A new champion and a new contender! SCWPro Prestige Rumble in review

It's January in wrestling which of course means its battle royal season.

SCWPro is no different as they presented their inaugural event of 2019 this Saturady, the Prestige Rumble, at their home base in Walcott. The event was built around two huge matches: the 20 man Prestige Rumble for a #1 contendership to the SCW Heavyweight title and a Last Man Standing match between champion Shane Hollister and Xander Killen for that same title.

All image credits: SCWPro on Twitter.

The show kicked off with a QC Cup defense by Braden McBride. His opponent was none other than Dante Leon. While I'm still not sure what an "Endseeker" is exactly, Leon is incredibly over with the Walcott faithful. Leon is the definition of a high flyer, but his style has started to mature as he gains more experience. His early matches were characterized by sloppiness, but he looked far more crisp against McBride.

Braden's entire title reign has been built around the aide of his valet, Miss Olivia. This match proved no different as Olivia took an inadvertent hit from Leon. McBride used the distraction to Leon and the ref to knock out Leon with the QC Cup and pick up the cheap win.

McBride gets stronger with each match, but the randomness of the QC Cup defenses frustrates me from a storytelling sense. I'd love to see someone build an actual feud with McBride and Olivia over the next few months.

Following JP Finger's dropping of his camera at the last show, Rich the camera guy challenged Finger to a match tonight. As can be expected from a comedy wrestler and a non-wrestler, this was short and goofy. The actual moves pretty much consisted of a takedown of Finger and a figure four leg lock (a move Finger can never seem to pull off right in his matches.) Finger tapped to give Rich the win and Thumb and Finger made up with the camera man by giving him a replacement camera.

Valentina Loca wasn't supposed to be in Walcott as she was booked for an IPW show the same night. That show was cancelled due to the weather which finally gave me a chance to see Valentina wrestle live. She took on Heather Reckless, a Black and Brave graduate, in her first match.

It's always fun for me to see the students that work various positions around the show break out as talent and Reckless put on a good showing for her first match. She fumbled a cartwheel but recovered and kept going quickly, which is always the right way to handle a mistake in the ring. Both women came out of the match looking good and with two female Black & Brave graduates on the roster, SCW might just have the start of women's division.

The final match before intermission was the Last Man Standing match for the SCWPro Heavyweight title. Shane Hollister and Xander Killen's feud started as an answer to an open challenge and turned into a bloodfeud between the young upstart straight edge star Killen and the veteran Hollister. Shane's family was even brought into the feud and things turned highly personal. With anything available to use as a weapon, the two men weren't afraid to get chairs, ladders, tape and a length of rope involved. They brutally beat on each other and hit multiple big moves on one another. After Xander went through a table, Shane seemed to have the match won.

Things went dark though and a masked big man hit the ring. He threw up the mannerisms of Mason Beck, throwing up the spiked finger before landing a Beck Bomb to leave Shane unconscious in the ring. When the lights came out, Xander had just enough time to recover to stand up before the ten count was finished for both men. Though he could barely stand, Killen is now the SCW Heavyweight Champion.

The new champion!

Generally intermission brings several matches after it, but as I said before it's Rumble season and Rumbles take time. The final match of the night was the twenty man and nearly hour long Prestige Rumble. Rumbles are always hard to write up with bodies everywhere and a ton of talent on tap. Connor Braxton was entrant number one. Entrant number two came as a shock to pretty much everyone, as Matt Cage made his return to wrestling after a year and a half away. "The Money" didn't seem to have lost a step as he went all out in the battle, lasting until the final three.

The rest of the line-up featured pretty much every current SCW talent: Steve Manders, JT Energy, JAH-C, Travis Titan, Shain Bender, Joeasa, Deonn Rusman, Robin Steele, Jared Thumb, Sensei Bock, Jimmy Thomas, Sage Cainan, Steven Youngblood, Johnny Wisdom, Latin Thunder, Krotch, Corn Boy (in his Walcott debut) and even a returning Nevin Knoxville.

The final three were Matt Cage, Joeasa and Travis Titan. But they weren't alone as Joeasa's stablemates (in a stable that really needs a name) Deonn Rusman and Robin Steele hit the ring to layout the competition. They saved Joeasa from elimination by Matt Cage, and then joined in a triple team to eliminate Cage from the match. That left Joeasa and Travis Titan as the final two. Titan shocked the trio by attacking headlong. He German suplexed everyone in the ring and brought it back to one on one.

Joeasa continued to try to use the numbers to his advantage, but a last minute attempt at a save by Steele failed. He hit the ground and took the loss as Travis Titan took the win in the Prestige Rumble.

I suspect the end of the match came a bit earlier than planned, but ultimately Titan's victory proved a strong go home for the show. It's always great to see a wrestling show go out on a high, especially one that sets up a new match for the future. The only question is whether it will be Xander Killen he challenges or will Shane get a rematch first. And of course, the masked man still lurks with a desire to make his presence known in SCW. There's a lot going on as SCW starts what looks like a regular schedule of two to three shows a month in Walcott, Dubuque and Iowa City.

For more on their upcoming events check out their website or follow SCWPro on Twitter.