A Pay-Per-View by GCW

Continuing on with my somewhat ill-advised attempt to “catch up” on professional Wrestling shows from Game Changer Wrestling, we are time traveling back to late February of this year for that company’s very own Valentine’s Day themed show. The main draw of this show is the long-awaited return of Sean “X PAC” Waltman to professional wrestling for what he has been billing as his last run. Weeks prior to this show he confronted Matt Cardona in the Hammerstein Ballroom to signify both that he wasn’t done with wrestling, and he wasn’t going to sit there and watch The Major Players rub their win in everybody’s faces. He was in Joey Janela’s corner at that show, at this time it is Janella’s turn to return the favor. So, what exactly is the heartbreak? We’re about to find out!

This company always groups their shows together in small groups, with this show being the counterpart to another one called The Coldest Winter, both are available separately on fite.TV or as a combo pack which can save you some money.

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.

The Card:

• The Briscoes (Jay Briscoe & Mark Briscoe) defeated Jacob Fatu & Juicy Finau in a tag team match via pinfall.
• Blake Christian defeated Nick Wayne in a singles match via pinfall.
• Tony Deppen defeated Kevin Blackwood in a singles match via pinfall.
• Mike Bailey defeated Ninja Mack in a singles match via pinfall.
• AJ Gray(c) defeated ACH via pinfall to retain GCW Extreme Title.
• Dr Wagner Jr. defeated Homicide in a singles match via pinfall.
• Second Gear & Friends(Gringo Loco, Allie Katch, Mathew Justice & Dark Sheik) defeated Team Reefer(Jordan Oliver, Jack Cartwheel, Grim Reefer & Jimmy Llyod) in a tag team match via pinfall.
• Joey Janela & X-Pac defeated The Major Players (Brian Myers & Matt Cardona) in a tag team match via pinfall.

My Thoughts:

As I’ve stated before, my methodology for this is to avoid giving arbitrary star ratings or anything resembling the typical ratings people give in wrestling reviews. 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!

X-PAC

This show opens with a nifty little video where Sean “X-PAC” Waltman is seen talking about how he tries to have his finger on the proverbial pulse of what younger wrestling fans think is cool. He mentions that he knows a lot of people that look down at modern wrestling as something that isn’t the same as what they did, but he knows to stay relevant you can’t do that. He talks about how excited he is to be wrestling again and how much he likes. While this speech somewhat comes across like some kind of paid advertisement, I have no doubt that Mr. Waltman believes a lot of this because we do see him talking a lot about modern wrestling, more so than a lot of his friends. Cool little promo overall.

Some of the best of MLW:

I was actually somewhat surprised to see Jacob Fatu on this show, as I was under the impression he was contracted solely to MLW. Fatu is one of those guys that no matter who he’s up against he always can have a hell of a match and generally steals the show. Another MLW mainstay, ACH is also on this show later on.

Oh, dear God!

Every single time I see a wrestling show start to set something like this up I cringe. I mean, in WWE or  AEW Stunts like this are generally dealt with by way of having a stunt coordinator setup crash pads or something that are conveniently hidden inside of whatever is getting fallen onto. Indy shows, however, are known for having stuff like this in front of small crowds that routinely maims any participant that has come up with this idea. I have seen more than one complete and utter debacle on BotchaMania than what I care to have ever seen. Thankfully, this 10 foot fall seems to have been performed well and it does not appear that anyone was hurt. Please be careful guys.

The Doctor is in!

I don’t have much to say here other than I am always a mark for when Doctor Wagner Jr. hits the scene. The moment that Bon Jovi’s “Bad Medicine” starts playing over the Ukrainian Cultural Center’s loudspeakers, I knew I was in for a treat.

Don’t F with the rental chairs!

This is more of an observation than anything, but I found it absolutely hilarious that at one point the commentary talks about how there’s a general decree at any show that “you don’t F with the rental chairs!”. Brett Lauderdale, the owner of the company, doesn’t want to deal with replacing chairs at these venues, and seeing that this particular venue had some sort of kitchen table-styled wooden furniture, I’m sure it would be expensive. From that point on, in literally every single match, somebody was sent into the crowd landing on top of like 10 of these chairs. I’m not sure how many they broke, but I found it absolutely hilarious.

The Heart break:

So what was the heartbreak? Joey Janella, said to be the heart and soul of this very company, turns heel on his tag team partner, Sean “X-PAC” Waltman after their match earning a chorus of loud Boos and jeering from the crowd. He’s got some explaining to do!

Conclusion:

GCW: Welcome to Heartbreak was a solid show that had just about a little bit of everything for everybody. I think the only downside I could find with the show is that a lot of the matches had an exhibition quality to them, and there aren’t honestly too many storylines going on in any particular time in this company. I often poke fun at the fact that they always have things like scramble matches or 8 to 10 man tag matches to make sure that everybody has something to do on a show, but I honestly really wish they had more storylines overall. That said, there wasn’t really a bad match on the show, and it was generally one of the better put together shows they have done for a while. Join me again next time for yet another notch being dug into my backlog, here’s hoping I can catch up pretty soon!