A week has passed since I dragged my wife to her second CWF-Mid Atlantic show, Night 2 of the inaugural Kernodle Cup. She has fun at indie shows, but one a month is a little much for her I think. I wanted to get this review up quickly after because I was so pumped up after the show. Alas, life happens and apparently I still have a job that I have to do (a lot more than normal last week too). All of the sudden he week is over nd with Wrestlemania and the 500 shows in Central Florida this weekend in full affect, I sort of needed to rush something along if I was going to talk about it at all. Instead of going through each match I wanted to throw together something a little different for this one. So, I outlined Five things to love about The Kernodle Cup – Night 2. There is a ton to appreciate about this show. It got a lot of buzz and I imagine that buzz will get louder once it hits the youtube, but here were my 5 biggest take aways from the show.
- Audience Interactions
If you have never been to a CWF show it is hard to explain how intimate the setting is. Even if you have seen it on TV you don’t really get a great feel for how close everyone is. The wrestling is sort of always in your lap, especially when it spills out of the ring. This also makes it really easy for the wrestlers to engage the audience. At one point, Don Kernodle looked me right in the eyes and screamed “THEY JUST DON’T MAKE EM LIKE THEY USED TO, HUH!?” It was kinda neat… weird, but neat.
That was nothing though. The real entertaining interactions come when those damned heels lay into the fans. Arik Royal came out immediately up to his old shenanigans. The old lady in the front row was on to him though. She took her hat off and put on her lap, but Royal would not be denied. He eyeballed that hat from the curtain and when she wasn’t looking he slipped out and grabbed it right out of her hands. Her furry was palpable. He played keep away a few times and I swear to god she was finding no humor in the whole thing.
The Carnies would not be out done though. Before their first match the hairy one (I don’t know which one was which) called some dude impotent. After their eventual elimination they trolled the locals by kissing. Surprise! Out came the slurs! The not hairy one (again, I don’t know) leaned in and yelled “I’d rather be a queer than an old bigot!” I mention this one for two reasons. First, fuck yea! It slayed me; hit me right in the funny bone. Second, my wife particularly liked it and she was kind enough to come to the show with me despite having only a passing interest in live wrestling. I don’t like to root for the heels at a CWF show (it just isn’t done), but I was standing and applauding that bit of business.
It wasn’t all heeling. The Ugly Ducklings and their manager Coach Mikey were a hit with the kids. The ol coach made one very tiny little girl’s night by pretending that her duck calls were so powerful that they knocked him to the ground (a classic in entertaining small children). There were all kinds of duck calls going off and kids quacking in my ears. They ate it up. Fans of all ages were, as always, engaged and energetic and the wrestlers repaid them in kind. CWF is a wrestling show, but its charm is in the relationship between the product and the audience. The heels heel it up and the faces turn on the charm. Watching the audience engage with wrestling in this way and watching wrestlers engage with the audience warms my cynical little heart.
- Honoring Tradition
I don’t have a deep connection with the Kernodles. I didn’t find their actual involvement in the show to be particularly compelling, beyond the base level excitement that old wrestlers produce when make appearances and to (maybe) show those young whipper-snappers how it is done. I thought it was nice the tournament was named after them, but I didn’t go to the show thinking much about the Kernodles. All that said, in execution it was really nice to see CWF honoring a pair of wrestling legends and the traditions they helped build and in turn represent.
The tag tournament was a fantastic tribute to not just the Kernodles, but to a time when tag team wrestling was important. Just look at Wrestlemania this Sunday; the company has a plethora of talented tag teams and but tag team wrestling is still clearly not a huge priority. The Raw title and the NXT title are being defended in three way matches, speaking more to their desire to get tag teams on the show than any actual desire create real and meaningful spots for them. Hell, the Smackdown title isn’t even being defended at ‘Mania… fucking gross. This isn’t just about how CWF is great and WWE isn’t. No, the point is that this show was a really nice nod to the past that made it meaningful in the present. It wasn’t a vapid tribute with some VIP seats and a token tournament name. They really showed that they took the tradition of tag team wrestling seriously here in how they put the tournament together and how they told interwoven stories in it. I honestly didn’t expect to be drawn to this part of the show, so it was a nice to surprise to feel those connections with the past and see how much fun the Kernodles and the fans seemed to be having with it.
- New Tag Teams (for me anyway)
One of the best parts about going to CWF shows for me right now is that I am still relatively new to southern indies and I am always getting introduced to new talents. I – for one – was introduced to a number of new teams and wrestlers during the tournament. The Carnies were real show stealers. Those guys have it when it comes to heeling. It is that combination of a willingness to go above and beyond, knowledge of what it means to get real heel heat, and a knack for getting under people’s skin that sets them apart. They are sort of likable early in their first match of the night, but they eventually flip a switch that saturated their entire characters. They didn’t just stop having fun and start fighting. They were real pricks about the whole thing. They take all the right shortcuts and just have a knack for sticking the knife right where it hurts most with their banter.
On the other hand (kind of), we have the Ugly Ducklings. Look, they are over with the crowd. Kids love ‘em. Old folks love ‘em. But, they annoyed the piss out of me. They look like they were planning a duck dynasty thing when they ordered all their gear the ACME company sent a bunch of 90s pop-retro stuff instead. They either didn’t have enough money for more gear or they didn’t give a dog dick, so they said fuck it. As far as the wrestling itself goes, they had two really stellar performances, which almost made me feel somewhat bad for how much I hated the shtick.
Before I get off this point I want to mention Tracer X really quickly. I am not sure how I feel about the name, but I thought he really stood out in his quarterfinal match. That kid is stupid athletic and was born with the face of a smug heel. I read an interview with him since the show where he says he is mainly booked as a face, but fuck that noise. I hated the kid the second I laid eyes on him. Mostly it was because I knew my best chance of rocking a six pack like that passed years ago and his youth annoys me. He just had a great shit eating bad guy charisma. Tracer X has apparently been in CWF before, but I haven’t come across him yet in my mini youtube binges nor have I seen him live before this show. He didn’t steal the show or anything, but he jumped off the page in a match filled with talent, so with luck I’ll see him again in the sportatorium soon.
- Continuity and Storytelling
Tournaments are hard. I mean anyone can throw a tournament structure together, but pulling off a coherent and compelling tournament is hard work. I like work rate tournaments as much as the next guy, tournaments where every match could steal the show, but not every tournament can be that. To me the best tournaments, the shows where the ethos is really built around the tournament itself as a conduit to build drama, are well-planned, coherent tournament with interwoven stories that help make sense of how and why every team got eliminated when they did and got as far as they did. In those tournaments there are no losers. Every elimination has meaning and (at least almost) every team comes out stronger than they came in.
I can only speak to the second night, but this tournament really accomplished that. The Sandwich Squad was made to look vulnerable and in their vulnerability were made to look even more dominant. The evil of The Carnies were on full display, even more so in their eventual loss. The Ugly Ducklings come across as plucky underdogs who were had so much momentum they had to be robbed of their spot in the final. We got just enough White Mike (thank god) without detracting from the tournament. The All Stars came across as a collection of exceptional talents who’s arrogance and lack of true continuity would be their eventual downfall. The true friends and best team won, but we learned what we were suppose to learn about each team, we got what we needed to get and the story really held together on the whole. This tournament was a ton of fun, and while there were memorable matches, the payoff was the tournament as a unit. It was planned enough to put everyone in the right spot, but flexible enough that each team and/or wrestler got to do their thing. This is a tournament to sit down to watch and enjoy singularly and that is not easy to accomplish.
- Lee/Day’s Instant Classic
I almost hate to put the title match above the tournament given the Kernodles were the namesake of the event, but I have no choice. I can’t say enough about this match. I don’t have enough superlatives to describe it. This is pretty easily one of the best matches I have ever seen live and that includes some Golden Age ROH and Wrestlemania 30 (among other shows). It is absolute beast of a match that is smart with plenty of kick-you-in-the-mouth action.
The match starts slow and stedy. They are exchanging moves and establishing that Day is more or less Lee’s equal in terms o grappling and wrestling. Or the most part, things come up a draw early on. Everything here is pretty tight and flows well. Anything that seemed a little loose probably doesn’t come off so much on TV. They finally hit a stalemate and Day strikes quickly as Lee goes to reset. This elevates things. They hit another gear and add a layer of animosity. A few minutes later they go into a man contest (that spot where they just smack each other in the face) that elevates things even further. The second (I believe) strike from Lee in this segment was absolutely brutal and you can see Day doesn’t want any more of those. They continue to play a chess match, elevating the intensity and the drama every step of the way. The real kicker here is the end though. Day has Lee and cuts off just about every comeback Lee attempts in the final third of the match. There are 4-5 places that look like they are primed for Trevor’s comeback and Day stays just ahead of him. Ultimately though, he can’t put Lee away. They go into another man contest, this time with more urgency, less machismo. They are both exhausted. They look like they have put everything out there, like each threw their best shots and just can’t put the other away. Lee finally beats day and the ending comes just a touch abruptly. I thought Lee would have to kill him dead with multiple finishes, but they really sold the battle of attrition here.
This was an absolute classic. On live review I gave it ****3/4. I don’t really like meeting wrestlers much (just not my thing), but I went and shook both their hands after the show and thanked them (I bought a Trevor Lee shirt too, but regret not also buying a Chip Day shirt – next time!). This was wrestling as high art as far as I am concerned and I can’t wait to see it hit the interwebs.
Markout Mountain 