UXW Elements Of Extreme
Date: 4/15/2005
From: New York, NY
Opening Contest: EC Negro vs. Poppalicious
FINISH: Negro wins the match following a top rope leg drop.
Bob’s Take: There wasn’t much to this to start the show. They went less than five minutes, but they made use of the time with action as there wasn’t much resting or anything to fill time.
Match Rating: *1/2
It’s announced that Abdullah The Butcher is a no-show for the event, but the promoter takes full fault for the no-show.
Second Contest: Matt Striker vs. Vordell Walker
FINISH: Striker picks up the win following a backstabber.
Bob’s Take: There was some fun action on the floor after Walker hit a suicide dive that jolted them out of a bit of a lull. The crowd seemed to wake up when they started to brawl on the floor and do some exciting stuff instead of mindless in-ring stalling. This became a lot more enjoyable after the first couple of minutes and they actually started to have a wrestling match. I was a bit surprised by Striker winning, but it was a fine undercard bout.
Match Rating: **1/2
Third Contest: Ten-Man Elimination Match
NOTE: Aside from Danny Demanto and Slugga, I have never heard of the other eight guys involved in this match. It appears this is more of a ticket seller match than anything of substance.
FINISH: Heavy Metal wins the match following a TKO on Demanto.
Bob’s Take: It’s a rather chaotic match with action both inside and outside the ring. I’m not entirely sure what the format of the match is as it’s not a gauntlet match and there appears to be tags at some point in the match, but it’s not a tag match. For the most part, the action is just a bunch of guys doing spots and trying to get as much stuff in within the time they were given. It was actually rather difficult to follow who had been eliminated due to some horrible camera work throughout the match. I’ve already forgotten what happened in this match.
Match Rating: *
After the match, Balls Mahoney and Axl Rotten attack with chairs. However, the crowd is only chanting for Mahoney. Rotten cuts a promo about wrapping steel around their heads and it needed to happen. Rotten shit talks Abdullah the Butcher despite the promote taking full blame for the no-show. Chris Candido, Jay Lethal and Mike Kruel come out to confront them. Kruel thinks Mahoney is scared to defend the title against him. Mahoney turns his back to Kruel and calls him a bitch. Kruel spikes Mahoney on a chair with a piledriver.
Fourth Contest: UXW Heavyweight Champion Balls Mahoney vs. Mike Kruel
FINISH: Kruel puts a single leg Boston Crab on Mahoney and forces Mahoney to pass out. Apparently, Kruel has won the title. After the match, Mahoney notes there was never a bell and issues a challenge to Kruel for a match later in the evening.
Bob’s Take: This is a bit bizarre, but I think I understand what they’re trying to do. Mahoney and Rotten didn’t give me babyface vibes, but compared to Kruel and his buddies they have to be seen as the babyfaces. I can safely say that I’m not overly interested in a Mahoney vs. Kruel match to happen later in the evening.
Match Rating: NR.
Fifth Contest: Skinhead Ivan vs. Mana
FINISH: Mana finishes Ivan off with a middle rope Samoan Drop.
Bob’s Take: It’s probably safe to say that Skinhead Ivan wouldn’t be an acceptable gimmick in the 2025 landscape, and it’s kind of amazing that it would be used at any point. At one point in the match, Mana tried to do a somersault dive to the floor and completely messed it up that deflated the crowd a bit. This felt like it got way too much time and the crowd didn’t care much for it.
Match Rating: 1/2*
Sixth Contest: Jay Lethal vs. Azireal vs. Deranged vs. Grim Reefer vs. Sonny Siaki vs. Dan Barry in a six way gauntlet elimination match
FINISH: Siaki pins Lethal following a sit down tombstone piledriver to win the match
Bob’s Take: The crowd seemed a bit checked out during the early stages of the match seemingly trying to find ways to entertain themselves by counting to ten in Spanish at one point. It’s not a gauntlet match in a traditional way, but rather after a certain amount of time a new competitor joined the bout. I wish there was better structure to the match because it felt a bit out of control and lost, but not in a good way. It was a bit weird to see Siaki competing in a non-TNA event as I’ve never associated Siaki with indie wrestling in any capacity. There are some enjoyable spots throughout the match, but there’s zero storytelling and it came across disjointed a lot of the time. Lethal seemed to try and kick out the finish, as well. This whole match just came across wacky to me.
Match Rating: **
DX PARODY
CONTEXT: Mike Tobin, Billy Reil, Trent Acid, and an unknown wrestler come out to do a DX parody. They have put minimal effort into looking like any of the DX members. They call out Billy Gunn, but it’s actually D’Lo Brown dressed up as Bllly Gunn. Okay, this is kind of funny. They mock DX briefly until Billy Gunn storms the ring and attacks the heels. Gunn wrestles D’Lo later in the night.
Seventh Contest: Oman Tortuga vs. Havok
NOTE: Apparently, they wrestled in a tag match last time in UXW and Oman feels like Havok purposely injured his partner Santiago.
FINISH: Tortuga rolls Havok up and picks up the victory. After the match, they brawl to the backstage area.
Bob’s Take: In case you didn’t know, Havok is one-half of the Solution while Tortuga is one-half of the Outcast Killaz. I can appreciate the backstory to the match and that it’s not a random encounter between them. However, this was not good and I’d much rather see a tag match between the two teams in the future.
Match Rating: *
Eighth Contest: UXW United States Champion Chris Candido vs. Homicide
FINISH: Candido pins Homicide following a top rope powerbomb
Bob’s Take: Probably the best match thus far in terms of crisp moves and not coming across as a mess. I found it a little annoying to go for pins after seemingly every impactful move and it stalled the momentum of the match a few times. I wasn’t expecting the top rope powerbomb finish, but I love that Homicide took it and took a clean loss to Candido. A solid undercard match, but maybe a little bit disappointing.
Match Rating: **1/2
Ninth Contest: Four Way Tag Team Elimination Match
FINISH: The Stallions win the match, but cameraman misses how it exactly happened.
Bob’s Take: I have zero idea as to who any of these guys or teams are in this match. On a show that has seventeen matches, this feels like a match that could have simply not happened. These guys are put in a tough spot as we’re already two hours into the show and the show is barely halfway done. A lot about this is low level quality, and the cameraman not knowing how to properly film a show is alarming. Again, none of the men or teams involved here amount to anything and this went on for a prolonged amount of time.
Match Rating: 1/2*
Tenth Contest: Trent Acid vs. Xavier
FINISH: Acid sunset flips Xavier off the middle rope and puts his feet on the ropes to steal the victory.
Bob’s Take: The crowd didn’t seem all that interested in this match at all. It was a bit odd to witness Xavier in a babyface role as I’ve always been use to him as a heel. They tried to use smoke and mirrors it seemed with Acid’s buddies getting involved and they steered away from attempting to have a quality match between the two of them. The pacing to this felt clunky and didn’t flow very well at all. The crowd didn’t react to any of their close near falls and it felt like they were performing for people that couldn’t have cared less about what they were seeing. It’s not like the audience had watch some amazing match and these guys were put in an impossible spot. I’m wondering if at over two hours of wrestling there was already some level of burn out. They went for around fifteen minutes, and it was a very long fifteen minutes.
Match Rating: *
Low Ki comes out cutting a promo asking what happened to the old Xavier, who was a former USA Pro United States Champion and ROH World Champion. Low Ki dismisses that Xavier lost to Trent Acid and thinks someone needs to light a fire under his ass. Nobody cared about this.
Eleventh Contest: The Masked Maniac vs. Lizard Sloang #6
FINISH: Maniac splashes a chair onto the poor Lizard to win the match.
Bob’s Take: Maniac is UXW promoter Frank Goodman, and these are never good. I’m not sure what the point of this is other than the promoter getting a couple of minutes to do shitty wrestling because he runs the show. Some of the worst wrestling you’ll ever see.
Match Rating: DUD
Twelfth Contest: Axl Rotten vs. Louie Ramos — Hardcore Match
FINISH: Rotten pins Ramos after hitting Ramos on the groin with a stroller.
Bob’s Take: Ramos was the first wrestler in about three matches to get any response from the crowd and seems to be a popular act for UXW at this point. It should not come to a surprise to anyone that this match is basically death match wrestling. They used a fork, cheese grater, plunger, staple gun, barbed wire bat and other random objects. There’s plenty of blood so if you like random gore for the fun of it then you’d enjoy this spectacle of violence. It’s not my kind of thing, though I understand the appeal of guys killing each other with weapons for the sake of doing it. The fans seemed to like the violence, but I think they wanted a reason to chant for ECW.
Match Rating: 1/2*
Thirteenth Contest: Christopher Street Connection vs. Knight Life Final Cut (Reil & Tobin) for the vacant UXW Tag Team Championships
FINISH: Reil pins Mace after a cheap shot to win the vacant tag titles
Bob’s Take: The CSC are an entertaining act, and are a tag team I’m surprised didn’t get a bit more exposure. They play up the homosexual aspect of their act, which tends to get a laugh from the audience. They mainly focused on comedy rather than putting on a compelling wrestling match. For what’s it is worth, the crowd seemed to find it funny throughout the match. There was usage of a rubber chicken as a weapon, and that allowed for comments regarding a cock to get laughs from the crowd. The comedy aspect of the match went on for the whole bout and it caused the match to drag along quite a bit. They could have shaved easily five minutes off of this and accomplished the same thing. The crowd was silent for the finish. It was a bit painful to sit through.
Match Rating: *
Fourteenth Contest: UXW Xtreme Champion Elix Skipper vs. Low Ki
FINISH: Late in the match, Xavier came out to distract Ki on a double stomp attempt. Skipper proceeded to hit the Play of the Day to win the match and retain the title.
Bob’s Take: I kind of thought there’d be more excitement for these two, but the crowd seems to be completely checked out on anything going on in the ring and aren’t responding to anything. Early on, they kept it basic and mat based which probably didn’t help crowd reaction. The crowd showed they were awake by reacting to Skipper hitting a Buckshot Lariat at one point in the match. It’s a solid enough match, but the lack of crowd energy is a bit alarming and likely hurt the overall viewing of the match. Xavier getting involved was a bit predictable considering the earlier interaction between the two.
Match Rating: **1/2
Fifteenth Contest: Justin Credible vs. The Sandman in a Singapore Cane Ladder Match
FINISH: Credible nails Sandman with a superkick to win the match after Sandman missed a leg drop over the wooden ladder against the ropes.
Bob’s Take: An interesting note is that if weapons are used in the match or introduced the crowd interest quickly rises. At one point, the crowd tossed a bunch of chairs into the ring to recreate the ECW moment. Credible got suplexed onto about thirty chairs prompting one of the biggest reactions of the evening and the crowd is actually standing up for this match. These two knew what the crowd wanted and managing to get a crowd interested in the action made this match even better thanks to the crowd actually caring. They used a bunch of chairs, a wooden ladder and a piece of guard railing during the match. That wasn’t enough as the crowd wanted a table, but Sandman says “I don’t have one!’ to stop the chant from continuing. It’s odd to say this considering some of the matches beforehand, but to this point this is the match of the night because they delivered exactly what the crowd wanted and they got a substantial crowd reaction that lasted the whole encounter. It’s even more impressive because at this point in the DVD we’re over three hours in, and I don’t even want to know how long it had been live.
Match Rating: ***
Sixteenth Contest: Billy Gunn vs. D’Lo Brown
FINISH: Brown hit the Sky High to pin Gunn clean. After the match, D’Lo shows respect for Gunn, who eventually shows his thong for about four women in the crowd.
Bob’s Take: This crowd absolutely loved the ECW main event wrestlers, and seemed rather disinterested in the idea of the 1999 WWF midcard workers. Billy and D’Lo are pros and attempted to get the crowd to keep their lively attitude by brawling in the crowd in the early stages of the contest. It wasn’t too bad, but I feel like they had no chance to regain the crowd from the previous match. This audience is majorly into the ECW style and they’ve only gotten it one time and they ate it up.
Match Rating: *1/2
Main Event: UXW Heavyweight Champion Mike Kruel vs. Balls Mahoney
FINISH: Mahoney takes Kruel down with a modified cradle rollup to pin Kruel and regain the title he lost earlier in the evening.
Bob’s Take: As I’ve said, the crowd wants ECW style wrestling. So, when Kruel insisted they wrestle that probably doomed the match from being anything of high quality entertainment in front of this crowd. Mahoney may be a quality wrestler, but who wants to see Mahoney in a straight up wrestling match? We want to see chairs, blood and violence from Mahoney. Luckily, they eventually turn this more into a fight with some brawling on the floor and Mahoney does do a blade job to add some story and interest to the match. This was a bit flat for a main event. I don’t think Kruel had the crowd heat to justify a main event spot. They could have done a lot more brawling and leaned more into the ECW aspect of Mahoney’s style rather than what they ended up doing.
Match Rating: *1/2
Final Thoughts:
Sandman/Credible was the only match on this show where the crowd gave all their attention and responded as if they truly enjoyed the action. For an over four hour DVD release this gets a thumbs down as there was not much here to enjoy. The crowd was embarrassingly lackluster throughout most of the show which hurt the viewing quite a bit.
Thanks for reading.