BCW Crystal, MN 9/16/2011

Born Champions Wrestling returned to the Crystal Community Center for a Friday night of wrestling action. This nights main event was a cage match.
BCW champion Darin Corbin and the Entourage came out at the start of the card. Corbin got on the mic and talked about how bad Minnesota wrestling is and how it’s now his time to step to the top and knock off all the vets. “Playboy” Pete Huge came out to answer Corbin’s challenge. Huge has been wrestling in Minnesota for over 12 years.
In the first match Udo defeated Cameron Cross.
Arya Daivari & Judd Jennrich retained the BCW tag team title in a match against 3 other teams.
Craven Knyte pinned Arik Cannon (#200 in the 2011 PWI 500) in a #1 contender match. Fans at ring side were telling ref Rob Page that Knyte had his feet on the rope during the pin but Page didn’t have his glasses on so he didn’t see it.
Horace the Psychopath defeated Kamikaze Klecker.
Venom got revenge on his former 101 Proof partner Bret O’Brian with a 3 count. But it was a short revenge as O’Brian and a couple of thugs beat up Venom after the match.
BCW champion Darin Corbin (#294 in the 2011 PWI 500) defeated “Playboy” Pete Huge to retain his title. Corbin had some help from those same two thugs that helped O’Brian. Looks like Corbin’s stranglehold on the BCW belt continues.
In the main event Ryan Cruz defeated “6% body fat” Rob James in a cage to become the first BCW Rivals champion. Cruz gave James a top rope ‘boom shakalaka’ through a table to get the 3 count. I hate taking photos through a cage.
BCW is scheduled to return to the Crystal Community Center on November 18th.

MIW Spring Lake Park, MN 9/10/2011

After shooting ring side at an afternoon show I went home and ate dinner then headed north for an Minnesota Independent Wrestling event. MIW was at Biffs Sports Bar. A few years ago when they promoted at this same place the matches took place out side in a tent but this year they were inside. Four of the wrestler that were on the afternoon show were also on this show.
The show started out with MIW owner Terry Fox coming to the ring to tell the fans of the passing of Little Tokyo on September 6th at the age of 70. Fox then brought out Bad Boy Brian to say a few words about Little Tokyo. Then there was a 10 bell salute.
Little Tokyo (seen here from 1993 at a show in Columbia Heights, MN) was part of a match at Wrestlemania III.
Mitch Paradise did a Paradise Pit with Rob Ivy and James Jeffries. Paradise picked on Jeffries small size.
Mystik Sexton defeated Ann Brookstone with Paul Brewski by DQ. The DQ came when Brewski tripped Sexton.
Arya Daivari pinned El Bano after a magic carpet ride.
Ugly & Justin Decent defeated Rob Ivy & Mitch Paradise when Decent pinned Paradise. Ugly has been to MIW a few times before but this time he brought his tag team partner with him.
Horace the Psychopath defeated Chris Jordan.
MIW champion “Playboy” Pete Huge defeated James Jeffries to retain the title. Jeffries kick out after one G-Spot from Huge but couldn’t kick out after the second one.
Mystik Sexton & Bad Boy Brian defeated Ann Brookstone & “All Star” Paul Brewski. This match was made by Terry Fox after the ladies match earlier in the card.

PWA Inver Grove Heights, MN 9/10/2011

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon Pro Wrestling America had an event as part of Inver Grove Heights Days at Drkula’s bowling ally. The wrestling took place outside under a tent. This was my first time at this annual PWA event.
In the first match Rob Ivy and his mustache defeated Tommy “Spiderbaby” Saturday. Ivy was being held by Spiderbaby’s manager Nick Mason. Ivy moved and Spiderbaby hit Mason which lead to Ivy rolling up Spiderbaby for the pin.
Chiropractor DC defeated Luther Wilson III. This was my first time seeing Wilson in action.
Mystik Sexton defeated Ann Brookstone and Starla Love in a handicap match. I think this was suppose to be a one on one match but Love got in the ring a lot so it was pretty much a handicap match.
Horace the Psychopath pinned The Brauler. Before the match started The Brauler went out into crowd to yell at a guy who was talking on his cell phone. The Brauler took the phone away and broke it. I think he did the guy a favor as he was still using a flip phone. Time to up grade.
Udo defeated Mitch Paradise to become the new PWA heavy weight champion! Paradise’s manager, The Professor, had the ref distracted when Paradise had Udo pinned after a superplex. As Paradise was yelling at the Professor, Udo rolled up Paradise for the 3 count.
The Honky Tonk Man & Buck “Rock n Roll” Zumhofe defeated Lenny Lane & Billy Blaze in a retirement match. At the beginning of the show Lane made the stipulation that if his team lost then he would retire and if the other guys lost then Zumhofe would retire. HTM hit the shake rattle & roll on Lane and got the 3 count to send Lane into retirement.

F1rst Wrestling Minneapolis, MN 7/8/2011

F1rst Wrestling was back at First Ave on Friday July 8th. It was over a year since the last F1rst Wrestling show. This show was called The Return: 2011. As I predicted two blogs ago the return was referee Ricky Reed as he made his way back to MN for this event.
The Northstar Express (Darin Corbin & Ryan Cruz) defeated The Kentucky Buffet (Alex Castle & Matt Cage) in the opening contest. The Kentucky Buffet were just two of the many wrestlers making their F1rst Wrestling debut.
Davey Vega defeated Gary Jay after a top turn buckle brain buster. I’m sure that move has some special name but I don’t know what it is. This was Vega’s F1rst debut match.
Mat Fitchett defeated Johnny Gargano, Arya Daivari and Arik Cannon in some kind of 4 way match. Fitchett did a shooting star press on to Gargano to get the win.
The Submission Squad (Evan Gelistico & Pierre Abernathy)defeated Udo & Venom.
Mason Conrad pinned Calypso. My first time seeing both of these guys. Calypso brought a toy monkey to the ring with him and he got a bloody nose during the match.
Midwest Ground & Air (Benjamin Sailer & Nate Bash) defeated The Misfits ( Aaron Corbin & John Johnson.
In the main event Horace the Psychopath & Arik Cannon defeated Rob James & Pete Huge in some kind of hard core match. They wrestled all over First Ave and used all kinds of weapons including some kind of sex toy that James got from a fan for his birthday. Hope I don’t have to wait another year before the next F1rst Wrestling show.

BCW Crystal, MN 6/10/2011

I took the summer off from this blog. Heck I pretty much took the summer off from ring side as I was only at two wrestling events during the months of June, July and August. But now fall is here and it’s getting colder outside so I’m going to play catch up starting with a Born Champions Wrestling card that took place on June 10 at the Crystal community center. This was the first BCW show in while as the last one that was scheduled in the winter was canceled because of a snow storm.
In the opening match “The Popular” Nate Bash defeated Kamikazi Klecker.
The Patriot III defeated Cameron Cross after a big splash.
Craven Knyte defeated Udo.
“The Anarchist” Arik Cannon defeated The Prophet.
Arya Daivari & Judd Jennrich defeated Bret O’Brian & Venom (101 Proof) to become the new BCW tag team champions. After the match O’Brian turned on Venom.
BCW heavy weight champion Darin Corbin retained his belt against “6% body fat” Rob James and Ryan Cruz in a TCL match. Cruz was actually the one to get the belt down from the ladder but referee Rob Page was knocked out. When Page came to he saw Corbin with the belt and declared Corbin the winner.

F1rst Wrestling returns 2011

It’s been almost one full year since F1rst Wrestling last had an show. Finally, a date will be announced soon to when the next F1rst Wrestling card will be at First Avenue night club. First Ave is my favorite venue for indy pro wrestling so it’s great to see F1rst wrestling return there. F1rst Wrestling has presented three other cards titled “Return” that have featured wrestlers returning to F1rst Wrestling/Minneapolis. Will The Return ‘11 be the same? Could we see the return of Colt Cabana who was on the first F1rst Wrestling card? Maybe M-Dogg 20 Matt Cross, most recently seen on WWE’s Tough Enough, could return. It could be Cody O’Neill who could be making his return. It might be the return of referee Ricky Reed. Or does “The Return ‘11” just mean the return of F1rst wrestling? Check out F1rst Wrestling’s Facebook for up coming announcements about The Return ‘11.
The Return 09 (6/19/09) was a really big event for F1rst Wrestling as it was main evented with a match between home town guys Jerry Lynn and Sean Waltman.
The Return 08 (6/20/08) featured a few returns to F1rst Wrestling. Austin Aries returned to the Minneapolis area as he teamed with Rob James to take on The Northstar Express. The next return was Horace The Psychopath who came out to Arik Cannon’s open challenge. Horace had been gone from F1rst Wrestling since July 2007. The third return of the night was Chris Jordan as he came out as Pete Huge’s partner in a match against Midwest Ground & Air. On F1rst Wrestling’s second card Jordon lost a loser leaves wrestling match to his Junk Squad partner Pete Huge so it was a big surprise to see him come back to reform the Junk Squad.
The Return 07 (6/17/07) was the third F1rst Wrestling show and featured the return of Kid Krazy in a match against Tyler Black. Krazy had recently moved to California but returned for one more match in Minnesota. In California Krazy wrestled some for Pro Wrestling Gorilla but now he is mostly retired from wrestling. Black now wrestles for the WWE developmental promotion Florida Championship Wrestling as Seth Rollins.

R.I.P. Alex Whybrow AKA "Sweet & Sour" Larry Sweeney

Various pro wrestling news sites reported today that Alex Whybrow, AKA "Sweet & Sour" Larry Sweeney died today at the age of 29. Sweeney trained at the Chikara Wrestle Factory and went on to wrestle and manage for Ring of Honor.

I first saw Larry Sweeney back in April of 2005 when he came to Midwest Pro Wrestling.  He was there with other members of Chikara to take on MPW in the "World Series of Wrestling". This was a best of seven match series pitting wrestlers from MPW against wrestlers from Chikara. Sweeney won his match against The Punisher (now known as Rob James).

Sweeney retuned to Minnesota in June 2006, this time for Northern Impact Wrestling's Impact Invitational. In the first round of the tournament Sweeney lost his ICW-ICWA Texarkana TV title to Darin Corbin. Corbin then lost the title to Cody O'Neill at intermission as the ICW-ICWA Texarkana TV title is defended under 24/7 rules. O'Neill then lost the belt to referee Bryce Rumsberg seconds later. The title changed hands a few more times that weekend but Sweeney won the belt back before leaving the Midwest. Sweeney was a very entertaining performer.

The Wrestler with John Cena on the cover.

The current issue of The Wrestler/Inside Wrestling vol 39 is now on news stands and it features a cover photo of John Cena. I took that photo of Cena at the Target Center back on February 4th, 2011. I have a few other photos inside the magazine but there are a few photos that are credited to me that I did not take. The ones of Daniel Bryan and Gail Kim were not my photos. Run, don't walk to a local news stand to pick up this issue which also features an interview with WWE hall of famer Road Warrior Animal.

HOW Duluth, MN 3/26/2011

 Blogger has changed the formatting of of the blogs so I've been having a hard time getting this to work like I want it to. If I can't get it to work this may be my last post.With that said, here are the results of the Heavy On Wrestling show from last Saturday at the DECC in Duluth, MN.


 "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan defeated "The Anarchist" Arik Cannon. U.S.A....U.S.A...Hoooooooe!



 Heavy On Wrestling started a HOW Hall of Fame. The first inductees were Joann Sabick (HOW promoter David Sabicks late grandmother), Mae Young, Joyce Grable, Bill & Scott Irwin, Buck Zumhofe and The Honky Tonk Man.

 Heather Zumhofe defeated Ann Brookstone and Mystik in a triple threat match with Lita as special guest referee. Joyce Grable managed Brookstone in this match.

 "Wild" Bill Irwin came to the ring to be inducted into the HOW Hall of Fame. He was inturupted by The Black Stallion. The two wrestled for  a while but Stallion left the ring as Irwin got the better of him.

Heavy D & Dirty Dick Sawyer defeated the Barking Spiders (Ox & Clutch) in a hard core match. Before the match Heavy D was arrested by Officer Mark Barker because he was intoxicated. After a few minutes of the Barking Spiders beating the crap out of Sawyer the Spiders grabbed two of Heavy D's younger brothers out of the crowd and beat up on them. Heavy D returned to the ring with Barker in a shopping cart.  Heavy D got the win after he hit Ox with his own brothers prosthetic leg.

 The Honky Tonk Man defeated "Rock N Roll" Buck Zunhofe. Before the match Zumhofe talked about how mad he was that HTM stole his act. HTM won with a roll up after a shot to Zumhofe's nuts.

 The main event for the night was three way for the HOW heavy weight championship. Champion Benjamin Sailer faced off against Nate Bash and Lance Hoyt. Before the match started Sunny came out to say that she was going to manage the champion. Sailer go the win after he suplexed Hoyt over Bash and then pinned Bash.

Benjamin Sailer after retaining the HOW heavy weight championship with his manager for the match, Sunny.