There is something surreal about attending a professional wrestling show in a small town park, particularly one that takes place immediately after a downpour. Let me set the stage: Imagine the smell of the average wrestling show. Now picture it taking place in a mud soaked park, the air heavy with residual moisture, and the persistent scent of fried foods mingling with hot humid wrestling fans. This was the setting for “Appalachian Championship Wrestling: First Friday Fights 2024,”

First Friday is a great event we have, in Ashland, Kentucky, during the summer months. It takes place, funnily enough, on the first Friday of every month. There’s a cruise-in with classic cars, inflatables for the kids, local vendors, food trucks, and a main attraction. This is usually a musical performance, but has been other things like circus acts, carnival rides and games etc. This month the main attraction is wrestling and the community is honestly pretty excited for it. Multiple non wrestling fans have asked me about what exactly would be taking place at First Friday.

Appalachian Championship Wrestling mainly runs shows in West Virginia, but also runs Eastern Kentucky a couple times of year. I’ve talked about them on this site in the past. Their main venue is a Buffalo Wild Wings, so a water logged Central Park, in Ashland Kentucky, doesn’t seem that strange. The vast majority of their shows are free and then end up on YouTube so I’m honestly a fan of how they run things.

The Pre-Show

There were plenty of booths with local vendors and lots of people I knew. I ignored all that and ate. The very first thing I did was buy a shrimp shawarma bowl and it was delicious. I made a beeline for the food truck the second I got there. I planned on getting a picture of for this write up, but it did not last that long. My nephew started off the evening with a bowl of chocolate ice cream, after I said he could eat and drink whatever he wanted tonight. Before the show began it poured rain on and off. The ring announcer would helpfully announce “it’s gotta stop sometime.” Miraculously it did stop in enough time to start the show at 7pm. The poor referee was squeegeeing the mat and running a wash cloth over the ropes up until the 

The Opening Bell

The show started off like every indie wrestling show and every event, really, in Appalachia, with the national anthem. Now there was no one singing it. It was an audio recording of an instrumental version. Also several people seemed to be looking around for a flag dispute there being none. With that out of the way it was time for wrestling.

Match Number One

The evening’s first bout featured Zaiden Kayne versus Gen Z, a contest that set the tone for the night. This is what we were getting. Zaiden, clearly the more experienced wrestler, was a crowd favorite. I’m unfamiliar with Gen Z and he seems very young so I’ll just say he needs some work. This was sloppy at times, but it’s a wet ring with a young wrestler. What can you really expect? They also both briefly worked heelish before deciding to have a respectful face vs face match. Kayne got the win and held up Gen Z’s hand afterwards to light applause.

Disconcerting Chants

The next match pitted Suicide against Canaan Kristopher. Canaan comes out and is immediately hated by the fans. My nephew called him “if a McChikcen was a man.” I can’t articulate what that means, but I can tell you it’s spot on. I’m far from the first person to mention this, but there is a distinct dissonance in hearing children chant “Suicide! Suicide!” with unbridled enthusiasm. The match itself was competent, if a little boring, culminating in a victory for Canaan via the classic heel tactic of pulling the tights. The woman next to me with anywhere from 3 to 5 children in tow exclaimed “oh so this is one of those shows where people are just gonna cheat and whatnot.” I’m fascinated by the idea that she’s been to a wrestling show with zero heels cheating.

As for a concession check in my nephew grabbed a Kona Ice and I drank a Cherry Pepsi. 

Funny Equals Mone

Jason Hendrix and Gorgeous Gregory, collectively known as the Scranton Stranglers, faced off against Mika and Corey Sparks. The Stranglers’ enter to the Pink Panther theme song with scarves over their heads. They threaten, no promise, to strangle everyone in attendance. They wanted to start with the elderly and the smallest children. Which say what you will, seems like a solid strategy. Their ability to rile up the crowd through stalling and mic work was great. This was the best part of the show, save the shrimp shawarma, up until this point. They had the fans in attendance screaming things I don’t feel comfortable printing. On the other side, Mika, trained by Jason Kincaid, showcased the disparity between Kincaid’s in-ring prowess and his training abilities. Sadly she might have been the better worker on her team. The Stranglers steal the victory with some legal men shenanigans and pulling of the tights. 

This was the portion of the evening where my nephew and I split a double smash burger and I regretted sharing it. It had a cheese sauce on it that was amazing. The Food Truck is from over an hour away and I promise I’m going to have this burger again in the future. I’ll be dreaming about it tonight. 

Slippery When Wet 

Up next was The “Rydas,” The Juggulator and Trik Nasty against The Working Class, of Shane Kryzak and Bishop Baylor. The Juggulator is a hometown favorite, hailing from L.A, aka Lower Ashland. Trik Nasty was announced as “heading to the ring straight from your momma’s house.” This hurt because if my mom was still alive, Trik Nasty was unfortunately, most certainly her type.  This match was notable not for the wrestling action, but for the Juggulator versus the wet mat. The rain had left the surface slick, and this is the first match where the wrestlers really struggled to maintain their footing. He couldn’t stay standing to save his life. Whether on offense or taking the heels offense he was falling down. The awkwardness of the situation was captured perfectly by a nearby mother’s whispering, “this is embarrassing.” as she looked toward the ground.  Despite this, the hometown hero, The Juggulator, emerged victorious, a triumph overshadowed by the mishaps.

Scrambled Chaos

6-Pack Scramble for the  ACW Super H Championship:  ACW Super Hybrid Champion

Marino Tenaglia vs Hardway Halloway vs Bruce Grey vs Eric Taylor vs Brandon Lee

The 6-Pack scramble was chaos. Marino Tenaglia defended his ACW Super H Championship in a 6 pack scramble against a field that notably only included five competitors. This numerical oddity went unexplained. It was announced several times as a six pack challenge including immensely after only announcing five wrestlers. The match featured a blend of familiar faces from AIW out of Cleveland, Marino, Taylor, and Hardway, adding a layer of personal nostalgia. ACW uses a lot of AIW guys. Joshua Bishop is their champion. Sadly Josh canceled on this show for “a scheduling conflict” Which is a bummer, because I’m a Josh Bishop Guy, but it’s hard to get too upset over a lineup change on a free show. I’m from the tri-state, but actually spent the majority of my life in Cleveland. It’s so funny to me that of all the places AIW could use as a pseudo developmental territory it’s here in Appalachia. I can’t escape John Thorne.

This was a blast. The face wrestlers were bringing over the heels and holding them for young fans to chop. My nephew was with me and while young(he’s 11) he’s also a solid 5 foot 5 inches and 175 pounds. He’s not a small boy and he murdered Eric Taylor with a chop and almost hit him in the face with a second one. Later in the match when the wrestlers brawled off into the inflatables, my nephew chased after them, faster than I’ve ever seen him run on a basketball court, as if to join in the fray. He was too fast and it was too far away for me to see. For all I know he was briefly the sixth man in the scramble. Marino retained his title in a match that was most assuredly not a “good match,” but was definitely a good time. 

The Heel and the Trash

Caleb Konley’s defended his ACW Bluegrass Championship against Ron Mathis I’ve seen people online this evening weirdly guard the secret that Caleb Konley is under the mask in the Suicide gimmick. I guess I’m a kayfabe breaker because I told my nephew and he was very confused. Mostly because Suicide seemed so nice and “Caleb is an asshol(his words not mine) This was fine. Lots of heel tactics by Caleb. Lots of fans chanting “trash! Trash! Trash!” To support Ron. Caleb cheats to win, but after the match Ron leads us into chants of “Caleb sucks!”

After this match my nephew bought a lemonade and cotton candy and I had to regrettably be an adult and tell him despite my early laissez faire attitude I think that enough trips to the food trucks.

The Real Fast 1

The Real1 aka Enzo Amore and Cowpoke Paul vs The Franchise Players of Chris Cannon and Nick Hamrick

This was originally supposed to be a six man tag with Bruce Grey teaming with Enzo and Paul and Shane Douglas on the Franchise Players. I don’t know if it stayed a six man if Bruce Grey would’ve done double duty or if the 6 way match with 5 wrestlers would’ve only featured 4 wrestlers, but Shane Douglas wasn’t there for whatever reason, so it was a tag match. The Franchise Players seem kind of pointless without Shane. They’re accompanied to the ring by Andy Richard(aka A. Dick,) Betty D, and a third manager with a tracheostomy. Betty seems bored. A. Dick screamed at children and the third guy, well he had a big hole in his neck. It was pretty dire in my section.

This match was not great! But Enzo said his catchphrase, called Cowpoke Paul a future cash cow, and got his hot tag and won the match 2 Minutes later.

Enzo’s charisma and Cowpoke Paul’s potential shone through, but the match was lackluster. The evening concluded not with a grand finale, but with a sense of hurried departure as I and many others immediately packed up our chairs and headed home. 

There’s not a single thing I can recommend any human watch when this show goes up on YouTube, but at the same time it was a great night. Wrestling doesn’t have to be great to be a great time. Heck it was even “good” wrestling. Lively fans, a tight 2 hour runtime, and lots of food trucks are a sure fire recipe to a great evening for me. It was a Real1.

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I can never seem to make it to live shows anymore. “Real life” is always getting in the way. I’m going to try and make it to more ACW shows, this year, so if anyone if making it out to any of these reach out to me or say, what’s up, at the show.