RD : Rev Ray Duffy, waiting by the phone
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RD : This show ended up being a solo shot for me as Pete ended up having to work in Arizona this week and couldn't make it. I was sick all week and wasn't sure about going at one point, but the line up did look really strong and figured what the hey. I think this is the first time JAPW has run Rahway on a Friday in like a year or something. I missed the shill that was on our board, but I didn't remember hearing anything about dark matches, so I took a later train since I wasn't feeling well and didn't really want to stand outside in the rain. They usually post doors open at a time and they open 20 to 30 minutes later. I walked into the building just as EC Negro and Corvis Fear had finished, which kind of bummed me out since Negro has been having some fun dark matches. I say hi to Lucha Mike and Dorothy and much to my dismay I discover that good ol' RF Video is in the building... including Rob selling merchandise. Well, I guess it's true what they say about wrestling not being a place for people with long memories. Speaking of long memories, since I was sick and it's a long show, some of my memories are fuzzy about the show. Either that or I'm getting old. Or probably both.

DARK MATCH #2 :ARCADIA v. ERIC STEVENS

RD : Arcadia worked last show and I think is an area guy. Stevens is part of the Florida crew. I was just settling in to my spot in the bleachers when they did some sort of spot where Arcadia used a titty twister on Stevens from the mount. He didn't get a submission though. Arcadia is a pretty agile guy, he can land on his feet pretty quick, including hitting either a leg lariat or drop kick where he lands on his feet after hitting it. He did his jump on the back fameasser, though this time I think he did it a little quicker than last time so it looked better. Arcadia took a crazy bump when Stevens was on the apron. They did a spot where Stevens picked him up for a suplex and dropped him stomach first on the apron, then Arcadia fell forward and bumped to the floor. Finish I think was Arcadia going up for like a flying head scissors move, Stevens catches him and has him set up for a tombstone piledriver. Stevens whips Arcadia's body out and sits down dropping him face first to score the pin. This was an ok match. I don't remember anything terrible about it, but someone from Johnson's bus trip people, I think Nick Knowledge who used to do USA Pro/ICW commentary, was riding Stevens about not showing up for the CZW show the next day.

DARK MATCH 3 : RUSH MARGERA v. BEEF WELLINGTON :

RD : I'm disappointed that Rush didn't come out to "Christmas in Hollis" since it was so close to the holidays... and would have fit the gimmick. Either that or the Slim Santa song Elax used 2 years ago. Beef got a pretty good reaction coming out. They worked pretty much a comedy match. Early on, Rush got knocked out to the floor and teased a tope, Rush ducked. Beef then stopped, stepped through the ropes and hit a double axe handle from the apron. They did a funny spot where they kept trying to whip each other into the railings, but one guy would counter and hit the guy, then he'd try it. They ended up doing it on all 4 sides of the ring, each time with a reversal, occasionally, one would roll in to break the count and then they'd go right back to fighting over trying to whip each other into the rails. Eventually, both of them passed out from exhaustion from doing all the reversals and were down for a bit on the floor. Eventually he came back in the ring. Beef hit the ass punch and Rush took a bump into the post on it. Beef ended up getting the win with an underhookpiledriver. Fun match.
 

MATCH 1 : THE H EFFECT (Dixie & Deranged) with Insane Dragon v. THE CARNAGE CREW (HC Loc & Tony Devito) :

RD : I'm not sure but I think this was a face v. face match. Well, Homicide's group is working heel, so I guess that makes Teddy a face and the Carnage Crew helped him, so I guess they're faces. H Effect were working face against the Johnny D's guys, so I dunno. This was mostly Crew with Dixie and Deranged getting in some spots, but not too much. Deranged got murdered pretty early by a clothesline. Dragon was pretty good doing a lucha second impersonation fanning Dixie or Deranged from then floor with a towel or sweat jacket. Finish had Devito up on the top rope and Deranged setting up for a top rope rana.Devito was able to hold on to him so Deranged was hanging upside down. Loc did like a jumping hip check into Deranged hanging and then they hit the super spiked piledriver on him to score the win. OK match. For whatever reason, either injuries or something, Dixie and Deranged have really been lost in the shuffle lately, sad considering how good both of them were about a year to a year and a half ago.
 

MATCH 2 : MR WRESTLING KEVIN STEEN v SEXXXY EDDY :

RD : Both guys got pretty good reactions coming out and actually it seemed like the crowd was split on who they wanted to cheer. Eddy got a girl out of the crowd and was doing his strip tease when Steen hit him from behind as the girl was lying on the mat. This had some fun stuff in it. One spot had Eddy on his knees and Steen kick him in the back, then in the front, Eddy ends up laying all the way back but still on his knees and Steen hit a somersault leg drop on him while he was like that. Eddy hit some nice high flying moves including a split leg moonsault and his reverse somersault senton move out of the corner. Steen did a lot of teasing of his piledriver move which got countered
a bunch. I think Steen went for a Merosault at some point, don't know if he connected it but it looked pretty none the less. Finisher was all kinds of weird and complex. I think Eddy went for a rana, but Steen pulled him back up. So he's got him set in position for a powerbomb, then he moves his arm up and either reverse full nelson's Eddy or hooks behind his neck while Eddy is sitting on Steen's shoulders. Steen then falls back, shooting Eddy over so that Eddy lands on his back and gets the pin. Wild move. Both guys got a good reaction when they left.

MATCH 3 : THE SOLUTION (Papadon & Havok) w/ Johnny D v. THE CHRISTOPHER ST CONNECTION (Buff E & Mace Mendoza) for the JAPW Tag Team Titles :

RD : They had been building this match up for awhile. Pre-match, Johnny D insists that he's not gay, but if the CSC try to touch him, the Solution will leave and keep the belts. The CSC try to goose him and the Solution and Johnny leave, only to get cut off by Fat Frank who tells them if they get counted out or DQed, the titles will go to the CSC. I've seen these two teams work each other in the past and have an entertaining match. This wasn't that match. I dunno, it seemed like it took for ever for this to get going, there was a lot of stalling. It wasn't even like the CSC were doing a lot of talking, or at least I couldn't hear them from where I was sitting so it was kind of like watching them stand around for a while with nothing going on. Match builds to the point where Johnny D grabs and chair and comes into the ring and Buff E cuts him off and kisses him. Johnny stands there sort of dazed, kind like he liked it. Havok goes for a spear on Buff E and nails Johnny instead. Eventually Mace rolls up Papadon, I think after Papadon gets kissed by Buff E, but I forget. This was probably the worst match on the card.

MATCH 4 : RODERICK STRONG v. SUPER DRAGON :

RD : This was all kinds of fun. Both guys come out and try to see who can be the bigger dick to each other. This was plenty stiff with each guy pummeling each other with chops and elbows. Early on, Roderick tries to hit his fireman's carry drop into a double knee rib breaker, but Dragon counters and tries to tie Roderick up for the curb stomp and Roderick gets out to the floor. They did the spot where Strong is chopping Dragon against the post, Dragon ducks, but Strong stops before hitting the post... then tries another chop and hits it anyway. Strong worked on Dragon's back, Dragon sort of worked on Strong's head/neck. Dragon got in his spring leg lariat, a double stomp to the head and a big senton. Finish was nice as Dragon did a body roll to stop the boston crab, but Roderick cart wheeled with it and reapplied the crab and got the tap out of the win. This was another fun match, it felt like they had sort of run out of steam nearing the end, but that might have been selling. The finish was nice though.

MATCH 5 : AZRAEL with Rick Silver, Esq v. JAY LETHAL for the JAPW Light Heavyweight Title v. Azrael's career in JAPW :

RD : I ended up BSing a bit with Buck Woodward during this. We were trying to figure out how they were going to do a surprise finish. Choices included Mama Lethal turning against Jay because he didn't clean his room or take out the garbage and Azrael did or adopting Silver because they always wanted a son to be a lawyer. This was another fun match in the series between these two. I'm blanking on lots of the finer details of the match, but it was good. Silver interfered a few times, including using his tie to choke Jay on the ropes. They did a spot where both guys were fighting on the top rope where Azrael went for a back suplex and Lethal turned into it. At one point, Azrael had a chair and swung at Jay but ended up hitting the ropes and busting himself open on the rebound. At some point, Silver pulled a ladder out from under the ring. They set up a bridge spot with the ladder on the apron and railing. They do a big tease spot with both guys trying to throw each other onto the ladder. Jay had Azrael set up forAzrael's own finisher on the apron, but Azrael is able to fight and block it. He gets put on the buckles. Jay climbs up after him trying I think to superplex him out so he lands on the apron, but Azrael gets him and is able to set up the electric chair driver and hit it from the top to score the pin. I liked the finish a lot. One because it was a clean as a sheet win and especially since they didn't take an overly crazy ladder bump after the two had already done a ladder match. Jay congratulates Azrael on the win after the match. They took an intermission after this match.
 

MATCH 6 : EL GENERICO v. JACK EVANS :

RD : This was built as a number one contenders match with the winner getting a title shot at the next show. Both guys got good reactions when they got introduced. Evans is an amazing acrobat, too bad his strikes are fucking HORRIBLE. I knew his punches were bad, then I saw his elbows in this match and oof... not pretty. Otherwise, this was pretty fun. Generico's sections on offense are what really held this together as Jack's non-flying stuff is pretty painful to watch. Generico hit like 3 or 4 big corner yakuza kicks at one point. Generico tried to hit his turnbuckle brainbuster but Jack flipped out of it and hit a nice reverse rana while going over. I'm pretty sure Jack hit a 450 plancha at some point. Jack survived a bunch of stuff. Eventually he hit a moonsault DDT and hit the turn around 630 to win the match. I was kind of hoping Generico would go over, but oh well.

MATCH 7 : B-BOY v. TEDDY HART :

RD : Teddy was sporting the red oven mitt pants tonight. Crowd was mostly pro-Teddy, but there were dueling B-Boy/Teddy chants, but it was probably 60 or 70% for Hart. Say what you will about him, Teddy does get a reaction from a crowd, positive or negative. Early in the match, Teddy had B-Boy set up for the shooting star press but landed on B-Boy's knees. Later in the match, Teddy was able to hit the corkscrew somersault senton on B-Boy, but he got out. B-Boy got in his big drop kick/Double boot scrape move while Teddy was down in the corner. B-Boy hit a shining wizard and went for the pin, but pulled up Teddy at 2. He went for a second shining wizard, but Teddy countered it with a roll up and was able to hold B-Boy down for the pin. Good match and probably had the best heat of the night.
 

RD : They followed this up with Santa Claus and Ray Saeger coming out throwing out presents for everyone. As they were doing it, Jack Evans came out from the back and joined them in the ring. This lead to Homicide and B-Boy coming out from the back, threatening Jack. While Ray and Jack were distracted, Santa ended up nailing Jack with the sack. Wait a minute, I don't think that's Santa Claus at all, it's Michael Hayes!... no wait, it was Low Ki. Ki gives us a big "Ho HoHo" in the booming Low Ki voice. Ki tells Jack he's been naughty and calls all the fans stupid. They end up stealing Jack's hat and sneakers. Ki wishes us happy holidays. I'm hoping that JAPW puts this clip up on the site as it was pretty funny. Plus you had Homicide and B-Boy wearing the beard and wig while Ki was doing his mic work.
 

MATCH 8 :SAMOA JOE v. DAN MAFF for the JAPW Heavyweight Title :

RD : This wasn't necessarily a bad match, but it sort of suffered from where it was in the show. At the point this got to the ring, it was after 11:15, maybe 11:30. It seemed like the crowd was getting burned out at this point. As the match went on, the announced that there were 5 minutes left in the match. If you're going to do a time limit draw on a card, you really should make the habit of announcing time limits remaining in every other card on the show, otherwise it sort of telegraphs what the finish is. A lot of people were grumbling about Gabe not letting Joe do the job for this match and once they announced time remaining, there were a bunch of "Joe won't job" and "Do the right thing" chants. Maff tried to do the "ole ole" kick at one point, but Joe countered and hit ones of his own. The finish was really blown to this, but it really wasn't Joe, Maff's or really Hanson's fault. They start doing a count down with 10 seconds remaining. Just as Maff was able to get Joe up and nail the burning hammer, he goes for the pin. Unfortunately, the announcer had stopped doing his countdown at some point. Hanson goes down to count the pin. He counts to 2 and this should have been the point that they either announced time was up or the bell ring... only there was no announcement... and no bell ringing. So Hanson had to pull up really for no reason at all, even though technically, the count at the rate they were doing it should have passed, so he looked really bad stopping for no reason. Way after this, they ring the bell. Some fans chanted "Gabe screwed you" at Maff. This was two really badly messed up finishes to the last two Heavyweight title matches they've done. Post match, Jay Lethal comes out to check on Maff. He gives him some water and as Maff is recovering, he picks up the Heavyweight title and gives it a long look. Eventually he hands it over to Maff. Maff goes to leave, but Jay's still holding onto the belt, so their teasing that as a future program. It should be fun. I think Jay is real good in the spunky underdog role like Kikuchi was when he was young. Maff can play a great bully and if booked right with a chase, it could be a fun series. Hopefully they won't try to get too fancy with the finishes to it.
 

MATCH 9 : HOMICIDE v. AJ STYLES :

RD : This got started at about midnight. At this point, I was seriously clock watching which sort of distracts my enjoyment for a match. Especially since I'm spending time figuring out how much time I need to get to the station after the finish goes to not miss the last train out of Rahway. I was basically standing at the door for a good portion of the match. A lot of anti-Jarrett/TNA chants from the ROH crowd, but they were will happy to see AJ. I think this was the match that had a neat spot early where they were on the floor. AJ did a moonsault off the apron and was setting up his Reverse DDT out of the moonsault, Homicide kneed him in the head to counter and rushed in to the ring to hit his dive but AJ cut him off with an elbow or kick as he came back. This went into the crowd at one point, with Homicide dragging AJ all the way to the top of the bleachers and giving him a DDT. They fought around to the other side of the building where they toasted the plastic table the announcers were using when I think Homicide took a back body drop onto it. I think they ended up bumping on it twice. Finish came when AJ went for his moonsault/reverse DDT move again, Homicide pulled Hanson in his place and when AJ landed nailed him with a lariat, causing AJ to DDT Hanson. With Hanson down, Ki and B-Boy ran in. AJ fights the both of them off and tries to give Low Ki the Styles Clash, but Homicide nails him from behind and put him away with the Cop Killa as Hanson recovers. I was out the door the second Hanson's hand hit 3.
 

RD : As it turned out, it was a good thing I decided to not waste any time because I pretty much ran the 2 or 3 blocks to the train station and was able to catch the last train out. I had fun trying not to throw up a lung on the train ride back. Overall, it was a very good show. There wasn't really a totally balls out MOTYC, but still, there were at least 7 matches which I enjoyed. There was a good mix of stuff. Some high flying, some comedy, some brawling. For the most part, all the matches got a fair amount of time. My only complaint it that the show ran long again. In the case of this show, since it was on a work night, an 8pm start time is ok. But with shows getting longer and longer, I really wish JAPW would consider pushing their start times to their shows like a half hour earlier or drop a match. I was lucky, I made my train. Supposedly 5 or 6 guys from NY got stuck in Rahway until 5am when the next train showed up. I'm not really happy about RF being at the show either, but considering the fact a bunch of people worked that show and written a number of things about what they were going to do to him the next time they saw and they all worked the show and there was no incident, I guess that's life. Next show is Jan 29th on a Saturday with Azrael v. Jack Evans announced and some of the IWS guys being back in (Generico at least).