Wrestleclash - DVD Review

This edition of The Two Sheds Review sees us making a return trip to Australia - but not to Wrestlerock. This past November Rohan Herbstreit, one of the men behind Wrestlerock and the owner of www.wrestling.net.au (one of the man sites that carries The Two Sheds Review put together his own, one-off show at the Darebin Community Sports Stadium in Melbourne, featuring some of my favourite old Wrestlerock faces, and some guys I’ve never seen before. It’s name - Wrestleclash.
The beginning of the DVD sees Wrestlerock stalwarts Julian James, Slex and champion Jag Hartley Jackson, aka The Establishment, arrive at the venue in a limo. Now, I know I haven’t seen a few of the recent Wrestlerock shows, but I’m assuming that Aussie Jules is a heel now.

The show itself begins with singles action, as Havok, accompanied by his manager Ben English takes on Greg Graham. It’s a battle of size against speed here, with Havok controlling the early part of the match by simply overpowering the smaller Graham, with occasional aid from English. Havok controlled the match for the most part, but after a couple of comebacks, Graham was able to get the winning pin with a crucifix. Not an overly spectacular contest, but still a good way to start the show.

An in-ring promo from Slex follows. Decked out in a snazzy suit, Slex promised to take out his opponent, Cletus, later in the show. With this is out of the way, he brings out Julian James and Jag Hartley Jackson to the ring. Jag and James proceed to rip into Jag’s opponent, Krackerjak, before calling Cletus out to the ring and talking to him like a child, and ordering him to shine Jag’s championship belt. Cletus begins to do as he’s told, before spraying Jag in the eyes. The heels then attack briefly, before being run out of the ring by Krackerjak and his trusty steel chair. If I’m being totally honest, while this segment was okay, it was a tad too long for my liking.

Normal service is resumed with tag-team action, with The Fitness Maniacs, Sean O’Shay and Mikey Broderick, facing Robby Heart & Jimmy Scarlett. Before their opponents came to the ring, O’Shay and Broderick gave a little demonstration of their fitness training. Sadly, this wasn’t a patch on Aerobics Oz Style. When the action finally started it made for very good viewing. The Maniacs looked like they have the makings of a great team, while Heart and Scarlett showed some great moves as well in what was a good example of how tag-team wrestling should be, and the end came when the Maniacs clobbered Scarlett with one of their training equipment, before finishing him off with their version of the doomsday device. Good match here, and I wouldn’t mind seeing more of these four in the future.

Then it’s back to singles action and two guys I’m familiar with, Slex and Cletus. I’ve been really impressed with what I’ve seen of Cletus in the past, so this was one match I was looking forward to. Watching these two in action reminded me once again just how good they are. Slex and Cletus are two of the top wrestlers in Australia at the moment, and it showed in this match. A back and forth encounter which saw Slex pull off some crisp power moves, and Cletus countering with his excellent high flying arsenal. In short, this was a tremendous match, and it’s a shame it had to end. After countless false finishes, and a referee bump, Slex bent the rules a little, pinning Cletus with a schoolboy roll-up while he had his feet on the ropes. A very impressive outing from both men here.

The first title match of the evening follows, with Jayson Cooper defending the NWA Australian National Championship against Carlo Cannon and Damian Slater in a triple threat match. A nice little match here, with the two South Australians, Cooper and Slater, teaming up against their Victorian counterpart in Cannon. Of course, as is the manner with these matches, the alliance doesn’t last that long when Cooper and Slater begin to argue, with Cannon takes advantage of. Some good three-way moves followed, as well as several false finishes, before Cannon took Slater down with a super kick. However, just as Cannon was about to get the pin, Cooper pulled him out of the ring and took the pin on Slater himself, retaining his title in the process. Good little match here. Really enjoyable.

More singles action followed, with two more guys I‘m familiar with, Chris Knight and the Daniel Swagger going up against each other. It was great to see Swagger back in an Australian ring, having impressed me during the early days of Wrestlerock. A good match here, even though it had some iffy moments, as Knight pitted his power game against Swagger’s speed and cunning. Knight in particular looked great with his power moves, and Swagger had his good moments, but some that weren’t so good as well. Eventually, both guys were counted out as they brawled around the ringside area, with the emotions running extremely high, so much so that they continued to brawl after the match had ended, with both guys hassling the referee before Swagger stared up at the lights after taking a chair shot from Knight. This brought out Swagger’s partner Tricky D, who clobbered Knight with a chair of his own. But all this did was anger the big man, who took his frustrations out on Tricky.

Main event time, with Jag Hartley Jackson, accompanied by Julian James, defending his Wrestlerock title against Krackerjak. This was another match I was really looking forward to, having become a big fan of both guys while reviewing the various Wrestlerock shows. Once again these two showed why they’re two of the top wrestlers in the Wrestlerock promotion. Krackerjak is just one of those guys you can’t help buy like, and Jag, well, he’s just a no nonsense kind of wrestler, no flashy gimmick, no overly flashing moves, a guy who just enjoys beating the hell out of people. Put these things together, and you’ve got a very good match here, not overly spectacular, but filled with good, solid wrestling. Add some failed interference from Slex, and an ending that saw Krackerjak take Jag down with the britney spear to win the Wrestlerock title and you’ve got a good ending to a good show.

DVD extras come in the form of several promos and television commercials, a look inside The Establishment’s limo, and a Wrestleclash recap video.

In conclusion - it’s been a while since I’ve had my regular fix of Australian wrestling, and I was beginning to suffer from withdrawl symptoms. Thankfully, Wrestleclash saw me through. Although the in-ring segment involving The Establishment was a bit over-long, the wrestling action more than made up for that. Some of it wasn’t exactly great, but thankfully those moments were few and far between, and by the time that Krackerjak beat Jag for the Wrestlerock title, those moments had been all but forgotten.

So if you haven’t had the chance to see any Australian wrestling before, then Wrestleclash would be a good place to start.

With thanks to Rohan Herbstreit for supplying a copy of this release. To order your copy, visit www.wrestleclash.com.