DEAN~!!

[The Unholy Dragon]

Can't imagine there's gonna be a better wrestling show this year. 

Not just for the peaks, though there were plenty of extremely impressive ones, but also for the sheer variety and range. Nearly every match was totally different from the ones around it and there was a real variety of wrestling styles and genres represented. 

Last couple matches just absolutely tore it down as well.

Fantastic stuff. A real fitting tribute. Loved it.

[TimLivingston]

A MILLION STARS~!

[Phantom Lord]

That was a fun show. Congrats to all involved on getting it together and pulling it off. 

[SirFozzie]

from the reaction in the chat, I will be picking this one up when my disability check comes in next week.

 

Pro Wrestling, Motherfuckers. #1 and the best.

Simultaneously art and brutality

[The Natural]

We love and miss you, DEAN xxx.

[HarryArchieGus]

Pretty incredible show. What an array of talent and style! Excellent curation. Priest v Slim J and Connelly v Demus were both unreal. Arez v Makowski, Gringo Lovo v Cerebro and Williams/Icarus v Mathers/Luke featured some truly beautiful pro wrestling. Even with Makabe fixing his gear at inopportune times the Thatcher v Makabe Main Event was strong. Thatcher is a special talent. Certainly some matches that could've been trimmed off, but nonetheless a really fun show throughout. 

[The Unholy Dragon]

Honestly this really showed that Thatcher is one of the best in the world. 

Dude worked an absolute belter at Bloodsport, drove from Philly to NJ, minimum 90 minutes, shows up with welts from the former match still visible, and absolutely knocks it out with another incredible match in which he looked as if he was totally fresh. 

Just unreal stuff.

[S.K.o.S.]

I don't mean this as a slight to anyone who went on before intermission, but everything after intermission was incredible. Slim J vs Adam Priest was my MOTN but you could pick from lots of others and I wouldn't argue with you.

Also this was my first live show since pre-pandemic, and I got to say hi to quite a few people that I haven't seen in person in literally years. Flew in just for this show and I'm very happy I did.

[WebConn89]

I caught the first half of the show live. Thought it was awesome I had to do some other things after intermission but I plan on watching it. That was my second time seeing Warhorse and a lot has changed in 4 years. And like I had previously said Gringo vs Cerebro was really good. 

[The Comedian]

Met Johnny, Nick, Pete, Ray, and Bix at Palermo's before the show. Lovely people.

Truly outstanding show. Was especially impressed by Krule and Warhorse, who had to follow an incredible Cerebro-Gringo Loco match and still tore the house down. Ending a Dean tribute with a Battlarts-style match was a thing of beauty. The floor in front of me was covered in Connelly and Demus' blood, and each man managed to graze me with the trash can they threw at each other...

[(BP)]

My cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing for 3+ hours straight. Also had a near-miss with the trash can during Demus/Connelly, so I guess I was somewhere near @The Comedian. It was the beer and blood section for the remainder of the show.

My brother and I were happy to get to see Colby wrestle 25 years after we watched his dad tear down an armory with Devon Storm at one of our first indie shows. 

The experience of the dog collar match followed by everyone then somehow being more horrified by the gnarly stuff in Thatcher/Makabe was a thing of beauty. 

Krule is an absolute unit, and I was about as freaked out by him making eye contact with me tonight as I would’ve been if I’d had a face-to-face with Kane as a child (Mag Dog Connelly is still somehow more terrifying.) I’m intrigued by what the Gresham match will look like. 

I kind of regret not picking up a signed White Mike glossy 8x10. 

It was a lovely event with a hot crowd full of great energy. To the extent that I knew his tastes, to me the entire card screamed Dean. 

[NikoBaltimore]

I just got home and am having a Steel Reserve in Dean's honor.  The show was a fucking success in every way and I can't say enough how happy and even proud I am to be part of this board.  I love you all (except for the ones I ignore including one I met today) and hope we can do this again.  If you saw it you know the show ruled but if not I really hope you check it out in some way.  I'll have more say but I'll save that for the daytime when I'm more awake.

But I will say one thing that's been said already:  DEAN~! RULES THE MOTHERFUCKING WORLD~!

[SirFozzie]

1 hour ago, (BP) said:

It was a lovely event with a hot crowd full of great energy. To the extent that I knew his tastes, to me the entire card screamed Dean. 

I joked in discord chat that the main needed a man in a karate gi with a barbed wire c-clamp to come out and start stabbing folks, straight out of "STOP THE MATSUNAGA~!"

 

[AxB]

The VoD is up on IWTV, as of five hours ago.

[onelegbrynn]

Great show from last night. Loved every minute of it. Demus vs Connelly has to be one of the most insane matches I’ve ever seen. Slim J vs Adam Priest was incredible. As I said on Twitter, the whole show was a celebration and appreciation of the many types of styles of pro wrestling that Dean influenced and introduced many too. Any other show this weekend is gonna have a hard time topping it.

[S.K.o.S.]

Here's something that I'm sure didn't come through on the stream, and probably only the people sitting around me noticed. The person right next to me brought their daughter to the show, who I'm gonna say was around 4 years old, and during the main event she was on her mom's phone, on TikTok or something. So for some of us, for about 30 seconds, the very intense Makabe-Thatcher matwork was accompanied by the sounds of Scatman's World (possibly sped up a little). When it stopped, somebody was like "No, keep playing it!"

Pro wrestling, as we all know, is weird and dumb and wonderful.

[JLowe]

Missed the first match and a half thanks to traffic, but had a blast. It’s only the second indie show I’ve ever seen and I’m certain that won’t be topped. Going in, I only knew a few of the workers but everyone was fantastic. Demus-Mad Dog was just ridiculously stiff in addition to the plunder and blood. Filthy Tom got dropkicked in a chair right in front of me. Was super impressed with Warhorse, and Krule was fucking scary. The main had super nasty limb work, a lot of us were visibly and audibly cringing.

It was great to meet and hang out with Gregg, and I got to meet Phil Schneider and Johnny Sorrow. Was a little overwhelmed and tired so not as outgoing as I thought I would be, and sad I didn’t try and meet/introduce myself to more of y’all.

[hammerva]

Absolutely loved the show especially the 2nd half.  The atmosphere was great for almost everything that night.  Even if you are just a regular at H2o shows,  it should have just satisfied you.

Only negative (well beside Google Map driving my ass through every residential street in Gloucester trying to get there  )  was that Tank was definitely not a fan of DEAN beer choices.  

[The Comedian]

7 hours ago, (BP) said:

My cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing for 3+ hours straight. Also had a near-miss with the trash can during Demus/Connelly, so I guess I was somewhere near @The Comedian. It was the beer and blood section for the remainder of the show.

I was the guy in the navy blue hoodie. Were you the fellow to my right who was super enthusiastic for Colby' headlocks? If so, you had awesome energy and thanks for clearing the random refuse off my seat after the dog collar match...

[ivpvideos]

One of the best shows I’ve ever been to and an absolute blast. Nice to put some faces to usernames. It’s not everyday you catch a suicide dive from a luchador. 

[Greggulator]

I had an absolute blast last night. Pro wrestling live is always fun. And some of Dean’s best stuff came from his road reports, where it just made me wish I lived in Richmond so I could have a 40 and watch some indie sleaze. This show was really in that spirit. It had a lot for everyone. 

I know nothing about indie wrestling anymore. The only guy on the show I knew was Timothy Thatcher. But I was really impressed by as someone said earlier the curation of the show — some really good goofball stuff to brawls and etc.

The post-intermission stuff was a little more “serious” but the matches were really great. Some of the highlights:

The tag match with Wasted Youth was a really great 2000 indie juniors tag team match. And you know what? People shit on that stuff now (9/11 changed everything) but we all loved it back then. It had what those matches should have: Long haired babyfaces who have emo theme music and an insane name, cocksure jock arrogant heels who talk shit, and just the basic tag structure match but in the style where the ref at the end just stops enforcing the five count and let’s double teams happen and they all break out moves that were so completely new. It felt very OMEGA or that indie in Delaware that did the Super 8. My only notes are that I do not believe any of the participants had the first name of “Shayne” or any of the other derivatives of that name so common to indie wrestlers born in the late 70s. (I believe Dean made this commentary at one point.)

The double dog collar match was so great. Usually that’s a stipulation to end a blood feud and I could easily see some dork complaining about a dog collar match with some random pairing of dudes who never met before being an awful booking decision. But fuck that noise. Dean was a huge fan of the absurdity of wrestling and “yeah, sure, I will fly in from Mexico to get in a dog collar match against a guy who was apparently decreed by a royal authority as the King of the Dog Collar Match” is hilariously absurd. And Dean also loved blood and gore. One of the best Dean reviews was on the Dump Matsumoto hair versus hair match where she did something despicable to win and shaved the beloved babyface’s hair — writing about it being representative of the darker nature of life, and the fears of the innocent have about being corrupted into darkness. This match obviously was not part of a broader angle that was the Hulk/Andre of Japanese women’s wrestling, But any kind of match like this, where a guy from Mexico is willing to fly to the fringe of the South Jersey suburbs to get the fuck whipped out of him with a chain and to bleed, is always representative of mankind’s darker natures. We all have a dark side. But almost all of us abide by a social code where we will not give into the demon’s we all carry. A match like this — chaotic, brutal, ugly, bloody and for no real reason than to just be chaotic, brutal, ugly and bloody — always feels somehow cathartic to me. There’s a part of me (and I assume all of us) that would like to drown in chaos of my own making. (Also, that match was fun as fuck.) (Also, I have no idea how to do footnotes, or else I would in homage to the DVDVR’s usage of footnotes, which I believe was a Ganc trademark.)

The main event blew me away. Timothy Thatcher was the one guy I knew, and that was only because he was on AEW for a minute. But this was pro wrestling as art. “Telling a story in the ring” is the wrestling snob’s cliche. But so often, the wrestlers might think they are telling a story but it’s really hard for the audience to see the story — especially live and without announcers. They told a great story. The Wrestling Genius believes in sportsmanship. Thatcher did not cheat, but he was uncomfortably ruthless and dickish in a lot of his actions (all expressed with his facial expressions.) Thatcher targeted Macabee’s left hand succesfully. Macabre went after the ankle but was never able to fully hook his submission. Instead, he had to win by another method — And that was three punches from his right hand. (I don’t remember ever seeing a punch ending a match unless it was a guy’s finisher or involved a roll of coins. But when you think about it — it’s the best finisher. Punches end fights, even when thrown in real life by people who have never thrown a fist.)

But what was best about this was the crowd’s reaction. It was silent for a lot of the beginning — but because we were all focused on the intensity and wizardry and seeing their strategies unfold. Then we got louder as the match progressed, with everyone acting it was like a horror movie because someone twisted an elbow in a funky way or bent a wrist back. We all know what it’s like to roll an ankle or jam a finger, and seeing that in an exaggerated visual form 10 feet in front of you really makes you conjure up those memories. And I’m sure the knot tying joint work hurts, but it’s also not going to hurt or cause the damage of blading or back bumps. (I assume.)

But one thing I noticed (and I am sure everyone did) was that they did not talk at all during the match. We all know the tricks of when a spot is being called (even when we can’t hear it.) I talked with Macabee after the show and asked about it and how they didn’t seem to talk or call things. He said they didn’t. They had a few matches against each other before and wrestled a simulated “real wrestling match.”

I am so blown away by that. As you guys probably know, I was a comedian for about 15 years. Comedy and wrestling are both live performance art. One of the many things in common is that you have to learn to feel or hear a crowd. But, most importantly, you have to recognize what the crowd is telling you — when to pick up the pace or when to heighten your act/work to a spot that will pop the crowd or when to slow things back down and start to build to your next punchline/spot or then how to build to the big finish. 

I usually don’t care how wrestlers build their stories when Bret Hart or whoever brag about not needing to plan out a match or call a spot. The final performance is all that matters. But watching it in an intimate setting, it really just blew me away that they were able to dance like that.

Amazing time. DEAN~ FOREVER!

[The Natural]

Such a wholesome way to pay tribute to the late great DEAN. Shows how loved the man is. This is the best message board I've ever been part of and this reaffirms that feeling. I love you all, Paul xxx.

Edited April 5 by The Natural

[The Man Known as Dan]

Planning to post a longer write up later, but I flew up from St. Louis for this show and it was worth every single penny I paid for the flight and ticket. I’m attending Dynasty in a couple weeks and I find it very very unlikely it will be a better show. The first half of the show was great, but that 2nd half man. It’s a damn small list of shows who can have 3 matches like Priest-Slim J, Mad Dog-Demus, and Daniel-Thatcher on one card.

 

[JonnyLaw]

@Greggulator, you didn’t recognize former board posters Makabe and Suge D (I believe under those usernames)?

I need to finish the show and catch the Makabe/Thatcher match.  Of the matches I saw, I loved Slim J/Priest.  One of my biggest complaints about modern day wrestling is the overly choreographed aspect of it, where guys are clearly moving into position or standing around waiting with their back turned long enough to take me out.  This match, on the other hand, went 100 mph and was hard hitting, just a great, fun match. This is the first time I’ve seen Priest, and I agree with whomever I saw on Twitter say he’s like a more charismatic Jaime Noble.

[AxB]

I don't think Suge D's DVDVR Board name was Suge D, he only started using that as his wrestling name 5 years ago. He was Sugar Dunkerton for years and years before shortening it.

He started his wrestling career using the ring names Carl Wilson and Lamar Phillips (which I think is his shoot name). And Kareem Abdul Jabbar.