3XW Des Moines, IA 5/20/2006

I made a trip down to Des Moines, IA for the monthy 3XW card. They had to move the event to a new location because the old place, $1 Fitness had to move out of their building. The new location was the Des Moines Central Campus High School. I like this type of venue rather then an armory.
The 3XW cruiserweight title was defended in the opening match as Arik Cannon but the belt on the line against Jaysin Strife. As the match began Matty Fitness put himself in the match to make it a 3 way. Matty picked the right match to put himself into as he ended put putting Cannon down for the 3 count after Cannon eliminated Strife. New 3XW cruiserweight champion-Matty Fitness.
Brain Ash beat Tony Sly.
The 3XW tag team champions Devin Carter & Casanova were set to defend their titles against Benjamin Sailer and a mystery partner. Sailers regular partner Nate Bash was in Belle Plain, MN defending his MPW cruiserweight title so Sailer brought in Kid Krazy. Like the cruiser weight title match that started the event some wrestlers wanted into the match. First The Northstar Express came out to get into the action then Tony Scarpone and his cousin Mikey came out to make it a 4 team elimination tag title match. The first team eliminated was The Northstar Express. Then Sailer pinned Mikey. As Sailer & Krazy celebrated they were low blowed by the champs and rolled up for the pin. Carter & Casanova are still the champs.
Gage Octane beat In the second 3 way match of the night Jeremy Wyatt beat Babyface and Vin Cross as he pinned Babyface. Yes that's right, his name is Babyface. Here were two more wrestlers that I photographed for the first time, Babyface and Wyatt who are both from the central states as well.
Egotistical Fantastico retained the 3XW heavyweight title by beating Austin Bayless. A new faction was formed at the beginning of the night as one of the 3XW promoters, Dave Anderson seen at the bottom right of this photo in the blue shirt, joined with Brian Ash, Gage Octane and rookie Austin Bayless. They called themselfs the Blue Chippers and demanded that they get a title shot with EGO. Commissoner Todd Countryman gave them a title shot but with Bayless getting the match against EGO. Even with the aid of Octane and Ash Bayless was not able to get the win and EGO held on to his belt.
Next month 3XW has Jerry Lynn coming in to take on Gage Octane. Lynn was active in the Minneapolis area back when I started taking photos. Here is one of my photos of Lynn Vs Horace the Psycopath from Aldrich Arena St. Paul, MN 7/24/93. These two had some great matchs back then and it would be great to see them in a match again. This image is from a scan of a film print, man, I love digital.

NIW 5/7/2006 Amery, WI

Northern Impact Wrestling returned to the Northstar Event Center in Amery, WI on May 7th, 2006. I had fun on the hour + drive to Amery as Frosty Ann-Thraxx and I stopped along the way to take photos with statues.
Here's Ann-Thraxx putting the 3XW womans belt on the new champ, Lady Liberty.
The first match on the card was a gauntlet tag match for the NIW tag team titles. The first team out was The Featured Attraction, To Gloccs and Vinnie Devine. The next team to come out was Malikite...ummm with no partner. The Featured Attraction won.
Next team out was 101 Proof, Venom & Bret O'Brian. They beat The Featured Attraction to move on to the tag team champs.
The NIW tag team champs Dano Tep & Trent Jones w/Ann-Thraxx held on to their belts in the last match of the gauntlet.
The second match of the card was a triple threat for the the NIW Impact championship. The champion The Prophet retained the title against Arik Cannon and The Punisher Rob James. But it took both The Prophet and The Punisher to pin Cannon.
In his first singles match since his return to wrestling Horace the Psychopath beat Kid Krazy, with a little help from his Junk Squad team mates.
Ben Sailer had a rematch with the NIW champion Al B.C. Sailer had Al tapping out but The Boss was distracting the ref. This gave Al the chance to hit Sailer with the title belt and to put on a sleeper hold.
The feud between the Junk Squad and The Northstar Express continued as they battled in a no holds barred match. Once again the Junk Squad used their handcuffs, this time they cuffed Dairn Corbin as they finished off Ryan Cruz. At the end of the match the whole locker room cleared out and the big man Venom did a dive on to everyone.