By Patrick Brandmeyer
Now, as promised, a special comment about Saturday’s Dynamo Pro Wrestling event at the Sports Academy in Glen Carbon, Illinois.
Writing these commentaries isn’t always easy. I’ve been accused of going easy on aspects of cards that probably deserved more criticism. I’ve known some of the people in the local wrestling scene for a long time and, admittedly, biases do exist. That being said…I didn’t think this was very good.
Pre-show notes: For a little while, the only match announced on the Facebook event page was Ricky Cruz & Brandon Espinosa defending the Tag Team Titles against Shorty Biggs & Outtkast (since the Bum Rrush Brothers got a non-title win over Cruz & Espinosa in Eureka). A few days later (presumably due to Espinosa not being available), it was changed to Ricky defending the Dynamo Pro Title against Shorty (another Eureka rematch, as Shorty defeated Ricky by DQ at that event). A few more matches were posted, but the Facebook event page took down the Ricky-Shorty match for some reason…that match did still happen, though. Other announced matches were Dirden-Kasa, Rando-Fantastic, Bite Club-Professionals, and Aarons vs. Paco vs. Gallagher.
The attendance was okay…but the crowd noise was really bad for most of the night. Some matches got decent fan response, but people were deathly quiet for other portions of the night. That’s been a problem for the Glen Carbon venue for a while; it’d be best for Dynamo Pro to search for a new Illinois venue.
The Bite Club (Rocket Mapache & Jackal) vs. The Professionals (Shawn Santel & Mauler McDarby)(w/ Travis Cook): “I’m A Travis Cook Guy” T-shirts now exist…may have to pick one up. The Bite Club ended the Black Hand Warriors’ Tag Team Title reign so Travis sent his other tag team after them for some payback. Would like to see more of Santel and McDarby; they’re an underrated tag team. They seem to have found some middle ground on their ring attire with the jeans over the wrestling tights. At any rate, Mapache got the pin on Santel after he and Jackal hit splashes off opposite turnbuckles at 8:07.
Steven Kennedy vs. Danny Adams: The in-ring action was fine by itself, but the fans weren’t really invested in the match. Kennedy pulled out a few old-school moves, including a Splash Mountain for a late near-fall. Kennedy got the win with his old finisher, a running middle-turnbuckle moonsault, in 8:28.
Brandon Aarons vs. Paco Gonzalez vs. “The Alternative” Brandon Gallagher: I’ve said a few times in the past that multi-way matches have jumped the shark for me. Gallagher bided his time and let the other two fight it out. Gallagher took advantage of the situation…Paco went up for the frog splash and Gallagher pushed him off the turnbuckles, then rolled up Aarons with a handful of tights at 5:22.
Mike Outlaw vs. Sir Isaac: This was a matchup between two of Dynamo’s newest rookies. I had only seen Isaac in the battle royal in July at Glen Carbon and this was his first singles bout. Unfortunately, a match between two relatively unknown competitors didn’t amount to much emotional investment on the part of the fans. Would like to see these guys against different opposition in the future, though. Outlaw won by blocking Isaac’s sunset flip off the second rope in 6:05.
Executive Director Mark Bland called out Heavyweight/Tag Team Champion Ricky Cruz to set up the stipulations for the main event. The no-disqualification stipulation made sense since Ricky got disqualified against Shorty in Eureka to save his title. Bland stumbled over the announcement a bit, but he made Outtkast the special guest referee for the main event. I’m not a big fan at all of stacking the deck. What’s the payoff supposed to be…a match between Ricky Cruz and Mark Bland? Who does that really help?
Dash Rando vs. Cavana Fantastic: This stemmed from a match in June when Fantastic turned on Rando in a tag match against the Professionals. The crowd was dead for this match as well…it was a funny guy who rarely wins and a funny guy who just resurfaced after a long sabbatical. Cavana finally hit the superkick after a few tries and pinned Rando with feet on the ropes at 5:17.
Outtkast vs. Elvis Aliaga: It was an uphill battle after the previous few segments, but this match was solid for what it was; each man escaped the other’s signature moves and Outtkast escaped a TCB (Falcon Arrow) attempt, getting the rollup pin in 6:23.
“Dirdey” Jake Dirden vs. “Ironman” Ken Kasa (w/ Travis Cook): These two had some great battles in SICW over the Classic Title; I was looking forward to this one after it was announced. It seemed like a condensed version of the matches they had in SICW. Dirden’s Asiatic Spike is popular with the fans, but his variation of the move where he delivers a thumb strike to the throat and essentially throttles the opponent to the mat for the pin…not so much. That ending seemed to fall flat with the fans (as did several things on this night)…Dirden got the win in 7:49.
The intermission was oddly timed as it didn’t happen in the middle, but toward the end after seven matches with two to go.
High Level Enterprise (Jack Gamble & Jon Webb) vs. The Black Hand Warriors (Michael Magnuson & David DeLorean)(w/ Travis Cook): This stemmed from a World League Wrestling feud; Gamble had joined the BHWs in both WLW and Dynamo, but double-crossed them in WLW to rejoin his partner Webb and regain the WLW Tag Title. Travis did some pre-match mic talk with Gamble. My friends noted DeLorean’s resemblance to Kevin Steen both in looks and in some of his moveset. They traded a lot of big moves in the home stretch; myself and my friends were wondering if it’d end on a rollup of some kind after all of that, but that wasn’t the case. DeLorean pinned Gamble after a top-rope Air Raid Crash(!) in 13:27.
Heavyweight/Tag Team Champion “The King Of Chaos” Ricky Cruz vs. “The Don Mega” Shorty Biggs, no-DQ match for the Dynamo Pro Title, referee Outtkast: Neither guy got much of a reaction when they came out, sadly. Outtkast made a few early fast-counts for Shorty’s pin attempts before settling into a more standard cadence. There were plenty of bells and whistles in this one…Outtkast tried to stop Ricky from using weapons on a few occasions (but it was no-DQ!). There was a weird dissension tease when Shorty used Ricky’s brass knuckles against him and Outtkast was randomly occupied with something at the timekeeper’s table and didn’t count the pin fast enough. Cruz finally brought in a chair and whacked Outtkast with it when he tried to stop him…at that point, who could really blame him? Bland tried to get involved and was accidentally knocked off the apron by Shorty when Cruz sidestepped him. Jay King took over the officiating as Outtkast was helped to the backstage area…Ricky stunned Shorty with the knucks and superkicked him for the pin at 11:52.
No local wrestling in my area next weekend, from the looks of things…I won’t mind a weekend off. Hopefully Dynamo can rebound in the future…they’re next on my schedule as they’re back in Fenton on September 6th.
Good night, good luck, and #yaywrestling.
Saint Louis Wrestling 