I had the privilege of attending last night’s AAW Defining Moment event at 115 Bourbon Street just outside of Chicago, along with WZ Daily contributor Ross Berman and several great Twitter friends and colleagues in the area.
Doors opened at 6:30 and they still had General Admission tickets available at the door, as well as a handful of premium seats left. The show wasn’t a complete sell-out, as the opening night of Riot Fest (a massive music festival in Chicago) was happening over in Douglas Park, but there weren’t many seats left by the time the show started. Matt Riddle, Moose, Andrew Everett (who was wearing a Jushin Liger shirt), Chris Hero, Sami Callihan, Rey Horus (Dragon Azteca Jr in Lucha Underground) and a number of other guys were hanging out, signing autographs and selling merch before the show. Because it wasn’t that busy, all the wrestlers were extremely approachable and willing to talk with fans, take pictures, etc.
There was a pre-show tag team match at about 7:45 but I didn’t catch who was involved, as I was getting drinks at the bar and meeting some awesome people from Twitter. Sorry! The show started at 8:03, which for an indie show in Chicago is almost a miracle (bell time was 8:00). The ring announcer was Val Capone, a local Chicago roller derby gal who, I found out, is a long-time Chicago indie fan, and was doing her very first AAW show as announcer.
(1) Prince Mustafa Ali vs. Rey Horus. This was to determine who would get a spot in next month’s two-day Jim Lynam Memorial Tournament. The crowd was hot for both guys, as Ali is local and recently did the Cruiserweight Classic, and of course Horus works in Lucha Underground. Tremendous chain wrestling early on, and they probably would have had one of the best matches of the night at the pace they were going; unfortunately Ali took a hard bump into the barricade and got knocked out. The referee had to call the match and award it to Horus by default. Officials came and checked on him and it was a super scary couple of minutes, as originally he wasn’t moving, and eventually they were able to get him to his feat and help him off.
(2) Davey Vega & Mat Fitchett vs. OI4K for the AAW Tag Team Championships. The champs came out to “Truly Madly Deeply” by Savage Garden and everyone sang along with it, which kind of cheered up the crowed after Ali went down. This was pretty good, with a lot of high-flying spots, dives to the outside, and big tag team moves that certain fans might complain should be finishers, but weren’t. In particular I remember a tombstone piledriver + double foot stomp combo that got kicked out of. it was exactly what the crowd wanted at that point in the night though, and the match itself was a lot of fun. Homicide came out of nowhere at the end, and ended up costing OI4K the match.
(3) Drew Gulak vs. Josh Alexander. They had a couple bits of comedy thrown in there, but for the most part this was just a back-and-forth technical wrestling showcase from two of the best working today. I don’t know if anyone else had this issue, but because there was SO MUCH that ended up happening on this card, even though this match was very good, it actually slipped my mind until I went back through my notes. Alexander went over.
(4) Heidi Lovelace & Kimber Lee vs. The Hooligans. This was an intergender tag team match, and boy was it good. The Hooligans were great heels, to the point where a little kid that was there with his family in the back row screamed “you guys are cheaters!”, which everyone got a kick out of. The women were billed as “LoveLee” and were super over, doing all kinds of moves they “shouldn’t” be able to do against two massive guys that weight over 500 pounds collectively. Lovelace was technically great as always, and Kimber was a ball of fire with stiff strikes and elbows, and the whole thing just came off great. LoveLee picked up the win.
– Bear with me, as the next segment was long and chaotic, and featured a few AAW talents I wasn’t familiar with. I believe it was Markus Crane who came out looking for revenge on OI4K. He said he wants to face the “one with the biggest dick”, and called out Jessicka Havok. The whole team came out and beat him down, until Homicide made the save, eventually followed by Kongo Kong to even the odds. They brawled around literally the entire venue, to the point where it was impossible for anyone to know exactly what happened because you’d have to piece it together with testimony from different parts of the building, as all six were fighting in different areas. Homicide DDT’d one of them onto the bar at one point. He broke a beer bottle and went to attack whichever member was left in the ring, but Sami Callihan came out to stop him, effectively ending the chaos.
(5) Abyss vs. Sami Callihan. They did a worked injury spot on Sami early into the match. While I normally hate these spots because they’re so obvious and just kill the pacing of the match, this one worked because A) we had all just seen Ali go down legit to an injury, B) everyone had been doing crazy spots all night long and we were just waiting for another injury, and C) the way Sami “messed up” his spot it looked legit. Tons of people were frustrated and yelling “not again!” as the ref threw up the “X”, and Abyss even broke character and tried to help him. He stayed in the ring as Sami got carried out to basically apologize to the fans, when Sami came back and attacked him from behind, to a massive pop. I have never, in my 20 years as a fan, seen a worked injury spot get over like this one did. The match that followed wasn’t super great, and was your basic weapons match, although Callihan crushed his knees with a few chair shots that sounded insanely painful. Abyss did a chokeslam through two chairs, Sami took a staple gun to the forehead, and they brought out the bag of thumbtacks and managed to spread them around the entire ring, which was just a giant mess for the ring crew to clean up. Sami rolled him up for the win, and when the referee went to do his three-count he stabbed himself with tacks.
– Intermission time! It took the entire break for the ring crew to clean up those damn tacks. A ton of wrestlers came back out to the merch area to hang out and sign, pose for pictures, etc. I’ve already met a lot of the guys working on this show, but this was the first time I got to shake hands with and talk to Matt Riddle, Moose and Chris Hero, which was pretty cool for me.
(6) Andrew Everett, Trevor Lee & Jack Evans vs. Moose, Dezmond Xavier & AR Fox. This, for me, was match of the night, although I’m sure people will make a case for the main event as well. It started as a dance-off, actually. They did a West Side Story snap-off, going around the circle with some of the guys trading dance moves. Fox did some crazy capoeira type stuff, but it was Moose who stole the show. Mind you, the crowd had been doing the “Moose” chants since he walked out, and when it was his turn he yelled “hit my music!” When “It’s Not Unusual” by Tom Jones started playing, everyone lost their minds, and Moose did the entire Carlton dance from Fresh Prince. And then the match started. I hate to use this as a comparison, but this was like a Young Bucks match where there’s just too many things going on, and too many big moves to have kept track of even most of the action. That’s not a bad thing! Moose was impressive, and did a corkscrew crossbody off the top rope onto all three opponents. All the high-flyers were incredible. There was a great spot where Lee had Moose pinned, and Xavier had Evans pinned, both with German suplex bridges, and Fox and Everett did stereo 450 splashes to break it all up. Oh, and Xavier did a dive off the second story balcony all the way to the floor. I’m not 100% certain, but I’m reasonable sure the finish was Everett picking up the win with a Swanton Bomb (complete with Hardy antics).
– Prince Ali came out to a huge pop. He apologized to the fans and said in his entire career he’s never walked out on a match for any reason, and he hates that tonight was the first time. The man was KNOCKED OUT! He said we deserved more and you could tell he felt legitimately terrible for disappointing everyone, but the fans all chanted “thank you” and booed him whenever he would put the blame on himself. Ali said he has a “minor” concussion, and that he should be back in a couple of weeks. Horus came out and they basically said they were going to have a rematch down the line.
– Ali left and as Horus was trying to leave, Sami Callihan came back and attacked him. He cut a promo about Pentagon Jr., saying that he was the best and the only one in AAW that deserved a title shot. He had Fenix’s mask around his neck on a rope, from when he took it at the last show. He called out Pentagon and said he took his kid brother’s mask, and now he’s going to take the mask of Dragon Azteca too, on his way to the championship and the real prize, Pentagon’s mask. He and Horus (Azteca) went back and forth until eventually Callihan took his mask and left him laying, as officials put a towel over his face and managed to get some kind of mask for him to wear on his way out. Sami put on the Horus mask with the other danging around his neck and soaked in the boos from the crowd.
(7) Matthew Riddle vs. Jeff Cobb. Cobb is also Matanza in Lucha Undeground, so lots of LU guys representing at this show. This was just a hard-hitting match, and you could see the welts and bruises swelling up from Riddle’s kicks almost immediately. They killed each other, and eventually Cobb picked up the win. Great match, with the crowd probably 60/40 in favor of Riddle.
(8) Chris Hero vs. Fenix. You could argue this one as match of the night. Hero is just putting out some of the best matches of 2016, and is having the best year of his entire career. Both guys were super over, with tons of chants for Hero and they sang along with the spots in his theme song. Chris as usual used a ton of elbows as the majority of offense. Fenix was incredible, and after the match Hero put him over as the future of high-flying, and compared him to the legacy of Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio. Fenix picked up the win.
– Things got emotional to close out the show. Hero cut a passionate promo about Fenix and the future of pro wrestling. He put over AAW as some of the best wrestling in the world, with the best wrestlers on the planet, and said that no matter what, no matter how much he weighs or the people that criticize that, Chris Hero still holds his own. Fenix got emotional as well, and said that he was crying because Hero is his hero in professional wrestling, and it was his dream to come to AAW and wrestle this match against his hero, and he never thought in a million years he would be here in Chicago doing it. He was yelling passionately, and it was pretty hard to understand parts of it, but the crowd was vibing off the electricity of it and it was just a great moment. Both guys got a ton of respect, and hugged it out in the ring to end the show. The crowd was literally throwing money into the ring at them as they were cutting promos.
So that’s basically it. After the show I hung out with the ring announcer Val Capone, talked with her about how she did on her first time announcing, and had a great conversation. We said goodbye to all our online friends and to all the wrestlers still hanging out at the merch stands, and made the long drive home.
I just want to give a huge thanks to AAW for having us out, and putting on an incredible show that was just so packed full of content, great matches, and compelling stories from start to finish. It was like being at PWG, with guys from TNA and Lucha Underground, with story-telling that was honestly at a higher level than most of what WWE produces. The crowd was a lot of fun (although f*** whoever had that air horn) and I haven’t had this much fun at a wrestling show in years.
