Indy Minute - Your weekly source for independent wrestling news

There’s lots of crazy indy wrestling news to get to this week. Elgin quitting ROH? AIW losing their venue? Evolve is going to China?! All that stuff is for reals so let’s get right into it

  

  NXT

  NXT TV is touted as “Championship Week” as both the NXT Title and Women’s title are on the line this week. Bayley has earned Charlotte’s respect and will get another shot at the title and Tyson Kidd has one last shot at winning the belt from Adrian Neville.

  Bayley opens the show facing Charlotte. Jason Albert, Rich Brennan and Alex Riley on commentary (Jason Albert says Riley needs a hug during Bayley’s entrance and tells Rich to hug him, a bunch of times).

  (So is Charlotte a face now? A tweener? She’s still getting booed and acting like a heel but says she respects Bayley?)

  Bayley with a series of covers to try and pin Charlotte early followed by a series of arm drags. Charlotte slows it down with an ankle hold. (A $9.99 chant? You dirty marks.) Charlotte then goes to work on the knee, softening Bayley up for the Figure Four. These kinds of moves are what separate NXT Women from WWE Divas. These matches actually seem competitive and brutal where WWE Divas are just going through the motions.

  Charlotte starts working the knee against the ring post and apron, really working Bayley over. Charlotte pulls out a move I’ve never seen before and bridges up in the Figure Four to put even more pressure on Bayley and almost gets a pin out of it. Bayley tries to rally but Charlotte hits a neckbreaker followed by the Natural Selection and Charlotte retains. Charlotte raises Bayley’s hand and hugs her literally right after she was jawing with the crowd about beating Bayley. Reminds me of how CM Punk described Justice Pain while shooting on CZW - “I’m a face, but I act like a heel.”

  Viktor of the Ascension scheduled to face Hideo Itami next. Konnor and Viktor both attack Itami before the bell rings and the ref just kinda stands back and lets it happen. Alber mentions “Itami has no friends in the NXT lockerroom” (foreshadowing). After a long time, the rest of the NXT refs finally hit the ring to try and force Konnor and Viktor from the ring and trainers take Itami to the back and I’m reminded of an Andy Daly line from “Semi-Pro,” “Jackie’s teammates doing just an awful job of stabilizing his spine as they take him off the court.”

  Enzo and Cass are at the Performance Center alone to see if “The Princess of Staten Island” has what it takes. Enzo puts her hand on his bicep in a collar tie, tries to kiss her when her pushes her to the ropes then smells her hair in a go-behind. He laughs about it to Cass as Carmella knocks him out of the ring with a dropkick and Enzo tells him not to post it.

  Baron Corbin out to squash another jobber (Troy McLane, who I think got released a week or two ago). Hits the End of Days for the win.

  Tyson Kidd says now that he has a shot at Neville without Breeze or Zayn around he’s going to win. When asked how he felt about Natalya getting him the shot, he walked out.

  Sylvester LaFort and Marcus Louis challenge Enzo and Cass to a tag team match next week.

  The Vaudevillains coming out, seem to have new music. But still not very villainous. Facing Tye Dillinger and Jason Jordon. Dillinger doing a better job of being a heel than the guys with villain in their name. Vaudevillains win with an airplaine spin from Gotch into a senton from English (basically a more boring More Bang for Your Buck). Titus O’Neil is in the crowd after the match, sitting first row holding up a ticket to see the main event apparently.

  Funaki is backstage to check on Itami and says he has Itami’s back. So is Funaki returning to action?

  Bayley is talking to Devin about not quitting, that she gets better every time she’s in the ring with Charlotte. Sasha Banks attacks her and says she will show the world when she wins the title from Charlotte.

  Neville getting some boos as he’s introduced during his match against Kidd. Drake is the ref. Now the crowd is chanting for Tyson (“Here we go Tyson, here we go”). What is going on is going on with this crowd?

  Start off chain wrestling, Neville having the slight quickness/speed advantage. Very back and forth match. Kidd trying to submit Neville with a triangle and hitting big impact moves I’ve never seen (some flipping neckbreaker thing). Neville flips out of a sunset flip and then hits a basement dropkick followed by a sitout powerbomb but only get a two.

  Tyson avoids the Red Arrow and locks the Sharpshooter on Neville in the center of the ring. Titus slams Neville to the floor as walks past him on the outside and Sami Zayn comes out of nowhere to Helluva Kick Titus, bringing him over the barrier. Sami cheers for Neville to get up and just makes it back in the ring before 10. Kidd sets him on the top rope, Neville front suplex him to the mat and hits the Red Arrow to retain the NXT title.

  Titus will probably not be happy with Zayn after that kick. But I guess this means we will be seeing more of Titus on NXT coming up. (If anything, I hope we see Pancake Patterson in NXT sometime). Kidd now won’t ever get another shot at NXT title as long as Neville is the champ. Will he blame Natalya? Probably.

  Last week it was announced that NXT stars Sami Zayn, Adrian Neville and Corey Graves as well as former NXT Champion Bo Dallas will be a part of the roster in the upcoming video game WWE 2K15. I also recently saw that preorder WWE 2K15 will net you Paige as well.

  The NXT brand will also be featuring in WWE 2K15 as part of the My Career mode where created wrestlers will begin their journey to becoming a WWE Superstar. It’s said that Bill Demott is also in the game, so I guess there may be training mini-games or at the least CGI portions where you train or get yelled at by Hugh Morris.

  WWE 2K15 will be available on October 28 for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 and November 18 for Playstation 4 and Xbox One.

  Also, NXT is advertising the return of its first champion Seth Rollins for tapings on Oct. 23.

ROH

  Michael Elgin has apparently quit Ring of Honor, after sending out a tweet Monday. It’s not clear whether or not this is an angle but…most people don’t quit their jobs via Twitter.

  
  Adam Cole is hosting Michael Bennett’s Bachelor Party this Thursday in Merrionette Park, IL before “Champions vs All Stars” this weekend. This card has been “booked” by Adam Cole and so it will definitely be skewed towards the Kingdom’s favor.

  Cole also tweeted that he couldn’t get Edge to come to the part but got Bennett’s second favorite wrestler (Cole?). Bennett and Maria Kanellis are in fact getting married this Friday in Chicago.  On the card are:

  -Jay Lethal and Turth Martini vs reDRagon

  (Truth is generally just a manager but is lacing up the boots for a special in-ring appearance at Bennett’s Bachelor Party)

  -Mark Briscoe vs Roderick Strong

  (These two will need to be tag partners at “Champions vs All Stars” and this match will most likely not help their cause this weekend)

  -Jay Briscoe vs Rhino

  (Rhino was the man who put Jay out of action, injuring his shoulder and ending Briscoe’s first title reign. Cole no doubt hopes to put a hurting on Briscoe as he looks to regain the ROH World title.)

  Also a Women of Honor match is scheduled (nothing announced, though Leah von Dutch is apparently booked) and Cole invited CHEESEBURGER to join the Kingdom for the night.

 

  Mexican lucha libre promotion AAA is bringing its stars to American TV with Lucha Underground, which is set to begin airing on October 29 on the El Rey Network.

  The series will feature several AAA stars like Blue Demon Jr., Fenix and Sexy Star as well as several American independent wrestlers. Ricochet, NJPW Best of Super Juniors champion and Battle of Los Angeles champion, will be on the show as “Prince Puma” as well as John Morrison as John Mundo, Matt Cross as Son of Havoc, Ricky Reyes as Castro Cortez, B-Boy and Chavo Guerrero Jr as well as featuring Vampiro and Matt Striker on commentary.

  Watching this hype video on ThePostGame, Konnan is apparently going to be Prince Puma’s trainer (and also in a wheelchair with a cane and looks about a million years old).

  It seems like Global Force Wrestling isn’t going to necessarily a traditional professional wrestling promotion but rather a platform in America for wrestling promotions from all around the world.

  Last week, it was announced that the first show being promoted under the GFW banner will be New Japan’s WrestleKingdom, which will broadcast live on Pay-Per-View this January 4. WrestleKingdom is the biggest NJPW event of the year and will also feature stars from Ring of Honor.  Not sure about what the card would be yet, though I do know that because Kazuchika Okada won the G1 Climax, he has a guaranteed shot at AJ Styles’ IWGP Heavyweight championship.

  Pro Wrestling Guerilla is hosting a show on October 17, though no name has been announced for the show. The card so far is:

  -Kyle O’Reilly vs Roderick Strong, PWG World title match

  -World’s Cutest Tag Team vs Johnny Gargano and Chuck Taylor, PWG World Tag Team titles

  -Adam Cole vs Trevor Lee

  -ACH and AR Fox vs The Young Bucks

  -Biff Busick vs Tommaso Ciampa

  -Cedric Alexander vs Bobby Fish

  -Brian Cage vs Uhaa Nation

  The 2014 Battle of Los Angeles finally began shipping last week and I got mine over the weekend (I guess it came on Saturday but I was out of town til Sunday at a wedding). I just finished watching Night Two and so far, it’s easily been the best show/tournament/anything I’ve ever seen. Every time I think a match is my favorite and can’t be topped, the next match upstages it somehow.

  Highlights so far have been Biff Busick vs Roderick Strong, Mount Rushmore (Adam Cole and the Young Bucks) vs Men of Low Moral Fiber (Kenny Omega, Chuck Taylor and Zack Sabre Jr), Candice LeRae vs Rich Swann, Adam Cole vs Zack Sabre Jr and Kenny Omega vs ACH. Omega/ACH may be my favorite though, with all the “Stone Cold” Steve Austin vest shenanigans.

  I also read on PWG’s twitter that the Willie Mack farewell speech (he was signed to a WWE developmental deal) wasn’t able to fit on the Night 3 of BOLA DVD but it should be on YouTube soon.

  Kenny Omega, who has worked for ROH and PWG among many other promotions in North America, will be leaving the DDT promotion in Japan and working exclusively for New Japan Pro Wrestling starting November 1. There is a video online of the press conference of the announcement but it’s all in Japanese. Luckily, I found a site that translated it and can be found at this link

  Most people probably know Kenny Omega best from the YouTube video where he wrestled a 9-year-old girl named Haruka in the Japanese promotion “Stardom” a few years ago.

  Evolve going on tour in China from Nov 10-16. It will be a four event tour in the Hebei and Sichuan Province. They've been working on this tour for about three years now, said WWN President Sal Hamaoi. Great Wall International Sports Media is bringing the WWN Family to China (Evolve, DG USA, Full Impact Pro [FIP], Shine and others) that will feature Evolve brand.

  

  Announced on 10/3 (via PWInsider) that DG USA Open the Freedom Gate champ Ricochet, FIP champion Trent Baretta, Open the United Gate champion Caleb Konley (no mention of tag partner Tony Nese though), Su Yung, SHINE champ Ivelisse, Johnny Gargano, Rich Swann, AR Fox, Timothy Thatcher, Biff Busick, Harlem and Lancelot Bravado, The Colony (Silver and Fire Ant), Chuck Taylor, Mia Yim, Allysin Kay, Earl Kooter, former WWE developmental talent Jody Kristofferson (Kris Kristofferson’s son), Lacey, Larry Dallas, and referees Jamie Tucker and Jon Barber.

  Tour will be:

11/10 in Yicheng City, Hebei Province at Golden Sport Hall (set up for 2,000 fans)

11/12 in Emei City, Sichuan Province at Emei Sports Hall (set up for 2,000 fans)

11/14 in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province at Wen Jiang Sport Center (seat at least 4,000 fans)

11/16 final date in Beijing at Wan Shi Da Stadium (which can seat over 20,000 fans)

  Chikara has five events left in Season 14. The final event (Tomorrow Never Dies) will be taking place on Dec 6 at the former ECW Arena (The 2300 Arena)! This marks the first time Chikara has run in The Arena in almost three years.

  It seems like Beyond Wrestling will still be able to run shows at Fete Music in Providence, Rhode Island. It’s too bad that some assholes ruined their last show and getting the venue shut down for nearly a week, but at least they will still be able to run there in the future. 

Results from AIW’s “Girls’ Night Out 13 and 14”

Girls Night Out 13:

-Chastity Taylor defeated Angel Dust

-Nikki Storm defeated Annie Social

-Taeler Hendrix defeated Xandra Bale

-Jasmin defeated Alexia Nicole

-Jenny Rose defeated Mary Elizabeth Monroe

-Veda Scott defeated Tessa Blanchard

-Mia Yim defeated Heidi Lovelace

-Athena retained the AIW Women’s championship against Allysin Kay in a no DQ match

Girls Night Out 14:

-Angel Dust defeated Xandra Bale

-Tessa Blanchard defeated Chastity Taylor

-Allysin Kay defeated Jenny Rose

-Mary Elizabeth Monroe defeated Taeler Hendrix

-Team Barely Legal (Alexia Nicole and Jasmin) defeated The Social Network (Annie Social and Heidi Lovelace)

-Nikki Storm defeated Mia Yim

-Athena retained the AIW Women’s championship against Veda Scott

  Also, Veda Scott tweeted some pics of these events as well as a link to more, which can be found here

  Per the AIW Facebook page, apparently the decision has been made to close down Turner’s Hall in Cleveland, the venue where AIW has been running shows, which is terrible news.

  Even worse, I post a message board where John Thorne, one of the owners of AIW, posts sometimes and the situation seems grim. Apparently AIW has been in contact with the people who own the venue to try and buy it (since they store their rings there as well as running their wrestling school out of Turner’s Hall) but the current owners are not being cooperative.

  I really hope they can work something out and buy Turner’s Hall or find a new venue somewhere in Cleveland because AIW is one of the better independent promotions out there today. They feature a great combination of homegrown talent and flown in talent and do a really good job of setting up stories and having big payoffs to feuds. There was the suggestion of a Kickstarter or GoFundMe to help AIW buy Turner’s Hall but as of yet, it seems like things are very much up in the air right now.