Wanna rumble?

At last, we’ve reached the end of February! How can a month so short last so long? Our last stop is JAPW “Jersey City Rumble” (2/28/09), hailing from the aforementioned Garden State locale.

-I really like seeing The Osirian Portal as faces. It is completely different from their CHIKARA work, and thus something unique to watch. They have another strong opener here against the Garden State Gods, who individually aren’t that impressive but work really well as a team. Good stuff.

-Flip Kendrick and Louis Lyndon are talented guys, but both can be pretty spotty at times. When they are working equally capable competition, the results tend to be enjoyable. When they are working against people who should never have been allowed to purchase wrestling tights lest they be mistaken for actual wrestlers, the results are what we have here. Bryan Skyline and Jack Verville are horrible. Skyline maybe has some chance of getting better, but at the very least he needs to learn how to throw a decent dropkick. As for Verville, well, when your big moment involves your pants coming down (and why was his ass so red? What did he have to do to get booked on this show anyway?), it really does speak for itself. Kendrick and Lyndon are capable of much better, they just need actual competition.

-Demolition! Yes! So what if they can’t really wrestle anymore, they’re Demolition! They’re awesome by default! The 7-year-old in me marked way too hard for this match to not get my thumbs up. Plus, truthfully, the Heavy Hitters and Ax and Smash do a pretty good job of working a decent bout.

-As a basic tag team contest, The Best Around vs. DNA is perfectly acceptable. There’s even some good in-ring work from everybody involved. But nothing really excited me overall here. I felt a large disconnect from the match, perhaps because The Best Around were clearly playing the good guys when I’m used to them as, and much prefer them in, the bad guy role.

-As the hottest feud coming from the last JAPW show, Eddie Kingston taking on Bandido Jr. had me quite excited. And for the most part their match works. The psychology is great, with Kingston working his maximum impact style and controlling most of the bout, while Bandido Jr. battles back best he can with his arsenal of aerial offense. Past the story, the actual action in the contest is good, but I was expecting some more excitement from the two.

-The Jersey City Rumble is your basic rumble match, with some fun moments, some dull moments, and lots of guys beating up lots of other guys because that’s just what you do in a rumble match. Dan Maff and Jay Lethal, who is so much better here without that stupid “Black Machismo” gimmick he has in TNA, do a ton of great work throughout the contest. Danny Demanto is annoying. Balls Mahoney is tall, and Azriel sure knows how to work a near-elimination spot, I just wish he didn’t milk it so much.

-Without spoiling who wins the rumble, I will say that the main event, featuring Kenny Omega defending the JAPW World Title against said winner, runs way too long to be really enjoyable. There also seems to be a lack of excitement in the bout, which is a shame. The finish comes off fantastically, and had the match been only five minutes with the same finish, I’d probably be praising the overall contest and not just the finale.

And this is where my experience with JAPW ends for 2009. There is a part of me that is interested in seeing what happens next, particularly between Dan Maff and Jay Lethal, but at this point I am so far behind in viewing 2009, and wanting so desperately to start watching 2010 sometime, you know, before 2011, that I cannot justify buying more shows from 2009 to add to my viewing schedule. Sorry JAPW, I may be back, but it won’t be for quite some time.