Intro post to understand why we are doing this.

Field of Dreams takes place at the Field of Dreams Sport Complex in Utica, NY on August 18th, 2006. Features the first of many time meetings of 2 Cold Scorpio and Slyck Wagner Brown. We continue ranking each of these matches in the full context of 2CW history.

12. JD Love & ZS3 vs. Jason Axe & King Kong Bundy

King Kong Bundy putting on an all-time performance. A pantheon of “Former WWE Guy Doing As Little As Possible At Your Local Indie”. My guy, KKB, not only takes zero bumps, he doesn’t officially enter the match until the last 30 seconds. It is called WORKING!

Calling this 10 minutes of Jason Axe getting his ass beat would be a disservice to ass beatings. JD Love needs to get out of this tag team immediately which I will spoil and say this team lasts more than a show. Funniest part of the match is that team hitting the Kings of Wrestling Big Swing x Dropkick

11. Johnny Law vs. Steve King

A contract on a pole match. If Steve grabs it, he’s officially a member of the 2CW roster.

Steve has the type of body that alone gives vague “Oh probably a pro wrestler” vibes. And that is what the match has going for it. Johnny Law might be the worst wrestler in the company. Was hoping to find some factor he does well to not totally shit on the guy, but that ain’t happening.

They love to lean into Law loving donuts. Comes to the ring with donuts, jaw jacks with fans holding donuts, etc..

So we start out with both dudes having the look in their eyes like they want to kill each other. The finish though is a joke about how cops love donuts. That is the whole thing. Steve bates Johnny Law to dive onto a box of donuts and eat his little heart out. The issue is, the donuts were always there. There was no reason for Law to care about the donuts that he brought to the ring except that Steve decided to wave one in front of his face. Dumb as all hell. The crowd chants 2-C-W for the finish and I want to shake them until their brains start working.

8. All Money is Legal (K Pusha, K Murda, Dizzie) vs. Killer Steves (Studly Steve McKenzie & Mr. One Night Stand Steve Kruz) & Dynamite Derek Stevenson

Before the match the ring announcer says the rules. A fan shouts at him “I don’t understand”. In his infinite wisdom to make the promotion look good he says, “I don’t either, just sit down and enjoy the match”. Impeccable stuff.

It isn’t that complicated. It is a best two out of three series. Importantly, not an elimination, there are no tags. Just three potential matches treated as one. Except sometimes teammates can interfere like it is a tag match. See…simple.

AMIL and Killer Steves ,currently as of this match, own the worst 2CW match of all-time. Does this beat that? Yes but only because I think Kruz shows his ass off in a pink thong in particularly good fashion. If there is one thing 2CW will do is make sure you can laugh at a man’s nearly bare ass.

In the grand scheme it feels meaningless to point out, but the best wrestling comes out of the Dizzie and Dynamite Derek section. The two wrestlers who aren’t full-fledged members of either team (even if Dizzie was part of the worst match in 2CW history thus far). Dizzie has these jabs to start that feel legit. Not many folks in 2CW thus far I would say have good punches. And I probably wouldn’t say Dizzie is a good puncher, but he can do good punches on occasion. Which ain’t nothing.

7. Loca Vida vs. Ajax820

Opener and the sound was absolutely terrible. Luckily was not laying the expectations for the rest of the show.

Once again they go at it, a rematch from last show. They manage to put together a dryer piece of work than last time. Not trying to do TEW references constantly for these two, but last show they had the “All Out” road agent note, this one because it is an opener it gets the “Work The Crowd” note. No big move hits, the biggest pops from the crowd either comes off a pin trade sequence or both wrestlers missing a pedestrian top rope move. Ajax eventually counters a flying crossbody for three…who cares though.

4. Violet Flame vs. A Fan

The second good match in 2CW history!

The most impressive part of this match is they managed to not make it super sexist which given the future history of the promotion, quite a surprise. That is the kind of low hanging fruit that the promotion and the fans are known for.

Getting ahead of myself.

Violet Flame, 2CW’s resident women’s wrestler has an open challenge. A large fat fan in gym shorts is pulled from the crowd to accept the challenge. He looks like the platonic ideal of a wrestling fan. It is not a small part of the charm.

They manage to do two important things here to make it work 1) don’t turn Violet Flame into a super hero who can crush a person 5x their size and 2) make Violet Flame look like the clear pro wrestler who never feels like in any real danger. That is a thin line to walk and they kill it! You get Flame tossed with all the violence you would expect from a woman-hating drunk fan. Then she gets to show he’s not in her league with a bulldog that feels like it has concussive properties. It is a god damn SHOOT!

3. Isys Ephex vs. Gordy Wallace

Two shows in but Isys has confirmed his status as the DVD Seller in 2CW. The promotions that people remember from 2006 had a plethora of DVD Sellers. Ring of Honor and CZW didn’t need to have someone that they could count on in that way. Good wrestlers simply were there. A place like 2CW and AIW, regional promotions with bigger egos, there needs to be at least one or two folks that would make people want to watch the DVD that couldn’t make it to the show. Someone you might throw in against a top indie name you budgeted out to book. People aren’t buying tickets for JD Love or The Duke, but they do love to boo them in person. Isys though? He puts on matches you want to watch back.

Up against Gordy, who you just know Gordy is a big Bubba Ray Dudley fan. I swear I’m not just saying that because he does the Bubba punches. The way he bumps like a goofball, enjoys some good meandering crowd brawling, he gets it.

Having been to the Field of Dreams venue, I manage to picture how the crowd brawling stuff worked once we got outside of view. And we leave the cameras quickly, honestly hard to know it happened. The only giveaway is the crowd poured into an opening in the back. Unless they shouted free pizza, I’m assuming it was the wrestling that had them moving with a quickness.

It is when they get back to the ring, Isys “The Little Things” Ephex gets to show out a bit. This spot where Isys gets out of a bodyslam, puts his knee the small of Gory’s back so he can do a neckbreaker, is a big time Little Thing That Is Very Showy. A spot for the audience at home because I can’t imagine the “Wish They Were At ECW” audience members to care.

Not only about doing small touches, Isys manages some wild strokes(;)). Biggest one is probably an Asai Moonsault Senton that goes in slow motion and ends with his head pointed straight on the ground. A bold move that had me hooting and hollering.

There is a lot of moves coming out of unexpected places for the rest of the duration. Gordy catching this handspring crossbody into a thicc bodyslam. Put a little stank on it. You’ve got Isys goes from a neckbreaker to Sliced Bread #2 DDT that is so much cooler than painful. While the match paints Isys as the more skilled, more tools in his tool box, Gordy ain’t dealing with just a hammer even when if push comes to shove that is what he’s going to use to solve his problems.

1. 2 Cold Scorpio vs. Slyck Wagner Brown

Congrats to the new #1 wrestling match in 2CW. 2CW stands for 2 Cold Wrestling. That anything? Leave me a Like and a Comment to let me know.

A match so good that Scott Keith had to blog about it.

As far as 2CW lore goes, this is probably the most prominent match series that isn’t based on a viral video. At least this early on in the company. One of the all-time great wrestlers, it is important to these 2CW freaks that he’s an ECW guy, against what they can morph in their brains as the next 2 Cold Scorpio. I’m assuming at least a little bit of a microaggression there, but…what can you do.

For a regional indie, these are the types of matches promotions are built on. Sure, it has to be a certain quality, but you can’t start your Pantheon of Promotional Matches, with local talent typically. Even if they lose their luster as promotion’s grow and form an identity, these are the matches that ground those conversations among the fans of the promotion. When Bryan Danielson got released from WWE, he put on a shit ton of these types of matches, including in 2CW. Good in their own right, but importantly the known quantity against one of the promotions’ own. Fans love to say their wrestlers can hang. Most fans probably don’t give a shit about Tim Donst versus Danielson but AIW fans give many shits. Maybe too many.

Scorp had seven matches in 2CW. Five were against Slyck Wagner Brown. Part of me wishes we got Scorp against other folks on the roster, getting him against Eddie Edwards, Jay Freddie, John Walters, or even Brodie Lee would have been a hoot and a half. You only get so many bites at the apple.
The other part has to give it up to the booking committee being so dialed in on the myth making. Because they put so much focus into this match-up after it delivered, each one has a little bit more juice than it has any right to.

The match itself is something I would use if I wanted to tell you that 2 Cold Scorpio was the best wrestler on the planet in 2006. Not a thought I had before watching this, but not opposed to the idea one bit after. Slyck was not entirely dragged kicking and screaming, but I never had “Wow, I can’t believe I get to see two equally talented wrestlers go at it” drop into my brain.

I say that, but also SWB does the stupidest/coolest Asai Moonsault over the guardrail. It happens fairly early into thing, it is the piece that locks you in. No shade to Scorp, in 2006 he wasn’t going to be able to pull that off. Every other moment is lifted by it being 2 Cold, but sometimes you need the young kid to throw out the spot that will pop the crowd.

That is the clear highlight you can latch onto. That is the singular moment that screams in your face. And also happens to give way to the least interesting part of the bout. A standard walk-and-brawl, not something either of these dudes is all that good at.

It doesn’t last forever and when they get back to the ring, it is clear to understand why Scorp is so special. Every strike gives you a jolt of energy. And he doesn’t need to get into a slug fest. One moment SWB has his knee in Scorp’s back and next he’s thwacking him with both feet. There are less than a couple handfuls of wrestlers that could make that believable. Almost no one can get enough force. It is him, Low Ki, Koji Kanemoto, and…I don’t know. Other folks lack the athleticism to pull it off, they have to coil themselves before unleashing. All Scorp needs is a bit of daylight and he can concuss someone. Which it does seem like might have done with one of the Koppou kicks he lands. Love 2 Cold Scorpio with all my heart.

Towards the end of things, you see SWB develop a strategy around the stretch muffler, going after the leg. It isn’t the most compelling piece of business you could imagine, but when the mechanics aren’t compelling, I can at least get behind the broad strokes. Layer in that Scorp has fun, nasty little ways to get out of things. It doesn’t ultimately lead to a finish that ties it all together, which I guess is the other disappointment outside of the random bit of crowd brawling.

After the match wraps up, there is a checkbox aspect things. You open with chain wrestling, the big high spot, crowd brawling, finish up with some technical wrestling, into some “You Still Got It” type flying from Scorp. The parts don’t fit smoothly together. I know plenty of folks who consider that a sin of a match. To me, if the individual parts can stand up, the whole thing doesn’t necessarily need to crumble. No part undoes what comes before even if neither is it building on each other.

So on one hand, the check boxing, pandering. On the other hand, 2-C-Fn-Dubya. Give it up to the 2006 WOTY 2 Cold Scorpio