I will start with the latest. Friday, December 30th IWA Midsouth hosted the 2005 Revolution Strong Style Tournament at the Streamwood, Illinois Park District Rec Center. Little did I know that it would be an eight hour round trip. Thankfully, it was with possibly the most entertaining friends on the planet, so we spent most of the time talking wrestling, “guy things” and cutting promos on everything and everyone. For those tape collectors out there, you may want to refresh yourself on some early 1997 PPV action called by the immortal Dusty Rhoades, where he gets excited by particle board. I learned that I lack any kind of street cred, since it took me a few seconds to realize that “Wangs and Thangs” was not a Chinese restaurant. Apparently it is more like buffalo wings.

But I am getting off track. IWA’s strong style tournament is kind of a mix between the immortal Ted Petty Invitational and the King of the Death Matches. It is not an ultra-violent beat down fest with light tubes broken over people’s heads, yet neither is it a showcase of technical and high flier skills from the top independent wrestlers. For those of you who don’t know, strong style is of Japanese origin, where the wrestlers are more physical with each other, and therefore more likely to get hurt.

For me, it was exciting because I would be front row to see Samoa Joe in potentially up to three matches in one night, if he managed to win his matches in the tournament. The hype for the show was the potential (within the bracketing) of a rematch between Samoa Joe and the Necro Butcher in the finals. Not all goes as planned. After a good but short match against Tank where Samoa Joe won by tap out, Samoa Joe came back out later to inform the crowd that he had hurt his ankle during the match and would be unable to continue. That gave Chris Hero a buy into the finals.

As good as that match was, possibly the best match of the tournament was Necro Butcher vs. Eddie Kingston. If you have any question as to the toughness and willingness to work of Eddie Kingston, you have to see this match. While he did not succeed in winning, Kingston took a remarkable beating before losing out. It is the reason to pick up the tournament on video. Also, for the juggalos, Corporal Robinson put on a tremendous but losing effort against the returning ROH semi-regular BJ Whitmer. Corporal Robinson may just be one of the most under-rated workers out there.

Along with the tournament itself, there were several secondary matches to fill out the card and carry storylines. Among them was the Chris Candido memorial strong style comedy match. It was a triple threat match between Delirious, Colt Cabana, and Sweet and Sour Larry Sweeney. Sweeney’s ICW/ICWA Texarkana Television Title was on the line with a 24/7 stipulation enacted. This is a match for Sweeney’s female fans, and that is all I will say about that. CM Punk was in attendance and watched this match from the back of the room.

Another big match was for the IWA Midsouth Heavyweight title. For those of you unfamiliar with “Hussgate,” IWA champion Jimmy Jacobs was paid to throw his title into a trash can at an AAW show Thanksgiving weekend after Ian Rotten cancelled all four of his shows that week to be with his wife in the hospital. Earlier in the month, Jacobs had somehow kept his title defending against New Jack and Chris Sabin on separate shows. On this night, he was defending against Bull F’n Pain managed by Jim Fannin. To Jimmy Jacob’s credit, he managed to keep his title in a no disqualification match despite getting two stiff shots from a baseball bat wrapped in barb wire. Bull Pain is a legitimately scary dude, even without the bat.

The opening match of the evening was Claudio Castagnoli (as seen recently in ROH) vs. Trik Davis. It was a technical style match of sorts, but not exactly at the level of Alex Shelley vs. Marty Janetty. I like both wrestlers, but wanted Trik to win because you can tell he tries so hard. The bloodiest match was between NWA Midwest ladies champ Daizie Haze vs. homegrown talent and IWA Midsouth Women’s champ Mickie Knuckles.

While I will not spoil the ending for those of you who hate spoilers, it may have been the worst and most anti-climatic ending I have ever seen. The finalists were Necro Butcher and Chris Hero.

In prior IWA Midsouth action, back on December 17th, IWA was in Hammond, In. at the armory for what may be the last time. Several comedy style and some stand-out high flying action led up to the ultra-violent main event ten man tag team elimination brawl. It was so violent, that someone complained to the armory about the prolific amounts of blood, putting IWA on probation of sorts with all the Indiana armories. Good use was made of the Ryder truck rented by IWA Midsouth and parked inside the armory. For those of you out there who love the high spots, this is the video to get. The tag team of Lotus and Crazy J, one of which did a back flip off the top of the truck during their match, and Corporal Robinson, who jumped off the top to put one of the Thomaselli’s through a table are a couple of the highlights of the show. Oh yeah, and a lot of people got really bloody. As I recall, the teams were Ian Rotten, Spider Nate Webb, New Jack, Necro Butcher and Tank against the three Thomaselli brothers, Eddie Kingston, and Josh Abercrombie.

The wrestling doesn’t have to be good in order to have a good time, though. Case in point is WWA Bruiser Wrestling. If you have read my past columns, you may have heard me give some very positive write-ups on this organization, but that was before I experienced the Ted Petty Invitational live. Regardless, the actual in ring action was completely secondary to the contacts made at the events. For instance, just one week after Jimmy Jacobs threw his title in the trash, I saw him at a Bruiser show and talked to him at the bar in the venue. He thought I recognized him from Ring of Honor since I was wearing an ROH hat, but casually mentioned that I liked to attend IWA Midsouth. We had a short, awkward conversation, and I bought him a beer. He wasn’t there to wrestle, but apparently had ridden to the event with someone who was. “Ridden,” MS Word says it’s a real word, so I’ll believe it I guess.

A few weeks later at another Bruiser show, my friends and I spoke with New Breed promoter Mike Wallace. Mike Wallace is the epitome of some lower level of professional wrestling promoting. This story starts back in October when New Breed (and Mike Wallace) were featured in an article in the (legitimate Indiana newspaper until now) South Bend Tribune. In the article, Wallace inferred not only that he was an international wrestling superstar constantly on the road doing independent bookings, but also that New Breed was one of the top five indy promotions in the country. (Let’s see… TNA, ROH, CZW, PWG, IWA Midsouth, Chikara, which one is New Breed bigger than?) The remarkable part to me was that the South Bend Tribune reporter who wrote the story did absolutely no research to confirm ANYTHING Wallace claimed, and just ran the story as it stood. The article ran the Sunday prior to New Breed’s yearly Halloween show, which was tremendous promotion. Just two days later, the New Breed website was changed to say that it had gone out of business and cancelled the Halloween show. At the Bruiser show, Wallace had some different business to bring up with us. Apparently, someone had posted some negative things about New Breed and Mike Wallace personally on the IWA Midsouth message board. Wallace demanded we tell him who it was, and that we should tell the person that he is banned from all future New Breed shows. He also told us of a huge show he is booking in February as a Mad Mikey tribute. He claimed to have booked WWE’s Shane “Hurricane” Helms, Rey Mysterio, and Chavo Guerrero among others to wrestle. Apparently we are to check his website pretty soon. According to Wallace, the event will be run at a building he was banned from several months ago. Later in the show, when New Breed regulars Stars and Stripes (the tag team of Cosmic Kid and Sgt. Jay Peterson) were wrestling, he took the opportunity not only to yell criticisms from his seat, but to use their real names when doing it. Just a little bit of a double standard.

Back in November, Ring of Honor returned to Chicago Ridge, Illinois, and it was my first opportunity to attend a real live ROH show. I took a friend of mine along who had never been to an indy event. He got to experience the long car ride, the two hours we spent in line waiting to get in (yet were not the first in line) and what ended up being both an impressive and disappointing show at the same time. The Samoa Joe vs. Christopher Daniels match we watched with CM Punk and his family in the cheap seats was a cool experience. The lighting effects where we could see the sweat fly off the wrestlers when they got chopped was excellent. The Chicago style pizza was good. The insane eight man tag team main event was incredible. AJ Styles was in that main event, but it would have been better (at least to me) if he had gotten a singles match with someone. Speaking of that match, since it involved “the embassy,” there were several people who threw toilet paper up onto the ring (instead of streamers they do for good guys.) One of the rolls bounced off of Abyss’ head (possibly by accident.) That led to several more people aiming for him. Watch for that if you buy the tape.

As good as the ROH show was it paled in comparison to IWA Midsouth’s Ted Petty Invitational back in September. Among those who did not back out at the last minute, and therefore put on an incredible show were Alex Shelley, Super Dragon, Kevin Steen, Delirious, Claudio Castagnoli, Matt Sydal, Chris Hero, American Dragon Bryan Danielson, Mike Quackenbush, Spider Nate Webb, El Generico, James Gibson (aka Jamie Noble in one of his last indy bookings for a while) and others. It is one of, if not the top show of the year anywhere for independent wrestling. It is the show to buy on video if you only buy one show a year. AJ Styles was booked for the event, but at the very last minute (around noon the first day of the show) he called and cancelled because he had strep throat (in September!?) Of course, it was not so bad that he wasn’t fresh and ready for the taping of TNA’s premiere on Spike TV the following tuesday. The wrestler Homicide claimed he was not allowed to leave the state of New York because he was under investigation by the police. That somehow got cleared up before ROH’s Detroit/Chicago Ridge double shot weekend at the beginning of November he wrestled at. Chris Harris never returned confirmation calls to IWA Midsouth, and was unbooked.

Finally, some last minute ramblings that couldn’t fit anywhere else. I finally saw Chikara stars Hallowicked and Jigsaw live in a tag match against “Irish Airforce” Lotus and Crazy J. I had only seen them before in an old Chikara tape someone gave me that included a trimmed version of an old “young lions tournament.” Needless to say, I was impressed with their improvement since then, and if you see them booked on a show, it will be worth it (as are Lotus and Crazy J for that matter.) If you’re into comedy matches, and understand old style wrasslin’ at all, you’ll like the Oldtimer. He is all of 98 lbs. soaking wet, but acts like a 1950’s era wrestler complete with limited move set, low raspy voice and no knee pads. He is on the IWA Midsouth “A Rotten Return” South Bend, Indiana show. On the tape, at the end of the women’s match when the crowd has quieted down, you can hear one of my friends ask Ann Thraxx if she’d like him to give her a full body massage. The camera is following her, and you see her stop and consider the offer before going to the back. You just don’t get interaction like that at any other kind of event. Bruiser is impressing me with their valets lately (at least the ones old enough to vote.) One Bruiser wrestler who may end up with some trademark issues is Halloween. This is definitely not the same one listed in my copy of the 2004 PWI 500. I would also like to give a public apology to Arik Cannon. I used to think that you were not a very good wrestler, but I came to appreciate your skills after going to a Bruiser show and seeing the horrible timing most of the wrestlers there have. I am truly sorry, and you are an excellent wrestler. For some reason, I think it would be incredibly entertaining to book an Indiana owner/promoter fatal four way between the Patriot from LWF, Mike Wallace from New Breed, Dick the Bruiser, Jr. from WWA, and Ian Rotten from IWA Midsouth. I had shown Ian Rotten the card from a WWA event I attended; he thought it was kind of funny that they didn’t even bother listing Bruiser and Brazil as “Jr.” and said something about WWA booking dead people. That may have hit the nail right on the head. Finally, congratulations and prayers go out to Ian and Patti Rotten on the birth of their son James Christopher.