From Larry Goodman:
The company appeared to be barreling into Crossroads with momentum. Southern Fried came through the Stryk-Nyn mess unscathed. Sal Rinauro and Sunny Daze are back in place as the tag team champions. The quality of Southern Fried shows has never been better. The company appeared to be barreling into Crossroads with momentum.
So how 'bout them Dawgs to cause turbulence? Head-to-head against Georgia football, Southern Fried has seen paid attendance drop below 200 for two consecutive shows. First time that's happened in the David Manders era.
Southern Fried may end up going head up against the Dawgs again at Crossroads. Game time for Georgia vs. Kentucky on October 7 is currently listed as To Be Announced.
Getting back to September To Remember, Southern Fried delivered a solid go home show. Most every match on the card involved an angle for Crossroads. Unfortunately, one of them was the worst angle of the year.
Two key second half matches stood head and shoulders above the rest and got the crowd going-- CT Keys vs. Xavier Reyes and Judais vs. Hunter James for the Southern Fried Championship in the main event. The show ended hot. Hopefully that feeling carries over.
The announced card for Crossroads is as follows:
Hunter James (c) (with Triston Michaels) vs. Judais vs. CT Keys for the Southern Fried Championship
Happy Madness (Sal Rinauro & Sunny Daze vs. The Grapplers with Xander Seabolt) for the Southern Fried Tag Team Championship.
Nick Halen will defend the Classics Championship against Adryan Hawkins and The Kenway and Tyler Stevens.
Manders will have meeting of the minds with Will Kaution and Billy Buck to resolve their suspensions.
Xavier Reyes vs. David Ali
Alexander Lev vs. Dany Only
Southern Fried Women's Champion Brooklyn & Crystal Rose teaming up vs. ?
(1) Sal Rinauro defeated Chip Day in 10:32. Sal over huge with the crowd. Rinauro frustrated Day with his usual foolishness. They settled into a competitive, back and forth match.
Rinauro tweaked his knee. Day went after it with a single leg crab.
Day caught Rinauro's 619 attempt and turned it into dragon screw leg whip. Day fought off Rinauro's Tiger Driver '97. Sal won with Jacob Time (short flatliner).
Post-match, Day attacked Rinauro's knee with the single leg crab again. The Grapplers with Xander Seabolt hit the ring to make the save. Rinauro told Grapplers they weren't just being given a shot at the tag team championship, they earned it. It was all too copacetic. Seabolt, that egg sucking dog, whacked Rinauro's knee with his tennis racket.
Grappler #1 worked over Rinauro's knee with the racket while Grappler #2 threw confetti in the air. Rinauro was in agony as the zebra brigade came to his aid.
The really good wrestling match you knew it had to be. Grapplers are egg sucking dogs. The angle to set up the match for Crossroads was a nice piece of business.
(2) The Kenway & Tyler Stevens defeated The Approved (Bobby Moore & Rob Adonis with Adrian Hawkins) in 7:44. Hawkins was pandering to the fans to piss off Moore and Adonis. Kenway came out hot and was ready to hit the Pedigree on Moore but Adonis punched him in the mouth. Approved got heat on Kenway. For the finish, Stevens leveled Adonis with the big boot when the ref wasn't looking and Kenway pinned Moore with the pedigree.
Postmatch, Stevens laid Kenway out with the big boot. Moore and Adonis jumped on Kenway but Hawkins told them to stop.
Good match. Bunches of fun thanks to Hawkins' antics with a sneak peek at the Classics four way at Crossroads thrown in.
New Anarchy Heavyweight Champion Nick Halen came to the ring to lecture deal with the bickering in the ranks. He told Moore and Adonis that at least Hawkins won his match and was at Hardcore Hell. Where were they? They need to get in front of a monitor and watch him shine. Halen told Hawkins he was still on thin ice. No more suits, going forward there would be more suits or bullshit.
Dany Only strolled down to the ring and challenged Halen to a put his title on the line. Hawkins goaded Halen into accepting.
I'm enjoying Halen as the leader of Approved. The interaction between Halen and Hawkins was highly entertaining.
(3) Nick Halen (with Adryan Hawkins) defeated Dany Only to retain the Classics Championship in 9:30. Hawkins purposely got himself ejected from ringside. Only was on a roll with a crossface chickenwing and Eat Defeat. Alexander Lev left the commentary table and came to ringside to divert Only's attention. Halen took advantage and hit the Gamebreaker and followed with a classic top rope elbow drop for the win.
Not much to get excited about here. The match was fine but not there was any way Halen was losing the title going into Crossroads.
(4) Brooklyn defeated Jazzy Yang (with Tooty Lynn) to retain the Southern Fried Women's Championship in 5:20. Lynn got on the apron to distract Brooklyn and Jazzy attacked from behind. Jazzy targeted Brooklyn's back. They traded strikes leading to a Brooklyn choke slam for a near fall. Yang appeared to have the champion in trouble when Brooklyn rolled her up out of nowhere.
I like Yang better as a heel than a babyface. Match flowed well until the finish, which felt really abrupt.
Lynn and Yang started to put a beating on Brooklyn after the match. Brooklyn's son AJ came into the ring to help mom and Lynn choked the boy out. Crystal tried to make the save. Lynn met Crystal with kick in the head and proceeded to choke her out while Jazzy had Brooklyn in a sleeper.
This was utterly awful. What good could come from choking out a child in the ring? There was no way to suspend disbelief. If they were going for realism, Southern Fried officials would have been all over it, like they were with the fan incident at the previous show. You'd think the point was to get heat on Lynn so the babyfaces could extract revenge at Crossroads but she was not announced for Crossroads. The most surreal part was Lynn and Jazzy at the merch tables during intermission like nothing happened.
(5) CT Keys defeated Xavier Reyes (with Triston Michaels) in 7:00. Keys attacked from behind and unleashed his power game. Reyes answered with a a belly to bell suplex. Keys kicked out at one. They brawled and traded high impact moves. Reyes gave Keys Tucaida but Keys kicked out.
James got on the apron. Reyes was not happy to see him. Keys initiated a collision between the member of JBE and hit Reyes with a hell of a Pounce to score the pinfall.
A first rate, high impact brawl that brought the crowd to life. Super execution on all the key spots. I loved this.
Reyes and James almost came to blows after the match. Triston had to play peacemaker. James fake hugged Reyes. To be continued.
(6) Jacob Ashworth defeated Pat Roach in 5:11. Ashworth hit Ashes to Ashes (elevated full nelson face plant) to pick up an easy win.
A forgone conclusion match if there ever was one. No matter how he's positioned, Ashworth is consistently one of the most over babyfaces on the roster. He was generous to allow Roach a near fall.
(7) Hunter James (with Triston Michaels) defeated Judais via DQ to retain the Southern Fried Championship in 6:59. Judais has changed up his ring entrance.
He has some fun and games with John Johnson before the match but JJ wasn't laughing.
Judais met James in the aisle and dragged him around by his ears.
This was excellent. Just what it needed to be. Pared down the essentials and everything well executed. Judais' new entrance works. JJ reminded me of Heyman when Judais was chasing him around the ring before the match. The gordbuster counter to James' brainbuster was a nice sequence.
JJ announced that matchmaker Bill Behrens had ordered a triple threat match for the championship at Crossroads -- James vs. Keys vs. Judais. Judais chokeslammed Keys to leave him laying.
James gave Judais a low blow and laid him out with brainbuster.
James and Triston rejoiced as they escaped with the championship still in their filthy hands...at least until Crossroads.
NOTES: Najasism vs. Lev was scratched due to Naja encountering transportation issues...Lev and Xander Seabolt tried their hand at color commentary for one match apiece alongside Adam Vance...Jimmy Yang was backstage...Darryl Hall, Myron Fancher and Nick McDaniel in the house... David Weakley, Dee Byers and Brandon Todd were the officials.
