I had the privilege of attending last night’s AAW Jim Lynam Memorial Tournament night two in Berwyn, Illinois, a suburb of downtown Chicago.
This was my second AAW show in as many months, after a great night in September I would have thought hard to best, but the roster and powers that be put together an even better show here, full of incredible matches, drama, and emotional moments as AAW paid tribute to their former owner, and one of the nicest, most beloved figures in independent wrestling, Jim Lynam.
Below are my thoughts on the show, although it’s worth mentioning that I attended the event solely as a fan, and didn’t take any detailed notes, so my memory of some matches isn’t entirely comprehensive. There was nothing bad, or even close to being bad on this card, but with so many good-to-great matches and moments there are some I just don’t remember as clearly.
I want to give a shout-out to my good friend and indie wrestling fan partner-in-crime Trina, The Marky Smark. Give a listen to her podcast The Last Mark Standing, which is a huge labor of love for her and her partner Damian, and really makes an attempt to do something different and deep in the wrestling podcast world.
Quarter-Final Matches
CHRIS HERO def. MAT FITCHETT. Hero is far and away the most over guy in AAW right now. He’s their golden boy, and for very good reason. Chris is putting on easily the best year of his career as far as in-ring work and the pacing of his matches goes. I’ve seen him before, but this was really my first exposure to Mat Fitchett where he stood out to me as someone I need to see a whole lot more of; it helped that I was sitting with @BelleGenerico, who turned me into a proper Fitchett fan.
PRINCE MUSTAFA ALI def. FENIX. The last time I saw Ali he went head-first into the barricade at the September AAW show and they had to stop the first match of the night due to what looked like a pretty serious concussion. Ali is a Chicago guy, and the current Freelance champion, so his following at AAW is pretty huge. Great match with a lot of cool spots, and somewhat of an upset win all things considered. Fenix is the bigger star coming from Lucha Underground, and he just headlined last month’s show and is involved in a serious angle with Pentagon Jr. and Sami Callihan for AAW, so it was surprising to see Ali go over, but made a lot of sense about an hour and a half later.
ZACK SABRE JR. def. JEFF COBB. Don’t sleep on Jeff Cobb. LU fans probably know him as Matanza, but this guy is a serious prospect and definitely on the rise on the indie scene. Admittedly I haven’t seen a whole lot of his work, but every time I see him wrestle it’s been great. This was also my first live ZSJ match, as one of my favorite guys working anywhere in the world right now. Good match, although I remember the finish seeming really flat as it came out of nowhere and almost seemed like a ref mistake at the time.
ACH def. CHUCK TAYLOR. ACH basically said he was leaving Ring of Honor soon before the match started. He cut a really weird promo later on about loving wrestling more than “his wife”, and getting a “divorce” – we’re all pretty sure he was talking about ROH but it was just a weird moment that was honestly kind of awkward. That aside, this was just as awesome as you would expect it to be. Chucky T is one of my personal favorites, and few can go like these two men. They did a lot of comedy earlier on, which was a nice break from the pure intensity of the first three tournament matches.
AAW Heritage Championship Match
AR FOX (c) def. BRIAN CAGE & DREW GULAK. This was a treat because no one around me even knew this match was happening. Really great stuff here, with so many spots and near-falls and multi-man moves. They did a lot of stuff on the outside on the other side of the ring so we couldn’t see all of the match unfortunately, but the crowd was hot for it. This was the point in the show where some of the more drunk morons in the crowd starting chanting random things, specifically at Cage. Stuff like “Muscle Milk” and “Protein Shake”, and it just didn’t catch on and was super annoying.
Semi-Final Matches
CHRIS HERO def. PRINCE MUSTAFA ALI. The AAW golden boy against the hometown hero. It was pretty clear who was going over, but the crowd was super into this match anyway. The amount of devesating strikes and elbows Hero throws in a match is just utterly insane, and Ali has a great arsenal of kicks and knees himself. This was stiff, to say the least.
ZACK SABRE JR. def. ACH. You would think these two would just go crazy with flippy-do spots, but this was probably the most technical and slow-paced match of the entire night. They worked about a million holds, with ZSJ cranking on the fingers while alternating between submissions. That said, ACH definitely got in his high flying spots.
DAVEY VEGA & SILAS YOUNG def. KONGO KONG & MARKUS CRANE. I need to preface this by saying that this was a really solid tag team match, first and foremost. The crowd was into it, and they put on a ton of hard work, and I’m not taking anything away from any guy in the ring, because what they churned out was actually quite good. And this is something I talked to one of the producers about after the show, because it bothered me – granted I’m not a booker and I’m not involved creatively, I’m just an analyst and you can take or leave my opinions as just that. My issue was that this was a random, seemingly throw-together tag team match that existed as a buffer between really intense tournament matches, and even more intense main events that had been hyped for weeks; in the case of the Pentagon/Callihan program, months. But they went out there and just killed each other with chairs, thumbtacks, kendo sticks; the finish was a kendo stick crossface on top of a pile of tacks! Nearfall after nearfall, and they went what felt like an eternity. And my thought was just….why? It was good, maybe even great, but why do this in your buffer match, right before two HUGE main event matches? Not to mention that they had to take another short intermission just to clean up the ring, so not only is the pacing of the final matches thrown off by exhausting the crowd, but now they’re antsy because we had just come back from the main intermission and fans were getting tired. I do appreciate that these guys just obviously wanted to go out and put on a great show, and when you’re working the indies you want to be remembered and do something that sticks out on a show packed with major names and great matches – and they absolutely accomplished that. But booking is a science that compliments the art of pro wrestling, and speaking as a fan in attendance that got really burnt out off a long show, on a long weekend, heading into the main events we all paid to see, I strongly believe this should have been scaled back.
AAW Heavyweight Championship
SAMI CALLIHAN & JAKE CRIST def. PENTAGON JR (c) & FENIX. This was INSANE. They booked this so that everyone had something to lose, as they promised Pentagon would defend on this show. The story here is that Callihan, who I can stress enough is the best heel in professional wrestling right now, has been at war with Pentagon for the AAW title, and taking masks on his journey to take the belt. He failed in his title match on night one of this tournament, but after attacking Fenix earlier in the night the brothers agreed to a tag team match where everyone put something on the line. If Callihan got pinned he would lose his hair, Jake Crist would be banned from AAW forever, Fenix put up his mask, and Pentagon put up the world title. This was just awesome, as every fall had drama because the stakes were real, and became not only about who was going to win, but who was going to lose. Genious booking, honestly (and yes, I know I just complained about the booking of the match before this). Callihan ended up pinning Pentagon to win the title, so we’ve got a NEW AAW WORLD CHAMPION! After the match Callihan, who got NUCLEAR heat and had been all weekend, cut a promo and cut off Pentagon saying “shut up, Mexican!” This wasn’t just racism for the sake of racism, because if you know anything about the social dynamics of Chicago, this area is an extremely Latino-heavy neighborhood, and I’d say at least 25-30% of the crowd was Hispanic. I mean Pentagon was the HERO of this show to this crowd, who was chanting “CERO MIEDO” loudly the entire match. Just to put it in perspective, there were two Mexican restaurants within a block of the building, and there was a family of Hispanic people throwing a party on their front yard next door before and after the show. This was targeted, Grade-A old school heel work, from an era where Callihan might have gotten knifed after the show in the parking lot if this was 1985. I cannot praise this match, and Sami specifically, enough.
Tournament Finals
CHRIS HERO def. ZACK SABRE JR. Just outstanding. I might have been as exhausted as these two guys by the time the match was over. This was so brutally physical, as each guy picked a body part and just broke it in half over the course of 20-25 minutes with so many submissions and strikes and kicks and elbows and chops; the fact that this was their FOURTH MATCH in TWO DAYS, three of them on this night alone, and they showed all that wear and tear and exhaustion as they just went to war and killed each other until one of them was left standing. Of course it had to be Hero. Sabre was the huge outside name brought in for this tournament, and the crowd loved him, but as the Chicago fans will remind you time and time again, “Chris Hero Ain’t Nothing to F*** With!”
Thank you so much to AAW for having me out, and I look forward to the 11/4 show featuring Broken Matt Hardy and your incredible roster of world-class talent. These shows just keep getting better every month, and I have no idea how you continue to top yourselves. If you’ve never seen AAW you need to go to AAWrestling.com right now and either buy some DVDs or digital downloads, and drink it in…maaaan. In my mind, I’ve seen a lot of indie wrestling this year, AAW and PWG are tied for the best independent promotions in the United States right now.
