Any time I hear about a new wrestling promotion that features Vampiro, my interest is piqued, and with all this extra time freed up from the server being fixed, I’ve decided to jump back into TV reviewing with the weekly half hour WSX show. Send me feedback at widro@4sternstaging.com
The show opens with a montage of some WSX wrestlers, a rundown of the matches, and today’s musical guest – Zakk Wylde and Black Label Society.
BLS plays some rock music to start the show, and the HIP STYLISH CROWD rocks along. Weird band choice for a hip show, but no complaints from me.
Kris Kloss and Bret Ernst are YOUR announcers, with Kloss being the face lead announcer and Ernst being the heel color guy. They run down the matches and we get into the first match.
Fabien Kane is your ring announcer, and he’s a loud bald guy that is a little too loud and annoying for his own good. A disclaimer runs across the bottom not to try these tricks at home, kids.
Matt Sydal w/ his girlfriend Lizzie Valentine vs. Jack Evans
It’s evident from the commentary and characters of the wrestlers that there are very clear heel and face breakdowns, and the announcers are selling 2-3 bulletpoints about each guy’s personality. Evans comes down and Zakk Wylde joins our announcers for commentary. This is promoted as a traditional wrestling match with pin or submission win. I guess they will have other non-traditional matches.
They trade highspots for the bulk of the match, and the match is definitely edited down to highlight only the highspots. Apparently Lizzie has wandering eyes and the commentators are stressing it. After nearly every highspot they have a crowd shot with an XTREME fan reaction. Evans does a bunch of well placed kicks and Sydal clears out. Evans with a cartwheel into a plancha over the top. Back in and Evans misses a standing corkscrew shooting star press and Sydal hits some kind of gutwrench powerbomb for 2. Sydal is acting very heelish and berates Evans throughout the match. Lizzie gets involved but no DQ, which is cool, allowing Evans to eventually hit a tornado DDT. Evans goes up top for a 630 splash which hits kind of like a cannonball for the pin.
Winner: Jack Evans
They have little bios for each guy, which is a nice touch. Here is Sydal’s:
Hometown: St. Louis MO
Titles: IWA Champion
Signature Move: Cyclorama
Jack Evans:
Hometown: Parkland, WA
Titles: JAPW Tag Team Champion
Signature Move: The 630 Splash
After the match, Lizzie’s wandering eyes stare at Jack Evans, which the announcers note because he is a winner.
They do a montage of some tag teams heading into WSX. Good production on the video.
Preview of the upcoming WSX Rumble as we go to a
Commercial Break
And we come back from a (5 minutes! Geez!) commercial right into a backstage promo with Justin Credible. Who honestly was a million times better in this promo than anything I’ve seen out of him in years. He sounded genuine and invested in the promo. Tonight is his night – tonight is gonna be Justin Credible.
Cut to mini segment with New Jack and Hamrick pushing and shoving.
Cut to a Teddy Hart promo where he claims he is the past, present and future of wrestling. Sounds a wee bit familiar.
Kaos and Aguilera are seen talking to ladies on a cell phone. Aguilera was Jesus on Smackdown.
COOL FANS are shown at ringside as we go over the WSX Rumble rules. The rules are basically Royal Rumble rules, with 2 guys starting and the rest coming down one by one every 45 seconds. After #10 comes down, 2 contracts representing spots in a WSX title-determining match next week on the show. The ring is surrounded with ladders, tables, live electrical wire in a box and a cage laced with explosives.
WSX Rumble
#1 is Justin Credible. Announcers put him over as always making an impact, and also as a former world champ. #2 is Teddy Hart. Hart throws his water bottle at Justin from the entrance and then he enters and they go right at it. Bret Hart mention. Teddy with a USELESS FLIP OFF THE TOP into a Justin superkick. Teddy with a springboard moonsault. #3 is Kaos. He is double teamed. The color guy keeps saying “bro†which is slightly annoying. But I’m generally impressed with the announcers’ ability to call moves and put over the storylines. Kaos is a Latino American superstar who likes to party when not in the ring. Teddy with a shooting star press on Kaos. #4 is the man, the myth VAMPIRO! He takes out all three guys with clotheslines. Vampiro hits Teddy with a chokeslam as we go to
Commercial Break
“During the Break†as Puma hit the ring as #5 and was eliminated instantly by Vampiro. Alcatraz is #6 and he took down Vampiro and we are back to live action. #7 is Six Pac. X Factor on Vampiro. Color guy called Pac an original member of DX which isn’t true but close enough. Bronco Buster on Teddy Hart. #8 is Confederate Currency Chris Hamrick who comes down to a harmonica hick theme song. New Jack follows Hamrick right away, not sure if that makes him #9. He has a JJ special guitar. Announcers put over a racial angle between Hamrick and New Jack. New Jack sends Hamrick over the top, but he lands on the apron. Jack then knocks him off the apron through tables and he’s out. New Jack follows out, but he’s eliminated, which pisses him off. He brings the ref into the ring, plays the guitar, then EL KABONGS the ref. Match slows to a crawl during this. Vampiro powerslams Kaos. Teddy moonsault on Kaos. New Jack and Hamrick brawl at ringside.
Some guy associated with Alcatraz does a belly to back on Kaos off the apron through the box of electricity as New Jack does a balcony dive onto through Hamrick on a table, which was a crazy few seconds of TV viewing that required me to pause to recap. Still cool though. Then Vampiro kicks Alcatraz off the apron through a table, eliminating him. Tornado DDT by Teddy on Vampiro. #10 is Youth Suicide, the former Reckless Youth, going by a new name. They bill this as his first ever match, which is kinda inconsistent with the promotion’s recognizing of all other wrestler’s history so far, but I’m sure there’s some reason. edit: it’s actually not Reckless Youth, he’s is a former backyarder/hardcore wrestler trained by Supreme of XPW fame. Thanks to Matt Quinn. Justin backdrops Teddy over the top through a table, and he’s out. Youth Suicide has tacks!!! The contracts HAVE BEEN LOWERED.
Final four is Vampiro, 6 Pac, Justin Credible and Youth Suicide. Youth sets up a ladder to grab a contract. Vampiro pulls him down with a powerbomb onto the tacks. Meanwhile 6 Pac climbs the ladder and grabs a contract. He is your first winner. He takes down Youth just for kicks. Pac then leaves. Youth climbs the ladder, Justin tips it over, sending Youth Suicide over the top and into the box of explosives, which make some cool explosion effects. He looks dead. Justin belly to back on Vampiro, but Vamp no sells and takes down Justin with a kick. They both climb the ladder at once, they brawl at the top. 6 Pac is back, shakes the ladder, which distracts Justin and allows Vamp to grab the second contract.
Winner #1: Six Pac
Winner #2: Vampiro
The millisecond he does that, we cut away to a graphic of next week’s main event of:
WSX Title
6-Pac vs Vampiro
We close with a montage of this season on Wrestling Society X.
Just for completeness sake, here are the bios from the guys in the Rumble that were shown with bios and not buried over commercial
Justin Credible
Hometown: Ozone Part, NY
Titles: 11 Time ECW and WWF Champ
Signature Move: That’s Incredible
Teddy Hart
Hometown: Calgary, Canada
Titles: Stampede Tag Team Champ
Signature Move: Open Hart Surgery
Kaos
Hometown: Colorado Springs, CO
Titles: 2 Time XPW TV Champion
Signature Move: Kaostrophy
Vampiro
Hometown: Mexico City, Mexico
Titles: UWA, NWA & WCW Champion
Signature Move: Nail in the Coffin
6-pac
Hometown: Minneapolis, MN
Titles: 6 Time WWF & WCW Champ
Signature Move: Bronco Buster
Chris Hamrick
Hometown: Bristol, TN
Titles: Redneck Tag Team Champ (is this made up?)
Signature Move: Southern Bellringer
New Jack
Hometown: Atlanta, GA
Titles: 3 Time ECW Tag Champ
Signature Move: 187 Flying Splash
Youth Suicide
Hometown: Ventura, CA
Titles: First Professional Match
Signature Move: Youthanasia
Final Thoughts: It’s obvious a lot of thought went into nearly every aspect of Wrestling Society X, and that is the most encouraging part of the debut. There were some things that I found jarring, like the edited matches or quick crowd shots, but overall this was a nice debut. They succeeded at creating a new look and atmosphere while at the same time keeping the focus on the action itself. The mat has blue tape all over it, there are no ring aprons. There are no mats.
The announcers are shockingly well prepared, getting many name moves correct and having clear character traits to get over for each wrestler. The bios I re-typed seem to be more than WWE or TNA is doing for character development lately.
It will be interesting to see how this progresses, but I’m left with the impression that this is what WWE should have done with ECW and MTV might just have stumbled upon something that could catch on.
