate this as Stryker puts over John Walker Lindh as his hero, but he then proceeds to slay us as he suddenly picks up an accent and starts babbling in HEBREW. If anyone else was doing this angle it'd be pretty hard to swallow, especially with the 9/11 anniversary coming up, but if there's anyone who can pull off this bit it's Shecky Stryker.

RD: Sheik says something about his foot being broken in 5 places, but you couldn't really tell with the mic and my great apathy towards the Sheik. The match itself was pretty good. Jay looked better with Stryker than he did against LowRida last month. They did some nice stuff. I kind of question why they had Sheik be the one to run in the ring, what with the broken foot and all. I guess it's good that they've finally given Stryker an angle and given that the guy's a total ham, him doing the gimmick might be good. Especially since he's going so over the top with it.

Match 2: SHAOLIN WRECKING CREW (Magic and Suba) vs. DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS (E.C. Negro and K.C. Blade)
PP: The Scoundrels are awesome heels with cool teamwork- Ray and I have been DRS dorks ever since they worked an amazingly great trios match at a JAPW student show back in March- but we both figured them to be nothing but bump-fodder for their double-wide opponents here. Thankfully DRS got their bumping out of the way early and actually got a lot of offense in on Suba before he finally tagged in Magic. SWC eventually get the win with stereo Vader bombs on Blade and Negro. DRS rule it and I hope JAPW continues to use them. Da Hit Squad (w/newly-remixed theme music) come out afterwards and lay out both teams, then demand to be inserted into the main event under TLC rules. Never mind that this was already announced on the JAPW MB.

RD: This was a lot of more fun than I thought it was going to be. I was sure this was going to be a total squash, but they let the Scoundrels get in a lot of stuff. They're good heels and I'm hoping they do get used again, as I'd think they'd be good opponents against Rainchild & Lethal and Thomas & Lazaro. Suba come out with two boots on a chain, which I dub the "Nunchukshu". We missed part of this as we were in the SWC corner and we couldn't really see around Magic when he was standing on the apron. I think the Hit Squad broke one of the plastic chairs on the SWC before they ended up wasting the Scoundrels some more.

Match 3: JAPW TV Title: GHOST SHADOW (C) vs. EXPLOSIVE EDDIE THOMAS (w/Tony Lazaro) vs. RAINCHILD (w/Jay Lethal)
PP: OK match with GS (now playing subtle heel) directing traffic for what turns out to be five people as both seconds soon get involved in the match. Everyone brawls to the truck side, where Rainchild pulls off the "holy shit" spot of the year with a CANCUN TORNADO OFF THE ROOF OF THE TRUCK. That's two blown deposits now. Thankfully everyone's in position to catch him and he pulls it off about as well as one could hope. Finish comes down to GS hitting the Muscle Buster on Rainchild and getting a handful of tights for the pin.

RD: Shadow looked pretty good in this, I'm not sure if him doing the slight heel bit was an adlib as it seems people were cheering for the students (as it was probably the other students) rather than him. They also got on his case when he went for a springboard off the ropes to the floor. He slipped off on the first attempt, but hopped back up and hit the move. When he got chants of "You fucked up" he responded with "The ropes are loose!" Shadow hit the really great knee in the corner he did against Dixie again and it looked brutal. Eddie Thomas looked good in this as did Rainchild. I think early on they were working together to work over Shadow. I'm not sure how hyped I am about guys that young doing dives off of trucks, but for what it's worth it's the only time someone went off the truck that night, but they've also done the truck spot each show from what I've gathered. The end was Rainchild missing a shooting star press before Shadow put him with the MUSCLE buster and the handful of tights. The tights was just sort of a "yup, I'm working rudo tonight" move.

Match 4: SLYK WAGNER BROWN (w/April Hunter) vs. "LIGHTNING" MIKE QUACKENBUSH
PP: This was probably match of the night for pure ringwork, as Slyk and Quack jelled much better than most of us expected. Quack drops Slyk early with a double-leg takedown, then poses on top of Slyk's back and screams "I'M SO STRONG AND POWERFUL!" It busts up the entire crowd and pretty much turns them in his favor for the balance of the match. Quack takes control near the finish with a super-nasty springboard footstomp on Slyk, but April interferes as he goes up top which leaves himself wide open for Slyk to hit a top-rope version of what appeared to be Quack's own move (Quackensmash) for the pin. Good match... Slyk's now been involved in what I thought were the best matches on two straight cards.

RD: During intros, a bunch of guys on my side of the ring were giving Quackenbush a hard time asking who he was. Quack answered with "I used to be Tatanka". As Pete said, this was a lot better than it looked like it was going to be on paper. Quackenbush did a good job working the crowd, to the point when they were ragging on Slyk with the "Koko B Ware" chant, he was sort of goading them along by doing the bird. I was kind of hoping that Hansen would pull the Tommy Ran and not count a few of the pins Slyk was getting off illegal double teams with April, but all for naught. The springboard double stomp surprised the hell out of the whole crowd, it was a neat spot. Slyk's won with what was essentially was a reverse Iconoclasm flipping Mike over backwards so he landed on his face/stomach as he got caught up top.

Match 5: PETE FROM TOUGH ENOUGH (w/amazingly skanky valet) OPEN CHALLENGE
PP: TE Pete comes out to the big-ass girlie pop, talks about the beatings he's taken in JAPW (from DHS as well as Chris Candido) and announces that he's challenging anyone in the back to a match. Stryker takes the challenge as he comes out in full Sabu outfit w/the Sheik. Strykbu makes short work of TE Pete and does some more micwork ("The boys in the back ask me, 'Stryker, have you been smoking the Moroccan hash?" and I say 'Yes!"') before arguing with Sheik over which way Mecca is for their prayer session. Hysterical.

RD: I missed most of this as I went on a bathroom run when I saw Pete come out. I ended up having to pay a quarter to use the bathroom. At the minimum, if I'm paying to use the bathroom, the least they could do is provide one of those target mats that they used to have in the urinals. It makes it feel like a game. Anyway, I get back to catch Strybu's mic work which was pretty great. He also pointed out during it "People come to me and say... Stryker... When did you get an accent?" I'm waiting for him to bust out the persian clubs and start calling Clemson "Gene Mean" and telling the cameraman to zoom.

Match 6: SKINHEAD IVAN vs. J-TRAIN
PP: Train challenges Ivan to a dance-off before the match starts. It's hysterical as Ivan tries to shake his groove thang to Ini Kamoze's "Here Comes the Hot-Stepper" and all of the ECW fans start doing the cabbage-patch (this of course was Public Enemy's old ECW music). I flash back to Evan Dorkin's "Phil the Disco Skinhead" character. The less said about the match the better, although at least Ivan didn't do any cretin micwork that I can remember. Ivan gets the win off of (I think) a chairshot followed by the Sieg Heil legsweep. Postmatch DHS run in again, toast Train and strip him to his briefs. There's a weird moment where a fan (who looked like the lovechild of Bam Bam Bigelow and Roadkill what with his full beard and tattooed head) gets in Mafia's face and Mafia shoves him back HARD, leading his girlfriend to almost hop the rail to go after Mafia.

RD : There was something really goofy and surreal about Ivan dancing. I was kind of hoping he'd try to do that Bench dance from European Vacation. There was a match here... yup. I really could have done without J-Train having his close ripped off.

Match 7: JAPW LHW Title: DIXIE (C) (w/Valentina) vs. AZRAEL
PP: Dixie seems to have finally stuck to theme music for more than one show as he comes out to this tricked-out thrash song while scolding people who clap for him (me included). "NO!" Dixie rudos it up like a king, bailing out and heading to the back with Valentina and the belt before Azrael runs after him and drags him back to the ring. He also hits a Dibiase-style fistdrop that would make Dean weep. The crowd starts a "She's got herpes" chant at one point, leading Dixie to pull out his tights so he can stare aghast at his poor l'il unit. Azrael works over Dixie's arm throughout, at one poing busting out a great-looking Minoru Special II. There's another point in the match where Dixie tries to bail out again, only for Azrael to hit him with a huge flip dive off the top turnbuckle and land on the floor with a huge "THUD." That hurt me. Finish looked botched here as Dixie hit the Roaring Elbow on Azrael who appeared to kick out at 2, yet the ref ended the match anyway. OK match.

RD: I did like that Dixie also asked the ref to check his lip to see he had any sores during the herpes chant. This was a fun match for the most part. Azrael's dive was really crazy, it was good that everyone seemed to recover from it. Azrael keeps up his trend of working the arm. The finish was sort of weird as it seemed like a counter sequence with Azrael ducking the elbow, missing a high roundhouse kick before eating the elbow. It really did look like a 2 count. I wouldn't mind seeing the match up again.

Match 8: STEVE CORINO vs. JERRY "THE KING" LAWLER
PP: Lawler is about as over with the crowd as you might imagine... thankfully he comes out as Memphis Jerry as opposed to WWE Jerry and leaves the "puppies" shtick at home. Corino cracks us all up for his introduction as he steps out of the corner and does a teeny Japanese-style pose. We should've brought streamers to throw for him. Corino gets the mic and does a great bit on how Lawler crippled "my hero, Andy Kaufman!" He talks about Lawler being on TV... someone in the crowd yells "At least he's ON TV!" It's a great line, but all it does is set up Corino putting over how he's on Samurai TV in Japan where "millions of people" see him each week. He promises to beat Lawler with a piledriver, then take his commentator spot on Raw "so I can kiss JR's ass every week just like you do!" Slow match with Lawler controlling the early goings, hitting his fistdrop off the ropes and even whipping out his old-guy dropkick on Corino. At this point they bring the Memphis as Corino goes into his tights for an object and uses the Power of the Punch on Lawler. The crowd is awesome as they react EXACTLY as if the body of water this show was taking place at was the Mississippi River as opposed to the Atlantic Ocean. Lawler takes control at one point and goes for a second fistdrop off the ropes, but Corino rolls out of the way and the fifty-something Lawler takes the impact smack-dab on his knees. That HAD to suck. Corino continues to work over Lawler with the object du jour and eventually hits that piledriver, but Lawler gets his foot on the rope at two. Meanwhile Corino's celebrating like he won, which he does just long enough for Lawler to shake off the effects of the move, get Corino's attention... and drop the strap. POP. Lawler gets a quick comeback and just nukes Corino with a piledriver of his own for the pin. While Quack/Slyk had better ringwork, this was an easy match of the night just for the story being laid out in the ring. Lawler and Corino didn't do anything more spectacular than Lawler's fistdrop off the ropes, yet the crowd was into it the whole time and there weren't any "boring" chants. KISS.

RD: Corino's mic work was great. Really a basic match. Jerry's punches were great though. He should really sit down Lance Storm because the guys in the editing both must be dying doing all those camera cuts when Storm throws a punch. Corino did the Jerry Lawler working heel in Dallas against Eric Embry for the Unified Title gimmick with the "Hide the Object" bit. The fans were ragging on Corino threatening he was going to give Jerry the "Stink Finger" or rub ball sweat on him. This was ok. It was pretty slow, but I think they did a good job of working the crowd in it. The piledriver was pretty great. I was just disappointed that Corino didn't use the Andy Kaufman windmill attack on Jerry, if he did, I would have given this 8 billion stars.

Match 9: TLC Rules for the JAPW Tag-Team titles: INSANE DRAGON & JAY BRISCOE (C) vs. DERANGED & MARK BRISCOE vs. DA HIT SQUAD (w/Johnny D)
PP: One of the teams comes out with a SpongeBob SquarePants doll they apparently won on the boardwalk, which Johnny D promptly affixes to the ladder on the floor. This is just a mess from bell to bell as all six guys skip the wrestling moves and get right to killing each other. They run the scariest spot I've ever seen as Mark, Jay and MAFIA all get onto the ladder at the same time where Jay sunset-flips Mark into a powerbomb through a table. There's a loud snapping sound and I can't tell if it came from the table, the ladder or Mark's spine breaking. The ladder is clearly broken yet it looks like Jay and Deranged are getting ready to use it for another spot before fans start screaming at them that it's broken. Nobody is safe as even Paul Turner (one of the refs) takes a sick chairshot from Monsta that apparently breaks his nose. The end perfectly sums up the retarded nature of the match as Monsta calls for fans to toss their chairs into the ring... about a dozen folks oblige before the ring announcer begs people to stop doing this over the PA. Mafia piles the chairs up in the middle of the ring and Monsta pins Insane Dragon off the Burning Hammer for the title switch. Just horrible. When I watch wrestling I want to concentrate on the match proper... I don't want to sit there worrying if the workers are going to survive the match. Again, KISS.

RD: The selling in this was quite stinky at times as I think Monsta broke a plastic chair over Mark Briscoe's head and it got sold for all of 3 seconds. The ladder spot was really crazy. Fortunately, I think enough people made noise for them to throw the ladder out of the ring before someone else killed themselves going for something off the ladder. I don't think there was an actually table in the match. It seemed like they had two doors minus the knob holes in them which served as tables. Pre-show we were talking about protecting finishers in the car and then Insane Dragon kicked out of it. I think we should reiterate... if you are in the ring... DO NOT CALL FOR CHAIRS! Too many fans have seen the ECW footage and are all too willing to whip chairs into a ring. The second burning hammer on the stack of tables ends the match. You don't need all this.

PP: This was a perfectly OK show up until the main event. Postmatch I suddenly pick up a deathwish as I buy fried Oreos from a stand on the boardwalk. I also get a pound of fudge for my sister. We soon get back on the road where Ray grabs the steering wheel away from Paul and forces him to drive to Checkers again. Sadly, they don't have Kyle Petty cups and so Ray has to settle for Terry Labonte. We get our food and hit the Parkway before they call the cops.

RD : Let the record show that it was BOBBY LaBonte, not Terry. I don't believe that Terry is in the Coca Cola family of drivers. The drive back is pretty uneventful except for a near brush with death during a construction zone, reduced lanes and someone sliding over. Other than that, not a bad show, sort of lost momentum at the end. The next show is fortunately back in Bayonne which is a much easier trip for us. And it's free. And you can't beat that price.