-- Saturday, April 20th, marks Squared Circle Wrestling's live streaming debut with Living on the Edge 8 from Watertown, NY. The main event features Kevin Steen, defending the 2CW championship against John Hennigan, better known to you as John Morrison. This show is streaming live and FREE through www.livesportsvideo.com/2cw at 8pm Eastern. Here are 5 good reasons why you should be watching:
1: Amazing Visiting Talent
At this point I'm fairly sure most of the ROH roster has appeared at a 2CW show. In addition to Kevin Steen, this Saturday will feature an appearance by Matt Hardy, as well as Jimmy Jacobs. Now alongside them, you have stars from all spectrums of the wrestling world: Spike Dudley, Sami Calihan, Masada, Christina Von Eerie, and maybe, just maybe, the hardcore legend himself Terry Funk. 2CW is in the unique position of being situated near the homes of all the top indies, but not being affiliated with any of them directly. Meaning that you can see talent from ROH wrestle talent frequently at home across the "Sapolsky line" in DGUSA/EVOLVE as well as CZW, Chikara, and more. Plus the former WWE and TNA stars that are hitting the indie circuit usually find their way to a 2CW ring, and very often legends such as Sgt. Slaughter and Hacksaw Jim Duggan are known to pop up. As a result you get....
2: Dream Matches
2CW seems to have a knack for catching rare occurances in wrestling for their shows. Just in the last few years you could have seen the first match of Nigel McGuiness's brief retirement tour against Eddie Edwards, one of the very few matches Daniel Bryan wrestled as Bryan Danielson after his WWE release for the choking incident, Brodie Lee's last independent matches before going to NXT, and the only known matchup of The Motor City Machine Guns taking on The American Wolves. At LOTE, besides Steen taking on Morrison, Matt Hardy meets one of the brightest up and comers in the indie scene, Sami Calihan. Spike Dudley faces off with one of the top names in the hardcore wrestling scene in Masada, in a sort of old-hardcore vs. new-hardcore No Holds Barred match. Colt Cabana, ROH legend and NWA champion, takes on Northeastern mainstay Slyck Wagner Brown. And Terry Funk will answer Kevin Steen's challenge, raising the possibility of a real dream match between those two that no one ever thought they'd see. None of these matches, for various reasons, are likely to happen anywhere else. Certain guys have allegiances to certain companies and they don't often end up on the same shows; except in 2CW, where it happens all the time.
3. The Homegrown Talent
2CW is the top company running upstate NY and carrying on the great Northeastern wrestling tradition of the old Buffalo-Cleveland territory and the extended arm of the WWWF. To that extent, some of the most exciting matches on a Squared Circle Wrestling show come from the guys that trained there and call it home. On Saturday, a Stairway to Hell ladder match pits Jason Axe against Isis Ephex, with Jay Freddie (still, to my knowledge, on the injured list) as guest referee. Last April in Watertown Axe and Ephex had a war that put the Evil Dead remake to shame for the amount of bloodshed. Ephex in particular was drenched in plasma and from my vantage point, Kevin Steen and The Briscoes were all watching from the wings and impressed at the spectacle. It's unfortunate that Jay Freddie isn't wrestling an actual match because he is a phenomenal young worker who will absolutely make waves on the national scene sooner than later. Add to that a tag team challenge from champions Punisher Van Slyke and Kevin "The Man" Graham featuring four of 2CW's young teams and a match with former WWE bit player and 2CW homer Colin Delaney, and you just might find yourself thinking....
4: 2CW Is The Future
Indie wrestling is in a weird place right now. ROH is looking kind of grim, and most of the rest are niche companies. Chikara has its fans but it won't appeal to everyone. DGUSA and EVOLVE are running to tiny crowds and have a very tight house style. CZW holds no appeal to anyone who isn't into hardcore. PWG may as well not exist, and the various NWA branches are holding on by a thread. The rest are mainly niche shows that run in nightclubs and lean more toward performance art than wrestling. 2CW is in the unique position of being centrally located to the heart of the wrestling scene (the Northeast is where all the best wrestling is, this is obvious) and being a real wrestling company. Mick Foley said in his first book that wrestling at its best was like a circus: if you don't like the clowns maybe the acrobats are for you. 2CW is that kind of outfit. You won't see an interchangeable house style in every match. You'll see wrestlers from all different backgrounds mixing it up. You'll see guys who have worked in the "big leagues" and guys who have traveled the world. On Saturday you'll see former WWE titleholders against the cream of the indie crop, hardcore matches, comedy characters, and technical wrestlers tearing it up. 2CW could appeal to just about any wrestling fan. It would not surprise me if 2CW keeps growing into the top indie in the whole country.
5. It's Free!
A PPV quality show streaming for free? What more could you ask?
So there you have it folks. Saturday night at 8pm you can visit 2CWwrestling.com or livesportsvideo.com/2cw and see for yourself what you've been missing. Keep your eyes peeled for some Inside the Indies soon and until then, support your local wrestling scene.
1: Amazing Visiting Talent
At this point I'm fairly sure most of the ROH roster has appeared at a 2CW show. In addition to Kevin Steen, this Saturday will feature an appearance by Matt Hardy, as well as Jimmy Jacobs. Now alongside them, you have stars from all spectrums of the wrestling world: Spike Dudley, Sami Calihan, Masada, Christina Von Eerie, and maybe, just maybe, the hardcore legend himself Terry Funk. 2CW is in the unique position of being situated near the homes of all the top indies, but not being affiliated with any of them directly. Meaning that you can see talent from ROH wrestle talent frequently at home across the "Sapolsky line" in DGUSA/EVOLVE as well as CZW, Chikara, and more. Plus the former WWE and TNA stars that are hitting the indie circuit usually find their way to a 2CW ring, and very often legends such as Sgt. Slaughter and Hacksaw Jim Duggan are known to pop up. As a result you get....
2: Dream Matches
2CW seems to have a knack for catching rare occurances in wrestling for their shows. Just in the last few years you could have seen the first match of Nigel McGuiness's brief retirement tour against Eddie Edwards, one of the very few matches Daniel Bryan wrestled as Bryan Danielson after his WWE release for the choking incident, Brodie Lee's last independent matches before going to NXT, and the only known matchup of The Motor City Machine Guns taking on The American Wolves. At LOTE, besides Steen taking on Morrison, Matt Hardy meets one of the brightest up and comers in the indie scene, Sami Calihan. Spike Dudley faces off with one of the top names in the hardcore wrestling scene in Masada, in a sort of old-hardcore vs. new-hardcore No Holds Barred match. Colt Cabana, ROH legend and NWA champion, takes on Northeastern mainstay Slyck Wagner Brown. And Terry Funk will answer Kevin Steen's challenge, raising the possibility of a real dream match between those two that no one ever thought they'd see. None of these matches, for various reasons, are likely to happen anywhere else. Certain guys have allegiances to certain companies and they don't often end up on the same shows; except in 2CW, where it happens all the time.
3. The Homegrown Talent
2CW is the top company running upstate NY and carrying on the great Northeastern wrestling tradition of the old Buffalo-Cleveland territory and the extended arm of the WWWF. To that extent, some of the most exciting matches on a Squared Circle Wrestling show come from the guys that trained there and call it home. On Saturday, a Stairway to Hell ladder match pits Jason Axe against Isis Ephex, with Jay Freddie (still, to my knowledge, on the injured list) as guest referee. Last April in Watertown Axe and Ephex had a war that put the Evil Dead remake to shame for the amount of bloodshed. Ephex in particular was drenched in plasma and from my vantage point, Kevin Steen and The Briscoes were all watching from the wings and impressed at the spectacle. It's unfortunate that Jay Freddie isn't wrestling an actual match because he is a phenomenal young worker who will absolutely make waves on the national scene sooner than later. Add to that a tag team challenge from champions Punisher Van Slyke and Kevin "The Man" Graham featuring four of 2CW's young teams and a match with former WWE bit player and 2CW homer Colin Delaney, and you just might find yourself thinking....
4: 2CW Is The Future
Indie wrestling is in a weird place right now. ROH is looking kind of grim, and most of the rest are niche companies. Chikara has its fans but it won't appeal to everyone. DGUSA and EVOLVE are running to tiny crowds and have a very tight house style. CZW holds no appeal to anyone who isn't into hardcore. PWG may as well not exist, and the various NWA branches are holding on by a thread. The rest are mainly niche shows that run in nightclubs and lean more toward performance art than wrestling. 2CW is in the unique position of being centrally located to the heart of the wrestling scene (the Northeast is where all the best wrestling is, this is obvious) and being a real wrestling company. Mick Foley said in his first book that wrestling at its best was like a circus: if you don't like the clowns maybe the acrobats are for you. 2CW is that kind of outfit. You won't see an interchangeable house style in every match. You'll see wrestlers from all different backgrounds mixing it up. You'll see guys who have worked in the "big leagues" and guys who have traveled the world. On Saturday you'll see former WWE titleholders against the cream of the indie crop, hardcore matches, comedy characters, and technical wrestlers tearing it up. 2CW could appeal to just about any wrestling fan. It would not surprise me if 2CW keeps growing into the top indie in the whole country.
5. It's Free!
A PPV quality show streaming for free? What more could you ask?
So there you have it folks. Saturday night at 8pm you can visit 2CWwrestling.com or livesportsvideo.com/2cw and see for yourself what you've been missing. Keep your eyes peeled for some Inside the Indies soon and until then, support your local wrestling scene.
You lost me at PWG may as well not exist.
ReplyDeleteReally, cause he had me at free
ReplyDeleteIt was a great plug, but that statement just baffled me.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing he means it in context of how few shows they run? I dunno, he kinda lost me on that line, too.
ReplyDeleteSounds great, I definitely want to check out how JoMo is going and for all the podcasts I listen to I don't get to see a lot of Cabana's matches.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the top story in PWG right now?
ReplyDelete"who the hell is their champions?"
ReplyDeleteI miss Human Tornado.
They run almost no shows anymore due to a lack of available funds and a lack of available talent to book. I like PWG but they aren't long for this world if they even are still considered a working outfit.
ReplyDeleteAdam Cole is the heavyweight champ, not sure about the tag champs. Maybe the Young Bucks.
ReplyDeleteHey, in my hometown! Steen should be right at home, Watertown is nothing but fast food joints.
ReplyDeleteThe Young Bucks and Adam Cole are cheating assholes, Drake Younger is solidifying himself as the top babyface. I watch PWG for fun in ring action, which it always delivers. Funnest wrestling environment I've ever been a part of.
ReplyDeleteI can see that, I thought you were discrediting them based on their product.
ReplyDeleteYou won me over with #5. I'll check it out
ReplyDeleteNo not at all, I like them quite a bit as far as the actual wrestling and i'd like to see them get their profile higher again.
ReplyDeletePWG seems more like an event than an actual company.
ReplyDeleteI guess you can say that. It's worth driving 6 hours for, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteI get that you're a fan.
ReplyDeleteBut I hope you're objective enough to realize that you have to have a premise stronger than "We do indy dream-matches...once every couple months" to be actual competition.
Well, I don't think they're trying to be competition. They're attracting a niche audience and selling out the venue they're in every night, albeit thats once or twice a night every month or so. Trust me, I realize they aren't going to be the TOP indy promotion trying to take ROH or DGUSA/EVOLVE or Chikara down. They're exactly where they need to be. They bring in great talent, the shows sell out, and they get mostly positive feedback on all of their shows.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in reference to the original comment, yea, I can see why he said what he said. They aren't exactly relevant when it comes to ROH or Chikara or the WWN Universe. That's fine, but he already said he wasn't basing it off of the actual product, so it's whatever. PWG still rules, and even though they may run under 10 shows a year, they're still consistently entertaining and have a live atmosphere you just can't beat. And fucking Frank Sobotka is there, so they win.
ReplyDeleteI get that you like the promotion. And I...like certain parts of it (it doesn't have that humorless gravity that RoH drags around with it, nor is it a gigantic hipster joke like CHIKARA) but something about it is missing to me.
ReplyDeleteI get how the live shows can be incredible and you get some really kick-ass matches, but to me...while wrestling doesn't have to be all super intense, convoluted feuds, a little bit more plot wouldn't hurt PWG. Some degree of menace perhaps? Some...dramatic weight behind their stories? I mean, if the heel wins...so what?
I can't disagree with you when it comes to the feuds. But...I mean, they DO have some storylines, like I said, Adam Cole and Young Bucks are both being the dickhead heels that cheat to retain, while youve got the babyface guys like Drake Younger and the Dojo Bros chasing the belts. But in terms of real ass stories, yea, they're lacking. But I gotta say, when the Young Bucks won DDT4 and Cole won the main event of Night 2 of ASW9, my heart was torn out of my chest. There IS weight behind those stories. It may be biased since I was there, but people care man. PEOPLE CARE!!!
ReplyDeleteNo, but I heard that she goes. I've only seen Chris Bauer.
ReplyDeleteI think Haley WIlliams has attended a couple shows too.
ReplyDeleteOne hour til the show starts. This crowd is hot. Already shook hands and got pictures with everyone. Stream the show
ReplyDelete