Indy Minute - Weekly independet wrestling news round up

  Welcome back to the Delco Elbow Drop for another round of the extended Indy Minute, all the indy news from Ring Rust Radio’s “NXT and Indy Minute” segment plus a whole lot more. There’s a ton of news on the slate for this week so let’s get right into it!

NXT TV, 8/21

  Former Total Diva Jojo is on NXT ring announcer duty for this show. She did an OK job, but could do with being a little less shrieky. Eden is still the superior NXT ring announcer right now.

  Enzo and Big Cass versus The Vaudevillains opened the show. Enzo is one of the best on the mics in the entire company, not just NXT. Even Big Cass ain’t bad on the mic either. Vaudevillains take out Enzo and Cass pretty quickly to advance to tournament finals. After the match, the Legionnaires (Sylvester LaFort and Marcus Louis) attack Enzo and Cass and LaFort shaves Enzo’s beard! Could a “Lucha de Apeustas” be in the future?

  Triple H is on hand to make some big announcement - officially announcing NXT Takeover on Sept 11, a live, two-hour special. All titles will be on the line - Neville’s NXT title, Charlotte’s Women’s title and the winners of the tag tournament will face The Ascension. Also, NXT Takeover will be overseen by a NEW NXT General Manager, who will be announced next week. Can’t wait to see who it is. After JBL replaced Dusty Rhodes, they really did nothing with the position so it’s great to see that they’re bringing that “authority” figure back in action.

  Devin talked to Tyler Breeze backstage before Breeze took on Tyson Kidd. Tyler Breeze walked out of the match, yelling at Tyson Kidd that he doesn’t need this and gets counted out. Tyson Kidd celebrates like he earned a big win and starts wearing Breeze’s vest around, posing in the corner like Breeze would.

  Charlotte faced Becky Lynch who seems to have a hard rock, head banger gimmick (even though her Twitter persona is just making puns about literally everything that happens on Raw or Smackdown). Lynch’s new gimmick is much better than the faux Irish music and step dancing, though. It almost reminds me a lot of Paige’s anti-Diva gimmick. Becky puts up a good fight against Charlotte, looks like she had her on the ropes but Charlotte gets the win. Becky seems to be surprisingly over with the crowd (there were some Becky chants) but Charlotte gets her share of cheers and WOOs too.

  Enzo comes out and challenges Sylvester LaFort to a hair vs hair match at NXT Takeover, which was alluded to earlier in the show.

  Mojo Rawley versus some dude named Steve Cutler. Drake Younger is the ref. Basically a squash for Rawley. Dude really needs a new signature/finisher than his ass based offense. Rawley using Naomi’s “Rear View” finisher as a signature and jumping on people with his butt makes him look like a clown more than a powerhouse, which is what I’m sure he is supposed to be. Rawley cuts a pretty serious promo after the match, basically about how he’s not smiling anymore and Bull will find out what staying hype is all about.

  This has nothing to do with NXT but they showed a trailer for the “Leprechaun” movie and it looks like the Leprechaun is just another slasher movie monster, which is not at all in keeping with the tone and feeling of the original series. Hopefully that’s just the way the trailer is making the movie seem, but all the dark humor and tricking people into killing or maiming themselves, like the Warwick Davis Leprechaun would’ve is totally gone.

  Kalisto and Sin Cara faced Sami Zayn and Adam Rose in the main event. Cara and Kalisto are a pretty good team - great look, great vibe and seem to be on the same page with a lot of unique offense. They could even work well on the main roster together. Kalisto’s Sliced Bread is called “Selina Del Sol” (a callback to his “Samuray Del Sol” character on the indies) and hits it on Rose, Cara hits a senton on Rose for the win. Now the Vaudevillains will face Kalisto and Sin Cara for the chance to take on The Ascension at NXT Takeover. I really hope that the winner of the tournament unseats The Ascension because A) The Ascension really bore me and B) what’s the point of having a whole big tournament to push the tag division, just to have the winners lose to The Ascension? Overall, though, I’m just really glad that Sami Zayn isn’t stuck with Adam Rose anymore and can focus on getting back in the NXT Title scene.

  I also read on the internet that Kalisto and Solomon Crowe were in tag team action against Wesley Blake and Buddy Murphy at an NXT Live event. As much as I want to see Crowe on NXT TV, I also really like the pairing of Kalisto and Sin Cara. I don’t think Cara and Kalisto are winning the NXT tag team tournament so it may be their team is ending soon, though. In the end, though, whatever gets Solomon Crowe on my TV I’ll be OK with.

  War Machine’s Raymond Rowe was in a serious motorcycle accident and suffered a broken arm which will require surgery and no date is known for his return. This is unfortunate for War Machine, who seemed to be starting a feud with the Briscoes.

  Ring of Honor held “Death Before Dishonor” over two nights this past weekend in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Chicago, Illinois.

 

  Results from Night One in Milwaukee:

  Word is the show drew 600 and was a turn-away, standing-room-only sellout.

  Bad Influence (Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian) defeated The Kingdom (Adam Cole and Michael Bennett with Maria Kanellis). Kaz picked up the pin of Bennett.

  “Scrap Iron” Adam Pearce was on hand at the request of The Decade to beat some sense into their “young boys” Tadarius Thomas and Adam Page. Pearce defeated Thomas with a piledriver and it’s said that Thomas had words with The Decade after the match, but it seems like he’s still under their control.

  Tommaso Ciampa defeated Jimmy Jacobs with the Sicilian Stretch (the Rings of Saturn).

  AJ Styles picked up a win over ROH tag team champion Kyle O’Reilly

  ACH won a six-man scramble (one fall, non-title) over ROH TV Champ Jay Lethal that also included Bobby Fish, Cedric Alexander, Adam Page and BJ Whitmer. Hopefully this leads to another TV Title shot for ACH since he had a great title match against Lethal, which you can check out on this week’s edition of ROH TV.

  Hanson defeated Roderick Strong and afterward Whitmer and Strong argued after Page tried to give Strong a chair to use on Hanson, setting up Hanson’s victory. I guess it sorta works that Hanson is working against The Decade now, since he’s a newer talent in the company. But if Raymond Rowe didn’t get hurt, their feud with the Briscoes could be insane and hopefully still happens someday.

  The Briscoes defeated the Young Bucks in what was probably an incredible match between two of the best teams in the world. The Briscoes picked up a win with a Doomsday Device.

  I wanted to also add that this was the semi-main event, which was Michael Elgin versus Silas Young for the ROH World Title. After the Bucks/Briscoes, the crowd chanted “You can’t top that,” which almost seems like it was directed at Elgin, who ROH fans have turned on faster than anyone could’ve imagined. The ROH tag division has a lot more talent than the World title scene right now, sorry to say. Other than Cole, Elgin has no real competitors or believable contenders to the title, especially since they’re just booking him against people like Tommaso Ciampa and Silas Young in title matches. And that’s not a slight against either, I’m a big fan of both Ciampa and Young, but ROH hasn’t built them up to be World title contenders yet.

  In the main event, Michael Elgin retained the ROH World title against Silas Young with a Buckle Bomb and Elgin.

  Night Two of Death Before Dishonor in Chicago Ridge, IL, drew just short of 900.

  In a dark match, Cheeseburger, Will Ferrara and Louis Lyndon defeated Psycho Mike, Matt Sells, and Stokely Hathaway (Ramon) after Ferrara gave Psycho Mike the Code Red

  Roderick Strong and Jimmy Jacobs w/ TD Thomas and Adam Page defeated Monster Mafia (Josh Alexander and Ethan Gabriel Owens/Ethan Page) after Jacobs pins Alexander following a spear.

  Jay Lethal defended the Ring of Honor TV Title against Caprice Coleman and picked up the win after three superkicks and a Lethal Injection.

  ACH defeated Silas Young, BJ Whitmer and Michael Bennett in a four corner survival match, picking up the win after a botched interference by Tadarius Thomas.

  Adam Cole defeated Hanson with a small package. Hopefully Cole starts hounding Michael Elgin for the World title soon because as much as I like Elgin, Cole needs to be in the World title picture at all times.

  Michael Elgin defeated Tommaso Ciampa to retain the ROH World title after a referee stoppage. According to ROHWrestling.com, Ciampa has been suspended indefinitely for attacking various ring crew as well as ring announcer Bobby Cruise.

  Adam Page defeated Adam Pearce with a jackknife roll through (a powerbomb into a prawn hold or something?)

  AJ Styles defeated Cedric Alexander

  In the main event, The Young Bucks and reDRagon faced Bad Influence and the Briscoes in a tag team, 8-man elimination match. reDRagon was eliminated first, followed by Bad Influence. The Bucks picked up the win when they hit More Bang For Your Buck on Mark Briscoe.

  House of Hardcore, a promotion run by Tommy Dreamer, will return to Philadelphia on November 15 but not to the National Guard Armory where it has previously run shows – but to the former ECW Arena in South Philadelphia! Dreamer also sent out a tweet on Monday night including both Matt and Jeff Hardy so it seems like the Hardy Boys will be at the Arena on November 15. I think Jeff has worked the Arena before (now the 2300 Arena) when TNA ran some shows there a few years ago but this may be the first time that Matt and Jeff work the historic arena as a team.

  TNA Knockout ODB hasn’t renewed her contract with the company so I wouldn’t be surprised to see her show up on independent shows going forward.

Upcoming Indy shows:

  PWG’s “Battle of Los Angeles” is August 29-31 in Reseda, CA. The tournament is massive this year with 24 participants over three huge nights of matches. Trent? and AR Fox will miss the tournament will injuries but will be replaced by Rich Swann and Candice LeRae. Zack Sabre Jr. will replaced Trent? with Chuck Taylor and Kenny Omega (as the Best Friends of Low Moral Fiber) in the six-man tag on Night 1 against Mount Rushmore (Adam Cole and the Young Bucks).  

  Beyond Wrestling is hosting the “Battle of New England” on August 31 in Providence, Rhode Island. Lots of big matches are signed so far such as Doom Patrol (Jaka and Chris Dickinson) versus Team Tremendous (Dan Barry and Bill Carr), Timothy Thatcher versus Johnathan Gresham, and Juicy Product (JT Dunn and David Starr) taking on The Throwbacks (Mr. Touchdown and Dasher Hatfield). Check out the company’s Facebook page at thislink for more info

  Absolute Intense Wrestling is hosting “Wrestle Rager” over three big shows from Sept. 5-7 at Turners Hall in Cleveland, Ohio.  Scheduled are Colt Cabana, Michael Elgin, Eddie Kingston, Tracy Smothers and Cliff Compton. I also saw a couple tweets from one half of the PWG tag team champions Candice LeRae that she will be in attendance as well, taking on Johnny Gargano on Night Two and Veda Scott on Night Three.

  2CW is hosting a show in Rome, NY on Sept 12. Matt Hardy challenges Capt. Nick Ando for 2CW Heavyweight Championship and the Young Bucks will take on Dave and Jake Crist (OI4K).

 Evolve 34 and 35 will be on Sept 13-14. At 34, Harlem and Lancelot Bravado will face The Colony (Fire Ant and Silver Ant [formerly Green Ant]) for the Open the United Gate Championship and Zack Sabre Jr. will face Timothy Thatcher. Also scheduled to appear are Evolve champion Drew Galloway, DG USA Open the Freedom Gate champion Ricochet, Johnny Gargano, Premier Brand Athletes Anthony Nese and Caleb Conley, Uhaa Nation, Rich Swann, and Roderick Strong.

  At Evolve 35, Ricochet defends the Open the Freedom Gate championship against Uhaa Nation and Zack Sabre Jr. takes on Biff Busick. Others scheduled to appear are same as above but includes Drew Gulak as well.

  On Sept. 19-21 in Easton, PA, Chikara is hosting the King of Trios tournament! Now that Chikara is resurrected, the King of Trios is back in action and a number of teams have been announced so far. The first announced team was a huge surprise – Kenny, Mikey and Johnny of the Spirit Squad! The next teams announced for the annual tournament are The Spectral Envoy (Ultramantis Black, Hallowicked, and Frightmare), Team UK (Pete and Damien Dunne and Mark Andrews), The Colony (Fire Ant, Silver Ant and Worker Ant), The Wrecking Crew/Devastation Corportation (Max Smashmaster, Blaster McMassive and Flex Rumblecrunch) and 3Peck0 (Shane Matthews, Scott “Jagged” Parker, and Archibald Peck).

  

 Smash Wrestling is hosting the “CANUSA Classic,” an all-women’s show on Sept 21 pitting the best female Canadian and American talents against each other. Canada’s team captain LuFisto has, so far, assembled the team of “The Mountain” Vanessa Kraven, Courtney Rush, Xandra Bale and Jewells Malone. The American team captain has not been named yet but the other members of Team USA are Cherry Bomb, Veda Scott, Kimber Lee and Allysin Kay.