Saturday, February 09, 2008

Arena Report: LAW Rector, AR 2.08.08

----First stop on the “Book Tour” and I would like to thank LAW & the Rector fans. We had a very successful time and everyone loved the book. Thanks!!

----Shannon Lee beat Evan Gelistico. Just your basic psychology match – nothing wrong – nothing special. Evan was good with the crowd, but some of his moves looked weak. He never stopped on the marks and they ate it up. Gelistico went for a suplex with Leee sitting on the top turnbuckle – Lee pushed him off and swantoned him for the pin & win. [*1/2]

----Jeff O’Dell comes out with Idol Bane and says that Derrick King is coming out to apologize for what he did a few weeks back. DK came out to a big pop. DK said he apologized, which shocked O’Dell and the fans were surprised. O’Dell then announced that on next Friday DK will wrestle Idol Bane in a “Love/Hate Match – No DQ/NO Limit”, which I guess is just a fancy name for a street fight. DK then accepted the bout and told O’Dell that he didn’t apologize earlier for what he HAD done, but apologized for THIS – and superkicked Bane. “The Golden Boy” Greg Anthony jumped in and they beat up DK until Brandon Espinosa made the save to set up the main event. Good TV.

----Dell Tucker beat Sgt. Savage. Nothing much wrong with this bout other than Savage is green as grass and probably is not ready to be in the ring. Tucker was calling all the spots in heat and Savage was trying. Savage should have been baby here as there were still people cheering him. He is from the area. I was looking forward to seeing the new Tucker heel persona, but he was baby here. [*1/2]

----Johnny Vinyl/Rockin Randy came out to call out Jeff O’Dell to talk to him about the “mystery” guy from last week. O’Dell went to explain that his name was Pappy and a “family member..his brother” let him out of the Hale County Institution. O’Dell announced that Pappy’s brother was “Psycho!!” and the crowd popped huge for his name. When Arnez/Pappy came out, there still wasn’t as big a pop as there was just for the Psycho announcement.

----“The Asylum” [Pappy/Arnez] beat by DQ Johnny Vinyl/Rockin Randy. Another solid match with nothing bad, nothing fantastic. Crowd got into the heat as Pappy took a pretty good beating. Arnez hot tag and Arnez was going for the win, when Pierre Abernathy jumped in and they beat the hell out of Arnez. Randy held a chair on his knee while Vinyl [pictured above] took another chair and jumped from the second rope slamming both chairs. Abernathy was on the mic during the whole time and was real good. By the time he left the ring, the crowd wanted to kill him. [**]

----Slim Pickens comes out to say that he will wrestle anyone in the dressing room. Flash Flanagan walks out and tells him that he will wrestle him. Flash says that the best thing that Flash could do is just walk back to the dressing room, because he was going to give him a beating. Flash mentioned that when he was a rookie he had to wrestle guys like Terry Gordy, Jerry Lawler, Bill Dundee and….Slim finally decided he want to wrestle Flash and his chest would have done better if he would have just went to the back. LOL

----Flash Flanagan beat Slim Pickens in the best bout of the night. This was close to being a squash with Flash giving Slim some comeback spots, but it was designed to get over the veteran pro vs the rookie. Good mat work on the start with Flash all over him. Flash hit a couple of real stiff chops. At one point, Flash picked him up Slim like he was going to do a “Razor’s Edge” on him, but then ran him into the turnbuckle. It looked nasty!! Flash took him outside the ring on both sides and was real stiff in front of the crowd. Slim might have taken too much of a beating here, because the fans were not chanting as much as I have heard them for Slim. Flash finished him off with Slim in the “tree of woe” and Flash jumped from the top turnbuckle [in the same corner as Slim was hanging] stomping Slim in the face. He then pinned him. [***]

----Derrick King/Brandon Espinosa [pictured below] beat Idol Bane/Greg Anthony. Good solid psychology. Espinosa has a good look, but still needs work. Bane seems to improve every time I see him. Espinosa took the heat, but probably took too much without getting many hope spots. At one point he came out of heat and did too much, before they cut him off. Espinosa was coming out of heat and tried an enzuguri and TGB ducked it. I marked out for that. Thank you!! Double down after a double closeline. Hot tag had DK all over the places with a few false finishes. Espinosa ended up pinning TGB with his finisher. TGB hit a sweet belly to belly during all of this also. [**1/2]

----55 in the building. They did some kind of gimmick where you get $2 off your ticket, so I am not sure about the gate…It was great to see Adrian Stratton and “Tombstone”. TLCW Commish Mark Tipton was in the crowd also… Gelistico, Espinosa,Vinyl and Abernathy are all from the St. Louis area. They have worked in this area before with ASWF. My fave of the group is Vinyl. Espinosa also has a good look and could turn into a good worker…O’Dell is a really good heel manager and would be good with any of the bigger companies in this area…Vinyl’s mic work was real good. He was also wearing a Liger T-shirt – that shirt was over with me. Randy and him make a good team and with the add of Abernathy to the mix, they are going to make a good heel three man tag vs Psycho, Arnez and Pappy…TGB/DK were arguing over who “Wrestler of the Year 2007” was. In an angle TGB is LAW “Wrestler of the Year”, but DK showed TGB and the crowd the front of Yearbook 2007 with his photo…LAW has another solid crew – I just wished they could draw more!!...Psycho was backstage.