IWA-MS Ted Petty Invitational 2008, Night 1
The Ted Petty Invitational (TPI) for many years was the most prestigious tournament in all of independent wrestling. Anybody who was someone was at some point in this tournament, and knock Ian Rotten all you want, but you can't deny that he had an eye for talent (you know Evan Bourne? He won in 2005). Here's my review of Night 1 of the last TPI tournament IWA-MS put on.
24 PROMOS
Holy god. I’m pretty sure everyone got a promo in, one after another, rapid fire. Some were short, some were long, but this went about ten minutes. Skippable, but the only thing I want to note is how similar CM Punk’s promo style is to Ace Steel. Give Steel some credit, he is clearly the biggest influence on the best talker in the business today.
OPENING CEREMONY
A few guys are introduced, and then Dingo (the IWA-MS World Heavyweight Champion) comes out, and is attacked brutally by Jaysin Strife, busting his open really badly. Dingo, who had been feuding with Strife for a while, begs Ian for a match with Strife tonight, but Ian says he can't have that kind of match in the tournament. Dingo threatens to walk out, and Dingo is just awesome (and so is Ian playing the boss role, but Ian was always amazing). Ian takes him out of the tournament and gives him a match with Strife tonight for the title, in a Loser Leaves Town for one year match. Awesome segment, but I wish they continued with the introductions.
MATCH #1: TPI FIRST ROUND - Egotistico Fantastico vs. Prince Mustafa Ali
Ego was a rising superstar in IWA-MS and in CZW, and I honestly hadn't heard of Ali before watching this show, but hey, Joey Eastman was his manager! This match was super entertaining and just a fun, spotty opener to get the crowd hot for the four hour show they were about to endure. Think IWA-MS junior heavyweight style mixed with TNA X-Division style.Yeah, four hours... And it's just night 1!
Rating: ***1/4
MATCH #2: TPI FIRST ROUND - Dave Taylor vs. Tracy Smothers
So... Many... Handshakes. I hate this gimmick of Tracy's, it's so awkward feeling. Literally after every exchange, Tracy goes to shake Dave's hand, and it's all supposed to be so Tracy can catch Dave off guard and surprise him with an attack. Old school and stupid. In fact, most of this match was old school and stupid. Well maybe not stupid, but definitely underwhelming considering the talent involved. Finish fell flat, too.
Rating: *1/2
MATCH #3: TPI FIRST ROUND - 2 Cold Scorpio vs. Bobby Fish
EVOLVE and NOAH fans will be familiar with Fish, and any wrestling fan will be familiar with Scorpio. I've always liked Fish because he brings something new to the plate, and that's a very apparent MMA influence. This match was very interesting and well-paced, I thought. I wish Fish went over though, because he was very impressive.
Rating: **1/2
MATCH #4: TPI FIRST ROUND - Sara Del Rey vs. Trik Davis
This is what I'm talking about when I say Ian has an eye for talent. Del Rey was the first woman invitied into the TPI (Mickie Knuckles was the first woman in the tournament but was a substitute), and look at where she is now - doing intergender matches all the time and considered one of the best woman wrestlers in the world. And this was in 2008. Anyway this match was really fun, with Davis's antics and arrogance. I always loved Trik Davis, like a smaller, more p*ssy-ish Chuck Taylor. Anyway, cool seeing Sara beat the sh*t out of Trik.
Rating: **3/4
MATCH #5: TPI FIRST ROUND - Drake Younger vs. 2 Tuff Tony
Yeah you're probably wondering "what?" too. Bless Tony's heart, he tried, really hard. There was a lot of psychology in this match, and it was evident that Tony had to prove that he could actually wrestle and not just beat people up with light tubes. Well he can wrestle. Not very well, but he can do it. And Drake, well Drake has always been a hybrid wrestler and has that deathmatch wrestler stigma on him, but most people who give him that stigma have never seen him wrestle a normal match. For those of you, watch this match, and his matches at Night 2. This isn't the best match, but hell it was surprising.
Rating: **1/2
MATCH #6: TPI FIRST ROUND - Cassandro vs. Chuck Taylor
CASSANDRO IS AWESOME! God this match was amazing. Probably my favorite match of the night, next to Hero vs. Callihan (but I'll get to that later). So much fun and so much tasteful (and some tasteless) comedy, along with some incredible wrestling. Cassandro does some unbelievably crisp stuff. The finish looked like Taylor broke his neck, though.
Rating: ***1/2
MATCH #7: TPI FIRST ROUND - Sami Callihan vs. Chris Hero
Yeah thinking back, this was match of the night for me. Sami was quite new to the scene, and again, Ian's eye for talent is uncanny because look where he is now. Hero just beats the everloving sh*t out of Callihan, and Callihan keeps coming back. Simple story and effective. Hero had been in the tournament every year since 2000 (where he won), and he was working his "grudge match" style here against Callihan to "teach this new kid a lesson in being in the TPI and in IWA-MS". Awesome psychology here, and awesome, awesome match. If I were Ian, I'd be giving these guys a Fight of the Night bonus.
Rating: ****
AFTERMATH
Trik Davis, who feuded with Hero in the past (and taunted Hero during his match as Hero was on commentary) comes out and they brawl, basically. Ian comes out and Hero â€"tells†(not asks) Ian that he and Trik will have a match tomorrow night, and Ian basically asks Trik if he’s a p*ssy, or if he wants to do it. I thought it was a great and very realistic looking segment.
MATCH #8: TPI FIRST ROUND - Eddie Kingston vs. Necro Butcher
This was supposed to be Mike Quackenbush vs. Dingo, but Quack didn’t show up and Dingo was out of the tournament to wrestle Strife, so Ian comes out before the match starts and says â€"Alright, we got two subs here, they’re gonna do the best they can, so don’t go too hard on them.†Then Necro Butcher’s music hits, and after Eddie Kingston returns to IWA-MS. I thought that was really funny. The commentators are confused as to whether this match was in the tournament or not, but then are told it was. They were confused because they kept using chairs and brawling outside and stuff, and honestly there should have been a DQ but hey, this is IWA-MS after all. Lots and lots of brawling, and then some more brawling. Necro takes a bowling shoe ugly suplex from the apron to the floor (basketball court hard wood) and it looks really painful. I also LOVED the fact that Eddie was working over Necro’s hands the whole match. That might sound weird, but if you know Necro Butcher, you know he loves to stiffly punch you until you’re basically brain dead. The commentators even explained this, which made it better, that he was working over Necro’s hands so his punches wouldn’t be so effective, and from there Kingston could just outwrestle Necro, which is exactly what happened. It wasn’t a technically beautiful match, but in terms of storytelling, this was five stars.
Rating: ***
MATCH #9: TPI FIRST ROUND – Josh Raymond vs. Tyler Black
Josh Abercrombie has blue dreads, new (uglier) gear, and a new name, and Tyler Black is in his pre-Seth Rollins days. Raymond should get a chance in FCW, too, because he’s just awesome. And now that I think about it, hell, Tyler Black was in the 2005 TPI. And people give IWA-MS a bad rap… Anyway this rekindled a feud that Josh Raymond (formerly Josh Abercrombie) and Black had a few years back, and that was evident in the story of this match. It was a well-paced, almost WWE style match. If you’re used to spotty, exciting, â€"go out there and kill yourself and get your sh*t in†indy wrestling, this isn’t your thing. If you like great, sports entertainment type wrestling, this is your thing. Since it was in IWA-MS, you probably wouldn’t hear much about it. But if this same match was on a WWE PPV, you’d be calling the match of the night. Incredibly solid.
Rating: ****
TWO DUDES FIGHT
The audio in this gym sucks so I couldn’t really understand a word this guy was saying and honestly I’m not sure who he was, or who he was fighting, but he started talking smack I guess and another worker came out and they fought. I wasn’t going to include this because I didn’t know who or what was going on, but this was the best worked fight I’ve EVER seen on a wrestling show. It wasn’t a match, it was a segment, and if this was a shoot I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. If it was a work, they are the best workers I’ve ever seen. Unbelievable, you have to see this.
MATCH #10: TPI FIRST ROUND – Ace Steel vs. Ares
We’re almost done, just three more tournament matches and then Dingo vs. Jaysin Strife. And… I’m looking at my player and it says we have an hour left. So we’re three hours in. You’re probably 3 hours into this review, too, Jesus Christ. The only real downfall about these shows is just the fact that they are marathons. Split them up into separate viewings though (which is what I did), and they make for great shows.
Anyway onto this match. I liked how they added some comedy in there, not only because Ace is hilarious and Ares is perfect in this old Claudio gimmick, but because it was obvious that the crowd was getting very tired by this point (and I think it was already past midnight at this point, too). Some comedy would get the crowd back into things, should they start falling asleep. The match was short and fun, but nothing too special.
Rating: **
MATCH #11: TPI FIRST ROUND – Michael Elgin vs. Ricochet
â€"The Canadian Crazy Horse†Michael Elgin. I remember seeing Elgin in some old IWA-MS shows a while ago, and thinking, ‘God, is he way too fat to be in a singlet.’ Four years later, good lord has he gotten better. Ricochet is in his Helios gear minus the mask, I guess just because. This match started off really hot and awoken the crowd from their slumber (it wasn’t the wrestler’s fault, it was simply the fact that the show had been going over three hours and it was like midnight). In this match, the styles clash worked wonderfully and Elgin looked amazing, and incredibly agile for his size (if you think he’s big now, look at him in 2008). Some cool near falls and Elgin wins by TKO, with the â€"ground and pound†as Mike Z called it, just sitting on Ricochet and pummeling him until the ref stopped the match. A cool, different finish that felt realistic.
Rating: ***
MATCH #12: TPI FIRST ROUND – Claudio Castagnoli vs. Jimmy Jacobs
Jacobs comes out to â€"Goodbye Horses†or the Buffalo Bill song, and I marked out. Crowd is surprisingly very awake all of a sudden for Jacobs and Claudio, which was cool to see. This was littered with back and forth action, counters, nearfalls, and just entertaining wrestling. I didn’t know was gonna win, where, when, and with what. Also a great story of â€"these two know each other so well so they can counter each other’s moves,†it worked really well. Really cool finish, too. Just an awesome match.
Rating: ***3/4
MATCH #13: LOSER LEAVES TOWN MATCH FOR THE IWA-MS WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP – Dingo vs. Jaysin Strife
Dingo is basically the Australian Bryan Danielson (in style and in looks; seriously look him up!), except in this match he went in looking for a fight. The first thirty seconds felt like a fight, but after that it turned into a wrestling match, which I never understood. If you hate this guy so badly that you’re willing to not only put your title on the line, but a year of bookings for a company, then why would you want to apply wrestling holds? Wouldn’t you rather just pummel the dude? They did, however fix this later in the match. It got bloody real quick and they even did a spot that I have never ever seen before that was super cool to me (I won’t spoil it unless you ask, but I’m telling you it’s pretty unique). Finish came after just a few nearfalls but was really good and full of psychology.
Rating: ***1/2
OVERALL
What a great show from top to bottom. Had something for everyone, and the tournament was really made out to be a big deal, which it is. You really have no idea at all who is gonna win coming out of Night 1, with all of the names going into Night 2. Every single person has just about an equal chance, and that’s one thing I love about TPI. The other, as I’ve said a million times, is the fact that these guys were hand-picked by Ian to be the present and future of the business, while throwing in a few legends that could still go, and it’s almost scary to look at the number of people he got right. The only thing keeping this show down is it’s length – over four hours. But hey, if you break it up into smaller portions, it’s definitely something worth taking up shelf space. No totally standout, classic matches, but everything on this card is definitely solid, and many times great.
FINAL VERDICT: A Ted Petty approved 8/10
24 PROMOS
Holy god. I’m pretty sure everyone got a promo in, one after another, rapid fire. Some were short, some were long, but this went about ten minutes. Skippable, but the only thing I want to note is how similar CM Punk’s promo style is to Ace Steel. Give Steel some credit, he is clearly the biggest influence on the best talker in the business today.
OPENING CEREMONY
A few guys are introduced, and then Dingo (the IWA-MS World Heavyweight Champion) comes out, and is attacked brutally by Jaysin Strife, busting his open really badly. Dingo, who had been feuding with Strife for a while, begs Ian for a match with Strife tonight, but Ian says he can't have that kind of match in the tournament. Dingo threatens to walk out, and Dingo is just awesome (and so is Ian playing the boss role, but Ian was always amazing). Ian takes him out of the tournament and gives him a match with Strife tonight for the title, in a Loser Leaves Town for one year match. Awesome segment, but I wish they continued with the introductions.
MATCH #1: TPI FIRST ROUND - Egotistico Fantastico vs. Prince Mustafa Ali
Ego was a rising superstar in IWA-MS and in CZW, and I honestly hadn't heard of Ali before watching this show, but hey, Joey Eastman was his manager! This match was super entertaining and just a fun, spotty opener to get the crowd hot for the four hour show they were about to endure. Think IWA-MS junior heavyweight style mixed with TNA X-Division style.Yeah, four hours... And it's just night 1!
Rating: ***1/4
MATCH #2: TPI FIRST ROUND - Dave Taylor vs. Tracy Smothers
So... Many... Handshakes. I hate this gimmick of Tracy's, it's so awkward feeling. Literally after every exchange, Tracy goes to shake Dave's hand, and it's all supposed to be so Tracy can catch Dave off guard and surprise him with an attack. Old school and stupid. In fact, most of this match was old school and stupid. Well maybe not stupid, but definitely underwhelming considering the talent involved. Finish fell flat, too.
Rating: *1/2
MATCH #3: TPI FIRST ROUND - 2 Cold Scorpio vs. Bobby Fish
EVOLVE and NOAH fans will be familiar with Fish, and any wrestling fan will be familiar with Scorpio. I've always liked Fish because he brings something new to the plate, and that's a very apparent MMA influence. This match was very interesting and well-paced, I thought. I wish Fish went over though, because he was very impressive.
Rating: **1/2
MATCH #4: TPI FIRST ROUND - Sara Del Rey vs. Trik Davis
This is what I'm talking about when I say Ian has an eye for talent. Del Rey was the first woman invitied into the TPI (Mickie Knuckles was the first woman in the tournament but was a substitute), and look at where she is now - doing intergender matches all the time and considered one of the best woman wrestlers in the world. And this was in 2008. Anyway this match was really fun, with Davis's antics and arrogance. I always loved Trik Davis, like a smaller, more p*ssy-ish Chuck Taylor. Anyway, cool seeing Sara beat the sh*t out of Trik.
Rating: **3/4
MATCH #5: TPI FIRST ROUND - Drake Younger vs. 2 Tuff Tony
Yeah you're probably wondering "what?" too. Bless Tony's heart, he tried, really hard. There was a lot of psychology in this match, and it was evident that Tony had to prove that he could actually wrestle and not just beat people up with light tubes. Well he can wrestle. Not very well, but he can do it. And Drake, well Drake has always been a hybrid wrestler and has that deathmatch wrestler stigma on him, but most people who give him that stigma have never seen him wrestle a normal match. For those of you, watch this match, and his matches at Night 2. This isn't the best match, but hell it was surprising.
Rating: **1/2
MATCH #6: TPI FIRST ROUND - Cassandro vs. Chuck Taylor
CASSANDRO IS AWESOME! God this match was amazing. Probably my favorite match of the night, next to Hero vs. Callihan (but I'll get to that later). So much fun and so much tasteful (and some tasteless) comedy, along with some incredible wrestling. Cassandro does some unbelievably crisp stuff. The finish looked like Taylor broke his neck, though.
Rating: ***1/2
MATCH #7: TPI FIRST ROUND - Sami Callihan vs. Chris Hero
Yeah thinking back, this was match of the night for me. Sami was quite new to the scene, and again, Ian's eye for talent is uncanny because look where he is now. Hero just beats the everloving sh*t out of Callihan, and Callihan keeps coming back. Simple story and effective. Hero had been in the tournament every year since 2000 (where he won), and he was working his "grudge match" style here against Callihan to "teach this new kid a lesson in being in the TPI and in IWA-MS". Awesome psychology here, and awesome, awesome match. If I were Ian, I'd be giving these guys a Fight of the Night bonus.
Rating: ****
AFTERMATH
Trik Davis, who feuded with Hero in the past (and taunted Hero during his match as Hero was on commentary) comes out and they brawl, basically. Ian comes out and Hero â€"tells†(not asks) Ian that he and Trik will have a match tomorrow night, and Ian basically asks Trik if he’s a p*ssy, or if he wants to do it. I thought it was a great and very realistic looking segment.
MATCH #8: TPI FIRST ROUND - Eddie Kingston vs. Necro Butcher
This was supposed to be Mike Quackenbush vs. Dingo, but Quack didn’t show up and Dingo was out of the tournament to wrestle Strife, so Ian comes out before the match starts and says â€"Alright, we got two subs here, they’re gonna do the best they can, so don’t go too hard on them.†Then Necro Butcher’s music hits, and after Eddie Kingston returns to IWA-MS. I thought that was really funny. The commentators are confused as to whether this match was in the tournament or not, but then are told it was. They were confused because they kept using chairs and brawling outside and stuff, and honestly there should have been a DQ but hey, this is IWA-MS after all. Lots and lots of brawling, and then some more brawling. Necro takes a bowling shoe ugly suplex from the apron to the floor (basketball court hard wood) and it looks really painful. I also LOVED the fact that Eddie was working over Necro’s hands the whole match. That might sound weird, but if you know Necro Butcher, you know he loves to stiffly punch you until you’re basically brain dead. The commentators even explained this, which made it better, that he was working over Necro’s hands so his punches wouldn’t be so effective, and from there Kingston could just outwrestle Necro, which is exactly what happened. It wasn’t a technically beautiful match, but in terms of storytelling, this was five stars.
Rating: ***
MATCH #9: TPI FIRST ROUND – Josh Raymond vs. Tyler Black
Josh Abercrombie has blue dreads, new (uglier) gear, and a new name, and Tyler Black is in his pre-Seth Rollins days. Raymond should get a chance in FCW, too, because he’s just awesome. And now that I think about it, hell, Tyler Black was in the 2005 TPI. And people give IWA-MS a bad rap… Anyway this rekindled a feud that Josh Raymond (formerly Josh Abercrombie) and Black had a few years back, and that was evident in the story of this match. It was a well-paced, almost WWE style match. If you’re used to spotty, exciting, â€"go out there and kill yourself and get your sh*t in†indy wrestling, this isn’t your thing. If you like great, sports entertainment type wrestling, this is your thing. Since it was in IWA-MS, you probably wouldn’t hear much about it. But if this same match was on a WWE PPV, you’d be calling the match of the night. Incredibly solid.
Rating: ****
TWO DUDES FIGHT
The audio in this gym sucks so I couldn’t really understand a word this guy was saying and honestly I’m not sure who he was, or who he was fighting, but he started talking smack I guess and another worker came out and they fought. I wasn’t going to include this because I didn’t know who or what was going on, but this was the best worked fight I’ve EVER seen on a wrestling show. It wasn’t a match, it was a segment, and if this was a shoot I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. If it was a work, they are the best workers I’ve ever seen. Unbelievable, you have to see this.
MATCH #10: TPI FIRST ROUND – Ace Steel vs. Ares
We’re almost done, just three more tournament matches and then Dingo vs. Jaysin Strife. And… I’m looking at my player and it says we have an hour left. So we’re three hours in. You’re probably 3 hours into this review, too, Jesus Christ. The only real downfall about these shows is just the fact that they are marathons. Split them up into separate viewings though (which is what I did), and they make for great shows.
Anyway onto this match. I liked how they added some comedy in there, not only because Ace is hilarious and Ares is perfect in this old Claudio gimmick, but because it was obvious that the crowd was getting very tired by this point (and I think it was already past midnight at this point, too). Some comedy would get the crowd back into things, should they start falling asleep. The match was short and fun, but nothing too special.
Rating: **
MATCH #11: TPI FIRST ROUND – Michael Elgin vs. Ricochet
â€"The Canadian Crazy Horse†Michael Elgin. I remember seeing Elgin in some old IWA-MS shows a while ago, and thinking, ‘God, is he way too fat to be in a singlet.’ Four years later, good lord has he gotten better. Ricochet is in his Helios gear minus the mask, I guess just because. This match started off really hot and awoken the crowd from their slumber (it wasn’t the wrestler’s fault, it was simply the fact that the show had been going over three hours and it was like midnight). In this match, the styles clash worked wonderfully and Elgin looked amazing, and incredibly agile for his size (if you think he’s big now, look at him in 2008). Some cool near falls and Elgin wins by TKO, with the â€"ground and pound†as Mike Z called it, just sitting on Ricochet and pummeling him until the ref stopped the match. A cool, different finish that felt realistic.
Rating: ***
MATCH #12: TPI FIRST ROUND – Claudio Castagnoli vs. Jimmy Jacobs
Jacobs comes out to â€"Goodbye Horses†or the Buffalo Bill song, and I marked out. Crowd is surprisingly very awake all of a sudden for Jacobs and Claudio, which was cool to see. This was littered with back and forth action, counters, nearfalls, and just entertaining wrestling. I didn’t know was gonna win, where, when, and with what. Also a great story of â€"these two know each other so well so they can counter each other’s moves,†it worked really well. Really cool finish, too. Just an awesome match.
Rating: ***3/4
MATCH #13: LOSER LEAVES TOWN MATCH FOR THE IWA-MS WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP – Dingo vs. Jaysin Strife
Dingo is basically the Australian Bryan Danielson (in style and in looks; seriously look him up!), except in this match he went in looking for a fight. The first thirty seconds felt like a fight, but after that it turned into a wrestling match, which I never understood. If you hate this guy so badly that you’re willing to not only put your title on the line, but a year of bookings for a company, then why would you want to apply wrestling holds? Wouldn’t you rather just pummel the dude? They did, however fix this later in the match. It got bloody real quick and they even did a spot that I have never ever seen before that was super cool to me (I won’t spoil it unless you ask, but I’m telling you it’s pretty unique). Finish came after just a few nearfalls but was really good and full of psychology.
Rating: ***1/2
OVERALL
What a great show from top to bottom. Had something for everyone, and the tournament was really made out to be a big deal, which it is. You really have no idea at all who is gonna win coming out of Night 1, with all of the names going into Night 2. Every single person has just about an equal chance, and that’s one thing I love about TPI. The other, as I’ve said a million times, is the fact that these guys were hand-picked by Ian to be the present and future of the business, while throwing in a few legends that could still go, and it’s almost scary to look at the number of people he got right. The only thing keeping this show down is it’s length – over four hours. But hey, if you break it up into smaller portions, it’s definitely something worth taking up shelf space. No totally standout, classic matches, but everything on this card is definitely solid, and many times great.
FINAL VERDICT: A Ted Petty approved 8/10