Independent Wrestling - General Thread

[Necroyeti]

Hey guys. Since most (if not all) of the indy threads on here are all pretty much dead or dying from lack of posting, I thought it might be a good idea to free them from promotion-based pigeonholing and combine them into a general thread. This could also provide a neat place for discussing various other indies, and other random indy talk that doesn't necessarily warrant having its own thread.

Talk about whatever pops into your mind, whether it be random news, your favourite indy workers or an awesome match you just watched... anything. See if we can't get some good random discussions going.

[Necroyeti]

JAPW 3/26 - Low Ki vs. Sami Callihan



Such a brutal, stiff BATTLE, featuring two of the best indy workers in the business beating the absolute shit out of each other. Ki hits a running suicide Warriors Way out to the floor at one point. SICK! Everyone knows that Low Ki is awesome, but Sami Callihan is seriously in the running for breakout indy wrestler of the year. He's just been in so much good matches this year.

The only thing that really irks me about this match is the awful commentary and shit crowd. ****

[Necroyeti]

There's a FULL match on his week's Chikara Podcast-a-go-go: Dasher Hatfield & Sugar Dunkerton vs. Obariyon & Kodama.

A fun, short tag team match.

[Necroyeti]

Results from PWG's "FEAR" card. (quick c&p job)

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1. T.J. Perkins vs. Kenny King - went to a No Contest when the Taylors interfered.

2. Taylor Boys beat T.J. Perkins & Kenny King. Taylors won with a double-team Canadian Destroyer.

3. Roderick Strong beat Amazing Red with the Gibson Driver.

4. "Pretty" Peter Avalon & Ray Rosas & The Dynasty (Joey Ryan & Scorpio Sky) beat Famous B & Chris Kadillak & Candice LeRae & B-Boy, who made an unadvertised return to PWG, in an eight-person tag match. Sky hit a running knee and Joey hit a superkick on Candice for the win.

5. Willie Mack beat Chris Hero with the Chocolate Thunder Driver. Hero, who was not advertised for the show and is rumored to be heading to WWE, cut a promo afterward saying he wasn't sure if he was coming back to PWG or not, but PWG is home.

6. RockNES Monsters (Johnny Goodtime & Johnny Yuma) beat Future Shock (Adam Cole & Kyle O'Reilly). Goodtime hit a frogsplash for the win.

7. American Wolves (ROH World champion Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards) beat Super Smash Bros. (Player Uno & Stupefied). Wolves won with a lungblower into Achilles Lock by Edwards. Afterward, Richards endorsed SSB. It was a better match than expected.

8. PWG champion El Generico beat Dick Togo in a non-title match. Generico won with a top-rope Brainbuster suplex.

9. Super Dragon & Kevin Steen beat PWG tag champions Young Bucks in a Guerrilla Warfare match to capture the PWG Tag Titles. Dragon, who wrestled his first match in over three years, and Steen won with a combination Package Piledriver/Double Stomp.
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Now THIS is the kind of cards Ring of Honor should be putting on. I fucking love this company.

An interesting update on the status of Chris Hero to WWE, too!

[Necroyeti]

Dragon Gate USA are offering a free match download:

Rich Swann vs. Jon Davis (Untouchable 2011, 9/10/2011)

Necro's notes: Swann is a really good high flying flipz-n-spinz style wrestler - he can be a bit spotty, but I've been a big fan of his for a long while. Jon Davis is a fairly big-built powerhouse dude (by indy standards) who uses a lot of power maneuvers in his arsenal while also being deceptively agile - NWA fans will know him better as one half of Dark City Fight Club, but he's a guy that's been slowly winning me over on DGUSA and EVOLVE shows from this year. Neither man is really a "ZOMG HUEG INDY STAR" at this point, although they're definitely rising stars and I imagine that both men have bright futures ahead of them.

The match itself is an undercard match that runs about ten minutes, (sure, it's not like they can't give away main events for free!) and is a variation on the good old tried and tested "big man vs. little man" story. They sell this idea rather well, making it very much believable that the smaller man could pick up the victory at several points - especially towards the end when Swann just kept hitting Davis with a series of devastating moves (standing 450, ace crusher etc) for some nearfalls. Unlike many big vs little matches though which sees the power dude slowly grinding down the agile man for most of the match, this match is actually fairly exciting and back-and-forth for its majority. This is largely because Davis busts out some really cool shit of his own in the match for a man of his size. There's a really cool spot where Davis counters a 'rana into a turnbuckle powerbomb, and another in which he counters a small package into a fucking deadlift jackhammer!

For being a curtain jerker that doesn't run awfully long, this match tells a pretty great story... and it's a fairly exciting watch without being a meaningless spotfest. Worth the free download! - ***

[Kashdinero]

I haven't watched an Indy show in ages.

Evolve 5 was the last one, I think, but, man, as soon as the new year arrives, I'm buying every important event of 2011, and catching up big time.

This is the longest I've gone without buying a heap of pirated DVD's from my guy in years... #withdrawlsymptoms

Please, Necro, do ya' ol' buddy Kash a favour and hit me with a list of last years finest shows.

Obviously I'll be getting BOLA '11, King of Trio's, and all of the EVOLVE's that have come out since I've been slacking, but, I'm sure you could whip up a great top ten or something if you half tried

[Necroyeti]

Please, Necro, do ya' ol' buddy Kash a favour and hit me with a list of last years finest shows.

Obviously I'll be getting BOLA '11, King of Trio's, and all of the EVOLVE's that have come out since I've been slacking, but, I'm sure you could whip up a great top ten or something if you half tried

I'll give it a shot. A-Z:

AIW - Todd Pettengill Invitational 2011 - carrying on the TPI tradition from IWA-MS. It's not really a *fantastic* show in terms of match quality or workrate or anything, but it's fun and you'll probably love it if you're a tournament mark like me.

CHIKARA - Chikarasaurus Rex: King of Sequel (Both nights)

CHIKARA - High Noon - This was their first ever iPPV, and they crowned their first ever singles champion on the show after months of round-robin tournament action. Such a really well-booked show, with every match on the card having tons of story going into them and most of them telling a good story in the ring.

CZW - Best of the Best X - I do seem to watch far too many tournament shows.

CZW - Night of Infamy

DGUSA - Mercury Rising 2011

DGUSA - Freedom Fight 2011 (The one from November - I doubt it'll be on DVD yet though, and no-one seems to rip the iPPV streams for DG)

EVOLVE 9 - Fit Finlay vs. Sami Callihan is a legitimate contender for match of the year, and every other match on there is solid. (EVOLVE 8 from this year isn't very good though, they went for an eight-man tournament format and it just wasn't all that interesting)

PWG - DDT4 2011 - Has at least four ****+ tag team matches on there.

PWG - Steen Wolf - Mack vs. Richards < Young Bucks vs. Cole & O'Reilly < Generico vs Steen in a fucking LADDER match < SUPER DRAGON RETURNING.

I can't remember if you're into deathmatches or not, but if you are: don't bother with this year's TOD. CZW in general hasn't been so great this year, they've stuck the belt on Devon Moore and he's just the most unremarkable "underdog" champion ever.

I feel like I'm missing out some really important stuff. Shit, I'm sure I could have gotten away with listing all the PWG shows from this year.

I've really half-arsed this post, to be honest. I'll mention more stuff after Final Battle.

[Kashdinero]

Well, it never read like you were half arsing. Thanks, bruv.

I am a tournament mmmmmaaaarrrrkkk. I have every TPI there's ever been, BOTB I-VIII (can't wait to watch the last two! Double wrestlewood!), the first six or so Super 8's, TKOE (Nigel FTW), BOLA's, KOT's, all of the Super J Cups, and a whole lot more from the early/mid naughties from various Indy Feds performed in front of thirty fans tops (JPW J-Cup had awesome line up for their tourneys, but much like IWA-MS, they couldn't draw for shit!). I also miss the UFC's tournament style they used to do, but that's for another thread.

PWG have been awesome since day one. Their "home grown" talent have always owned, even their precursor Revolution Pro was great (in concept, mostly, as the Scorpio Sky's and Puma's were still very green).

Sami vs Fit. I've heard about it. Sami HAS to be a future player in this business, small stature or not.

[Necroyeti]

I actually forgot I uploaded Finlay vs. Sami Callihan for someone (SG?) earlier this year. Watch here or download here.

Tourney mark like me, eh? In that case, get wXw's 16 Carat Gold Tournament shows from this year as well. I've only seen a couple of matches from it that I got off of a blog, (Generico/Sekimoto, and Richards/Sabre Jr) but it's supposed to be amazing.

Speaking of wXw, they did a joint show with NOAH called Genesis in Germany that's just fucking awesome. All you need to know is that the main-events are KENTA/Hero, and Sugiura/Castagnoli

If you're into Dragon Gate (japan), their Kobe World Festival show was spectacular, having about four ****+ matches in a row. Talked about the last three matches here. The site I linked to that hosted it has been taken down now, but you can still watch it here. Watch from about 70 minutes onwards (it won't take three hours to watch BTW, you'll be fast-forwarding a LOT of filler between matches)

NJPW's Destruction show is also recommended, if only for the Tanahashi/Naito main event.

And I neglected to mention Ring of Honor, even if they technically aren't an indy anymore. Their best shows of the year are:
- Best in the World
- Both nights of Honor Takes Center Stage
- Supercard of Honor VI (The DVD-only shows, while still miles ahead of the HDNet and Sinclair product, generally haven't been recommendable this year since most of them have had really weak undercards. SoH6 is an exception)

Finally, refer to this post for individual matches I've thought have been awesome this year. Take note of how great PWG have been this year. The FCW TV show has also improved a lot this year.

There's a ton of stuff I simply haven't gotten around to yet though... such as most of CHIKARA and the DGUSA shows from June and September.

[jordan1995]

Check out big time wrestling they get quite a few ex wwe stars over there at the minute carlito is in a feud with slyc Wagner brown they had a good I quit match last week.

do you watch much OVW or NWA hollywood