One year ago today, the end of MPW

The first photo here is from June 25th, 2005. The last match had ended from the 'monthy' Saturday show at the MPW arena when Terry Klinger AKA Sheriff Johnny Emerald, MPW owner, called all the wrestlers down to the ring and most of the 25 fans were still in the building. As wrestlers were leaving the locker room they were wondering what Sheriff was calling them out for. One of the wrestlers thought that maybe he was going to thank them for putting on a great show even though there were so few fans there. Once all the wrestlers were out of the locker room and around ther ring Sheriff told everyone there that MPW was closing the doors for good after the show tomorrow night. This was the first that any of the workers had heard of it and it had nothing to do with the low attendance that night as it was something that Sheriff had planned for a while. He said that he was done with promoting shows but he was still going to have a training center that would be opening up in 2 months. Upon hearing that the next show would be the last Arik Cannon, then the booker for MPW, started making the matches for the next night which would be a free fan appriciation show.
Once again we see Sheriff in the ring but this time with a much bigger audiance as the fans of indy pro wrestling in the Minneapolis area came to this free show to say good bye to MPW. The stands were actually fuller the what is seen here as this was at the end of a very long show. There were 12 matches in all as they tried to get everyone on the current roster in a match. Two trainees even had their first match on this show. A dvd of this event can be purchased from Arik Cannon at his web site.

ROH Chicago Ridge, IL 6/24/2006

On Saturday June 26, 2006 I photographed my first Ring Of Honor card in over a year. I missed 3 shows in the last year becaues for weddings, babies and something else I can't remember. These ROH events are always fun to photograph.
The official card stared off with tag team action as the Irish Airborne beat Shane Hagadorn and Trik Davis. My first time seeing Irish Airborne and Hagadorn.
Up next was Jimmy Jacobs w/Lacey vs Rodrick Strong. In the photo here you can see fans holding up their cell phones as they sway to Jimmy's entrance music as if they were holding up their lighters to Freebird. If you want to hear the song or view the video go to Jimmy's myspace group. What a great song.
In the match Jimmy lost to Roderick Strong after a bunch of back breakers.
WOW, that's a lot of toilet paper. I had read how the ROH fans has been throwing but man that was a lot of toilet paper as seen in this next photo.So after all this toilet paper was thrown for Jimmy Rave and CK III they lost to the now much bigger Briscoe brothers.
Somoa Joe beat Delirious.
After Somoa Joe got the win he was attacked by some wrestlers from CZW, The Necro Butcher and Claudio Castagnoli. BJ Whitmer and Adam Pierce came out to even up the odds and they were followed by another CZW wrestler, Nater Webb. Ace Steel ran out to make it a 6 man hardcore match. The CZW team won after The Necro Butcher place the barb wire crown on BJ and he went down for the 3 count. This was one match that was scary to be around ring side.
Nigal McGinnis retained his ROH pure wrestling title against Homocide as they were both counted out after the 20 count by the ref. The fans were not happy with that ending.
The first co-main event of the card was Austin Aries VS KENTA. This was my second time photographing a KENTA match as the first was at Korekuen Hall in Tokyo against Kenta Kobashi. KENTA beat Aries with my favorite finishing move, Go to Sleep.
Three years ago on June 28th, 2003 Austin Aries wrestled Shawn Daivari in South St. Paul in the RAIN! Even in the rain Aries got up on the top rope and did this move. He also did a 360 splash from the top.
The other co-main event was for the ROH world title as champion Bryan Danielson beat Colt Cabana with a small package.

NIW 6/9/2006 Crystal, MN

From the Crystal Ballroom in Crystal, MN Northern Impact Wrestling presented a night of wrestling on June 9th, 2006. NIW had a double shot this weekend as they get ready for the NIW Impact Invitational a the end of the month.
The card started off with a 3 way between Ryan Cruz, Malikite and Trent Jones. Ryan Cruz proved to be the better man in this contest as he pinned Malikite.
In the second match of the night Pete Huge of the Junk Squad took on Venom. The big man started off by eating a hot dog and drinking a beer but it was not enough to beat the more experenced Huge as he went down for the 3 count after the G-Spot for real.
In tag team action the Featured Attraction beat The Bad Man and Benjamin Sailer. Go buy Sailers new t-shirt.
After the match The Big Gunns, Tommy Gunn and Big Daddy Hoofer, came out to challenge the Featured Attraction to a match the next night in Amery, WI. This was The Big Gunns first appearance in NIW.
Darin Corbin got a shot at the NIW IMPACT championship title as he wrestled the champ The Prophet. I camera was being a real jerk during this match but after playing with it for a while I was able to get back to ring side to take some photos of this great match. The Prophet retained the title.
Cody O'Neill picked up a win over Arik Cannon. I think he had a little help from the ring ropes but I'm not sure. It would be interesting to know what the win/lose record is between these two.
The main event was a tag team match between Junk Squad members Chris Jordan & Horace the Psycopath and Kid Krazy & Rain. Kid Krazy tried to take on Jordan and Horace all by himself as he didn't want Rain to get in the ring and wrestle these two Junk Squad members. But eventually Rain tagged but she probly wishes she didn't now. I've heard that she recieved some injuries from this match. The match ended when Jordan pinned Rain while Krazy was hand cuffed to the ring post.
Check out Vol 8 of The Wrestler/Inside Wrestling as I have 2 photos of Egotistical Fantastico in the mag.

Neo Pro West St Paul 6/3/2006

Neo Pro wrestling brought indy pro wrestling back to the West St Paul armory. If I'm correct the last time they had pro wrestling in the building that Steel Domain Wrestling (SDW) built was on Easter Sunday 2004 for that Lucha show I wrote about here back on April 11th . Neo Pro brought their Neo Rumble match to thise venue which is a 40+ man 2 ring battle royal rumble style. The other five matches were able to use both rings as well.
The card started off hot with a 3 way dance, or maybe it was a triple threat match, I'm not sure but it was for the Neo Pro cruiserweight title which was held by Kamikazi Klecker. Kid Krazy and Aaron Corbin were the other two in this match and it was Kid Krazy who ended the match with a pin on Klecker. Kid Krazy has more copies of his dvd availible on his myspace so click here to go order one.
The next match of the night was Tony DeNucci Vs Mason Quinn. It's been awhile since Quinn has been in a MN ring. He came to the ring with his old manager AJ Fontana but his manager wasn't enough to beat DeNucci. There was a Mecury 1 title match between the champion Skull Crusher and the challenger Cooter. No photos from this match.
The O'Neill twins defended their Neo Pro tag titles against the Young Stars, Shimdog and Joey Envy. They Young stars have been a tag team on and off for about 4 years so the name may not fit them anymore. The O'Neill twins held on to their belts in the end by giving Shimdog a double spanish fly.
Magnus Maximus was suppose to take on the Neo Pro champion The Black Stallion but the Stallion was injured so commish Dolan made a match with Magnus against John Johnson. Magnus won this match with a boston crab.
I have no idea how many wrestlers were actually in this Neo Rumble but it was a lot. The winner of the rumble was Magnus Maximus and he gets a title shot at any of 4 titles from the 4 different promotions involved in this card which incluced Neo Pro, FLWA, AWF and Mercury 1.
It was nice to see a good turn out for this card.