CZW Five Year Anniversary 2/7/2004

Written by: Sean McCaffrey from http://www.declarationofindependents.net/doi/pages/index1.html

Combat Zone Wrestling
Approx Attendance 600-700
Philadelphia, PA
From the ECW Arena

The show started at 8:45, 45 minutes late. CZW had a reasonable excuse for starting late, as the World 1 show didn’t end until around 6:40 or so. Factor in that CZW got royally fucked in the ass with cancellations, injuries and flight trouble. Zandig, the promoter of CZW, did a hell of a job throwing a show together with all that factored in. You had Messiah out due to a death in the family. Wifebeater was injured. The Backseat Boys are no longer in CZW. With an hour and change left to put a show together, you could imagine the stress CZW was in to put on their 5th Anniversary show.

Show starts off with God Bless America.

Fatal 4-way elimination match
Scotty Matthews defeated DJ Hyde, Bounty Hunter & Jon Dahmer
Scotty Matthews was using the SAT’s music, which the smart CZW picked up on, and blasted Matthews for. John Dahmer eliminated Hyde. Bounty Hunter eliminated Dahmer. Matthews then hit a DVD slam on Bounty Hunter for the win. Not a great opener.

We then had about 15 minutes of technical difficulties as CZW staff was trying to get a CZW highlight reel play on the CZWtron, aka the bare white wall of the arena. A historical recap of the last 5 years of CZW was shown, with Metallica’s “Unforgiven” as the background music.

After the video aired, the crowd popped loud and a CZW chant broke out.

John Zandig comes out. He talks about CZ F’N W and about CZW’s history. He talks about the trials and tribulations and hardships that CZW has gone through. He told us that a 14 year old made the video package, which the crowd popped for. Zandig then talks about the problems with The Backseat Boyz, without mentioning them by name. He thanks them for everything and says his door is always open. Throughout the night, whenever Zandig was on the mic, he came off as genuine and as a man who loved and bled his product. Zandig then goes into his year end awards. He says on the CZW site, they had a year end award poll. He talks about Messiah’s sisters death and Wifebeaters injury. He then goes into the awards. Here are the winners:
Heel of the year: Messiah
Best Mic Skills: Messiah
Best finisher: Joker
Tag Team of the Year: Backseat Boyz
Wrestler of the Year: Trent Acid
Best Manager: Dewey Donovan
Breakout Star: Jimmy Rave
Match and Feud of The Year: Cage of Death V with HIV vs Zandig

Zandig handed out the awards, then called out the locker room. He said that the CZW Hall of Fame would be beginning tonight. Lobo was inducted as the first member. Lobo gave an emotional speech about CZW. Zandig talks about Lobo’s sacrifices and their deep friendship. Zandig said they would drink champagne in his honor. (They should’ve gave me some those bastards) This 40 minute segment finally wrapped up with Zandig and HIV in the ring. He said the remaining members of HIV can either join him or be royally fucked. Christi an and B-Boy crossed the line and joined Zandig. Adam Flash and Donovan Dewey remained true as the final members of HIV.

So at this point the show was on for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, and only 15 of those minutes were wrestling… more on this at the end of the review.

The Dirty Rotten Scoundrelz (EC Negro and KC Blade) d. CKNY (Cory Kastle and Niles Young) w/Jude and All Money Is Legal (K-Pusha and K-Murda) in a tag team elimination match
PREMATCH: KC Blade gets the mic, and says “Usually I don’t cut promos, so I am not going to start now, so KISS MY ASS!” This got the crowd pissed.

The DRS were up to their heel antics, smacking many hats off the fans as they made their way to the ring. AMIL got a monstrous pop, due to their match with the DRS from the previous show. DRS and CKNY double teamed on AMIL early. CKNY looked like a gay, weaker and pathetic version of the Backseat Boyz. AMIL hit a nice twisting double neckbreaker on CK. K-Pusha did his swanton on EC Negro, but his head wound up landing on EC Negro’s knee, injuring Negro’s knee and Pusha’s head. AMIL eliminated CKNY. The match picked up after CKNY’s elimination. KC Blade eventually hit K-Pusha with brass knuckles, and EC Negro fell atop of K-Pusha for the win.
POSTMATCH: Pusha had to be carried out after the brass knuckle shot. This will come off really good on tape, as KC Blade was playing to the camera and being a big sneak with the knuckles in front of the camera. Match got better when CKNY was out.

Mercedes Martinez d. Sumie Sakai
Pretty good womens match that could’ve benefited with more time, but when 2 1/2 hours of your show is talking, match times get cut. Sumie put Mercedes in a nice camel clutch, and waved to the crowd while doing it. After some chain wrestling, Mercedes put Sumie away with a wicked back suplex.
POSTMATCH: Rick Feinberg ran out with a chair to hit Mercedes. Mercedes turns around, grabs the chair and ddt’s him down. Sumie gets the chair and hits Feinberg with 1980 Hulk Hogan weak chair shots. Mercedes gets the chair, and wraps it around Feinberg’s head. They then stripped Feinberg down to a bra and panties, for seemingly no reason at all.

For The CZW Tag Team Championship
(c) Rebel’s Army (Rebel/Matthews/Frazier) vs Z-Barr/Nick Berk went to a no-decision.
PREMATCH: Rebel says fuck 97 times in a promo.
This match was a brawl, and would up turning into a chair shot fest. Rebel’s army is trying to pull of a Freebird/Demolition 3 man tag team thing. Unfortunately, they are nothing like them. Adam Flash ran out during this match and also got into the chair swinging. Rebel hits Ref Hartog with a chair.
POSTMATCH: After a chair mess, Rebel and Hartog challenge each other to a match for next month. More referees really deserve matches in the indies. Next.

For the CZW Iron Man Title
(c) Jimmy Rave d. Joey Ryan and Jimmy Jacobs w/Becky Bayless
PREMATCH: Alex Shelley, who was originally supposed to be in this match told everyone he injured his collarbone and wouldn’t be able to wrestle.

This match was alright, but what’s with all these Triple Threat matches? Joey Ryan looked really good. Jimmy Jacobs is still doing his bezerker/brody thing. Crowd eats it up bigtime, but if Jacobs is ever looking to go to the WWE, I think he’ll have to drop the gimmick. Rave survives the 15 minute time limit with 2 victories to retain his title, that he won last month from Trent Acid.

In the Match of The Night
For the CZW Junior Heavyweight Title
(c) Sonjay Dutt d. Grim Reefer
Reefer attacked Sonjay Dutt before he could make his way out of the curtain, seemingly dropping the title on the floor, as it wasn’t seen. This match got into the crowd early, with Sonjay hitting a huge plancha on Reefer into the crowd. Reefer kept one upping Sonjay, as he hit a suicide dive on the outside, then followed it up with a 5 Star Bongsplash (Frogsplash) on the outside. Sonjay hit a beautiful top rope sidewalk slam on reefer. Sonjay hit the West Coast Pop for the 1-2-3. Excellent match.

Intermission.
Coors light was the beer at the ECW arena, so unfortunately I had to drink that. Luckily I had a few black and tans before the shows lol.

Zandig came out for another seemingly 30 minute segment. He said he forgot one last year end award, and that was Bump of the year, which himself and Sick Nick Mondo won for their huge ass drop through a few tables and lighttubes. Mondo came out and gave an emotional promo talking about needing to leave wrestling, because he feared for his life. He said it’s up to the young guys to take over. Mondo didn’t know he was getting an award, and Zandig said he got him. Zandig then inducted Mondo into the CZW hall of fame, making Mondo the second member. Mondo then turned the tables and introduced a special John Zandig video package. This was really well done. After watching this, and I think anyone can say this, John Zandig has got all the respect in the world. All the stuff he went through and the beatings he took is unbelievable. Watching the show, any CZW fan got a good vibe about Zandig. I know Zandig is a good guy, just from allowing World 1 to run before his show, so it was good to see him get a standing ovation after his video aired. Zandig thanked everyone and was teary eyed. Robby Mireno then ran in with a piece of paper, seemingly a court summonse. Zandig thanked everyone and this was over.

Whew… I have been typing this for 80 minutes now, so it’s time to go into a little fast forward mode…

Ruckus/Sabian d. Joker/Chri$ Ca$h
Decent match. Ruckus always has great offense. Ruckus pinned Ca$h to end this match.
POSTMATCH: Joker turns on Ca$h and joins up with Ruckus/Sabian. Sonjay Dutt and Jimmy Jacobs make the save. Sonjay accuses Ruckus of stealing his JR Heavyweight title, which Ruckus says it was his to begin with. This sets up a 6 man tag for next month between these 6 men.

B-Boy d. Excalibur
B-Boy looked phenomenal. Excalibur looked like a freshman with a mask on. B-Boy hit a nice dropkick in Excaliburs face. B-Boy kicked the shit out of Excalibur, and finished this match off with a brutal shining wizard chair shot for the pin.

At this point, the show was already 3 hours and 30 minutes old, and nothing was that spectacular. When Homicide and Maff’s names were announced next, a huge “SAVE THE SHOW” chant broke out.

The H8 Club (Nate Hatred/Nick Cage) d. Homicide/Danny Maff
This was a pretty good match. Homicide hit his cannonball suicide dive, and Maff hit his cannonball into the corner. Finish saw Homicide have Cage beat for the win, as he pinned him with a back suplex after hitting a diamond cutter. Ref Logan counted 3, and counted Homicide out, even though Homicide’s shoulders weren’t on the mat. H8 club were awarded the win. Homicide was pissed and went to go chair the ref. Ref Logan ran out of the ring, and literally sprinted like a track champion to the back. In reality, Logan ran like a frightened, moist, pussy.

Zandig came out for more words. He announced the troubles CZW had with injuries and the like. He says CZW will do what they can do under the commission’s watch. (The commission was all over the place all night) This led to…

New Jack d. Necro Butcher and Madman Pondo w/Dewey Donovan
This was Pondo/Butcher first, and New Jack made his entrance 1/2 way in. Who doesn’t like New Jack’s Natural Born Killer entrance? The way it is live is unbelievable and the crowd eats it up like a fat man at an all you can eat buffet. New Jack came out and just went apeshit. Weapons in this match included a fan, a crate, chairs, and more. New Jack wins this match by diving off the top of the stage 15 feet down through a table where Necro Butcher was laying on. Excellent ending to a subpar show.

Final McWord
Overall, this show was more of a birthday party with wrestling than a normal CZW show. CZW has a loyal fan base and this show was more to celebrate CZW than anything. Factor in how fucked CZW was with injuries/deaths in family/commission busting balls/etc, and the quality of the show was sort of doomed from the get go. Even with that, there were some good matches with Reefer/Sonjay, Maff/Homicide vs H8 Club and B-Boy/Excalibur. The one problem I saw with this show, is that CZW needs better and bigger talent. There are alot of guys who don’t either fit or just can’t hang with the upper echelon CZW guys when put in matches with them. Then again, back to the injury issue. The BSB leaving CZW might hurt them in the short term, but I think CZW will be able to rebound. The show was WAY too long, reaching the 5 hour mark.

Not one of CZW’s best or even great shows, but there was still some good stuff on it. The history of CZW was recapped really well. The only thing that sucked was that the action shown in the highlight clips and all the hardcore and brutality clips weren’t represented at all on the live show. The highlights, which took up about 15 minutes of the show were better than some parts of the show. I know the PA commission sucks cock and all, but the stuff that made CZW what it is today, wasn’t represented live, outside of the New Jack table dive.

CZW had alot of obstacles to overcome in its history, and alot of obstacles to overcome Saturday. I think it’s safe to say they have came a long way, and here’s to another 5 years for CZW.