The Tiger’s Take 7.29.08: The War of New York

If there was a better time to be a fan of Independent wrestling in the state of New York, I don’t know when that could have been, because it’s been pretty damn good this year. There is a currently a war of attrition going on for Indy supremacy in the state of New York. On one side you have NWA Upstate, based out of Rochester, NY. They’ve got boasting the rights of some pretty decent names on the Indy scene. Brodie Lee, Jimmy Olsen, and a young man you may have seen on Tuesday nights on the Sci/Fi channel, Colin Delany. They’ve also brought in some TNA talent like Eric Young and Sonjay Dutt, and ECW Alumnus Danny Doring is the current NWA Upstate Champion.

On the other side is Squared Circle Wrestling, 2CW, based out of Syracuse, NY. While they don’t have the boasting rights that Upstate does as far as the names that call 2CW home, they do frequently bring in “Die Hard” Eddie Edwards, between his tours in NOAH and his occasional bookings in ROH. There’s the 2CW Champion Slyck Wagner Brown, and former 2CW Champion, and former ROH Pure Champion “Hurricane” John Walters. There have also been occasional cameos by The Sandman, 2 Cold Scorpio, Tony Atlas, Bill Alfonzo, Delirious, Human Tornado, Nikki Roxx, and others. Not to mention that 2CW also has the benefit of some very good local talent thanks to the training of Zachary Springate III.

Now I’m not saying that 2CW and Upstate are the only two Indy group to run NY, there are many others such as NEW, NWA Empire, and ESW to name a few. But until 2CW started making waves in 2007, Upstate was better known due to the other places some of their talent had gone to. In fact, when 2CW began running in Rochester, NY there was a legit worry that Upstate would try to disrupt the show, like XPW did to ECW in 2000.

If you look at the start of the feud, it’s hard to believe how much it’s grown and how violent it’s gotten. It started in Binghamton, NY (2CW’s home away from home, so to speak) on August 10, 2007. The Olsen Twins were set to make their debut as a team, but Jimmy wasn’t able to make it, as was replaced by Brodie Lee. The 2CW faithful (very similar to the famed ECW Mutants) knew who they were and where they were from, and let them have it with several chants. Colin and Brodie were defeated that night by the Wyld Stallyns, but impressed enough to be invited to Syracuse the next month. In Syracuse, they were subjected to the same sort of treatment from the fans, but this time Colin grabbed the microphone and handed it back a bit. He started telling the fans how much he hated Syracuse and how much better Upstate was. They were again defeated, this time by the makeshift team of J.D. Love and Isys Ephex, which was a bit odd because both were heels and both had their own individual feuds going on. In fact, after temporarily gaining the fans’ support, Isys would go back to his hated ways later in the same night. Jimmy would eventually join Colin in November and they’d get their first win in 2CW, defeating the Wyld Stallyns in Binghamton (the originally scheduled debut for them), but Brodie was again on the losing side (I’ve not yet seen this show, so I don’t know what exactly happened, if anything).

But on December 29, 2007 it all boiled over. It started in the opening contest, Brodie and Jimmy came out and announced that the scheduled Olsens vs. Stallyns match wasn’t happening because Colin was in North Carolina on tour with the WWE. Brodie had his own match later in the night, so Jimmy brought out his replacement partner, the owner of NWA Upstate, Hellcat. The Upstate trio got on the microphone and ripped on Syracuse, 2CW, and the fans themselves, there was a 12 person sign reading UPSTATE SUCKS, which they grabbed and ripped apart. And just to rub salt in the wound, Olsen and Hellcat won when Hellcat hit Bill S. Preston with the NWA Upstate Title belt. But there was more to come. Brodie suffered another defeat at the hands of John Walters and knocked out Walters after the match. The semi-main event was the blow off to the fourteen-month feud of Loca Vida and J.D. Love in a Mask vs. Hair match. Loca had pulled off the win, and J.D. professed his respect for Loca and they buried the hatchet only to be jumped by the Upstate trio. Both of them were beaten down and J.D. had his head shaved by them, then they went after Loca’s mask, but John Walters (still smarting from the boot from Brodie) ran them off. Before they left, they also tormented a few more fans, and Hellcat challenged anyone from 2CW to come to the Upstate show on 1/12.

2CW accepted the challenge, and on 1/12 Zachary Springate III, J.D. Love, John Walters, and Slyck Wagner Brown invaded Upstate. Springate and Love taunted the fans a bit and Hellcat had them removed from the building, for not having manager licenses. Walters and Slyck wrestled Ricky Reyes and D to the Icky, and were disqualified for shoving the referee. But before 2CW went to Upstate the fans were already getting into it over the message boards of both companies. Upstate fans bashed 2CW for drawing small crowds 2CW fans bashed Upstate for having less talented and not-as-well-traveled wrestlers on their roster.

The feud took a bit of a break after this. Both groups ran on 2/23, and Upstate didn’t run again until May. On the first night of 2CW’s two-year anniversary show in Watertown, NY, Loca Vida and J.D. Love defeated Hellcat and Pepper Parks, but it was a more comedy-oriented affair. The second night in Syracuse featured nothing at all from Upstate. Upstate sent Kevin Dunn (of the Ring Crew Express) and Chip Stetson to the 2CW show in Amsterdam, NY on 5/23, where they won a triple threat tag match. Loca Vida worked the 5/17 Upstate show, nothing happened during his match and he was even treated as a babyface. Afterwards, Springate and J.D. made an appearance to rundown Upstate before being run off by a couple of Upstate wrestlers and Hellcat challenged 2CW to a War Games match on 6/28 in Rochester.

2CW accepted the challenge, but before they could get there, 2CW had a warm up on 6/7 in Syracuse. It started when young 2CW wrestler J. Freddie enlisted the help of the Ring Crew Express in a match against the faction called “The Axes of Evil” who had been abusing him. To no surprise, they left Freddie high and dry. Loca and Love had an anything goes match with Brodie and Jimmy, who were accompanied by Hellcat, and all hell broke loose. Hellcat, The Ring Crew Express and Cloudy all ran in to aid Upstate, but Jason Axe and Zachary Springate evened the odds. 2CW prevailed when Loca pinned Brodie after he was thrown onto thumbtacks by J.D. The fight continued afterwards and ended when Cloudy, Jimmy, Brodie, and Hellcat were all put through tables.

There was another bump in the road before 6/28. Hellcat announced that he was folding NWA Upstate. Fans of 2CW and Upstate were in an uproar. Was this a work? What was happening? 2CW fans were sympathetic for Upstate fans for losing their promotion and for the wrestlers who were out of work. Upstate fans were hoping that 2CW could take some of the Upstate wrestlers and would start to run Rochester. It was all for naught, as it was later announced that Chip Stetson would take over running Upstate. 6/28 came and War Games was on, 2CW sent Jason Axe, J.D. Love, Zachary Springate, Isys Ephex, and Dizzie while Upstate had the Ring Crew Express, Jimmy Olsen, Gabe Saint, and Pepper Parks. It was down to Olsen and Isys, when the ref went down and Hellcat turned on Upstate to give 2CW the win. Apparently yet another twist in the ongoing saga between Hellcat and Stetson in Upstate (Hellcat has a bit of history turning on Stetson). Hellcat then revealed a 2CW shirt and celebrated with the 2CW wrestlers.

2CW declared that the feud was over with their win in Upstate’s territory, in their match. But on 7/26 it became clear that Upstate wasn’t finished with 2CW. Hellcat was on the verge of being attacked by Cloudy, Brodie, and the RCE, but was saved by Loca, J.D. Love, and Springate. This led to an eight man street fight to end the show between Hellcat, Loca, Springate and J.D. against Cloudy, Brodie, and the RCE. Upstate won when Brodie pinned J.D. after he was booted into a pile of tacks, in revenge for what J.D. did to Brodie on 6/7. Upstate wasn’t done yet, and provoked several 2CW fans to charge the ring and fight them, the fans obliged and were removed. One of which even threw a chair at them, which caused Brodie to follow him out the front door and open up a can of the ass-whip on him. Where this feud is going from here is anyone’s guess, as of this writing there hasn’t been anything else announced for either fed. Upstate runs again on 9/27 which is highlighted by a tournament that Slyck will be taking part in. The next 2CW show is on 8/15 doesn’t yet have any announced matches involving anyone from Upstate. Those who’ve seen and experienced this great feud were able to experience something firsthand that we missed out on during ROH/CZW since ROH stopped running in NY outside of New York City. Those who haven’t been able to experience simply don’t know what they’ve been missing.