Last month I took a look at the Swiss Championship Wrestling product for the first time with a review of their Winter Heat 2010 DVD. Now it’s time to make a quick return with a look at their second DVD release, March Madness 2011.
Disc One began with four way elimination action featuring Air 2 Style, Corvus, Maik Tuga and Taki McChicken, with the winner getting a shot at the Lightweight title.
For those who didn’t read my last SCW review (and why didn’t you?), Tuga and McChicken are normally tag team partners, while Style got Corvus on his side before the show began.
This was a pretty entertaining opener. Corvus looked a little rough around the edges, perhaps a little out of his depth, but the other three looked quite good, with Tuga the best of the bunch for me.
The masked McChicken and Corvus were the first two to fall before it became a one on one encounter between Tuga and Style. We then got some nice sequences before Style took the pin with a bridging back suplex.
The first singles match saw Ragnarok, a fur wearing ancient warrior type, complete with axe and a nice lady manage in a similar garb, taking on El Celta, who I thought would be a masked guy. Turns out he’s a bald guy in camouflage shorts and leather vest.
This is another of those matches that falls into the not bad category. Ragnarok did a good job of taking the smaller Celta down early on with some nice power moves, and from there we saw some pretty good back and forth action.
However, there were some sloppy moments, mainly when Ragnarok ran across the ring for a big splash in the corner. He clearly didn’t look comfortable running, which kind of ruined the end of the move.
The big guy came out on top in the end, getting the pin with a northern lights suplex.
The next match saw Karsten Beck facing Drake Destroyer for a shot at the Heavyweight title. Destroyer, you may recall, defended the Heavyweight title against former WWE and TNA star Joe E. Legend at the Winter Heat show, losing the title to Tribun between that show and this one.
Before the match began both men tried to curry favour with the fans by posing in the corners, with Beck getting annoyed when the fans booed him, so much so that he stormed out of the hall at one point, before returning a minute or so later.
Now this was much better. Beck is one of those whiny, bitchy heels who complained about everything Destroyer did, and this served him well early on in the match as his tactics continually frustrated the former champion.
When all the crying was over and done this developed into a solid back and forth outing for both men. They put together some nice sequences, and it was good to watch.
Things did take a slight downturn when Ragnarok arrived on the scene, distracting the referee while he threw his axe to Beck. But Beck didn’t get the chance to use out as Destroyer took him out with a sloppy looking Olympic slam. He then clobbered Ragnarok and took out Beck with a running knee for the winning pin.
The first title match of the show saw Bernd Fohr challenging the vampiric Belthazar for the Lightweight title.
When Fohr slipped getting into the ring via the top rope I feared the worst. Thankfully those fears were quickly put to rest by this quality encounter.
Belthazar scared the hell out of Fohr at the beginning by simply hissing in his face. The German soon manned up and gave the defending champion a run for his money.
We were treated to a fast paced back and forth encounter with both guys pulling off some good moves and putting in good performances.
Despite his efforts Fohr just couldn’t put his man away, and his frustration grew as the match went on, with Belthazar getting up time and time again, eventually sealing the win by taking Fohr out with a super kick for the winning pin. Impressive stuff.
Disc Two continued the title action as British star Erin Angel challenged Amy Cooper for the Ladies title.
How best to describe Erin Angel for those of you who’ve never read any of my old British show reviews? Well, she’s a little spark plug, standing just under five feet tall, and is regarded as one of the best female wrestlers in the country at the moment.
It’s been a few years since I’ve seen Angel in action, and she’s improved a hell of a lot since then. This was one woman who looked completely self-assured as she pulled off some great moves, it was as if I was watching a different wrestler.
Sadly, Cooper’s performance wasn’t as good. There were times when she seemed a little slow off the mark, and a couple of other times when she was going to go for one move before quickly going for another.
Towards the end the referee admonished Cooper while she was attacking Angel in the corner, and in a poorly executed spot she elbowed the official in the bread basket three times before he went down.
Seconds later, with Cooper down in the ring, Angel took her out with an excellent moonsault, the only problem being that the referee was still recovering.
It was then that Cooper grabbed her title belt and clobbered Angel with it, with the referee recovering enough to count Cooper’s title retaining pin, although why he hadn’t disqualified her for the elbow to the gut I’ll never know.
The next match saw Farmer Joe challenging Tribun, accompanied by Amy Cooper, for the Heavyweight title.
I don’t think I need to tell you what sort of gimmick Farmer Joe has, but as far as Tribun goes just check out my last SCW review.
I really didn’t like this one. The Farmer looked okay. He wasn’t the best big man I’ve ever seen but from what I saw he looked like he was capable of having a passable match.
Tribun, on the other hand, looked pretty poor. While he was more than capable of doing some things, such as running the ropes and executing slams and suplexes, his strikes and kicks looked awful. They looked so pulled they were just unbelievable, and when you see a guy working like this it’s hard to suspend disbelief.
Miss Cooper made a brief appearance, distracting the referee and Joe long enough so he could grab his chain, and when Erin Angel arrived on the scene to pull Cooper out of the equation it gave Tribun the chance to clobber Joe with his chain. A three count later it was all over.
Or so we thought. Tribun tried to continued his somewhat weak looking attack on Joe until number one contender Drake Destroyer sent him running for cover. Moments later he joined Joe and the referee in a good old fashioned country dance.
The main event saw the Too Hot Connection, Oogy Dog and Tom Sanders, challenging Double Penetration, Sig Masta Rappo and Peter Love, accompanied by Erin Angel, for the Tag Team titles in a chairs match.
Now this wasn’t too bad, although it took a while to actually get going because of all the jaw jacking and the entrances.
The 2HC guys looked impressive, especially with their high flying moves, and while the champions looked good they did look a step behind their challengers.
One thing that confused me was that although this was meant to be a chairs match other weapons were allowed when Rappo clobbered his opponents with rubbish bins and plastic signs. This got all the more confusing considering the ending.
That came after the referee took an accidental hit from Rappo and took a nap at ringside. 2HC took Love apart, finishing him with a top rope dropkick followed by a top rope splash.
The only problem was that there was no referee, so even though Love was down for the three count there was no official count.
It was then that they grabbed the title belts and clobbered Love with them as he staggered to his feet. A second referee came down to the ring and made the count, with Dog and Sanders being declared the new champions.
But then the first official woke up, and made the decision that because Love hadn’t been hit with a chair 2HC weren’t the new champions and that the match would be restarted. (Now you can see why I got a bit confused before.)
Rappo, chair in hand, immediately got back into the ring, and after hitting Dog in the head he took Sanders down with a death valley driver for the winning pin.
Love and Rappo then looked like they were going to have a falling out before Dog and Sanders challenged them to a rematch, a challenge that Rappo accepted.
In conclusion - this is definitely a mixed bag of a show.
There’s some good stuff on here, with the Destroyer/Beck and Belthazar/Fohr matches the highlight of the bunch.
As for the rest, they were okay, but a little rough around the edges for my liking. Some of the wrestlers could do with brushing up on their skills.
But overall this gets the thumbs up, but only just, as this is one of those releases where you have to put up with the bad to get to the good.
With thanks to the powers that be for supplying a copy of this release. For more information on how to purchase this release log onto www.swiss-wrestling.ch.
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