From Larry Goodman: AAW presented the Windy City Classic XIII at 115 Bourbon Street in Marionette Park with attendance of 600. It was...
AAW presented the Windy City Classic XIII at 115 Bourbon Street in Marionette Park with attendance of 600. It was your prototypical boisterous Chicago sports crowd.
The Classic was very good show. I wouldn’t say off the charts great given the incredible array of talent on hand. The first half was clearly stronger than the top of the card.
(1) Keith Lee & Shane Strickland defeated Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz when Lee pinned Wentz after a Swerve Stomp/Spirit Bomb combo in 15:26. Super entertaining combination of comedy and athleticism. The crowd was totally into it. One of my favorite matches of the night.
(2) In the number one contender’s match, ACH and Matt Riddle wrestled to a 20-minute draw. Both men receive AAW Heavyweight title matches, Riddle on January 20 in Chicago at Logan Square and ACH on February 3 in LaSalle at the Knights of Columbus. The only “this is awesome” chant of the night came when ACH survived a triangle after a dramatic struggle. No coincidence that the sequence felt more gut-level real than anything else on the show. Crowd was hot at the powers that be about the no decision.
The introduction of a smoking hot Scarlet Bordeaux soothed the savage beasts. Bordeaux wanted to know what she had to do to get a title match (with the first and newly crowned AAW Women’s Champion Jessicka Havok). Davey Vega to show Bordeaux his AAW tag team title. Vega was interested in acquiring Bordeaux’s managerial skills and probably a whole lot more. Leading to…
(3) Besties in the World (Davey Vega & Matt Fitchett) retained the AAW Tag Team Championship over Curt Stallion & Nick Brubaker in 8:24. Crowd energy went south for this one. No way these guys could follow the first two matches. Fitchett hit Total Taker (tombstone piledriver/powerbomb stack) on Brubaker and Stallion and Vega hogged the pin on Brubaker.
(4) David Starr defeated Eddie Kingston in a Bourbon Street Fight in 18:46. Violence and brutality to the max. Kingston must manage Starr for one year. Chairs, tacks, a fork and a baseball bat were brought into play. Starr took major abuse early in the match. Kingston forked him up with Starr getting great color. Starr took a uranage into the tacks. Kingston was the recipient of a “you sick f***” chant. Massive interference by Jeff Cobb turned the match around. Starr gave Kingston a piledriver off the ropes and a brainbuster onto a bridged barbed wire chair. Starr duct-taped Kingston’s hands behind his back and gave him a series of DDTs. Starr verbally humiliated Kingston before finishing him off with a baseball bat to the jaw.
Starr said Kingston was now the bitch of his alliance with Cobb.
(5) AR Fox defeated Teddy Hart and Joey Janela and Penta El Zero M in 9:48. A spotfest of the highest order. All fan favorites here. Penta was over huge. Janela did an insane dive off the balcony that was a 15 foot drop. Fox took a death valley bomb onto the ring frame from Janela that was more nuts than the dive. Hart’s stuff looked great including an electric chair dropped into a lungblower. Fox pinned Janela with a Lo Mein Pain onto a chair.
Hart cut a passionate promo after the match putting over indy fans and indy wrestling. He said indy wrestling shits on WWE. Hart and Penta set up a teacher-student singles match that the AAW fans are dying to see.
Intermission.
(6) Killer Kult (Sami Callihan & Dave Crist & Jake Crist with JT Davidson) defeated Myron Reed & Steven Wolf & Trey Miguel 10:41. Killer Kult are over like crazy. Reed/Wolf/Miguel gave them a tough battle and they all did coo stuff but it never felt like the outcome was really in doubt. I got the feeling that Callihan was hurting. Callihan pinned Wolf with a double underhook shoulderbreaker.
A Maxwell Jacob Friedman video was shown promoting an AAW appearance during 2018.
(7) Jake Something & Connor Braxton defeated Sean Waltman & Paco 8:14. The crowd treated Waltman with respect and popped hard for his the bronco buster and the X Factor. Something and Braxton are big dudes. Match was OK. Something pinned undersized underdog Paco with a swinging side slam.
Waltman put AAW and Chicago wrestling fans over after the match.
(8) Rey Fenix defeated Jeff Cobb to retain the AAW Heavyweight Championship in 13:48. Cobb inherited the title match after Michael Elgin was pulled in the wake of the sexual misconduct allegation involving one of his students and a female trainee. David vs. Goliath dynamic in full effect. Early on, some of it worked great and some was kind of so-so. Fenix turned it on the jets to wear Cobb down in credible fashion despite the size differential. Starr came to ringside and grabbed Fenix’s leg right in front of the ref, who reacted not one bit, in a title match no less. It looked like curtains for Fenix when Killer Kult came out to take care of Starr. Cobb got sidetracked and Fenix pinned him with a Mexican Destroyer. Very good yet mildly disappointing. Cobb is no Elgin. Maybe I was expecting too much.
