Extravagant action, big matches and DDT superstars! 3XW Winter Wars 3 in review

Much like SCWPro, 3XW has been running in Iowa for a decade now. And much like SCWPro, their initials now really don't mean anything. But I finally had a chance to see them live and in person for Winter Wars 3 on Friday. The company has started to recruit an old school star for each show, and this one was no different as Glacier of all people made his 3XW debut!

The night kicked off with a "pre-show" match featuring Xander Killen and Barbosa. Barbosa is a pretty standard Latin heel with the added gimmick of combing his groomed chest hair. Xander is featured in pretty much every one of these articles, so hopefully you recognize his name by now. He's becoming a very solid star for SCW and getting his feelers into other companies in the Midwest now. Like at CEW, he plays the face here again and it doesn't feel as natural for him. Perhaps I'm just used to him being such a great asshole heel at SCW shows, but it feels flat when he's trying to rile up the crowd. This was nothing special and it's a shame that Killen didn't get to show off a bit more.

The show opened with Jah-C (or Gyasi, depending if the company phonetically spells it or not) battling Sentai. Sentai hasn't worke SCW since I came back, but he's a tiny man working a masked Asian wrestler gimmick. He's alright in the ring, but he pales against Jah. This worked as a better opener than the pre-show match, but both men didn't really push too hard in the bout.

Things picked up as "Supafli" J Fowler took on DDT star Naomi Yoshimura, an amazing talent at the end of his excursion. Yoshimura is built like a ton of bricks, reminiscent of Daisuke Sekimoto which is never a bad thing in my opinion. He worked as a great base for Fowler's high flying while getting to show off some technical precision of his own. As a foreign star in for a one shot, Yoshimura took the L here, but I'm very curious to see where he and his partner in crime end up doing in DDT upon their return.

Kara Noia (rhymes with Paranoia, get it?) made her 3XW debut, but her scheduled opponent Brooke Valentine was injured. She was replaced by Nathan Edwards. Nate plays the crazy asshole well, although misogyny in these matches never feels necessary these days. This was my first time seeing the Minnesota-based Kara, but she impressed me after a slow start to this one. I'll be curious to see her in action if she pops up in anymore East or Central Iowa indies anytime soon.

The second DDT contest pit Jaysin Strife against the other DDT star, Rekka. Rekka is actually a ten plus year veteran, but he only really started to work after leaving his native Taiwan to train with DDT. Strife is the consummate Iowa independent wrestler. He's always in great shape,, works a highly active style that is fun to watch and somehow never seems to get much attention from any larger promotions. He's been at it for years and years and doesn't seem to get much recognition for it. They put on what might have been the match of the night in work rate, though they fell a bit behind in the pure fun category. Strife picked up the deserved win, but Rekka impressed me greatly as well.

The first half's main event featured Gil Rogers teaming with Glacier to take on Devin Carter and JT Energy. Rogers (as Rory Fox) and the pair have been feuding for a few months now, but this one offered the big payoff with a great guest appearance by Glacier, a bit heavier but still in great shape in his fifties. Rogers, Carter and Energy carried much of the match because of it, but it didn't lack for Glacier's involvement. Energy looked like a million bucks, Gil looked like a man that loves wrestling above all else and Glacier and Carter mostly came along for the ride. Gil got the pin, but I suspect this storyline might still have some legs, Glacier or no.

Never thought this would be a sight I'd see live.
Image by Photos By Manning. 

After the intermission, things kickoff with SCW announcer and 3XW manager Alex McCarthy out to cut a heel promo and introduce a 5 minute challenge with Moondog Bernard. The challenge is answered by Sensei Bock, inexplicably a babyface here in his 3XW debut. No sign of the cowardly heel he plays so well in 3XW. Instead he beats Moondog with a surprise running kick and a roll up. He doesn't win the five minute challenge though, as Moondog jumps him from behind and leaves him laying in a heap on the ground in the aftermath.

By this point, we reached the two hour mark on the event already, which is approaching the limit for any show without a full bar and food service available. So marked the beginning of my biggest problem with 3XW's show: the length.

Jeremy Wyatt and Steve Manders wrestled an uneventful but very solid match that the long time 3XW regular Wyatt eventually won after wearing Manders down. Davey Vega and Mat Fitchett, The Besties in the World, made their 3XW debut to challenge the Desire Boyz for the tag titles in a surprisingly short battle to feature two high flying guest stars. Neither match did much to ignite the crowd (although the Besties did alright with the "Truely, Madly, Deeply" singalong.) The fan energy at the arena was waning, with two big matches left on the card.

Chainsaw King challenged Jon West for the 3XW Pure Championship in the semi. West is a large guy and Chainsaw King is an actual giant. Dude is not indie wrestling big, but just big overall. He can still move well in the ring though, and he brings an unorthodox off kilter style that makes him more than a one note face-painted kill machine. (See the Desire Boyz in the previous match for that gimmick.) West is a long time 3XW guy and a solid if unremarkable talent and the two put on a heck of a match. A more fired up crowd would have eaten up just two big hosses hitting big moves. It lit up the crowd a little, but the gig was already up there. Fans started to make their exits during the match, especially those with young children. It's a shame, because King and West did some solid work. King's come a very long way since I last saw his uncanny doppelganger die in a Chikara ring.

The main event was a ten man survivor match with Mad Dog McDowell's Heavyweight Championship on the line. The survivor would win the title, which immediately made me wonder what happens if more than one team member survives on their side. Does it then become more like a cibernetico? I have no idea because 3XW didn't bother to explain the rules beyond this live, which was probably a wise decision for myself and the other bleary eyed fans.

Mad Dog's face contingent featured his sometime tag partner Redwing the Barbarian, Donnie Peppercricket and the team of Midwest Blood: Johnny Ruckus & Lars Metzger. The heel team had rich snob and top heel Niles Plonk, Iceman, Jaden Roller, Duke Cornell and Seto Kobara. I'm not going to do a play by play rundown of who was eliminated when. With the majority of the cast being 3XW regulars I've never seen, I was a bit frustrated when the talent I did know (Cornell, Roller, Peppercricket) were all eliminated fairly early. Ultimately it came down to McDowell versus Plonk, which honestly could have easily just been the main event. Plonk stole the win and became the 3XW title. He promised to bring some class to Des Moines as the crowd filed out into the night.

I'm pretty sure I was the most focused man for that main event, but despite the fact they ran through much of the cast of characters rather quickly, it was already way too much way too late. The show ran three and a half hours, which was just a bit too long for the crowd on hand, myself included. (There's a reason WWE starts four hour shows at 6 p.m.)  It makes me feel bad, as I know the folks in the last three matches worked just as hard as the folks in the first half of the show. But at eleven matches, with very little to cool the fans down or warm them back up, the flow just fell flat at night's end.

Still, I'll heap high praise on the scope of the card and the talents working their butt off to put on a good show. A mixed up second half with a bit more of the high flying of the first half might have helped overall, but in the end none of the matches stunk the place up. Fowler / Naomi, Noia / Edwards and Strife / Rekka were all great bouts well worth checking out should they come to 3XW's Youtube channel. That's a pretty solid win, honestly.

3XW's next event is on December 14th, which will wrap their events for the year. Dates for 2019 start on January 11th, all in Des Moines. Check out 3XWrestling on Twitter or Facebook for more details forthcoming!

A wrestling 'Insurgency' in Walcott!

It was Survivor Series weekend, but I didn't sit down to watch either WWE event this weekend live. With a day job and a side gig writing for this site, a half dozen other places and a new novel in the works something has to give. But I wasn't going to miss out on an event from the fine folks of SCW if I could help it. So while many were glued to their televisions, I rebelled from the World Wrestling Entertainment machine and traveled to scenic Walcott, Iowa for Insurgency.

For my troubles, I got to watch one of the best events I've ever seen from the company.

The night opened with a banger though. A six man tag match pitted the QC Cup holder Braden McBride and the tag team champions JAH-C and JT Energy (better known as Vicious & Delicious) battled ex-Iowa Hawkeye, "The 1" Steve Manders and the veterans Krotch and Latin Thunder. Their next event features a big tag match between Vicious & Delicious, Manders and another former Iowa football star making his wrestling debut, former Indianapolis Colt Pat Angerer. So it was no surprise that while everyone got a chance to hit a big move or two, this was mostly about Vicious & Delicious and Manders. That didn't stop Vicious & Delicious (quickly doing their best to be SCW's "Best Bout Machines, with all apologies to Kenny Omega) from showing why I'm far from the only one high on this pair of excellent young talents. Manders ultimately managed a double pin on both tag champions, an easy set up for Marek Brave to make the tag match coming up for the titles.

After a rollicking start, "The Cajun Kid" Sage Cainan made his return to the company looking much improved from the previous times I've seen him in action. He went up against the veteran Johnny Wisdom, one of the last few old guard members of the roster left. Wisdom plays a classic heel so well that he pulls down heat whenever he enters. His style is also based on a lot of strikes and suplexes with a handful of submissions mixed in, basically the moveset of every create a wrestler in every wrestling video game I've ever played. Wisdom is a joy to watch. I've never heard his name outside an SCW ring, but if you ever have the chance make sure to go check him out for just a really great old school beat them down guy. A bit surprisingly, Wisdom did pick up the win, hopefully setting up a bit of a push for him going forward.

Val Eden made his SCW debut next. His tights declared him as a Parisian, and he clearly came with a cocky French men gimmick right in place, not speaking a word of English. This brought out his opponent King Steven Youngblood, one of the earliest SCW wrestlers, and still a regular with the company. He's spent months as a villain (nicknamed "Burger King" by the fans) but has since turned babyface. He took offense that Eden didn't speak the King's English and proceeded to squash the young star in short order. An ignominious debut for Eden, but he'll probably get more chances to shine in the future.

I mentioned a few weeks ago in my review of a CEW event that Deonn Rusman really impressed me as a young developing talent that looks like a million bucks and moves far faster than his power wrestler look hints. I'm not nearly as high on his regular SCW partner Robin Steele. I mean I inherently take Robin as a heel because of his need to sport attire from some of the weakest anime out there, but he still feels a bit sloppy in the ring. The pair took on a more makeshift unit of Steele's former partner Shain Bender and the favorite of every teenage girl in Walcott, Dante Leon. Leon gives me hopes for Steele as I remember his first few matches where he was just as sloppy. While Leon works a super fast style flying around the ring, he's really tightened up a lot since those days. He's earned some higher spots on the cards as well, and picked up the win for his team here as the clear veteran even with only a couple years under his belt. He wasn't the one to hit the most impressive move of the match however as Rusman and Steele landed a Doomsday Destroyer on Bender that was perhaps the most picture perfect finishing move I could imagine.

❄️🔥❄️ Hottest Blizzard Going❄️🔥❄️ @TheRobinSteele @SCWPro #whataman pic.twitter.com/QTCCciCz2M

— Deonn (@Rusman907) November 19, 2018

The last match before intermission brought out SCW champion Shane Hollister to make an open challenge. His opponent from just a few weeks earlier, Xander Killen, made his way to the ring to take it. After seeing him as an inexplicable face at CEW, the boos seemed right for the young star. He cut a blistering promo on Hollister, the kind of twisted truth promo that can just cement a young heel. The two men proceeded to put on an exposition of fantastic wrestling. I watched Killen debut in the building just a few years before. He's grown by amazing leaps since that day. Much like Energy and Rusman, I see great potential in him. The match ultimately ended with two referees counting for both men and a double pinfall. Hollister kept his title but we have a clear set up for a rematch between the two, though whether that comes at the next Hawkamania or at their final event of the year Season's Beatings, I have yet to find out.

Sensei Bock has been working the same cowardly heel "teacher" hiding behind his student pretty much since he first debuted. It works well as though I don't know how old Bock actually is, he looks about fifteen years older than the Black & Brave class he arrived in. He's been working a regular storyline with another talent, Jimmy Thomas, where he's trying to teach Thomas the ways of Bock Kwan Do. This basically amounts to a lot of tag matches where Thomas does all the work. That was the case here as they faced the fun loving duo of JP Finger and Jared Thumb (a.k.a. Thumb & Finger.) Thumb and Finger have become the solid comedy act of every SCW show, though their basics are rock solid behind their fun loving. They picked up the win over Bock (a bit of a surprise as I expected Thomas to eat every pin for his team) and perhaps are working their way towards a shot at Vicious & Delicious.

A war between veteran Mason Beck and upstart Travis Titan has been brewing for months in SCW. It came to a head in the semi-main event. Titan started with an early flurry, but the match soon became just a vicious beat down by Beck. He excels in that atmosphere, ripping apart his opponent before stopping to jaw jack with the crowd. Ultimately, he sealed his own fate when he refused to get a pin to continue his beating on Titan. When he stopped for a bit too long to antagonize the crowd, Titan was able just enough to roll him into a small package for the surprise one two three. Beck proceeded to destroy Titan, both referees and the Black & Brave students on security before the locker room cleared out to pull him to the back.

The main event was a no disqualification street fight. I watched Connor Braxton end one long standing feud against Eddie Machete in such a match. This time he sought to end another long feud with Joeasa. Joeasa has developed immensely since his early days as Joe Acer. While I sometimes find ethnic gimmicks a bit tiresome, he's used it to cement himself as a strong heel. He's been working a lot of tags outside SCW with Deonn Rusman and both men were in a stable just a few months ago in SCW. But Joeasa knows how to handle himself as a singles star and got to show it as the smaller heel against Braxton. After an extended barn burner for that Braxton / Machete street fight, I expected more of the same here. Instead I got a surprisingly short match, but an eventful one. The two men flew around the arena. A copious number of chairs, cookie sheets and a kendo stick all came into play. But it was Connor Braxton that upped the ante with thumbtacks. Unfortunately for him, no one taught him the age old rule of thumbtacks in wrestling: if you bring them out, you're going to get them in your back.

That aforementioned connection between Rusman and Joeasa came into play as Rusman and Steele hit the ring to join him in beating down on Braxton. The three men hurled Braxton into the thumbtacks before Joeasa pinned him for the victory. As a company devoid of any factions for the first time in awhile, it seemed clear we might have a new power trio in Joeasa, Rusman and Steele.

Thus ended one of the strongest wrestling events I've attended live. I've stressed before how important it is to support independent wrestling. It's incredibly easy to do with a promotion as steady and solid as SCW. Though they don't bring in the big blockbuster stars groups like Revolver and AAW do, they manage to tell compelling stories month in and month out.

Their next event heads a bit closer to home for me with Hawkamania VII: Anger Rising in Iowa City on December 1st, followed a week later by their year ending Season's Beatings back at Walcott. Weather providing I plan to be back at both events as I continue my wrestling treks across Iowa. If you drop in to one of the events and see my ugly mug, feel free to stop over and say hello. For more on both events, check out @SCWPro on Twitter or the company's official website.