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THE COMBAT ZONE WRESTLING ARCHIVES: PWINSIDER.COM'S INDEXED LOOK BACK AT CZW

CZW AT ECW ARENA LIVE REPORT MARCH 8, 2003
Scrap Dog Reporting

CZW returned to Viking Hall, formerly The ECW Arena, on 3/8/03 for what turned out to be a very good show.  The show was a set up for The Best of the Best Tournament scheduled for April 12^th. 

In the opener, Justice beat Steve Madison, with Ron Niemi, and Jennelle Clark in the first round of Zandig’s Trifecta.  This was a very good opener that got the crowd into the card.  Justice has a great look.  He looks like Psicosis did back in 1995.  He was very good and would be worth bringing back.  Steve Madison also had an excellent showing and I would also like to see him brought back.

Jon Dahmer and Corey Kastle beat Jude and Niles Young, with G.Q., in a teacher-student (Dahmer is the teacher, the rest are students) match.  This was a better match than anyone could have hoped for.  Compared to the Dahmer/Jude match last month, this was leaps and bound better.  After the match, G.Q. turned on Jude and Niles Young. 

Menace defeated Loco and Dunn & Marcos, whom worked as a tag team in the Trifecta three- way dance.  This was another good match.  Dunn and Marcos must have been paying attention to all that Ring of Honor work (they work as jobbers in ROH) because they looked very good tonight. 

Rockin’ Rebel, Greg Matthews, & Z-Barr beat Hurricane Kid, Derek Fraizer, & Maxx and Iceberg, Tank Tolliman, and Dead End in what was a cluster of a match.  Iceberg and Tank both took bumps into thumbtacks.  Also, after the match, Derek Fraizer joined Rebel’s Army.  Before the match, Rebel asked Matthews and Barr where his belt was because he wanted to whip CZW into shape.  Afterwards, Zandig ran out and whipped Rebel’s Army with a weight belt, presumably Rebel’s belt Z-Barr and Matthews didn’t have.  This set up Zandig vs. Rebel in a Strap Match with thumbtacks for Best of the Best.

Zandig then took the mic and ripped into a columnist named Eric Walker, who was sitting in the audience.  The story behind this is that Walker had posted earlier in the week that Zandig had a big announcement he was going to make.  Zandig said that wasn’t true, that Walker had to check his sources and that if he ever had an announcement to make it would be made here in the ring or on CZWWrestling.com.  I don’t know who is right or wrong here, but Zandig did end the interview by saying he was working on something big and his financial guy was here tonight. 

Jimmy Rave beat Mayhem and El Diabolico in the third Trifecta match.  This match was ok but nothing special.  Rave had a lot of fans cheering for him, which made me wonder if he had fans from Wildside come up from the show. 

Tony Mamaluke made Nick Berk tap out to win a spot in the Best of the Best Tournament.  Berk is lucky he wasn’t seriously injured, as he went to suplex Mamaluke outside the ring but he slipped and fell cracking his head on the floor.  He had major juice on the back of his head from that.  This was a good match and probably would have been better if Berk didn’t KO himself.

Ian Knoxx beat Chris Stylez after a Keg shot to the head.  These two used to be tag partners as The Irish Drinking Team.  This was a decent match and I thought the finish was really good. 

The BackSeat Boys (Trent Acid & Johnny Kashmere) and Dewey Donovan did an in ring interview.  They really had nothing to say, but they got major heat by telling the few fans that were throwing change at them to stop or they would leave.  Of course, the whole crowd started throwing change at them.  Kashmere told the fans they better stop because they were going to run out of money to buy food. 

Ric Blade beat Johnny Kashmere in a Baseball Bats match to win a spot in the Best of the Best Tournament.  While I’m not a fan of Blade’s work, this match was very good and they used the bat spots perfectly. 

In the finals of the Trifecta tournament, Jimmy Rave beat Menace and Justice to earn a shot in the Best of the Best.  Rave finished both men off with armbars. 

Chris Cash and Jr. Champion Ruckus wrestled to a double DQ after both men kept accidentally hitting special ref Sonjay Dutt.  This was a short match that was booked perfectly.  In the end, this set up Cash vs. Sonjay vs. Ruckus in the Best of the Best. 

Nick Mondo retained the Iron Man title in a match with Trent Acid.  The finish was some sick stuff.  There were 6 chairs set up in the ring and a table on top of the corner (ala Chris Benoit and Sabu in ECW).  Oh yeah, there were shards of glass dumped on the chairs.  Mondo then hit a top rope Assault Driver to finish Acid off.  It was a great finish to a good match. 

In the main event The H8 Club beat Messiah & B-Boy after Gage brainbustered Messiah.  This was a good match with some sick spots.  Afterwards, the Backseat Boys ran in, followed by Nick Mondo and Ric Blade.  They set up Nick Gage against Messiah for the World title and Ric Blade vs. Trent Acid vs. Tony Mamaluke for Best of the Best. 

Overall, this was a much better effort than the last card. 

Notes:  Attendance was about 450-500.  I’ve read elsewhere attendance figures being around 700 and there is no way 700 people were there.  It was a solid crowd but nowhere near 700 people…Backstage there was an XPW sign that must have been left over from XPW’s run in the building…As big as CZW has become, if they really want to break out of the stigma of just another indy show, they need to do a few things.  First off, having workers come out during intermission and talking to fans is just unacceptable.  It just screams bush league.  Also, CZW’s photographer wearing Ruckus’ bandanna and messing around with fans just makes things in the ring seem unimportant.  When I worked on the ECWWrestling.com there was one thing I was made clear not to do.  Don’t do anything to make the company look bad or bush league and don’t show up anyone.  Now, none of this stuff will be seen on TV.  Live, though, it’s little things like this that really bother me because I know other fans see it and think this is so minor/bush league…And finally on the topic of minor league, CZW kept making a big deal that they were going to have a special bell time of 7:00 PM.  Well, of course the doors didn’t even open until 7:11 PM.  The show didn’t start until well after 8 PM.  If they ever hope to expand, they need to get their act together in terms of organization and starting on time…And one last point that needs to be made.  When fans were pelting the BackSeat Boys with change, it was obvious the CZW Security or “yellow shirts” could not control the crowd.  They may want to look into bringing in Atlas because if the crowd every got out of control, there would be no way to stop the madness.  ECW fans were afraid of Atlas security and I didn’t get that feeling when watching CZW’s security trying to stop the fans….Overall though, this was a very entertaining show.

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