by Thomas Green

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This was part of a 2-night series of shows where they flew in AJ Styles as their special guest, and had him main event both nights. In honor of him, they threw a couple of supershows. The following is the first of the shows.

You can get this tape from Smart Mark Video, whose entire tape listing and contact info can be found at www.smartmarkvideo.com (For some reason, the html sucks, and it's not letting me link this).
Now, let's get to the show....

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"The Barbaric Berserker" Jimmy Jacobs vs. Alex Shelly

Let me just say this about Jimmy Jacobs: the man is quite splendid. He comes out, wearing the furry boots that made the Berserker a household name, tries to step over the top rope, though he's under 6', and yells "Huss!" when he does his trademark big boot. Alex Shelly, according to CM Punk, will never win a match because he has two first names, one of which is a girl's name. They start with some basic chain wrestling, which Shelly excells at, it seems. Shelly starts working over Jacobs's arm early, with some basic armbars. Shelly then makes a rookie mistake of speeding the match up, which Jacobs, who has more experience than his opponent, takes advantage of, and slows the match down while going on offense. The offense included the afformentioned Huss Big Boot (which was met with a small "Huss!" chant by the crowd), the most dangerous move of all-time, the Tornado Backrake, and some loud kicks to the stomach with the furry boots. Shelly gets the advantage back, but makes another youthful mistake of going for a flashy move (a twisting corkscrew top rope thingy), which he misses. Jacobs then finishes the match with a Togo Senton for the win. Post-match, another "Huss!" chant starts, this time with CM Punk and Dave Prazak joining in. Pretty good match, and though the new gimmick Jacobs has is great, Shelly is quite the good wrestler, and looked better than Jimmy did here.

WINNER: Jimmy Jacobs
GRADE: 83

Rollin Hard vs. Steve Stone

Before the match, Dave Prazak references some comments Punk made about the dry erase board wonder known as Hat (guy who sits in the front row at IWA-MS shows) at Retro Night, about how he doesn't have friends, he smells, he'll die alone, etcetra. Punk replies, then Jim Fannin says, "I bet you're not his champion on EWR anymore!", which goes over the heads of both Prazak and Punk. Just thought I'd bring that up since there's some EWR marks at TSM. Those comments were more interesting that this match. I voiced my displeasure with Rollin in the TPI review (which I'm sure all 4 of you read). He works a blatantly racist "ghetto" gimmick, though he has toned it down a bit. Stone seems like the type of guy that, if he's put in there with a really good worker, could maybe produce something decent. Guess what? Rollin is not exactly that guy. This was a boring, uninteresting brawl. I didn't really bother to take many notes just because it'd be "punch, kick, punch..." the whole thing. However, there was a debate on the origins of the Mr. Perfect Neck Snap move, but no one knew what it was called, which summoned Dave Prazak to reference Larry Goodman, Wildside reviewer extraordinare/audience member for this show. I did, however, enjoy the Rollin Hard Tie-Up Can't See Shit Atomic Wedgie Shirt Leglock Thing (an odd variation on a lucha leg submission, exactly how the name describes it) on the floor. Finish came when Stone missed his top-rope moonsault, and Rollin hit the Negro Amigo (death valley driver) for the win. Post-match, Rollin offers to be Stone's tag partner the next night, and gets attacked for it. Bad match.

WINNER: Rollin Hard
GRADE: 62

Austin Aries vs. "Kamikaze" Ken Anderson

Neither guy is an IWA Mid-South regular; Aries works in Minnesota for Steel Domain Wrestling (the stomping grounds for Punk, Cabana, Dave Prazak, Ace Steel, etc.), and Anderson's based out of Mid-American Wrestling in Wisconsin. Anderson's also done an abnormal amount of WWE B-team TV jobs as of late. Pre-match, Ken Anderson gets mocked on commentary by Punk for bringing a water bottle to the ring, but then spits his water in Aries's face, Muta-style. Ring announcer Rico (not Constantino; this Rico is way more intoxicated) then proceeds to mess up Aries' name (calls him "Austin Ayers"). Anyway, the match started off with some really good chain wrestling. Then, they did a really nice, fast-paced rope-running into a criss-cross sequence. After that, they head to the mat, where Anderson tries to keep a headlock locked in, while Aries keeps reversing it with a headscissors. They then transition into familiarity reversal spots, which make sense since they've had a long series of matches in Mid-American Wrestling. Aries then sets the pace for the body of the match, working over Anderson's neck and head with high-impact stuff and strikes, while Anderson makes comebacks using his size and power advantage. Aries dominates the offense until Anderson starts a chinlock "clap, clap, clap, the crowd has the clap" comeback (Punk's term). Aries, however, ends it soon after a few jabs. Aries goes up top twice, first nailing a 450, though the pin attempt was unsuccessful due to Anderson being too close to the ropes, and secondly getting punched down by Anderson, leading to a second rope flipping Samoan drop slam for the win. Pretty good match, as they were able to keep the crowd alive throughout, and I'd love to see more Austin Aries.

WINNER: Ken Anderson
GRADE: 82

Danny Daniels vs. Jerry Lynn

Danny Daniels is quite the in-ring success story. He starts the decade doing heel ref work for ECW, and within 2 years of the company's demise, has developed into quite the good heel worker. Lynn, on the other hand, especially since this whole X-Division thing has started, has degenerated as a worker, doing spotty matches with match-long mirror sequences for the past year. Plus, he looks like a really tan, muscled-up version of "The Boogie Woogie Man" Johnny Valient. Anyway, the match opens with Daniels jumping Lynn before the bell. As Daniels pounds over Lynn, the crowd gets behind Jerry quite loudly. The pace picks up big-time, as Lynn starts dominating offense. Lynn dominates for a couple of minutes, until Daniels kicks Lynn down low. Danny slowed the pace down, as he worked over the mid-section, to mess up Jerry's breathing patter, as Ace Steel explained on commentary. Lynn got his hope spots in, but Danny would turn the heelness up and cheat to get the advantage back. Finally, Jerry starts to make a comeback, as he works over Danny's neck, preparing for the Cradle Piledriver. However, those plans are messed up, as Danny reverses a victory roll-like move with a BRUTAL sitdown Anger Management (read Best of Slim J review for a description), but it only got a 2, which is my only complaint of the match, as if you're going to pull that move out, it HAS to be the finish. Daniels pulls Lynn up, and goes for the Tombstone, but it's reversed into a Cradle Tombstone Piledriver for the win. This was one hell of a match, as both guys really worked their asses off, and Danny got to show off his vast improvement in rare form.

WINNER: Jerry Lynn
GRADE: 88

Truth Martini vs. Jorge Estrada

I am strongly in favor of Jorge's afro and Truth's swank "Jesus" tattoo. Why I said that, I have no idea. Anyway, they started off with a Greco-Roman knucklelock (aka test of strength without the test), and went into a series of armbars and armdrags, ending with that annoying stand-off so all the Internet drones can go "clap, clap, clap, look, we all can clap". Then, just to piss me off, they do a mirror-image sequence ending in another standoff. The story of the match went that Truth (who really came off looking great in this match) used his speed and agility to hold off the much larger Jorge. That would have worked awesome, had Jorge not started doing a bunch of high-flying spots in his offensive periods. While it was mightily impressive seeing a man Jorge's size doing a Phoenix Star Press (John Phoenix's running Red Star Press), when you're doing the size vs. speed story, the big man shouldn't be doing that stuff. Truth makes a slight comeback with my new favorite underdog comeback move, the Code Red, but Jorge gets the advantage back, and nails a painful-looking Greetings from Graceland (like a weird spinning Angle Slam-type of move, but with a neck bump). Really good finish to an decent, maybe even good match.

WINNER: Jorge Estrada
GRADE: 79

Simon Sezz vs. Drake Younger "Is Just Happy To Be Here" vs. Shark Boy

Dave Prazak starts playing "The Drake Younger/Show Name" game before the match, coming up with "Simply The Drake", "When Drake Met Younger", "King of the DrakeMatches", "2003: A Drake Odyssey", and "No Blood, No Guts, No Drake Younger". The opening sequence is quite funny, as Shark Boy lets the rookies do some chain wrestling, but every time one would have their butts towards his direction, he'd bite them, go back to sitting on the top turnbuckle, and deny that it ever happened. Once Shark Boy got into things, they mostly kept it one-on-one, with the third guy selling somewhere else. The second transition, Shark Boy clotheslining Drake over the top rope and to the floor, turned ugly, and instead of just rolling really fast over the top and landing feet-first, he held onto the top rope and landed HARD on his spine. They then went on for ten more minutes, doing a bunch of stuff, without much rhyme or reason, it seemed. Then, Shark Boy had Simon down for a pin, when referee Brent Blades (who Shark Boy and his best friend Dean Baldwin had been feuding with) pulled Rudy Charles out of the ring before he could count to three. Shark Boy then chased Blades to the back, as Drake hit a Whiplash (Samoan Drop into MD2) on Simon Sezz for his first IWA Mid-South victory, which surely made him happier to be there (bad joke). Besides the opening, the match wasn't too interesting, though they worked hard.

WINNER: Drake Younger
GRADE: 74

The Bad Motherfuckers (Adam "Magic Marker Abs" Gooch, Michael Todd Stratton, and 2 Tuff Tony) vs. Ian Rotten & JC Bailey)

Before the match, during Ian's intro, Crazy Pipe Guy starts dancing to Marilyn Manson's "Beautiful People". That's great. It was supposed to be Mark Wolf and KO with Ian, but KO had to go back home because his mother took ill, and Wolf, according to Ian, got "jumped by Mitch Rider (Bad Motherfucker associate) at another show". Ian also mocked Gooch for his activities with females (story taken from CM Punk's LiveJournal). They start off with a little comedy with Ian and Stratton, mostly Ian mocking Stratton's height. Ian's on defense, until Adam Gooch comes in. Ian then tags out to JC Bailey. Most of the heat the heels got throughout the match was on JC, mostly holding him in the corner/outside the ring and pounding him. There's one part where Ian tagged in while Gooch was in, and just destroyed him. Stiff-as-hell chops, hard forearms, and over 10 palm thrusts to the forehead of Gooch, causing him to bruise deeply less than a minute later. JC comes in again, and the BMF'ers pound him more. They tease the hot tag spot twice, with heel referee Brent Blades not seeing the tag either time. Then, Ian gets the hot tag, and all hell breaks loose, though Ian keeps things calm in the ring by using a cravate (3/4 chancery) on Stratton. Then, Shark Boy's buddy Dean Baldwin chases Brent Blades out, but gets attacked by Gooch and Tony. Rudy Charles takes over refereeing, as Ian hits Gooch with the Rotten Rush (double-underhook DDT) for the win. Post-match, Dean clears house of the BMF'ers, and Ian cuts a promo, making Mark Wolf vs. Mitch Rider and himself vs. Stratton for the next night. He mocks Gooch for playing the two girls some more. The match itself was good, but went too long.

WINNERS: Ian Rotten and JC Bailey
GRADE: 82

"Classic" Colt Cabana vs. "The Future" Chris Sabin

As Colt makes his entrance with his bad-ass shades, he mistakenly thinks that ringside regular Smelly is in fact Larry Goodman, as he yells, "Hey, Mr. Wildside!", but Smelly took it as an insult anyway, and yelled a couple of four-letter words back, with a bird flown in. Match starts with some basic collar-and-elbow tie-up into clean break spots. They run the ropes, but Colt ends it with a pin attempt, and then does some jumping jacks to break a sweat. Sabin then out-does Cabana quite a few times, and it takes Colt aback. Sabin then works Colt's arm. Colt gets the advantage by cheating, and uses his power and size advantage to work over Sabin's neck a little. Sabin makes a long face comeback, which is really firey. But, it's all for naught, as Colt hits his Colt 45 (double-underhook Train Wreck for you WWEiners) for the win. Post-match, Cabana, in the most heelish way possible, subliminally tells the crowd to applaud Sabin (by being a heel and saying the opposite). Pretty good match, but for some reason, it didn't come off as something extraordinary.

WINNER: Colt Cabana
GRADE: 85

Texas Death Match:
Corporal Robinson vs. Bull Pain

Let me reiterate this point: Bull Pain is a scary man. If I ever see him, I will run as fast as I can, as a trail of yellow falls behind me. Anyway, I notice that Crazy Pipe Guy is, in fact, armed for this match. The match starts with a collar-and-elbow tie-up, as Bull powers Corp. into the corner, and tells him he isn't worth a pile of feces, but using more suggestive words. Corporal then does the same thing to Bull. They then start brawling on the floor, as Bull lays in with the headbutts. Corporal fights back and uses Crazy Pipe Guy's barbed wire board on Bull. But, Bull comes back and they brawl really well all over the place. They start wiping out chairs, and piling them to bump on. Corporal took a brutal headbump on a pile of chairs; really scary to watch. They really play up the story that Bull's throwing all he has, but Corp. keeps barely getting up from it. Finish comes as Bull hits his finisher, the Pain Game (DDT with the opponent's feet draped over the top rope) for the second time, pins Corporal, and threatens referee Turtle (really, that's his name) to skip to 8 in his ten count. He does, and Bull wins. But, Bull beats him up with the bat just for the hell of it. Quite the good brawl, though it might have gone a little too long.

WINNER: Bull Pain
GRADE: 83

CM Punk vs. Jimmy Rave

This match ruled all. Both guys were on, big-time, and it showed. They started building towards Rave's cross armbar early, as he went for it, but Punk locked his hands together so Rave couldn't get the elbow locked. Prazak and Fannin seemed quite amused that the Armbar Klan was out, in full support for Jimmy. Punk starts working on the leg, but every free opportunity Jimmy gets, he jumps back on the arm, not only to set up the cross armbar, but also to make sure that Punk can't set up the Pepsi Plunge, or the Welcome To Chicago, Motherfuckers, his two big high-impact moves. After they do the dueling crossface forearms, they start building towards Punk's knee scrapes, as Punk goes for a running scrape, but Rave leaves the ring. They start playing up on commentary how, at the first instant Rave gets the cross armbar locked in, the match is over, as he just continually worked over Punk's arm every which-way but up. Punk starts working over Jimmy's leg, to make sure he couldn't lock in both legs for the cross armbar, and to set up his one-armed Cloverleaf finisher. Rave clotheslines Punk after the second try of the knee scrapes, but finally, Punk nailed them, including a nasty running knee scrape. Punk then decides to go to desperate measures, breaking out his Shining Wizards. He hits two, but then Rave knows to block the third, hitting a dropkick. Finally, Punk hits a third, and locks in his one-armed Texas Cloverleaf (sort of like a Tequila Sunrise, but cooler) for the tapout victory. Post-match, Jimmy thanks Punk for a great match, and thanks Ian for booking him. This match was awesome. Though neither guy spent the entire match screaming in pain like they got their limb chopped off, the selling was great. Rave never went for anything that would cause him to have to exert pressure on his bad leg, and Punk, besides for one kip-over in the corner and a pull-up bomb, sold greatly for Rave's armwork, which was tremendous. This was probably my favorite Jimmy Rave singles match ever. An early candidate for Match of the Year, that's for sure.

WINNER: CM Punk
GRADE: 95

Ace Steel vs. AJ Styles

During Ace's entrance, as he was slapping hands with the fans, he completely over-shot Larry Goodman's hand. I thought that was funny. The match starts with a feeling-out process, since they had never worked a singles match in the past against each other. Steel works a front facelock early, to signify that he'd be working over AJ's neck to soften it up for the Twist of Kain (Gory Guerrero Special into a neckbreaker, aka the Widow's Peak). AJ did some of his flashy stuff to counter-act Ace, but he had to rely on counters and mat stuff in the end to get any edge on Ace. In the end, though, Ace nailed the Twist of Kain, after AJ struggled to get him up for a suplex, to score the victory. Post-match, they shake hands, but Colt Cabana comes out to crash the party. He says Ace is nothing, and that "AJ, I'm gonna beat the Lord out of you tomorrow night". Good match, though the previous match over-shadowed it by a bit.

WINNER: Ace Steel
GRADE: 84

Three-Way Deathmatch
"Sick" Ric Matrix vs. "Spyder" Nate Webb vs. Madman Pondo

Before the match, I saw something comparable to a spiritual discovery, with a holy divineness to it. I saw, without a doubt, one of the finest entrances of all-time, as Nate Webb jived, grooved, and danced his way to "Teenage Dirtbag" in every section of the building, including the aisle, the bleachers, and the elevated announcers' booth, which, up until a few weeks back, was named "The Spyder's Nest" (they re-named it "Bailey's Nest" after JC Bailey hit Nate with a Michinoku Driver II off of it, through a light tube table). He even puffed off of Crazy Pipe Guy's pipe, while Crazy Pipe Guy and Smelly were dancing. Then, during the "I feel like mold..." slow part, he starts lip-synching to it. He climbs onto the apron, and heart-feltly sings the lyrics, "why does she give a damn about me?", looking deep into Ric Matrix's eyes. Then, Dave Prazak breaks out his karaoke skills on commentary during the girl dirtbag's part. Even if you decide you can't get this tape right now, you must hunt down the footage of this entrance. But, for some reason, they just HAD to have a match after this, and it sucked. Nate tried as hard as he could to make this thing work, bumping his ass off for both guys (quite violently, I might add), but Matrix is horrendous (that's not just influenced by him saying that Nate's entrance sucked; he really is BAD), and Pondo's Pondo. As sick as this sounds, the most enjoyable (and painful) part of this match was then Matrix flapjacked/hotshotted Nate through a waffle fence of lighttubes; just brutal. The rest of the match was punch-kick crap. Pondo won after pinning Matrix with something I can't read off of my notes, and then stuffing Nate in between a ladder, with plenty of goodies in there with him, and hitting him with one of the shittiest top-rope sentons I've ever seen for the win. Post-match, Pondo puts both guys over on the mic, says some stuff about the low attendance, and plugs his Circus Deathmatch with JC Bailey, scheduled for the next night. (NOTE: From now on, no number grades for deathmatches)

WINNER: Madman Pondo


OVERALL THOUGHTS: I pretty much dug this tape. There were only two really crappy matches (Hard/Stone and the deathmatch), but nothing unexpectedly bad. Everything else went from decent-to-Match of the Year candidate (Punk/Rave). The crowd was into everything, which is always a plus. Everyone worked their asses off as well, and out came a really good show. Commentary was done consistantly by Jim Fannin and Dave Prazak, with guest spots by CM Punk and Ace Steel. Fannin and Prazak are good together. When Punk joins in, it gets downright hilarious, though they have the tendency to go really off-subject and just sound like a few guys discussing pop culture. Ace was good on his end, but I still thought that Fannin and Prazak, when critquing them as announcers and not comedians, were the best of the bunch. Still, Punk was a really great alternative. Definate Recommendation to Buy.

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Now, onto some extras, which you can get from Melanie McKee, whose site, can be found here. Unfortunately, I didn't get time to review Hero/Punk: the 93 Minute Match this time, but it'll be coming soon.

The Iceberg $500 Knockdown Challenge

This took place post-Fright Night 2001, building to Christmas Chaos 2001. The NWA Elite had laid out their enemies the previous week, so Bailey wanted to have some fun. So, he laid down an open challenge to anyone in the back to knock down Iceberg for 500 dollars. The first guy out was "Mr. Delicious" Jacey North. In a funny moment, he poses with his NWA Virginia title belt, has Dan Wilson announce him as the NWA-VA champ, then leaves. Then, Cooter Calhoun comes out, and Iceberg destroys him, as Bailey makes some hilarious comments in the background, such as: (as Iceberg carves into Cooter's flesh with the veggie peeler) "Kids, don't try this at home. Go to your neighbor's house!" Bailey calls the sight of blood "beautiful". Then, Cooter's partner in the Redneck Express, Henry Hoss, comes out, and after trying to plow through Iceberg a couple of times, gets hit with the Ground Zero Splash. Finally, Caprice Coleman comes out. He dances and prances around, even poking 'Berg in the stomach like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Then, right when it looks like he goes in for the kill, he turns and knocks out Bailey, then runs like a scared cheetah from Iceberg. Bailey, pissed as hell, books Jason Cross vs. Coleman for later in the night. Great angle, getting Caprice over a top enemy of the Elite, while Iceberg got over as even more of a monster.

DragonCon Promo w/ Jeff G. Bailey, Slim J, Blackout, a homeless guy, and a hooker (off of the Wildside Rarities tape)

This is funny. They filmed this in downtown Atlanta right after working some matches at some counter-culture convention in Atlanta called DragonCon, just for kicks. They recruited a random homeless guy and a random prostitute, and just told them to stand there. Bailey says he brought his guys Blackout home to the Dark City to party, and that he brought a young accomplise, Slim J, to teach him their ways. Just then, the hooker shoves Slim's face into her breasts for no reason. Bailey talks about how Blackout left the Lost Boys for dead at DragonCon. Murder One then talks about how he'll be thinking about the Lost Boys tonight, as he parties with the citizens of the Dark City. This is just classic stuff, a different side of all the guys involved.

Iceberg/Hotstuff Hernandez Coat Hanger Angle

This is, without a doubt, the best angle so far this year. Hotstuff had just won a tag match with Jason Blackman, and the crowd was red-hot for him when Dan Wilson (sporting his new bald look) came down for an interview. Just then, Iceberg came out and avalanched Hernandez. He then gave him two Ground Zero Splashes in the ring, as Jeff G. Bailey came out with a wire coat hanger in hand. Iceberg throws Hernandez to the outside, and gets the hanger from Bailey. Iceberg then starts choking the life out of Hernandez with it, to the point where he starts hemorraging blood from his lungs. Small kids started running for cover in the crowd; the audience believed. That's something very, very rare in today's wrestling, and something that should be cherished. The faces in the back chased off Iceberg and Bailey as Hernandez laid in a puddle of his own blood. This was just incredible. Stand-alone, this was really strong, but the audience's reaction of disgust and horror just added to it.

Future Shock Promo

This took place right after their ladder match with Scottie Wrenn & Tank and The Lost Boys at the first night of this year's Hardcore Hell event. Brandon P. lists former NWA World Tag Champions, such as The Valients, The Briscos, The Freebirds, and Bad Attitude. Jay Freeze said Future Shock had sealed their spot and provided Wildside with a suitable championship team. He then cussed out all of those who doubted Future Shock, and ended with the words, "Finally, finally." A hell of a promo, especially considering, not only were these two not real candidates to perform a promo this well even six months ago, but they were both hurt, with concussions, and had a glazed-over look in their eyes the entire promo.

Jeff G. Bailey/Iceberg Promo

This took place right after Iceberg defeated Stone Mountain in the main event of the second night of Hardcore Hell, and was attacked by Hotstuff Hernandez right afterwards. Bailey's delivery was out-of-this-world. He starts off by bragging about how his monster defeated a 7-foot giant in a cage that night, and described the moment where Iceberg came off the top rope and splashed Stone Mountain through a table. Then, he goes off about how pissed he is that Hotstuff had to come out after the match and attack Iceberg (including a tackle which gave Iceberg a concussion). He said that the coat hanger incident was just Iceberg introducing himself ("Hi, Hotstuff. How ya doing? Feel like dying tonight?"). He said that Hotstuff was a coward, but yet not even shit. Bailey said that the Wildside Title would never belong to Hotstuff Hernandez, and that his punishment would be death or worse. The camera zoomed into Iceberg's eyes to close the shot. Tremendous promo by Jeff, a step above his usual high standard.

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That's all for now. Next time, the second night of IWA Mid-South's Ultra Styles Clash Weekend. Plus, extras will include a Tony Mamaluke/Rainman match, and a promo going back years with Jeff G. Bailey and K-Krush, better known now as Ron "The Truth" Killings.

Thanks for reading,
Thomas Green

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