Once again, my intro from a few days ago:
“This year, I’m trying something different on my blog – I’m going through my local professional Wrestling coverage and doing a countdown of the ten (well 11 actually) Kansas City area professional wrestling feuds that I felt deserved some recognition. Since late last year, I have attended nearly THIRTY wrestling shows with my son, and have been blessed to have been there for some of the best professional wrestling I’ve seen in my entire life. As a passionate fan of professional wrestling, delving into the vastly underrated well of local talent and feuds has been a great experience.”
The Countdown so far:
- HM – The Tonys Vs Storm Dior (TSW)
- 10. Bert Candy VS Private Practice (NBW)
- 9. Luke Langley’s Revenge Tour (CSW)
- 8. Shooter Shylynn VS Aminah Belmont (Trailblazer)
- 7. Max Sterling VS Trailblazer Locker Room (Trailblazer)
- 6. Roscoe Leech VS The Premier (CSW)
- 5. Bobby Joe Black VS Salum Gust (Trailblazer)
- 4. The Iceman VS Franco Varga (TSW)
- 3. Dak Draper VS Jeremy Wyatt
Make sure to drop me some comments on either social media or this very post about anything I may have missed, because….well, this sums it up better than I can explain here:
Please don’t be offended if I have seemingly ignored something from a show I have never been to. I sadly don’t get to attend KCXW much at all, for example, so I can’t speak on any shows from them, but that’s something I hope to change. The same goes for a lot of companies in Central Kansas that occasionally come over here (HCW comes to mind). As companies get more of a digital footprint, perhaps this will change as I can keep up with their product online at my leisure. I mostly follow three companies because I don’t really have time to go to every show that comes through; occasionally, I’ll dabble in something like World League Wrestling, but it’s very rare. With that in mind, hopefully everyone enjoys this, and maybe I can see other lists like this from other fans!
Next up is a feud that had been building for a decade and ended in perhaps one of the craziest ways possible.
2. Ace Steel VS Jeremy Wyatt (CSW)
There’s an old quote when it comes to building a house that states: “You can’t build a great building on a weak foundation.” In terms of the wrestling scene in Kansas City, one can look at the work of one particular wrestling stable (Also called The Foundation) as that very same idea in terms of local professional wrestling; that “building” is the wrestling scene as a whole. The Foundation was a fearsome force in some capacity for well over a decade, both in the ring and behind the scenes.
You would be hard pressed to think of any Kansas City wrestling company that was not somehow touched or outright ran by Michael Strider, Jeremy Wyatt, or Ace Steel. Once seen as an unbreakable brotherhood, there are cracks forming that seem to have been testing old allegiances. As any homeowner will tell you, a cracked foundation is not only costly, but it can undermine the entire integrity of the house itself. Something has to give and order has to be restored.
These figurative cracks first started when Ace Steel made his triumphant return to Kansas City at 2022’s Rise of an Outlaw, and shockingly chose to come after his former teammate, Jeremy Wyatt for the DWF Heavyweight Championship. Next, he sided with Brock Anderson (with Arn Anderson) in somewhat of a repeat bout, forcing Wyatt to enlist the hard-as-nails Vic Capri to hopefully ward off his old ally. It appears the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back came at December’s Deal With the Steel IV. Wyatt was up against “The Mile High magnum” Dak Draper for the newly acquired Central States Wrestling Heavyweight Championship, and to his credit, Ace Steel called the match fairly “down the middle” when he was placed in as special guest referee.
I assume Wyatt was looking for special treatment, such as being allowed to use a chair during the match, and Steel definitely did not take kindly to being pushed around. Currently, fans are not privy to what happened backstage, but it appears a there was no choice other than having a “no holds barred” street to (hopefully) end the feud. With Michael Strider stepping in as a friend and impartial judge, he was obviously hoping he could bring sense back into his friends. Flash forward to Violence Begets Violence and fans finally got to see the outcome of this months-long back and forth between the two men.
Perhaps taking a page out of the infamous Cactus Jack versus Terry Funk brawl at Hardcore Heaven 1994, “The Monarch” Jeremy Wyatt and “The Wyatt Slayer” Ace Steel brutalized each other until Jeremy Wyatt once again stood tall as the undisputed “King of Kansas City”. But, to get to that point, things truly got out of hand in Lenexa Kansas! At one point, the match spilled into the crowd, with both men flinging themselves right into the middle of the area where I was sitting. Everyone got up and moved back to allow them to brawl through the chairs.
They fought through the chairs and into the concession area using everything nearby as a weapon. Fun fact: one of them seemingly used chairs used by my son and my friend’s son to inflict damage onto the other in the match. Both men shed blood, laid waste to the ring, broke various weapons (including a barbed-wire baseball bat!) over each other’s heads, and wrecked each other’s bodies in an attempt to finally prove who the big dog in CSW truly is.
There were a couple of moments when I definitely got goosebumps watching the unfolding events – I already talked about the fighting into the crowd, something you always see on old dodgy “burned from a VHS tape” sort of Japanese wrestling DVDs from that era, but I never figured I’d see it live. Cactus and Terry used to almost always do it in their matches, and with both men being in my top five wrestlers of all time, any homage, accidental or not, is something I am going to eat up. Speaking of Hardcore Heaven 1994, there is an iconic spot where all of the rabid ECW fans start hurling chairs into the ring with frantic shouts of “STOP THROWING CHAIRS” echoing over the madness. This is a shot that is on nearly every sizzle reel from that company and is incredibly iconic. I was flabbergasted when a low-key version of that happened at CSW: Violence Begets Violence.
There was a moment in the match when Ace Steel gestured to someone to toss him a chair, to which the fan gladly did. Then he made another arm gesture insinuating he wanted more chairs, to which the crowd gladly followed in spades. Suddenly, chairs began to rain into the ring, one after another, chair after chair flying through the air. I felt bad for the camera guys having to dance around the chaos, especially when kids tried to participate only to through chairs at the floor, and the numerous unconscious referees being buried. “STOP THROWING CHAIRS” was echoing over the loudspeakers, and I think everyone in attendance knew that we had just seen something crazy.
The footage, much like the old ECW footage, is something that I’m sure will be an iconic part of every future CSW video package from now on. What I thought was crazy was that this was not manufactured by the wrestlers, aside from Ace asking for a chair, or done by fans trying to replicate ECW, it seemed spontaneous, making it much cooler.
This was a feud that I don’t think I’ll ever forget.
That’s it for this installment of this series, check back again soon to see who’s next! To keep up with this series, click HERE.
For more pro wrestling content, Click HERE.
For More about Central States Wrestling, check out their Facebook Page HERE, their Twitter page HERE, or YouTube HERE. CSW is also on Cagematch, HERE. If you are a fan, make sure to drop likes, and reviews, or join their social media pages! For more pro wrestling content, Click HERE.
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