SDW Lakeville, MN 5/1/2010

This past Saturday night at the Lakeville South high school Steel Domain Wrestling returned to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area for the first time in over 5 years. Promoter Ed Hellier put on this "One Night Only" event for the Lakeville, MN high schools to raise funds for the grade 9 sports.
The first match of the night was a tag team match between coaches from Lakeville North and Lakeville South. The team from Lakeville North won the match and a trophy.

After the tag team match Mick Karch and Ed Hellier did a TV taping opening. Karch then introduced George Schire who then introduced The High Flyers, Greg Gagne & "Jumping" Jim Brunzell. As Gagne and Brunzell were reliving their past as AWA tag team champions they were interrupted by Mitch Paradise & Adrian Lynch.

In the official first match of the night Brain Ash defeated Gage Octane. The last time I saw these two wrestle was October 2007 in a looser leaves 3XW match. Ash lost that match and left the ring for over 2 years.

Mitch Paradise & Adrian Lynch defeated Horace the Psychopath & Red Lighting. Ann Brookstone was the referee for this match.

After the match Lynch got on the mic and called out Greg Gagne. Lynch said Greg was old and a coward. Gagne came to the ring showing now fear and he was attacked by Paradise while Lynch distracted him. Gagne got the upper hand by giving Lynch a back body drop and a drop kick to Paradise's face. Growing up I was a big fan of the High Flyers and really liked their drop kicks. It was quit a thrill to be at ring side photographing a Gagne drop kick. If you've ever seen the movie The Wrestler staring Vern Gagne you know that no one gets up after a Gagne drop kick.

Two former ROH champions faced each other in the next match. Jerry Lynn got the 3 count on Austin Aries after a cradle piledriver.

Former SDW wrestler Primetime defeated "The Law" Mark Barker in his first SDW match.

Two more wrestlers making their SDW debuts competed in the next match. Chadwick Wentworth the 3rd defeated Cpl. Julio Julio.

In the semi main event WWE's Bam Neeley (Magnus Maximus in SDW) took on current NWA heavy weight champion "Scrap Iron" Adam Pearce for the vacated SDW championship. Neeley got Pearce to put the NWA belt on the line for this match. During the match Neeley tossed Pearce over the top rope and according to NWA rules that is a DQ so the NWA title stayed with Pearce.

Bam Neeley got the 3 count on Adam Pearce after this move pictured above.

Senior SDW referee Jay Soltis raising new SDW champion Bam Neeley's hand after the match.

The main event for the night was a lumber jack/hair cut match. Representing Lakeville North was "Playboy" Pete Huge with Austin Aries leading the North football players/lumber jacks out side the ring. Lakeville South was represented by Brody Hoofer in the ring and Jerry Lynn on the outside. The coach of the loosing side would have to have his head shaved after the match. Hoofer got the win for Lakeville South but in heel fashion the coach from Lakeville North made one of his football players get his hair cut instead.

Magnus Maximus AKA WWE's Bam Neely

Before he cam out on ECW as Chavo Guerrero's bodyguard named Bam Neely (and before he was in OVW as Justin "The Ox" laRouche) he was known as Magnus Maximus on the MN indy wrestling scene.

The photos here are from 2005/2006 when Magnus made his return to wrestling after a few years off. The second photo is from MPW at First Ave against Rob Ivy on 12/27/05. The last photo is from Neo Pro in Faribuilt, MN against Sammy Savard on 1/15/2006. A late congratulations goes out to Magnus on making it to the big stage.

Check out some of the links that I have on the side of my photoblog. There are links for some great photos on the the west (Shane M Kidder) and east (Christine Coons) coast and one who covers the womans indy wrestling scene(Wrestling Wally). Also linked is a blog by Dr. Darin Davis. He is a former indy wrestler out of the MN area who has done some blogs about Bam Neely with some videos of his old matchs. Be sure to check out Josh Ray's Missouri Wrestling Revival. Ray covers all the indy wrestling in the central states area with his awesome blog.

Congrats!

Recently 3 wrestlers from the midwest have been given developmental contracts from the WWE to work in either OVW or Deep South.

From Minneapolis, MN is Magnus Maximus. After an injury and some time off he return this year in hopes of getting to the WWE. He has wrestled mainly for MPW and Neo Pro/NPW.
Robert 'Egotistical Fantastical' Anthony comes from Chicago, IL. He wrestles with the mask in 3XW, M1W and AAW and he wrestles without the mask in other promotions.
The third man to get the conctract, Keith Walker, AKA Mike Venom, is also from Chicago. Promotions Walker has worked for in the recently are AAW, M1W and WLW. Walker has also recently wrestled in Japan for NOAH.
Another indy worker who recently got a contract from the WWE is Cluadio Castagnoli. He's not from the midwest or even the US. Claudio is from Schaffhausen, Switzerland but he has been wrestling in the United States for the past coulple of years and has made it to the midwest a number of time for IWA MS, MPW, ROH and others. The photo here is from the first World Series of Wrestling when Cluadio wrestled for Chikara against MPW's Casanova.

NPW VS NIW world series of wrestling West St. Pual, MN 11/4/2006

From the National Guard Armory in West St. Paul, Mn two fueding promotions faced off in a best of 7 'World Series of Wrestling'. This was the second of such events to be held in MN as the first one was held in April of 2005 when Midwest Pro Wrestling lost to Chikara of PA. That WSoW was in the name of good sportsmanship but his one between Northstar Premeir Wrestling and Norhtern Impact Wrestling was to settle a fued that started earlier this summer when NPW head John Johnson invaded NIW. For this WSoW both promtions picked 5 singles and two tag teams (one being a 4 man tag team) for the seven matches.
Darin Corbin(NIW) beat his brother Aaron Corbin (NPW) to make the score NIW 1 NPW 0.
Tony DeNucci (NPW) beat Kamikazi Klecker (NPW) and Venom (NIW) to even up the score at 1 each. This match started out as Klecker VS Venom but DeNucci didn't like the idea that Klecker was representing NPW so he put himself in the match.
Mitch Paradise (NPW) pinned Nate Bash (NIW) to make put NPW head 2 to 1.
The Junk Squad (NIW) and The Big Guns (NPW) battled to a double DQ as both teams used chairs. The score was still NPW 2 NIW 1.
NPW cruiserweight champion JB Trask retained his title against NIW's Rob James. NPW 3 NIW 1.
NIW Universal champion Kid Krazy beat Joey Envy (NPW) to make the score NPW 3 NIW 2.
The final match was a 8 man survivior match with team NIW (The Prophet, Ryan Cruz, Horace the Psycopath and Arik Cannon) VS team NPW (Black Stallion, Cody O'Neill, Magnus Maximus and John Johnson). Team NIW won when Arik Cannon pinned John Johnson after two refs were knocked out and powder and fire was used and Nora 'Molly Holly' Greenwald made the 3 count. The WSoW ended in a 3/3 tie.
After making the 3 count in the final match Nora gave the C.E.O. a stone cold stunner.

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.

Neo Pro Fairbult, MN 4/9/2006

At the Neo Pro arena on a beautiful Sunday afternoon Neo Pro Wrestling promoted a card that featured the return of TNA and ROH wrestler Austin Aries.
Kamakazi Klecker & Corey O'Neill beat Neo Pro crusierweight champion Joey Envy & Casanova in a tag team match. It was Klecker who got the pin on Joey Envy.

Austin Aries came out to address the fans in Fairbult. I'm guessing that about 90% of the crowd of 86 have never seen Aries live.

Magnus Maximus beat Kid Krazy. Krazy has been putting on some muscle in the last few months and in turn he has been facing more heavyweights but he still has a ways to go to be as big as Magnus.

The Black Stallion was suppose to defend his Neo Pro heavyweight title against Tommy Gunn but Gunn was injured from a car crash. Gunn and his tag team partner Big Daddy Hoofer attacked Stallion. John Johnson came out to make the save and that set up the next match of Hoofer Vs Johnson. Hoofer beat Johnson with a little help from Gunn.

Shimdog Vs Aaron Corbin ended in a DQ for Shimdog when Prettyboooooy Delgado made his return to wrestling and helped Shimdog beat down Corbin. Delgado left the MN indy scene about 2 years ago when he was part of MPW's New Generation with Cody O'Neill and Aaron Corbin.

The match was advertised as a 30 minute ironman match but it turned into a regular 1 fall match. Austin Aries beat the crowd favorite Cody O'Neill.

MPW 3/28/2006 Minneapolis, MN

From First Ave in Minneapolis, MN Midwest Pro Wrestling presented 7 matches on this last Tuesday night of March 2006. With my wife at 3 days past the due date of our baby she still didn't feel it happening yet so with her blessing I went to the monthly MPW card.
In the opening match Tony Money beat Craven Knyte. These two are some of the newest MPW academy trainees and have, I believe, lest then 5 matches between both of them. They both have different gear since the last time they wrestled. Knight lost the tank top he used to wear and it looks like he got rid of the moon boots. In Money's first match he didn't even have gear so it's great to see him look like a wrestler this time.
In the second match of the night it was Germany Vs the U.S.A. as The Asylum wrestled Corp. Alexander. This was Alexander's First Ave debut and only the third time I've seen him wrestle. The first two times he wrestled as Roman Dinari. Now he is a 'war vet'. The Asylum picked up the win with a little help from his manager Vinnie Banks.
Big Daddy Hoofer beat Chris Jordan.
Mitch Paradise beat Kid Krazy in a rematch from 2 months ago. This time Krazy didn't bleed. Go to Kid Krazy's myspace page to message him to let him know you want to buy his dvd.
Rain was to face Jessica Dalton in a lumberjack match but Dalton no showed. Not sure whats going on with Dalton but she missed the last two cards she was scheduled on here in this area. With Dalton out of the match The Big Bad Booty Daddy happily took her place. Rain beat BBBD with a lung blower after he got a little too fresh with her.
Magnus Maximus beat 'Playboy' Pete Huge.
MPW cruiserweight champion Nate Bash defeated Zero Kincade. I was disappointed with the lack of respect some wrestlers in the crowd showed this match.

Neo Pro 3/4/2006 Fairlbult, MN

From the Neo Pro arena a Saturday show was presented on 3/4/2006.
The cruiserweight title was on the line in the first match of the night as Joey E took on Cory O'Neill and Kamakazi Klecker in a 3 way dance. Joey E retained his title by pinning Klecker.
Magnus Maximus beat 'Playboy' Pete Huge.
Chris Jordan and Cody O'Neill wrestled a 2 out of 3 falls match as thier tag team fued crossed over to a singles match. Cody got the best of Jordan when he made him tap out for the first fall, Jordan got a pin and then Cody hit his series for the final pin. I've heard really good things about this match from those who watched it.
The Black Stallion kept his Neo Pro heavyweight title when he got himself DQ'ed by hitting Big Daddy Hoofer.
Some tag team match was the main event but I couldn't see who was in it because the ref was always in my way.