Theheel Posted May 23, 2022 Share Posted May 23, 2022 Man I hate seeing Tennessee leave. I can tell you enjoy writing him and clearly he is leaving a big void at the top. Will be very interested in seeing how you handle the next man up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP1 Posted May 23, 2022 Author Share Posted May 23, 2022 New York City… where parting is such sweet sorrow… The locker room was quieter than normal. It still buzzed, but this time with a nervous, low-key energy. Tennessee William was warmly greeted by his friends and colleagues, while Larry and I thought it best to leave him to say his goodbyes and enjoy himself; the administration of his departure could wait. As per his request, his final match was set and lights came up ready for the final appearance of the former champion. NYCW Southern Farewell Saturday, Week 2, October 2020 Reichstein Ballroom, New York City, New York Attendance: 860 TAG TEAM MATCH: Tubbs & Mauler vs. Cross River Connection In a bout that didn't have much heat and terrible wrestling, Cross River Connection defeated Crockett Tubbs and The Masked Mauler in 7:34 when Perfect Pepper Pelton pinned The Masked Mauler with a Prime Time Perfection. Rating: 32 The young douchebages get themselves a win courtesy of perennial jobber Tubbs and newcomer Mauler. Their teamwork and energy was so contagious that we wanted them to become a fixture of the division as soon as possible. GANG BATTLE MATCH: Freedom Eagle, Chuck Casey & The Tagg Brothers vs. The Boys from the Yukon & The Italian Americans In a bout that didn't have much heat and terrible wrestling, The Boys From The Yukon and The Italian Americans defeated Freedom Eagle, Chuck Casey and The Tagg Brothers in 10:30 when Vito Pirelli pinned Kal Tagg with a Shoulder Breaker. Rating: 34 We wanted a win for our two big boy heel teams, so we gave the crowd a show by chucking them into a massive tag team match. These were spectacles, which never quite had the quality of more story-driven affairs, but served a purpose in terms of momentum. NYCW TRI-STATE TITLE MATCH: Ray Snow vs. Hawkeye Calhoun © In a poor match, Hawkeye Calhoun defeated Ray Snow in 7:36 by pinfall with a Home Run. Hawkeye Calhoun makes defence number two of the NYCW Tri-State Regional. Rating: 41 We’re rolling out all the job squad today. Hawkeye had white hot momentum and was comfortably the fastest rising star in the company. His success had increased the prestige of the title too, which was glorious. When he lost the title it would mean way more than when he won it. GANG WARS MATCH: Brutus Milano & The LA Stars vs. Richie Riggins & The New York Dolls In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Brutus Milano and The LA Stars defeated Richie Riggins and The New York Dolls in 10:22 when Eddie Braddock was disqualified while fighting Brutus Milano. Rating: 41 I big brawl between some of our top stars ending in a hokey DQ finish. It wasn’t ideal, but the match was pretty decent and The Beast continues to look like a… well, Beast. NYCW EMPIRE TITLE MATCH: Sal DiMeo vs. American Machine © In a decent match, American Machine defeated Sal DiMeo in 22:11 by pinfall with an Old Glory. American Machine makes defence number one of the NYCW Empire. Rating: 48 Sweet Sal gets a shot at the big belt and puts in a great performance which should help his popularity despite losing. ‘The Real Patriot’ American Machine caps his incredible return to the company with a solid and clean first win as champion. Despite some of his in-ring limitations, he had the charisma, popularity and legendary gimmick to be a long-term solution as a top star of the company. GANG WARS MATCH: Riley McManus & Masked Stranger vs. Denny King & Andrew Harper In a decent match, Denny King and Andrew Harper defeated Riley McManus and Masked Stranger in 21:50 when Andrew Harper pinned Riley McManus with a Spike Slam. Rating: 40 Well this was a mess. Riley McManus and Masked Stranger did their best to keep the flow of the match going, despite the obvious lack of chemistry of their opponents. That was until Riley McManus broke his ribs when Andrew Harper speared him sloppily. McManus was visible angry about the botch and Harper looks irate too. They were forced to wrap up the match quicker than expected, and Harper pinning McManus at the end felt like an insult. SINGLES MATCH: Animal Harker vs. Tennessee William In a good match, Animal Harker defeated Tennessee William in 22:20 by pinfall with a Stump Piledriver. Rating: 54 A great match to say goodbye and one brimming with history and self-references. Animal Harker, always one who can capture a crowds imagination, does so here playing the unstoppable brawling machine against Tennessee William’s smarter, more conniving opponent. Tennessee tried every trick in his playbook to steal the win, but Harker just kept on going. ANGLE: After the pinfall, a tearful Tennessee William offers a handshake to Animal, who looks at him and then accepts. Animal raises his former tag team partners hand and the crowd cheers. Tennessee is then handed a microphone and his guitar. Carefully he lays the guitar in the middle of ring and lifts the mic to his mouth. “It’s me, it’s me…” the crowd all chant ‘IT’S TENNESSEE!’ in response. He smiles and turns to Animal Harker… and then kicks him full in the crotch. With Animal rolling in agony. “Tennessee William OUT!” He symbolically drops the mic and walks out of the ring. Out of the match. And out of the company. Rating: 80 Perfection. OVERALL RATING: 49 30,903 viewers tuned in to watch the farewell show and we dealt with some more pay rise requests after the show with LA Star #1 bumped up to $80 and Andrew Harper to $90. Around the industry that week, TCW were active, signing Big Smack Scott, Kurt Laramee and Knuckles from FREEDOM and even we got in on the act, signing a recently released star to our biggest contract offer to date. We planned to debut him on the next show and insert him straight into the main event. He didn’t have the same emotional pull of Tennessee William, but he was a talented older worker with high upside. NYCW Battlefield Saturday, Week 3, October 2020 The Ministry, New York City, New York Attendance: 947 GANG WARS MATCH: Freedom Eagle, Masked Stranger &The Masked Mauler vs. The DiMeo Family In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Freedom Eagle, Masked Stranger and The Masked Mauler defeated The DiMeo Family (Sal DiMeo, Vito Pirelli and Luca Sacramoni) in 10:28 when Masked Stranger submitted Vito Pirelli with a Cobra Clutch. Rating: 39 The DiMeo Family fall short against a slightly resurgent Masked Stranger. Mauler gets a run and Freedom attempts to remain relevant while his former tag team partner continues to rise up the ranks. SINGLES MATCH: Riley McManus vs. Animal Harker In a decent match, Riley McManus drew with Animal Harker in 21:39 following a double count out. Rating: 46 Following his show-stealing performance against Tennessee William, Animal Harker rolls straight into another great match against the Georgia Bulldog. The two of them have great chemistry, which helped. He didn’t particularly want either man to take the loss, so we rolled with the draw finish. COTT WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Tagg Brothers vs. The Boys form the Yukon © In a bout that didn't have much heat and terrible wrestling, The Boys From The Yukon defeated The Tagg Brothers in 9:54 when Howlin' Mad Mort pinned Kal Tagg after using a foreign object. The Boys From The Yukon make defence number six of the COTT World Tag Team. Rating: 37 The Yukon Boys have taken to beating up young stars in their dominant title run. The Tagg Brothers once again show their toughness here, refusing to be easily beaten and in fact the champs have to cheat to win. But win they do. NYCW TRI-STATE TITLE MATCH: Denny King vs. Hawkeye Calhoun © In a decent match, Hawkeye Calhoun defeated Denny King in 23:27 by pinfall with a Home Run following interference from Riley McManus. Hawkeye Calhoun makes defence number three of the NYCW Tri-State Regional. Rating: 44 The streak continues as the new champ beats the former champion. But the big story here is the Georgia Bulldog interfering and costing King his shot. The blood feud between the two starts to threaten to make McManus look like a heel. As he seeks vengeance and victory, he is throwing out everything that makes him a hero away. I think it’s safe to say this is our hottest storyline to date. NYCW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The New York Dolls vs. The LA Stars © In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, The LA Stars defeated The New York Dolls in 10:20 when LA Star #2 pinned Eddie Braddock while using the ropes for leverage. The LA Stars make defence number three of the NYCW Tag Team. Rating: 40 The new team put in a decent showing against our champions, but fall at the last hurdle. Eddie ‘The Beast’ takes the pinfall too as we seem to be protecting Spike and as a result he’s becoming one of our most recognisable stars. ANGLE: American Machine and Brutus Milano are in the ring. With Tennessee William gone, there’s just one a-hole left to deal with Andrew Harper needs to get himself a tag team partner and get out here for a righteous beating in the name of AMERICA’S FREEDOM! Harper walks out onto the stage and waits. A video plays behind him with stock footage from World War 2, then Vietnam, then the Gulf War. Fortunate Man by Creedence Clearwater Revival starts to play as three words appear on the screen one after the other… ONE. MAN. ARMY. A helicopter blade graphic spins the words into the name Thom Barrowman. The music crescendo’s and out steps the man himself. Rating: 66 Booyah! TAG TEAM MATCH: American Machine & Brutus Milano vs. Andrew Harper & Thom Barrowman In a bout that had good heat and decent wrestling, Andrew Harper and Thom Barrowman defeated American Machine and Brutus Milano in 24:33 when Andrew Harper pinned American Machine with a Spike Slam. Rating: 54 Boom! New debut leads to great match (even with Brutus involved) and Harper pins the champion clean in the centre of the ring. Thom Barrowman was head and shoulders above everyone else in the match in terms of in-ring quality. Add to that a great gimmick of ‘Bitter Military Veteran’ and this was about as good of a debut as we could’ve hoped. We still secretly preferred Tennessee William, but Thom was great in his own way. OVERALL RATING: 49 Our production values were costing us overall quality of shows and with that increased veiwershup and revenue. 31,466 viewers is a step in the right direction, but we may need to look at advertising our debutants in future to create some buzz ahead of time rather than working on a delay. At month end we made $4,108 profit and used some of that to deal with pay rises. The Yukon boys Howlin Mad Mort and Whitehorse Whittaker were both given well-deserved and overdue pay rises to $90, along with Denny King. The Georgia Bulldog was bumped up to $80, which was still comparatively cheap. And elsewhere TCW continued to sign workers up. We were lucky and avoided a hit as they grabbed Dusty Ducont. Next time… the final build to Cage Clash 2020… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sco xY2Jx Posted May 23, 2022 Share Posted May 23, 2022 Catching up on this. Tennessee William is absolutely one of my favourite C-Verse characters and his exit was... *chef's kiss*... perfection. I've toyed with ideas for NYCW in the past so happy to see this one moving along. Good stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP1 Posted May 23, 2022 Author Share Posted May 23, 2022 Catching up on this. Tennessee William is absolutely one of my favourite C-Verse characters and his exit was... *chef's kiss*... perfection. I've toyed with ideas for NYCW in the past so happy to see this one moving along. Good stuff. It's always disappointing to lose him. But one day I'll get him back. Maybe when he's retired... Glad you're enjoying though. Man I hate seeing Tennessee leave. I can tell you enjoy writing him and clearly he is leaving a big void at the top. Will be very interested in seeing how you handle the next man up I think I handle it ok, but in game terms I'm currently quite far ahead of this point, so there's just as much chance that I completely botched it. I definitely do that a few times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP1 Posted May 23, 2022 Author Share Posted May 23, 2022 New York City… One man an army doesn’t make… With two bonafide former big league stars to compliment our two home grown stars, we decided to invest in increasing our broadcast quality to ‘In House.’ The Pro Wrestling Reporter informed us that Freddy Huggins had just won the TCW World Heavyweight. With two shows to go before Cage Clash 2020, we had some final things to bring together to make the whole event pop. NYCW Fight Club NYC Saturday, Week 2, November 2020 Reichstein Ballroom, New York City, New York Attendance: 988 SINGLES MATCH: Chuck Casey vs. Dreadnought In a terrible match, Dreadnought defeated Chuck Casey in 6:12 by pinfall with a Dread Bomb. Rating: 20 Behold, the new rookie debuts. The son of the legendary Dread, the rookie has all the tools available to become a megastar. And we kick things off for him with a terrible debut match and a gimmick which the crowd don’t care about. We’d obviously work on that, but this was the opposite of the Barrowman debut in terms of effectiveness. TAG TEAM MATCH: Tubbs & Borne vs. The Italian Americans In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but terrible wrestling, The Italian Americans defeated Crockett Tubbs and Geoff Borne in 9:42 when Luca Sacramoni pinned Geoff Borne with a Double Choke Slam. Rating: 30 Sometimes you just want a team to get a win. And in times like that you get Crockett Tubbs and Geoff Borne in to help. Annoyingly, for the first time both of them were struggling with low morale because of their continuous losses. This was a new problem and would require some clever negotiating on my part. Alternatively I might just keep using them as I do and then releasing them. I’m fifty-fifty on the idea at the moment. SINGLES MATCH: James Diaz vs. Riley McManus In a poor match, Riley McManus defeated James Diaz in 8:08 by pinfall with a Slingshot Suplex. Rating: 31 James Diaz puts in a good shift against the more aggressive Georgia Bulldog as I squeeze every bit of momentum out of anyone to give to our best feud in years. GANG WARS MATCH: The Masked Mauler & The Tagg Brothers vs. Richie Riggins & The New York Dolls In a bout that didn't have much heat and terrible wrestling, Richie Riggins and The New York Dolls defeated The Masked Mauler and The Tagg Brothers in 10:10 when Richie Riggins pinned Wolfie Tagg with a Body Bag. Rating: 37 The young rookies are given a lesson at the hands of some of our better midcard talent. Nothing is stopping the rise of Riggins and the Dolls at this point and their informal alliance is helping all three men rise up the ranks. Good stuff all round. SINGLES MATCH: Freedom Eagle vs. Denny King In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Denny King defeated Freedom Eagle in 10:20 by pinfall with a Superplex. Rating: 40 Speaking of our hottest feud. Anything McManus can do, King can do better. Here he demolishes a steady midcard hand of ours. The crushing disappointment Freedom Eagle must be feeling at the moment is heart-breaking. He was talented enough to bounce back one day. Just not this day. NYCW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Cross River Connection vs. The LA Stars © In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, The LA Stars defeated Cross River Connection in 9:45 when LA Star #1 pinned Prime Time Jack Pryde with a Star Destroyer. The LA Stars make defence number four of the NYCW Tag Team. Rating: 40 THE champs reign supreme and the young douchebags give a good performance. We were still moving pieces around in the tag team division since the end of the long-running Stars/Yukon feud. And things were moving in the right direction. NYCW TRI-STATE TITLE MATCH: Sal DiMeo vs. Hawkeye Calhoun © In a decent match, Hawkeye Calhoun defeated Sal DiMeo in 10:28 by pinfall, illegally using the ropes for leverage. Hawkeye Calhoun makes defence number four of the NYCW Tri-State Regional. Rating: 45 Sometimes he cheats to win. But Hawkeye doesn’t care how the crowd feel as long as he keeps winning. Sweet Sal, who we had a plan for shortly could afford the loss here because he looked impressive and dominant and his opponent had to cheat to beat him. GANG WARS MATCH: Brutus Milano, Masked Stranger & Animal Harker vs. Andrew Harper & The Boys from the Yukon In a decent match, Andrew Harper and The Boys From The Yukon defeated Brutus Milano, Masked Stranger and Animal Harker in 21:32 when Andrew Harper pinned Animal Harker with a Spike Slam. Rating: 38 With American Machine now our top face, Brutus’ role become more fluid. The three faces could afford the loss to our high-flying heels here, plus the Gang Wars style gave us more opportunity to hide Brutus’ deficiencies. ANGLE: Fortunate Son plays signalling the arrival of Thom Barrowman. Tonight is his first chance in this backwater company to claim the glory robbed from him after years in the military. He gave everything to this country and the crowd’s freedoms. And how is he treated when he returns home? He’s treated to boos from an ungrateful world. While American Machine, a musclebound no one gets cheers and applause and adulation. It’s not fair. But he has the power and skill to right the wrong. And tonight, that’s exactly what he plans to do. Rating: 66 Good fired-up and embittered promo from someone who looks like a real star in a sea of… not stars. NYCW EMPIRE TITLE MATCH: Thom Barrowman vs. American Machine © In a bout that had fantastic heat and great wrestling, Thom Barrowman drew with American Machine in 21:54 following a double disqualification. Rating: 62 The two biggest stars in the company battle it out to an epic match. Neither gets the advantage and straight away Barrowman looks like a dominant killer. Fantastic. OVERALL RATING: 56 We definitely deserved better than that overall rating. But we got 37,166 viewers, which is a good increase. The rematch was immediately signed and announced for Cage Clash. Which makes it the second announced match after Riley McManus vs. Denny King… in a Steel Cage. Now just the go home show left. NYCW The Final Countdown Saturday, Week 3, November 2020 The Ministry, New York City, New York Attendance: 1,000 (SOLD OUT!?!) TAG TEAM MATCH: James Diaz & The Masked Mauler vs. Cross River Connection In a terrible match, Cross River Connection defeated James Diaz and The Masked Mauler in 10:14 when Prime Time Jack Pryde pinned James Diaz with a Prime Time Perfection. Rating: 29 Bouncing back from their defeat against the champs, the Cross River Connection get the win against some other rookies in a decent, if unspectacular opener. SINGLES MATCH: Chuck Casey vs. Sal DiMeo In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Sal DiMeo defeated Chuck Casey in 10:26 by pinfall with a Powerbomb. Rating: 34 Sweet Sal needed a win and Chuck Casey had nothing else going on for the day. So here we are. TAG TEAM MATCH: Animal Harker & Freedom Eagle vs. The New York Dolls In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, The New York Dolls defeated Animal Harker and Freedom Eagle in 10:22 when Eddie Braddock pinned Animal Harker with a Sedation. Rating: 35 First we discover that Animal Harker and Freedom Eagle have great chemistry, which is like finding money these days. Then eight minutes later Animal Harker suffers knee ligament damage and we call the ‘go home’ and end the match, which is like a slap in the face. Would we remember that they had great chemistry later on? Probably not. We’re just trying to forget this match. Good win for the Dolls though. GANG WARS MATCH: Masked Stranger & The Tagg Brothers vs. Dreadnought & The Boys from the Yukon In a bout that didn't have much heat and terrible wrestling, Dreadnought and The Boys From The Yukon defeated Masked Stranger and The Tagg Brothers in 9:55 when Dreadnought pinned Kal Tagg with a Dread Bomb. Rating: 36 Our attempts to recover from the disastrous debut of Dreadnought begin in earnest. Obviously some of it was down to our audience not having a clue and the rest came down to us not providing them a reason to. He was actually taller than both the Yukon Boys which gave a nice visual representation of why people should care. Match was decent considering the participants. SINGLES MATCH: LA Star # 2 vs. Vito Pirelli In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Vito Pirelli defeated LA Star #2 in 9:41 by pinfall by using underhanded tactics. Rating: 37 Time to try and ignite the feud between the Italian Americans and the LA Stars with a couple of singles matches. This was actually disappointing considering the in-ring talent of the stars. Italian Americans get a bit of rub from the win though. SINGLES MATCH: LA Star #1 vs. Luca Sacramoni In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Luca Sacramoni defeated LA Star #1 in 10:26 by pinfall by using underhanded tactics. Rating: 39 Another disappointment to be honest. LA Star #1 in particular is a great in-ring worker and we expected him to be able to carry Luca to greater heights than he did. There was a chance that the Italian Americans were not actual long-term option for our tag team division. Beyond their look and gimmicks there wasn’t much going on behind the scenes. We’d have to monitor that. ANGLE: American Machine cuts a promo hyping up his upcoming match at Cage Clash with Thom Barrowman. He salutes his opponent for his toughness and for his service. But the idea that he, American Machine is anything other than a Goddam American Hero is ridiculous. But he’ll happily prove that to Barrowman at Cage Clash. Rating: 63 They said a ridiculously over-the-top patriot had no place in modern wrestling. I say, just you watch. GANG BATTLE MATCH: American Machine, Brutus Milano, Riley McManus & Hawkeye Calhoun vs. Thom Barrowman, Andrew Harper, Denny King & Richie Riggins In a decent match, American Machine, Brutus Milano, Riley McManus and Hawkeye Calhoun drew with Thom Barrowman, Andrew Harper, Denny King and Richie Riggins in 24:30 following a double disqualification. Rating: 46 A classic get all the top feuding workers into a single match and end with a massive brawl to whet the appetites of the audience for Cage Clash. Match was actually a huge disappointment because we forgot to tell the wrestlers to protect Brutus and the match lagged thanks to his five minute bearhug spot. I thought we’d seen the last of that. OVERALL RATING: 43 33,949 viewers is… well it cools our momentum a bit. I always want to see growth and the lack of it here was as disappointing as a Brutus Milano vs. Chuck Casey match. Even worse Animal Harker was ruled out for a month and Crockett Tubbs complained about his booking again. Not now Crockett! Finally the cost of added production meant we lost $4,643. Backstage after the show, American Machine came over to tell us how impressed he is with Hawkeye Calhoun and if they ever needed him to lay down for the kid, he’d be willing to do it. Which is just about the most professional and awesome thing I’ve ever heard. Then Masked Stranger told us he was considering an offer from TCW. It was tough to feel too bad as he’d been floundering all year. We thanked him for his work and wished him well. But I’d be damned if he got the heartfelt treatment Tennessee got. Speaking of TCW; Aaron Andrews won the King of Kings tourney. While USPW went on a hiring spree grabbing; Darryl Devine, Grease Hog, Shady K, Lead Belly and COTT United States champion Frankie ‘P-Dawg’ Perez. CAGE CLASH 2020 NYCW Empire Title: Thom Barrowman vs. American Machine © Brutus Milano vs. Andrew Harper 'The Georgia Bulldog' Riley McManus vs. Denny King NYCW Tag Team Titles: The LA Stars vs. The Italian Americans NYCW Tri-State Title: Hawkeye Calhoun vs. Sal DiMeo Chuck Casey, Crockett Tubbs & Geoff Borne vs. Dreadnought & The New York Dolls Masked Stranger vs. Richie 'The Body' Riggins The Tagg Brothers vs. Cross River Connection James Diaz vs. THe Masked Mauler vs. Ray Snow Next time… Cage Clash 2020… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterRomanini Posted May 23, 2022 Share Posted May 23, 2022 I'll keep watching this. I'm a sucker for seeing NYCW succeed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Lions Posted May 24, 2022 Share Posted May 24, 2022 NYCW Empire Title: Thom Barrowman vs. American Machine © Brutus Milano vs. Andrew Harper Harper pinned the champ in the big tag match, so I think he ends up being the next target so you can keep your two biggest draws away from each other a while and use them to elevate the rest of your guys. 'The Georgia Bulldog' Riley McManus vs. Denny King NYCW Tag Team Titles: The LA Stars vs. The Italian Americans NYCW Tri-State Title: Hawkeye Calhoun vs. Sal DiMeo I think the DiMeo Family is a group that struggles without clear direction, and giving them all the gold lets them anchor your midcard and give them the opportunity to grow a lot faster. Chuck Casey, Crockett Tubbs & Geoff Borne vs. Dreadnought & The New York Dolls Masked Stranger vs. Richie 'The Body' Riggins The Tagg Brothers vs. Cross River Connection James Diaz vs. The Masked Mauler vs. Ray Snow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theheel Posted May 24, 2022 Share Posted May 24, 2022 CAGE CLASH 2020 NYCW Empire Title: Thom Barrowman vs. American Machine © Debated about this as he is only in his 3rd month in NYCW. But I think with his pop and skills he might be able to replace Tennessee. Brutus Milano vs. Andrew Harper Hate the idea of Brutus getting a title shot but a win puts him in line to challenge the new champ. 'The Georgia Bulldog' Riley McManus vs. Denny King Curious where Riley is going. If he stays a face he could be in line at Barrowman NYCW Tag Team Titles: The LA Stars vs. The Italian Americans The IA’s just haven’t done enough imo NYCW Tri-State Title: Hawkeye Calhoun vs. Sal DiMeo Maybe it’s time for Big Sal to shine Chuck Casey, Crockett Tubbs & Geoff Borne vs. Dreadnought & The New York Dolls Job squad does what it does best here. Masked Stranger vs. Richie 'The Body' Riggins Well if one guy is leaving he needs to do the honors The Tagg Brothers vs. Cross River Connection James Diaz vs. THe Masked Mauler vs. Ray Snow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KyTeran Posted May 24, 2022 Share Posted May 24, 2022 CAGE CLASH 2020 NYCW Empire Title: Thom Barrowman vs. American Machine © Brutus Milano vs. Andrew Harper 'The Georgia Bulldog' Riley McManus vs. Denny King NYCW Tag Team Titles: The LA Stars vs. The Italian Americans NYCW Tri-State Title: Hawkeye Calhoun vs. Sal DiMeo Chuck Casey, Crockett Tubbs & Geoff Borne vs. Dreadnought & The New York Dolls Masked Stranger vs. Richie 'The Body' Riggins The Tagg Brothers vs. Cross River Connection James Diaz vs. The Masked Mauler vs. Ray Snow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP1 Posted May 24, 2022 Author Share Posted May 24, 2022 New York City… Where men settle a blood feud, inside a STEEL CAGE… NYCW Cage Clash 2020 Saturday, Week 2, December 2020 The Ministry, New York City, New York Attendance: 1,000 (SOLD OUT!?!) TRIPLE THREAT MATCH: James Diaz vs. The Masked Mauler vs. Ray Snow In a terrible match, James Diaz defeated Ray Snow and The Masked Mauler in 5:40 when James Diaz pinned Ray Snow with an Asian Thumb Spike. Rating: 35 Solid win for our potential future star. He’s got all the skills you need to become a top-level performer, so it was time to start heating him up. TAG TEAM MATCH: The Tagg Brothers vs. Cross River Connection In a terrible match, Cross River Connection defeated The Tagg Brothers in 8:02 when Perfect Pepper Pelton pinned Kal Tagg with a Prime Time Perfection. Rating: 25 Battle of the young tag team superstars ends with a win for the more prominent. The Tagg Brothers are arguably the better team of the two, but the Cross River Connection are the better individuals, with more chance to make an impact for us. SINGLES MATCH: Masked Stranger vs. Richie Riggins In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Richie Riggins defeated Masked Stranger in 8:01 by pinfall with a Body Bag. Rating: 37 And of course, with Stranger nearly out the door, we mind a perfectly good midcard feud with pretty good chemistry. Typical. Still, the important thing is Richie ‘The Body’ Riggins takes another step forward in his popularity and development. Exciting times ahead for this potential star. GANG WARS MATCH: Casey, Tubbs & Borne vs. Dreadnought & The New York Dolls In a bout that didn't have much heat and terrible wrestling, Dreadnought and The New York Dolls defeated Chuck Casey, Crockett Tubbs and Geoff Borne in 5:36 when Dreadnought pinned Chuck Casey with a Dread Bomb. Rating: 34 Another show, another Dreadnought squash. THE Job Squad do their jobs and a group of heels progress. Our roster was currently heavy on faces at the top end and heavy on heels at the bottom. We needed to work hard to elevate some heels and lower some faces. But who? NYCW TRI-STATE TITLE MATCH: Sal DiMeo vs. Hawkeye Calhoun © In a decent match, Hawkeye Calhoun defeated Sal DiMeo in 9:57 by pinfall with a Home Run. Hawkeye Calhoun makes defence number five of the NYCW Tri-State Regional. Rating: 45 The champ is still here and is racking up wins quicker than we can count. The lack of storyline for Hawkeye means that he has to work extra hard to make his title reign memorable. The best way to do that is for him to go on a winning streak. It also means when he finally loses it’ll mean more. Hopefully. NYCW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Italian Americans vs. The LA Stars © In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, The LA Stars defeated The Italian Americans in 9:50 when LA Star #1 pinned Vito Pirelli with a Star Destroyer. The LA Stars make defence number five of the NYCW Tag Team. Rating: 40 The tag team champs were never really in danger of losing here. Especially because the Italian Americans were floating aimlessly. The DiMeo Family needed some work and we needed to really find something to keep them busy, because if not they’re a waste of a roster spot. CLASH IN A CAGE MATCH: ‘The Georgia Bulldog’ Riley McManus vs. Denny King In a decent match, Riley McManus defeated Denny King in a Cage match in 10:17 when Riley McManus escaped the cage. Rating: 51 And there it is. A fantastic match-cap to an amazing feud for both men. There was blood, high spots and some incredible wrestling which got the crowd buzzing more than any match in NYCW history. I actually was so engrossed in the story that I didn’t have a plan for either man in the New Year. But for now we could just bask in their excellence. And the Georgia Bulldog pulls himself back from the brink of heeldom by winning the honourable way. SINGLES MATCH: Brutus Milano vs. Andrew Harper In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Andrew Harper defeated Brutus Milano in 9:48 by pinfall with a Spike Slam. Rating: 40 Normally I like to send the crowd home happy on year-end shows (it’s in-keeping with the season). But here I needed Andrew Harper to step up to the plate and transcend to a permanent top-level star. Beating the former Empire Champ did just that. COTT UNITED STATES TITLE MATCH: Logan Wolfsbaine vs. Frankie Perez © In a decent match, Logan Wolfsbaine defeated Frankie Perez in 9:52 by submission with a Boston Crab. Logan Wolfsbaine wins the COTT United States. Rating: 53 At an emergency COTT meeting Larry had agreed to help transition the United States Title to its new home. I was delighted because any opportunity to get Logan onto the card was welcome. The match was predictably fantastic and would’ve increased the title’s prestige by itself. COTT WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Pittsburgh Steel (Madman Boone & Ash Campbell) vs. The Boys from the Yukon © In a decent match, The Boys From The Yukon defeated Madman Boone and Ash Campbell in 10:15 when Howlin' Mad Mort pinned Madman Boone with a Tiiiiiiiiiiimber. The Boys From The Yukon make defence number ten of the COTT World Tag Team. Rating: 38 The Yukon Boys continue their dominance of the tag team ranks worldwide after a solid victory against PSW’s two stars. We were only allowed to bring them over as part of the deal to give Logan the US Title. Match was massively underwhelming, but we did need them to cool the crowd off in case on burnout. COTT WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Freedom Eagle vs. Ernest Youngman © In a decent match, Ernest Youngman defeated Freedom Eagle in 9:36 by pinfall while using the ropes for leverage. Ernest Youngman makes defence number sixteen of the COTT World Heavyweight. Rating: 53 The final part of the deal was completed here. Ernest, the Assassin of the Squared Circle, came in and made an impressive sixteenth title defense. Freedom deserved a bit of shine and competing on a major show for the World Title did that. Again though, we just really wished we could sign Ernest full-time. What a guy! NYCW EMPIRE TITLE MATCH: Thom Barrowman vs. American Machine © In a bout that had fantastic heat and great wrestling, American Machine defeated Thom Barrowman in 22:25 by pinfall with an Old Glory. American Machine makes defence number three of the NYCW Empire. Rating: 62 Another match-up, only this time American Machine proves he’s no faker. He’s as American as (the British-invented inspired by French, Dutch and Turkish cuisine) Apple Pie. Fantastic match again between these two and I fully intended on rolling forward with their feud because it was gaining us popularity at a pretty startling rate. OVERALL RATING: 57 41,383 viewers watched our final show of the year. Good stuff. Backstage while celebrating wishig all the boys a happy New Year, Hawkeye approached me to tell me he thinks Prime Time is money and we should strap a rocket on him. This was quickly followed by Animal Harker telling me he was relocating permanently to Japan. Then Richie Riggins asked for a payrise to $100 per show, which we gave him. Larry excitedly told me we’d made $9,859 off the show. And with that, our first year came to a close. It has been broadly awesome. Some of the younger talent had come through quicker than expected, while a lot of the veterans had hung around longer than we could possibly have hoped. 2021 was a big year for us, like they all were really. Larry, Steve Flash, Ernie Turner and myself sat on the roof of the arena once the boys had left and enjoyed a cold beer together, before toasting to the year ahead. Next time… Year in Review 2020… Results: KyTeran - 8/9 Theheel - 6/9 John Lions - 6/9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP1 Posted May 24, 2022 Author Share Posted May 24, 2022 New York City… Where we have very few top 500 workers in the world, but we are award-winning… Wrestler of the Year: Wolf Hawkins (TCW) Young Wrestler of the Year: Hurakan (EILL) Female Wrestler of the Year: Brooke Tyler (CWA) Tag Team of the Year: The Amazing Bumfholes (SWF) Independent Wrestler of the Year: Megumi Nakajima (5SSW) Veteran Wrestler of the Year: The Crippler (SWF) Promotion of the Year: TCW Most Improved Promotion: NYCW (THAT’S RIGHT BABY!) Show of the Year: TCW Threatening Behaviour (Wolf Hawkins defeated D.C. Rayne) Match of the Year: Wolf Hawkins vs. D.C. Rayne (TCW Threatening Behaviour – October 2020) Announcer of the Year: Duane Fry (SWF) Colour Commentator of the Year: Emma Chase (SWF) Manager of the Year: Krissy Angelle (SWF) Top 10 Workers in the World: 1. Wolf Hawkins (TCW) 2. Aaron Andrews (TCW) 3. Mikey Lau (SWF) 4. Randy Bumfhole (SWF) 5. Remo Richardson (SWF) 6. Zimmy Bumfhole (SWF) 7. Gino Montero (EILL) 8. Des David (SWF) 9. Dr Rudo (EILL) 10. Rock God Alvarez (EILL) NYCW Workers and People of Note in Top 500: 13. Cameron Vessey (Larry’s son) 24. Atom Smasher (Nevada Nuclear – NYCW Alumni) 59. Matthew Keith (Sam Keith’s son) 63. Greg Gauge (Sam Keith’s son) 95. Monty Trescarde (NYCW Alumni) 131. Dazzling Dave Diamond (Larry’s Most Hated Rival) 145. Joey Morgan (Joey Minnesota – Former NYCW Empire Champion) 194. Grandmaster Phunk (Former NYCW Empire Champion) 255. Roger Cage (Former NYCW Empire Champion) 271. Bulldozer Brandon Smith (Former NYCW Empire Champion) 288. Dean Waldorf (NYCW Alumni) 289. Marv Statler (NYCW Alumni) 313. Petr Novak (The Big Problem – NYCW Alumni) 398. Ernest Youngman (COTT World Heavyweight Champion) 343. Masked Stranger 345. Tennessee William (Former NYCW Empire Champion) 350. Sammy Smoke (Sammy the Shark – NYCW Alumni) 441. Logan Wolfsbaine (COTT United States Champion) Title Prestige NYCW Empire: American Machine – 34 Prestige (+5) NYCW King of New York – 43 Prestige (+10) NYCW Tag Team: The LA Stars – 31 Prestige (+4) NYCW Tri-State Regional: Hawkeye Calhoun – 29 Prestige (+6) COTT World Heavyweight: Ernest Youngman (PSW) – 47 Prestige (+6) COTT World Tag Team: The Boys from the Yukon (NYCW) – 39 Prestige (+5) COTT United States: Logan Wolfsbaine (PSW) – 40 Prestige Roster Major Star American Machine Thom Barrowman Andrew Harper Star Brutus Milano Denny King Hawkeye Calhoun Howlin’ Mad Mort LA Star #2 Riley McManus Spike Sylvian Whitehorse Whittaker Well Known Animal Harker Freedom Eagle LA Star #1 Luca Sacramoni Richie Riggins Sal DiMeo Vito Pirelli Recognisable Chuck Casey Eddie Braddock Geoff Borne Perfect Pepper Pelton Prime Time Jack Pryde Unimportant Crockett Tubbs Dreadnought James Diaz Kal Tag Machine Gun Marino Ray Snow The Masked Mauler Tully Casey Wolfie Tagg Top 10 Matches in NYCW History 1. American Machine defeated Tom Barrowman (NYCW Cage Clash 2020, December 2020) 2. Thom Barrowman and American Machine go to Double DQ (NYCW Fight Club NYC, November 2020) 3. American Machine defeated Tennessee William (NYCW Gang Wars 2020, September 2020) 4. American Machine defeated Ernest Youngman by DQ (NYCW Battle of the Territories, August 2020) 5. Ernest Youngman defeated Pablo Rodriguez (NYCW Night of Champions, February 2020) 6. Tennessee William defeated American Machine (NYCW No Exit, August 2020) 7. Animal Harker defeated Tennessee William (NYCW A Southern Farewell, October 2020) 8. Andrew Harper & Thom Barrowman defeated American Machine & Brutus Milano (NYCW Battlefield, October 2020) 9. Ernest Youngman defeated Freedom Eagle (NYCW Cage Clash 2020, December 2020) 10. Logan Wolfsbaine defeated Frankie Perez (NYCW Cage Clash 2020, December 2020) We’d need to work on getting more matches on here which only included our regular workers… we’d make an exception for Ernest Youngman of course. Next time… 2021 starts with a Bang! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theheel Posted May 25, 2022 Share Posted May 25, 2022 Very good and entertaining first year! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP1 Posted May 25, 2022 Author Share Posted May 25, 2022 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania… New Year’s Day… The Confederation of the Territories were branching out to other areas for their meetings. And we got to travel to our home-away-from-home, Pittsburgh. On the banks of the three rivers, the owners sat around the table, while the head bookers were now granted seats along the sideline to watch and get involved in necessary. We’d grown too. Farrah Hesketh and El Bandido now joined the ranks on the main table, bringing with them QAW (all-women’s promotion) and EMLL (pseudo science fiction, fantasy lucha libre). Both were welcomed and added to two slots at the bottom end of the table. Mitch Naess was moved up alongside Larry to signify the importance of PSW and the fact we were technically in his patch. The goal of the meeting was to ascertain who’d be the inaugural COTT World Women’s champion and the first COTT World Six-Man Tag team champions. The women’s title was decided quickly as the room of aging men bowed to Farrah’s superior knowledge (Killer Kass was the choice). The six-man caused more of a headache. Especially when you considered OLLIE, CILL, CZCW and ourselves ran regular six man tag team matches. Next on the discussion table was spiralling production costs and the mini-arms race of upgrading them. The broad feeling was a little competition was a good thing, and despite Larry’s best efforts no consensus could be reached on how to limit them. For the first time in some time, things got heated and Sam Keith had to step in. The rest of the meeting passed without incident. As we left, Larry told me to increase the Live Experience from Volunteers to Medium-level. “If they want some friendly competition, we’ll give it to them.” *** As I was flicking through the latest Pro Wrestling Reporter on the night of Rush Hour 2021, I noticed Miller Fforde had won the Rip Chord invitational XVI. That was two years in a row for him. Keith obviously loved the guy, which was strange because when I’d watched him, he’d seemed a little… dull. There was a knock at my door. Larry walked in, followed by a smartly-dressed, craggy-face which I recognised immediately. “Hey Kid,” Larry said. “I’d like you to meet Nigel Harriet.” “Honest Frank!” I replied completely unable to control my excitement. This man was an NYCW legend. He’d been in and around the main event of the company for years. A brawler with impressive mic skills who would no doubt one day make it to the Hall of Fame. We sat down and I bombarded Frank with questions about his time with the company, while he politely answered them. Eventually he interrupted “If you want me to talk, you should probably pay me to sit at the desk with you.” I laughed and he smiled. “Nah kid listen,” he went on. “My son, he’s training to become a pro and Larry here told me you had a system with rookies where they could test their metal in front of an audience and grow. I figured I probably still had some cahce around here, so thought I’d see if I could get him a shot.” “Absolutely,” I blurted out. “Generational NYCW talents. That’d be amazing. Is he Honest Frank Jr?” “You know Honest Frank is a character right? His name is Nigel Harriet Jr. And let me tell you, he’s got some skills. Nice kid too. Maybe too nice. He needs to be smartened up… if you know what I mean?” We sat and spoke for a few minutes more. But I was already sold. A second-generation star in NYCW. And one with history in our actual company. This was gold. Now all I had to do was see what he could do in the ring. NYCW Rush Hour 2021 Saturday, Week 4, January 2021 The Ministry, New York City, New York Attendance: 1,000 (SOLD OUT!?!) SINGLES MATCH: Kal Tagg vs. Dreadnought In a terrible match, Dreadnought defeated Kal Tagg in 8:04 by pinfall with a Dread Bomb. Rating: 20 Well this was a bloody awful start to the show. What on earth possessed me to run these two almost-unknowns with poor gimmicks together at the start of the show? Sometimes I need more thought to go into the undercard. It wasn’t the end of the world, but all I kept hearing was how much potential Dreadnought had and I really felt like I was botching his appearances. SINGLES MATCH: Wolfie Tagg vs. Eddie Braddock In a bout that had little heat and embarrassing wrestling, Eddie Braddock defeated Wolfie Tagg in 8:09 by pinfall with a Choke Bomb. Rating: 19 And somehow it gets worse. The Tagg Brothers are 100% tag team wrestlers only for now. It didn’t help that these two don’t click chemistry-wise. But my word. Worst opening to an event in our entire history I suspect. FOUR CORNER MATCH: Crockett Tubbs vs. James Diaz vs. The Masked Mauler vs. Richie Riggins In a bout that didn't have much heat and terrible wrestling, Richie Riggins defeated James Diaz, The Masked Mauler and Crockett Tubbs in 9:52 when Richie Riggins pinned The Masked Mauler with a Body Bag. Rating: 28 The Rise of Richie Riggins continues. This win against of mixture of jobbers and rookies may seem innocuous enough, but his winning streak is now making him a red hot asset. Watch this space. NYCW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Cross River Connection vs. The LA Stars © In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, The LA Stars defeated Cross River Connection in 10:21 when LA Star #1 pinned Perfect Pepper Pelton by using underhanded tactics. The LA Stars make defence number six of the NYCW Tag Team. Rating: 39 The Cross River Connection parlay their win at Cage Clash into a title shot at Rush Hour. Sadly they didn’t have enough about them to beat the LA Stars, but after a hard fought match where the crowd began to cheer for the Connection towards the end, the two teams shook hands and left without incident. NYCW TRI-STATE TITLE MATCH: Spike Sylvain vs. Hawkeye Calhoun © In a decent match, Hawkeye Calhoun defeated Spike Sylvain in 10:01 by pinfall while using the ropes for leverage. Hawkeye Calhoun makes defence number six of the NYCW Tri-State Regional. Rating: 48 When the irresistible force meets the immovable object (of momentum). Spike has been on an absolute tear since changing his name and he comes very close to taking the Tri State Title here. Unfortunately for him, Hawkeye Calhoun is just a little bit too savvy and uses the ropes to leverage a title defense. COTT WORLD SIX-MAN TITLE MATCH: Animal Harker, Freedom Eagle & Geoff Borne vs. The DiMeo Family In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, The DiMeo Family (Sal DiMeo, Luca Sacramoni and Vito Pirelli) defeated Animal Harker, Freedom Eagle and Geoff Borne in 9:36 when Sal DiMeo pinned Animal Harker with a Powerbomb. Sal DiMeo and The Italian Americans win the COTT World Six-Man. Rating: 37 In the end, with the three other promotions arguing about who should be inaugural champions, Larry springboards off of his success in helping everyone to once again get an advantage for the company. With little else to keep them busy at the moment, The DiMeo Family make the obvious choice for the new titles. Now they could go out and rack up some wins elsewhere and generally hone their craft. SINGLES MATCH: Brutus Milano vs. Denny King In a decent match, Brutus Milano defeated Denny King in 9:38 by count out. Rating: 43 In something of a filler match, we wanted to keep the losses coming for Denny. A punishment for his heelish antics. But we didn’t want him to actually lose any steam, so a count out loss it is. Denny was a pro and it wouldn’t be long before he wedeled his way back into a major storyline. ANGLE: American Machine cuts a promo hyping up his upcoming tag team match with Thom Barrowman. American Machine hopes he’s now dispelled the nonsense that he’s not a GODDAM AMERICAN HERO (smattering of crowd chanting along). So now that he’s overcome adversity… for freedom. Tonight he’s looking at a tag team match. And he can’t think of anyone he’d rather have alongside him than Atlanta’s finest… The Georgia Bulldog… Riley, McManus! Rating: 57 Riley steps into the hallowed ground of the main event scene proper. TAG TEAM MATCH: American Machine & ‘The Georgia Bulldog’ Riley McManus vs. Thom Barrowman & Andrew Harper In a bout that had good heat and decent wrestling, Thom Barrowman and Andrew Harper defeated American Machine and Riley McManus in 21:49 when Thom Barrowman pinned Riley McManus with a Guided Missile after American Machine chased Andrew Harper to the back. Rating: 48 Hugely disappointing match considering the talent in there. The ending was intriguing, with Riley left alone to swallow the pin; something he hasn’t done in a while. Thom Barrowman overcomes his defeat with an impressive showing here too. OVERALL RATING: 46 40,737 viewers this month, which for a disappointing overall show isn’t too bad. We also made $8,404 profit. Not a bad start to the year. Next time… Pay rises, poaches, releases and a surprise wedding invitation… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP1 Posted May 25, 2022 Author Share Posted May 25, 2022 New York City… Where real friends can argue… USPW continued their quiet power grab of any remotely popular worker as they sign both Hollywood Bret Starr and Huey Cannonball to mega-deals. Both were good workers, but the USPW model of sign everyone available would surely lead to a money problem down the line? NYCW St Massacre’s Day Massacre Sunday, Week 2, February 2021 Yonkers Field, New York City, New York Attendance: 1,250 TAG TEAM MATCH: Casey & Borne vs. Cross River Connection In a bout that didn't have much heat and terrible wrestling, Cross River Connection defeated Chuck Casey and Geoff Borne in 10:24 when Prime Time Jack Pryde pinned Chuck Casey with a Prime Time Perfection. Rating: 34 Back to the winning ways for the increasingly popular duo. Despite amping up their douchebag behaviour, the crowd still love everything they do. It was going to be a struggle to keep them over as heels at this rate. But my plans meant we’d at least try. SINGLES MATCH: Crockett Tubbs vs. Andrew Harper In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Andrew Harper defeated Crockett Tubbs in 8:08 by pinfall with a Spike Slam. Rating: 43 Andrew Harper continues to dominate, Crockett continues to lose. Match was pretty decent. TAG TEAM MATCH: The Tagg Brothers vs. The New York Dolls In a bout that didn't have much heat and terrible wrestling, The New York Dolls defeated The Tagg Brothers in 10:19 when Eddie Braddock pinned Wolfie Tagg with a Sedation. Rating: 34 A simple win for the New York Dolls against our burgeoning face job team. I know the upside of the Taggs is high. But for now I needed them to help put over challengers for the titles. NYCW TRI-STATE TITLE MATCH: Richie Riggins vs. Hawkeye Calhoun © In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Richie Riggins defeated Hawkeye Calhoun in 10:19 by count out. Rating: 42 Hawkeye lost. STOP THE PRESSES! The champ lost. But he did hold onto his title. Richie Riggins momentum meets Hawkeye’s and we have a cheap finish to a surprisingly great match between these two. TAG TEAM MATCH: Animal Harker & James Diaz vs. The Boys from the Yukon In a decent match, Animal Harker and James Diaz defeated The Boys From The Yukon in 10:05 when Animal Harker pinned Whitehorse Whittaker with a Stump Piledriver. Rating: 50 Massive win in a non-title match here for Animal Harker and James Diaz. The fact it was a non-title is more to do with me forgetting to borrow the titles for the show. But once I realised, I called an audible and had the faces get a win and some much-needed momentum. SINGLES MATCH: Brutus Milano vs. Krusher Karloff In a bout that had good heat and decent wrestling, Krusher Karloff defeated Brutus Milano in 6:26 by pinfall with a Kremlin Krush. Rating: 48 The Russian Monster had ARRIVED. After he was dropped, we moved quickly to sign him up to a short-term contract. His salary was too high with his advanced age for anything longer. He arrives to the sounds of the Russian National Anthem and destroys the Italian Heartthrob straight out the gate. Despite his limited in-ring skills, he still has the pop of a big star. Plus his look is incredible. COTT WORLD SIX-MAN TITLE MATCH: Freedom Eagle & The LA Stars vs. The DiMeo Family © In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, The DiMeo Family (Sal DiMeo, Vito Pirelli and Luca Sacramoni) defeated Freedom Eagle and The LA Stars in 10:10 when Sal DiMeo pinned LA Star #1 while using the ropes for leverage. Sal DiMeo and The Italian Americans make defence number two of the COTT World Six-Man. Rating: 41 The DiMeo’s use their new-found success to get a win over the NYCW Tag Team Champions, whose dominance has been almost absolute for months. Big win and a good match. NYCW EMPIRE TITLE MATCH: Denny King vs. American Machine © In a bout that had good heat and decent wrestling, American Machine defeated Denny King in 10:29 by pinfall with an Old Glory. American Machine makes defence number four of the NYCW Empire. Rating: 50 Denny King transfers his momentum from the McManus feud into a title shot. But he is nowhere near the level American Machine is, so loses cleanly. It’s a good match though, which never hurts anyones momentum or popularity. ANGLE: Thom Barrowman wants the crowd to know that even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut. And even a FAKE like American Machine can sometimes pull off the unthinkable. But he’s a ONE MAN ARMY, and he may have lost that particular battle, but he fully intends to win the war. He’s going to start tonight by fighting Machine’s BFF, if McManus can take time out from braiding the champion’s hair. Rating: 62 Oof. Riley won’t like that. SINGLES MATCH: Riley McManus vs. Thom Barrowman In a bout that had great heat and good wrestling, Thom Barrowman defeated Riley McManus in 21:48 by pinfall with a Guided Missile. Rating: 61 Amazing match and a clean win for Barrowman. McManus looks thoroughly irate at the end of the match too. It’s not been a fun few weeks since he sent Denny packing. OVERALL RATING: 58 43,671 viewers signifies a good boost in our popularity and the results and quality of the matches can only help. The walking own-brand carbonara Brutus Milano approached us for a pay rise to $80 and after we double-checked, we realised he’d been wrestling this whole time for $30 a show. We embarrassingly accepted his meagre request. Backstage Larry was on the phone to someone, and for a moment he looked a little choked up. They didn’t seem to be tears of sadness though, but rather wistful, proud tears of joy. I didn’t pry. My mind was too busy on other things. Alongside the signing of Krusher Karloff, we’d done the unthinkable and signed someone huge. A potential game-changer. So big, I almost couldn’t believe it. And it was time to debut him. NYCW March on Manhattan Sunday, Week 3, February 2021 Yonkers Field, New York City, New York Attendance: 1,327 ANGLE: The show begins with the American National Anthem. The crowd look to the VesseyTron and see a video of the American flag fluttering on a sky blue day. Then from behind the curtain, dressed in a red, white and blue suit… is future NYCW Hall of Famer Whistler. He’s swinging a massive flag on a pole and grinning. As he walks down the ramp, he stops halfway and points to the entrance as the anthem stops. Slaves and Bulldozers by Soundgarden kicks in as the crowd stand in unison. BULLDOZER BRANDON SMITH STEPS OUT in a leather jacket, shades and wearing a big grin. The two make their way to the ring and Whistler grabs a microphone. “Ladies, gentleman and true Americans. It is my honour… my privilege… to welcome you, to the Bulldozer Experience.” He hands the mic to Smith. “It’s good to be home. I came here to kick ass and chew bubblegum.” He then spits out his gum… Rating: 89 Goosebumps. SINGLES MATCH: The Masked Mauler vs. Chuck Casey In a bout that didn't have much heat and terrible wrestling, The Masked Mauler defeated Chuck Casey in 9:58 by pinfall with a Piledriver. Rating: 26 When will I learn not to put two young, inexperienced, not-popular workers in a match together. Especially in the death spot after that opener. SINGLES MATCH: Geoff Borne vs. Danny Hagman In a bout that had terrible wrestling and non-existent crowd heat, Danny Hagman defeated Geoff Borne in 8:30 by submission with a Steel Curtain. Rating: 27 AND AGAIN. Danny Hagman is a new rookie being brought up to test his skills. A young guy from Pittsburgh, we overhauled his entire gimmick and removed the stupid mask he was wearing. Now he’s a street kid with a heart of gold. Was it better? Maybe, but we had a sneaky feeling he had some pretty big upside. 10-MAN BATTLE ROYAL: In a bout that didn't have much heat and terrible wrestling, Sal DiMeo won a battle royal in 10:03. The other members of the 'final four' were Luca Sacramoni, Vito Pirelli and Denny King, with Luca Sacramoni being the final elimination. Sal DiMeo got the most eliminations over the course of the match. Rating: 39 Sometimes you just want to see ten greased up men throw each other around a ring. And this was it. The DiMeo Family teamed up at the end and Luca voluntarily eliminated himself to give the win to Sweet Sal. SINGLES MATCH: Crockett Tubbs vs. James Diaz In a bout that didn't have much heat and terrible wrestling, James Diaz defeated Crockett Tubbs in 7:46 by pinfall with an Asian Thumb Spike. Rating: 28 James Diaz continues his slow and steady rise up the ranks. His match quality remains fairly low, mostly because he hasn’t defeated many top stars yet. But his time would come. NYCW TRI-STATE TITLE MATCH: Krusher Karloff vs. Hawkeye Calhoun © In a bout that had good heat and decent wrestling, Hawkeye Calhoun defeated Krusher Karloff in 6:25 by pinfall with a Home Run. Hawkeye Calhoun makes defence number eight of the NYCW Tri-State Regional. Rating: 55 Take that Russia. Hawkeye Calhoun proves that even a monster from a byegone age can’t stop his title reign. It’s a massive win for the champ and one that highlights just how far he’s come in the last year. Krusher was not a fan of the loss it must be added, which guaranteed we wouldn’t be re-signing him when his contract was up. GANG WARS MATCH: Animal Harker & The LA Stars vs. Richie Riggins & The New York Dolls In a decent match, Richie Riggins and The New York Dolls defeated Animal Harker and The LA Stars in 10:16 when Eddie Braddock pinned LA Star #1 with a Choke Bomb. Rating: 44 Speaking of riding a wave of momentum. Both Richie and the Dolls continued their dominance, this time against our previously untouchable tag team champions and the man who sent Tennessee packing. Another big win in a night of them. SINGLES MATCH: Brutus Milano vs. Thom Barrowman In a bout that had great heat and decent wrestling, Thom Barrowman defeated Brutus Milano in 9:53 by pinfall with a Guided Missile. Rating: 55 Brutus loses again. If there’s one man whose seen his stock further than Milano in the last three months, I’d like to see them. Barrowman needed more momentum and Brutus was the perfect man to make that happen. COTT WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: American Machine & Riley McManus vs. The Boys from the Yukon © In a decent match, The Boys From The Yukon defeated American Machine and Riley McManus in 22:22 when Whitehorse Whittaker pinned Riley McManus with a Tiiiiiiiiiiimber after American Machine accidentally struck Riley McManus. The Boys From The Yukon make defence number sixteen of the COTT World Tag Team. Rating: 52 Great match with a contentious finish. I’d take it. ANGLE: Riley McManus and American Machine are in the ring and are arguing over who was to blame for their earlier loss, with neither wanting to back down. Eventually Machine storms out, furious. Rating: 49 DRAMA! On an NYCW show. Riley, despite his broad lack of charisma kept finding himself in a number of high-profile storylines with plenty of emotion showing. SINGLES MATCH: Bulldozer Brandon Smith vs. Andrew Harper In a bout that had good heat and decent wrestling, Bulldozer Brandon Smith defeated Andrew Harper in 21:44 by pinfall with a Backdrop Driver. Rating: 45 Oh dear. Despite the incredible intro at the start of the show, these two just did not click in the ring. What a massive let-down. The future was still bright, but this left a bad taste. OVERALL RATING: 44 39,342 viewers for that one, which was disappointing. Backstage following my attempt at a stirring speech, Larry and I sent the boys home and then went for a beer on the roof. The cold New York plunged into my lungs. It wasn’t long until Springtime and hopefully an increase in temperature. If I’d wanted cold air, I’d have moved to Bemidji in Minnesota and setup my own company there. Sat on two fold-out chairs, overlooking the buzzing bright lights of city, Larry handed me a fresh beer. “What are you doing on Saturday?” Larry asked awkwardly. “Prepping for next months shows I’d imagine. How come?” “Cam is getting married. My son that is.” “Larry, I know who your son is; he’s more famous than anyone else we know.” “You know,” Larry corrected me and we both laughed before he continued. “I wondered if you’d like to come to the wedding? It’s in Texas this Saturday… evening guests from 7.00pm. On our ranch.” I’d forgotten that the Vessey’s came from Texas. Larry had no trace of Southern drawl in his accent. In fact, years of living in New York and previously Japan had left him with something of a neutral American accent. The idea of the old man on a horse made me smile. “I’d love to,” I said. Next time… Texas Forever... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP1 Posted May 25, 2022 Author Share Posted May 25, 2022 House of V Ranch, Rocksprings, Texas… The cool chill of desert air swept through the enormous House of V ranch. The years of success the family had had in the wrestling industry was suddenly presented in a massive, multi-story and surprisingly modern building in the desert plains of Texas. Cameron, who looked remarkably like a younger version of Larry looked like a million bucks in his pristine white suit, accompanied by his beautiful bride Jenny, all curly blonde hair and a stunningly white smile. They negotiated their way around the backyard of the ranch, thanking people for being there with them. They approached me and while it was clear they had no idea who I was, they thanked me all the same. Larry was beaming from ear-to-ear. I don’t think I’d ever seen him so happy. In fact, I didn’t remember him seeing happy ever. As a bluegrass band played famous covers and the dancing started, I sat at a table with a beer and enjoyed the atmosphere. “What do you think of it?” came a voice like Larry’s as someone sat down next to me. Only it wasn’t Larry, it was his brother, the legendary Bryan Vessey. “Beautiful day,” I replied. “That it is,” he said and chinked by beer with his own. “I’ve seen some of the stuff you’ve been doing in the Big Apple. Not bad..” “Thanks,” I replied. “I mean you’ve got a lot of hot garbage on your roster,” he laughed. “But considering the lack of talent, you know how to put on a show. Bulldozer’s a great signing. Always nice to have top stars run through your territory for a few months before returning to the big boys.” “We won’t do that,” I said, stupidly. “Won’t he?” said Bryan. “I would if I were him. Put on some fired up matches and then spin that into another big-time contract. You’d do that wouldn’t you Gil?” A bald wrestler with a goatee approached. It was strange to be at a formal function like a wedding and see famous faces just living their lives away from the cameras. The Gil who Bryan was talking to, was Angry Gilmore, former World Champion and all round superstar of wrestling. Before I knew what was what we were surrounded by a big group of wrestlers. Bryan obviously commanded a huge amount of respect judging by the sheer number of top stars who seemed to know him well enough to join in a big conversation about money. Nicky Champion, Rocky Golden, Wolf Hawkins, the Stones and DeColts. There were even some alumni of NYCW there; Grandmaster Phunk, Petr Novak and Joey Morgan. Money it seemed was a conversation they all wanted have at the drop of a hat. Even Sam Keith joined in, along with his sons Matt and Greg and his old friend Rip Chord and his son Jay. I was like a kid in a candy shop, just listening to them all speak with one another, getting to know everyone. It was basically a networking event, but with beer and wrestlers. And I loved it. The conversation only stopped when Jenny Vessey summoned everyone to the dance floor and they could talk shop another day. We danced the night away and a wonderful time was had by all. Despite that, Bryan’s words had stuck with me. Was I about to lose Bulldozer? I’d only just signed him. But I suppose it made sense. I saw him as our path to the top, he probably saw us as a stepping stone back to the top, alone. Next time… everyone wants more money, except one of our highest paid employees, who just wants to leave… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP1 Posted May 25, 2022 Author Share Posted May 25, 2022 New York City… pounds of flesh for everyone… You can say what you want about wrestlers, but never say that they don’t know when to ask for more money. No sooner had I discovered we’d made over $6,000 profit for the month, that the payrise requests started to come in: Perfect Pepper Pelton to $90 Sweet Sal to $90 Animal Harker to $110 LA Star #2 to $190 Hawkeye Calhoun to $200 Eddie Braddock to $90 Italian Americans to $140 Having thought about Bryan’s comments about the lack of top talent on our roster, I felt it was my duty to try and bring through our most talented rookies quicker than we already were. But in order to do that we needed to make some space. Chuck Casey, Tully Casey, Crockett Tubbs and Machine Gun Marino were all summoned to my office before the next show. All of them had been sulking around the backstage area for weeks, mainly because of the booking. I didn’t blame them for that, but the facts were; none of them really had ‘it.’ Certainly not enough of ‘It’ to justify a push. Larry was on the phone to Sam Keith and he seemed unhappy. Very unhappy in fact. After hanging up, he approached me and told me the news. Apparently Whitehorse Whittaker had signed with SWF and in retaliation the COTT had stripped The Boys from the Yukon of the COTT World Tag Team Titles. “So what? They’re now vacant?” I asked. And Larry nodded. “There’s more too. But we should go somewhere private.” NYCW Battle for Queens Sunday, Week 2, March 2021 Yonkers Field, New York City, New York Attendance: 1,302 SINGLES MATCH: James Diaz vs. ‘Pittsburgh Kid’ Danny Hagman In a terrible match, James Diaz defeated Danny Hagman in 10:27 by pinfall with an Asian Thumb Spike. Rating: 27 The rookies battle in a slightly cooling opener. Both are super-talented youngsters rammed with potential and skills, but both are still green at this point and it shows. I might need to keep them in action against more veteran performers going forward. SINGLES MATCH: Freedom Eagle vs. Eddie Braddock In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but terrible wrestling, Eddie Braddock defeated Freedom Eagle in 9:43 by pinfall with a Choke Bomb. Rating: 37 Freedom Eagle’s fall continues. He was a decent all-rounder, but I wanted to give The Beast some more singles experience. His performance was… not amazing. Which is probably to be expected. Eddie had already caused a bit of heat backstage while we had on the pre-show for botching a move and nearly injuring someone. He did the same again here. That was something we’d have to keep an eye on, because if it continued it wouldn’t be worth continuing with the push. No matter how over he was getting. SINGLES MATCH: Animal Harker vs. Spike Sylvain In a decent match, Spike Sylvain defeated Animal Harker in 10:04 by pinfall with a handful of tights. Rating: 47 Eddie gets a win, Spike takes the loss. You can take the jobber out of the lower card, but you can’t… wait, that phrasing doesn’t work. Good match between two of our old hands here. NYCW TRI-STATE TITLE MATCH: Richie Riggins vs. Hawkeye Calhoun © In a decent match, Hawkeye Calhoun defeated Richie Riggins in 9:38 by count out. Hawkeye Calhoun makes defence number nine of the NYCW Tri-State Regional. Rating: 41 Another defense from the immovable champion here. But he’s starting to rely on smoke and mirrors to keep the title around his waist. Which was great from a story-telling POV. When/if he finally loses the title, it’s going to be truly monumental. COTT WORLD SIX-MAN TAG TITLE MATCH: The Masked Mauler & Cross River Connection vs. The DiMeo Family © In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, The DiMeo Family (Sal DiMeo, Vito Pirelli and Luca Sacramoni) defeated The Masked Mauler and Cross River Connection in 9:33 when Sal DiMeo pinned Perfect Pepper Pelton by using underhanded tactics. Sal DiMeo and The Italian Americans make defence number five of the COTT World Six-Man. Rating: 33 The DiMeo’s, despite having the titles and getting on a roll, really weren’t setting the world on fire. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it a megastar. I think the wedding had left me with some mixed metaphors and phrasing. Match was disappointing. SINGLES MATCH: Riley McManus vs. Denny King In a decent match, Riley McManus defeated Denny King in 9:33 by pinfall with a Slingshot Suplex. Rating: 51 When in doubt, we go back to an old classic. These two were becoming synonymous with one another and they always, always delivered. Riley gets the clean win again here, deploying some of the viciousness he’d become associated with since he started this simmering feud. SINGLES MATCH: Brutus Milano vs. Andrew Harper In a decent match, Brutus Milano drew with Andrew Harper in 9:32 following a double count out. Rating: 45 Brutus and Harper were two more classic upper-midcard guys who knew each other inside and out. They were able to put on a decent match in their sleep, but we were currently struggling with what to do with either of them after the appearance of American Machine and Thom Barrowman. NYCW EMPIRE TITLE MATCH: Krusher Karloff vs. American Machine © In a bout that had great heat and decent wrestling, American Machine defeated Krusher Karloff in 5:31 by pinfall with an Old Glory. American Machine makes defence number five of the NYCW Empire. Rating: 50 America defeats Russia once again, just like they always must. Actually a disappointing match, mainly because Karloff has the stamina of a ninety-year-old at this stage. Still, our champion defeats another monster foe to further establish his credentials as our top guy. NYCW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Boys from the Yukon vs. The LA Stars © In a decent match, The LA Stars defeated The Boys From The Yukon in 10:19 when LA Star #1 pinned Howlin' Mad Mort with a Double Stomp. The LA Stars make defence number seven of the NYCW Tag Team. Rating: 51 What a match. We’d miss Whitehorse for sure, and God knows what we’d do about Howlin Mad Mort without his partner. But regardless, it’s nice that the Yukons and Stars can see out their time as our top tag team feud in style. ANGLE: Bulldozer Brandon Smith is out with Whistler. “It’s great to be back Whistler my old friend.” “Indeed it is Bulldozer. No it’s time to get the gold back.” “Well that’s tricky, because it’s around the waist of the GODDAM American Hero Machine. But you know what I’ve noticed. He’s being bothered by a bitter old veteran. We love what Barrowman has done for this country, but his attitude right now… well… it STINKS! And I am going to teach him a lesson. Right now!” Rating: 63 SINGLES MATCH: Bulldozer Brandon Smith vs. Thom Barrowman In an exceptional match, Thom Barrowman defeated Bulldozer Brandon Smith in 22:28 by pinfall with a Guided Missile. Rating: 66 What a match. These are our top two in-ring performers and they delivered and then some. Despite his pre-match chat, Bulldozer Brandon Smith loses clean in the centre of the ring. Was it part of some masterplan? Or had we discovered that Bryan Vessey was right and he’d signed a big money contract with SWF? We’d never tell. OVERALL RATING: 62 I got the viewing figures through the WrestleWorld app; 49,818. Not bad. More excitingly was the fact that my announce buddy Ernie Turner had taken on Perfect Pepper Pelton as a protégé. Ernie was one of the best talkers in the business and this could only help him. NYCW Big Apple Bash Sunday, Week 3, March 2021 Yonkers Field, New York City, New York Attendance: 1,428 SINGLES MATCH: Geoff Borne vs. Dreadnought In a terrible match, Dreadnought defeated Geoff Borne in 7:43 by pinfall with a Dread Bomb. Rating: 29 After the departure of the rest of the job squad, we were left with Geoff Borne and Ray Snow to help put over young workers. And let’s just say… this was a disappointment. I couldn’t believe how stupid our booking with Dreadnought had been. What we really needed to do was just let him rip through the roster as a monster. But the concern now was that he’d already had some false-starts and perhaps it was too late to properly rehabilitate him. SINGLES MATCH: The Masked Mauler vs. Ray Snow In a bout that had sub-par wrestling and little heat, The Masked Mauler defeated Ray Snow in 7:34 by pinfall with a Piledriver. Rating: 36 Much better showing here in a ‘get over the new guy.’ Masked Mauler, despite having the most old school or NYCW gimmicks had a surprising amount of in-ring talent. We’d take it slow with him though. People expected him to lose more than he won, so we’d play with that convention while the pressure was off. SINGLES MATCH: James Diaz vs. Sal DiMeo In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Sal DiMeo defeated James Diaz in 9:35 by pinfall after using a foreign object. Rating: 32 James Diaz was a hot prospect, but if we just won every match it would be boring. Stars are normally made through overcoming adversity and we were happy to give Sweet Sal a singles win to help propel the whole family forward. Especially as they COTT World Six-Man Tag Team Champions. Match was ok, if a little underwhelming. TAG TEAM MATCH: Cross River Connection vs. The Italian Americans In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but terrible wrestling, The Italian Americans defeated Cross River Connection in 9:48 when Luca Sacramoni pinned Perfect Pepper Pelton by using underhanded tactics. Rating: 30 As with the previous match. The key was to give them some non-six-man victories to enhance their momentum and make them better champions, both for us and for the alliance. The Cross River Connection were a work in progress and still young. So some losses were to be expected. GANG BATTLE MATCH: Riley McManus, Animal Harker & Brooklyn’s Finest vs. Andrew Harper, Denny King & The New York Dolls In a decent match, Hawkeye Calhoun, Animal Harker, Riley McManus and Freedom Eagle defeated Andrew Harper, Denny King and The New York Dolls in 9:57 when Animal Harker pinned Andrew Harper with a Stump Piledriver. Rating: 43 A combination of story-telling and ‘get everyone on the card’ mentality lead to this monstrous showdown. The match, despite being a huge mess was actually hugely entertaining to watch. And it always helps when the good guys get the win. ANGLE: American Machine and Richie ‘The Body’ are in the ring ready to square off. When American Machine notices Cheerleader Nicki on the outside. He blows her a kiss and she’s blushes, leading to Richie delivering a pre-match beatdown. The Body is incensed. Not only because of Nicki’s reaction, but no doubt because he realises she first got into wrestling as the valet of… American Machine. Rating: 61 That’s right. We know our own history. NYCW EMPIRE TITLE MATCH: Richie Riggins vs. American Machine © In a bout that had good heat and decent wrestling, American Machine defeated Richie Riggins in 10:29 by pinfall with an Old Glory after being turned on by Cheerleader Nicki. American Machine makes defence number six of the NYCW Empire. Rating: 46 From losing to the Tri-State champion to losing to the Empire champion and finally, apparently losing his valet. It’s been a busy couple of weeks for Richie ‘The Body’ Riggins. This was a fantastic showing for him as he’s taking the opportunities presented to him. To say that he looks more like a star than most of our roster is an understatement and we wanted to see how he’d fair without Nicki by his side. It also gave us a chance to unite Nicki with her original client and increase her presence on the show. SINGLES MATCH: Brutus Milano vs. Krusher Karloff In a bout that had good heat and decent wrestling, Brutus Milano defeated Krusher Karloff in 6:06 by submission with an Italian Backbreaker. Rating: 48 Revenge, like gabagool, is a dish best served cold. Brutus gets his win back in a decent midcard match. Karloff has the look and size of a monster. But he’s too old (yes even for us) to be a long-term project. And I wasn’t in the business of burying my stars to someone who was only around for a few months. NYCW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Boys from the Yukon vs. The LA Stars © In a decent match, The LA Stars defeated The Boys From The Yukon in 22:18 when LA Star #2 pinned Whitehorse Whittaker with a Star Destroyer. The LA Stars make defence number eight of the NYCW Tag Team. Rating: 55 When in doubt and with limited engagements remaining, we stuck the soon-to-be Former Yukon Boys against their arch-nemsis’ The LA Stars and jobbed Whitehorse all the way to SWF. Great match as always between them. ANGLE: Thom Barrowman is out with a microphone before the main event. He’s heard everything Bulldozer Brandon Smith has to say… and he’s not impressed. All he’s heard since he arrived was what a hero Smith was. What a real American. But he sees a coward. A mercenary. He’s known people like Smith all his life and it always ends the same. Hit them hard enough and they’ll run away to safety, never to be seen again. And tonight, he’s going to hit him very, very hard! Rating: 63 Ominous and a tiny bit of shoot, makes this a good promo to get the crowd fired up. SINGLES MATCH: Bulldozer Brandon Smith vs. Thom Barrowman In an exceptional match, Thom Barrowman defeated Bulldozer Brandon Smith in 24:07 by pinfall with a Guided Missile. Rating: 68 Even better than the last one. A modern NYCW classic and one where Bulldozer let it all hang out in the ring, but couldn’t overcome the brutality of Barrowman. Great stuff. OVERALL RATING: 64 51,867 viewers for one of the best shows we’d ever put on. To celebrate, we let Geoff Borne go. He was miserable without his jobber buddies and now couldn’t even put on passable matches with rookies. It was time to move on from him. Our next show was the big one; Spring Showdown. And things had been moved into place, when Ernie Turner came to see me. He felt he’d achieved everything he needed to and was handing in his notice. WHAT?!? Next time… Time to shuffle the announce deck… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP1 Posted May 26, 2022 Author Share Posted May 26, 2022 New York City… Spring Showdown 2021… In the build up to show, the wrestling world became obsessed with an investigation by Pro Wrestling Reporter about IPW. It would seem their new owner had been caught out, trying to create rumour that GSW was run by Devil Worshippers. Only in professional wrestling could something so insane even be considered a potential truth. Needless to say IPW have taken a massive hit in their popularity because of the investigation and by virtue of that, the COTT looked unprofessional for including them. We’d been told we were going to keep our heads down for the time being and let this all wash away and that there were no plans to kick them out. The first step of ‘keeping our heads down’ was apparently to crown new COTT World Tag Team champions; The American Cobras were chosen as the safe pair of hands, which was fine. Keith’s decision to strip the Yukon Boys before we could put on a show had left us quite cold on the alliance for now. The previous month had seen NYCW turn $10,526 profit, which was great and we steamed into Spring Showdown knowing that Bulldozer, Whitehorse and Ernie Turner were all leaving. But we’d use them until the exact moment we couldn’t, and not a single moment sooner. NYCW Spring Showdown 2021 Saturday, Week 4, April 2021 Yonkers Field, New York City, New York Attendance: 1,482 SINGLES MATCH: The Masked Mauler vs. Denny King In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Denny King defeated The Masked Mauler in 9:33 by pinfall with a Superplex. Rating: 45 Oh how the mighty have fallen. Denny King was until four months ago in one of the hottest angles in independent wrestling. And here he was opening the show against a rookie. He did at least get the win, and with Mauler alongside him they kicked off the show in style. Still though, it’s quite the step down. SINGLES MATCH: ‘The Pittsburgh Kid’ Danny Hagman vs. Ray Snow In a bout that had terrible wrestling and non-existent crowd heat, Danny Hagman defeated Ray Snow in 7:46 by submission with a Steel Curtain. Rating: 32 The Pittsburgh Kid continues his rise. Sure he was fighting perennial trainer/loser Ray Snow, but he looked better than last time and his gimmick is basically so good that we can’t not get behind him. Hagman may lack the ‘IT’ factor of some top stars, but he’s got the in-ring skills, which were in short supply here, so really he was like goldust. SINGLES MATCH: Freedom Eagle vs. Sal DiMeo In a decent match, Freedom Eagle defeated Sal DiMeo in 9:57 by pinfall with a Freedom Slam. Rating: 42 I had nothing else for these two to do with The Italian Americans needed in the tag team title bout later. So we stuck them together. The match was decent, as you’d expect, and the result was immaterial. TAG TEAM MATCH: Cross River Connection vs. The Boys from the Yukon In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Cross River Connection defeated The Boys From The Yukon in 9:33 when Prime Time Jack Pryde pinned Whitehorse Whittaker with a Prime Time Perfection. Rating: 38 We decided to test the popularity of the douchebag heels, by putting them against a bonafide, 100% heel team. They toned down their annoying behaviour and the crowd… lapped it up. The NYCW faithful are so into these guys, we’d probably have to look to get them turned face soon. No point trying to force a crowd to behave a certain way once they’d made up their minds. GANG WARS MATCH: Brutus Milano, Animal Harker & James Diaz vs. Andrew Harper & The New York Dolls In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Brutus Milano, Animal Harker and James Diaz defeated Andrew Harper and The New York Dolls in 9:56 when James Diaz pinned Spike Sylvain with an Asian Thumb Spike. Rating: 44 It’s the big summer show and we wanted the faces to go over a bit. This was the perfect opportunity. Both Harper and the Dolls were riding such a wave of momentum, that a loss like this barely registered. NYCW TRI-STATE TITLE MATCH: Richie Riggins vs. Hawkeye Calhoun © In a decent match, Richie Riggins defeated Hawkeye Calhoun in 10:09 by pinfall after using a foreign object. Richie Riggins wins the NYCW Tri-State Regional. Rating: 51 It’s finally happened. The Body has beaten the Finest. Great matchup which keeps Calhoun strong and Richie looking like a stone-cold killer. Everyone gains popularity and the title gains prestige, making this one of the rare perfect result match-ups. I had a longer term plan for the title. But for now; Riggins deserved his shot. NYCW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Italian Americans vs. The LA Stars © In a decent match, The LA Stars defeated The Italian Americans in 9:45 when LA Star #2 pinned Vito Pirelli with a Star Destroyer. The LA Stars make defence number nine of the NYCW Tag Team. Rating: 46 You have to have the tag titles on the line for the big show and The Italian Americans deserved a shot. Despite having been on a winning streak and dominating teams all over America, the duo were somewhat underwhelming here. A close look at the tape told me just how disappointing they were as a team. They lacked the basics, the IT factor or the charisma to ever reach the heights laid by The LA Stars or even the Yukon Boys. With such limited upside, what would be the point of even pushing them further? Hoping for a dynamite gimmick? Surely it would make sense to have a different team take that spot. There certainly was some thought to be given. SINGLES MATCH: ‘The Georgia Bulldog’ Riley McManus vs. Thom Barrowman In a bout that had great heat and good wrestling, Thom Barrowman defeated Riley McManus in 21:52 by pinfall with a handful of tights. Rating: 53 A crushing loss for the Georgia Bulldog, whose in-ring persona is obviously still recovering from the Hell he was put through by Denny King. His new vicious in-ring attacks, were countered by the cold logic of Barrowman, who grabbed the win after Riley missed a big lariat. After the match the Georgia Bulldog looked furious. ANGLE: American Machine (with Cheerleader Nicki in a new Red, White and Blue cheerleading outfit) heads to the ring. He’s glad his old friend has found the time to stop by for a title shot. But American Machine is a GODDAM American Hero! Not some fly-by-night star. He wishes Bulldozer well, but if the big man thinks he’s going to win the most prestigious title in professional wrestling… well then he’s probably taken one too many chairshots to the head. Rating: 63 Somewhat snarky promo from our clean cut babyface patriot. And yes, it may have been me who wrote the promo. Our champ delivered it well though. NYCW EMPIRE TITLE MATCH: Bulldozer Brandon Smith vs. American Machine © In a bout that had great heat and decent wrestling, American Machine defeated Bulldozer Brandon Smith in 9:52 by pinfall with an Old Glory. American Machine makes defence number seven of the NYCW Empire. Rating: 50 And of course the disappointment of Bulldozer’s appearance ends with a match where his style doesn’t click with our top star. The result is a hugely disappointing match, when we knew they were capable of so much more. The sooner we moved on from this mistake, the better. Which was good because Bulldozer was off to SWF in the morning. OVERALL RATING: 49 A disappointing 46,505 viewers tuned in to watch arguably our most disappointing show to date. After the show we bumped up Freedom Eagle’s pay to $90, Prime Time Jack Pryde’s to $130 and James Diaz’s to $100. As expected Bulldozer Brandon Smith and Whitehorse Whittaker left for SWF and Ernie Turner left for… no adequately explored reason, leaving his protégé Perfect Pepper Pelton with a somewhat underwhelming tenure. We made a profit of $23,749 and immediately increased out music production to ‘Minor Licensed,’ mainly because it would irritate the COTT members short on cash. That would teach them to strip the titles off our tag team. Next time… Freedom flies into the main event, and things get worse for the Bulldog… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP1 Posted May 26, 2022 Author Share Posted May 26, 2022 New York City… hotbed of wrestling, just not a hotbed where we were performing… Heading into the new month came news of Scythe winning the SWF World Heavyweight Title from Rocky Golden. TCW had hired Dutch Wilkes (from EILL) and Eric Tyler (PSW), while close to home Spike Sylvain announced he was changing from a brawler to regular wrestler… ok then. We were a month away from our biggest show and the pressure was on us to incorporate the Confederation of the Territories titles into our shows. Larry agreed to feature a number of champions at Summer in the City 2021, which meant we would bring the big matches from that event to Times Square-Off at the end of May. Most big stories were in process already, so we just had to guide them home. NYCW Stars of the USA Sunday, Week 2, May 2021 Yonkers Field, New York City, New York Attendance: 1,541 SINGLES MATCH: Danny Hagman vs. Dreadnought In a terrible match, Danny Hagman defeated Dreadnought in 7:59 by count out. Rating: 22 Oof. Another bad match for Dreadnought. And another loss. At this point you could reasonably argue we were self-sabotaging. We weren’t of course, but we’d struggle to make a fair case the other way. SINGLES MATCH: James Diaz vs. Andrew Harper In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Andrew Harper defeated James Diaz in 9:45 by pinfall with a Spike Slam. Rating: 39 Jesus. There must be something in the water. When two big hoss fighters (one who is an upper midcarder) deliver a match of this low quality, you know something is wrong. I had considered a win for the rookie, but I liked keeping Harper as my heel safety blanket. And I learnt long ago not to set fire to your safety blanket. TAG TEAM MATCH: The Masked Mauler & Denny King vs. Cross River Connection In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Cross River Connection defeated The Masked Mauler and Denny King in 9:52 when Perfect Pepper Pelton pinned Denny King with a Prime Time Perfection. Rating: 38 Thrown together team of solid (if not popular) in-ring workers lose to the established team building momentum. Match was something of a disappointment, but it served its very limited purpose. SINGLES MATCH: Brutus Milano vs. Howlin Mad Mort In a decent match, Brutus Milano defeated Howlin' Mad Mort in 9:50 by submission with an Italian Backbreaker. Rating: 46 With no partner to rely on, Howlin Mad suffers a fate worse than death… Losing cleanly to Brutus Milano. Match was actually pretty good. COTT WORLD SIX-MAN TAG MATCH: Freedom Eagle & The LA Stars vs. The DiMeo Family © In a decent match, Freedom Eagle and The LA Stars defeated The DiMeo Family (Sal DiMeo, Vito Pirelli and Luca Sacramoni) in 9:33 when Luca Sacramoni was counted out while fighting Freedom Eagle. Rating: 45 The DiMeo Family are back together and back to winning ways. This time they get a big win over Freedom Eagle and the tag team champions. Hopefully they could generate some much-needed momentum and heat from this win. NYCW TRI-STATE TITLE MATCH: Animal Harker vs. Richie Riggins © In a decent match, Richie Riggins defeated Animal Harker in 10:05 by pinfall while using the ropes for leverage. Richie Riggins makes defence number one of the NYCW Tri-State Regional. Rating: 45 He cheats to win. But he wins. Richie The Body takes over the roll of unstoppable champion from Hawkeye Calhoun and immediately sets about trying to better him. Animal is always a good opponent and the match itself was decent quality. TAG TEAM MATCH: American Machine & Riley McManus vs. The New York Dolls In a decent match, The New York Dolls defeated Riley McManus and American Machine in 9:37 when Eddie Braddock pinned Riley McManus with a Sedation after American Machine wiped out The Georgia Bulldog by accident. Rating: 44 Well, well, well. Very tough loss for the Bulldog here. Partly because any loss is tough for him at the moment, but mainly because it was caused by a clumsy shot by American Machine. ANGLE: Riley McManus and American Machine are in the ring. They’re argue over who was to blame for their earlier loss, with neither wanting to back down. Eventually Riley McManus storms out, furious. Rating: 47 Drama. NO.1 CONTENDERS MATCH: Hawkeye Calhoun vs. Thom Barrowman In a bout that had great heat and good wrestling, Thom Barrowman defeated Hawkeye Calhoun in 22:20 by pinfall, illegally using the ropes for leverage. Rating: 60 From losing the Tri-State Title to losing in the main event for a chance at the big belt. This was a great match, without quite being the blow away classic I had secretly hoped for. Even with the strongest of tail-winds, he couldn’t quite break the ‘best match ever’ territory, which meant he needed more seasoning. Thom Barrowman’s performance, even at his older age, was so much better that it highlighted the difference between a great midcarder and a main eventer. OVERALL RATING: 57 We got 52,174 viewers and happily gave Andrew Harper a pay rise to $150 per show. One week later and we were ready for our soft-big show. NYCW Times Square-Off Sunday, Week 3, May 2021 Yonkers Field, New York City, New York Attendance: 1,612 SINGLES MATCH: ‘The Georgia Bulldog’ Riley McManus vs. Denny King In a decent match, Denny King defeated Riley McManus in 9:31 by pinfall while using the ropes for leverage. Rating: 50 When it rains, it pours. Some measure of revenge for Denny here as he cheats to win. The Georgia Bulldog once again looks furious at the loss. Only this time he can’t blame anyone but himself. TAG TEAM MATCH: ‘Pittsburgh Kid’ Danny Hagman & The Masked Mauler vs. Dreadnought & James Diaz In a bout that didn't have much heat and terrible wrestling, Danny Hagman and The Masked Mauler defeated Dreadnought and James Diaz in 10:30 when The Masked Mauler pinned James Diaz with a Piledriver. Rating: 26 In the tag team match of our potentially mishandled rookies, the winning team look good in victory, the losers look bad in defeat. It was difficult to properly manage momentum, popularity and skills-training at this stage of development. Eventually we’d just have to stick a rocket to the best and get them up the card quickly. But who? ANGLE: The Georgia Bulldog has left the building. Rating: 52 SINGLES MATCH: Brutus Milano vs. Howlin’ Mad Mort In a decent match, Howlin' Mad Mort defeated Brutus Milano in 9:59 by pinfall with a handful of tights. Rating: 42 Another week, another Brutus win over the former multi-time tag team champ. We made it a cheating victory so prevent Howlin Mad Mort’s complete momentum collapse. But good for Brutus, who has been aimlessly floating around the midcard since losing the title. If only he were, you know, good. SINGLES MATCH: Hawkeye Calhoun vs. Andrew Harper In a decent match, Hawkeye Calhoun drew with Andrew Harper in 9:50 following a double count out. Rating: 53 Like opposite ends of a battery, these two represent the same position but as face and heel. Both were upper midcarders, who weren’t quite Empire Title ready, but who did a great job separating the pretenders from the real thing. It’s only natural that this would end in a classic NYCW draw. COTT WORLD SIX-MAN TITLE MATCH: Freedom Eagle & Cross River Connection vs. The DiMeo Family In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, The DiMeo Family (Sal DiMeo, Vito Pirelli and Luca Sacramoni) defeated Freedom Eagle and Cross River Connection in 10:23 when Sal DiMeo pinned Freedom Eagle after using a foreign object. Sal DiMeo and The Italian Americans make defence number eleven of the COTT World Six-Man. Rating: 36 While holding together an amazing high-end match, Hawkeye’s former tag team partner is here, losing to the DiMeo Family each week. This week he drags the Cross River Connection down for the ride. They leave before the end of the match because of how bad a teammate he is. This action alone makes this match interesting, because their popularity has been sky-rocketing and this is the first thing they’ve done to draw some boos. Not all the boos though. A lot in the audience agreed with their decision it should be noted. A sure sign of an incoming face turn. NYCW TRI-STATE TITLE MATCH: Animal Harker vs. Richie Riggins © In a decent match, Richie Riggins defeated Animal Harker in 23:25 by pinfall with a Body Bag. Richie Riggins makes defence number two of the NYCW Tri-State Regional. Rating: 49 We stretch the Animal vs. Body mini-feud out another week and this time the champ the champ wins clean to properly cement his title reign. Good, solid professional wrestling. NYCW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The New York Dolls vs. The LA Stars © In a decent match, The New York Dolls defeated The LA Stars in 24:26 when Spike Sylvain pinned LA Star #2 by grabbing his tights during a roll-up. The New York Dolls win the NYCW Tag Team. Rating: 46 That’s right! It was time to move the tag team titles on. The LA Stars were just about the most dominant tag team we’ve had around these parts since The Ring Generals, but we were heading towards a stagnation point. Eddie and Spike had risen quickly up the ranks and they deserved a chance with the straps. Now we’d see how much value Eddie brought and just how high Spike could go. Good match from these guys, thanks in no small part to the awesomeness of the Stars. NYCW EMPIRE TITLE MATCH: Thom Barrowman vs. American Machine © In a bout that had great heat and good wrestling, Thom Barrowman defeated American Machine in 10:23 by pinfall with a Guided Missile after the champion was attacked by Riley McManus. Thom Barrowman wins the NYCW Empire. Rating: 63 Why Riley, why? ANGLE: American Machine is in the ring trying to figure out what happened. McManus gets in his face, with Fern Hathaway getting in the face of Cheerleader Nicki. Neither of the attackers are shirking responsibility. They want American Machine to know that is was them who cost them the title. And given the chance, they’d do it again. Riley is sick of playing second fiddle to an out-of-shape has-been (Ernie Turner – “Out of shape seems harsh, he’s got lats bigger than Belgium.”) Machine and Nicki are furious, but McManus and Hathaway don’t care and they launch into another brutal attack. Swinging chairs and setting Nicki up to be put through a table. Just when it looks like they’re going to do it, the Cross River Connection hit the ring at speed and chase off McManus and Hathaway to the delight of the crowd. Rating: 67 Double-turn baby. This immediately sets up a McManus vs. Machine feud (with added valet goodness) and sets the Cross River Connection as the de facto number two face team in the company. OVERALL RATING: 60 56,889 viewers for the changing of the guard moment. Barrowman has been the best in-ring, most over perform we’ve had for some time and it was proving difficult to keep him out of the main event, so we did the only logical thing. For our efforts, the company made $20,125 profit for the month as we received word that Killer Kass had been stripped of the COTT World Women’s Title after signing a contract with CWA. Would the not stop until all titles were vacated? Sweet Jesus. Summer in the City 2021 COTT World Heavyweight Title: American Machine vs. Ernest Youngman © NYCW Empire Title: Brutus Milano vs. Thom Barrowman © COTT United States Title: James Diaz vs. Logan Wolfsbaine © NYCW Tri-State Title: The Masked Mauler vs. Richie Riggins © NYCW Tag Team Titles: Cross River Connection vs. The New York Dolls © Hawkeye Calhoun vs. Freedom Eagle COTT World Six Man Titles: Team Ollie (Cpt. Lucha, North Star Jr. & Sunburst) vs. The DiMeo Family © COTT World Tag Titles: The LA Stars vs. American Cobras © Animal Harker vs. 'The Georgia Bulldog' Riley McManus The Tagg Brothers vs. Denny King & Howlin Mad Mort Danny Hagman vs. Andrew Harper Next time… Summer in the City 2021, and we attempt to fix the Confederation of the Territories… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theheel Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 Summer in the City 2021 COTT World Heavyweight Title: American Machine vs. Ernest Youngman © Now it would make some sense for Machine to win but the more logical spot is for Riley and Fern to cause the loss and further a titleless feud NYCW Empire Title: Brutus Milano vs. Thom Barrowman © No chance in hell Brutus ever holds this title again COTT United States Title: James Diaz vs. Logan Wolfsbaine © Diaz isn’t ready for the Tri-State yet let alone the US belt NYCW Tri-State Title: The Masked Mauler vs. Richie Riggins © Richie’s Rollin NYCW Tag Team Titles: Cross River Connection vs. The New York Dolls © -CO Was the Dolls win more than a transition or are we sending the fans home happy Hawkeye Calhoun vs. Freedom Eagle These two are going in opposite directions COTT World Six Man Titles: Team Ollie (Cpt. Lucha, North Star Jr. & Sunburst) vs. The DiMeo Family © Keep it in da Family COTT World Tag Titles: The LA Stars vs. American Cobras © I think this might be why the Stars lost the NYCW tag titles Animal Harker vs. 'The Georgia Bulldog' Riley McManus New attitude = better results The Tagg Brothers vs. Denny King & Howlin Mad Mort Going out on a limb here Danny Hagman vs. Andrew Harper Upset special Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KyTeran Posted May 27, 2022 Share Posted May 27, 2022 COTT World Heavyweight Title: American Machine vs. Ernest Youngman © NYCW Empire Title: Brutus Milano vs. Thom Barrowman © COTT United States Title: James Diaz vs. Logan Wolfsbaine © NYCW Tri-State Title: The Masked Mauler vs. Richie Riggins © NYCW Tag Team Titles: Cross River Connection vs. The New York Dolls © Hawkeye Calhoun vs. Freedom Eagle COTT World Six Man Titles: Team Ollie (Cpt. Lucha, North Star Jr. & Sunburst) vs. The DiMeo Family © COTT World Tag Titles: The LA Stars vs. American Cobras © Animal Harker vs. 'The Georgia Bulldog' Riley McManus The Tagg Brothers vs. Denny King & Howlin Mad Mort Danny Hagman vs. Andrew Harper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herrbear Posted May 27, 2022 Share Posted May 27, 2022 COTT World Heavyweight Title: American Machine vs. Ernest Youngman © NYCW Empire Title: Brutus Milano vs. Thom Barrowman © COTT United States Title: James Diaz vs. Logan Wolfsbaine © NYCW Tri-State Title: The Masked Mauler vs. Richie Riggins © NYCW Tag Team Titles: Cross River Connection vs. The New York Dolls © Hawkeye Calhoun vs. Freedom Eagle COTT World Six Man Titles: Team Ollie (Cpt. Lucha, North Star Jr. & Sunburst) vs. The DiMeo Family © COTT World Tag Titles: The LA Stars vs. American Cobras © Animal Harker vs. 'The Georgia Bulldog' Riley McManus The Tagg Brothers vs. Denny King & Howlin Mad Mort Danny Hagman vs. Andrew Harper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP1 Posted May 27, 2022 Author Share Posted May 27, 2022 New York City… Summer in the City 2021… In the build-up to Summer in the City, Larry spent most days on the phone. I would then be given a list of talents we’d be working with and had to come up with a compelling card which showcased what the Confederation of the Territories had to offer. The fact that the names on the list kept changing did not help matters at all. We’d already decided to up our production values to High Quality for the show, thanks to the profit we were now making. And our refusal to host a women’s match meant Farrah Hesketh stepped in and Alina American won the vacant title. While waiting for the next changes to come through, I watched highlights of Nicky Champion winning the USPW World Championship for the seventh or eight time. He was simply the biggest star in wrestling by quite a margin. I looked at the book and noticed a gap next to my name in the announcer’s booth. A quick check through our employees and I realised Whistler was contracted by had nothing else to do. So I made the decision to move him alongside me. The big problem was that he wasn’t anywhere near as good as Ernie. We’d ideally need a third person to join us. Then I had a brainwave. Minutes later after a brief phone call, I’d added Honest Frank to the roster. Partly so he could enjoy training with his son and partly to be our third announcer. With the finalised card in place and having ignored CZCW’s complaints about the high quality of our production, we watched the locker room fill. To our surprise NYCW Empire champion Thom Barrowman appeared to have taken ‘Pittsburgh Kid’ Danny Hagman on as a protégé. I suddenly felt pretty good about the kid’s future. Any happy thoughts were crushed by the news that Hawkeye Calhoun had signed a contract to join SWF; no doubt because of his incredible run as Tri-State champion. NYCW Summer in the City 2021 Saturday, Week 4, June 2021 Yonkers Field, New York City, New York Attendance: 1,824 SINGLES MATCH: ‘Pittsburgh Kid’ Danny Hagman vs. Andrew Harper In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but terrible wrestling, Danny Hagman defeated Andrew Harper in 9:40 by pinfall with a roll up. Rating: 25 Oh Goddammit. This was Danny’s first ‘big win’ opportunity and yes he won with a flash roll-up pin, but the moment was partially ruined by the complete lack of chemistry between them. This should’ve been a match to fire up the crowd and was in fact one they just didn’t care about. It was so underwhelming that they chanted for Joey Minnesota throughout. HE’S NOT COMING BACK!!! TAG TEAM MATCH: The Tagg Brothers vs. Denny King & Howlin Mad Mort In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, The Tagg Brothers defeated Denny King and Howlin' Mad Mort in 7:45 when Wolfie Tagg pinned Howlin' Mad Mort with a Montana Slammer. Rating: 40 The Taggs are back and back to winning. Denny was in-between feuds and we had already earmarked Howlin Mad Mort as a developmental worker to help bring on the rookies. And what better way to do that that laying down for them. The Taggs were a fun team, but Wolfie’s attitude was not… NYCW material broadly. Always complaining about losses and generally being a bit of a nuisance. Still, the upside was there and we’d ride that all the way to the bank. SINGLES MATCH: Animal Harker vs. Riley McManus In a decent match, Riley McManus defeated Animal Harker in 9:45 by pinfall with a Slingshot Suplex. Rating: 43 Unlike the opener, these two had great chemistry, which was awesome. Just a shame it was something of a throwaway midcard battle to be honest. Still that was worth keeping in our back pocket in case of emergencies. COTT WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The LA Stars vs. American Cobras © In a decent match, The American Cobras defeated The LA Stars in 7:36 when Marvel Malloy pinned LA Star #1 with a Cobra Strike. The American Cobras make defence number seven of the COTT World Tag Team. Rating: 49 Fantastic matchup here between the COTT champions and one of our top teams. We’re always happy to put over top-tier talent from other territories for the good of the alliance, especially when our fellow independent companies put the belts on top-quality in-ring workers. The LA Stars in-ring ability was not to be sniffed at either, as both men were two of our top ring generals. COTT WORLD SIX-MAN TITLE MATCH: Team OLLIE (Captain Lucha, North Star Jr & Sunburst) vs. The DiMeo Family In a terrible match, Captain Lucha, North Star Jr and Sunburst defeated The DiMeo Family (Sal DiMeo, Vito Pirelli and Luca Sacramoni) in 7:44 when Captain Lucha pinned Sal DiMeo by using underhanded tactics. Captain Lucha, North Star Jr and Sunburst win the COTT World Six-Man. Rating: 37 Speaking of putting the alliance first. The DiMeo Family had been given the ball to run with and had failed in our eyes. Sweet Sal had some fantastic traits, like size and charisma, but The Italian Americans had been supplanted in the tag team ranks by the likes of The Tagg Brothers, Cross River Connection and we had more quality tag teams waiting in the wings. It seemed to me that these two big lugs had fallen behind the curve and we didn’t want them representing the company in other territories going forward. SINGLES MATCH: Hawkeye Calhoun vs. Freedom Eagle In a decent match, Freedom Eagle defeated Hawkeye Calhoun in 9:38 by pinfall with a Freedom Slam. Rating: 47 We paired the former tag team champions and best friends against one another for Hawkeye’s last big show. We were sad he was leaving, especially after the last six months. But business was business and we’d now look for Freedom Eagle to step into his shoes going forward. But before his contract was officially up, we’d be jobbing him out (respectfully), starting here. Good match from these two. NYCW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Cross River Connection vs. The New York Dolls © In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, The New York Dolls defeated Cross River Connection in 10:15 when Eddie Braddock pinned Perfect Pepper Pelton while using the ropes for leverage. The New York Dolls make defence number one of the NYCW Tag Team. Rating: 44 Cross River Connection are without a doubt future tag team champions, but not yet. Half of the fun is in the chase, plus The Dolls were riding their own wave of success and we wanted to give them (and especially Eddie Braddock), every opportunity to succeed. NYCW TRI-STATE TITLE MATCH: The Masked Mauler vs. Richie Riggins © In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Richie Riggins defeated The Masked Mauler in 9:35 by pinfall with a Body Bag. Richie Riggins makes defence number three of the NYCW Tri-State Regional. Rating: 35 Clean win for the champion here as Masked Mauler is set as the sacrificial lamb to The Body. Richie’s improvement as a worker recently cannot be overstated and he is on the verge of becoming both; a great in-ring worker and one with an incredible look and raw charisma. We’d need to be careful he didn’t get too big or he’d be poached at this rate. COTT UNITED STATES TITLE MATCH: James Diaz vs. Logan Wolfsbaine © In a decent match, Logan Wolfsbaine defeated James Diaz in 10:22 by pinfall with a Belly To Belly Suplex. Logan Wolfsbaine makes defence number fourteen of the COTT United States. Rating: 50 James asked specifically to be put into this match, so that he could wrestle his cousin. We’re not ones to deny such a request and the results were fantastic. Most of the heavy-lifting was done by Logan, but James didn’t mess up, which is half the battle. NYCW EMPIRE TITLE MATCH: Brutus Milano vs. Thom Barrowman © In a bout that had great heat and good wrestling, Thom Barrowman defeated Brutus Milano in 9:50 by pinfall with a Guided Missile. Thom Barrowman makes defence number one of the NYCW Empire. Rating: 56 Brutus gets back in the main event scene for a sniff of his former glory. Obviously (OBVIOUSLY!) he loses clean to the new champion. But Brutus’ status and tenure within the company meant he could be considered a rubber stamp to a new champions reign. It signified that each new champion was a step in the right direction. ANGLE: American Machine is out to Real American, with Cheerleader Nicki waving pompoms to the crowd as they walk. Once in, he grabs a microphone. Apparently he’s heartbroken about losing the Empire Title to the bitter old man. But when Freedom closes one door, it opens another. And that door is the World Heavyweight title. He knows Ernest Youngman is a talented young man… from Chicago (crowd boo), but tonight, The Assassin, is going to learn what happens when you awaken a GODDAM AMERICAN HERO from his slumber. Rating: 59 Decent promo from the former champion. COTT WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: American Machine vs. Ernest Youngman © In a bout that had great heat and decent wrestling, Ernest Youngman defeated American Machine in 10:27 by pinfall with The Hit following interference from Thom Barrowman. Ernest Youngman makes defence number twenty-seven of the COTT World Heavyweight. Rating: 46 Defense number twenty-seven. Sweet Moses and all the children. The man was a machine. Not an American Machine, who was actually a little underwhelming here. Despite being a great character, with a rich history in NYCW (which we obviously loved), his in-ring skills appeared diminished. With Barrowman now the fighting champion, the idea of switching back to a slightly more charismatic and polished version of Brutus Milano did not fill me with confidence. But we didn’t want to lose American Machine’s popularity for now. OVERALL RATING: 47 Considering it was our big show of the year, I have to admit to being somewhat disappointed by the main event and overall feel. I know we did a lot right, but that main event decision was a bad one and it ruined a perfect opportunity to springboard to greater things. At least 53,441 viewers tuned in, although as the month ended, we’d lost $2,746. But that was negligible. Now the goal was to switch focus going forward and start building some new storylines. Next time… Hawkeye’s Last Stand… Results (sorry about the Hawkeye rug pull): KyTeran - 8/11 Herrbear - 7/11 Theheel - 6/11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP1 Posted May 27, 2022 Author Share Posted May 27, 2022 New York City… Where legends fly to us, just to join someone else… The news had been quiet since Summer in the City and with Hawkeye’s last matches the only pressing matter, we ploughed straight on to the post-big even show. NYCW Vengeance Sunday, Week 2, July 2021 Yonkers Field, New York City, New York Attendance: 1,724 SINGLES MATCH: Danny Hagman vs. Howlin Mad Mort In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Danny Hagman defeated Howlin' Mad Mort in 10:22 by submission with a Steel Curtain. Rating: 41 Much better match-up for Danny. He’s a small fella, which helps with his gimmick of ‘regular tough guy from the street,’ but against a behemoth like Howlin Mad Mort he looked tiny. I’d already spoken to him about bulking up a bit, which he seemed to take in his stride without confirming what he was going to do. Still the visual of him trapping someone of Mort’s size in an elevated Boston Crab was fantastic. TAG TEAM MATCH: Ray Cavalero & Wild Red Stallion vs. Denny King & Dreadnought In a terrible match, Denny King and Dreadnought defeated Ray Cavalero and Billy Chase in 7:52 when Dreadnought pinned Ray Cavalero with a Dread Bomb. Rating: 31 We brought in some of our younger rookies for a squash match and they performed fine. They were still too green for a permanent spot on the roster, but they did ok here. Our continued attempts to rehabilitate Dreadnought continue with a tag team pairing with Denny. On paper it made sense, in the ring, not so much. Another misstep in an endless line of them. SINGLES MATCH: Hawkeye Calhoun vs. James Diaz In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, James Diaz defeated Hawkeye Calhoun in 10:23 by pinfall with an Asian Thumb Spike. Rating: 33 Hawkeye steps up to put over one of our newcomers here and somehow the match is disappointing. It a boost for Diaz for sure, but eventually we had hoped that he’d start having great midcard matches to justify a further push. At the moment it wasn’t materialising. TAG TEAM MATCH: The Italian Americans vs. Cross River Connection In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Cross River Connection defeated The Italian Americans in 9:58 when Perfect Pepper Pelton pinned Vito Pirelli after using a foreign object. Rating: 34 Sure the Cross River Connection cheated, but they still won. The Italian Americans would be cooled off for a while, because they didn’t bring enough to the tag team division to justify them going over everyone all the time. SINGLES MATCH: Brutus Milano vs. Sal DiMeo In a decent match, Brutus Milano defeated Sal DiMeo in 10:11 by disqualification. Rating: 42 It’s as cheap a win as possible, but even though Brutus was an underwhelming performer, he was still a former Empire Champion and we’d be damned if we’d bury one of the those. The prestige of the title is closely aligned to former champions and how their perceived, so Brutus remains a respected performer. Even if I hated him. NYCW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Tagg Brothers vs. The New York Dolls © In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, The New York Dolls defeated The Tagg Brothers in 10:07 when Eddie Braddock pinned Wolfie Tagg while using the ropes for leverage. The New York Dolls make defence number two of the NYCW Tag Team. Rating: 40 The Tagg Brothers step into the title scene and are defeated by the champions who are perfectly happy to cheat to win. And cheat they do, regularly. Constantly watching Eddie Braddock be the weak link in every match always had me second-guessing my decision to stick the titles on them. But we were running this train now regardless. Victory or death. NYCW TRI-STATE TITLE MATCH: Freedom Eagle vs. Richie Riggins © In a decent match, Richie Riggins defeated Freedom Eagle in 9:31 by pinfall by using underhanded tactics. Richie Riggins makes defence number four of the NYCW Tri-State Regional. Rating: 45 Freedom Eagle spins his victory over Hawkeye to get a Tri-State Regional Title shot. He gives a good performance, but Richie is too much for him… when he cheats. Match was decent all round. ANGLE: Thom Barrowman, Andrew Harper and ‘The Georgia Bulldog’ Riley McManus are out with some words for American Machine and The LA Stars. True Patriotism comes not from masks and make-up covered in red, white and blue. But from behaviour. They are the true patriots and they’re sick of anyone claiming to be something more than they are. Unlike most people though, they’re happy to take out their frustrations on their opponents. Rating: 53 Not the best promo, but these three had a cool visual look stood alongside one another. GANG WARS MATCH: American Machine & The LA Stars vs. Thom Barrowman, Riley McManus & Andrew Harper In a bout that had good heat and decent wrestling, Thom Barrowman, Riley McManus and Andrew Harper defeated American Machine and The LA Stars in 25:22 when Riley McManus pinned LA Star #1 with a Slingshot Suplex. Rating: 45 Another main event, with another sub-standard performance. It seemed that American Machine really was struggling with the pace set by the others and that was dragging down proceedings. Further attention obviously required. OVERALL RATING: 45 52,640 viewers this week as we prepared for a journey to Yonkers for the next show; hoping for a better performance all round. NYCW Wrestling from Yonkers Sunday, Week 3, July 2021 Yonkers Field, New York City, New York Attendance: 1,755 FOURWAY DANCE MATCH: ‘The Georgia Bulldog’ Riley McManus vs. Denny King vs. James Diaz vs. Howlin Mad Mort In a decent match, Riley McManus defeated Denny King, Howlin' Mad Mort and James Diaz in 9:32 when Riley McManus pinned Howlin' Mad Mort with a Slingshot Suplex. Rating: 45 Sometimes you just want to get some workers into a match, with the sole goal of putting one of them over. The Georgia Bulldog gets a tough win and James Diaz comes out of it looking great too. At last something to be positive about with his push. SINGLES MATCH: Hawkeye Calhoun vs. Dreadnought In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Dreadnought defeated Hawkeye Calhoun in 10:02 by pinfall with a Dread Bomb. Rating: 40 And the good fortune continues as Hawkeye does a better job than anyone else of making Dreadnought look like an unstoppable monster. This was a great match for the young star and Hawkeye proves why he’ll be missed in the future. NYCW TRI-STATE TITLE MATCH: Freedom Eagle vs. Richie Riggins © In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Richie Riggins defeated Freedom Eagle in 10:02 by pinfall with The Body Bag. Rating: 41 Clean win for the champ this time as he continues to look more and more dominant. Freedom had the benefit of being easily re-heated quickly, so the losses didn’t matter as much for him as the wins did for The Body. GANG WARS MATCH: Animal Harker & Cross River Connection vs. The DiMeo Family In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, The DiMeo Family (Sal DiMeo, Vito Pirelli and Luca Sacramoni) defeated Animal Harker and Cross River Connection in 9:32 when Sal DiMeo pinned Animal Harker while using the ropes for leverage. Rating: 41 We were struggling to let go of the DiMeo Family idea completely. Mainly for the well-being of Sal DiMeo, so he gets the win here by pinning the non-future-tag-team-champions. Match was fine, if a little worse than expected considering some of the talent in the ring. SINGLES MATCH: Brutus Milano vs. Andrew Harper In a decent match, Brutus Milano defeated Andrew Harper in 10:10 by submission with an Italian Backbreaker after blatantly cheating. Rating: 44 Strong match-up between our two big hoss upper-midcarders. Andrew had been flirting with main event consideration, but we needed people to know that Brutus was still in the mix (he wasn’t really), so we went with a protected loss for Harper. NYCW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The LA Stars vs. The New York Dolls © In a decent match, The New York Dolls defeated The LA Stars in 22:19 when Spike Sylvain pinned LA Star #1 with a handful of tights. The New York Dolls make defence number three of the NYCW Tag Team. Rating: 42 The new champs get a cheating win over our top team, thus further establishing their credentials. Eddie Braddock continued to look a bit lost among the others, despite orders to protect him. That was not a great look for the champs. Winning helped though. ANGLE: American Machine cuts a promo hyping up his upcoming match with Thom Barrowman. Tonight is the night for his comeback. You can’t keep a GODDAM AMERICAN HERO down for long. He’ll be raising Old Glory to the skies and waving it in victory after tonight. Tonight, American Machine does it for all the little Machine-a-Maniacs around the world. Rating: 54 I couldn’t help but love his cheesy, 80s-inspired schtick. NYCW EMPIRE TITLE MATCH: American Machine vs. Thom Barrowman © In a bout that had great heat and good wrestling, American Machine defeated Thom Barrowman in 10:13 by disqualification after Riley McManus and Andrew Harper attacked him. Rating: 60 Great match. Thom did the bulk of the carrying, but Machine did his part too. I should never have doubted him. Add to it that he is robbed of success because of McManus and Harper and I’ve got multiple ways to go with the top-tier feud. OVERALL RATING: 58 59,195 viewers for our most positive show in a while gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling. We also made $9,595 profit thanks to the increasing gate size of our shows. While enjoying a rare night on the town with the boys afterwards, Spike read the breaking news from his phone. Tommy Cornell was returning to the United States having signed a contract, along with his brother, to United States Pro Wrestling. That would shake-up the industry and no mistake. Next time… Gang Wars 2021 and Inflationary pressure… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP1 Posted May 27, 2022 Author Share Posted May 27, 2022 New York City… Where two tribes go to war… It was almost time for our annual Gang Wars show. We were riding some positivity heading into the show, and unlike previously, I was determined to keep the streak alive. The latest Pro Wrestling Reporter had news of Troy Tornado’s imminent retirement. Ade Nelson and Josh Jacobs teaming up to win the Sam Keith Classic XI. Rocky Golden reclaiming the SWF World Heavyweight Title and the sudden (and unexpected) news that Nicky Champion would no longer be the Figurehead for USPW. I wonder if Mr. Cornell’s signing had something to do with that? We spent a lot of the month renegotiating contracts as everyone wanted their fair share of the profits. I couldn’t blame them: Riggins to $240 Danny Hagman $130 Dreadnought up to $100 And finally, just before the show proper we got two big pieces of news. Firstly, Ernest Youngman had finally been toppled as COTT World Heavyweight champion, losing after twenty-nine defenses to none other than… Frantic Ali from IPW. Underwhelming was not the word for that disastrous choice. I planned to speak to Larry about why they’d agreed on that switch, when Richie Riggins walked into the locker room. He appeared to have grown approximately a small wrestler extra in size, while maintaining his ripped physique. “Heavyweight now boss,” he said with a wink and then dropped a gunshow on me. Any thoughts on Frantic Ali disappeared immediately. What a hunk. NYCW Gang Wars 2021 Sunday, Week 4, August 2021 Pennsylvania Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Attendance: 1,891 GANG WARS MATCH: James Diaz & The Tagg Brothers vs. Richie Riggins, Howlin Mad Mort & Dreadnought In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, James Diaz and The Tagg Brothers defeated Richie Riggins, Howlin' Mad Mort and Dreadnought in 9:52 when James Diaz pinned Howlin' Mad Mort with an Asian Thumb Spike. Rating: 42 Despite his amazing new look, we need Richie to team with two other heavyweights to take the loss for our up-and-comers. Match was good, with Richie in particular looking fantastic. We protected the champ a bit by having him leave the match before the end, resulting in the loss to Mort. GANG WARS MATCH: Danny Hagman & Cross River Connection vs. Denny King & The New York Dolls In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Danny Hagman and Cross River Connection defeated Denny King and The New York Dolls in 20:17 when Danny Hagman submitted Eddie Braddock with a Steel Curtain. Rating: 41 Part of our plan to transition the Cross River Connection into tag team title contention happened here. Annoyingly Pepper Pelton sprained his wrist, because of a botched move by Eddie Braddock. Some people can handle success, others struggle and he was struggling as a tag team champion. To send a message we had him tap clean for the first time to Hagman’s now-lethal finisher. GANG WARS MATCH: Brutus Milano, Animal Harker & Freedom Eagle vs. The DiMeo Family In a decent match, Brutus Milano, Animal Harker and Freedom Eagle defeated The DiMeo Family (Sal DiMeo, Vito Pirelli and Luca Sacramoni) in 22:27 when Animal Harker pinned Luca Sacramoni with a Stump Piledriver. Rating: 43 Revenge after months of losing in different combinations. The DiMeo Family are clearly on borrowed time. Was it fair? Probably not, but I really didn’t want to waste anymore time on a duo with less upside than some of our undebuted rookies on the pre-show. ANGLE: American Machine, LA Star #1 and LA Star #2 cut a promo hyping their upcoming six man match with Thom Barrowman, Andrew Harper and Riley McManus. It seems that three cry-babies have teamed up together. It seems misery really does love company. But that’s ok, as a Goddam American Hero (trademark), he’s used to bringing hope to the hopeless. And you three are three of the most hopeless wrestlers American Machine has ever seen. American Machine ends his bit with the words dozens of people had been hoping for… “Tell em Stars…” And then, for the first time since their debut years ago, the LA Stars are handed microphones. “Well Machine, it seems to me that our opponents like throwing their weight around. That’s fine, I LIKE THROWING THEIR WEIGHT AROUND TOO! (crowd cheers) And tonight, we’re going to prove one and for all why The LA Stars are the greatest tag team in professional wrestling today. Isn’t that right Two?” LA Star #2 cracks his knuckles, “You GODDAM right.” Rating: 67 First things first.. The LA Stars have some gravelly, bad-ass voices. They’re also much better on the mic than two masked wrestlers in New York have any right to be. Finally, even I was fired up for the match. And I wrote the thing! GANG WARS MATCH: American Machine & The LA Stars vs. Thom Barrowman, Andrew Harper & Riley McManus In a bout that had good heat and decent wrestling, Thom Barrowman, Andrew Harper and Riley McManus defeated American Machine and The LA Stars in 24:34 when Riley McManus pinned LA Star #2 with a Slingshot Suplex. Rating: 54 Despite the amazing promo, it is Star #2 who eats the loss. The match itself was pretty good, although Harper was a noticeable weak link, which was a surprising disappointment. Watch the might Georgia Bulldog though, a true rose amongst thorns. OVERALL RATING: 53 59,977 viewers was a step in the right direction as I question whether there’s a delay on boosts to viewership based on previous events? Probably not in the digital age. We made a solid $10,956 profit though, so at least Larry would be happy again. Andrew Harper, who’d been struggling with burnout seemed to have become a negative on the backstage area. After his last performance, I decided to give him a month off (fully paid) to get his head straight, which delighted him. Bless him, the gigantic lug. Next time… Where one bully fades, another rises… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP1 Posted May 27, 2022 Author Share Posted May 27, 2022 New York City… Home of the brave and land of the soon-to-be-retired… I’d had a thought after Harper’s departure for the month and set about reaching out to a wrestler for a special one-shot appearance. I didn’t get it done in time for the first show of September, but it would be by the second. NYCW Brooklyn Brawl Sunday, Week 2, September 2021 Yonkers Field, New York City, New York Attendance: 1,821 NYCW TRI-STATE TITLE MATCH: Animal Harker vs. Richie Riggins © In a decent match, Animal Harker defeated Richie Riggins in 10:16 by disqualification. Rating: 48 A stumble from the gorgeous champion here as he realised Harker might beat him fairly, so he grabbed a chair and battered the green-haired former Southern Star to the mat, leaving referee Matthew White no choice but to DQ him. Richie just smiled at the decision and flexed the gunshow to audience in response. HAH! Amazing. SINGLES MATCH: Danny Hagman vs. Dreadnought In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but terrible wrestling, Dreadnought defeated Danny Hagman in 9:42 by count out. Rating: 32 Not a good match here. We knew that losses hurt Dreadnought more than Danny. But we didn’t want him crushing another rising star. We split the difference and caused a mess of a match. In retrospect, we should’ve made a choice and lived with the consequences. Poor Dreadnought. SINGLES MATCH: The Masked Mauler vs. Riley McManus In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Riley McManus defeated The Masked Mauler in 10:16 by pinfall with a Slingshot Suplex. Rating: 38 Riley McManus takes one of the youngsters out for a spin and beats him comprehensively. But fair play to Mauler, who more than upholds his end of the bargain. His performance is so good actually that Honest Frank would comment after the show that he sees him as a great worker and a future star. SINGLES MATCH: James Diaz vs. Howlin Mad Mort In a decent match, James Diaz defeated Howlin' Mad Mort in 10:18 by pinfall with an Asian Thumb Spike. Rating: 46 Now we’re getting somewhere. Diaz, when paired with a big fella, can properly display his power moves and chain-wrestling and the results are… great. He was starting to gain popularity and momentum, which was exactly what we’d hoped for both him and Dreadnought. One we’d got right, the other not so much. SINGLES MATCH: Brutus Milano vs. Denny King In a decent match, Denny King defeated Brutus Milano in 10:19 by pinfall after using a foreign object. Rating: 44 Denny King is back baby. Back to his cheating ways and back to winning. We’d missed him since shunting him down the card to cool-off since the McManus feud. But here he beats our top face (outside of the main event), which anyone whose followed us knows we must have plans for him. Good match too. TAG TEAM MATCH: Cross River Connection vs. The Italian Americans In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Cross River Connection defeated The Italian Americans in 9:40 when Perfect Pepper Pelton pinned Vito Pirelli with a Prime Time Perfection. Rating: 40 Everything here is as it should be. SINGLES MATCH: American Machine vs. Sal DiMeo In a bout that had good heat and decent wrestling, American Machine defeated Sal DiMeo in 9:34 by pinfall with an Old Glory. Rating: 52 And here too. NYCW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The LA Stars vs. The New York Dolls © In a decent match, The New York Dolls defeated The LA Stars in 21:55 when Spike Sylvain pinned LA Star #2 with a Sedation. The New York Dolls make defence number four of the NYCW Tag Team. Rating: 53 Clean win for the champions over the former champions. And a great match too. Eddie remains a constant weak link in these matches, but for now we were invested in the story of the Dolls. The fact they’d come from nowhere to be crowned tag team champions gave them enough legs to keep going for now. Perhaps with more time and success Eddie would develop quicker. ANGLE: Thom Barrowman cuts a promo explaining that while American Machine relies of jingoism and vacuous phrases, he, the real American Hero (not trademarked because he’s not a douche) is out here, night after night, earning his success. Like a man. Something American Machine knows nothing about. Rating: 68 This was a nicely face-inspired promo, but with so much bitterness that it became heelish in nature. That’s nuance baby. Our crowd obviously ignored all of that and just boo’d the bad man. Which also worked to be honest. NYCW EMPIRE TITLE MATCH: Freedom Eagle vs. Thom Barrowman © In a bout that had great heat and good wrestling, Thom Barrowman defeated Freedom Eagle in 23:41 by pinfall with a Guided Missile. Thom Barrowman makes defence number three of the NYCW Empire. Rating: 49 Oh Freedom. This was not good enough for a main event match and it certainly wasn’t Barrowman’s fault. When given the opportunity, and with momentum behind him, Freedom still couldn’t grab the brass ring and prove his main event status. This was not great news. OVERALL RATING: 50 60,404 viewers was a small increase. Brutus came to us after the show and asked for a pay rise from $90 to £140. Managing to keep a straight face, I just gave it too him. Elsewhere Ultimate Phoenix signed with SWF, American Flash won the King of California 2021 and Logan Wolfsbaine lost the United States title to Captain Lucha from OLLIE. I refused to get drawn into a conversation about that title change. Let’s just say, I didn’t think it was a great idea. Onwards. Tonight we’d signed none other than Troy Tornado to a one-shot event. We even advertised in advance and tried to build some hype for it. No point dropping a big surprise on a normal show with a decent-sized name like his. NYCW Knockout in Queens Sunday, Week 3, September 2021 Queens Boulevard Theater, New York City, New York Attendance: 1,894 SINGLES MATCH: The Masked Mauler vs. Dreadnought In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, The Masked Mauler defeated Dreadnought in 10:09 by pinfall with a Piledriver!?! Rating: 33 Honest Frank thought Mauler was a star in the making and nobody had said that about Dreadnought in about a year at this point. So we do the right thing and have Mauler beat him, clean, with a bog standard Piledriver!?! As the Mauler gimmick insists. SINGLES MATCH: Danny Hagman vs. Ray Snow In a poor match, Danny Hagman defeated Ray Snow in 10:18 by pinfall with a Terrible Towel. Rating: 36 Ray Snow reappears from his pre-show exile to do for Hagman, what he used to do. The match wasn’t amazing, but Hagman got the clean win, and introduced his new non-submission finisher, the Terrible Towel. Which is a massive lariat which sends opponents into a tailspin. For a small and skinny guy, his moves look absolutely lethal. GANG EXTREME WARFARE: Animal Harker, Freedom Eagle, James Diaz & Cross River Connection vs. Riley McManus, Howlin Mad Mort & The DiMeo Family In a bout that had a decent reaction from the crowd but sub-par wrestling, Animal Harker, Freedom Eagle, James Diaz, Prime Time Jack Pryde and Perfect Pepper Pelton defeated Sal DiMeo, Vito Pirelli, Luca Sacramoni, Riley McManus and Howlin' Mad Mort in 22:04 when James Diaz pinned Howlin' Mad Mort with an Asian Thumb Spike. Rating: 45 We’ve upgraded from a standard three-on-three, to a monstrous five-on-five. And the results are great. While this represents the first loss for the Georgia Bulldog in a while, there were so many people involved it was barely noticeable. What was noticeable was James Diaz getting the win. It made him look like a star. Fantastic stuff. SINGLES MATCH: Brutus Milano vs. Denny King In a decent match, Brutus Milano defeated Denny King in 10:28 by submission with an Italian Backbreaker after blatantly cheating. Rating: 46 Revenge is sweet for Brutus as Denny does everything he can to get Brutus to snap (like he did McManus), but struggles because you can’t set-up shop in the brain of a man with no brain. Advantage; Milano. GANG WARS MATCH: American Machine & The LA Stars vs. Richie Riggins & The New York Dolls In a decent match, American Machine and The LA Stars defeated Richie Riggins and The New York Dolls in 24:07 when American Machine pinned Eddie Braddock with an Old Glory. Rating: 49 Eddie Braddock takes the pinfall once again in a fantastic Gang Wars match. He was now the go-to guy for pinfalls in the team as we didn’t want to damage the popularity of Spike. Which was not something I ever imagined I’d say out loud. What was going on?!? ANGLE: Thom Barrowman is out to the ring to the sounds of Fortunate Child. He heard that Troy Tornado was stopping by. And he couldn’t wait. He got inline backstage, got a headshot photo of the ‘big star’ and when it came to meeting him, Thom just ate the photo and slapped the taste out of Tornado’s mouth. Apparently we didn’t like that treatment and now he; THE Empire champion has to fight the ‘ahem… legend’ in a match. That’s no problem, the champ faces tougher challenges just walking along a street in New York City. Rating: 81 Amazingly sarcastic and dry interview here, showing Barrowman’s depth as a talker. NYCW EMPIRE TITLE MATCH: Troy Tornado vs. Thom Barrowman © In an exceptional match, Thom Barrowman defeated Troy Tornado in 10:04 by pinfall with a Guided Missile. Thom Barrowman makes defence number four of the NYCW Empire. Rating: 71 Kept the match short for the retiree and my God the two of them tore the house down. This is not only our best match of the year, it’s the best match ever. In our entire history. I was suddenly completely gutted that Tornado was retiring, because after this I was sure we could use him indefinitely. OVERALL RATING: 69 Best match ever tops best show ever. We got a big bump to 69,992 viewers and Tornado, a man of his word, retired the day after. I even tried talking him out of it and he rejected. Dammit! We also lost $20k for the month. Ouch. The King of New York 2021 KONY Final KONY Semi-Final: A vs. B KONY Semi-Final: C vs. D KONY Quarters A: American Machine vs. Andrew Harper KONY Quarters B: James Diaz vs. Richie Riggins KONY Quarters C: Brutus Milano vs. Denny King KONY Quarters D: Freedom Eagle vs. Riley McManus COTT Heavyweight: Ernest Youngman vs. Frantic Ali © NYCW Empire Title: Animal Harker vs. Thom Barrowman © NYCW Tag Team Titles: Cross River Connection vs. The New York Dolls © Danny Hagman & The LA Stars vs. The DiMeo Family Next time… we crown a King… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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