Indy Minute - Your weekly source for independent wrestling news

  Lots of news to cover this week. Sami Zayn begins his quest for the NXT title, news about Ring of Honor’s next show on InDemand Pay-Per-View, indy wrestlers in Japan, and big news from recent CZW and PWG shows. Let’s get into it!

  NXT

  Baron Corbin opens NXT TV this week. Jojo isn’t doing the ring announcing tonight, instead Byron Saxton has the mic. Sounds like Rich Brennan, Alex Riley and Renee Young on commentary. Corbin is up to squash some dude named Elias Sampson. This match was literally one irish whip into the End of Days and it’s over that fast. I get that he’s supposed to be a monster but I sure hope that Corbin starts having longer matches soon so we can see if he’s actually talented or just another big guy they’re pushing because he’s big.

  Sami Zayn coming to the ring next (following a small hype up for Carmella’s in ring debut). Alex Riley says he doesn’t know why people like him since he can’t win the big one. Sami gets on the mic (and a huge Ole chant breaks out and a Sami chant after his music ends), says he lost fair and square to Titus O’Neil - but that he’s sick of it and he’s better than that. And now he’s going after the one thing that’s eluded him since he’s been here, the NXT Championship.

  Tyson Kidd comes out and says to face facts that he’s never going to be NXT champ. That he drops the ball and squanders every opportunity. Tyson is wearing a Zayn shirt, which is a nice touch. Zayn asks if he got Natty’s permission before coming out to the ring and tells him to go cry himself to sleep like he does every night while he watches reruns of Total Divas. Tyson says he’d rather be on Total Divas than be a total loser like Sami. Sami challenges him to a match tonight and Tyson says if it’s fine with Regal it’s fine with him.

  NXT tag team champs Lucha Dragons up now to take on Wesley Blake and Buddy Murphy (who get the jobber entrance). Drake is the ref. Sin Cara starts against Blake. Riley says he talked with Murphy and Blake and that they are calling themselves “Team Thick” and Renee adds that it’s because “they got those thick bodies.” Wow. Great name guys </sarcastic thumbs up and tone of voice>

  Blake and Murphy actually take the advantage early over Sin Cara, tagging quickly and keeping Cara grounded. Murphy’s style is “ozzie strong style” cause that’s a thing. Cara pins Blake with a wheel barrow/victory roll from the top rope (commentary calling it a sunset flip bomb even though it was clearly a wheel barrow/casadora into a victory roll for the pin).

  Recap of Mojo Rawley’s hurt shoulder which Breeze exploited last week. Mojo is in the trainer’s room saying his shoulder is busted up and he’s gonna be out for a while. But it’s all good because he’s gonna come back stronger than ever, refocus, one step back two steps forward. But he’s not gonna forget who did this to him and he’s gonna come back with the vengeance, with the rage because he stays hyped. Maybe Rawley will be a heel when he comes back?

  Becky Lynch takes on Charlotte now. Nontitle match. Starting off exchanging arm drags, wrist locks and hammer locks. Becky looking pretty strong in this match (not just a comment on her physique though she’s looking jacked as hell). But as I say that, Charlotte hits the neckbreaker followed by Natural Selection for the win.

  Ascension cuts a backstage promo about how Hideo Itami doesn’t belong here and what they did to Funaki is a sign of things to come. Then Viktor says he’ll put it a way Itami can understand - Sayonara.  

  Enzo and Cass taking on the Legionnares. “Certified stud and a bon-a-fide G and you can’t teach that.” “If me and Enzo had a dime for every time we got beat up as kids…we’d have 0 dimes! Because we ain’t S-A-W-F-T - SAWFT!”  

  The Legionnaires might be jobbers but their music is awesome. Louis still has the wig in headgear look. LaFort starts but get slammed by Cass early. Goes to tag out and as Louis steps in, LaFort accidentally pulls the wig off and Louis is embarrassed. But not as embarrassed as he is pissed and attacks LaFort and throws him out of the ring! (Crowd starts a Yes chant but quickly turns into a Oui chant). Louis drags Sylvester to the ramp and slams his head against it a bunch before running to the back. Enzo and Cass just in the ring kinda dumfounded.

  Enzo and Cass call out “ol blue pants” and Cass sings the “Price is Right” walk down music as she comes to the ring. Cass introduces her as “blue pants” and she doesn’t seem to have a problem with her new name.
(I found out recently that Blue Pants is actually indy wrestler Leva Bates. I've seen her wrestle a few times and she usually does so cosplaying as a comic book or video character, which should have tipped me off since Blue Pants' outfit looked vaguely X-Men-ish. Hopefully we see more of her in the future and hopefully she gets a real name sometime soon.)

  She takes on “bada-bing, hottest chick in the ring” Carmella. The “fabulous” Carmella who has awful ring music. Just thumping bass and even worse Nikki Minaj rapping started off with “f-a-b-u-l-o-u-s” spelled out in an annoying voice. Crowd doing a “Let’s go blue pants” chant. Carmella hits a drop toe hold out of the corner into a figure four choke hold for the win.

  In the locker room, Becky confronts Sasha Banks and says what she did to Bayley was disgusting. But Sasha comes back with “how many times have you lost to Charlotte now?” Sasha says she’s going to do what she has to do to win the Women’s title and says Becky needs to ask herself what is she going to have to do to make it to the top. Maybe setting up for Becky to turn heel and join with Sasha?

  Adrian Neville defends title against Titus O'Neil next week apparently. Says he’s not intimidated by Titus just because he’s on Raw or Smackdown. Also next week, Bayley versus Sasha Banks.

   Sami Zayn takes on Tyson Kidd in the main event. Drake is the ref. Sami starts off with a bunch of arm drags and Generico spots (wrist lock spin to hammerlock spin to arm drag and feints out of a tope con hilo to a rebound moonsault into the center of the ring).

  Tyson fakes him out on the outside and kicks Sami in the face from the apron and takes the advantage. Keeps Zayn grounded with chinlocks, stomps and leg drops. Zayn nearfall from pop up top rope cross body and a big blue thunder bomb. Tyson locks in the sharpshooter in the center of the ring but Zayn pulls himself to the ropes. Zayn evades an apron drop kick, hits an exploder suplex in the corner and picks up the win after a Helluva kick in the corner.

  This is apparently beginning Sami’s “road to redemption” and hopefully winning the title at NXT’s next live event, which I think is scheduled for December 11. I’m really happy they are going to start pushing Sami more. The sympathetic face thing worked for a while, where he tried really hard but couldn’t quite win the big one but that only works for so long. It’s about time he gets the recognition he deserves and wins the NXT title. As good a wrestler as Neville is, Sami deserves the belt way more.

  Along with preparing for his in-ring debut, Finn “The Hamfergler” Balor has also been learning how to drive while down at NXT. MetsFan4Ever on Reddit mentioned that Dusty Rhodes has been teaching him how to drive so he will be able to get from show to show and last week, Balor tweeted a picture of he and Dusty in the car during “Dusty’s Driving School.”

  Ring of Honor

  Ring of Honor’s Final Battle at Terminal 5 in New York City will be broadcast live on InDemand Pay-Per-View on Sunday, December 5.

  Also, ROH tag team champions reDRagon will compete in the New Japan Best of Super Juniors tag team tournament, which begins on October 25. Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish will be taking on BUSHI and Mascara Dorada in the first round. The Young Bucks (Matt and Nick Jackson), The Forever Hooligans (Rocky Romero and Alex Koslov) and the Timesplitters (Alex Shelley and KUSHIDA) will also take part in the tournament.

  There’s also an ROH TV taping this weekend in Lakeland, Florida. The matches announced for the taping so far are:

First time meeting: Matt Sydal vs Adam Cole

ROH World TV Title Match

Jay Lethal w/ Truth Martini vs ACH

"The Phenomenal" AJ Styles vs Hanson

The Briscoes vs the Kingdom

Tommaso Ciampa vs Cedric Alexander

Raymond Rowe makes his first ROH appearance since his motorcycle accident

  In other Japanese wrestling news, Chris Hero and Colt Cabana are taking part in Pro Wrestling NOAH’s Global League tournament, which began on October 18. Cabana is in Block A, Hero in Block B.

 

  This really isn’t technically indy wrestling news but I wanted to add it anyway. CM Punk did the intro segment to Art of Wrestling last week (episode with Dave Prazak) and he lets it be known just how he feels about his fans.

  Colt mentioned his podcasting equipment was starting to fail (causing audio problems on interviews with Cherry Bomb, Dave Prazak and the live show in Cleveland), and Punk told him that when he upgrades his software he needs to upgrade his hardware too. Colt had never heard this before and Punk began to tell him how Apple does the same thing.

  He starts saying how when you get a new iPhone, the people at the Apple store recommend you get a new charger too (not really hardware/software but whatever). He then goes off on a tangent about how he noticed someone taking a picture of him while he was in the store and proceeds to call that person a “creepy piece of shit.”

  It’s really unfortunate that someone like CM Punk has such contempt for his fans. I’ll definitely agree that there are some fans out there who go a little too far when it comes to trying to meet or get the attention of their favorite wrestlers, but I’d say the majority are harmless and just excited to meet or see their favorite wrestler out in the real world. But Punk seems to lump all fans into the same group, the group that doesn’t know how to be polite or realize that wrestlers are people too.

  Despite the fact that without the fans (the creepy ones and normal ones alike), he wouldn’t be where he is today. He wouldn’t be able to retire in his mid-30s. He wouldn’t be able to walk out of a company, walk out on a contract he signed and still be beloved by all his fans and basically have an open door to return to that company. Without the fans behind him all these years, Punk would still be a nobody wrestling for Ian Rotten in Jolliet, Illinois. But, no, to Punk, we’re all just assholes who do nothing but bother him and creep him out.

 

CZW “A Tangled Web 7” results

Saturday, October 18 – Flyers’ Skate Zone

Greg Excellent defeats Latin Dragon, Lucky 13, Alex Colon, Pepper Parks and Buxx Belmar

(Excellent pins Buxx with a Tiger Driver onto Pepper Parks)

Alexander James defeats Kit Osborne

Joe Gacy defeats Papadon

Philly’s Most Wanted defeats Beaver Boys

(Joker and BLK Jeez/Sabian are Philly’s Most Wanted. PMW gets the win after Alex Reynolds gets distracted by Team Tremendous. Great to see that CZW is still bringing Detectives Dan Barry and Billy Carr in regularly)

Shane Strickland defends the CZW Wired Championship against “Speedball” Mike Bailey

(Many were calling this match of the night. Strickland is kinda meh to me but Bailey is a great up-and-coming talent.)

Caleb Konley defeats Trevor Lee

(Not sure if it’s his first appearance in CZW but it sounds like he impressed in this match and fans chanted “please come back.” Lee has a bright future in professional wrestling and already pretty impressive for a guy who’s only 21)

OI4K retains the CZW tag titles against Team Tremendous

(Ohio Is 4 Killers is successful in their first title defense. Never really saw them winning the belts, since I’m a bigger fan of Beaver Boys, Juicy Product and Team Tremendous but we’ll see how they handle being champs. Sounds like Dan Barry injured his ankle early in this match unfortunately.)

Biff Busick retains the CZW World title against Chris Dickinson

(Sounds like some real shenanigans went down in this match. Biff and The Front have been having issues for months but the group made no move to interfere in the match. At one point, Dickinson had Biff beaten but the referee (Georgie Boy) stopped counting at 2 and took off his ref shirt to reveal a DJ Hyde shirt. The match continued and Biff eventually got the win. Shortly after, Sozio [aka Niles Young for you long time CZW fans] got on the mic and cut a promo about how Biff got to go to Europe and represent them but he was stuck in the states, that no one cared about himself or Biff until they joined The Front. Then Sozio said DJ Hyde owes him a favor, yakuza kicked Biff and started a new match.)

 

Sozio defeats Biff Busick to become the new CZW World champion

(Everyone in The Front beat down Biff for a while who continued to kick out for several minutes. But eventually Sozio beat down Biff enough to get the win and become the new CZW champion. Later in the night, Biff challenged Sozio to a rematch at CZW’s Cerebral on November 1 in Deer Park, New York. But not to a normal match – to a no rope barb wire match! I wasn’t aware that Biff did ultraviolent matches but it could be pretty good.)

Devon Moore defeats Matt Tremont in a Tangled Web match

(Said to be a crazy, bloody, ultraviolent battle between Moore and Tremont. Lots of barbed wire spots, a barbed wire bat, a scaffold and other insanity. Moore won with a piledriver and afterward, Tremont cut a promo seemingly retiring from CZW and went to the back. But he soon came back and said he changed his mind – that someone was coming back soon and if he wanted to be king again, he’d have to go through Tremont. Basically, they’re setting up for Matt Tremont and Nick F’n Gage sometime in the next few months – Cage of Death I would guess)

PWG “Untitled II” results

October 17, Reseda, California

-Ronda Rousey, along with two of the other Four Horsewomen (Jessamyn Duke and Shayna Baszler) were at the show on Friday night. Brad Maddox was also there again, sitting next to Rousey.

At PWG's "Untitled II" (from left) Jessamyn Duke, Shayna Baszler, Excalibur, Ronda Rousey and some guy

 Tommaso Ciampa defeats Biff Busick

(Ciampa and Busick beat the hell out of each other in this one and at one point, Ciampa tied up Busick’s arms behind his back and got Rousey to give him a chop.)

Cedric Alexander defeats Bobby Fish

(Good to see Bobby Fish returning to PWG and also to see Cedric [the] Alexander picking up a win)

Brian Cage defeats Uhaa Nation

(There was a scary moment in this match when Brian Cage went to a lionsault but apparently didn’t get enough rotation and people say he landed on his head. Many were saying it reminded them of what paralyzed Hayabusa. But because Cage has a ridiculous amount of muscles everywhere, he was able to shake it off and finish the match. I really want Cage to stop nearly dying at these PWG shows.)

World’s Cutest Tag Team (Candice LeRae and Joey Ryan) retain the PWG tag team titles against Chuck Taylor and Johnny Gargano

(Said that the Four Horsewomen marked out huge for Candice in this match. Also, Chuckie T and Johnny Wrestling came out to “Backstreet’s Back,” since they used to be a tag team years and years ago.)

Trevor Lee defeats Adam Cole

(Lee picks up another impressive victory in PWG. So far he’s beaten Cedric Alexander, Michael Elgin [who was ROH champ at the time], and former PWG champions Kevin Steen and Adam Cole. Said that Lee again teased hitting the Package Piledriver, which he’s done in several matches now. I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes that his finisher eventually, since he’s been winning with small packages so far. I wonder if this will have any impact on Mount Rushmore?)

The Young Bucks defeat AR Fox and ACH

(The Bucks continue their winning ways over the newly formed team of Fox and ACH. I almost called them the African American Wolves before I remembered that’s actually Fox and Rich Swann. Adam Cole hasn’t won a singles match in PWG since March when he defended the title against Candice so I wonder if the Bucks will get tired of being the only winners in Mount Rushmore. Since that win in March, he won a 6-man tag at BOLA 2014 with the Bucks over ACH, Brian Myers [@thecurthawkins] and Chris Sabin) but has lost to Kyle O’Reilly [for the title], Roderick Strong, Zack Sabre Jr and now Trevor Lee. Cole and the Bucks also lost a 6-man tag on Night One of BOLA 2014 to Chuck Taylor, Kenny Omega and Zack Sabre Jr.)

Kyle O’Reilly retains the PWG World title against Roderick Strong

(O’Reilly makes his second successful defense of the title, defeating a man who has been a thorn in his side for months. Roddy attack Kyle at BOLA 2014, putting him out of the tournament with an injury and Kyle got a manner of revenge last week. However after the match, Roddy attacked Kyle and referee Rick Knox. Even though he isn’t the number one contender anymore, I can’t imagine that Roddy will leave Kyle alone until he wins the belt.)

Surprisingly, a few matches for the next PWG show have already been announced. The next show will take place on December 12 and will feature:

Kyle O’Reilly defending the PWG World title against BOLA 2014 winner Ricochet

Chris Sabin and Matt Sydal take on the Young Bucks

And “the meatiest four way in wrestling history” 

Brian Cage vs Biff Busick vs Uhaa Nation vs Tommaso Ciampa