I’m invading Happy Wrestling Land, and there’s nothing they can do about it.
1) Sam Adonis (c) vs. Aramis for the Warrior Wrestling Lucha Championship
Aramis is the best luchador you don’t know about. Only 23 years old, he’s already as creative and consistent as they come, reminiscent of a high-end Dragon Gate trainee. Lucha libre fans recognize someone like Laredo Kid as eternally underrated; Aramis seems to be on that track. He matched up here against an always-solid base in Adonis, who is athletically limited but makes up for it in character work. (He’s a babyface here despite being a despised heel in AAA.) While the match threatened to be a rudimentary shine-heat-comeback encounter, Aramis’s closing flurry of offense brought it up a notch and had the crowd wanting a title change. ***1/4
2) Karl Fredericks vs. Clark Connors
The debut match for the brand-new Warrior Wrestling-LA Dojo partnership, everyone’s most anticipated team-up in wrestling right now. Fredericks and Connors have worked and trained together forever now, and it showed in their interactions here. This was a slugfest, the type of match you only see between people who know each other well. Dozens of stiff kicks, forearms, and slaps made it purely enjoyable, whereas Connors’ fire –– for my money, he’s got the greater potential of the two –– upped the intensity. ***1/2
3) Alex Zayne vs. Storm Grayson (w/ Frank The Clown)
You might not know this, but Warrior Wrestling actually shoots *angles.* Before this match, Frank The Clown, who’s performing a go-away heat basic megalomaniac character, held a press conference where he announced Storm Grayson and Shazza McKenzie as the initial members of his new stable. This led to Grayson’s match with Zayne, which was the most by-the-numbers heat-filled match you’ll see all year.
Zayne would out-wrestle Grayson and tease a comeback, but interference or distractions from Frank would cut him off. Brief moments of Zayne acrobatics got the crowd into it, but the boring layout and flat finish made me wish I was watching the replay so I could fast-forward. Afterward, Calvin Tankman came out and laid out Zayne to join Frank’s stable. *1/2
4) SW3RVE vs. Adam Brooks
One could say this about any number of talents, but it’s truly baffling that WWE saw nothing in Shane Strickland. He came out for this match and it was like Jon Moxley or Eddie Kingston was there; he felt like a true superstar. Brooks, meanwhile, got practically no reaction. What, you guys didn’t watch his undeniable classics with Will Ospreay in 2018? This was Brooks’ first USA tour since before the pandemic, so I guess it’s understandable.
Anyway, these two gave us exactly what I want out of an indie midcard match: crowd-pleasing spots, star power, and actual thought put into the match layout. Swerve –– get this –– *targeted Brooks’ arm,* and Brooks held up his end of the bargain by struggling to lay in strikes with said arm! The arm was the match’s entire focus, but there was so much more to sink your teeth into here, like Brooks’ surprisingly fiery comebacks and the constant, incessant chants of “Whose house? Swerve’s house!” My section completely ate up Swerve’s running thrust kick and arm-break spot. Swerve is must-see, and Brooks more than earned a return invite to Warrior Wrestling. ***3/4
5) Dante Martin & Dante Leon vs. Brian Cage & KC Navarro
I groaned when Leon was announced as the injured Darius Martin’s replacement. Dude’s got the most amateurish jobber look out there, and I’ve only ever really seen him in those garbage GCW scrambles where everyone just hits repeated dives until someone decides to end it. Thankfully, he held up his end of the bargain here with three stellar talents.
The Cage/Navarro team is so good that I’m disappointed it’s over. Muscle-bound Cage tagging with undeniably talented but frankly annoying Navarro? It’s like Jeri-Show updated for the indies in 2022. Martin did the least out of anyone here, which seems to be a recent refrain in his indie appearances, but he still landed his customary dives. After a long bout of tag team domination on Leon, the babyface team’s comeback led to a surprisingly engaging back-and-forth sequence at the finish. If Darius had been involved, this could’ve been one of the better indie tag matches of the year. ***1/2
6) Athena vs. Shazza McKenzie (w/ Frank The Clown) vs. Skye Blue for the Warrior Wrestling Women’s Championship
Thunder Rosa vacated this championship in a promo before the match, as she’s obviously the AEW Women’s Champion and as such can’t be expected to consistently appear for Warrior. She’s so likable.
It’s strange to say that a match I’d say was the “second-worst” on the show blew me away, but this one did. A match involving McKenzie and Blue –- two limited wrestlers –– and the same Frank The Clown interference as earlier should have been a disaster. But (1) this match had a much more engaging and creative plan than before, and (2) Athena is incredible.
Most of the match was McKenzie and Blue wrestling around in the ring as Athena tried to escape Frank’s clutches; that part wasn’t all that good. But when Athena finally did break free to run wild on everyone, this match began to completely surpass expectations. Eyeroll-inducing “American Joshi” nickname aside, Athena was on another level compared to the other two women in the match. Impactful strikes, fast-paced action, and a picture-perfect Eclipse convinced me that AEW needs to sign her right away. She’d step in and immediately be one of the best in the division, and I’m glad she’s champion, meaning I get to see her at the next Warrior show. ***
7) Will Ospreay (c) vs. Blake Christian for the Warrior Wrestling Championship
Will Ospreay is, for my money, the best wrestler in the world. Blake Christian, meanwhile, is a blank canvas, all athleticism and speed and nothing else. I knew this match would probably be quite good, as Ospreay was involved, but Christian, who I’ve seen a lot of, just doesn’t do much of anything for me. He’s just a guy.
Well, they ended up having the American indie match of the year. Heavyweight Ospreay has translated his one-of-a-kind athleticism into a match structure that makes him come across as such a ruthless killer, especially against much smaller opponents like Christian. He destroyed Christian for the first two thirds of the match, and the audience was eating it up like he was Vader or Goldberg killing some jobber.
Then the closing stretch happened, and this match was elevated from merely entertaining to compelling to must-see. Listing out everything they did would double the length of my review, but my favorite spots included Ospreay defying gravity to backflip out of Christian’s DDT finish into a nasty Liger Bomb and then Christian avoiding the Hidden Blade, taking a poisonrana, and popping up to nail a Hidden Blade of his own for a remarkably close near fall that nobody in their right mind should’ve bit on, considering the participants.
The crowd was unglued by the finish; they had been hot all night, but a rather rowdy chant-heavy group was reduced to “OHHH!”s and “AHHHH!”s at the end. There was a group of four youngsters who I assume were Notre Dame students who were just out of their minds, all hair-clutching neck-tensing frenzy. Forgetting yourself and just reacting to what’s in front of you, well, to me, that’s the sign of a great match. That’s exactly what this was. ****1/2
After the match, Ospreay called out Davey Richards, which is one of those dream matches nobody’s ever thought of but makes perfect sense in hindsight. Can’t wait!
