(I wrote this back on September 7, when EPW Vendetta happened, so that's how long I've been programming this damn website. Anyway,)
So, since transitioning from a fighting game streamer to some guy who tweets about wrestling too much, I’ve considered whether I want to maybe get into, as a hobby, reviewing wrestling, wrestling journalism, that sorta thing. It has been nice taking a total break from doing anything at all, but my mind is too active to just do nothing forever, so I’m already thinking about how best to revive my stream and Youtube. First, though, I wanted to see if I was capable of writing anything interesting about wrestling before trying to put it to voice, so here’s this blog!
I was considering doing it about Bash in Berlin, but I thought a more interesting challenge would be doing it about the local Perth promotion, Explosive Pro Wrestling, or EPW, and their most recent event, Vendetta. Since it's a promotion I enjoy a lot but most people wouldn’t have ever heard of it (with the exception of intense TMDK superfans), let alone seen any of their shows, I thought it might be interesting to try writing about. But I will also try writing about more standard things people will have seen, since that’ll resonate more, of course, this is more of a personal test. But hey, maybe it’ll get someone interested in EPW! Also, as a preemptive apology, since this was my first time doing this, I didn’t remember to take many photos. Sorry about that. Next time!
So, EPW Vendetta was held at The Point, Merriwa. Merriwa is annoyingly far north of Perth, so it's a bit of a hassle to get to, but I do like The Point as a venue, the acoustics and lighting tend to be better than the closer venues for me, so it's a bit of a wash. One thing that does push it over is it generally has a food truck out front instead of standard rec centre tuck shop food, so if I get hungry at intermission it's a much better time. Since I decided ahead of time I wanted to do this blog, I got there early to watch the whole pre-show. I was kinda surprised at how long of a line there was! I knew people would rock up early, since even when I was there to catch the end of the preshow a lot of seats were full, but from doors open? Wow, it was kinda cool to see.
Match 1:
Locker Room Leadership Program (Mr Thompson and Jay Taylor) vs King Shahil and ‘Big Boy’ Ryan Rivers
The show started with a card change for the preshow, since this was meant to be Mr Thompson and Jay Taylor vs Bruno Nitro and Edith Night. I was a little sad because that was one of the main reasons I wanted to see the preshow, and they didn’t give an explanation until later, but such is life.
The Locker Room Leadership Program are a heel stable meant to be basically a group of high school bullies allied with the asshole gym teacher, Mr Thompson. They always get good laughs out of me, with their great ‘motivational’ video package, showing things like ‘Uplifting’ and ‘Supportive’ while Joel Hagan fakes a handshake before throwing someone. Joel Hagan from his debut until joining was a generic grumpy mostly-silent large man that I had no interest in, but has shifted great into the big bully role, but he hasn’t been around in a while! Miss him.
Not a lot happened in this match. It started off with a couple of funny gay jokes, which isn’t something you come to expect from wrestling. King Shahil is also a queen, so I guess it helps when the gay jokes come from a place of love. The match opened with a Thompson and Shahil grapple, with Shahil going for a kiss, missing and then going ‘okay, looks like I misread the situation’, then later in the match there was a couple of ‘we could’ve had something special, Thompson!’ kinda moments. Funny stuff, but unfortunately, neither Shahil or Thompson did a lot more.
EPW loves face hot tag spots, so most of this match was Ryan Rivers being beaten up by mostly Jay Taylor. Mr Thompson would tag in, do one thing, then tag out for a while, so it barely felt like a tag match. Eventually, Shahil did get tagged back in, and did a couple of big spots, before Jay Taylor snuck past the ref, landed a cutter, and then Thompson got the pin.
1.5 out of 5, mostly for the jokes at the start. Only really sad because the other match sounded pretty fun, though, I wouldn’t have been expecting a lot from the first match of the pre-show otherwise.
Match 2:
Damian Slater vs Faizal Ali
Slater has held multiple belts in multiple promotions in multiple states of Australia, bone fide main eventer, while Faizal is a relatively new rookie, so you expect a squash here, and that’s what you get. Faizal does look his gimmick great, though, he’s got that sleek but defined martial artist look down pat, he can jump high, and his kicks look great, although his punches need work. He jumped around a bit, landed some big kicks, then Slater caught him in a leg lock, which Faizal sold well and stopped jumping around, and then it was all Slater. Figure four leglock to finish, so good match storytelling, too, really focused his legs once Slater spotted they were the lynchpin.
1.5 out of 5, I have high hopes for Faizal in the future!
Match 3:
Zenith vs Robby Heart
This was an EPW Invitational Tournament quarterfinal match, so it was incredibly bizarre it was on the preshow. I’m a big fan of both of them. Robby Heart has a cool gimmick, as an evil goth clown, his tattoos look fantastic, and his intro really makes him menacing. It took me a while to forgive Zenith for being an asshole to Del Cano when they tagged, but that was 2 years ago, and Zenith’s in-ring talent has won me over. I still think it was bizarre that when they split up, Zenith became the face, though, but I guess the kids loved him too much. Such is life.
This match was really good! Both of them had a lot of chained moves, there was a lot of movement, and while there was a bit of clunkiness in some of it, I was willing to forgive it for the ambitiousness of the choreography. Robby Heart went for a springboard double axe, but caught a rising knee from Zenith, and he sold being winded from the strike really well. Robby Heart going for a superplex, being struck down, and Zenith ropewalking down to do a senton was also cool, though Zenith nearly stumbled at the start.
Robby Heart has been using a black poison mist attack to secure his matches, so all these big spots you were relatively confident they wouldn’t finish until that had come into play. Only relatively, because a) EPW also loves surprising smarks and b) they were pretty cool big spots. Zenith nearly had Robby in a full nelson, but Robby pulled the ref into them, leaving all three on the ground. Robby Heart slinked out of the ring to prepare the goth clown mist, then slowly crept up on a still down Zenith. He got tapped on the shoulder by Zenith’s ally, the Great George, so he sprayed the black mist all over George, but George was wearing goggles, so he’s safe! Then Zenith spins Robby around, unleashing his own poison mist! The ref gets back up, and counts the pin for Zenith’s win! Cute comedic ending to top off a solid match.
3.5 out of 5, kinda funny that my match of the night might’ve been on the preshow. Like I said, it had a bit of clunkiness, in things like Robby Heart going up the turnbuckle when it didn’t really make sense for him to, to set up a spot, but nothing too bad.
The main show started with them announcing that unfortunately Solomon Blackwell had been injured, so replacing his match with Rogan Karguis for the EPW Coastal Championship was Bruno Nitro, also explaining the preshow change. A bit sad to lose both matches from the change, since Bruno Nitro has held the EPW Coastal Title for absolutely ages and I really didn’t need to see him challenge for it again, but not really avoidable.
Match 1:
DNT (‘The Don’ Michael Morleone and Chris Target), accompanied by Stella Nyx vs ATO (Julian Ward and Kaz Jordan) (c)
EPW Tag Team Championship Match
The card opened with a tag team title match, between the heel team of The Don and Target against the recently returned Julian Ward and Kaz Jordan. Ward and Jordan had been in Canada for a fair while, with Ward holding the EPW Heavyweight Title for a fair while before leaving, so there was a lot of excitement around their return. They’d beaten The Don and Target for the titles last show when the heels were (work) drunkenly wandering around and offering an open challenge, so there was a big pop to see them surprise return. This match was The Don and Target insisting they didn’t really offer their belts, that wasn’t fair, so they got a rematch.
DNT got a goofy new video package. I’m not sure how much of the goofiness was intended, it looked like a photo slideshow your mother would make after a holiday. Always hard to tell. Kaz Jordan fake botched his intro of lying down on the ropes, pretending to fall over and then pointing at the crowd like ‘gotcha’, but after hearing LA Knight talk about double botching his intro to make people think the first botch was intentional I’m always suspicious.
Even though this was a pretty even tag match, with lots of teamwork spots by both teams, EPW’s love of big hot tag spots still prevailed, with Jordan getting beat on for a while before managing to get the tag, then we went back to lots of teamwork spots. Jordan at one point did a senton to the outside on all three of DNT, with a believable looking catch! Ever since it's been pointed out to me that most WWE spots to the outside look like teamwork rather than a catch, I’ve been hyperalert of it, but this one looked good. There was also a cool elbow drop by Target onto Kaz Jordan being held in place on top of the Don’s knees, was pleasantly surprised to see cool team attacks by the heel team here rather than just them being solo powerhouses.
Nyx tried to interfere with the title belts, but it got caught by the ref before anyone could get hit, with the resulting struggle causing Target to get flung to the outside after the ref accidentally hit him with the belt. I think Target genuinely took a hit on the fence here, because he looked bloody after the match, and it would be a bit bizarre to blade for a ref hit that never sees you back in the ring, so I hope he’s alright. ATO then got The Don up on the top rope, for a bit of a botched hurricanrana into cutter combination, with Jordan’s leg scissors not quite making contact with the Don, so it was almost hella cool but not quite. Maybe if I was on the other side of the ring.
3 out of 5
Match 2:
Bruno Nitro vs Rogan Karguis (c)
EPW Coastal Championship
Bruno Nitro is a small, quick Brazilian who moved to Perth ages ago, and pretty much immediately became a fan favourite here. I really like him, my only issue with him was he won the Coastal title in 2022 and held onto it for basically 2 years straight. He lost it twice, but both times immediately won it back the next show. Like, come on! EPW has so much up and coming talent, you don’t need to have such a long midcard title reign, you can get someone else over while still keeping Bruno Nitro popular.
Rogan Karguis is a sorta slimy looking guy, which makes him fit in well as the heel lieutenant of the Locker Room Leadership Program, who have definitely become my favourite part of the EPW mid card. They’re so funny, whilst also being believably high school bullies, but Karguis has been the least interesting part so far because I just didn’t have a great grip on his personality. Sometimes he was the gym teacher's pet, but sometimes he seems like he’s trying to face turn? This seems to be cementing him as trying to face turn, but Thompson interpreted it differently, loudly shouting ‘sure, we’ll stay away from the match. WINK.’ turning to the crowd with a grin. Also, he came out to an incredibly edgy video package about breaking your hopes and dreams, so, uh, not sure about face. Anyway, get that belt on Joel Hagan.
Bruno did a lot of fast movement and high flying spots, and Rogan continued fighting like a Dark Souls character, lots of rolls, but it worked well, looked natural. Lots of continuous spots, with counter into counter into finish, like a suplex countered into suplex countered into neckbreaker. Bruno looked like he was going to win his title back, but Thompson came out and distracted the ref, while Jay Taylor landed his cutter on Bruno, moved the KO’d Rogan on top of Bruno for three. The other odd thing to me about this stable is that Rogan is the one with the title while Jay Taylor has seemingly the most protected finisher in EPW, but nevertheless. Thompson cut a promo about ‘our title’, before Rogan got back up and yelled at the two of them that he didn’t want their help, and told them to stay back, and if they interfere again, he’ll leave the stable, before leaving to the incredibly edgy shattered hopes and dreams video package. Mixed signals. Where’s Joel Hagan?
2.5 out of 5
Match 3:
Tyler Jacobs vs Chris J. Lazarus
The other EPW Invitational quarterfinal match of the night. Tyler Jacobs announced earlier this year that he would be retiring at the end of this year, having been wrestling since 2001 (!!!), and his dream would be to win the Invitational one time before he leaves, so emotions were tense in the room. CJL, the former head of ex-rival promotion, SHWA, is a chickenshit cheating comedy heel now, so I kinda figured this wouldn’t be Jacobs’ last match.
The start of the match was really slow, with CJL leaving the ring every time he got hit, and eventually just leaving the stage entirely, with Jacobs running back to go get him. Why? Just win by countout, let him go, who cares? CJL got beat up for a while, before getting a little offense in, with one of my favourite comedy bits he does, a little kinda…Looney Tunes-esque run, I guess I’d call it? He moves his legs up and down on the spot and pumps his arms really fast before he actually starts to run, love it. He ended up pissing off Jacobs, who pulled out some knuckles. The ref warned him he’d be DQ’d, causing CJL to start taunting, ‘do it! Hit me! Hit me, you pussy!’. Jacobs relented, giving his knuckles to the ref, with CJL immediately pulling out his own knuckles and punching Jacobs in the face, but Jacobs kicked out at 2.
Not long after, Jacobs goes for a Sunset Flip, but CJL counters, and puts his legs up on the rope for leverage, which is missed by the ref, and…that’s 3? CJL wins? He pops off, we’re all waiting for the ‘wait, hang on, he cheated, that’s not it!’ moment, but it never comes. CJL leaves. Tyler Jacobs starts taking his boots off in the ring. Standing ovation for him. Still a bit shell shocked.
James Hartness, the Bri’ish king of the emos, and Jacobs’ student, comes out to tell him ‘look bruv, I don’t know if you know what a month is, but the year ain’t over yet, yeah?’ Jacobs starts to walk off, but Hartness shouts ‘look at me!’ and grabs him, telling him to have a fantastic retirement match at Reawakening, the big EPW end of year show. Cool moment, I liked it, but still feel a bit off having his last tournament end like this. Not like CJL needs help getting heat, either, he’s despised and been around for ages.
1 out of 5
Match 4:
James Hartness vs Mad Mikey Nicholls
Hartness, still standing in the ring, yells out ‘you’re working on my schedule, come out here Mikey!’, immediately transitioning us into the next match. Mikey is probably the only one in this review who doesn’t need an introduction. He comes out wearing the IWGP tag title around his waist, with the NJPW Strong tag title over his shoulder. TMDK is a name most online wrestling fans will know, and it's a point of pride for us Perthies. When he’s home, Mikey plays a sorta over the top Aussie asshole powerhouse, which would get boos if he wasn’t Mikey, so we cheer him anyway. Kinda like if Stone Cold was funny-rude instead of just rude. I noted ahead of the match start that Mikey wearing his two international titles to the match means he’s probably going to win.
The match started with some big, high impact slap trading in the ring. Echoed through the entire venue. The action eventually moved to outside, with Hartness going for one of those cool ‘run around the entire perimeter of the ring for a spear’ spots but just gets clonked in the head by a chair from Mikey. I didn’t know this was a hardcore match until then so it was almost like a jumpscare. Mikey does a stage magician bit of getting a kid in the audience to prove it's a real chair by hitting Mikey, which he sells like a champ.
The action moves back in the ring, with the hardcore action just centred on this one chair. I thought it was going to be a mostly tame hardcore match based on that. I was wrong. Someone in the crowd yells ‘Get him, Mikey!’ and Mikey replies ‘believe me, mate, I’m fuckin trying’. Mikey leaves the ring to grab a mystery bag, getting kids to try and guess what's in it, before pouring a ton of tacks over the ring. Mikey goes for a suplex, but Hartness counters, leaving a couple of the tacks in Mikey’s shoulder. I’d kinda have expected more tacks to get in, so maybe they weren’t all real? Or maybe they just bent under the force.
Hardcore matches are Hartness’ home, which showed in the match’s story by him having so many inventive uses of the weapons, like pulling Mikey’s tights, pouring tacks down, and then hitting him with a low blow. I winced hard, even knowing it’s a work, so they got me good. Mikey superplexed Hartness onto the tacks, with both of them selling the tacks well. Mikey leaves the ring to grab the commentator’s water bottle, taking a swig before throwing the still mostly full bottle at Hartness.The most dangerous looking spot of the match was an apron fireman’s carry slam onto a spare piece of the metal fence between the ring and the crowd, but that somehow wasn’t the finish. After a couple more eye opening things, like Mikey landing a piledriver, a pretty rare move at EPW, Hartness went for a GTS, but Mikey grabbed his leg and rolled him up for a 3 count. Bizarrely tame finish for such a ridiculously over the top match, but I love roll ups, so I marked out anyway. After the match, Mikey stumbled out over the fence, basically falling over it and getting back up on the other side, and left through the crowd, really selling the damage this match did.
3.5 out of 5, the other contender for match of the night so I’ll probably give it to this one because giving it to a pre-show match feels rude.
Intermission now, so I went out to the food truck frame 1, having missed dinner to get here on time. They were sold out of burgers, so I got a roast beef and gravy roll with chips. It was real good! Bit pricy, but that’s the tax you gotta pay at an event food truck in the middle of nowhere. Julian Ward came over and chatted with us a bunch since he knew my mate, and I wanted to ask for a photo but my fingers were soaked in gravy and I worried I’d look like one of the ridiculous Homer photos. Next time! Hopefully at a venue without this food truck because I’ll probably get that roll again.
Match 5:
The Pulse (Felix Young and Jarred Slate) vs Blake Walker and Manu Kaitoa
I wasn’t familiar with Manu, but he looks great. Big Kiwi guy covered in cool looking tattoos, and he did some pretty good angry man heel yells, so I was excited to see him. Blake Walker is a huge white guy in riot cop gear, and has been heel Del Cano’s interference enforcer, but hasn’t really successfully done a lot of interference, which made both him and Del Cano look kinda weak. Given that The Pulse are former tag champs, I figured this would be a squash.
I didn’t even really take any notes on this and can’t remember much that happened. The Pulse did some cool team stuff, and there wasn’t a hot tag for once because it was a full on squash. The Pulse did that ‘belt around our waist’ motion after the match, so I’m guessing this is build up for Pulse vs ATO, which will no doubt be a banger, but this match was nothing.
1 out of 5
Match 6:
Taylor King vs ‘Radmaker’ Alex Kingston
EPW Heavyweight #1 Contender Match
Taylor King finally became the EPW Heavyweight champ at the end of last year, after a long, hardfought struggle against The Don and CJL, and then almost immediately after suffered a major knee injury and had to vacate the belt, which resulted in Jesse Lambert winning it. Upon his return, he’s been sorta motioning that he might heel turn, since he deserves his belt. Pretty good story. He came out wearing black.
Kingston (not the actress of Doctor Who fame) is a cool lightly-90s guy who left wrestling in 2019 before returning mid last year. He uses a skateboard, his entrance video is him skating around a park more than it is wrestling, plus some of the clips from his old ‘AK-47’ intro. The bullets don’t really make sense now that he isn’t AK-47 anymore but it's a cool entrance video. He will sometimes use the skateboard to propel himself onto opponents in a match, but it's generally only on heels, so I wasn’t expecting it here, with King only on the cusp of turning.
The match started off real fast, lots of movement and continuously chained spots, until eventually Kingston offered a hand to the downed Taylor King, who reluctantly took it and shook hands. Then, another big burst, with Taylor King tripping Kingston and immediately offering his hand and saying ‘good sportsmanship’ with a grin. Heel turn felt so imminent.
The story of this match was essentially a continuation of Taylor King feeling he deserved the belt, so treating this as a foregone conclusion. He’d land big move after big move, powerbomb on the apron, big cutter, but Kingston would keep kicking out, and he got more and more frustrated, eventually going for a pin with his foot on the rope. The ref spotted it, stopping the count, with Taylor King immediately stopping and looking like he regretted it. He tried to climb to the top rope to finish it for good, but his knee injury recurred, causing him to climb slowly, with Kingston catching up and superplexing him into a pin. However, Taylor King managed to position it in such a way that both sets of shoulders were flat on the mat, causing a double pin. The ref and staff weren’t sure how to handle it, with Taylor King still frustratedly yelling about his injured knee, eventually grabbing the mic and yelling about how he’s still not back, and telling Kingston to wait for him.
So, we got sort of a half heel turn here, but I like Taylor King’s acting. He really sells the frustration of someone who made it, got what they wanted, and then had it unjustly ripped away. He never lost the title, it was stolen, and now he has to prove he deserves it again? Very understandable story, and can’t wait to see where he goes from here. Double pin finish was a bit odd and a bit deflating, though, so gotta dock a bit for that. The match also was quite long, but the rest spots in it were very intermittent, it was packed with action, so I didn’t really notice until after.
3 out of 5
Match 7, Main Event:
Marcius Pitt vs Jesse Lambert (c)
EPW Heavyweight Championship
Jesse Lambert is a young kid who debuted a couple years ago as an L plater, a child learning to wrestle, in a stable called Two and a Half Wrestlers. He’d try to do famous moves on serious competitors, mostly a Stunner, and fail miserably, but we’d all cheer for him. He eventually tried to heel turn, due to falling in love with TMDK’s manager, Amber, but realised she was just using him, and won his first ever match in a 3v3 with Two and a Half Wrestlers vs TMDK. Dan Moore, the Nice Guy, has been basically playing the role of his wrestling dad, and he does a fantastic job of it. I have to imagine the two are close friends in real life.
After Taylor King had to vacate the title, Jesse Lambert fought Damian Slater for it, in a match very reminiscent of Wrestlemania. We had TMDK interfering, Dan Moore, Alex Kingston and Davis Storm (one of the founding EPW wrestlers) interfering back, it was very much an overbooked but worth it for the story, EPW emotional pop off, with Jesse winning the title with a stunner to the largest pop I’ve ever heard at a wrestling show.
Marcius Pitt, of TMDK, looks like if Zangief was real and Australian. He’s ridiculously ripped, and huge, looks like he’s a Greek god sculpted from marble. When I first started attending EPW shows, he was a face and so I got to cheer for him all the time but now I have to sorta solemnly boo, because ever since he joined up with Damian Slater to reform TMDK locally, he’s been the biggest heel in the promotion.
A full brass marching band came out playing Eye of the Tiger’s intro, before Jesse Lambert appeared and they switched to his intro song, Teenage Dirtbag, with the entire crowd singing along. I felt it ran too long, since they played Teenage Dirtbag’s chorus three times, and you may note the normal song only has the chorus twice, but it was cool and the crowd loved it. I’d say his intro and ring announcement probably lasted about 10 minutes, but if the crowd loves it, who am I to criticise?
My only note for this match is ‘it's a bit unbelievable that someone like Jesse could actually hurt Marcius Pitt’. Apparently the EPW writers agreed. The match started with Jesse pushing Pitt to the turnbuckle, landing in a few good punches before Pitt pushed him off, suplexed, picked him up, F-5, and pin for three. What. Refer to my earlier comment about EPW sometimes liking to make smarks feel dumb. The match was maybe 40 seconds long, which made me change my opinion on Jesse’s intro, since it being so much longer than the match was now really funny.
I didn’t mind this match being a total squash since Jesse even having the title to begin with stretched belief a bit, and so him defending it for a long reign would’ve probably pushed it too far, but the crowd was still in love with him. Pitt is a great wrestler in fantastic shape, and I don’t think he’s held a singles title in a while due to being the centrepiece of the tag division, so I’m really happy with that. My main issue, though, is if you’re gonna do something like this, I think you should have an impromptu team brawl or something to fill the space? Like, the length of the previous match also makes sense now, since that was the ‘actual’ main event, but it's still really deflating to end the show this fast when we’re expecting something big if you’re not looking at your watch. I guess it should be deflating, realistically, that return to reality, but I don’t want that from my main event!
1.5 out of 5 because the F-5 was cool
Pitt cut a big promo while Slater and Warboy (who’s name I’ve forgotten, he’s kinda a TMDK fanboy they let join character-wise) celebrated with him, talking about ‘exactly what I told you would happen, happened, Jesse’, and telling him to pick his best team for a team match at the next show, EPW vs TMDK. If I counted right, TMDK would have one slot empty, so maybe Shane Haste will be down? Or I counted wrong. Either way, at this point I realised I won’t be in Perth for that show, so I’ll have to hope they record it and upload a VOD soon after, because they got me excited for it, so, good work to Pitt for a good promo reinvigorating me after the match. Slater is generally the better talker of the pair, and Pitt sounded a little like he was running out of breath after talking for so long, but it was good to see him in the centre again.
After the show, I went over to the merch desk, but they didn’t have any Mr Thompson shirts, sad. I considered getting another TMDK shirt since my last one is far too big for me now but decided to hold off a bit, and I already have a Slater shirt. Figured I could get something online later if I changed my mind but it turns out they don’t have an online store anymore. Woops.
Overall, I liked the show. The main event being so deflating at the time was rough, but I was mostly too shellshocked for it to matter, and now that I realise how long Taylor King vs Alex Kingston was, I feel we did kinda get a main event anyway, so it's alright. They got me excited for a few of the upcoming storylines, like what will Taylor King do, Pulse vs ATO, and Pitt’s title reign, and I liked what some of the newer talent was doing. Excited for the next show! Sad I won’t see it live.
On Oct. 23, 2024, SaltyParis
(Admin) wrote:
This is my test comment!
