John Kermon vs. Ultra Dragon
RM: I think I've seen Kermon before, but can't remember. He looks like a non-descript Virginia indy version of Colt Cabana, without all that charisma. Ultra Dragon I had heard about through the Carolina Wrestling Federation website, as he was the heir apparent to the suicidal masked stylings of Kamikazi Kid. I recognized his giant wings back tattoo as the same kid who was trying to kill himself in a six-man match in Waynesboro last year, so I knew this was going to be paralysis-inducing at some point. I found myself not really caring about Kermon too much, and Ultra Dragon had the same problem that Kamikazi Kid had in places that weren't completely familiar with him - under that mask and just being crazy doesn't get you over as the babyface you are attempting to portray. There was no reason to sympathize with Dragon except for maybe because he was insane, however, mainstream America doesn't necessarily sympathize with insanity.
PBR: Ultra Dragon was motherfuckin' awesome!
RM: There were a couple of devastating moments where I watched Phat Ass Dave, who was taking pictures ringside, cringe heavily, as Dragon worked hard at shortening his life. But at one point, Kermon was outside the ring, and they had this wooden walkway to the ring from the dressing room, which was a nice economic touch I thought, and Ultra Dragon went for a cross bodyblock off the top rope to the outside and landed flat on his fucking face, with Kermon barely breaking his fall. Ref checks it out, and Dragon is in the ring, taking another insane bump within three minutes. Kermon ended up winning, but I don't remember how.
PBR: I was busy pointing out to him the hot-ass sisters sitting on the bleachers to the right. One of them, a sweet mocha-colored queen, was looking fine. Real fine.
RM: I'm sure she was the girlfriend of some wrestler, perhaps Dirty Money, and I don't need Dirty Money kicking my ass in Harrisonburg for trying to run some wack-ass whiteboy game to his girl. And anyways, I'm already married.

J-Sinn & Gregory Vercetti w/ Spencer Chestnutt vs. Ross & James Hall
RM: Sinn and Vercetti are called The Streetsweepers, and they're manager says they "sweep" together, which of course leads to people saying they sleep together. Homophobia has just a deep part in the southern tag psychology as long beatdowns on one of the faces. The Hall Brothers I had never seen, and I didn't know tag teams that look like this existed since The Hardy Boyz fell under the spell of Gangrel years ago.
PBR: Which one was Bobby "The Blotz" Blotzer, and which one was Warren DeMartini? Hard rock tag team with color-coordinated trunks, just opposite, and even orange tassels on their boots...amazing. And The Streetsweepers had coordinated trunks in the exact same three shades of orange, white, and black. Mrs. Hall must've found a good sale on spandex yardage at Jo-Ann Fabrics, and hooked all them boys up.
RM: I remember seeing Vercetti in a singles match in NWA Virginia, and not liking him much because he was too cartoonish an Italian stereotype. But in a tag match, with a manager, it wasn't so bad. The match itself ended up being far better than I expected it to be, with heels holding control for the most part, and the Halls playing the role of spunky kids who weren't gonna quit no matter what.
PBR: I couldn't get over them all having the same color trunks. It was like watching a masochistic dance troupe sometimes.
RM: There were heelish shenanigans, and the heels won, but the head ref unnecessarily came out and told the other ref how someone got hit with an Italian briefcase, so the match was restarted.
PBR: If ever there is one time when a human being physically behaves like a cartoon character, it is when one ref comes out from the back to tell the other something, because he has to make it obvious to the crowd. The head ref was in super-exaggerated Charades mode.
RM: Of course, a restarted match is gonna lead to good guys victory. That's what happened. If a ref restarts one dirty match, shouldn't he restart them all? And if he does restart them all, doesn't that ruin the whole experience? You've got to let them play. If the heels cheat to win, let it go.

Chris Escobar vs. Phil Brown
RM: Escobar comes out, and doesn't like his reaction, so goes back to the back. Kameo (by the way, great to see her again, having read about her health problems) went back and dragged him out to the ring with all the authority of a quiet-but-crazy aunt. Escobar hid under the ring. I can really get into both these guys, for different reasons, and sometimes I think about all the great independent talent in Virginia, like these guys as well as a lot of the guys on the bottom end of VCW and NWA Virginia shows, and it sucks there are so many goddamned rules and regulations in this state, and it sucks there can't be a quality indy running more than once a month to build up a fanbase and give all these guys their proper place to shine.
PBR: Who are those two shitheads running for governor? Tim Kaine is one, I saw some simple-ass bumper stickers. What's the other guy? Kilgore? The redneck Republican. You should write them both and see what their stand on professional wrestling is. I bet Kaine couldn't tell you shit about it, because wrestling's probably too ignorant for him, but I bet Kilgore saw a life-molding Ric Flair match at some point during his youth.
RM: Good enough match, about what I was expecting from these two. Escobar, visually, looks more like a wrestler who could go somewhere other than between Hampton and Hopewell nowadays, and Phil Brown is still the scariest babyface ever. His whole aura is so intense. Escobar weaseled out of one powerbomb finish, then was about to weasel out a second one when Brown caught him in a powerslam type position, but kind of fell back while twisting, in a way that looked easily like it could fuck up Escobar in real life, but visually for the crowd watching the match, just looked kind of fucked up. Brown got the pin with it though, and no one complained.
PBR: Why would they? No goddamned air conditioning in the Armory, and it was like a hundred degrees. We wanted the thing to end. I understand we're sending soldiers over to Iraq and shit, but we don't have to start conditioning them for the hostile heated environment in the Harrisonburg Armory.

6D6 & Kid VCW vs. Sean Lei & Dirty Money
RM: Somewhere earlier on, there was a segment with Sean Lei's brother, Markie, who does an Ali G gimmick interview segment. Kid VCW was being tormented by 6D6 and Brandon Day, who's head of a Raven-style group. Kid VCW is the kid they abuse, and they abused him till Tracy Smothers came out to save him, then the Kid hit Smothers in the nuts from behind, setting up both the main event, and this match as Sean Lei and Dirty Money came to help the Wild-Eyed Southern Boy.
PBR: An Ali G gimmick? In indy wrestling? Do regular people even know who Ali G is? Ironic hipster 30somethings and Shit-that-ain't-cool-is-really-cool 20somethings don't rule the world, at least not just yet. It's not like there's Ali G DVDs for sale at the 7-Eleven. That seems like a pretty obscure pop culture reference, in the overall scheme of things, to base your wrestling character on.
RM: Sean Lei looks a lot thicker than he used to, and with his hair all chopped off now, actually looks tough, whereas with the ponytail, he was too cute to be tough. Dirty Money is as cock diesel as ever.
PBR: You were right, too. Those sisters with that one fine-ass chick were REALLY cheering for Dirty Money.
RM: 6D6 is a fat dude, but moves well enough. He's got a grunge gimmick. Kid VCW looks like my cousin Joey.
PBR: Oh man, he does. I've hung out plenty of times with your cousin Joey. Same mullet, same goofy look in the face, same ability to take a lifetime's worth of suffering every night of his life. You know Joey married a 40-year-old woman when he was 19, didn't you?
RM: Yeah, I did.
PBR: Did you know she had a butterfly tattoo right at the top of her yoni hair, but below her pants line?
RM: No, I've never met her.
PBR: I knew she did. She tends to show it off when we get together.
RM: Anyways, Sean Lei and Dirty Money are good, I knew that. 6D6 was good enough as well. This match was made a No-DQ one, which was an old school way of saying sure you can bring a bunch of bullshit in with you like trash cans and chairs. Kid VCW looks like he's 17, and there's obviously one thing he specializes in at this point - getting his ass crushed. That kid took more fucked up moves than any one kid I've seen in a show since...well, probably since Preston Quinn mangled Sean Lei who was in street clothes with a cracked back at that NWA Virginia show a while back. Kid VCW got Van Terminatored with a trash can on his head, he got spinebustered onto another trash can, he got powerslammed onto the crumpled remnants of the first one in an awkward manner, and he of course, got pinned.
PBR: He got more than pinned - he got fucked up. I can only imagine he must be Sean Lei's shitty youngest brother from Lei's mom's second husband who really sucks or something. Why else would they destroy that kid like that?
RM: Paying his dues. Paying his dues. For some folks, you easily pony up so many dues so quickly, that you are eventually expected to keep pitching in more dues than you probably should. Oh well, never mind...it's intermission!
PBR: My time to shine! It's kinda fucked-up though that Raven had to hide me in the backseat on the floorboard in front of the baby seat, with a painting dropcloth over me. You can't take me out in the open? What are you - ashamed of me?
RM: Not at all, but our society frowns on guys like me cavorting with you publicly. We're supposed to keep it hidden at home or conceal it in dens of iniquity, where the government can make exorbitant tax payoffs off the cavorting with you. That's why when I'm rolling down the road, hanging out with you, I have to tuck you down low when we pass other cars, because it might be a cop, or someone who might call a cop, to report us hanging out together.
PBR: That's fucked-up.
RM: Well, to be fair, some people can't handle hanging out with you. It does seem weird that we'd all get punished for a few lushes who run over schoolchildren playing hopscotch. But this is America - and a couple bad apples tend to ruin all the metaphorical apple pie I am as American as. Intermission was probably almost over. I always get self-conscious by myself in a town like this, because I know people are gonna be like, "Look at that dude!" The crazy fucker flipping his kid around wearing a tank top and covered in bad tattoos, he tagged me to flip his kid in a tag match, so he was cool. His kid ran when I went to grab him, so I tagged back out. Back up at the front of the Armory, a Paul Wall wannabe was hanging with his girlfriend and friends, and I could see his eyes, and he was all un-ninja-like secret to his girl, "Look at that du...."
PBR: I love when tough dudes like that try to be hard. I goaded Raven into saying, "What's up man?" to cut off dude's sentence. He stammered out a feeble, "What's up."
RM: That shit was funny. And he was wearing a shirt that said "Out On Bail". I'm glad you made me do that; it's always fun to call a punk ass out on his punk assedness. From too much study, it seems like maybe one time out ten, someone will call you on your call, and out of those times, rarely do you get into a fight, and if you do, you only get your ass kicked like once out of every three. Mathematically, that breaks down to only getting your ass kicked for calling out a punk ass while he tries to talk some shit about you once out of every thirty or forty times. Those are good odds.
PBR: Good odds nothing. I've been there to see you get your ass kicked plenty of times. Remember that dude who dragged you by your hair across that bathroom floor? What about that dude who speared you into the back windshield of your friend's Reliant? And oh shit, remember that dude that tricked you into drinking rubbing alcohol saying it was vodka, and then you were getting ready to get sick but decided it best to get all confrontational over the matter and he threw you over the side of the deck and you landed in the boxwood bushes and started vomiting on yourself?
RM: Fuck you. I hate you sometimes.

Preston Quinn w/ Pat Anderson vs. Scotty Blaze
RM: Intermission over, I was stoked for this match. This is gonna be awesome. Except Pat Anderson wouldn't shut up. He was mouthing off, and looking like that redneck dude in your neighborhood who was obviously a drunk but a well-assimilated drunk in his island print t-shirt and khaki shorts with no belt that hung down just below his slight beer belly and would probably fall off if he got caught on a piece of rebar, and he rode around the yard cutting the grass all the time on his Yard Machine riding mower which he swore was just as good as any John Deere, and he had a cupholder on it with a plastic cup full of ice and Jim Beam.
PBR: Yeah, that dude was kinda funny. I liked him.
RM: That reminds me of across the way - the pack of ironic smart marks. I like being on the opposite side of the ring than them because then you don't hear their public access funny quips, all you hear is the quick outburst of laughter where they look at each other instead of the match. Sometimes I get stuck behind these guys who will fill the whole event with their jokes, but only be funny to them and their two friends in trucker hats and Mickey Mouse t-shirts. They can ruin a wrestling show real quick, because for me, even if a heel is more interesting, you should save heel cheers for the really awesome heels, mostly because there are kids in attendance and kids have to learn how to live before they can try and fuck with the way they live. The kids need to know who's good and who's bad, because kids need that structure for proper mental development, and when you have a pack of goofy friends hollering for the assholes in MST3K ways of being barely funny, it disturbs the simple good vs. bad foundation being laid into that kid sitting there watching the wrestling. He doesn't know what to do. Should he throw a hot dog wrapper at Pat Anderson, or try and give him a high-five? Kids need parameters set, and the very existence of peanut gallery smart marks is why I don't take my kids to wrestling matches. I don't want them growing up to think Monty Python is more awesome than Philo Bedo.
PBR: Yeah, I heard those dudes, too, but I never really hung out with anybody like that, so I can't speak on them.
RM: This match ended up being stiff in spite of a wrestling match. They chopped the fuck out of each other, and did some spiffy punching, but then all of a sudden, without much reason, both simultaneously knocked out the ref. Then they ended up outside the ring trading evil loud pops on the chest with each other. It was like the breakdown of a lucha match, with two men full of machismo trying to show to each other who was tougher. The crowd might've missed the point, but they just kept smacking each other across the chest. PQ got the louder pops with his chops, but Blaze left a redder handprint with one of his. They fought to the back where they rattled the edges of the makeshift dressing room, then the stupid ref woke up and disqualified them both.
PBR: I thought you were telling me how awesome that was gonna be. A double disqualification? While the guys were in the locker room? At least even bad sex still has sex involved.
RM: Yeah, a bit of a letdown with the finish and the reliance on just stiff-chopping each other. Both guys are great wrestlers as well, and I'd rather see them do something other than just try to leave fingerprints on each other's ribcages. Hopefully though, this was just a tease. Shit, if they were chopping each other outside the ring like old luchadors, maybe PQ will grow his mullet back and we'll have a hair vs. hair match in a year. And I guess VCW can't have what would be a main event in their main statewide rival - NWA Virginia - steal the show.

Brandon Day vs. Tracy Smothers w/ Deacon Devin Sturgis
PBR: Who's that Boss Hogg looking motherfucker? Isn't that the good guy he's with?
RM: Yeah. I guess they've got a match tomorrow night against Blotzer and DeMartini, so Sturgis bought a suit to be the heel in. It's a sweet get-up, much sweeter than his robe he usually sports. He should stick with it.
PBR: So some kid with braided hair and beads in the bottom of the braids is the VCW champion? This means he's probably like 23-years-old, and doesn't realize he looks like a Memphis male prostitute with a Bo Derek fetish?
RM: You're falling for the "Day is Gay" chants the smart marks were making over and over and over and over and over and over. He didn't look gay to me at all; he looked like a kid who loves both grunge and gangsta. Those types only come from certain parts of places, but I saw a lot of them back home where I grew up, with the younger kids. If Day is from the Hampton Roads area, I would give you ten bucks on the dollar he grew up in Suffolk County. But I imagine he's not from down there. The match itself was a decent enough Dusty Rhodes in 2003 match, with Smothers basically on the mat getting worked, and then he'd stomp his foot or clap his hands, and we'd do the same in the crowd, and he'd get up, but then get dropped back down.
PBR: It was boring. And Raven had specifically picked me up, hyping me up over how Tracy Smothers was all "Longhaired Country Boy" and gonna commit ultra mega mass homicide on people.
RM: I guess every match can't be a riot. And he DID come out to "If Heaven Ain't a Lot Like Dixie (I Don't Wanna Go)" by Bocephus, which has that classic line, "you can send me to Hell, or New York City, it'd be about the same to me."
PBR: Yeah, whatever. This match sucked.
RM: It wasn't that bad. It was good for what it was, and Day scored a chicanerous victory. I imagine I would've rathered watching Smothers work with Chris Hamrick and his Boss Hoggian manager against DeMartini and Blotzer the following night, but I don't live that close to that place, so I got what I got. It was good enough though. I really do wish Virginia could get a regular indy that had a regular pace through three or four different venues every month or two. VCW announced a tentative date in Harrisonburg for September, and I'd definitely go again, to support my local indy and to hope for the emotional brutality of later matches, as I promised myself would happen, to equal the insane bumptitude of the earlier matches, as I didn't expect.
PBR: Yeah, I'd love to try and see another show. It was hot as fuck, and it was the South, though the very edge, so women were not afraid to expose the upper portions of their breasts in summer clothes. I am all about that. I don't know though, I feel like Raven's mind was elsewhere on something other than me on the ride home.
RM: Nah, it was cool.
PBR: You didn't hold me like you used to years ago though.
RM: I don't know...I think of all the doofuses and dorks you've been with, and it makes it hard to get close. It's a real mistake to ever think about who your partner has been with other than you, but I've seen you with some REAL shitheads the last couple of years. Shitheads that I don't want to be associated with, even if nowhere else than my own thought stream.
PBR: Yeah, you said that. That's when I laid out, all scientific style, "You are such a fuckin' moron. Every time something becomes more popular than obscure, you think it sucks, so you can move along to the next unknown little whore of a thing to attach yourself to. You cut the nose that loves to sniff at the ass of pop culture off of your face, out of spite. You are stupid."
RM: He continued with that crap while I went through the Wendy's drive-through, and after I got what I wanted out of him, I dumped him off at a rest stop.