Opinion by BoomBaBa

IPW-Hardcore and NWA-Florida presented another winner in St. Petersburg last night. You Philly residents can talk about your ROH, CZW and XPW all you want, but the simple truth is IPW and NWA Fla take a backseat to nobody in the wrestling world. Here are my thoughts of the show in a match-by-match rundown:

David Babylon d. Dr. Heresy: A great starter. Babylon is a cruiser with a future, and Dr. Heresy was a really good comedy heel. No way we could have had a better opener.

Superfan Mark Zout d. Mr. Casanova and Jerrelle Clark: Mark's gimmick is that he imitates a different wrestler every time he wrestles. Last night he went for a Rob Van Dam impression, complete with one of the most awkward rolling thunders I have ever seen. But his 5-star frog splash on Casanova redeemed him, and gave him the win.

The Bug d. Justice, Naphtali, and Tony Mamaluke: I don't know where this Bug came from, but man, does he rule! After the obligatory "Where's My Pizza" chant to Tony, Bug produced a pizza box and shouted "Here's your pizza!" From that moment on, everyone loved him. Lots of killer spots and solid efforts from everyone. The ending had everyone quite confused, though. Apparently since Bug didn't pin Naph (the unified Fla cruiser champ) or Justice (who holds another belt, the name of which escapes me), no titles changed hands. I felt this was a rather awkward turn of events that left most of us scratching our heads. Ending aside, the match itself was great.

Billy Fives d. Danny Doring, bullrope match for the NWA Florida Heavyweight title: About as close to oldschool as the night got. One of the best bullrope matches I've seen. Thanks to a run-in by Scoot Andrews and Mike Sullivan from the Alliance Of Defiance (whom I have now re-christened the Alliance of Dumbasses and nearly got my ass kicked by Sullivan as a result), Billy beat Danny, but after the bell they went after special ref Agent Steele, so Joe Price, the head of NWA Fla, decided to give Agent Steele a title shot right on the spot, resulting in...

Agent Steele d. Billy Fives: So now Steele is the NWA Florida champ. Very short match, short on fancy moves but long on violence. That'll teach Billy to wear a Raiders hat and jersey in St. Pete the day before Super Bowl!

Bobby Rogers (head of South Florida's FOW) d. Chaos, Prime Evil and Kubiak for the IPW Hardcore title in a 4 corners of death match (also would have been a flaming tables match, but I think the local fire dept. stepped in): This match was wrong on so many levels. First off, Bobby Rogers took a bodyslam into a pile of live mousetraps. A couple minutes later, Bobby was handing out kendo sticks to audience members and they took turns hitting Chaos in the head. Everyone juiced except for Prime Evil, who proved that wearing a mask can be an advantage sometimes. They went all around the building, using anything they could find to destroy each other, including a cactus and the obligatory light bulbs. A run-in by the gigantic, 600 pound Maximum Capacity helped Bobby get the win. Afterwards, Prime Evil held Bobby while Snakemaster Abudadein was about to hit him with a kendo stick, but instead, Snakemaster turned on his charge Prime Evil, unmasking him and revealing him to be Havoc. It takes a special kind of self-loathing to wrestle a hardcore match like this, and Bobby proved that he hated himself just a little more than the others. I'm a little fuzzy on details about this match because it all happened so fast, but I think that's what happened.

INTERMISSION---

Scoot Andrews and Mike Sullivan of the AOD came out and stated that they wouldn't put the IPW tag titles on the line unless the AOD's personal referee Mikey Tenderfoot could be the referee, so IPW commissioner Eddie Edwards said that would be OK as long as Scoot put his precious hair on the line. Which he did. More about that later...

Lex Lovett w/Vito DeNucci d. Steve Madison w/ Ron Niemi: Who would have predicted that this match would be a bloodfest? But it was, with Lex clearly having a blood advantage over Steve, as well as a strength advantage. Vito helped Lex win the match, which had surprisingly little outside interference from the Hardcore Giant Ron Niemi. I thought Giant could have helped out a little more than he did, but que sera sera. After the match, some drunken audience guy tried to pick a fight with the Giant, and Ron stole his beer and spit it in his face. Then the Shane Twins (you might remember them as the Johnsons of TNA fame) came and I thought they were going to calm things down, but instead, things started getting worse. IPW security rushed over to put a stop to things, and the drunk guy's friends held him back, and fortunately cooler heads prevailed without any real damage. Gotta love drunken wrestling fans, huh?

Pat Powers d. Frankie Capone and Pat McGroin for the IPW TV Title: Match of the night right here, gang. Originally a 2-man match, it turned into a 3-way after the Pats started getting into it with each other. Everyone in the match turned in great performances, especially Frankie. For a guy who claims to not be a good flyer, outgoing TV champ Capone did two very impressive standing ranas (flying head scissors actually, but standing ranas sounds cooler) on the Pats. This one featured an after-match run-in by Rastaman, who I had not heard of but all the regulars seemed to know him. Frankie, in a very nice display of sportsmanship, congratulated Powers for taking his title and they all took turns doing goofy dancing after laying out McGroin and his valet Vanessa Harding with twin rock bottoms.

The Shane Twins d. (by DQ) Vicious and Delicious (Axis and Python), The Strong Brothers, and Scoot Andrews and Mkie Sullivan, IPW tag title match: AOD's own crooked referee Mikey Tenderfoot is turning out to be the worst thing to ever happen to them, helping them earn their new name the Alliance of Dumbasses. First to go was VD (yes, they do refer to themselves as VD), then the Strongs. Sullivan pretended to hit Mikey and he "DQ'd" them to save their titles at the last second, but since AOD didn't actually win, Eddie Edwards forced Scoot to have his head shaved! Poor Scoot. I actually felt sorry for him, since what remains of his hair means everything to him. And they did a piss-poor job of shaving him. Funny for us, bad for the Black Nature Boy.

ODD Jeff Bradley d. Mike Awesome: The mullet is back in force! Mike looked just as impressive as ever, even if Vince Russo tried to kill him off with that hideous 70's guy gimmick. But ODD managed to get the surprise rollup after escaping being thrown thru a table. Afterwards, Mike took referee Richie Rich and Awesome bombed him through the table instead. It was a very sick bump, too. I don't know if Richie got hurt, but frankly, I don't know how he could have not gotten hurt.

Rod Steel (IPW Heavyweight Champ) d. (by DQ) Jeff Jarrett (NWA-TNA heavyweight Champ) in a title vs. title match: Total screwjob by referee Mikey Tenderfoot, as my internet arch-rival Steel is also a member of the AOD. Any time Jarrett tried to get offense in, Mikey would block him. Finally, Jarrett had enough and threw Mikey down and got some offense in. Steel held his own with Jarrett for a while, but blew it when he stuck a steel chair in the corner and tried to Irish whip Jarrett into it, but Jarrett reversed it and Rod went headfirst into the chair, making it all the more funny because Rod is very concussion prone. Rod tried to hit Jarrett with a guitar but Jarrett ducked and got the guitar away from Rod and tried to hit him, but he ducked and the guitar nailed Mikey square on the head. Man, those breakaway guitars make a sickening sound when they connect! IPW senior official Star Stevens came in and took over for Mikey at that point. Jeff laid out Rod with the stroke for the 3-count, but Mikey came to and reversed Star and DQ'd Jeff, meaning no titles changed hands. Jeff was so mad he absolutely nailed Mikey in the head with one of the sickest chairshots I have ever seen. Mikey may be a crooked referee, but there's no denying the guy has balls of steel.

I should add that Jeff could have easily big-leagued Rod and refused to job, but instead, he did the opposite and went out of his way to give Rod the rub he deserved. A stellar display of professionalism on the part of Jarrett.

Mikey and I had a nice little exchange as he recuperated. This relates to him calling me a heartless bastard for not buying my kids an AOD t-shirt because of him getting his ass kicked at a recent match, and I told him if Scoot and Mike won their match cleanly, I would buy one, otherwise I would goof on him:

Me: See this $12? It could have been yours, pal, but you blew it! You need to go back to Nick Patrick school!

Mikey (weakly): Nick Patrick doesn't have anything on me.

Me: Maybe not, but I'm still not buying an AOD T-shirt!

Mikey: Blahblahblahblah...

And another great IPW/NWA Florida show comes to an end.

And now for some minor grousing:

The show started 15 or 20 minutes late. In my case it was OK because we didn't arrive until right at 8, so it worked out for me this time. It also went on for 4 hours, which was a good value, I suppose, but I prefer shows that top out at 3 hours.

The sound was absolutely horrid. Too much dead time between music cues, the mics kept cutting out every single time someone spoke, and when they did work, they sounded very thin. I don't know how many times ring announcer Shannon Rose or someone else talking pointed the mics toward the speakers, causing feedback problems. Shannon is a terrific ring announcer, but those feedback blasts damn near made me sterile!

Congratulations and thanks to everyone at IPW and NWA Fla for such a great show, easily the best that they've put on yet. Check them out on the web at www.ipw-hardcore.com, www.nwaflorida.com, and check out their forums on www.prowrestlingdaily.com and www.wrestlingonline.com. Also, check out www.futureofwrestling.com, as South Florida's FOW is also working with IPW and NWA Fla. and supplying many great talents to IPW and NWA Fla shows.

Also, congratulations to the Tampa Bay Bucs for finally making us long-suffering fans feel the long and winding road to the Super Bowl was worth it!

Last Edited: Monday, January 27th, 2003 - 05:19 pm EST