The Bitter Guide to UWA wrestling
Feb. 19th, 2005 05:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebitterguyRye2Dave and I had the pleasure of attending a UWA Hardcore Wrestling event last night in Mississauga (Mississauga, for those of you not living in/near Toronto, is a suburb of Toronto, with the motto of "Where Dreams go to Die").
UWA holds a monthly card at the St. John centre, with admission of $10. That, boys and girls, is a really, really good deal. Three hours of live wrestling, ten matches on the card, with performers of varying ability, but the seats are better than at any WWE house show.
I'd like to start of by confirming that whenever I called R2D 'fucking pretentious', I actually meant he had a really good grasp of moves & holds. What was the pumphandle one again?
The matches were varying level of enjoyment, but my favourite was The Amazing Blackstone VS Abyss. Blackstone is a magician (he wears a poorly put together tux to the ring, complete with not quite perfect tearaway pants), with a finisher called the Abracadabra. It's kinda cheesy, but his tights were shiny, so that was good.
It was obvious that a lot of the guys were low on the professional skill level; quite a few times, especially on the first title match, an attempt to go to to top rope would end up slipping. They need some talc on the turnbuckles or something.
There's a nascent faction (the PB&J or something like that) of heels that were attempting to do something to bring pure wrestling to the fed. You have to wonder how impure the wrestling is for any organization that has 300 seat events at a local hall, but I don't write the stuff, okay?
The Faction (The PWA! That's it!) was mildly interesting. Your Humble Chronicler had the pleasure of having PWA member Nick Watt s toss a 'fan' a foot from my head during intermission.
What you have to do when you don't have backstage cameras, I guess.
The 'Fan' tumbled into a section of empty chairs, which never seemed to refill. Seats were general admission, you see, so it seemed like everyone decided to just grab another seat.
One of the members of the PWA was Lionel Knight, who wore black pants, while his brother Nicky Knight wore white pants. This would have been much less confusing if, for example, they'd had different haircuts or used different entrance music.
The crowd was fairly into it. There were some hardcore fans in the front row, a couple of jokesters next to R2D and me kept tossing japes and puns at the performers. I couldn't tell if they'd been planted, or if they just thought they were funny, but that was okay.
While the show was Diva free, the PWA had a valet. Kinda gothy, which R2D approved of, with a white tux shirt. .
The worst part of the evening, actually, was the officiating. Look, I know they don't have an easy job, not seeing stuff, but these guys were REALLY bad. They need a few hours at the knee of Earl Hebner, if you ask me. One ref kept standing in the same corner, which, co-incidentally, blocked events in the ring from my sight.
I can say nothing bad about the show. True, there were blown spots (although they did work hard to cover them up), and some of the guys need a little more practice on the mic, but overall the show was well booked. I'm no great connoisseur of the wrasslin' arts, but I had a good time, even without beer.
As well, they're about as hardcore as a boy band; there was an appearance by some merchandise from Jim's House of Disintegrating Tables, but otherwise it was not hardcore, or extreme.
UWA holds a monthly card at the St. John centre, with admission of $10. That, boys and girls, is a really, really good deal. Three hours of live wrestling, ten matches on the card, with performers of varying ability, but the seats are better than at any WWE house show.
I'd like to start of by confirming that whenever I called R2D 'fucking pretentious', I actually meant he had a really good grasp of moves & holds. What was the pumphandle one again?
The matches were varying level of enjoyment, but my favourite was The Amazing Blackstone VS Abyss. Blackstone is a magician (he wears a poorly put together tux to the ring, complete with not quite perfect tearaway pants), with a finisher called the Abracadabra. It's kinda cheesy, but his tights were shiny, so that was good.
It was obvious that a lot of the guys were low on the professional skill level; quite a few times, especially on the first title match, an attempt to go to to top rope would end up slipping. They need some talc on the turnbuckles or something.
There's a nascent faction (the PB&J or something like that) of heels that were attempting to do something to bring pure wrestling to the fed. You have to wonder how impure the wrestling is for any organization that has 300 seat events at a local hall, but I don't write the stuff, okay?
The Faction (The PWA! That's it!) was mildly interesting. Your Humble Chronicler had the pleasure of having PWA member Nick Watt s toss a 'fan' a foot from my head during intermission.
What you have to do when you don't have backstage cameras, I guess.
The 'Fan' tumbled into a section of empty chairs, which never seemed to refill. Seats were general admission, you see, so it seemed like everyone decided to just grab another seat.
One of the members of the PWA was Lionel Knight, who wore black pants, while his brother Nicky Knight wore white pants. This would have been much less confusing if, for example, they'd had different haircuts or used different entrance music.
The crowd was fairly into it. There were some hardcore fans in the front row, a couple of jokesters next to R2D and me kept tossing japes and puns at the performers. I couldn't tell if they'd been planted, or if they just thought they were funny, but that was okay.
While the show was Diva free, the PWA had a valet. Kinda gothy, which R2D approved of, with a white tux shirt. .
The worst part of the evening, actually, was the officiating. Look, I know they don't have an easy job, not seeing stuff, but these guys were REALLY bad. They need a few hours at the knee of Earl Hebner, if you ask me. One ref kept standing in the same corner, which, co-incidentally, blocked events in the ring from my sight.
I can say nothing bad about the show. True, there were blown spots (although they did work hard to cover them up), and some of the guys need a little more practice on the mic, but overall the show was well booked. I'm no great connoisseur of the wrasslin' arts, but I had a good time, even without beer.
As well, they're about as hardcore as a boy band; there was an appearance by some merchandise from Jim's House of Disintegrating Tables, but otherwise it was not hardcore, or extreme.
