Northeast Wrestling presents Wrestlefest XII
Date: 4/19/2008
From: Bristol, CT
Match #1: The Night Riders (Billy Bax & Rob Eckos) vs. The Logan Brothers (Bryan & Matt)
FINISH: Logan Brothers hit a wheelbarrow slam and a cutter combo on Bax to pickup the win.
Bob’s Take: Just based off their entrances it is quite obvious that the Night Riders are a team full of charisma while the Logan Brothers are the default CAW you’d get in a video game. Early on, the Logan Brothers controlled the match and they had some decent tag offense. Night Riders also had some good tag moves, though there was one where Bax leapfrogged over Eckos for a leg drop and it looked rather silly. There wasn’t the typical extended beatdown segment that drags the match along. Instead, it was constant action and it had a level of chaos feeling to it. I thought this was a good way to start the show and the approach paid off with a strong crowd reaction.
Match Rating: ***
Match #2: Gus Harlacher vs. Prince Jalil Salaam
FINISH: Salaam wins following a fisherman suplex. After the match, Nicholas Richards, who is Salaam’s manager, challenges Jerry Lawler for a match on May 4th if Lawler survives the cage match tonight.
Bob’s Take: Salaam is an anti-America gimmick, and gives me Muhammad Hassan type of vibe. I’ve never heard of Harlacher, but after looking him up I learned he would later be known as the Drunken Swashbuckler for Pro Wrestling Syndicate. I love learning stuff like that. The crowd didn’t seem to have the same energy they had for the opening match, and I can’t say I blame them. The main story for this match is Harlacher tweaking his right knee and Salaam taking advantage of the injury. Harlacher had a couple of fun spots, but the crowd didn’t seem to care much for this and Salaam didn’t do anything to keep my interest.
Match Rating: *
Match #3: Awesome Kong vs. Roxie Cotton
FINISH: Kong wins with a spinning back fist strike.
Bob’s Take: A comically short match, which is to be expected in a gauntlet style match. Kong has been presented as a force in TNA, and that should be the case on the indies, too.
Match Rating: NR
Match #4: Awesome Kong vs. Amber O’Neal
FINISH: Kong won with the Implant Buster.
Bob’s Take: While Roxie had zero success, Amber was at least successful in actively avoiding conflict with Kong, but that luck does run out and Kong dominated the match as expected.
Match Rating: NR
Match #5: Awesome Kong vs. Velvet Sky
FINISH: Kong plants the referee with a sit down powerbomb and thus loses the match by disqualification.
Bob’s Take: Considering they are both in TNA it should be no surprise that Sky got some momentum, and included kicking out of Kong’s pin attempts, which neither of the other two accomplished. I’m not entirely sure why Sky didn’t do the job here, but Kong came across as a unstoppable force regardless. I didn’t care of the gauntlet series overall.
Match Rating: 1/2*
Match #6: Kurt Adonis vs. Brian Anthony
NOTE: Before the match, Adonis cuts a promo insulting the fans and claiming he’s the best.
FINISH: Adonis manages to take Anthony down to the mat in the corner and uses the ropes for leverage to pickup the cheap win.
Bob’s Take: It’s an interesting approach to have the hometown wrestler (Adonis) insult his own hometown. Anthony is the babyface role, but I’ve always been aware of him as a heel, and for what it is worth he was getting anti-Anthony chants even here in 2008, so there was hatred early on amongst some NEW fans anyway. The match itself wasn’t much, but Anthony had some good offense in his spurts of controlling the match. I was a bit surprised that Adonis would win here, but I don’t hate it.
Match Rating: *
Match #7: NEW Heavyweight Champion Xavier vs. Rob Zombie
FINISH: Zombie hit a DDT on Xavier onto a table in the corner, but the table didn’t break for the second time in the match. Zombie covers and wins the title.
Bob’s Take: Two completely different levels of skill and styles meshing here for a title match. Xavier is a far more well-rounded worker while Zombie tends to be more hardcore, and as a result I tend to only care if Zombie is in a hardcore match. They end up using weapons on the floor, but this not a street fight. Xavier hit an insane springboard moonsault off the ropes to the floor, which could have ended up a lot worse. Zombie hit a jumping DDT off the apron onto a table, but it didn’t break. Once they got the weapons involved this was actually an entertaining bout.
Match Rating: **1/4
Match #8: Jerry Lawler vs. Michael Sain — steel cage
FINISH: Sain misses a top rope leg drop and Lawler covers Sain for the win.
Bob’s Take: Sain has been presented as a major heel force in NEW, so naturally he’s matched up with the Memphis legend who has made a living out of beating monsters. Sain controlled a good portion of the match, but there wasn’t much noteworthy action other than strikes and ramming Lawler into the cage a few times. Honestly, there was probably zero reason for this match to be inside a steel cage.
Match Rating: DUD
Main Event: TNA World Champion Samoa Joe vs. Jason Blade
FINISH: Samoa Joe hits the Muscle Buster to pickup the decisive victory.
Bob’s Take: At first, I thought this was going to be a competitive match as Blade hit a tornado DDT early into the match, but that momentum was short-lived and it turned into a dominate showcase for Samoa Joe, which is what should be expected on NEW shows featuring TNA talent against non-TNA talent. I was a bit hopeful for Blade to get a quality match against Joe, but that was never going to happen.
Match Rating: *1/2
The final ten minutes of the show features Roddy Piper coming out and addressing the crowd. Eventually, Kurt Adonis came out to confront Piper and is eventually put into a sleeper hold. Adonis passes out to the sleeper and Piper prevailed in the segment.
Final Thoughts:
As you can see, this is a rather unremarkable show. The tag match started the show well and Zombie/Xavier had entertaining elements. Aside from those two matches, this match was mostly subpar. This is a skippable Northeast Wrestling show.
Thanks for reading.