A Pay-Per-View event by GCW

I spoke about how I had never seen a Game Changer Wrestling (GCW) show in a previous review, and that was mostly because I somewhat assumed GCW was a strictly deathmatch company. I had seen clips of crazy CZW-like matches and literal backyard wrestling, which made me give it a pass entirely. Then, I noticed waves of great press for the company, and the likes of Josh Barnett, Minoru Suzuki, and Jonathan Gresham had been making appearances. Surely they weren’t just a death match garbage wrestling company?

So, here we are, a double header of shows this weekend to celebrate the New Year Holiday, GCW: Til Infinity and GCW: Die 4 This. My guess is one will be leaning more towards normal wrestling, and one will be heavier in deathmatches? We will find out I suppose. They usually do these double events like this, and honestly it seems expensive to keep up with, but if I end up liking these, I may do more in the future depending on the card. As long as folks aren’t being stabbed with hepatitis needles, I guess I’ll manage through anything!

For anyone wanting to watch this, I would recommend Fite.TV. you can get some FITE credits (10 dollars I believe) with the following code: “6m6lyyn”. I’m sure there are other ways to watch it, but FITE has a solid interface and has been worth it so far. I actually learned you can also use Google Play points to by shows through this app, which was great to find out!

The Card:

• Extreme Title Match: PCO (c) def. Matt Tremont (12:58)
• Tony Deppen def. Cole Radrick (11:55)
• Jimmy Lloyd def. Ho Ho Lun (7:16)
• Jack Cartwheel def. Nick Wayne (13:14)
• Atticus Cogar def. Everett Connors (12:00)
• Tag Team Match: Alex Zayne & Blake Christian def. Dante Leon & Ninja Mack (15:43)
• Dark Sheik def. Colby Corino (12:09)
• Six Man Tag Team Match: The Second Gear Crew (AJ Gray, Effy & Matthew Justice) def. Young Dumb N Broke (Charlie Tiger, Ellis Taylor & Jordan Oliver) (w/ Griffin McCoy) (13:10)
• Six Way Scramble Match: Calvin Tankman def. 1 Called Manders, JJ Garrett, Marcus Mathers, Shane Mercer and Yoya (15:17)
• Allie Katch def. Charli Evans (15:42)
• Death Match: G-Raver def. AKIRA (29:28)

My Thoughts:

As I’ve stated before, my methodology for this is to avoid giving arbitrary star ratings or anything. I usually go through the show and pull a half-dozen or so things that I thought were significant or that I liked. You might think some of my choices are dumb and that’s okay – we all like different things!

Markus Crane Tribute

I truthfully won’t pretend I know who Markus Crane was, with this being my absolute first GCW show after all. Seeing the opening of the show, however, shows he was a very loved portion of the roster and will be missed. GCW created a tribute video, and had the entire roster come down for a “10 bell salute”. Opening the show like this was such a tremendous class act and I give any company props that does this. According to reports, Crane passed away earlier this week after a long fight with a traumatic brain injury he suffered in 2019. RIP man, hope you are at peace.

He’s Not Human!

I know he’s not everyone’s “cup of tea”, but I love me some PCO. I’m always all about true underdogs, and there is no more of an underdog than a disabled 50+ year old wrestler that was somehow blacklisted years ago by Vince and made an astonishing comeback to eventually win a major championship in 2019. I’m not familiar with the storyline behind this hardcore belt his is putting back into play, but the crowd ate it up. Hopefully he can keep the momentum going!

I can’t believe how young this guy is:

I’ve seen some teenagers wrestle at independent shows, and usually they are anything but “good”. When commentary mentioned Nick Wayne being a high school student, I initially cringed, but I’ll be damned if he wasn’t pretty good. If he keeps this up, he’s going to be huge in a few years as he seems to be a natural.

Huh?

You know the feeling you get when you walk into a conversation at an inopportune time? Like right as a raunchy punchline of sorts happens? Perhaps it makes zero sense to you? That’s how I felt here – I have no idea what this gimmick Everett Connors has here, and it caught me off guard. I guess I can’t say I’ve seen it either….? I get the impression he’s like a weird version of Orange Cassidy or something? …………….Huh?

Times are changing!

I’m not part of the LGBT community myself, but I think it’s cool that more wrestlers are coming forward and being themselves rather than staying in hiding their entire careers. Look at Pat Patterson, that dude suffered all sorts of nasty rumors that still persist to this day simply because he was gay at a time when you would likely get killed for being open about it. The way the fans have accepted The Dark Sheik, even after transitioning to being female is refreshing considering we live in a world where idiots still have transphobic signs in the front row of a national wrestling promotion. It seems that making fun of gay and trans people is still peak comedy for some troglodytes. I’ve seen The Dark Sheik on Hoodslam, and it’s cool she is starting to work in other places. Between Effy and Dark Sheik here, and the number of LGBT wrestlers in AEW, times are finally changing, and the fanbase is largely moved away from being racist rednecks threatening to lynch people at shows.

My Match of the Night:

For me, the best match of the entire card was Allie Katch vs. Charli Evans. Katch is one of those wrestlers I’ve seen talked about on everything, especially in PWI Magazine, but aside from a random match on AEW Dark, I’ve never seen her truly wrestle. Evans delivered some pretty crazy blows including a series of German Suplexes that tested Katch’s resilience – with Katch selling a possible injured knee, Katch was still able to dominate the later half of the match, securing the victory. I think I enjoyed this match so much because there was legitimate psychology and selling involved. When Katch finally got her comeback going, it was a great moment. Plus, I can’t anyone doing a Terry Funk Piledriver as a finishing move!

Conclusion:

While not the best wrestling show I’ve ever seen, GCW: Til Infinity was a solid show and has changed my preconceived notions about the company. This show has a solid mix of wrestling and some hardcore antics, and the deathmatches are pretty constrained and don’t veer into gross territory. Perhaps the biggest plus I can think of for this company is the crowd – these fans absolutely love the show and pop for almost every wrestler. It reminds me of old school ECW to a degree simply based on that alone.

My only issue with this show is the length – five hours is a pretty long show, and while I got plenty of value for my money, I can’t imagine watching ten hours of wrestling in one chunk all the time (including the second show). The whole show also seemed like a series of exhibition matches, so I was unaware if any real storylines were taking place in GCW at the moment, although this is likely just my ignorance of the company. I will be watching the other show tomorrow, so check back with me in order to see my views on that, but so far so good. I will definitely get more of these if there is a match I like on the card – hell, I may go back and get those ones with Suzuki and Gresham afterall!