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wrestlingwiththoughts · 21 days

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The First Annual WrestleMania Week 2024 Awards

The most interesting parts of WrestleMania Week 2024 were, as usual, in the shows that took place around Philadelphia this year. Though I didn't travel to Philadelphia for the shows, I tried to craft a path that covered as many of the most interesting shows that streamed as possible.

To start, let's acknowledge the shows that I was able to watch:

DEFY Wrestling: Can't Deny It

STARDOM: American Dream 2024 in the Keystone State

GCW Presents Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport X

The first half of the Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow

ACTION Wrestling & Segunda Caida: DEAN~!!

Jersey Championship Wrestling: JCW & GCW vs. The World

ROH Supercard of Honor 2024

CMLL Super Viernes (April 5, 2024)

Let's also provide the caveats on the shows that were on my radar that I was not able to watch due to timing conflicts:

The second half of the Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow

DDT Pro-Wrestling: DDT Goes Philadelphia

Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling: LIVE in Philly

Wrestling REVOLVER & Hog of Glory Wrestling

Game Changer Wrestling: Joey Janela's Spring Break 8

Expect the Unexpected: Unlock the Unexpected - ETU vs. Dragongate

The call to promoters who schedule shows around major AEW and WWE shows: I understand the need to schedule around those shows. I suspect the desire to competing against WWE SmackDown, ROH Supercard of Honor, WrestleMania XL Nights One and Two forced promoters to focus on Thursday night as the premier evening option of WrestleMania Week 2024. The point of the weekend is, presumably, to make money via ticket sales and through the streaming sales that a company would make. Forcing customers to choose your show over competing options limits the ticket and streaming sales and exposure that your company can get that week.

On Thursday night, I was able to give the Hitchcock Memorial Supershow about an hour of undivided attention before I switched to focus on DEAN~!!. I missed the DDT show completely, and given the pace of WrestleMania Week and wrestling in general, I will most likely never watch DDT's show (or any other show that I had to skip due to time conflict). That means that I won't even have the chance to forget about the widely praised KONOSUKE TAKESHITA vs. Shunma Katsumata and Mike Bailey vs. Yuki Ueno matches because I won't ever watch them. Had DDT's show taken place on Friday afternoon, it would have received undivided attention and possibly better ticket sales and more views on WrestleUniverse.

With that said, here are my reflections on this year's WrestleMania Week in the form of my supremely prestigious awards.

The "Best Pure Vibes" Award: ACTION Wrestling & Segunda Caida: DEAN~!!

I visited the Death Valley Driver Video Review Message Board fairly regularly when I was younger, but I never created an account or tried to participate because it seemed too intimidating. My horizons broadened by reading discussions and reviews on Segunda Caida, but I never felt like I had anything worthwhile to add because my wrestling viewing was limited to some syndicated WWF shows, some ECW, and mostly WWF and WCW. Nonetheless, I recognized the name "Dean Rasmussen" in the message board and SC reviews, and I was sorry to hear of his passing. DEAN~!! was held in Rasmussen's honor, and it was probably my favorite show of the week. It had a vision, and that vision was felt in the eclectic mix of matches on the card, the exuberant commentary from Dylan Hales and John Mosely. Wrestling promoters and fans will sometimes defend nonsensical character development and plots, cringeworthy comedy, and substandard wrestling by claiming that wrestling shows have to feel uneven because they're variety shows that offer a little something to everyone. DEAN~!! felt like a repudiation of that defense, a counterargument that wrestling itself can provide that buffet without relying on the tired tropes that companies trot out when they refuse to think of anything better.

These are a few of my favorite things from DEAN~!!:

Colby Corino's setup for and commitment to the headlock gimmick. He was a busy and tired man, so he tried to win using the basic move in his arsenal. That went fine for him until Alex Kane was able to use his dedication to worker smarter, not harder against him. The match combined comedy and action very well, and it's forced me to re-evaluate my impression of Corino from the days when he ran with Eddie Kingston, Joe Gacy, and Shane Strickland in Evolve as The Unwanted.

O'Shay Edwards for ending the match with a moonsault. When a man as large as Edwards lands on you, the match should be over, and it was, which meant that the match ended at the right time.

The Ugly Ducklings and Violence Is Forever for giving the crowd an unexpected sprint.

Tom Lawlor for his reticence to touch the disgusting, bloodstained canvas that was used for his match with One Called Manders against the Coven of the Goat. I wouldn't want to either.

Dr. Cerebro for having some of the best looking gear that I saw all weekend. The key details are the exposed brain and glasses sewn on his mask.

Avery Good, the IWTV Championship Committee, and ACTION for commissioning a slightly larger IWTV Independent World Championship belt. It's a good bit.

Krule and Jake Parnell for surpassing my low expectations for their match. It was overbooked, but it was overbooked in a good way, and Krule impressed the most since the show where he emerged from a cornfield.

Arez for being such an odd fellow. Master of the Strange Style indeed had a match with Chikara alumnus Matt Makowski that exceeded my expectations.

Slim J for refusing to go gentle into that good night. He and Adam Priest ripped off an exciting match days after Slim J was released from AEW, and it hopefully makes promoters reflect on how they misused someone this talented.

Marcus Mathers for making me reevaluate my opinion after writing him off as a scramble flippy guy.

Demus and Mad Dog Connelly for unleashing violence and mayhem. Connelly started the match by snapping the chain and hitting Demus with it, and he upped the ante by punching Demus with chain-wrapped fists.

Daniel Makabe and Timothy Thatcher for rewarding the attention that I was forced to pay their match due to their style. Grappling-focused matches don't have obvious moments of excitement for most viewers, so you're forced to watch closely for small shifts in angle and advantage. Makabe and Thatcher had a match where I felt like the attention that I paid to them after a long day of watching wrestling was worth the effort.

The "But Now You Have My Attention" Award: The Sovereign/Sinner & Saint

My major takeaway from DEFY's Can't Deny It was the fast-paced and tightly executed work from Judas Icarus, Travis Williams, and Evan Rivers in their match against the Dragongate team (more on one of them later) and C4XKC. Icarus and Williams, as Sinner & Saint truly caught my attention in their match against Marcus Mathers and Austin Luke at DEAN~!!, and I'll peek in on what they'll do in TNA now that they're signed there.

The "Champagne Problems" Award: Mariah May

In the grand scope, AEW's insistence on continuing with Timeless Toni won't determine whether they sign a profitable TV deal or whether their ticket sales or TV ratings will reach new heights or depths. On a personal level, the combination of Timeless Toni and the Brochachos drove me away from AEW, and it took months before I could trust the company to not focus so heavily on crappy content. I'm willing to stomach a few minutes of Timeless Toni every week in recognition that nothing can be perfect. Nonetheless, watching Mariah May wrestle with Mina Shirakawa and Xia Brookside against Mayu Iwatani, Momo Kohgo, and Tam Nakano at STARDOM's show and against Kohgo during the ROH Zero Hour preshow highlighted how fresh and exciting she feels and how tired and mortifying watching Toni Storm play Timeless Toni feels.

The "Indifference Is Worse Than Hate" Award: Shun Skywalker

I gave Dragongate a chance to capture my heart in 2023, and it failed to attach. So, I wanted to give Dragongate another chance in a setting that piqued my interest in Dragon Gate back in 2006. Instead, the Dragongate team of Kzy, Shun Skywalker, and Ho Ho Lun seemed to disappear during their match in the DEFY show. I had hoped that it was an aberration, but the Dragongate group of YAMATO, Dragon Kid, and Shun Skywalker underwhelmed in the tag match against Los Desperados in JCW & GCW vs. The World. Then, the whole Dragongate group had an underwhelming performance in the much hyped match against Team CMLL during the Hitchcock Memorial Supershow. I want to give them one more chance with the ETU vs. Dragongate show, but the Dragongate showing this trip did not inspire me to give the company another chance in 2024.

The "Half-Hearted Efforts Produce Half-Hearted Results" Award: ROH Supercard of Honor 2024

Crowning Mark Briscoe as the ROH World Champion on the anniversary of his brother's ascension should have felt triumphant. Instead, it felt perfunctory, which seems deeply wrong. Other than the knowledge that it was Jay Briscoe's championship anniversary, viewers received no cues for the emotional stakes of the match, and pitting Mark Briscoe against fan favorite Eddie Kingston seemed misguided.

The "That Sure Is A Decision That You Can Make" Award: Syuri, Masha Slamovich, JCW, GCW

I was looking forward to Syuri vs. Masha Slamovich at JCW & GCW vs. The World when it was announced, and it was one of the matches that kept me going through the fatigue from the grueling activity of watching wrestling for hours on end on Thursday. My spirit deflated when ring announcer Emil Jay announced a 30 minute time limit for the match since he announced no time limit for the other matches on the show. It was also billed as a JCW Championship match, and since Syuri wasn't going to win the title from Slamovich this weekend, my expectations joined my spirit in a state of deflation. The fact that they wrestled to a 30 minute time limit draw at 1:00 am Eastern in front of a listless crowd probably contributed to my dissatisfaction with the match; it felt like a slowly paced collection of moves rather than a coherent story told through the medium of professional wrestling.

The Best Match of the Weekend, Leyenda Division: Bryan Danielson vs. Blue Panther

Bryan Danielson is my favorite wrestler, and I've greatly enjoyed his post-WWE run. He's made it clear for years to anyone who would listen that he greatly admired Blue Panther and wanted desperately to wrestle him, and we were served an appetizer when they faced each other at CMLL Homenaje A Dos Leyendas 2024 on March 29. We got the full course when Danielson and Panther wrestled at Super Viernes on April 5, and it was what I, as a Danielson fan, would have wanted from this match. Both men defied age and expectations and challenged each other's technical skills and indomitable wills. Danielson tried to play rudo by hitting the aged Panther with brutal kicks and dives and by showing off with the Santo Escape several times, but Danielson is too delightful for any attendee at Arena Mexico on April 5 to truly despise.

The Best Match of the Weekend, Non-Leyenda Division

The finalists are:

World of Stardom Championship: Maika (c) vs. Megan Bayne (STARDOM: American Dream 2024 in the Keystone State)

Fuminori Abe vs. Takuya Nomura (GCW Presents Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport X)

Matt Makowski vs. Charlie Dempsey (GCW Presents Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport X)

Slim J vs. Adam Priest (ACTION Wrestling & Segunda Caida: DEAN~!!)

Daniel Makabe vs. Timothy Thatcher (ACTION Wrestling & Segunda Caida: DEAN~!!)

Dog Collar Match: Mad Dog Connelly vs. Demus el Demonio (ACTION Wrestling & Segunda Caida: DEAN~!!)

Jordan Oliver vs. Aigle Blanc (JCW & GCW vs. The World)

Limited to what I saw, my pick is Connelly vs. Demus, which was the most fun of these great matches. I was hooting and hollering as they bludgeoned each other with garbage cans, chained fists, and possibly fans, and the experience was heightened by the very game crowd at DEAN~!!.

My second pick would be Maika vs. Megan Bayne, which featured a great story of Maika, usually the bully, finding herself unable to bully the bigger and stronger Bayne. Maika's absurd Michinoku Driver from the second rope on Bayne looked absolutely reckless and devastating, and it felt unique among the many watches from the past week.