WWL Rebelion en el Sur - 21 февруари 2015

[nWoHulkster]

World Wrestling League (WWL)

"Rebelion en el Sur"

February 21st, 2015

Ponce, Puerto Rico

 

The winner gets a shot at the WWL World Heavyweight Title

"The Lion" Apolo vs. Gilbert

WWL World Tag Team Title Match

The Heavy Artillery (Thunder & Lightning) vs. Legio (Spectro & Kronya, w/ "His Majesty" El Profe) ©

WWL Americas Title Match

"The Phenomenon, The Marvel" BJ © vs. Mr. 450

"The Sensational" Carlitos vs. Vassago (w/ "His Majesty" El Profe)

La Rabia (Stefano, D-Nniss & Noel Rodriguez) vs. The Gentleman's Club ("The Golden Latino" Joe Bravo, "The Ruler of the World" Tua & Eric Escobar, w/ "The Threat" Bryan)

Extreme Match

Monster Pain (w/ "The Maker of Champions" Jose Chaparro) vs. "Bully Guy" Mr. Big (w/ Mistress Glenda Lee)

3-Way Match

Syler Andrews vs. El Niche vs. Dimes

"The Puerto Rican Diva" Barbie Boy vs. Wonderful Xander

Indies Match: CWF vs. NWG

Zack Morris vs. Alex Raided

[nWoHulkster]

World Wrestling League (WWL)

"Rebelion en el Sur"

February 21st, 2015

Ponce, Puerto Rico

1. Battle of the Independents: Alex Raided beat Zack Morris. Raided won with a codebreaker.

2. Wonderful Xander beat Barbie Boy. Xander hit Barbie with a baton and then with a Cobra Clutch Slam.

3. 3-Way Match: Niche beat Dimes and Syler Andrews. El Niche won with a Corkscrew Splash on Dimes. Great match.

4. Yurnet, Ace Michael & Joseph RPM beat The Arab Connection. Yurnet is the brother of Mr. 450 and this was his WWL debut.

The Gentleman's Club (WWL President Richard Negrin, Gilbert, Tua, Joe Bravo, Bryan and Eric Escobar) came out for a promo. They took turns talking about their feuds and matches. At one point Mostro came out to confront them, but they beat him up.

5. Extreme Match: Mr. Big (w/ Mistress Glenda Lee) beat Monster Pain (w/ Jose Chaparro). A very good brawl that saw them brawl all over the building. Big won with help from a debuting wrestler (update: his name is Skull).

6. WWL World Tag Team Title Match: The Heavy Artillery (Thunder & Lightning) beat Legio (Spectro & Kronya, w/ "His Majesty" El Profe) © via disqualification. The DQ was because El Profe and Vassago interfered. Legio then beat down Thunder & Lightning, put them in caskets and set the caskets on fire.

7. The Gentlemen's Club (Joe Bravo, Tua & Escobar) beat The New Rage (Stefano, D-Nniss & Noel Rodriguez). Niche turned on La Nueva Rabia.

Immediately after the match was over Mr. Big came out to talk smack about The New Rage. He ended up challenging them to put their WWL World Trios Titles on the line on March 21st in Bayamon. His partners? Niche and the returning Blitz. The New Rage accepted so now on March 21st it's going to be the original Rage vs. The New Rage.

8. Carlitos beat Vassago. Great match.

9. WWL Americas Title Match: Mr. 450 beat BJ © to become the new champion! 450 won after Eric Escobar came out to distract the referee and Joe Bravo hit BJ. The rest of The Gentleman's Club came out and... attacked Mr. 450. Negin then made the referee ring the bell and start a new match.

10. WWL Americas Title Match: Joe Bravo beat Mr. 450 © to become the new champion! The Gentleman's club kept on beating up 450 and BJ until Carlitos came out to save them. The crowd chanted for all three (Carlitos, 450 and BJ) to join forces, but 450 walked out.

11. The winner gets a shot at Alberto el Paton's WWL World Heavyweight Title: Apolo beat Gilbert via disqualification. Gilbert cheated to win, but Shane came out with another referee to explain what had happened and the match was restarted. The Gentleman's Club came out and attacked Apolo, which caused the DQ. Shane tried to make the save, but couldn't. Then Savio Vega ran in and cleaned house. Savio announced that he has signed a 5-year contract with WWL that cannot be cancelled and told Negrin that he's coming for him.

 

The World Wrestling League held their second event of the year, “Rebelión en el Sur”, this past Saturday evening at the “Salvador Dijols Arena” in Ponce, PR. As I mentioned last week in my column, this would be a really hard test for the company as it was the first time they had taken their product outside the metropolitan area, more specifically San Juan and Bayamón, and this was the first event where they were only using local talent, with no “big name” star from outside of Puerto Rico to play the “special attraction” role. They did bring a good crowd of roughly a bit over 750 fans, who seemed to be thirsty for good hard hitting action. Speaking of hard hitting action, on that front they did not disappoint. The company was able to put together a really good fun show that included twists and turns that very few were anticipating and will continue to develop as they further the storylines with the use of their TV program and their next live event.

On to the results from the event:

“Wonderful” Xander defeated Barbie Boy in the opener. Fun match designed to warm up the crowd and get them ready for the rest of the night. Barbie Boy did all the comedy spots that he usually does and the crowd played along with him. Xander, (f.k.a. Prince Xander) debuted his new character, managed by José Chaparro. Still need to see a bit more of him to formulate a better opinion of this youngster. So far he has been hot/cold in my opinion.

In the battle of the “independents”, NWG’s Alex Raided defeated CWF’s Zack Morris. Better match than what I expected. They worked really hard and were able to elicit some positive fan reaction with their style of work. Raided’s valet seemed to know what she was doing and was able to draw heat for Raided with her heel manager antics at ringside.

“La Nueva Rabia’s” Niche defeated Dymes and Syler Andrews in a good Three-way bout. This was a really good match that had some blown spots, but still they were able to keep the crowd into it with a lot of high flying/high risk moves.

Morgan Yurnet (450’s brother), Ace Michael & Joseph RPM defeated “La Conexión Árabe”.

“El Sensacional” Carlitos defeated “Légio’s” Vassago w/ El Profe. In my humble opinion, this was one of the best matches of the evening. These two young veterans went at it from all angles and put together a really good match that involved different styles, from high flying to mat wrestling and a bit of chain wrestling too. Vassago (f.k.a. Erik Scorpion) has been on top of his game since joining WWL. A lot of people had not been able to see him before as he was mostly working independents in the southern portion of the island, but he has been wrestling for over 15 years and finally he is getting the opportunity to display his abilities in a bigger stage. Really happy for him. On the other hand, Carlitos has been mesmerizing with his performances in the last three WWL events. Fan expectations have been set very high and he most certainly has not disappointed. You could hear chants of "¡Esto es Lucha!" at different points of the match. Watch for this one when they show it on their TV program in coming weeks.

Next was the “Gentlemen’s Club” segment that was filmed for their TV. It was mostly a way to get some more heat on Gilbert for his match against Apolo later on in the evening. They also touched on what they did to Savio Vega and “Glamour Boy” Shane and ended the segment with WWL president Richard Negrín stating that they needed to have some gold around their waists and that he was guaranteeing that one of them would walk out a champion by the end of the night. This statement would play a role later in the show.

Mr. Big defeated Monster Pain in an extreme match that saw these two beat each other all over the ringside area with everything they could find. “Caution, Wet” sings, chairs, tables, everything was in play and they made use of it. It will be interesting to see if now Big will challenge Pain for the WWL Extreme title at an upcoming event. If they don’t go that route, then Big’s win and Pain’s loss would have meant nothing for either character and could potentially harm Monster Pain. Still this was a well executed match that got the crowd on their feet for pretty much its duration.

Thunder & Lightning defeated “Légio via DQ, which meant that Spectro and Kronya retained their TagTeam belts. The DQ came when in the final moments of the match T&L were about to win and Profe came up to the apron of ring, getting the attention of his former team and allowing Spectro to foul T&L causing the disqualification. After the match was officially over, Vassago and Profe brought out 2 caskets to the ringside area. All 3 members of “Légio” and Profe then attacked T&L and got them inside the caskets. They then brought them to the back and outside the building, where they pour some flammable fluid and fired up the caskets. All this was filmed for the TV program and I am certain it will play out in the upcoming events.

“Gentlemen’s Club” - Hiram Túa, Joe Bravo & Escobar defeated “La Rabia” – D-Niss, Noel & Stefano when towards the final moments of the bout, Niche comes in the ring and turns on “La Rabia”, costing his now former group the match. After the match was over, Niche took the mic and told “La Rabia” that he was tired of seeing them living it “big time” and being champions, while he was literally stuck in the lower card, doing opening matches every show. He then states the he feels he needs to surround himself with people that truly know what it means to look after one another. That is why he wanted to call out Mr. Big. Big comes out and insults the new “Rabia” and tells them they are nothing but a cheap copy of the original movement. He wants them to really pay attention because now the original “Los Rabiosos” group is finally back together. With that said, Big calls out the missing member of “Los Rabiosos”, Blitz! Blitz came out to a loud pop from the crowd and told them that they will challenge the impostors for their “tercias” title at WWL’s next event, March 21st in Bayamón, PR. Interesting angle that should provide with really good matches in the coming months. I personally would like to see D-Niss doing something different in singles, but for the moment this should be good.

Mr. 450 became the new WWL Americas champion after he defeated BJ. This was another really strong match. The build up to it had been very well done on their TV programs and using social media. These two promised they would bring their A game to this match and indeed they did. Mr. 450 continues to silence his detractors by putting together a really good performance, displaying all his skills. While BJ did an awesome job in this match and also performed very well, 450 was the engine of this bout. They most certainly lived up to the hype for their match. Towards the end of the match Escobar and Joe Bravo came out and while Escobar was distracting the referee, Bravo punched the lights out of BJ with the help of some brass-knuckles. Mr. 450 then went for a brain-buster on BJ, followed by his patented 450 splash for the win. After the match, Escobar and Bravo come in and celebrate with Mr. 450 only to turn on him and attack him. Bravo applies a frontal DDT on 450 and covers him. Out comes Negrín with a referee and he tells the ref that if he wants to keep his job he will make the count. The referee hesitated at first but obliged and counted the pin; thus making Joe Bravo the new WWL Americas champion. Bravo and Escobar continue to beat on Mr. 450 until Carlitos and BJ come in to make the save. Carlitos, BJ and 450 are in the middle of the ring looking at each other while the crowd is asking them to join forces. They all think about it, only for 450 to back out of the ring and leave, while BJ and Carlitos shake hands and hug each other in the ring before heading back to the locker-rooms.

In the main event of the evening, Gilbert came up with the victory when he pinned Apolo using as leverage a handful of tights. Gilbert was celebrating in the ring when out comes Shane with the original referee of the match, who told the other referee what had happened. The ref then ordered that the match had to continue, but it did not last long as the “Gentlemen’s Club” members interfered and attacked Apolo, thus giving Apolo the win via DQ. Shane came from the back now to make the save, only to also be dominated by Bravo, Gilbert and the rest of the gang. All of the sudden Savio Vega’s music plays and out comes Savio from a corner of the building close to the locker-rooms. Vega comes in bat in hand and clears the ring. He then grabs the mic and tells Negrín that he knows that he is not happy to see him, but he needed to come to Ponce to tell him face to face that he had revised his contract and there was a clause that stated that he was to have a job with the company for 5 years and if that clause was found to be in breach for any reason, that automatically he would receive control of 75% of the company. He then closed by saying that in Ponce and now more than ever, things will continue to be: “a mi manera, o pa’ la calle!!” (my way, or the highway!!)

Plusses

Even though there were not as many fans as in the first 3 events the company has presented, the crowd was hot throughout the evening and it helped set the atmosphere.

Maintained a good pace all through the show. The show started at 8:05PM and finished at 12:03AM. That’s a solid 4 hour show, but it did not feel like it. There was always something happening. They had an 20 minute intermission which was good.

Quality of the matches was good to really good and everyone worked hard from top to bottom of the card.

Minuses

Too many swerves packed in one night. At different points I found myself trying to make some sense of everything that had taken place and sort through it all. If this is something they continue to do and they use it as a crutch, it could very well end up hurting them in the long run. I would suggest they let the stories breath a little, especially if you are only doing TV and running 1 event a month. The slow burn is usually better for when it is time for the big “payoff”. Just my humble opinion.

Four consecutive “screw job” finishes in the top of the card. Although the action was good in the ring, some of the finishes took away from the hard work the talent had put in each match. When done to further a story that you want to continue it is good use that kind of finish, but it could probably be done in a way that others don’t necessarily have to interfere in what otherwise had been great matches. Once again, they should not rely on this finishes all the time.

This was something that quite a few fans were talking about after the show… It seemed that everyone really enjoyed that Shane and Savio came in and made the save to end the show. However, why would a wrestler that was “fired” and is no longer employed with the company have access to the locker-rooms and bring a referee out to overturn the outcome of a match, then go back to the locker-rooms, where once again he should not have been allowed in, and then return with music and everything to make the save for Apolo. Same thing with Savio, although at least he just came out once and was through the side of the curtain that was next to the ringside area. Still, another “fired” employee of the company interferes but first we heard his music play. I know I could be knit-picking here, but I just didn’t see the logic in it.

Overall, a really good rollercoaster ride. They announced their next event and there are a lot of fans already asking for when the tickets go on sale. That is always a good sign.