----Well, hell froze over last night in Ripley, TN as Randy Hales returned to professional wrestling since leaving the business in 2001. Hales had noted on his 3rd Cheap Heat Radio appearance for the site that his interest in professional wrestling had returned. Hales had made first wrestling related appearance since 2001 for Gene Jackson on the 2.18.08 edition of Cheap Heat Radio. Gene commented last night on the message board, “Well, if nothing else ever becomes of Cheap Heat Radio, it can be said that it helped bring Randy Hales back to wrestling. He'll either thank me.......or hate me forever.”
----The show opened with Jimmy Tidwell coming out demanding to know who the “mystery guest” was going to be tonight. “Hot Topic” [Derrick King/Stan Lee] came out and DK promised they would know who the guest would be later in the show.
----“The Baron” Malkanvain beat Shannon Lee and Tim Alfonso in a handicap match. Not good – not bad. Baron has a great presence. Lee walked off on Alfonso and Baron beat Lee with his finisher. [*1/2]
----Ike Tucker beat Gladiator [without mask] by DQ, when Gladiator used his shield on him. The young guys need to watch the Tucker entrance and take note – it is so over with it. He has that connection with the crowd that so many babyfaces need to get over. Match started out good, but not much psychology. All moves were solid and fans were into it – because of Ike. It is scary what the response would have been if Ike would have took the basic beat down and comeback. [*]
----Dell Tucker/”The Golden Boy” Greg Anthony beat Reggie B Fine/Rockin Randy in solid match. Heat was on Reggie with a hot tag to Randy. Cody Melton interfered to cost Fine/Randy the match. [**]
----Albino Rhino destroyed ref Caleb in an angle. Rhino is carrying around the TLCW Title that he stole from Flash Flanagan.
----Chris O’Neal/Drew Donovan beat “The Asylum” [Pappy/Psycho] in an ok match. O’Neal is so over here. A little sloppy in the start, but was settled down with Pappy looking good with heat on O’Neal and hot tag to Drew. Psycho’s bumping looked a little “off” at times. Finish was good. [**]
----Derrick King/Stan Lee brings out Jimmy Tidwell with “Black Label Society” [Robbie Douglas/AJ Bradley] to announce the “mystery guest”. Randy Hales comes out and does an incredible interview. I felt at first the fans didn’t know what to think of Hales and some didn’t know who he was, but it didn’t take long after he talked on the mic. Hales is not a normal looking guy [I got a lot of room to talk; huh??]. He towers over everyone in the dressing room, but looks to weigh 120 lbs. I am guessing he weighs more, but he is a tall skinny guy. He was on the mic for about 5 minutes and the whole place was popping. He was over. This all goes back to things said by Jamie Dundee and Hales on Cheap Heat Radio about when someone is real – passionate about the business – then it comes across that way to the fans. After 10 minutes, Hales was the most over babyface of the promotion.
----“The Posse” [Simon Reed/Lil Chris] beat Idol Bane & Cody Melton. I did not see all of this bout, but Cody Melton took the pin. “Asylum” and Rocky Randy got involved in the match somehow.
----Flex beat Chris Rocker in a good solid match. This was the best bout of the night up to this bout. Perfect psychology with only about one “slipup” in the whole match. Flex pinned Rocker with a DVD to win the bout. [***]
----TLCW Tag Team Title Match: “Black Label Society” [AJ Bradley/Robbie Douglas] with Jimmy Tidwell vs “Hot Topic” [Derrick King/Stan Lee] with Randy Hales was declared no contest. AJ Bradley was flawless. He is so overlooked in this area. Robbie is still green in spots, but has a good look and people hate him. A good team. Hales was so “into it” outside the ring. Crowd was very hot during the whole match. The finish was all over the place. DK went for a superkick, but Gibson stopped him. Hales was getting punches in on William Gibson and Tidwell – the crowd was just so loud when he would swing his punches. He has these long skinny arms and he was winding them up – crowd was popping like crazy!! Bill Rush came in and ended up getting shitcanned along with Stan and DK. BLS/Tidwell ended up in the ring with Hales. They tore his shirt off [pictured] and whipped him with a belt. He had some bad whelps on this back. They tied Hales up in the ropes and Tidwell was going to stab him in the head with scissors, when DK made the save. DK did a great promo after the match almost in tears with Randy promising to come back next week to tag with them. [****] – solid execution, great storytelling and crowd was soooo hot!!
NOTES
----160+ in the building...Referees Bill Rush and William Gibson are both super over. More over than some of the workers…Tidwell did a good job in his role – on the mic and at ringside…Guys that got good responses when coming out: Rush, Gibson, O’Neal, Posse, Lee, DK, Flex, Ike, Tidwell, and BLS. Guys that are legit OVER – Rush, Gibson, DK, Lee, Tidwell and BLS. Matches that got the best reactions – TGB/Tucker vs Fine/Randy and main event. I say all that because it felt like the other matches were just thrown together and had no meaning…”Posse” beat “Too Kool 2” [Flex/Tim Grind] last night in Covington. “Posse”, Flex, Dell Tucker and TGB all did double duties.
THE FIGHT
----Robbie Douglas and Stan Lee exchanged some blows last night after the main event. It was over the fact that Douglas got opened up hardway with a chair during the last part of the bout. It was over within minutes, but a lot can be said about the incident, especially pertaining to indy wrestling as a whole. I will be posting something either late tomorrow or Tuesday because I talked with Stan Lee last night and Robbie today.
RANDY HALES VIDEO
----I am having some technical difficulties loading the video that I shot last night of the Hales interview. It is too large for youtube and problems going on Google, so I am actually loading it to the site server. I am going to try to have it up tomorrow afternoon sometime.
