Mallaki Matthews and J.J. Garrett kicked off the show in a solid opener. I commented in my preview that it would be interesting to see these two get a chance to shine. They did just that with this match, really showing why they deserve more recognition in midwest wrestling.
The tag team champions went on second at “Revival”. Connor Braxton and Eli Machete have started to make waves on the midwest indies, with appearances in AAW, Dreamwave and 3XW already signed. The two young men deserve the attention as even a few months into their career, they are really gelling in the ring.
This time around though they take on some fellow Black & the Brave graduates. The team of Fabian and Bodie Van Zandt were two of the five men that turned on Marek Brave last month. While Fabian’s weird face painted gimmick didn’t quite fit with Van Zandt’s biker-crossed-with-Hardy look, they worked surprisingly well as a team. What didn’t work as well was poor booking as it pertains to poor referee John G. The match ended up in a double countout, despite the legal man Van Zandt being on the outside for about five minutes. The fans made sure to let poor Mr. G know he messed up.
Bison Woods made his in-ring debut in an absolute squash of Biff Malibu. The final evil Black & the Brave student seems to be taking after the late Bison Smith, but he’s going to have to put on a bit more muscle weight to make the monster gimmick work.
Bobbi Dahl and Tyler Priegel battled for the Quad Cities Cup again this month, albeit in a singles match. I’m not sure I’m a fan of Dahl’s gimmick, as the old school gay guy that violates his opponents gimmick doesn’t really work as well in 2015. However he does go well in the ring despite his size and Priegel has the chops to keep up.
Krotch and Bucky Collins versus Tank Roberts and Johnny Wisdom showed off all four men’s talents in the ring. Nasty Krotch (as the audience around me dubbed them) have a great combination of high flying and mat wrestling while Mark Storm’s charges are built around power and pain. Tank works the big man gimmick really well, while Wisdom is a stupendous indie heel. It would be great to see both spread their wings farther. Storm’s shenanigans cost the face team a win after he restarted the contest as a no disqualification match.
After intermission, Latin Thunder picked up another victory, this time over the returning Gunner Franks. Gunner has a weird style to him: I can best describe him as an evil comedy wrestler. But he worked well as a base for Thunder. The long time Iowa independent stalwart has a great look and style in the ring.
Marek Brave wrestled in the semi-main event for the second month in a row, but this time he had a bone to pick with his second graduating class of students. This brought out Austin Ellis, but Ellis refused to take Brave’s open challenge alone, instead bringing in Adrian Alexander as his partner. Ellis and Alexander got in some solid offense, but Brave showed them he didn’t teach them everything he knew. Both the students are natural heels and worked well as a team. We will see if they continue to act as one in the future.
The main event was the big title match as Shane Hollister returned to singles action to take on Nevin Knoxville for the SCW championship. Hollister looked strong against the much larger Knoxville and with SCW commissioner Sean Morrow as ref, his chances were improved despite Mark Storm making it a lumberjack match (with Wisdom and his new Black & Brave charges as the lumberjacks). Ultimately a ref bump would lead to the finish as with Morrow down Tank Roberts ran out to piledrive Hollister on to a chair. Tank pulled off his coat to reveal a ref shirt before making the count to allow Knoxville to retain. Marek Brave ran out to save Hollister from more damage and Morrow set next month’s main event: Hollister and Brave versus Roberts and Knoxville.
“Revival” was a solid show overall, albeit a bit weaker than last month’s “Epic”. But with tons of great wrestlers in action, it proved to still be tons of fun.
A couple complaints as I continue to visit shows:
The company needs to build more storylines, preferably ones outside the nefarious actions of Mark Storm. Latin Thunder, J.J. Garrett and Mallaki Matthews all could use more focus on future shows as all seem ready for more attention from the Walcott crowd.
The second is merch! While a lot of SCW’s talent is young or local, I’m a guy that wants to support these guys. A few so-so t-shirts and 8 by 10s left me disappointed. With the advent of Pro Wrestling Tees, now is the time to strike the merchandise fire. I let Machete know then and there that I’m ready for his shirt.
The lack of great merch did leave me room to pick up some old shows though on DVD, including a Vader guest shot show car trouble kept me from attending a couple years back. I’ll have some reviews up in the near future.
Their next show is on June 27 and I plan to head down to Walcott once again for “Unbroken”. Keep up the excellent work, SCW.
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