Report by Trent Vandrisse and F4WOnline.com …
Here’s the Ohio Valley Wrestling Saturday Night Special report for March 3rd, 2012. The big news coming out of this show is Johnny Spade captured the OVW Heavyweight title for the first time in his long OVW career, and the reinstated to pro wrestling one legged Iraq War hero Michael Hayes defeated his arch nemesis Mohamad Ali Vaez, with TNA’s “Pope” D’Angelo Dinero as the special ref. An average show overall I’d say, but certainly better than the decidedly below offering OVW presented at the February Saturday Night Special.
A dressed down Gilbert Corsey and Kenny Bolin were the announcers for the upcoming DVD release of this show. Brittany DeVore and the grating Terry Boddie were the ring announcers. Sigh. Looked like a very thin production crew in place for this show. Nobody was manning the hard camera for most of the show, and the latter part of it only had one camera being used at ringside. The attendance was a bit over 200.
Speaking of the DVD release for this show, things continue to be rather testy between OVW, and the recently fired from OVW Christian Mascagni. Mascagni has said several negative things about several in OVW online. OVW, as expected, has refused public comment in the matter, however they did take another shot at Mascagni with the cover for this shows DVD. The cover features a large picture of the new “Talent Arbitrator” Josette Bynum on it, with the words up top saying “Winning runs in the family”. heh Mascagni was the fictional on screen “Talent arbitrator” here before being legit fired, and is a huge Charlie Sheen mark. This show though turned out to be a disastrous night for “The Family”.
OVW regulars Chris Silvio and Shiloh Jonze worked the ROH TV tapings in Baltimore tonight, as well as Mike Mondo, of course. Stacey Cornette was in attendance here tonight.
The show opened with Josette Bynum and some of “The Family” coming out, OVW Heavyweight champion Rudy Switchblade, and Mohamad Ali Vaez. The other “Family” members, Jessie Godderz and Rob Terry were not here tonight. Bynum said she heard a “rumor” that “Pope” D’Angelo Dinero would not be here tonight to referee the Vaez vs Michael Hayes match due to “car trouble”. That turned out to be hogwash quickly when Dinero came out to a good pop. The Pope said there was a problem though, he wasn’t licensed as a referee in Kentucky, and had to rush to Frankfort, Ky. today to get it done, but they said the paperwork was still pending. Uhhh, shouldn’t they have thought of that ahead of time or something? But The Pope said when he got to the Davis Arena, the paperwork had been faxed here, so he did have the required referees license after all. So I guess we were back to square one here. I wasn’t sure exactly what the point of this segment was, and it seemed like they had two conflicting stories going on during it at the same time, which neither one ended up meaning anything. Strange, but the Pope does have good charisma live.
1. Jamin Olivencia won a battle royal to earn a shot at the OVW Heavyweight title on March 18th.
Gee, I love when a show opens with a battle royal…Not. Mostly geeks in this one, but it was noteworthy for the return of Jamin Olivencia, who has been gone from OVW since early December. Olivencia appeared in the Louisville run of “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity” play all of January thru early February. This match came down to Olivencia, Joe Coleman, and Randy Royal, with Olivencia the easy winner to predict of those three. So Olivencia now gets a shot at the OVW title at the Sunday, March 18th house show at Expo 5 in Louisville.
2. “X2C”(Sean Casey & Raphael Constantine) and CJ Lane w/Bobbie Bordeaux beat Elvis Pridemore, Lennox Norris, and Taeler Hendrix in a mixed 6 person tag.
After a series of horribly blown spots between OVW Womens champion Taeler Hendrix and CJ Lane, the disco dancing Lennox Norris decided it was time to disco dance. Up came the music, and everyone involved in the match began dancing. OVW has really worn out this matches turning into dances thing to the point of stupidity btw. Speaking of stupidity, thank God for stupid babyfaces I guess because mid dance here Casey and Constantine rolled up the dummies, aka Norris and Pridemore, with stereo pins for the win.
3. James “Moose” Thomas & Rocco Bellagio w/Prince Bolin & Mickey beat Randy Terrez & Dylan Bostic
Prince Bolin had his head almost totally shaved here at the last Wednesday night TV taping by Los Locos(Anarquiq & Raul Lamotta), and amazingly to me, that meant nothing tonight, to the fans, the wrestlers, or anybody. Bolin wore a black stocking cap over his naked scalp. I thought the crowd would have a lot of bald inspired chants at him, that the babyfaces would pick at him. Next to nothing like that happened. So did the head shaving mean nothing? I guess, at least for tonight, when it should have been the most fresh in everyone’s mind. The timing of the head shaving was really odd, and off, anyhow.
I thought there might be an outside shot at an upset this match, but it wasn’t to be as Bostic was beaten after taking James Thomas’ “Moose Kick” finisher, while Rocco Bellagio held Bostic in place. The finish didn’t look good, but the match itself was alright.
4. Adam Revolver beat Ted McNaler
This was a grudge match, a fictional “Brother vs Brother” match, which now heavily involves ring announcer, and the real life girlfriend of Ted McNaler, Brittany DeVore. DeVore was the story of this match, as Revolver tried to romantically hit on her several times during the match, and also tried to use her as a shield to prevent McNaler from physically hitting on him. DeVore got into the ring to check on McNaler when he appeared to be injured from hitting the second turnbuckle head first. Revolver tried to kiss DeVore, but McNaler got up and speared Revolver, which his McNaler’s finisher. McNaler was going to use a chair on Revolver, but DeVore tried to talk him out of it, but the distraction allowed Revolver to give McNaler a low blow and beat him. So DeVore caused McNaler to lose. This feud has gone on too long, with no end in sight, but that match was fun enough, and these guys work well together. Hell, they should be able to work together in their sleep by this point. It looks like Revolver might end up with the girl before this is over, or at least they want us to think that.
Intermission, where the director of wrestling operations for OVW, Trailer Park Trash, made several boxes of t-shirts of the long departed Joshua “Jump Squat” Johnson go “bye bye” by throwing them to the crowd.
5. Brandon Espinosa w/Chris beat Paredyse in a “Dress on a pole” match
Espinosa doesn’t like Paredyse’ gimmick, or lifestyle, which is the basis of this feud, but he now has a friend with him, named “Chris”, whose gender is greatly up for debate. Paredyse may have hit the back of his head on the ring apron on a spot, but he appeared to be ok. Paredyse went after the dress, but Chris got up on the apron, causing Paredyse to slip, and be crotched on the top rope. Espinosa then yanked the dress off the pole for the victory. This was Espinosa’s first win over a major “name” in OVW, albeit in a gimmick match. The match wasn’t bad, but didn’t really ever click, and I don’t think the finish went down exactly as planned. Espinosa and Chris couldn’t get the hanger off the dress after the match, so they put the dress on Paredyse, hanger and all. BTW, you have no idea how hard it is for me to type “Espinosa” over and over. I screw it up most of the time. And to think that I used to think “Paredyse” was hard to type.
A very well done video was aired showing Mohamad Ali Vaez and Michael Hayes in training for their match tonight. Vaez was working out in a gym, Hayes was training outdoors, lifting tree limps overhead, one legged and all. This was great stuff.
6. Michael Hayes beat Mohamad Ali Vaez w/Josette Bynum with “The Pope” D’Angelo Dinero as the special ref
All Vaez for the first several minutes here. Hayes had Vaez up for an electric chair, but Vaez got out of it, and hit his neck breaker finisher. Vaez held Hayes in a Camel Clutch for a long time. The Pope finally had to pull Vaez’ long hair to get him to break the hold when Hayes made the ropes. Around this time in the match, Kenny Bolin literally fell asleep briefly at the announce desk. Gilbert Corsey looked less than thrilled with him. I’ve seen Bolin sort of nod off before, but he was really nodding off here. A bunch of geeks ran out, but Pope knocked them all off the apron. After that, Hayes had all the momentum, and hit his finisher from the top rope for emphasis, which is a version of the Code Breaker, to get the clean win over Vaez. Vaez shoved The Pope a few times after the match, so Pope leveled Vaez with a big uppercut. Is this close to a year feud between Vaez and Hayes finally over? A good chance of it, but I’ve thought it was over at least twice before too. This match was decent, with big crowd reactions for Hayes as usual, which of course big crowd reactions always make a match seem better too. Hayes attracts people in that don’t otherwise watch pro wrestling, so their reactions to certain things are interesting. I still think Hayes came back way too soon, would have meant way more if they would have waited until the summer, but pro wrestling isn’t known for patience, especially if some tickets can be sold for something now. The Pope was fun to watch, and he seemed to legit be having fun out there, but it still made no sense why he was involved in this match at all. He lives in Louisville, and I guess was willing to make an appearance, so that’s where they stuck him.
7. “Smooth” Johnny Spade beat Rudy Switchblade w/Josette Bynum to win the OVW Heavyweight title
I’m a proponent of having the title match go on last, but I think an argument could have been made that this should have preceded the Vaez vs Hayes match. The crowd was fairly subdued early on here, but both Spade and Switchblade seemed fairly subdued as well. Not much intensity coming from either guy in the early going, and they seemed to be casually talking to each other a lot, so much so that some casual fans around me even noticed it. The ring apron proved to be a dangerous place to be this match as Spade dropped Switchblade down hard with a slop drop off the ring apron. Switchblade then backdropped Spade off the apron to the floor. Spade missed an attempt at his Swanton finisher in the ring. Both guys played the “let’s use each others finishers” game as Switchblade hit a superkick on Spade, and Spade caught Switchblade in a Boston Crab, which Switchblade refers to as “The Wake up call”. The crowd was getting more into this match as it went along. In a spot I’ve never seen before, Switchblade loosened a top turnbuckle pad, and Spade ended up getting his arm caught in it, and was stuck in the corner. Switchblade tried to hit Spade with a chair while he was stuck, but Spade kicked the chair back into Switchblades face. Referee Chris Sharpe finally had to remove the top turnbuckle pad to free Spade. Switchblade’s unusual treachery backfired on him yet again, and fatally, as he went in to the exposed turnbuckle pad, and Spade then hit Switchblade with a superkick to win the bout, and the OVW Heavyweight title. Spade has been around OVW on and off for 14 or 15 years, so he was legit emotional over winning the title. The ring filled up with babyfaces, and the celebration was on. The crowd was happy and into the title change. Spade has been pushed as the top face around here lately, so I figured he’d win the title here, and he did. Spade went thru an 8 man gauntlet on TV a few weeks ago to earn this title shot. One of the babyfaces in the ring celebrating the title win was Jamin Olivencia. With his show opening battle royal win for a title shot, Olivencia will now face Spade for the title on Match 18th in a very interesting babyface vs babyface match.
This ended what turned out to be a rather undistinguished title reign for one Rudy Switchblade, who had held the title since November 2nd, but seemed to only get lost in the shuffle in OVW since then, which seemed to be getting worse as it went along. It’s a case where having the top title in a promotion actually hurts a guy more than it helps him. Being a bit player in a heel faction hasn’t done Switchblade any favors either. Here’s hoping he can become relevant here again, which is a really strange thing to say about a guy who just held the heavyweight title for 4 months. Send any feedback to tvd65@hotmail.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
