Tag Archive: Smark

  1. MPX-The Era of Kyle Begins-9-8-12

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    I’m going to have a hard time convincing people I’m not a smark if I use a derivative of the first ever Ring of Honor show. While a far cry from being perfect, I think this is perhaps one of the best shows I’ve seen from MPX. It’s like they’ve been waiting a long time for tonight and everything clicked. This whole night was about Kyle Valo taking over and what the effects would be.

    First match: Frankie Fisher & Steven Kirby vs. Joe Angelo Garcia & JD Kros

    I was quite pleased with Frankie’s work as a face. To me, Frankie is one of the most natural heels I’ve ever seen. But he does the babyface quite nicely. Steven has so much enthusiasm and natural charisma. Between him and Frankie, they both are great pros at listening to the crowd and reacting. It was Garcia’s first match so he gets immunity on his in-ring work. He looked professional and had a nice look. The crowd decided he looked like Mark Wahlberg, but I thought he looked more like Adam from HBO’s hit show “Girls.” The major thing is if you are a heel, tell your family to boo you. This is pretty much Heel 101. The match itself was fun and the crowd was into it. I didn’t see any botches or anything.

    Winner: Kirby & Fisher

    Kirby & Fisher have good chemistry together. Garcia walked back like nothing had happened. Sell, sell, sell.

    Second match: Danny Saint w/Claudia vs. Kenny Steele

    It took the crowd a little bit to warm up with this match. Saint is a good person to pair Steele with. I think he will be good for building up Steele and giving him legit experience. The crowd was weird during this match. They seemed to not care about the chain wrestling/catch-as-catch-can stuff. I liked Claudia in her role with the dynamic she added. At one point Saint had him in a Boston Crab and the crowd was riveted.

    Winner: Steele

    Since this was the first time these two had wrestled, it’s hard to build up a chemistry naturally. Andy Dalton came out without music. Dalton was ON FIRE with his promo. He called Kate Carroll (the heart and soul of the company) every name one could call a lady in a PG world. Out came Kate’s boyfriend, Gregory James, to defend her honor. They play Macho-Elizabeth so well. Greg and Dalton traded some pretty intense promos. Dalton’s dad was brought up. I wanted more of the dueling promos, not from the dueling promos, which I think is pretty nice praise.

    Third match: Kristopher Haiden vs. Barrett Brown

    Well, according to Kyle Valo’s rules, Barrett could not go off the top rope or do anything outside the ring. Barrett might have well been tied with both hands behind his back. I was really impressed by what I saw by both of these guys. The momentum was good. I was able to see Barrett have another type of match. Based on in-ring work alone, (aka, no car hood) this is one of the best matches I’ve ever seen Haiden have. The ref was knocked out and when he came to, Barrett was outside the ring at Haiden’s hands. (I think. The night was difficult for me to take notes). Haiden convinced him that Barrett was cheating and the ref disqualified him.

    Winner: Haiden

    I hated this finish. I hate it any time in wrestling somebody decides to do this. I hated it when Kevin Nash did this on Sid at Starrcade. In football, if you tell a ref there was pass interference, he doesn’t just throw the flag like an idiot. It was insultingly bad.

    Fourth match: Andy Dalton vs. “Headbanger” Gregory James in best of 3 falls

    Wow. These two guys really brought it. Both guys were firing on all cylinders. There was really nice back-and-forth. I gotta admit I didn’t take too many notes as my chair ripped during the last match and I was standing and it was hard to take notes. Dalton won the first fall. The back-and-forth continued. There was a DDT onto the ring apron that was insane to take by Dalton. Greg went back into the ring and there was a countout. The referee was going to do another 10-count. Dalton crawled back in at 9 and a half. He was also showing off a bloody forehead. And then the match got more stiff and more brutal. There were near-falls galore. But Greg came away with the win.

    Winner: Gregory James

    If you do not know the name Gregory James, learn it. This is my choice for “Match of the Year” so far. The crowd was into it, there were lots of near-falls and blood happened. I would have just liked to see this match have maybe a month or two more build-up. Zero the Antihero came out, and talked about how he’d never won a match. He was ready to finally win a match. It was easy to see his influence when he sat down legs crossed in the ring. He did a great job of listening to the crowd and cutting a promo in his character. The crowd loves Zero. I think one of the reasons why is that he’s a video game geek and has that connection with the crowd. Zero and Kyle Valo had a dueling promos segment. The crowd loved it. Valo made a match with Zero and James Hawke.

    Fourth match: Zero the Antihero vs. James Hawke

    I think I’m about to call Hawke “The Crowd-Killer.” I keep on trying to rack my brain on what it is that cools a hot crowd quite like he does. I guess it’s that they just don’t buy him. What I would have him do is take a few months off and then come back fresh. We are at a point where they are shoving him down our throats and with every shove, it makes him harder to come back and the audience care about him. The actual match itself was fine. The two meshed well together. The crowd even popped for the Mortal Kombat spot. Zero looked unable to compete and Frankie came out to his rescue. Kyle Valo ruled him unable to compete.

    Winner: Hawke

    Fifth match: Kanoa vs. Scott Murdoch w/ Steven Kirby

    I’m really liking what I see from Kanoa. You can also tell Murdoch has been working on his physique. Kanoa did a lot of bumping and sold like crazy. Murdoch has a lot of commitment behind his moves. I really like this new chapter of Murdoch’s work here. He is very focused and really brings it. He and Kanoa clicked really well.

    Winner: Murdoch

    Sixth match: Asian Nation (c) w/Nigel Rabid vs. Tad Wylde

    Both teams have connected with the crowd. Tad Wylde is great for the crowd, and the Asian Nation is equally good at keeping them engaged. One thing that I love about Li Fang of the Asian Nation is that his face is so expressive that he doesn’t have to say much. And when he does, it’s in Chinese (or a foreign language I don’t recognize) so it keeps the crowd hating him (because Heel 101 says to speak in a foreign language). One of my favorite spots of the year was Ben Wylde giving “Just” James Johnson what looked like an Atomic Wedgie. It was so entertaining. There was another really awesome looking spot with Wylde doing a double suplex with both members of the Asian Nation. The finish came with Johnson doing his finish on Li by mistake.

    Winner: Tad Wylde

    I’ve watched Ben Wylde from the beginning of his career, so it’s nice to see how far he’s come. He’s worked really hard to make it to this place. After the match, the Asian Nation were in the ring and Kyle Valo verbally berated them on the mic. Johnson began to fire back on his mic. I dare call Johnson one of the best on the mic in MPX. He kept on going on the mic that he didn’t notice that Li & Nigel had both left the ring. When Johnson turned around to call on their support, Li was standing right at the curtain. He bowed and left. It reminded me of what St. Francis of Assisi once said- “Cut your promo. And if necessary-use words.” (Maybe St. Francis said “Preach the gospel” instead of “Cut your promo” but you get the gist.)

    Main event: Matt Palmer (c) vs. The Following in a Gauntlet Match

    Palmer was total bumping machine in this match. First up was Matt Andrews. While their match was short, the actual wrestling part of it was very nice. Choice suffered victim to Palmer’s signature maneuver. Then in next was Regrub. Palmer bumped and sold more.  Regrub stopped during his match and pointed me out. So in response, Hi, back to you, Regrub. And then Palmer made pretty short work of Regrub. Then it was between Palmer and Carrion Arcane. Palmer still had no quit in him. Arcane is such a professional and carries so much intensity in and out of the ring. Palmer had Arcane in a submission hold and they just worked the drama. I loved what they did there with the hold.

    Winner: Palmer (or so we thought)

    After witnessing the carnage and retaining, Kristopher Haiden came out and did a clothesline that best I can figure out, decapitated Palmer. Kyle Valo counted to 3 for Haiden to get the win and win the title from Palmer.

    All in all… As a matter of full disclosure, my sister- and brother-in-law are very close to Haiden and his girlfriend. Haiden was usher at her wedding. He’s also the person telling me about this new place he had just started wrestling at 2 years ago, which was MPX. I also thought it was rather odd that he’s been wrestling forever and this was the first time I’d ever seen his parents there. So forgive me for a moment when I say to Haiden congratulations. You have worked your tail off for the past few years. You not only have worked on your game, but you’ve helped make those around you better. You truly deserve this moment.

    The reason for my personal disclosure is that I am excited with the direction they can go with Haiden on top. There’s a lot of really credible challengers waiting for him: Greg, Barrett, Frankie, Kirby, Johnson. A lot of feuds were blown off tonight, and some new directions were introduced. Oh, and Jerry Lynn on November 10th.

    To follow me on Twitter, click here. For Facebook, click here.

    photo courtesy of Staci Brown

  2. The Underground Episodes 3 & 4: Wrestling You’re Not Watching, Except Also For Maybe NXT… or ROH…

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    In all fairness, I reviewed both of The Underground and NXT: Full Sail Series (or whatever they call it). And I never promised to review all of these shows… but I decided to at least give a little love to the best internet-only web-series about wrestling. This project deserves more recognition. It’s like a video game (e.g. Mortal Kombat) meets independent wrestling in cinematic form (e.g. Bloodsport). Kayfabe… and this series looks to go long down the stretch. Awesomeness TV is your hook up, and if this description sounds cool to you, you have like a 141 2/3rd chance of winning. Brief descriptions and videos after the jump… let’s hop to it, shall we?

    This is not a meme. The dude’s name is “Jobs.” Gamer rage is awesome!

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  3. Impact Wrestling 04/12/12

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    So TNA has their Lockdown PPV this Sunday. Do I care? No, not really. Here’s the deal, I got virtually 45 minutes of sleep last night, and have been up since 5:30AM yesterday. Tried to call in to work at the night job, and then it started fucking snowing which means there is NO ABSOLUTE WAY I’m getting out of my shift. Ugghhh… still have to get up at 5:30AM tomorrow as well. Needless to say, my patience is VERY thin right now, which doesn’t bode well for Impact from this smark’s POV. But, it is what it is… let’s just get this over with, shall we?

    Logo
    Hey Warrior, want to go do some coke and bang some ringrats?

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  4. Impact Wrestling: 06/23/11

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    It’s Thursday, and that means it’s time for Impact Wrestling! But not just any episode, no. This one will feature footage and matches from the BaseBrawl event held in Buffalo on June 18th in which Bored Wrestling Fan founder ThinkSoJoE was present for. You can check out his breakdown here, and I’ll do my best to keep a look out for him as I delve into this episode. With the preamble out of the way, let’s hop to it, shall we?

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  5. An Open Letter to Smarks

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    A smark is defined according to Wikipedia as “a phrase coined by Internet wrestling fans to describe a fan who enjoys pro wrestling despite or because they know that it is scripted, as well as generally knowing the “ins-and-outs” of the company and knowing many things about the industry or wrestlers collected by sources and are posted online. “Smarks” are generally looked down on by wrestlers as well as other wrestling fans for supposed inability to suspend their disbelief. Smarks may also be criticized for believing they know more than they do in reality about the workings of the wrestling industry.”

    First of all, my confession. I am a smark. I know wrestling is predetermined. I also have been a subscriber of www.pwinsider.com for well over 10 years. (Well, going back to their days at 1Wrestling) I’ve read books by Mick Foley, Terry Funk & Jerry Lawler. I know some insider terms but just what has leaked to the world via the Internet. I know some wrestlers’ real names, but that only comes from being a fan for a long time. Yes, I know that wrestling is predetermined. This may not be an exact quote, but I believe Lance Storm once said “Predetermined does not necessarily mean fake.” This should not be a newsflash for anybody. Yet I still go, and I still respect it for the art form that it can be. Contrary to popular belief, I do not live in mother’s basement. I have a beautiful wife and daughter.

    Second of all, this part is for the smarks. Wrestling has given us a lot. Remember Kurt Angle-HBK at Wrestlemania 22? Stone Cold-Bret Hart at Wrestlemania 13? Savage-Steamboat at Wrestlemania 3? What about “The Night the Line Was Crossed” in ECW? Eddie Guerrero-Rey Misterio Jr. at Halloween Havoc ’97? All the TLC matches? Sabu-Terry Funk in the barb wire match at Hard Wired? The cage match in TNA where Elix Skipper ran off the top of the cage? Or the first Ultimate X match? Or the Low Ki-Danielson-Daniels 3-way match at the first Ring of Honor show?

    And those are just the matches. Think of the wrestlers. Eddie Guerrero, AJ Styles, Curt Hennig, Dean Malenko, Terry Funk, Ricky Steamboat, Edge, Christian, Pre-drug Jeff Hardy, Pre-Hostess Twinkies Matt Hardy, The Dudley Boys, Sabu, Taz, Tommy Dreamer, Sandman, 2 Cold Scorpio, Low Ki, Homicide, Paul London, Brian Kendrick, Samoa Joe, Nigel McGuiness, Doug Williams,Tyler Black, CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Kings of Wrestling, Beer Money, Motor City Machine Guns, Mike Awesome, Masato Tanaka, the nation of Japan.

    And we’ve had our villains. Anybody with the last name of McMahon, WWE Creative, Kevin Dunn, Triple-H, Chyna, X-Pac, Billy Gunn, Test, Katie Vick, the Dusty finish, Eric Bischoff, the contents of Baby Doll’s envelope, the driver of the Hummer, Robocop, Hulk Hogan, David Arquette, the Great Khali (even though I still love him), John Cena, Mark Madden and our ultimate anti-Christ-Vince Russo.

    These people here have given everything for us (except for maybe Mark Madden). We owe them everything. When you go to a local independent wrestling show, you should see it as an opportunity to give back. The Bible says “To whom much is given, much will be expected.” Remember, just because you go to a local indy show, you’re not going to see Flair-Steamboat every time. What you are going to watch are two guys who are getting to do the thing they love before a group of people. You’ll see some good matches, and you might see some “works-in-progress” (my nice way of saying sucky matches). Some of you sit there with your arms crossed waiting for somebody to do Teddy Hart moonsaults off the top of the building onto shards of glass in a vat of alcohol. (I’m sure we’d all like to see Teddy Hart do that, btw.)

    When you go a wrestling show, you need to get into it. You know who the faces and the heels are. Cheer them. Boo them. (An exception is the “Heel Section.” Those guys crack me up, and they get the fans more into it.) Heckle the heels. When the referee asks you if the guy cheated, tell them. Buy a t-shirt. Get your polaroid taken at the intermission. This is your chance to go out and stimulate the economy.

    You can still be a “smart” fan. I tried the El Generico “Ole!” chant for my local luchador. The fans never joined me. I’ll also heckle my local wrestlers. Like, Local Wrestler #1 says they don’t have a match tonight. I’ll cheer. Don’t get in the way of the match. It’s disrespectful and not funny. Don’t call a wrestler by their real name. I know some outside of my local promotion, and when I see them live at the show, I always repeat to myself “His name is [name].  His name is [name].”

    Let’s face it. Some of you are jealous. Some of you would love to step in the ring, but either don’t have the size or the courage. You’ll never be happy with what goes on in the ring because you wish you could be in it. You think you’re the cat’s whacker because you know who Kenta Kobashi is. There were a group of fans at a local indy that got in the way of the show because they wanted a job. If you truly love wrestling, you want to make it succeed. Your attitude creates whether you will enjoy it or not.

    I, of course, wanted to be involved in the wrestling industry. I went so far as to call a few schools about information about being things like a referee/manager. But I had a lot of different roads to travel, and as much as I wish wrestling was on my road, it wasn’t. But I still like to help in the business. My way of doing that now is to pay, be an unofficial crowd plant and then to give my opinion afterwards.

    It doesn’t mean you can’t have an opinion. A lot of you have a lot of experience as wrestling fans. You know what you enjoy and what you don’t. Just remember that the wrestlers are people with feelings and emotions and families. I write a review for my local promotion. While I was terrified at first, they seemed to appreciate it. I also don’t rip them a new one because they don’t do a 1260 splash off a 3rd story building onto a bed of thumbtacks. I just go into it knowing that I’m not a wrestler, and I just have one opinion.

    We have been given so much, and it’s time we give back.

    For my site, click here.

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  6. Power Poll for the week ending 03/24/11

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    As we enter the final week of hype and promotion leading up to WrestleMania 27, it’s time to see where the Power Poll ranks our beloved wrestlers. It’s been an odd week in wrestling, and much like the past few weeks, there has been lots of movement. While the power poll is a regular feature here, this smark is getting even more excited for A Celebration of Professional Wrestling that will be going down at both the Bored Wrestling Fan and Wonderpod-Online. Stay tuned for more details… but until then…
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  7. Power Poll: 1/13/11

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    Oh how things can change in one weeks time! Once again I return to bring you this week’s power poll. Sadly, I am a little strapped for time and this will not be an animated gif version of the article. However, it will still be a nice look at the IWC’s perception of the top stars amongst the contributing websites.
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  8. RAW: 12/27/10

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    Ok, I know what you’re thinking. Who is this jerk usurping AlyKat’s spot?

    The answer is G, I’ve been doing the iMPACT reviews as of late and she’s unable to make it this week.*

    And I know you’re asking yourself, “Well then Mr. G, will there be the twittering like she does?”

    No. Maybe some fake ones, but no. I will be doing this in my usual suffer-through-it-as-I-write style.

    * Card subject to change.

    Well then, let’s get down to business and see what the WWE served up for the last RAW of 2010, shall we? I haven’t done a RAW review in a long, long time.

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