First Impressions

There's a saying in life that first impressions count, and this really applies as far as the wrestling industry is concerned. In Britain, digital television channel Friendly TV have recently begun test transmissions for the new Wrestling Channel, which is due to launch fully in a few months time. So while I've found the WWE product a bit wanting in recent months, I decided that with the help of Friendly TV, it was about time to sample other fruits of the wrestling tree.

THE FRONTIER WRESTLING ALLIANCE
For me, this isn't really a first impression, but the first time I've seen any FWA action since I attended their Carpe Diem show in Walthamstow about eighteen months ago. The show featured here was the first part of their recent Frontiers Of Honour show, co-promoted at the York Hall in Bethnal Green with the US-based Ring of Honor promotion. The format for the show was a simple one - pitting established FWA stars with the best that ROH had to offer. Throw in a couple of matches to advance FWA story lines and you've got a show that at the time earned rave reviews.

While the action was good, and I was particularly impressed with the match-up between Jack Xavier and former ECW World Champion Mikey Whipreck, I did feel a little let down by a couple of things.

Firstly, the commentary. I'm not knocking the commentary here. It seemed very well put together, although it was obvious from the beginning that the commentary was added sometime after the event itself. My main problem here was the fact that due to the sound editing, hearing what the commentators had to say was at times quite difficult.

The second criticism is that only three of the matches were shown, and so far, Friendly TV haven't shown the second part of the show. I hope this part of the show will be broadcast soon, as I know for a fact that many fans who don't own the video are eager to see the matches pitting the Zebra Kid against ROH Champion Samoa Joe, and the contest featuring Low-Ki against Flash Barker.

IRISH WHIP WRESTLING
This was a first impression of this Dublin-based company who, as far as I knew, had only promoted a few shows in Ireland before cancelling a show last April due to financial constraints.

The show began with British favourites Jonny Storm and Jodie Fleisch putting themselves through their paces in front of an audience that was clearly quite receptive of their efforts. But for me, this match had a kind of been there, done that feeling. No disrespect is intended towards either Storm of Fleisch, but this match has been seen all over the country and in America so many times now, seemingly with very little variation. It was enjoyable, but the fact that it's been done before put me off a little.

Then followed Jake "The Snake" Roberts first appearance in Ireland in about ten years, as he faced off against British wrestling monster Flatliner. This was indeed a very short match. Flatliner tried to overpower the Snake a few times before Roberts fought back with his combination of punches, a short-arm clothesline and a DDT. The match was soon over, and while Flatliner went away to nurse his bruised pride, Roberts showed that he could still work a crowd like no other.

The third bout featured two Austrian wrestlers, whose names I sadly can't remember, going at it in a TLC match. There was quite a few sick looking bumps in this match, and while the crowd were certainly into this one, I must say that it wasn't exactly to my personal tastes.

So when the Irish Whip Wrestling show ended, I was left wondering why it seemed that no Irish wrestlers were booked on the show. It's a shame that the company had to close it's doors. They certainly had promise, and perhaps they'll make a comeback sometime in the future.

PRO WRESTLING NOAH
To be honest, I found this a very enjoyable show, like a breath of fresh air. The wrestling, for the most part, was top notch, and in many ways reminded me of the old-school British style of wrestling.

One big problem here though - Apart from former WWF and WCW star 2 Cold Scorpio, I had no idea who any of the wrestlers were. The blame for this would have to be put down to the commentary. While English captions were shown with the wrestlers names in English before the contest, the commentary was still in the original Japanese. I think it's safe to say that I probably wasn't the only one watching NOAH for the first time and thinking that it would have been better if the show either had subtitles, or the soundtrack was re-recorded with some English-speaking commentators. If The Wrestling Channel doesn't do this, then they may find that new fans will be put off by the presentation of this particular product.

RING OF HONOR
I had heard a great deal about ROH, mainly from various wrestling fan forums. It seemed that ROH owner Rob Feinstein was catering his product to the ever-growing Internet audience, something which he has been criticised for. But on the other hand, he's also won a lot of praise with the style of wrestling he promotes, especially with his "Code Of Honor".

Because of the content of the later matches, only two matches were shown. The first involved the returning Low-Ki, as he took out three other wrestlers in one match. Low-Ki, along with A.J. Styles, had been one of the names I'd heard a great deal of over the past few months, and in this outing, I was really impressed by Low-Ki's style of wrestling.

However, the following match really didn't press me at all. Fought under "Scramble Match" rules, which from what I gather were similar to Lucha Libre rules, the match featured four tag-teams, including The Backseat Boyz and the SAT.

Although the match started off as a normal tag-match, it was obvious that it wouldn't be long before things started to break out and every wrestler got into the fight. For me, this is where things began to get a little ugly. It was hard to follow the action as we were treated to what seemed like an acrobatic display. There were several variations of the DDT and of the power bomb, moves which, in years gone by, were used to finish a contest. And the air time these guys put in saw almost every man in this match, and a few who were not legally in the bout, spend most of their time flying either over or off the top rope. The match just seemed very messy, and for me personally, it was very difficult to watch.

So as far as my first impression of ROH goes, all I can say is that I wasn't impressed. But then again, perhaps ROH is something of an acquired taste.

NWA; TOTAL NONSTOP ACTION
As with the other promotions, I had heard a lot about the Jarrett's efforts and promoting weekly pay-per-views. However, it wasn't one of their pay-per-views I saw, it was an edition of their weekly Xplosion programme.

And I was impressed. Everything about the show really impressed me, the presentation, the matches, the highlights from the pay-per-views, was all top notch. In a way it reminded me of WCW when it was under the leadership of Eric Bischoff. They are bound to have several hits and misses during their careers, but if the Jarretts can continue to attract the top independent stars, mix them in with former WCW and WWE stars who can still perform and draw a few new fans in, then I can see good things happening for this company. If they were to secure a national television contract so that they could perhaps move away from weekly pay-per-views to monthly pay-per-views then the WWE might have their first credible challenger since the demise of WCW and ECW.

COMBAT ZONE WRESTLING
I had heard a great deal of this "Ultraviolent Entertainment" promotion. I'd seen a few film clips here and there, and it was with some trepidation that I tuned into an edition of "Fake You TV".

All I can about CZW is that I found it very disappointing. This may be because I consider myself an old school type of fan. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed hard-core matches in the past, but for me, CZW goes a little too far.

One thing that bothered me was that those in the matches seemed to be taking up as much time setting up various weapons as they did actually competing. This put me off. I wanted the action to continue. I didn't want things to suddenly stop.

The Cage Of Death match between Zandig and Lobo was really not to my taste, and when Lobo fell crashing into a pain of glass from the top of the stage, I began to think that this resembled stunt work more than it resembled wrestling. I know I'm going to take a bit of heat for this, because I know that CZW has a large fan following, particularly in Britain, but this just isn't my cup of tea.

WRESTLING CLASSICS
Perhaps it's a sad indictment of the wrestling industry of today that I find watching shows featuring matches from over the past fifty years far more enjoyable these days.

This show, introduced by "Mean" Gene Okerlund, was a delight. Showing matches from the Kiel Auditorium in Memphis from around twenty years ago, we were treated to the sight of watching "Macho Man" Randy Savage and "Ravishing" Rick Rude in their prime, long before they wrestled for the WWF.

The match I enjoyed the most involved Jerry "The King" Lawler going up against the Ugandan Giant, Kamala. This is the kind of match that would go down a storm on Raw or Smackdown these days. Lawler and Kamala literally threw everything they had at each other. They fought in the ring. They slammed each other on the floor. They pummelled each other with chairs, and slammed each other's heads into the ringside tables, both men bleeding buckets as they tore a strip off each other.

Watching this match, it made me realise just how fickle some television companies are today as far as the content of wrestling shows is concerned. The kind of stuff I saw in the Lawler/Kamala match would be edited out of any WWE show these days, which is a shame. It's this kind of stuff the fans would love to see right now.

As I said at the beginning of the show, first impressions count. In 1987, while getting my first taste of the WWF by watching Hulk Hogan go up against Randy Savage in a Saturday Night's Main Event show, I thought to myself that this just wasn't wrestling. Compared to the British wrestling I'd been watching before, the world of the WWF seemed to glitzy, to glamorised for my wrestling taste. However, just two years later, after seeing Savage and Hogan go at it in the main event of Wrestlemania V, I was hooked.

So before I get dozens of emails from disgruntled ROH and CZW fans lambasting my views of their shows, keep what I've just said in mind.