wrestling / Columns

Into the Indies 09.08.09: EAW Gives us Rings on Rings

September 8, 2009 | Posted by Ryan Byers


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Into the Indies has been plugging along for about a month now, and, in the past four editions of the column, we’ve gotten in to a pretty comfortable groove. I provide some background on the Japanese wrestling promotion that I’m looking and and/or my history watching it, I review the show, everybody enjoys the column, and we all move on with our lives . . . hopefully with my readers who don’t know that much about puroresu feeling a bit more enlightened about what is going on on the other side of the world.

This week, we are going to change things up a bit. First of all, we’re not going to be looking at a show from a Japanese promotion. We’re going to be looking at a show from a Mexican promotion. To take things even further from the norm, I’m afraid that I can’t provide much background on the promotion that we are going to be looking at today, because I know literally nothing about it and have been able to find virtually zero information online.

The reason that we’re taking this break from Japan and this break from wrestling companies that I know something about is because, the second that I read of the concept behind this show, I knew that I absolutely HAD to watch and review it. Why? Because whoever runs this Mexican independent promotion, which is known as EAW, decided to bust out one of the most bizarre gimmicks that I have ever heard of. I had a feeling that wackiness would abound, and, as a result, here we are.

You see, one wrestling ring wasn’t good enough for the promoters of EAW when it came to their June 6, 2009 show. They decided that they were going to take two rings and place them side-by-side . . . but we’re not talking about putting two rings side-by-side and enclosing them in a steel cage a la War Games, oh no. We’re not even talking about putting two rings side-by-side for the “king of the hill battle royale” that opened up the 1989 version of the Great American Bash. You see, the brains behind EAW decided that they needed to take a regular wrestling ring and put it on STILTS so high that stands roughly twice the height of your standard squared circle. Then, they decided to stick another ring right next to that, though it for some reason is left without stilts.

Immediately upon hearing about this concept, I knew that it would either be the greatest thing ever or such a trainwreck that I wouldn’t be able to look a way. Let’s see which one we’ve got, folks . . .

Match Numero Uno: Dinastia, Penumbra, & Ragde vs. Black Fire, Drastik Boy, & Pesadilla

I am not familiar with any of these six men, and no real attempt is made by the announcers or the TV production crew to identify them before the action starts, so my play-by-play is screwed right out of the gate. However, I am hearing Super Crazy’s named mention several times on commentary, so I am assuming that it least one of these men is a trainee of his. It appears that the majority of the action is going to take place in the upper ring, though, in the early going, we do get some dives from the apron of the top ring and down in to the bottom ring by what I am going to assume is the technico team. Eventually things calm down and we go to a conventional lucha trios match in the raised ring. Flips abound, and you can tell these are younger wrestlers who are trying to do everything that they can to impress the crowd right out of the gate.

Eventually, two of the wrestlers, one of whom I am assuming is either Pesadillo or Penumbra based on the “P” on his chest, moves down to the second ring with an opponent. They just do some more standard lucha spots before the non-Pesadillo/Penumbra rolls out to the floor, which counts as a tag out to one of the men who is in the elevated ring. The match continues, and my inability to identify these fellows is making things incredibly difficult to follow. Eventually, one of the presumed technicos again throws a rival wrestler in to the lower ring and comes off of the higher ring with a HUGE somersault dive on to him. This sets up a trainwreck spot the likes of which I have not seen since the heyday of lucha libre in WCW, with every wrestler getting his own tope or Asai moonsault in. Things immediately head back to the upper ring after that, and the “P” guy winds up battling on the apron with one of his opponents. The opponent gives P a SPANISH FLY off of the upper ring’s apron and in to the lower ring. Not to be outdone, another of the wrestlers gives his opponent a Gory Special Driver off of the apron of the elevated ring and in to the lower ring to pick up the three count. The landing was particularly brutal, as the guy taking the move put his arms straight down in front of his face, which was just begging for one of them to be broken.

I guess whoever did that last move was either Penumbra, Dinastia, or Ragde, because they are listed as the winners on the post-match graphic.

Match Thoughts: Well, we are one match in, and so far I can’t say that I see the setup of these rings adding much aside from giving wrestlers something slightly higher to jump off of when they’re doing dives and a softer surface for their opponent to land on when they’re doing high risk slams. There does not appear to be that much difference between diving off of the top rope of a conventional ring and diving off of the apron of the elevated ring and down in to the lower ring. When some moves are performed, this does not add much to the match at all, because you could see it in a standard bout. When other moves are performed, you can tell that they are moves that are only made possible by this setup, as otherwise the wrestlers would not be able to balance well enough to perform them or would not be guaranteed a safe enough landing. For example, the Gory Driver off of the apron which finished this match could never come off of the top rope in a standard ring because the wrestlers would never be able to keep their footing long enough to set it up. Yes, we got an extra spot or two here that we would not have seen otherwise, but, by and large, this was a crew of not particularly great yet not embarrassing younger luchadores doing exactly the trios match that you would expect from them. **



Match Numero Dos: Fantastik, Turbo, & Alto Voltaje vs. Hijo de Pirata Morgan, Pirata Morgan, Jr., & Barba Roja

Now we’re getting to some wrestlers who I have a bit more knowledge of, though they’re still not people who I have seen wrestle regularly. Pirata Morgan is a luchadore who has been active since the late 1970’s, and the Hijo de Pirata Morgan/Pirata Morgan, Jr./Barba Roja team is a threesome of men who are billed as his sons. The screwy part of it is that only Morgan, Jr. is his legitimate offspring. The wrestler on the other side of the ring who is most familiar to US fans is Turbo, who is a trainee of Jorge “Skayde” Rivera, which has resulted in his being booked in CHIKARA and in Dragon Gate. Voltaje and Fantastik I’m not quite as familiar with, though I must say that Alto has one of the most hideous neon green/yellow bodysuits I have ever seen in my life.

We’ve got a six man brawl in the lower ring before the bell even has a chance to sound, and the pirates easily get the advantage. They decide to triple team Turbo, vertical suplexing him in to the higher ring and battering him in the corner before Junior drapes him over the second rope and gives him a DDT. Voltaje tries to save but is cut off and given a HUGE stuff DDT in which he is stacked on top of two of the pirates’ shoulders before they both drive him down with the move. The third pirate even helped out with a handy shove. Fantastik suffers the same fate as his partners, being beaten and ultimately thrown down in to the lower ring, where Roja crashes down on to him with a cannonball dive. The technicos make a comeback when Voltaje reverses an Irish whip and hits a rana on one of the bad guys, which sets up round two of the six man brawl, this time with the more popular wrestlers controlling. In an odd move for the faces in Mexico, Turbo starts going after one of his opponent’s masks in the middle of the donnybrook.

Eventually, Hijo and Fantastik wind up in the ring alone, and Hijo bails quickly. The other pirates try to run interference for him, but he dispatches them all before Voltaje and Roja come in. Roja is dispatched by Voltaje, and then Hijo tries his hand. Things look AWFUL in the sequences between those two, as Voltaje goes for two different ranas in which it looks like he wasn’t even attempting to create the illusion that his legs were wrapped around his opponent’s head. Turbo hits the ring not long thereafter and does significantly better with the ranas, hitting each of the bad guys with one before coming off the top turnbuckle of the elevated ring and giving Junior a moonsault as he was standing in the lower ring. Not to be outdone, Voltaje does a flip dive of his own on to one of the pirates.

Another six man brawl occurs in the elevated ring, and Hijo’s mask slips off during the fray. Whoops. It’s quickly replaced, and the babyfaces get the better of their foes, sending Hijo and Roja out to the floor. Turbo and Fantastik follow them down with flip dives off of the apron of the elevated ring, leaving Junior and Voltaje up there to do spots that look only slightly better than the last set that Freelance attempted to execute. He and Junior eventually migrate to the lower ring, where Pirata hits him with a slam. He misses a swanton off of the ropes of the elevated ring, though, allowing Voltaje to synch in a leglock to pick up the submission.

The buccaneers are not particularly thrilled with the result, and they lay out the technicos after the bell with chairsots.

Match Thoughts: Again, aside from being a slightly higher point to jump off of, the second, elevated ring didn’t really add much to the match . . . and it was probably a match that needed to have something added to it. Though realistically we are talking about lower level independent wrestlers here and not the cream of the crop in lucha libre, I was surprised when these six men, at least three of whom had fairly substantial exposure in AAA at one point in their careers, didn’t look that much better than the six men in the opening match who are literally either so new to the sport or on such a low level that I could not find the slightest bit of information about them when I looked. Alto Voltaje in particular grated on my nerves, as everything about him from his hideous gear to his visually unappealing offense screamed “This is man who should not be on my television screen!” Fortunately, the Pirata “brothers” made up for it somewhat, as they seemed to be more seasoned than anybody else on the show thusfar and had some appealing triple team moves, most notably their stacked up, three man DDT. *3/4



Match Numero Tres: Intocable, LA Park, & Alebrije w/ Cuije vs. Pirata Morgan, Super Crazy, & Monsther w/ Chuky

After some complete unknowns in the opener and a crew of younger wrestlers in the second match, now we’ve got the veterans who I have actually seen before. LA Park and Super Crazy are probably the most familiar to most people reading this, with the former having been in WCW and the latter having been in ECW and then WWE. (Park, for the record, is the original La Parka, forced to alter his name slightly due to a legal battle.) Also in the ring are Alebrije and Monsther, two guys who have monster gimmicks and have literally been feuding with one another for close to a decade in AAA and smaller promotions. They are seconded by their mini wrestling counterparts, Cuije and Chuky. Cuije is the traditional lucha mini in that he is basically a smaller copy of Alebrije, while Chuky takes on a different look than his full-sized partner. He is, of course, a carbon copy of Chucky from the Child’s Play movies.

Pirata Morgan, whose son and other two “sons” we saw in the prior match, has been wrestling for thirty years now in various promotions with a pirate gimmick that was initially based on the fact that he legitimately has a dead eye and wears a patch. Intocable is probably the least noteworthy of the crew, as in his best years he was a midcard guy in AAA, one man in a long line of young, attractive wrestlers that Antonio Pena stuck with a “stripper” gimmick to appeal to female fans. (Or, if you believe the rumors, to appeal to Antonio Pena himself.)

We start in the upper ring with Alebrije and Monsther being the first pair in. They’re both looking VERY pudgy these days compared to when I saw them in their primes, and they do some standing switches to open up the match which are quite awkward. Al takes Monsther down with an armdrag, prompting Chuky to hit the ring and check on his partner before dropkicking Alebrije. Al, not to be outdone, essentially no-sells it and dropkicks the mini right back. Park and Crazy are in now, and they do a quick exchange off of the ropes before the former ECW TV Champion tries some palm strikes. They accomplish nothing aside from riling Park up to the point that he nails Crazy with a clothesline. Crazy responds with a DDT that gets a nearfall, but he runs in to a powerslam during his follow-up. Crazy gets the advantage back when Park screws up while running in to the corner, and there’s a second rope moonsault from the insane luchadore. Not to be outdone, Parka comes back one more time and hits the Final Cut.

The trading of moves is finally ended by Morgan, who runs in and kicks LA Park out of the ring. He also tosses Alebrije down in to the lower ring, and the rudos are dominating. There is also action in the lower ring, where Crazy finds Al and puts him in to a leglock. We’ve got all six full sized men and the minis fighting in different combinations between both rings right now, and, with the cameras switching back and forth, it’s virtually impossible to follow. Somewhere in this melee, we see Super Crazy walking around with a table on the floor. The action continues everywhere, with Park and Crazy eventually spilling out of both rings and brawling amongst the fans. Crazy gets the advantage and brings the former Chairman of WCW back in to the lower ring along with a couple of folding chairs. This is starting to look an awful lot like gimmick infringement, Crazy. That’s exactly what it is, as he gives Park a tornado DDT down on to the furniture in the lower ring while the other rudos continue to beat on the technicos in the upper ring.

After more rudimentary choking and kicking, Park and Crazy rejoin their respective teams in the elevated squared circle, though the offense takes a while to pick up from standing brawling. When it does, it involves Park and Crazy battling over a superplex, with the embodiment of the Day of the Dead winning and slamming his partner off of the top rope. That prompts another eight man brawl, this time with the babyface team largely dominating. Parka gets hold of the chairs that Crazy used against him earlier and sets them up in the lower ring, eventually giving Jim Duggan’s old tag partner a powerbomb through the metal. Parka goes for the pin but the match’s heel referee refuses to count it, so the skeleton just punches him in the face. I guess that works. Quickly thereafter, things are right back up in the elevated ring, featuring Alebrije and Pirata Morgan. Morgan gets the upper hand, so Cuije decides that he wants to try beating up on the pirate. He’s immediately punted in the gut for his trouble, and all three men head in to the lower ring. Al uses Cuije as a decoy to distract Morgan and then trips him, allowing Cuije to hit a pair of sentons on the larger man. Ultimately the two men of average height wind up having a tug of war over the mini, and Morgan loses, setting up a weird visual in which Alebrije basically gives his own little buddy an airplane spin.

Now we’ve got Intocable and Monsther duking it out in the upper ring with Chuky also getting involved. Intocable gives the smaller man what can loosely be described as a Michinoku Driver before Pirata Morgan hits the ring. Intocable quickly dispatches Morgan to the lower ring and hits him with a Rey Misterio-esque “seated senton” off of the top rope, after which Al immediately tosses Monsther in to the lower ring. He attempts to follow him with a suicide dive from the higher ring but actually falls flat on his face bout six inches short. Then, in perhaps the funniest spot of the match, Chuky tires a dive from the upper ring on to Alebrije, and he does connect . . . but Al no-sells it because the other man is just too small. Chuky is wounded as a result, so Alebrije sets him up for a Cuije superfly splash from the upper ring. Crazy and Park are now once again the focal point in the elevated squared circle, and Crazy pulls a move out of an old rival’s playbook by putting Park in the Tarantula and then a sloppy version of the Octopus hold. Park manages to power out of that and hit a version of Bob Holly’s Alabama Slam, but it only gets a two count. Park then isolates Crazy in the corner, putting him in to a seated position on the second rope and giving him a lungblower for another nearfall. Up next? YOSHI TONIC by Park for two. Crazy fires back with some palm strikes and lands his second DDT of the match before being handed some more chairs by Monsther as well as a piece of plywood. He makes a crude table out of the items and attempts to rana Park off of the top and through the structure. However, that is blocked and turned in to a second rope powerbomb through the wood, which allows the technicos to pick up the decisive fall.

Match Thoughts: Sometimes you watch a wrestling show in which the guys in the main event have significantly more experience than everybody on the undercard and the main event drags the entire show down because the guys in it are past their primes and coasting by on their names. Sometimes you watch a wrestling show in which the guys in the main event have significantly more experience than everybody on the undercard and the main event is far and way the best match on the entire show because the main eventers work hard and apply their experience in such a way that the blow anything that the younger wrestlers could do out of the water. This was the latter situation. The focal point of the match was LA Park wrestling against Super Crazy, and the two of them worked very well together with the mini comedy spots providing a nice distraction when Crazy and Park needed some time away from the spotlight. I was particularly impressed by the fact that Park has added moves to his repertoire throughout his career, with spots like the lungblower and the Yoshi Tonic making him come off as a much more “modern” wrestler than he would if he were still doing the exact same things that he did as La Parka ten years ago. Morgan and Intocable didn’t add much to the portions of the match which the cameras caught, which in a way was a shame because I haven’t seen much of Intocable and thought there was an incredible fluidity to what he executed here that left me curious to see more. Overall, the middle portion of the match which featured all eight men standing around and choking one another dragged a little bit, but the opening was solid, and, when the offense opened up again towards the end, I was rather entertained. It wasn’t a match so good that I need to see it again at any point in the future, but it was a fun way to kill twenty-five minutes. ***

Overall

Well, I was drawn to this show because of the gimmick, and I have to say that the gimmick largely did not deliver. There was virtually nothing added to any of the matches by the fact two rings were placed side-by-side with one elevated. Yes, as noted throughout the play-by-play, there were one or two highspots which could not have been accomplished without the slightly higher jumping off point, but there was nothing so spectacular to justify the extra effort and the obstruction of views caused by ring number two. Things might have been more interesting if the rules of the match could have been modified slightly to go along with the presence of the two rings, but, as things stood, this felt by and large as though I was watching a standard low-level lucha show capped off by a handful of legitimate stars in the sport. Of course, that does not necessarily mean that the show was a bad one, but it was a bit disappointing given my expectations of what the ring-on-ring concept could deliver. If you’re curious about the concept or just generally a fan of fun lucha libre that doesn’t take itself too seriously, I would suggest giving the main event a look, but, by and large, this show can be skipped.


FRENZY OF FEEDBACK!

Just a quick reminder to everybody out there in 411 Wrestling land that I enjoy discussing the contents of my columns, so feel free to drop a comment in the box below or shoot me an e-mail at [email protected]. I will do my best to follow up, hopefully right here in the column . . . which is what I’m getting ready to do right now!

Two weeks ago, I took a look at the modern world of joshi puroresu (women’s wrestling) by watching a SENDAI Girls show. That prompted a few comments, one of which came from Guest#0142

[SENDAI Girls trainer] Satomura’s most promising trainee rookie called Akari Okuda (re-named Tyrannosaurus Okuda) left the promotion to venture out into a Tokyo a while back which is a shame. She now goes by the name of Basara.

Still there is a good amount of young talent there. Look at their training influence . . . Meiko Satomura who was trained by Chigusa Nagayo who in turn was trained by Jaguar Yokota. Great legacy if you ask me.

Thank you for the heads up on Okuda. As I mentioned when I first began writing this column, over the last several months I have slowly but surely been getting back in to the world of international independent wrestling after some time away, so I may not be familiar with some of the more talented newcomers. As a result, I am grateful for any recommendations that readers can give for particular wrestlers or promotions that they would like for me to track down.

As far as the “legacy” of trainees is concerned, it’s a nice sentiment, but having a trainer who was trained by a great wrestler doesn’t always result in the trainee turning out well. If you want a good example, look no further than Outback Jack, universally panned as one of the worst wrestlers in the history of the WWF and referred to by many of his detractors as “Outhouse Jack” because his performances were . . . well . . . you know. He must have had some pretty lousy trainers, right? Wrong. He actually spent a good deal of time working with the Hart family before coming to the World Wrestling Federation. There are some people who just don’t “get it,” regardless of who their trainers or the trainers of their trainers were.

Oni had a comment on my criticism of the repetitive offense in the SENDAI show’s tag team match:

One has to remember that in Japan, young lions aren’t given the luxury of varied move sets . . . but as they gain in both experience and stature, they “get” moves to add to their repertoire.

That’s all well and good. However, if you are limited in the number of big moves that you can perform, you either a) shouldn’t be involved in a twenty-plus minute match as those girls were or b) should have the match structured in such a way that there aren’t so many points at which big moves are needed. Doing otherwise serves to expose the limitations of the young wrestlers quite a bit, and the last thing that you want to do in any situation is highlight a wrestler’s weaknesses as opposed to her strengths. I can understand the youngsters themselves not necessarily thinking about these concepts, but I was surprised to see that a veteran like Satomura was directly involved in the match and did not realize this.

The topic last week was Apache Army, which prompted this comment from Guest #4801:

Thank you for the column of Apache Army. I’m a huge fan of FMW and sadden it died and get more angry ex-FMW career that remained at the end became nothing but job boy bitches to the major Japanese feds. When FMW folded it was also death of independent wrestling in Japan.

Well, it was the death of a certain style of independent wrestling in Japan, that is for sure. However, as I hope to highlight with this column, there are still several Japanese independent promotions that are doing quite well for themselves and putting out an entertaining product, even if it is a bit different than the FMW that you were a fan of back in the day. For example, DDT has been doing EXTREMELY well for itself lately, including several entertaining shows in such varied settings as amusement parks and campgrounds, as well as a major show at Japan’s Sumo Hall within the last month which legitimately drew over 8,000. The indies are still alive and well if you know where to look!


Looking forward to the next instalment of Into the Indies? Keep an eye on 411’s Twitter accounts, and you just might see it pop up!

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See you all next week!

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Ryan Byers

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