Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Brian Streleckis shines a spotlight on the IWA Mid-South promotion, why you should watch it, and what to expect from their latest show this weekend and future events. Plus what to expect from future indy-related articles.

The Independent Wrestling Association (IWA) Mid-South, run by ECW alumnus Ian Rotten and based in Indiana and the Chicago area, is an independent promotion that has now been in operations for the past ten years. Originally, it was a promotion largely based around the hardcore death match style, full of blood, weaponry, and graphic violence. Over time, while the promotion has still embraced that style (including an annual King of the Death Matches tournament), they’ve also come to embrace more well-received styles: technical wrestling, junior-heavyweight/high flying style, and good ol’ fashioned Strong Style full of straight fists, hard chops, and harder headbutts.

IWA Mid-South has pretty much dealt with the best and worst of independent wrestling. They’ve dealt with small crowds, cancelled and postponed shows, wrestlers no-showing, buildings they could no longer use (due to excessive violence among other factors), and plenty of money problems. Sometimes they’ve run too many shows with little promoting behind them, resulting in lost money. They don’t have the lighting and production values of an ROH or PWG, but that’s the least of their problems. Fortunately, there’s plenty of good stuff to be found here.

They’ve had two dependable, consistent venues (both rec center gymnasiums) the past year plus in Midlothian, IL and Plainfield, IN, with Plainfield being their primary home for hardcore wrestling these days. The fans they’ve been drawing to shows and/or who follow their happenings show to show, like the fans for several other indy promotions, seem very loyal to them. The shows (at least the ones I’ve seen and been to) have a very intimate feel, with in-ring promos getting strong attention from the crowds and commentary recorded in person as the shows happen. What I like most about them is that they’ve done a very good job giving young talent in the midwest region an outlet to show what they have, in turn getting a chance to make a name for themselves. Major talent talked about today who’ve come up the IWA-MS ranks over the years include CM Punk, Colt Cabana, Alex Shelley, Jimmy Jacobs, Chris Hero, Matt Sydal, and Delirious, just to name a few. They’ve also been able to attract big indy names outside their region - from AJ Styles and Samoa Joe a couple years back to Low Ki and Davey Richards today - and names who’ve been to the top worldwide promotions: Eddie Guerrero, during his hiatus from WWE, and Rey Mysterio, before he was signed to WWE, are most notable, having both come through IWA-MS in early 2002. They’re no slouches when it comes to honest-to-goodness wrestling. They’ve featured European Rounds matches with the likes of Hero, Nigel McGuinness, and Claudio Castagnoli. Death match wrestlers like Necro Butcher and Toby Klein, though still allowed and encouraged to have blood and weapons, have been in matches without them where they instead rely on just hard, stiff, flesh-on-flesh hits (the Strong Style is almost a compromise for them). In addition to their King of the Death Matches tournament every year is the Revolution Strong Style tournament and the Ted Petty Invitational, a 24-man tournament featuring top stars outside and bright younger stars inside IWA-MS (I’ve seen the past four years of this tournament and enjoy the hell out of it).

As of today, I’d say they’ve been doing pretty well for themselves. The King of the Death Matches (or KOTDM) and the Ted Petty Invitational (TPI) draw very good crowds from the sounds and looks of things respectively. All shows are taped and sold on DVD (a very smart business move in this day and age to recoup any lost money), and the people behind their (and other group’s) DVDs, Smart Mark Video, do a good job on producing and distributing them. Pretty soon, IWA-MS is going to venture out of their home region again. Scheduled for April 22nd is their first ever show in San Antonio, TX, in conjunction with Anarchy Championship Wrestling, with the card so far having Homicide vs. Necro Butcher, a battle of the No Remorse Corps in Roderick Strong vs. Davey Richards, and Low Ki vs. the other guy in LAX, Hotstuff Hernandez. On June 30th, they’ll be coming back to my neck of the woods in Philadelphia’s New Alhambra (ECW) Arena. IWA-MS last ran a show there June 11th, 2005, with a main event of Samoa Joe vs. Necro Butcher than blew the roof off the place. More than two years later, they plan to blow it off again with a main event of Homicide & Low Ki vs. Necro Butcher & Toby Klein. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For those in the Chicago area who were shut out of the WWE Hall of Fame Ceremony or couldn’t make it to Detroit for ROH, IWA-MS has a show on Saturday the 31st in Midlothian. All information on this and other upcoming shows (including ticket prices and venue addresses) can be found on the IWA Mid-South message board.

For now, here’s my look at the top matches on the card and who the parties involved are (and for those wondering, they can call their titles World Titles because they were legit defended in other countries):

Main Event - Street Fight for the IWA Mid-South World Heavyweight Title
Chuck Taylor defends against Low Ki
Low Ki has been on a tear since debuting for IWA-MS a year ago. His matches have been very good, he’s remained undefeated (insert political comment here), and even won last year’s TPI. Taylor, a young junior-heavyweight who’s also been working for Chikara recently, surprisingly won the title from the larger, more dangerous Toby Klein on the second night of the TPI. He’s a good upcoming talent, so I expect the match to be solid.

These two first met for the title on January 27th. Before that, he developed a cocky attitude and turned heel when Low Ki was announced as his next challenger, as he took exception to the common assumptions that he would drop it. In their match, Taylor got himself intentionally disqualified when I believe he kicked the referee in the balls. Now the cocky Taylor wants to prove his dominance, as he made the challenge for this Street Fight!

Last Man Standing
Drake Younger vs. CJ Otis
When I first saw Otis, he was a stout but toned wrestler. Now he looks like the older brother of the guy he used to be, slimmer and more athletic looking. He was trained by Sabu and isn’t afraid to hit hard and pull off a Burning Hammer. Younger is a guy, like Necro and Klein, who’s thrived in death matches - he’s currently IWA-MS’ first ever Death Match Champion and CZW’s Ultraviolent Underground Champion - but can also shake it up in non-death match Strong Style matches. He resembles an uglier Davey Richards, but is a rising star in both IWA-MS and CZW. These two have had a rivalry since late last year, wrestling in a Tap Out Match and a Finishers Match among other matches. I’ve recently seen these two wrestle each other twice (my first time seeing Younger), and they’ve been stifftacular fun. This one just might end their issues.

IWA Mid-South Light Heavyweight Title Match
Josh Abercrombie defends against Brandon Thomaselli
Abercrombie is a a good junior heavyweight who can both fly and wrestle on the ground. Aside from playing one of the Trailer Park Boyz on MTV’s Wrestling Society X, he’s a two-time Light Heavyweight Champ, this second reign of his lasting over a year. Thomaselli, brother of Sal & Vito Thomasell (The Iron Saints) has similar skills and is the harder hitter. Both guys have been heel teammates, both have shown great personality since becoming heel (especially Abercrombie with his 80s attire and greaseball look), and both are on the top of my list of guys ROH should bring in. This match stems from a previous title match where Thomaselli turned on Abercrombie after losing to him, so I’m guessing Abercrombie, who has been getting some cheers for being so entertaining in his heel role, is going to become a face.

Old School vs. New School - Clash of Styles
Ian Rotten vs. Ricochet
Ricochet, like Taylor, is another young junior heavyweight coming up well in IWA-MS and Chikara, though he’s a lot more spotty in doing more high flying moves. Like John mentioned in his Chikara report, he does bare a resemblance to Sanjaya from American Idol, and like Sanjaya (or John Cena and any other pretty boy babyface wrestler), he’s getting some backlash from fans. Taylor might have a longer career in terms of both style and presentation. Rotten, who obviously has a lot more tenure in both IWA-MS and wrestling in general, looks to be the favorite. He’s been employing a quite a bit of mat-based wrestling in addition to his regular repertoire. In this battle of Old School and New School, I see Rotten schooling Ricochet.

Strong Style Battle
Eddie Kingston vs. Ricky Reyes
Kingston, of Chikara and CZW fame, has been a long-time IWA-MS regular and the winner of last year’s Revolution Strong Style tournament. He returned last month from an ankle injury. Ricky Reyes, a former ROH Tag Team Champion, has been a semi-regular in IWA-MS since late last summer and seems more reinvigorated in a new environment compared to his ROH work last year. A match he had against Hero in last year’s TPI really surprised me in how intense it was. This might be the sleeper match of the night.

With that show set to go Saturday, allow me lay down what to expect from future independent-related articles (as opposed to ROH articles like earlier or rare musings on WWE and TNA). In my next article, I plan to cover PWG (Pro Wrestling Guerrilla) of Southern California, who have a big set of shows coming up next weekend. Both PWG and IWA-MS have tournaments in May to crown new Tag Team Champions, so I’ll look at those. Chikara is going to hold some more shows in Philadelphia in the next few months which I plan to attend, so you can expect reports on those shows and any other live shows (ROH or otherwise) I attend. Also, whenever I get the chance, I plan to run down some past DVDs from PWG, IWA-MS, Chikara, and other places that are worth checking out. In the meantime, more IWA-MS info can be found, in addition to their message board, at their official site, and their DVDs can be purchased at Smart Mark Video (be warned that their discs are DVD-R, so make sure your machine at home can play them). Peace out.