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.

The beginning of an Iowa dynasty? SCW Hawkamania VII: Anger Rising in review!

Despite SCW running the much nearer Iowa City six times before I attended Hawkamania VII, I hadn't managed to actually get to a show at the Wildwood Steakhouse and Saloon. I found the venue's layout incredibly odd upon arrival, complicated by the fact that I didn't arrive far enough in advance to guarantee myself a place to sit! But while I cannot comment on the food at the place, I will say SCW put on a heck of a show.

Hopefully, they will get a 2018 Pat Angerer picture for his next appearance...

The night kicked off with two young stars I was thoroughly impressed with the night before: DDT's Rekka and Naomi Yoshimura. They would not disappoint tonight either as they went up against the reunited team of Dante Leon and Sage Cainan. The DDT contingent were on point for their spots. Dante is an incredibly gifted worker whose look I simply don't understand. It's a strange thing to say about a high flyer, but Sage feels like he just needs to slow down a bit as he missed a few cues in the match. It seemed clear he knew it as well, as he seemed flustered by match's end. Thankfully the energy he, Dante and the DDT boys brought made up for any missed spots in the match. The four men warmed up the crowd like no one's business. The energy of the room after Dante and Sage picked up the win was almost electric.

Latin Thunder and Johnny Wisdom received an unfortunate spot following that match. The two men decided to go old school, with Wisdom's strikes against Thunder's grappling and mad dropkicks. Thunder picked up the win in a fairly brief encounter, a bit of a surprise after Wisdom's win at the previous show.

Sensei Bock made a change leading into the next two matches, swapping out his bout and that of his protege Jimmy Thomas. This put Bock in a QC Cup contenders match while Travis was up against Mason Beck. Beck's been booked as a monster at the last few shows I've attended and this was no different. Though Thomas isn't much smaller than Mason, his fear at the site of his foe quickly made him seem it. Thomas tried to mount offense but the angry Beck dismantled him in a brief match.

Bock didn't appear at ringside for that battle, but popped back up as the contenders match was next. His opponents were Chase Holliday, the first I've seen of this Black & Brave graduate though he's been around a bit, and Shain Bender. I barely mentioned Bender in my Insurgency review. He wasn't particularly impressive in that tag bout, which the other three men seemed to carry far more than he did. That changed here as he played the sole babyface against two villains. He showed off a bit more fundamental wrestling here, as well as some impressive flying. He still needs a ton of seasoning, but he's got potential.

The next match took the new unit of Joeasa, Robin Steele and Deonn Rusman and pitted them against Joeasa's long rival Connor Braxton, the SCW champion Shane Hollister and Travis Titan, a man that picked up a shock win over Mason Beck last show. The match was wild and chaotic as a good six man brawl should be. Things turned a little rough when a loosened rope caused Rusman to slip and take a nasty spill against the rear ropes. He looked visibly dazed for much of the match afterwards, but to his credit he held up his end as the big man of the heel team. The face squad had a ton more experience as Hollister's years in wrestling is probably three or four times that of the heel contingent combined. But the real story here was interference by Mason Beck on Titan as well as Hollister's ongoing rival Xander Killen. With two of the three faces out of the ring, Joeasa and his crew triple teamed Braxton for the win.

That top half of the show featured two of the night's three matches. The second half of the night got off to a slow start with a battle for QC Cup between current holder Braden McBride and the rather interesting Corn Boy, a feral character that is just really in love with corn. Despite the weird gimmick, he seems to be over strong with the Iowa City crowd. SCW does alright with goofy gimmicks, whether it was Bobbi Dahl, Steven Youngblood or the team of Thumb & Finger, but Corn Boy might be a bit too out there even for me. McBride has done little to show me why he should be holding the cup, working the most basic heel-with-valet gimmick. The match wasn't bad, but it didn't lift off the second half to much of a start either.

Xander Killen took on Krotch in the semi-main event. This one showed some solid storytelling as Killen targeted Krotch's neck and dissected the fifteen year veteran for the rest of the match. He took out Krotch even as he stopped a few times mid-match to call out SCW champion Shane Hollister. Hollister would eventually appear, but only after Killen started to attack the already injured Krotch post-match. Killen ran for the hills, with my assumption that the two men will have a payoff sooner or later, perhaps say... at the next show?

The show's main event had been hyped for several months now. Iowa Hawkeye and Indianapolis Colt veteran Pat Angerer hosted that event, but Vicious & Delicious targeted him for scorn. This set up a match between Angerer and fellow Hawkeye veteran Steve Manders against JT Energy and Jah-C of Vicious & Delicious. Manders win over both men in a six man tag at Insurgency made it a title bout. SCW hyped it as their biggest main event ever and the four men set out not to disappoint.

I really don't know how much training Angerer had going into the bout. But whatever work he put in at the Black and Brave Wrestling Academy and with Manders was clearly enough. Though his segments of the match were somewhat limited, it was clear he knew how to bump and to land some good hits. Vicious and Delicious played up their status as three time SCW tag champions, using every wily veteran move they could as they fought to dissect Manders. But when Angerer did come in he was a house afire and with his size, his bowling over Energy and Jah was perfectly convincing.

I came in expecting a screwjob finish of some kind, perhaps Valentina Loca (who was in attendance but didn't perform) aligning with her former foes in Vicious & Delicious. Instead, the Hawkamaniacs landed the clean win in the middle of the ring right after Angerer hit a big Stunner. The two men celebrated with Angerer's kid and a couple Steveweisers post-match.

Two Iowa Hawkeyes becoming tag team champions in Iowa City was pretty much guaranteed to ignite the crowd, but the great match made the celebration afterwards that much more special. What their victory means for the future of the SCW tag team titles I cannot guess, but it seems clear we'll see Angerer team with Manders again to defend them.

While the last show topped Hawkamania VII in shear impressive matches, I cannot imagine a single fan went home disappointed after a great show. If you're interested in seeing some highlights, a local QC sports show filmed it for Youtube. While the quality isn't spectacular, it shows off just how hard working these stars, young or veteran, actually are.

SCW returns this Saturday, December 8th with their final event of the year Season's Beatings in their home base of Walcott. That being said, they've got a full slate planned in 2019 with two to three shows a month for much of the first half of the year. For more, check out their official website or follow them on Twitter.

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.

Wrestling's original reality star comes home, or one afternoon in Walford

On the road to... Central Empire Wrestling: Road to Bridge City Tour
Sunday, October 21, 2018, Walford, Iowa


Despite Cedar Rapids being the second largest city in Iowa, we have a strange lack of independent wrestling nearby. We might get a spot show from one of the Iowa indies now and then, but even then, it's often in the surrounding environs. SCW runs their Hawkamania events every few months in Iowa City, a half hour drive, for example. And the Oskaloosa-based CEW runs Wild Hog Saloon in Walford, a town about fifteen minutes from Cedar Rapids. It is very strange to me that there's an indie that runs in a town of just over 10,000 like CEW but there isn't one in a city a dozen times larger.

But CEW was kind enough to come nearby to Walford, although since I was visiting family and friends for the Pro Wrestling Revolver show the day before, I actually left that morning from their home base of Oskaloosa to see the company near my home. I'm familiar with a couple of the CWE talents from appearances (under different names) in NWL and because several are Black and Brave graduates that also regularly work SCW.

The opening match pit the clearly unloved Brandon Wallace, a CWE regular I know nothing about, against Xander Killen, a two year pro from the aforementioned Black and Brave and SCW. It was a rather basic opener with both men doing some great work to warm up the crowd. It was also fascinating to me to see Xander Killen play the babyface role and do it rather well. He's generally one of the biggest assholes in SCW, one that loves to trade insults with fans, so I was taken aback when he came out to cheers. But he seems to fill the good guy role admirably, though I think he would probably agree he falls more naturally into the heel role.

Another pair of CEW regulars, the tag champions D & T Dynasty, took on a much less veteran team but a pair I knew from SCW: Joeasa and Deonn "Iceberg" Rusman. The heels from Black & Brave are just a great looking pair, but their teamwork wasn't nearly as strong as the wily veterans. I do see huge upsides to both Joeasa and Rusman though. Iceberg especially looks like a million bucks. He continues to grow match by match he could have a huge future in a lot of promotions worldwide.

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A post shared by JT Energy aka The 6 ⭐️ Booty (@djclicknplay) on Oct 21, 2018 at 11:03pm PDT

The "Battle of the Booties" closed out the first half of the show as two hard-butted combatants fought it out in the ring. "Supafli" J Fowler is another CEW veteran and Oskaloosa native. His opponent JT Energy is arguably the best breakout talent from Black & Brave so far. He's mastered his heel work admirably and has shown an ability to fly about the ring. The low ceiling at the event made flying pretty much an impossibility, but Fowler and Energy definitely put on the most high action battle and the clear match of the day. Energy stole a win with a roll up after interference by his Yum Bucks partner Jaden Roller, but don't let his heel tactics hide the fact that he's a star to watch in the next couple years.

The semi-main event featured Curt Gannon, a Kansas City son working as the "Suplex Cyclone". Considering he's built like Taz makes the gimmick make sense. He went against Shawn Nautilus, a native of my own birthplace, West Union, Iowa, and a veteran around the state. He happens to be huge, standing over six and a half feet, so that doesn't hurt. But he's also a pretty solid big man, whether he's working as the straight up evil and angry Nautilus here or the affable Cousin Gator as part of the tag team stable Guns & Beer, which is how I saw him in SCW. Gannon looked like a solid competitor, but sadly this was built to be a show of power by Nautilus. Shawn pretty much ripped him apart before scoring the pin.

Rory Fox targets Jaden Roller's main weakness: his powerful pigtails.
Image credit: Rory Fox on Twitter.

Rory Fox first made a name for himself on an episode of MTV True-Life entitled "I'm a pro wrestler" years before even Tough Enough. Since that time he's worked all across the Midwest, made appearances as a jobber on WWE and pretty much lived the life of a veteran indie wrestler. He's also a native son of Walford, so CEW's visits to the city are homecomings for him. Fox main evented the show against Jaden Roller, accompanied to the ring by his Yum Bucks colleague Energy. Both men are CEW regulars, which made it a bit harder for me to get into this one, even though I knew Fox from an appearance or two on NWL television. They put on a pretty decent match, but without being a regular fan of the company I didn't have the connection to make it feel like a really great main event. I feel a bit bad marking this as the weakest showing of the show, but for me, it just didn't have the fire of the first half of the card.

Overall though, it was a pretty solid two hours of entertainment. One more match might have made me feel like I got my money's worth a bit more, but that's really nitpicking. The show was a solid mix of longtime Iowa talents, CEW regulars and young up-and-comers getting a chance to show their skills to new audiences. That's honestly what great local indie wrestling should be.

CWE next runs their Oskaloosa home base on November 3rd, followed by the planned super show Bridge City Slam in Ottumwa on January 5th. For more on the company, check out their website or social media.