Getting it out of the way upfront, this is the worst 2CW show yet. And I think by a healthy margin. This show takes place at the Pastime Athletic Center in Syracuse, NY on September 16, 2006

17. Isys Ephex vs. Spike Dudley

A confounding dog collar match. I was reading reviews of this show and multiple times this match was referred to as “quick”. Completely delusional people talking about this near 30 minute match as a tight piece of business.

Didn’t I feel like a dumb ass when I checked, and this match is around 10 minutes. That should be a breeze. It is a little brawl. You are in and out. Yet, gun to my head, I would have told you this match clocked in at minimum 23 minutes. No questions asked. Part of that I imagine is I did watch the pre-match to it all. Tremendously dull stuff. 2CW seems to do this a lot, where the “big” matches get these lengthy entrances and bullshitting around before the bell rings. This is damn near 10 minutes of that before it officially starts. There is a whole ass announcement that Isys has put on the collar. Not a familiar part of the dog collar process, and it doesn’t even matter because when Isys starts attacking Spike before the bell, no collar on. What are we even doing? What is the point of any of it?

The actual “action” is an ECW house show walk-n-brawl with a past his prime former ECW wrestler and a local talent who I like a lot but can’t juice the goose here. The issue besides being plodding is I can’t say what they did was “wrong”, crowd was eating it up. They even did a spot or two that made me raise my eyebrows (positively), but it all came off very “workers, working”. Which is to say, lots of milking every moment you can. It doesn’t matter, if on tape those moments don’t carry the same outside of the venue. Any potential criticism is brushed aside with a “the crowd was into it, brother”. It is a smarter way to work in the same way that Kane is a smart worker.

16. Violet Flame vs. A Fan

An open challenge but actually a rematch from the Field of Dreams match.

On one hand, still manages to not fall into all the intergender trappings possible. On the other, doesn’t convey Violet Flame as the same level of tenacious competitor. There is a whole sequence where Petey From Utica keeps tossing Flame off him during a pin, the referee catches her, and then puts her back on Petey. Hard to work with such a stupid gag that also makes one of your few women’s wrestler part of the punchline. At least it wasn’t based solely on her being a woman.

10. Dan Dynasty & Dynamite Derek Dynasty vs. The Killer Steve

No official name for Dan Dynasty & Dynamite Derek, so will refer to them as 4D from now on. No idea if they will team again so no idea if I’ll get to use the genius name.

Dan against Isys from Salina Street Shakedown was the first official good match in 2CW history, and now manages to give the Steves their best match yet. And for that I do believe we should consider him an early 2CW legend. Bless him.

One spot (look below) is so dumb and beautiful and the type of thing to elevate what could just be a slog.

9. Tony Atlas & Gordy Wallace vs. ZS3 & JD Love

Compared to the performance that King Kong Bundy put in last show, Tony Atlas is out here looking like Kenta Kobashi. Willing to take some bumps, work underneath. Not going to win you any awards but it might be my favorite performance thus far from a former major company wrestler. Sorry Spike, and I guess sorry to Steve King who used to work squashes in WWF.

8. Steve King vs. Johnny Law

The second best match on the show is a donuts eating contest. I wish things could be better.

I had to ask an impartial third party, “If 2CW had an arm wrestling match, should I be ranking it?” For some reason I thought this would be less embarrassing than actually asking about this competition. The verdict, of course, was yes, it would make the entire ranking system a farce to not include.

Like all half decent competition angles, it should be almost entirely bullshit. From tip to taint, tomfoolery. And hot damn, is that what this whole thing is. Let me work you through the high spots:

• Johnny puts half of his donuts into King’s donuts box while the referee is checking for foreign objects
• Johnny uses a paper napkin and plastic silverware to start eating his food
• The best spot in the whole thing is Steve King starting choke. Nothing makes you believe Johnny Law caused this. Even in a fair contest, King is going to get his ass whooped if he can’t down a few donuts without nearly dying. You have to be better than that.
• While the referee is choking on the man who is on death’s door, Law starts tossing donuts into the crowd willy nilly.

That is essentially the whole thing. It is incredibly dumb. 2-See-Dub

6. Dizzie vs. Slyck Wagner Brown

Terribly difficult to write about the match that had the TEW agent notes of “All Out” and “Have a Great Match” but only manages to be fine. Difficult because it is also the best match on the show. I would hope I could walk away going “Ah, the sole bright spot on this show was two wrestlers who would have an extended history with one another”. Unfortunately, only the second half of that statement holds up. The most exciting part is that commentary calls out a fictitious New York Giants and New England Patriots rivalry which would in fact become true. Go Big Blue.

The piece of SWB against 2 Cold Scorpio I kept going to was the moment-to-moment. You can work through a lazy layout when the skin-to-skin contact hits. Well, now you see what happens when that’s not all the way there.

If you want to grasp onto Dizzie as your local (which he would not be local) upstart versus the Boston-based wrestler who has worked the biggest indie in the country, maybe this works for you. Slyck essentially works as the traveling star, even though he’s a 2CW regular, against the local product, even though he is the same distance away as SWB. At every step you feel Slyck is the better wrestler than Dizzie. Nothing happens to dissuade you of that. Again, if you are a 2CW fan, maybe that idea is enough to get the hooks in. But if you not someone to get particularly invested in the homegrown product, and it is 20 years later, that doesn’t play.