(Courtesy of SoCalUncensored.com)

BTWNCHAOSNORDER’S gives a recap of  EWF’s NWA Worlds Championship Show on 2/3/12 from the Knights of Columbus Hall in Covina, CA.  Large crowd on hand for this card that featured 2 big matches. Before the matches got underway, Christian Cole made his way out, claiming that he was going to watch the matches, in his search to find the night big star to elevate to the top. Hmmm, a new addition to the “Scorpio Sky Experience”?

1 – D.K. Murphy p. Stryder w/ a powerbomb, which kinda looked like some kind of wheelbarrow slam.

2 – Dave The Bruiser (w/ Crystal Michelle) p. Joshua Dunbar w/ a Spear. I guess it’s nice to have a “belly of steel” to do punishment to your opponent, especially when someone tried to take you down from the top rope after he shoved your valet head-first into your belly.

3 – The latest act in the feud between The Hollywood Siters. Ashley got the win over Nikki this time w/ a Crucifix Rollup, and she had to overcome a hard chop to her sternum to do it, which was very surprising, especially from Nikki, who got her nose bloodied up.

4 – The A-List (Jeremy Jaeger & Roger Ruiz) successfully defended their newly won EWF Tag Team Championship (when they beat La Familia for it at the 1/21 San Bernardino show), def. Eddie Mattson & Maddix. Eddie Mattson took enough punishment to crawl to the back, leaving Maddix open for the One Night Stand team finisher for a team pin. BOOSH!

* Before intermission, Joey Ryan came out, cutting a promo while calling out Adam Pearce. One sneaky “End Stage” superkick and an attempted chair shot later, all the reigning EWF champs ran him out of the ring for an “Intermission save”.

5 – Sugar Sweet p. Valiant w/ the Flatliner Facebreaker, and he had to overcome getting his right arm picked apart by the young wrestler.

SM – Tommy Wilson (w/ Ashley Hollywood) & Brandon Gatson v. EWF Heavyweight Champion Johnny Starr & EWF American Champion Mike Maze ended in a Double-DQ, when Gatson & Starr slammed the title belts onto Maze & Wilson. Gatson & Wilson still had some bad blood between them, but seemed to keep enough of their cool to go the distance here.

M – “Scrap Iron” Adam Pearce successfully defended the NWA World’s Heavyweight Championship, pinning “Hollywood’s Own” Joey Ryan (sans the O’Sheas & Johnny Goodtime) w/ the Piledriver. Match of the night, as the momentum shifted both ways throughout, and it’s clear that Adam Pearce has sent a clear message to The Family Stone for their next NWA Hollywood encounter, & to B-Boy for their 2/18 SCP “Gold Fever 2012? encounter for the said title.

Piledriver! Joey Ryan goes for One Last Ride Courtesy of ‘Scrap Iron’

2 title matches are already booked for the Lent Sunday, 3/4 Covina show w/ a 6:00pm start, after the Double-DQ, courtesy of EWF Deputy Commissioner Marty Elias. Johnny Starr & Brandon Gatson will collide for the EWF Heavyweight title, while Tommy Wilson & Mike Maze will lock it up for the EWF American title.

For more photos of the show, please visit my gallery.

On this episode of the Empire Newswire, Wade Needham goes over a brief recap of WrestleReunion, airs a tidbit of his interview with Gangrel about Territory League, and gives some insight about upcoming EWF events as well as how to save $2 off the General Admission price to the Lake Elsinore show on February 11th!

The Royal Rumble was once my favorite WWE PPV of the year. I always loved the Royal Rumble match. There is so much anticipation and excitement to see who is coming in, when, who will be eliminated and how, and of course, who will win. Each year the winner goes on to challenge for the title in the main event at Wrestlemania. For a long time, I really enjoyed going back and watching the 1994 Royal Rumble. I thought the angle of having dual winners was pretty exciting, plus, it hadn’t been done before. These days, I go back and watch a lot of the older Rumbles. Mostly for nostalgic value, but also because they seemed more important back then.

The Rumble is still an exciting match to watch, if for no reason other than to see people clashing in the ring that you never see against each other. It’s always fun to see tag team partners going after each other, two faces locking up in front of a divided crowd. The Rumble also provides moments for people to stand out, to do things that make their time in that ring memorable, even if they don’t go on to win it. I think back to Diesel eliminating a ton of people, CM Punk preaching to the crowd, Beth Phoenix taking a GTS. How about those surprise entrants? It’s always cool to see an old name or a surprising return.

A few things have happened which has made the Royal Rumble fall a few notches in my book, however. First of all, they keep trying to inject a lot of comedy in there. Maybe they’ve done this back in the day as well, but if so, they did it better. Watching someone like Santino get in there and jump around like a fool or Hornswoggle spending so much time bouncing around and emulating various wrestlers. It makes the match seem less important, then again, WWE has spent a lot of time making a lot of things feel less important than they used to be.

Another thing that has negatively impacted the importance of the Royal Rumble is the Elimination Chamber PPV. Whereas, in the past, the winner of the Rumble would challenge for the title and that match would be built up from the Rumble until Wrestlemania, now we have this extra PPV thrown in where the titles can (and have) changed. You lose several weeks of build up and while you could have a Rumble winner matching up against someone you really want to see him face, come February the title changes hands and you don’t get it. Also, which I’ve not really understood, the point of winning the Rumble is to get that title shot but, even if you don’t win, there’s a chance you’ll be one of the handful of people in the Elimination Chamber to challenge for it the next month anyway. I enjoy Elimination Chamber, but I’d move it further in the year. Replace one of those half-assed PPVs that nobody orders with the Chamber. There are several moments throughout the year where there is nothing that has a “big time” feel to it. You could easily shift Elimination Chamber to one of those times.

Finally, and this is highly specific to this year, the winner of the Royal Rumble is NOT going to challenge for the title in the Main Event, unless the Rock wins the Royal Rumble and John Cena is the champion. Hasn’t WWE made it clear that their Wrestlemania main event is going to be Cena vs the Rock? Didn’t we also get Shawn Michaels vs the Undertaker Part 2 as the main event over the title match that year, as well? It may just be a matter of semantics, but just change the language and remove “in the main event” from the promotion. “The Winner of the Rumble goes on to challenge for the title at Wrestlemania.” Sounds fine to me, but if you’re going to tell me it is the main event, and then it isn’t, I feel slighted.

Last year the Royal Rumble was 40 competitors. This year, we’re back to 30. I’m not sure why that is, and I don’t really have a big problem with this, but it’d be nice to have been given some sort of an explanation. It seemed as though last year’s Rumble worked out very well, I know I enjoyed it. Why the shift back to 30? Also, what the hell does it mean that “this year, every superstar is eligible?” Weren’t they always?

This year, it’s as up in the air as it always is. 30 competitors, but really only a handful of people who are probable to win. It seems likely that some names to be considered for victory this year have to be some of the old standbys; Randy Orton and Chris Jericho, for instance. Then again, there has been some speculation about people like Sheamus or the Miz. Will we see the return of some previously injured people, or people who haven’t been on television lately? Sometimes WWE likes to have a big return and give the victory to that person, see John Cena and Edge, for example. Honestly, this year, I have not yet decided on who I am putting my money on. This is partially due to the possibilities and partially due to WWE’s failure to make any one person stand out. It all seems arbitrary sometimes.

Either way, I know that this Sunday I will be sitting in front of my television watching the 2012 Royal Rumble. I can’t resist it, it will always be one of my favorite PPVs. It kicks off the Road to Wrestlemania, it plants the seeds for Wrestlemania, it is the first PPV of the year and it can often show us how the entire year is going to trend. Let’s hope this year is the best one yet. I’ll see you on Sunday.

I’d love to hear you thoughts. Contact me on twitter and on Facebook.

This week on the Empire Newswire, Wade Needham shares his thoughts and experience on the Ted DiBiase clinic at the School of Hard Knocks. Also on this episode are results of the EWF shows from January 20th and 21st from Ontario, CA and San Bernardino, CA. If you missed out on any of the shows, Wade has a special surprise for everybody in this episode!

The Empire Newswire is back for another informative episode. Wade goes over some details about the upcoming Ted DiBiase Clinic on Thursday January 19th, the upcoming EWF show in San Bernardino on Saturday January 21st, and also some news & notes about Wrestle Reunion in Los Angeles the weekend of January 27th – 29th!

What: Celebration of Los Angeles Wrestling History Seminar and Reunion of All The Boys We Can Get There and it opens the WrestleReunion International fanfest convention(it’s third straight year in L.A.)

When: Friday, 1/27/12 Noon to 1:30 and hopefully longer

Host: Olympic Auditorium program photographer/wrestling writer/reporter/radio host(LegendsRadio.net)/historian Mike Lano, DDS
Southern California’s globally important pro wrestling history, from 1928-1983 will be celebrated as the opening, welcoming event at the annual WrestleReunion international convention. Promoters Highspots Mike B and Sal Corrente have put on many of these around the U.S. and Canada, starting I believe at their famous Tampa event in January of 2005 which I was one of the photographers for and featured nearly 100 of the top stars including the Funks, Jack Brisco, Pat Patterson, Bobby Heenan(who we dragged there), Nick Bockwinkel, Bruno Sammartino, Harley Race, Bill Watts, Roddy Piper, Jimmy Snuka, Mick Foley, Dusty Rhodes, Ted Debiase, CM Punk, Chris Danials, Jim Cornette, Lance Russell, Afa and Sika, Joey Styles, DDP, Wendi Richter, many of the stars of TNA including AMWanted who were the tag champs at the time, and more. This is their third annual WrestleReunion in Los Angeles, with a giant vendor area, signings, past and current stars flown in from all over the globe, original GLOW stars, seminars, q and a’s, the great annual Sunday morning Breakfast with the Legends, shows every day of the event including the first-ever DragonGate event at Wrestlereunion, the annual PWG spectacular, a full legends card and tons more. A veritable 3 full days of Disneyland-like 24/7 non-stop happenings at the LAX Westin Hotel.

Our Hollywood WWA wrestling office was second in importance only to the NWA, with it’s own WWA world title defended all over the West Coast, Hawaii and Japan. Southern California wrestlers(Lou Thesz, the Sharpe Brothers, Fred Blassie and Dick “The Destroyer” Beyer helped get Rikidozan and Japanese wrestling off the ground over there in the late fifties, where it obviously became the premiere wrestling environment in the world. The L.A. Sports Arena and Olympic Auditorium were often a stopping point for pro wrestlers and mixed martial arts legends like Allen (Bad News Allen) Coage to work, going to/from Japan. L.A. promoter Mike Lebell worked closely for years with Vince McMahon Sr(of the WWWF which is now called WWE) and before Shinma Sr, Lebell was briefly a WWWF/WWF vp. Mike switched allegiance in 1973 from NWA and AJPW to primarily focus on the WWWF although the NWA champ would come in about once a year.

Lano(well, that’s me) and other surviving members of the Cal Eaton/Mike Lebell wrestling office photo staff will show their images(like Dan Westbrook) as well as rare, handheld footage from 60′s historian Glen Bray plus 70′s handheld too. And as many surviving wrestlers will be in attendance, coming in from all over the world to reminisce. Confirmed as attending are Judo Gene Lebell(promoter, announcer, wrestler and the “Godfather of MMA”) plus other members of the famous Aileen Eaton/Lebell family and Superstar Billy Graham who toured L.A. several times between 1970 and 1972(the latter year dropping his staid leather cowboy chaps ring vests he wore in the SF/Shires territory to first use the incredibly colorful, influential tye-die look and t-shirts and trunks with slogans and sayings on them that absolutely drove our co-booker, Charlie “Mr” Moto nuts, but he was a traditionalist. Billy of course conquered the biz, taking all his colors and flare with him to finesse further in the AWA and Houston before finally making it bigtime in WWWF.

If their doctors clear them health-wise to fly, Dick “Destroyer” Beyer and Roddy Piper, who sold out every SoCal wrestling venue say they will try to be there as well and are considered amongst the greatest and most creative talkers of all time. Piper main-evented the fantastic Legends event at WrestleReunion last year in a hardcore match with Terry Funk that went all over the building(oddly, they’d never met in a singles w/ each other before). Members of the famous Torres Brothers and Romero family, Mando Guerrero who’ll try to bring his famous nephew Chavo Jr who’s definitely at WR Saturday, Bengali, Jesse Hernandez, Barbi Dahl, Sandy Parker, Carlos Mata, Fritz Von Goring, Paul Diamond, Pepper Martin, Magnificent Mimi, Ann Casey, Tony Rocco, and many more.

If there’s anyone out there who had anything to do with either the Cal Eaton or Mike Lebell wrestling office, are one of the boys or girls who worked there, are a historian or just a long time L.A. fan and loved Blassie/Tolos/Sheik/Rocky Johnson/Pedro/Mascaras/Buddy Austin/Rikidozan/Baba/Inoki/Ladd/Don Arson, etc; you’ll have a great time. And it’s just the opening, kickoff event of this year’s WrestleReunion!

Wade Needham is here with the first Empire Newswire of 2012!  In this episode, Wade gives you the results of the latest Empire Wrestling Federation event from Covina, CA on Friday January 6th.  Not only that, but also on this show is an interview with MILLION DOLLAR MAN TED DIBIASE!  DiBiase talks about his upcoming appearances in Southern California and tons more.

The Empire Wrestling Federation returned to the Knights of Columbus Hall on Friday January 6th with 7 super matches!  Here are the results from the event…

- Valiant vs Stryder went to a no contest when Brandon Gatson took both men out.

Gatson explained his actions, where he turned his back on EWF champion Johnny Starr, saying the fans turned their back on Gatson during his match with Country Bear in November.

- Sugar Sweet defeated Mexican Warrior in his EWF debut match.  Sugar Sweet finished off Mexican Warrior with his finisher the Sweet Spot.

- Eddie Mattson defeated Chowder in an action packed match.  Chowder fell victim to the “Rattle from Seattle” and his Venom Flow.

- La Familia retained their EWF Tag Team Championship againt the A-List in a “no contest”.  The title match turned into a 6 man brawl featuring all members of both factions.  A no disqualification title rematch was signed for January 21st when the EWF returns to San Bernardino!

- “Ironman” Mike Maze successfully defended his EWF American Championship against “The Mega Kingdom’s Secretary of Defense” Freddy Bravo.

- “Project 56″ Josh Dunbar came out as the winner against the original Mr. Wonderful Rock Riddle.  After the match, Rock Riddle applied a choke on Dunbar which prompted “Irish Icon” DK Murphy to come out for the rescue.

- The main event saw EWF Champion “Handsome” Johnny Starr retain his title against “Mega King” Tommy Wilson.  This match had it all.  From Gatson doing commentary and distracting Wilson, to Ashley & Nikki Hollywood having cat fight.

Without a doubt the fans went home happy with a fun filled evening of family friendly pro wrestling like only the EWF can deliver!  See you all on Saturday January 21st in San Bernardino!  Don’t forget, Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase will be at the next event!

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