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THE REV REVIEWS: Fan Appreciation Night (7.23.08)

By Reverend Rogue Six

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in the following are purely those of the columnist.)

The third chapter of the MCW saga was written in Alliance on a hot night in August, and on this night, the heat was turned up on MEWL by MCW.

The show began with MCW’s resident announcer Nick Andrews coming to the ring with his pet pitbull, Big Hurt, following him. Yeah, if I was Nick, I’d be feeling pretty fracking cocky with an insurance policy like him at my back…Nick introduced himself to the Alliance crowd, and announced that he would be the sole announcer for tonight’s show. Jolly, just jolly.

Things started off with none other than the grease-painted wonder himself, Durty the Clown, coming to the ring, and as always, where you see Durty, his SideShow posse is close by. The crowd let Durty know just happy they were to see him with a hearty “DURTY SUCKS” chant.

His opponent for tonight would be none other than the Rootin’ Tootin’ Buckaroo (just a question -- has anyone seen his brother lately?? And for that matter, which Buckaroo has been showing up for these matches -- Rex or Tex? Just a thought), who was a little reluctant to be checked by the ref. Their match was a basic, straight-on, no-frills match with some moments that featured the Buckaroo delivering what had to be the slowest version of The People’s Elbow I’ve ever seen and Durty delivering another booger-to-the-eye attack; however, Durty did surprise me by executing Undertaker’s “Old School” ring rope walk and then hitting a picture-perfect flying headbutt on the Buckaroo to score the pin. As Durty left the ring, he picked up the Buckaroo’s hat , put it on, and treated the crowd to a little Sideshow two-step.

This match gets two awards -- to Durty, the Rev’s “I don‘t care, that was impressive” Award for the Old School move and the flying head butt; to the Time Traveler, the Quote of the Night award for telling a fallen Durty to get up by saying “Do it for Bozo, Durty!” (What can I say? That cracked me up…)

Team MCW came to the ring -- Shasta, Justin Diaz, Jessicka, and ref Dave Rogers (what the --?) -- but conspicuous by his absence was Jebediah. (Hmmm…) Diaz showed off his newly-earned North American belt to everyone, then gave the mic to Shasta, who told the Alliance fans the same thing he said at Dover: “it doesn’t matter if you like us or not, you’re the reason we do what we do; this isn’t an MCW or MEWL show, it’s your show. You come to the show, we’ll bust our asses to give you your money’s worth.” Then he added something more -- “the superstars in WWE and the others, you think they care about you? They don’t, but we do!” Shasta then turned to Diaz and told him that he had a title defense tonight - and from the astonished look on Diaz’s face, this was news to him. What was even more news to him was who his opponent would be: Otis, seconded by the Time Traveler. Okay, this was going to be interesting.

At first, Diaz was somewhat reluctant to wrestle Otis, and he even went so far as give him a chance to leave. Evidently, when Otis hit him in response, I kinda think his answer might have been “no.” Diaz then proceeded to hit Otis with everything in his arsenal. To his credit, Otis managed to hold his own at several moments in the match, managing to draw on the spirits of Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, and even Stone Cold Steve Austin to nail Diaz -- but even they couldn’t save him from a Diaz pinfall. After the match, Justin’s old theme music -- “It’s Raining Men” -- began to play, and he was clearly not amused by this error. At least, it seemed to be an error…

After some free merchandise was thrown to the crowd, MEWL Cruiserweight Champion Supa Lucha came to the ring for a match -- against Nick’s sidekick and bodyguard Big Hurt. The general reaction to Hurt’s entry in the ring was something along the lines of “Oh my God…” Folks, this wasn’t a match so much as it was somewhere between a mugging and assault with intent to commit bodily harm. Lucha had several moments of offense, but it was about as effective as a peashooter against a bull. And then in one brief moment…Big Hurt picked up Lucha, pressed him over his head -- and hurled him over the ropes like a volleyball, landing a good ten feet or more out from the ring with a sickening thud. The crowd went quiet as staff and other wrestlers came out to check on Lucha. The ref ruled that the match was a no-contest, as Lucha had been rendered unable to go on -- there was no winner, despite what Nick Andrews said to the crowd. Folks, I’m going to be honest here; this match was just hard to watch.

I give a world of credit to Lucha, damn if he didn’t give it everything he had, despite the size and weight difference.

Nick introduced the surprise guest wrestler prior to intermission -- none other then WWE Hall of Famer Greg “The Hammer” Valentine. I spent many a Saturday morning watching Valentine in the ring, so it was good to see him again.

After intermission, Team Pain -- Christian Vaughn and Johnny Gunn - came to the ring and delivered a message to the MIA Lones Oaks: despite everything that had happened so far, they weren’t giving in to the hype and giving up to the MCW invasion. They were mad at Lones for his absence, but hadn’t forgotten about him, adding that when he was ready to stop licking his wounds and take back MCW, they’d be ready and waiting; Christian then issued an open challenge to face any two MCW Originals in a match.

It must have been declared “ The Night of the Sideshow” as the other half of the MEWL Tag Team champions, the Redneck Wonder himself, Wilbur Whitlock, came to the ring with the entire Sideshow in tow (good lord, talk about wrestling by committee…) to face Jazin Blaze, who was sporting MEWL colors and drawing a huge response from the crowd. What looked to be a classic brawler-vs.-high flyer contest turned very ugly when Wilbur backdropped Jazin off the apron onto the ring stairs! Jazin laid on the floor for several moments in obvious pain, but when the ref asked him if he wanted to quit, God bless him, Jazin said no and kept on fighting.

Wilbur demonstrated his “sadistic bully” side as he backdropped Jazin on the ring stairs again and worked over his ribs with kicks and stomps. Jazin managed to rally back from the onslaught a number of times, taking out the entire Sideshow with a giant suicide dive outside the ring, powering out of a Whitlock leg scissors and nailing Wilbur with a mighty Diamond Cutter, a dropkick to Wilbur’s knees and to his face, and even a flying Lou Thesz press -- but despite all this, it just wasn’t enough; Wilbur finished off Jazin for the 1-2-3 and the win.

This was another match that was hard to watch as well, I’m going to have to admit. I’m giving this one my “Match of the Night” award, and to Jazin, my “Rocky Balboa “ award for carrying on the fight as long and as well as he did, never giving up when most would have. (I don’t care what they say, Jazin, you are still MEWL’s “Innovator of Offense”.)

MCW Original Shasta took on WWE Legend Greg “The Hammer” Valentine in an old-school smash-mouth fight that took me back to the 1980s and the days of WWF wrestling. Shasta surprised the crowd by catching Valentine with a wheel kick and going toe-to-toe with the veteran. Valentine blasted Shasta with some well-placed chops and reminded everyone why they called him “the Hammer” with some nasty elbow drops to Shasta’s knees . The fight went out of the ring and over to the merchandise tables for several moments -- which earned the match a double count-out. This didn’t faze either Shasta or Valentine, who took the match back to the locker room area.

Team Pain’s challenge was answered for the main event -- and it was answered in the form of MEWL’s answer to Bonnie and Clyde, MCW Originals Jessicka Havok and Jebediah. Johnny Gunn started things off for Team Pain against Jessicka, who Christian accused of “having nuts”. (I’ve heard her accused of many sins, but that was a new one on me…) This was a pedal-to-the-metal match, with both sides giving as good as they got; Johnny had the most impressive move of the match as he reversed a double suplex into a double neck breaker on Jebediah and Havok. But thanks to ref Logan Scott demonstrating his true “tool”-ness and missing illegal tags, Jebediah nailed Johnny Gunn and put him on Jessicka for the pinfall and the win for MCW -- which was their second win of the night.

To Team Pain, I give my “Dark Knight” award for standing up for MEWL and taking on MCW on their own, and I’m rating this match tied with the Whitlock/Blaze match for my “Match of the Night” award.

On this night, MCW showed that they were ready and willing to escalate the war to a new level -- and now it falls to MEWL to answer the challenge. A resistance movement has begun to jell in the form of Team Pain, who showed that they were willing to stand and deliver, no matter what…but one must ask -- can they do it all on their own? And what of their fallen leader?

Questions and more questions as the saga continues…

Until next time, I’m the Reverend Rogue Six, and I’ll see you at ringside!