ECWA: 45th Anniversary

Photo courtesy of ECWA

This post won't be about results, good guys beating bad guys (or vice versa), but rather about the independent experience. It is that small arena, intimate setting, where you hope to see guys give it their all to entertain the crowd experience we are looking for. Just like walking into a minor league baseball stadium, you hope to catch a glimpse of a star of tomorrow. Take in a memory where you can look back and say, "I knew him back when..."

ECWA recently had their 45th anniversary show, September 15, 2012. The organization is the oldest independent professional wrestling company in the United States. We had a great time at the show. So at a minor league baseball game, they have some crowd participation activities. ECWA brought that to the wrestling arena. First was a giveaway to date a wrestler. Pretty cool idea in which the lucky lady gets a free meal and transportation on her night out with an ECWA wrestler. The next event in which the audience got involved was a lumberjack match where random fans were chosen as the lumberjacks. This concept is really great to get fans in on the action. There were 12 (maybe 11 as one seemed to be a plant) chosen to surround the ring, got involved with tossing wrestlers back in the ring and even carried a heel to the ring from the back. Overall the show provided everything a wrestling fan needs, heels, babyfaces, comedy, crowd work and even a storyline reveal.

Now the actual wrestling. Besides the lumberjack match which was the comic relief, there was some great displays of wrestling put on. As wrestling historians, we loved seeing Tony Mamaluke (@newyorkwrestler). If you remember Tony was part of the FBI from the ECW days, which brought back some good memories. Tag team championship match, Fusion DS (@STBDamianDragon & @SaigonXspecial) vs The Sons of Blackheart, aka The Midnight Sensations (@TMSShields & @RockwellCPR), was a good length, some good spots and had an intriguing story line twist which we mentioned earlier with the unmasking of The Sons of Blackhearts to reveal they were really The Midnight Sensations. Don't get us wrong, other great performances were put on throughout the night but want to move onto the main event.

Greek God Papadon (@greekgodpapadon), who is the top guy in the ECWA, gives you the feeling that this guy will get called up to the majors at some point. He has skills on the mic, works aggressively in the ring and has a great persona. As a performer, he is cocky, arrogant and oozes a disdain for the fans. But before the show he was out front, selling his shirts (pretty nice looking, yeah we picked one up), interacting with fans and seems to be a pretty nice guy. Papadon was ranked 223 by PWI which seems way too low. We are hoping we can look back and take some pride in knowing we saw Papdon wrestle before he was huge. Papadon ended the night losing his championship belt to Chris Wylde (@TheChrisWylde) who held his own to make for an entertaining match.

We enjoyed our night at ECWA and they are doing independent wrestling right. It was a great, fan friendly atmosphere where families can share a night out together. Make sure you support independent wrestling.