AIW Thread

Overall, the weekend was fun, with typical JLIT weekend shenanigans. I'll post the notable stuff right now and get full results when I have more time on my hands.

Heidi Lovelace is one tough chick. She took some brutal kicks to the face by Ricky Shane Page, managed to beat him and then got her ass kicked by Elgin, but not before getting some great nearfalls.

Seleziya Sparx is ALWAYS a great treat. Not only because she's hot (I mean, she is and has a great ass, but I digress). But because she can work her nice ass off too. She's a really underrated wrestler. And thanks to the Jollyville Fuck-Its, she beat Whitmer to advance to round two to face Matt Cross who unfortunately defeated her.

As mentioned above, the Jollyville Fuck-Its costed Whitmer his match, and they costed Jimmy Jacobs his match. This lead to a tag title match on night 2, which got thrown out because both teams killed the ref. However, it lead to a fantastic brawl all over the building. So that's a surefire rematch for Absolution.

Matt Cross is a heel, he doesn't want to do flips. I'm not sure heel Matt Cross is something the live crowd cares about. We'll be getting J-Pro vs. Matt Cross at Absolution though. So huzzah!

Elgin & Kingston had a fun night one main event. The theme of this weekend was "Michael Elgin knows how to do a lot of stuff. He's not just power, he's smart, and a submission wrestler and isn't here for approval, but for results." As the weekend went on, he started riding the line of tweener rather than face. Although his mocking of a drunken heckler was fantastic.

Tim Donst... er, apologies, Tim FUCKING Donst, is over like rover. Had some fun matches and advanced to the finals with Elgin. But after Donst beat Cross in the semi-finals, Ethan Page attacked him with a chair and put Donst out of commission.

I'll come back to Donst in a moment. Let's get to the Buff Bagwell stuff. As expected, he had a trainwreck comedy match with Jock Samson. A few little fun bits happened, Jock told Buff that he wants to show his moves off. So he says "How about I give a lapdance to that whore you've got with you." Jock responds to the 'oh snap' crowd reaction with "Hey, she's a hot whore, but that doesn't make her any less of a whore." Jock gives her a lap dance, Buff gives her a lapdance, Jock attacks Buff and for some ungodly reason, Buff Bagwell advances with the sloppy ass Blockbuster.

This however, turns out to be a blessing in disguise as his round 2 opponent is Ethan Page. Huzzah! Some pre-match mic shenanigans. Page says only in AIW would "Jesus fucking Christ" Ethan Page face Buff freakin' Bagwell. Page points out that Bagwell had a fucking awful match on night one with Jock and should count his blessings that All Ego iss good enough to carry him. He then tells Buff that he wouldn't have to sell his cock on street corners if he didn't shit the bed with Booker on Raw. Ethan Page is my hero.

Anyway, Page carries Bagwell to an okay match. Yes, Ethan Page is so good that he carried fucking Buff Bagwell to a bearable match. And in case you didn't see it elsewhere yet, Buff Bagwell did a Canadian Destroyer on Page. Yep. Buff Bagwell did a flipping piledriver. Obviously, Page did most of the work, but it was still quite the sight to behold. Page kicks out and puts Buff away with the Headshot Cutter to advance, Page also beat Louis Lyndon to go to the finals.

So, our finals will be Michael Elgin defending his title against Tim Donst and Ethan Page. Thus, Page assaulted Donst. I'll come back to that as well.

One night one, we had Greg Iron & The Iron Curtain assault Veda Scott, Colin Delaney, Marion Fontaine and Ultra Mantis Black made the save. So night two we had an 8 person tag, Veda's team wins. Veda Scott vs. Greg Iron will happen at Absolution.

There was a six way scramble, Eddie Kingston vs. Davey Vega vs. Tyson Dux vs. Bobby Beverly vs. Ricky Shane Page vs. Flip Kendrick. Fun little match, Davey Vega wins. Afterwards, The Duke assaults RSP because of the #Nixon stuff. Simple explanation, Duke is made at RSP, Eric Ryan and Bobby Beverly for turning face. Duke hires Eddie Kingston to beat up RSP. At Absolution Duke and King vs. RSP and a partner if he can find one. Cue Vincent Nothing returning (I'd assume.)

Gargano vs. Sabin was fan-fucking-tastic. You could really see Sabin was happy to be wrestling his ass off again without limitations. Lots of "Fuck TNA" chants that Sabin encouraged. Gargano wins via GargaNo Escape. Sabin will be back next month against Kevin Steen at Absolution. Praying they turn that into Machine Guns vs. Steen/Gargano. But that depends on Shelley's availability I suppose.

Main Event Time! Donst can't compete, Page beat him senseless. It's now one on one. Annnnd Donst's music hits, he comes out, the triple threat is back on. Donst holds Page for a backfist from Elgin, Page ducks and Donst eats the fist. Page superkicks Elgin and pins Donst, he lasted a whole two minutes. Elgin and Page have a pretty fantastic match. Good nearfalls, but Elgin pummels Page, hits a lariat, a bucklebomb and a sitout powerbomb. However, Page kicked out and the place fucking lost it. Elgin then goes nuts and forearms the holy crap out of Page's face. Annnnnd the ref stops the match due to Page not being able to defend himself.

REALLY bad, lame finish. And honestly, Page outshined Elgin all weekend in every way. I think people, certainly I, were hoping for an Ethan Page repeat. Your 2014 JLIT winner and still AIW Champion is Michael Elgin.

I enjoyed mostly everything, but that lame finish really left a bad taste in people's mouths. On the upside? Ethan Page stole the show again.

Look bro Elgin wrestled for the IWGP title, he's not losing some tournament in Ohio.

Yet he's probably losing to Tim Donst next month. lol

language warning

I could watch that all day. lol

Nevermind that shit, Dick Justice has hit the scene!

Dick Justice is a fucking madman. All shall perish beneath his word.

When someone kicks out of the Canadian Destroyer, I stop watching immediately.

It's a ridiculously illogical, cartoony move to begin with, so I'm pretty okay with anyone kicking out of it.

Stroke wrote:When someone kicks out of the Canadian Destroyer, I stop watching immediately.

Well it's good then that when Page kicks out it's the end of the video.

JustSkiff wrote:

Stroke wrote:When someone kicks out of the Canadian Destroyer, I stop watching immediately.

Well it's good then that when Page kicks out it's the end of the video.

They really timed that video out well for all parties.

Figured I'd just plant this here since it seems Vipes and I will be attending quite a few shows from them this year. Obviously we attended the JLIT last month and now we're attending Absolution.

The card is as follows:

Absolute Title
Michael Elgin (c) vs. Tim Donst

Tag Titles: No DQ
The Jollyville Fuck-Its (c) vs. The Forgotten (Whitmer & Jacobs)

Intense Title
Louis Lyndon (c) vs. Davey Vega

Kevin Steen vs. Chris Sabin

Johnny Gargano vs. "All Ego" Ethan Page

Matt Cross vs. Josh Prohibition

Eddie Kingston vs. Rickey Shane Page

Gregory Iron vs. Veda Scott

Tyson Dux vs. Bobby Beverly

ACH vs. Colin Delaney vs. Seleziya Sparx vs. Cheech vs. Brent Banks vs. Flip Kendrick

Damn, just how any times will Matt Cross and Josh Prohibition face each other anyway? Their match count is somewhere between Me vs Grant in FPR or Grant vs Del Rio in WWE12

This is supposedly their last match against each other. But I'm not sure I'm buying it. Although AIW usually holds up their stipulations for the most part.

Also, in August Christopher Daniels debuts in AIW. I fully expect this show to be packed. And not surprisingly, there's buzz about Sydal coming in at some point as well. So AIW might be having a big year, as they've apparently broken pre-sale ticket records for this years Absolution.

even though MDogg vs. Prohibition has happened a lot, there's a certain nostalgia to that match that brings me back to when I 1st started watching indy wrestling.

If this is their last match against eachother (even if only for a year or so) It will probably be something special.

It's definitely going to be a fantastic match. Those two always deliver against one another. Tonight's going to have a lot of really great moments. But I personally see Gargano/Page being the show stealer.

It should be noted that this crowd was HUGE. They literally had to add an extra 5 rows of chairs to the back section because of the attendance being so crazy. Good for AIW, drawing such a massive crowd on the same day as a WWE PPV.

Kevin Steen vs. Chris Sabin opened the show and while I questioned that decision at first, it soon became obvious that it was a great call as the crowd was super hot for this match and it certainly delivered. As you'd expect, there were some hilarious Steen moments before he and Sabin worked their asses off. Really good match, I hope we get more Sabin in AIW. Steen manages to pick up the win. Steen puts over AIW, Sabin and appreciates everyone understanding why he's missed some dates. Thank you Steen chants break out and immediately after Jimmy Jacobs and Whitmer jump him. Jimmy says why thank him when he's not going anywhere. He says Steen can't pass the cardio requirements to cut it in WWE. This brings out The Jollyville Fuck-Its and we transition right into the tag title match.


The Fuck-Its vs. Whitmer & Jacobs was a fun little brawl, some neat tag moves, Jollyville isolate Whitmer and Russ goes up top for the cannonball senton, but Jacobs pulls the ref out of the ring. Tommy Mercer then comes out and kills the Fuck-Its. Whitmer and Jacobs hit the All Seeing Eye and we have new tag champs! Huzzah! This one was relatively short, but it was fun, had decent heat and makes you want to see somebody really kick The Forgotten's ass. Fun times.


Gargano vs. Page was fucking great. As expected, the match of the night. Page came out with Seleziya and Louis Lyndon, but then told them that he doesn't need their help, and that he knows he can beat Gargano on his own. No bullshit, no cheap shots, no of that. He says he can beat Gargano clean and has something to prove. These guys mesh so well and the crowd was so explosive for this one. A lot of near falls and crazy moves galore. I can't stress how fantastic this match was. Seleziya comes out, Page tells her to leave. Lyndon sneaks up on Gargano and is about to attack him when Page superkicks him out of nowhere and the crowd lost their fucking minds. Page has turned full blown babyface. He and Gargano then beat the hell out of each other, hit big moves, reversals everywhere, Gargano locks in the Gargano Escape, Page refuses to tap, gets out of it, a few moves get transitioned back into it but Page still refuses to tap, much like last month against Elgin. Gargano knees him in the face over and over again while still holding the submission, they lift his hand for the three but Page is still in it. A few more knees and really cranking on it, they lift his hand and Page passes out. Gargano wins, but HOLY SHIT what a match. They shake hands after the match, and the crowd is all about Ethan Page. Really cool moment for him, AIW and just in general.


The six way scramble was really fun and flippy and hilarious. ACH pulls out the victory and then challenges Christopher Daniels to a match on August 8th. Huzzah!


Greg Iron vs. Veda Scott just didn't click this time. Their previous encounters were okay, but they had the unfortunate task of following up a bunch of good matches tonight. Veda gets DQ'd after accidentally hitting the ref with a chair. Next month at Battle of the Sexes, Veda vs. Greg Iron in a cage! Wooo! Not that I'll be at that show, but that's certainly a good way to make people care about the blow off to the feud.


Tyson Dux vs. Bobby Beverly was just... kinda there. It wasn't awful, but Bobby Beverly is so boring.


Mericifully, Davey Vega ended Louis Lyndon's reign as Intense Division Champion. Which is great since, y'know, Davey is actually entertaining.


Kingston vs. RSP was pretty damn good. Was certainly the hard-hitting slugfest brawl we expected. It was pretty good, Kingston picks up the win and then shit talks AIW. Pretty good promo, says The Duke pays him, not AIW, and he'll fight when the Duke pays him to do it. Then Ethan Page's music hits, the crowd pops big and he tells Kingston that nobody shits on the company that gave him the opportunity of a lifetime a few years back. Kingston bails and says he won't fight, 'pussy' chants at Kingston. Duke & King leave, Page says it might not be tonight, but he wants Kingston so he can make him tapout in his ring. People love Ethan Page. "Jesus Christ" chants for him all night long.


M-Dogg vs. J-Pro was the heat-filled, crazy ass, relentlessly aggressive match I had hoped for. They never fail to put on a great match, and this was certainly another gem to put in their history book. Cross swung from a basketball hoop and hit a rana on J-Pro, J-Pro hit a Drunken Driver on the stage. It was just a really great match overall and ended with Cross taking the Drunken Driver through 4 open chairs for the win. J-Pro cut a promo about loving the sport, loving performing and does it because he loves it, not for the money. He then donated his paycheck to the bar for 25 people to go get a free drink.


Michael Elgin vs. Tim Donst was waaaay better than I expected. Donst played the underdog perfectly and sold everything Elgin did like it was death itself. They just beat the holy hell out of each other and the crowd was waaay behind Donst. After a flurry of backfists, buckle combs and powerbombs, Elgin manages to retain. He gets on the mic after, puts AIW over, appreciates the fans, puts Donst over as one of the best, but says no one will ever take the Absolute Title from him. Cue music and the Walking Weapon Josh Alexander has returned.

Some trash talk occurs and Alexander says Elgin owes him a match, and he owes him a 2/3 falls match. He wants it tonight, Elgin agrees, but Matt Wadsworth says no. He wants both men to be fresh and 100%, so August 8th, Michael Elgin will defend his Absolute Title against Josh Alexander in a 2 out of 3 falls match! Huzzah! That match will be brutal.

I'm gonna check this out when it goes up on SMVOD.

For anyone curious, Absolution 9 is now available on Smart Mark. Got my OnDemand order, watching it tonight.

More to be added in coming weeks!

The "Fuck TNA!" chants for Daniels will be deafening.

Hell yes they will be. lol

So, Grant and I hit up Failure By Design last Friday, our 3rd AIW show in 4 months (4 in 4 months if you count to two nights of the JLIT). This card on paper was looking to be nearly as amazing as the JLIT or Absolution, but took some critical hits a few weeks back.

In hindsight, this was a poor weekend for AIW to run a show, as Evolve and ROH ran shows as well, which resulted in Johnny Gargano working Evolve (damn you, Swarley), and Michael Elgin and ACH being pulled by ROH a little more than a week before the show so they could do pre tapes on Friday. Kevin Steen was also scheduled for the show when it was first announced, but as we've seen, he has other matters to attend to currently. So AIW was left to put together the best show they could with no Gargano, Elgin, ACH or Steen. Needless to say, those are big shoes to fill.

Show opened with Rickey Shane Page Vs. Brent Banks. Banks is the latest Canadian to invade AIW (Seriously, I think they just load up a U-Haul in Toronto or Hamilton and make the drive to Cleveland), and despite playing the heel, he still did a number of flips and highspots to the delight of the fans. RSP gets the win, then shows Banks some respect and gets the crowd to give him a round of applause. Clearly AIW wants Banks to get over for future shows.

Arik Cannon made his way back to AIW, likely as a replacement name for some of the big guns lost, and took on Heidi Lovelace. AIW loves them some intergender wrestling, and Heidi has taken some beatings the past few months. Lots of comedy as Cannon slapped Heidi's ass and seemed to enjoy waistlocks more than per usual. Once they got going though, Cannon's offense looked brutal, but Heidi kept coming back for more, and picked up the win. Very well done and believable man Vs. woman match, which would not be as much the case later in the show.

Davey Vega retained the Intense Division Title in a six way scramble match that featured another debuting Canadian, two local Ohio guys who had half their extended family in the crowd seemingly, Flip Kendrick and the always bland Bobby Beverly. The local guys impressed me more than I thought they would, and they got some of the biggest pops thanks to their kin being in the crowd. Fun match all and all, and Bobby Beverly didn't walk away with a title, which is always a good thing.

Next up was Josh Prohibition Vs. the debuting Brian Myers, or the former Curt Hawkins. Hawkins hasn't forgotten how to work a crowd, as he spent a lot of time trying to antagonize the side of the building with the most vocal Tim Donst marks among the crowd, and going after a fan's lack of creativity when he told Hawkins the Mets suck. He and J-Pro had a pretty good match, and Josh got the win, which was a bit of a surprise. Afterwards, J-Pro got on the mic and told Curt he was a hell of a wrestler and he was welcome back in AIW anytime, and that hopefully one day the WWE realizes their mistake and brings him back. Then Josh told the crowd that he doesn't have many of these matches left in him, and told Gargano he wanted to have one more go with the best he's ever faced before he calls it a career. So in September it'll be Gargano Vs. J-Pro in Josh's likely retirement match. AIW, always trying to steal mine and Grant's money.

Veda Scott beat Obariyon in a very meh match. I had higher expectations for this with Veda coming off her feud with Greg Iron, and just how vile the Batiri usually are in general towards Veda on Twitter. I've seen Veda take believable beatings before, and this just didn't deliver. Cannon and Lovelace did it right earlier, this was not as well done I'm sad to say.

The Jollyville Fuck-Its had their rematch with The Forgotten for the AIW Tag Team Championships. BJ Whitmer was not present however, so Tommy Mercer was taking his place, in what seemed to be an apparent Freebird Rule. There was a bit of brawling, as is the norm with these two teams, and the Fuck-Its got the win, and seemingly the tag titles as well. The building was going nuts, apart from Grant and myself, who are staunchly in the Forgotten camp. Jimmy Jacobs grabbed the mic and kept telling the crowd "We told you not to forget us. Don't forget about BJ Whitmer!" Acting President Matt Wadsworth came down to the ring and reluctantly told the Fuck-Its that since Mercer is not one of the holders of the tag titles, that they won the match, but the titles stay with The Forgotten. They were pissed to say the least.

Christopher Daniels made his AIW debut as he took on ACH's replacement, Louis Lyndon. ACH and Louis are both black and athletic, and that is where the similarities end sadly. Lyndon as a heel is a one trick pony: talk shit and scream like a lunatic constantly. He has the closest thing to X-Pac heat in AIW. I was fairly disappointed with Lyndon as a replacement to say the least, particularly when someone like Matt Cross was not even booked for the show, and would have put on a much better match with Daniels. Daniels did what he could with what he was provided with, and thankfully got the win. A "please come back" chant broke out, and i sincerely hope he comes back so he can get a proper opponent next time. AIW still owes us ACH/Daniels at some point in the future, it better damn well happen.

With the big names missing from the show, Ethan Page and Eddie Kingston went on right before the main event. Normally this would be more than acceptable since both men are awesome and hugely over in AIW. But, this match was merely to further their feud, so it didn't quite feel like a co-main event type match. The "Jesus Christ" chants for Page are thunderous, and Kingston loves giving AIW fans all kinds of shit, especially the drunks who are usually shitfaced by intermission. Eddie is the hired gun of The Duke, and Duke was at ringside constantly interfering. Eventually Seleziya ran down and started to beat the fuck out of Duke. This distracted the ref, and allowed King to wrap a chain around his hand and knock Page out cold with the Backfist. King gets the win, and it looks like a Page & Seleziya Vs. Kingston and Duke match is on the horizon.

Main event was scheduled to be Elgin defending the title in a two out of three falls match against Josh Alexander, who made his return to AIW at the end of Absolution after being out some 8 months or so. They were supposed to have this match last year before Alexander got hurt, and Elgin being pulled from the show put it on hiatus once again. In Elgin's place was the last man to challenge him for the Absolute title, Tim Fucking Donst! The way Donst is over in AIW is still astonishing when I think back to his Chikara work. Alexander seems to be the guy AIW have pegged to take the belt off of Elgin, but Donst was keeping up with him step for step, and in some cases was out working him. All night long Pedro DeLuca, AIW's ring announcer, had been calling out the time elapsed in each match, something that never happens usually, so we had a feeling a draw was in the works, and that's exactly what happened. These two put on a damn good match for those 30 minutes, but it also marks the third straight show that we've been to that ended with a non-decisive finish (JLIT and Abso both had ref stoppages after Elgin beat Page and Donst too much for them to continue).

This seemed to be setting up a triple threat scenario where Elgin could drop the title without having to be pinned (something ROH would probably prefer), but it was revealed a few days after the show that Alexander was severely injured and could be out for another lengthy chunk of time. So how AIW handles the title scene now is up in the air. Personally, I say give Donst the belt. Donst is loved by the AIW crowd, he has no other commitments that would keep him from defending like Elgin or Gargano, and frankly, he deserves it after the work he's put in there over the past four or five years.

Overall this show was good, but not great. If it had been left untouched, it could have been great, but with the talent they lost, it lacked that something special that AIW's big shows usually deliver. I put it to Grant that I got my money's worth, but no more than that, which is not the norm usually when leaving an AIW show. No match really had that feeling of "Man, I'm glad I drove three hours to see that" with the possible exception of Donst/Alexander. I'm glad I got to see Daniels in person again, as I've been a longtime Daniels mark, and seeing Hawkins in a AIW ring was cool, but AIW's set such a high standard with their past shows that this one just couldn't meet it. Partly bad luck, partly poor scheduling, but hopefully they'll learn from it and deliver more kick ass shows in the future.

Apparently Candice LeRae has relocated to Cleveland. Presumably AIW will frequently book her. My money will be gone undoubtedly.