#he was def a silver fox when he was alive

[pastasilly]

im not exactly part of the fandom, but they were the only ship i cared for when the pilot came out. when i heard they were canon i actually screamed

[closetofanxiety]

Show Review: Beyond Wrestling, “Feeling Minnesota”

Third wrestling show in two days! What was I thinking? Tell you what: after I got home from this show I watched the WWE Payback ppv. I gotta fever, and the only cure is more wrestling! Let’s get to it:

Where: Aurora Nightclub, downtown (actually they say “downcity,” whatta buncha fancypantses) Providence, Rogues Island

When: Sunday, April 30, 2017, 2 p.m. belltime

What: Yesterday’s show was “Looking California” and today’s is “Feeling Minnesota,” and this is a Soundgarden reference, specifically to their first big hit, “Outshined.” But also, does anyone remember the moody Keanu Reeves/Cameron Diaz mid-90s film “Feeling Minnesota”? God, it sucked. It was from an era of lousy movies that attempted to be Tarantino-esque but only came off as smarmy and incoherent. Reeves’ character in the film is named “Jjaks Clayton.” Seriously: “Jjaks.” What kind of bullshit are you trying to put over on us with that? The soundtrack also had that shitty, post-grunge vibe to it; I remember there was a lackluster Helmet song. God, what a bad movie. I hope this show is better.

Bonus Match: Some guy defeats Jay Freddie

Another “bonus” match! We came in just as this one was ending. I didn’t catch the winner’s name, but from the two or three minutes we saw, it looked fun. I’ll have to pay more attention to this Jay Freddie fellow! He’s going to Japan for a few months, though.

Janelope (Joey Janela and Penelope Ford) def. XXXL (Brian “Kingpin” Milonas and Ace Romero) via pinfall

This was a great way to start the show. It was like watching a live action cartoon, because Milonas and Romero combined are like 750 pounds. The whole creative thrust of the match was waiting to see whether these two giants would completely squash tiny Penelope Ford, who stayed alive by flirting with the easily smitten Romero, much to the consternation of Milonas, who kept slapping his partner in the face and barking, “Focus!” Eventually Janela rallied, Penelope turned on heartbroken Ace, and Janelope triumphed. Then “Cold Steel” Chuck O’Neill ran in, knocked Penelope over, and put Joey in a triangle choke on behalf of Matt Riddle, who has accepted Janela’s challenge at Americanrana. I want to see this match so bad, but more: I want to see Janela’s promos leading up to the match. Yesterday the crowd chanted “Spring break!” for Janela, today they chanted “Grapplefuck!” in a nod to his delightful contempt of that ethos. Rating: Three and a half Keanus.

David Starr def. “Hot Sauce” Tracy Williams via submission

Buddy, did I mention grapplefuck? This was a fuckaganza, a grappletacular, a veritable clinic in the fucking of grapple. Lots of chain wrestling here, so much so that the ghost of Lou Thesz hovered over the first five minutes of the match, nodding paternally. After that they started smacking the shit out of each other, which I enjoyed. David Starr is a huge talent, they just need to find a program for him. He had a budding feud with Nick Gage which ended when the Nickster went back to the hoosegow, and then the Starr-Janela feud kind of fizzled out. He’s spinning his wheels in Beyond right now, but he’s always entertaining. Rating: Three Keanus.

Deonna Purrazzo def. Karen Q and Tasha Steelz via pinfall

I like all three of these wrestlers a lot, but this suffered from the standard problem of triple threat matches (i.e. for much of the match, at least one person has nothing to do), and there were a couple of seriously blown moments, although I think both might have been the referee’s fault. He missed a near fall, like to the point where the crowd started yelling at him to count the pin, and then he didn’t indicate that Tasha Steelz was tapping out (it was an elimination match) so the ring announcer had to do that. Kind of messy! Not terrible, though, and I’d like to see more of Karen Q in particular. Rating: Two Keanus.

Dan Barry def. Swoggle, Johnny Cockstrong, “Supercop” Dick Justice, Stan Stylez, and Jarek 1:20 via pinfall

I think this is one of the legacies of the Spring Break show: a match that can only really be billed as a clusterfuck. You had Stan Stylez, who was new to me, whose thing was that he used a Shake Weight like he was jerking off, and then sprayed whipped cream all over himself, like ejaculate; you had Johnny Cockstrong, with a light-up codpiece; you had Swoggle, who attracted the ire of three virulent haters in the crowd who kept holding up a “Swoggle Swallows” sign for some reason; and you had Dan Barry, who is the make-believe wrestling cop. Except! Dan Barry wants to be taken seriously as a serious wrestler now, disavowing his comedy gimmick and grimacing through this match in which he is pitted against five goofballs. I actually think this is a neat storyline and hope to see them run with it some more, presumably building to a match with Bill Carr. A fair number of little kids were in attendance, which made all the dick jokes and ass-biting seem even more grotesque than they would have been. If you aren’t a fan of comedy wrestling, this is Extremely Not Your Thing. Rating: Two and a half Keanus.

EYFBO (Mike Draztik and Angel Ortiz) def. The American Destroyers (Donovan Dijak and Mikey Webb) via pinfall

This was a hoot. Pure chaos, with none of the comedy that both teams can do, just a full-on sprint from start to finish. EYFBO had the Impact tag team titles with them (the titles still say TNA, DOES NO ONE CARE ABOUT BRANDING) and the Destroyers came out full of cocky swagger. Mikey Webb has really grown on me as Dijak’s shit-talking sidekick, and Mike Draztik should be a huge singles star one day, the dude just has so much ability and charisma. This has been the best Destroyers match I’ve seen so far, and one of the best EYFBO matches. Rating: Four Keanus.

INTERMISSION!

The editor at Spectacle of Excess wants to do more interviews, and she asked if I wanted to interview Janela (she is interviewing Su Yung, and I am jealous). I do, although I really don’t know what to ask. I feel like wrestlers are more guarded about stuff that you’d really want to know, and as a result most interviews tend to be things like “How did you get into wrestling/what are some of your favorite matches/who do you want to wrestle next.” I don’t know, man. I’m a weird awkward fuck at the best of times, and never liked cold-calling interviews when I was a journalist. We’ll see. If you have any questions for Joey Janela, send them my way.

Team PAWG (LuFisto and Jordynne Grace) def. Alpha Sigma Sigma (Anthony Greene and Brick Mastone) via pinfall

Team PAWG (That’s “Phat Ass White Girls,” your holiness) were introduced by ring announcer Rich Palladino as having a combined weight of 325 pounds, “25 of which are athletic ass meat,” and I thought, Boy, I come from a family of college professors. Which is true. I, however, dropped out of grad school to become a newspaper reporter, and now here I am, in a bar in Providence, Rhode Island on a Sunday afternoon, listening to a guy in a tuxedo describe the “ass meat” of two women in front of an audience that includes preteens. Say what you want about me, but you can’t deny that I am a total disappointment. Anyway, this match was pretty lukewarm. Greene and Mastone are talented young dudes, but trapped in this fuck boy (fuckboi?) gimmick that, in fairness, does get a fair amount of heat. I kind of thought this would be a knockdown dragout, as all four wrestlers can really go, but it was mostly a comedy match focused on the ass power of LuFisto and Jordynne Grace. A little disappointing! Rating: Two Keanus.

Keith Lee def. Michael Elgin via pinfall

If this were Wrestling Twitter, I would just write HOSS FIGHT and be done with it. Two gigantic men who are both skilled wrestlers colliding in a hard-fought battle with lots of spots showing off Elgin’s incredible strength and Lee’s amazing athleticism. This went a little long, which is something you can say for like 75 percent of indie matches, but in this case that was especially noticeable, since the awe of this matchup starts to wear off after 10 minutes or so. Still a lot of fun and may come across better on video. Rating: Three Keanus.

AR Fox def. John Silver via pinfall

Silver was originally scheduled to wrestle the absent Davey Richards, who had a family situation he had to be present for. Silver came out to the ring and said there was only one man he wanted to face in Richards’ absence: Dave Bautista. His “I Walk Alone” theme music started playing, but instead of the “Guardians of the Galaxy 2″ star, Ansonia, Connecticut’s favorite son, AR Fox, emerged from the back. Delightfully, Fox kept up Batista-esque mannerisms throughout the match, including the machine gun pose. This was, like all AR Fox matches, completely bonkers, with the man seemingly determined to prove his neck is made of rubber. Lots of back and forth on the offense, with Fox winning via rollup after Silver tried to go for the Batista Bomb. Rating: Three and a half Keanus. 

Doom Patrol (Chris Dickinson and Jaka) def. Jonathan Gresham and Zack Sabre Jr. via pinfall

I loved this match. The back story is that since Dickinson attacked Jordynne Grace, Gresham’s real-life girlfriend, the Octopus has been out for revenge on the Dirty Daddy. This had a lot of rawness to it, with Dickinson and Gresham getting in each other’s faces before the bell and getting pulled apart by their tag team partners and the ref. Very few people do nasty as well as Chris Dickinson. (Side note: Doom Patrol came out with the EVOLVE tag team championship belts, and it was neat to realize Team Pazuzu has the team gold in two separate promotions right now) The match itself was a gritty classic, with Gresham and ZSJ being pushed out of their customary technical wizardry into brutal striking contests with Jaka and Dickinson. Chaos started to reign down the stretch, and when the Doom Patrol got Gresham up for the Doomsday Device, Jordynne Grace ran in, ostensibly to help her man but in reality causing confusion that allowed Dickinson to get the win via rollup. Afterwards, she and Gresham bickered, with Grace saying she should have been his partner for this match instead of Zacky Three Belts. They decided to settle this in the only way possible: INSIDE THE SQUARED CIRCLE, at Beyond’s show in May. Fun! Rating: Four Keanus.

Final verdict: Not quite the start-to-finish classic as yesterday’s show, but well worth your time and dollars.