A Night at the Wrestling

Went to see Wrestling last night. They run a show every other week during the colder months of the year, which in Wisconsin turns out to be most of them, but I don't have the time to catch them all. Still, it's a fun time. A review, of sorts, follows:

Match One: Frères de Boucher vs. Sheik Hussein and Tork

We started the evening with an international tag match; French Canadian brothers against a Middle Eastern Sheik and his bodyguard. A ridiculous crazy brawl that only barely resembled a wrestling match. Sheik Hussein spent much of the match in his corner, letting Tork do most of the heavy lifting. I believe both teams had a chain tucked away that they used to get an advantage on the other team. The referee could barely keep up with everything going on. In the end, the Frères hit a double team powerbomb on Tork and got the victory.

Match Two: Charlie Blackman vs. Stan 'The Man' Miracle

Is it ironic that the man named 'Blackman' wasn't black but his opponent was? Or is that just funny? Odd? Whatever. Charlie spent much of the match stretching Stan out in various submission holds but none of them were very well applied. It was as if he tried to learn a lot of different moves a little bit but didn't have a good understanding of any of them. Stan kept making a comeback and making a comeback, only to fall victim to another submission hold. In the end, Stan had more comebacks than Charlie had submission holds. Stan got Charlie with a brainbuster for the three count.

Match Three: Brother Zeke vs. 'Iron Hands' Johnson

Brother Zeke has a bushy beard and wears coveralls. He says he's Amish. Johnson is a 3rd degree Black Belt. It made for an interesting match with Zeke's burliness up against Johnson's karate. Johnson was quicker but Zeke seemed to hit harder. Zeke has a powerful clothesline and after a few of those, Johnson was flat on his back to be victim to Zeke's big splash and a three count.

Intermission. Bumped into Brother Zeke. Does NOT sound like what you'd expect. He's more verbose than I am and I think I'm verbose. Nice guy.

Match Four: The Spoiler and Psycho Mike vs. Los Lightning Azuls

The Spoiler has a weird charm to him that seems to connect with a crowd. Otherwise how do you explain people accepting his tag partner, a former inmate of an insane asylum accused of injuring his handlers on a regular basis? It's madness in more ways than one. I know some of these guys get a bit theatrical for the crowd but really? The reality of the situation set aside, the crowd loves them. Los Lightning used their speed to their great advantage, knocking the bulky Spoiler out of the ring and hitting double-team moves on Psycho Mike to get the win.

Match Five: Rugged Robbie V vs. The Executioner

Robbie is one of the most flexible people I've ever seen. It's creepy how flexible he is. It may or may not be as creepy as the Executioner's faceless black mask. You can barely make out any features on the mask and it's just not right. Robbie was running the big man ragged with a combination of spin kicks and high risk moves but the Executioner caught him with a series of chops that I think may have caught Robbie in the throat. It was fishy. The Executioner using the ropes was more obviously cheating but he managed to keep the information from the referee and got the pinfall.

Match Six: Buff Mysterio Jr. defending the All-Wisconsin Heavyweight Championship against Greg Cooper

Greg Cooper is not a bad wrestler by any stretch of the imagination. You can see he knows what he's doing in the ring but he must have lucked into this title match because the masked Buff had him overwhelmed for the majority of the match. Greg rallied a couple times but I never felt that he had it in him to stun Buff for a three count. The Executioner came out to ringside to assist his friend Buff Mysterio Jr. and his presence was more than enough to distract Cooper, making it that much easier for Buff to gutwrench powerbomb him and get the victory. It was disappointing to see Buff take the shortcut when he clearly had the advantage but that just seems to be the kind of guy he is.

On the whole it was a good show and I look forward to returning.