Gauntlet For The Gold 10!

First I want to preface this by saying, holy god Tyler Black/Seth Rollins is going to find me and kick my ass. Secondly I'd like to thank whoever linked to me in that forum for getting me all those hits, but if Tyler/Seth does find me, I'm finding YOU.

Anyhoo, remember when I used to be a reporter? Did you know AIW had a show this past weekend? Wanna hear about it?

Friday March 20th marked AIW's tenth annual Gauntlet For The Gold, or AIW's Answer To The Royal Rumble. Here's what happened.

Match 1: 6 Way Scramble: Tyson Dux, "Hot Sauce" Tracy Williams, Flip Kendrick, Eric Ryan, Nikki Storm and Tyler Thomas.

Tyler Thomas and Tracy Williams are some newcomers to AIW (although you may have seen Tracy Williams at Beyond Wrestling) and I have to say, I like what they're bringing. I firmly believe that Dux and Williams need to tag team, but more on that later.

Good opening match with a lot of strong spots throughout. I found it rather obnoxious that Nikki Storm elected not to wrestle,  just stood around and fluffed her hair, until Eric Ryan bounced Tyler Thomas off of her and she came in with a vengeance. I like her and I think she's great (and her accent is also great) but you're there to wrestle, so... wrestle.

Best Part of the Match: Probably the last spot, with Flip Kendrick on Eric Ryan's shoulders, who was on Tracy, who was on the turnbuckle, and everybody splattered all over the ring.

Winner: Flip by pinning Eric Ryan

Gave it a good 3.5 out of 5, for some awkward spots but on the whole a strong match and very fun. Tyson and Tracy need to tag team and that's all there is to it. They look great together, they work great together, we need some tag teams, let's get on this.

2. Woman's Grudge Match: Alexia Nicole vs. Jasmine (AKA Team Barely Legal)

So what happened was these two tagged with Veda Scott at the last show, and they lost, so they fought each other for what felt like twenty minutes, and then this time they had a whole match.

I like women's wrestling. I want women to wrestle. I want women to wrestle other women, and also dudes, and do big strong powerful moves just as bad-ass-ly as any guy wrestler.

This was not that match, I am sorry to say.

It was just sort of slow and eh and nobody really seemed to care much. I don't know these girls, I don't know why they're fighting, and I don't really care.

Best Part of the Match: When Alexia put Jasmine in a figure four, or when Jasmine powerbombed Alexia.

Winner: Alexia Nicole after a neckbreaker

1/5, not impressed. They were friends at the end of it, so whatever, they worked it out. (I have a kindly anon tell me Jasmine is going to NXT, which is pretty awesome for her, I hope she does well.)

3. Tag Team Match: Colin Delaney and Cheech (Team Infinity And Beyond) Vs. BJ Williams and Jimmy Jacobs (The Forgotten)

Can I just remind everybody for a second that BJ Whitmer BROKE HIS GODDAMNED NECK not that long ago, and here he is wrestling again? Can we for just a second? Because holy balls.

These guys have been feuding for a while and this match was not particularly different from any of those other times (except for one thing which I'll talk about at the end). It was approximately 90% Colin Delaney getting the crap whooped out of him and 10% Cheech being total bad ass machine of awesome.

Best Part of the Match: Cheech helicoptering Jimmy Jacobs around, when he powerbombed Jacobs and Colin splashed him.

Winner: Colin Delaney pinning Jimmy Jacobs

Worst Part of the Match: Technically it was after the match, but it was when Jimmy got on the mic to have a very quick but very brief goodbye speech... after 16 years on the indies, he's decided to retire. Thank you Jimmy, it was fun.

3.5/5 Very solid, could have used less Colin Delaney getting his ass whooped.

4. 4-Way for the Intense Title: Chris Sabin, Candice LeRae, Louis Lyndon and Davey Vega (C)

Spoiler alert, I'm really biased about this match. I love that Davey is a fighting champion but he's held that title for a while now and sooner or later he's going to have to drop it and that makes me nervous.

But anyhow, let's talk about Candice LeRae, what do you think? She's one of the strongest women wrestlers I've seen in a good long while (and a breath of fresh air after that grudge match) so if she could just be in every AIW show from here until forever that would be great, thanks. There was a spot very early on where Candice leapt out of the ring and landed VERY awkwardly (I couldn't see, despite being in the bleachers I was still on the other side of the ring) and everything sort of stopped for a minute. I don't know if she was injured at any point or not, but she fought like a son of a bitch through the rest of the match, so either way I absolutely commend her.

Best Part of the Match: When Candice kept fighting at 110% despite possibly being injured and almost certainly in pain, when she had everybody by the balls, Louis Lyndon's double sharpshooter, Chris Sabin, Davey Vega.

Winner: Davey retained by pinning Lyndon

4/5 possible slight bias but also Candice LeRae is a beast.

5. Raymond Rowe vs. Johnny Gargano

Sort of a grudge match. Both are very strong competitors but I felt they were slightly mismatched together here. Heavy on the grappling which is not my favorite thing (if I wanted to watch dudes rolling around hugging I would watch MMA) but can be entertaining if done well. Johnny was very fast and wonderful to watch as per usual, Raymond Rowe was all about strength and trying to throw Johnny through the ring.

Best Part of the Match: Raymond Rowe holding Johnny upside down for 50 seconds (we counted), Johnny taking lot of serious goddamn bumps and still getting up.

Winner: Raymond, after accidentally kneeing Clemons, the ref, and then hitting Johnny with a bell before the new ref came out, and then kicking the crap out of him until he stayed down.

3.2/5 Solid throughout, if heavy on the grappling. Crowd dropped out in the middle but came back at the end.

6. Rickey Shane Page vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

I'm going to start off by saying that I have no idea who 2 Cold Scorpio even is, but I'd like to apologize for my ignorance and say that he was fucking great and I'm a terrible wrestling fan for not knowing him.

This match was a fun, awesome, great entertaining match. RSP looked so excited to even just be in that ring (and RSP is such a funny theatrical guy in the ring anyway so it was even more fun) and 2 Cold was holy shit I can't even. They tell me this guy is 49 and I don't believe it. This guy was doing motherfucking top rope shit like he was born doing it and in his prime. He was doing high kicks, he was doing moonsaults, he was doing MOTHER-DAMN-FUCKING REVERSE 'RANAS CAN YOU HANDLE IT. NO YOU CANNOT.

Best Part of the Match: Everything 2 Cold did, especially the reverse 'rana, RSP very clearly having the time of his goddamn life, the wrestlers backstage fanboying easily just as hard if not harder than all of us in the crowd (Davey Vega and Eric Ryan, I'm looking at you guys and it was hilarious.)

Winner: 2 Cold Scorpio, after a crazy moonsault-slash-leg drop combo that probably has a special name that I don't know because I suck. (It's apparently called Dropping The Bomb, so, if you know what that means, yeah, that's the thing he did.)

4/5 for awesomeness and humor and wrestlers being total fanboys.

7. AIW Title: Dick Justice vs. Josh Alexander (C) w/Veda Scott

So many dick puns. SO MANY. DICK. PUNS. Not since Johnny Cockstrong came to town with Beyond Wrestling have I heard that many dick puns. (Although nothing beats "Use your cock-strength") There was a "We love Dick" chant and a "Dick's gonna fuck you" chant which we couldn't even keep up because we were all just laughing too damn hard. Josh Alexander even took a second to call out "Looks like Dick's getting fucked" as he had the upper hand. Dick puns everywhere.

Best Part of the Match: Dick puns. The match itself was fairly standard in terms of fighting. More dick puns, when Dick Justice kissed Veda while she was trying to interfere.

Winner: Josh Alexander retains after beating Dick bloody (SO MANY PUNS) and Dick just sort of gave up. But he tried. And we love him anyway. Veda tried to get on the mic afterwards but I literally could not understand what she was saying because there were too many boos. Heel stuff I would suppose.

3.1/5 for dick puns.

8. Gauntlet Match

Here's a list of the entrants! Spoiler alert!

1. Marion Fontaine
2. Nikki Storm
3. Alessandro Del Bruno
4. Alex Daniels
5. Action Jackson
6. Raymond Rowe
7. Jerry, from the Iron Curtain
8. Bobby Beverly
9. Tyler Thomas
10. Rickey Shane Page
11. BJ Whitmer
12. Johnny Gargano
13. Flip Kendrick
14. Josh Prohibition
15. Tyson Dux
16. Davey Vega
17. Chris Sabin
18. Ben Boone, The Other Iron Curtain Guy
19. Joshua Singh
20. Greg Iron
21. Facade (who got a huge pop, from myself included)
22. Tracy Williams
23. Colin Delaney
24. Candice LeRae
25. Cheech
26. Ethan Page
27. Izeah Bonds, Mr. RBI (Who also got a pop and a "please come back" chant)
28. Louis Lyndon
29. Eric Ryan
30. Eddie Kingston

Best Part of the Match: When Marion "woo'd" Nikki Storm in the very beginning of the match by dancing with her (and then there was a chorus of Ric Flair Woo's to accompany it), when Flip moonsaulted like four people in a row, when Sabin hid under the ring and Fontaine dragged him out, Facade (although I wish he had stayed in longer, give him a real match next time!), Fontaine being in there for like six damn years, RSP and Ethan Page flipping Eddie Kingston the bird, when RSP's and Eddie Kingston's straps came down, RSP's victory water.

Worst Part of the Match: When Colin took a nasty hit on the back of his head as he was eliminated (seriously, are you okay? That looked awful), when RSP and Ethan Page eliminated Kingston when the ref's back was turned, and he snuck back in, and threw Ethan through the middle rope, but the refs thought he had been eliminated when he wasn't and Ethan was out but Kingston was still in. God damned refs.

Winner: Rickey Shane Page, who celebrated a little too hard with the water and fell down. But we love him anyway, bless his heart. He had a good night.

The show on the whole gets a solid 3/5 and I had fun. Should you buy the DVD? If you like 2 Cold Scorpio, I would go for it. But I wouldn't say it was anything you need to run out and tell your mother about.

AIW's next show is April 24th and their yearly gangster themed show, so that should be a good time. They say The Young Bucks and Mickie James will be there! Tix can be purchased on shop.aiwrestling.com but if you're trying to get front row you have to pay extra and give 'em your email!