The Rassle Review: GCW Homecoming 2023 Night 2

When I first began my time on the wild world of the internet back in 2004, the first thing I looked into was what kind of wrestling communities were on it. I found myself obsessed with a website called the Death Valley Driver Video Review Boards, DVDVR for short. Most of the minds in wrestling today were on those boards and it really began what people know the IWC as today. So in that vain, in the midst of social  media becoming more and more toxic and divided I decided to put together a little piece of the internet that reminds me of those days. Here's my musings on the GCW Homecoming Night 2 show from August, something I intended to cover on my Troubles with Weekly Wrestling podcast but it was hard to fit in. I hope you all enjoy and spread this kind of thing.

GCW Homecoming Night 2

Brayden Toon vs Tony Deppen

I love Deppen being the little douchebag of GCW. Toon is completely unknown to me until now and I’d say he’s definitely new to the game which is fine. Deppen uses this as a way to get over he’s a mean fuck and it works. Snot rockets are not ok. I was pretty impressed with Toon by the end of this as he’s a big man that’s also agile, doing a pretty great swanton and shit near the end. Of course this ends with Deppen being vicious to win because fuck you! 

The Brat Pack(Mathers, Finlay, Starboy Charlie, and Leon Slater) vs Thrunt(Sawyer Wreck, Allie Katch, Dark Sheik, and Effy)

More of the usual GCW muti person craziness. I got more goodness from Slater here and I’m all about him now, he’s gonna be a star on TV someday soon. The Brats basically play fodder for the super over Thrunt team especially Sawyer who feels like their rising star right now. Sheik is honestly not good at wrestling. This breaks down into a super fun lucha style tag though with The Brats throwing out all the offense imaginable on Thrunt because Thrunt gets beaten…oh god. Slater does a Swanton 450 and it’s a thing of beauty. As usual though, Sawyer demolishes and her team gets the win.

B3CCA vs Maki Itoh

Anytime it’s Itoh or someone else, it’s always Itoh. Tokyo Joshi’s own has been all over the US indies as of late and has been doing a great job getting over. As cringe as a lot of what she does is B3CCA is really good at old school heat seeking with the taunting and shit. Good stuff and I feel like AEW needs someone like her in their division that’s dryer than Death Valley. This was super good though, better than I expected in fact. Itoh throws out a fucking insane El Paso Lasso kind of submission for the win here, man has Itoh gotten better!

Komander vs Dragon Kid

When I first saw this card, this was the match that stood out to me, I’ve been a huge mark for Dragon Kid since the early 2000s Dragon Gate days and Komander has become a big favorite of mine in recent days thanks to GCW and of course now ROH/AEW. From the first bell, this was lucha greatness. You get all the lucha rolls, kip ups into drop kicks, and wild headscissors your heart could desire and maybe even some fucking choice lucha mat work too. Komander has really added some viciousness to his repertoire as well here smacking Dragon Kid around a little since for once he’s the bigger wrestler in a match. Dragon Kid decides fuck this I’m using my speed and technical skills to just get Komander worn down and stretched. He throws on a wild looking Trailer Hitch circa 2002 Jamie Noble and everything. Komander recuperates and launches Dragon with a dropkick followed up with his fucking mental rope walk corkscrew tope to the floor but Dragon won’t stay down. Komander gets a mexican surfboard hold on and it ends nasty with a weird break that tweaks both guys’ knees. They fight through it though and keep the momentum. Dragon with the spinning hurricanrana cradle but it’s not enough!??! This follows with some wild spinning kicks back and forth into a torture rack rib buster for another 2. Komander hits a solid Michinoku Driver and ascends into his rope walk Shooting Star for the win! Huge win for Komander’s career and Dragon showed he still has it. 

GCW World Championship

Blake Christian(c) vs Masha Slamovich

This is THE match going into the show for GCW with the huge backstory of Christian fucking over Masha for the title back at Cage of Survival and Masha has done nothing but gain wins and momentum going into this match. Shout out to Christian for doing the John Cena walk through the aisle as fans scream at him just holding up the title belt, great throwback there. Masha dropkicks Christian before the bell and starts beating his fucking ass. Kicks to the fucking face and everything, sending him on the outside and he’s not at all interested in this fight. Here comes the ECW crowd brawl and it’s fun as hell. Eye of the Storm on the fucking apron to Masha is pretty scary shit. There’s a classic moment with a fan in a mobility scooter where i can only describe it as Santa Claus drunkenly failing to box Christian and almost hitting Masha. Amazing. This was so good and a great example of the non-deathmatch GCW being tremendous. Ref bump goes down and Christian is all smiles of course. He grabs the belt and it’s time to get an easy win it seems but out comes Masha’s fiancé Akira! He drops Christian with a suplex and takes the title belt and smacks Masha on accident! Christian takes him out with a kick and it’s springboard 450 and it still isn’t enough! Akira holds Christian from hitting a curb stomp and Masha slaps on the rear naked choke! Christian finds the rope but gets dragged back into the middle of the ring, going out fast. Steph de Lander drags the ref out though and is in the ring with a chair face to face with Masha. She swings the chair but nails Akira in the head with a sick shot but it’s enough for Masha to lock on a rear naked choke that Christian uses to hit his awful curb double stomp for the win! 

Gringo Loco, Arez, and Jack Cartwheel vs Jimmy Lloyd, Ciclope, and Miedo Extremo vs Cole Radrick, Alec Price, and Shane Mercer vs Joey Janela, Dante Leon, and Ninja Mack

You think you’ve seen all the clusterfucks out there but THIS is wild. A triple threat trios match with all the GCW spot monkey fixings. This thing starts out like a battle royal with everyone in the ring at the same time but it doesn’t take long for things to break down. Jack Cartwheel gets fucking thrown like a sack of shit and it’s on! This is like a live version of spot gifs on twitter but that has it’s place I believe. Good match to kind of get the crowd up for the last hour of the show. Jack Cartwheel does the most insane carwheeling neckbreaker in history. In fact that might be the originator. 12 man lucha submission spot! Dante Leon takes a scary ass destroyer from the apron into the sea of like 10 people neck first but somehow is ok. Janela feigns a dive and gets destroyer’d by the ref…then Shane Mercer takes a diving destroyer from Loco for the win! Ref sells like he’s relieved he didn’t get his ass kicked. Cornette would die and roll in his own new grave watching that one therefore I’m all about it.

Atlantic City looks like a fucking cesspool.

Haley Dillon vs Santana Jackson

This is the Michael Jackson cosplay wrestler against some random green indy chick and it’s probably what you expect of that. This is definitely not my thing and it’s wild that this dude has somehow gotten over enough to be on this kind of show. I guess he’s decent at the basic lucha roll kind of stuff he does but everything else is very clunky and not crisp. MJ dude wins with a stupid moonwalk DDT. His makeup running at the end of the match kind of made this turd worth it.

The East West Connection(c) vs Toru Sugiura and Takashi Sasaki for the GCW World Tag Team Championships

This is the kind of bizarro world match that makes GCW so fun to watch. Two deathmatch stars from Japan getting a title shot against the two young stars of GCW and in the case of Nick Wayne, AEW as well. This is put together very well with the obvious Japanese heels against the over babyfaces and even though Team FREEDOMS is known for garbage wrestling, they clearly get psychology. Sasaki has some solid mat work with Jordan Oliver before tagging in Toru and in come Nick Wayne as well. Wayne is just so smooth in the ring and isn’t different here against Toru who is right there for everything. Oliver’s knee gets tweaked and Toru’s the wrong guy to have that happen around as he and Sasaki take turns beating his knee into the mat. Violento Jack comes out I suppose to watch out for East West after he was left lying the night before by FREEDOMS. Sasaki stretches Oliver with a nasty STF variation with an arm trapped as well. This ends up way more like a territories era tag match with Oliver taking all the punishment for his team and fighting to get Wayne in to help their cause, just for Team FREEDOMS to break hiim down again and again. Wayne gets the tag and is a house of fire until Oliver gets isolated during a double team attempt and it’s back to the villains back in control. Sasaki drills Oliver in the knee with a chair shot behind the ref’s back leading to Violento to run out and grab the chair…to nail Nick Wayne and package piledrive him on the chair! Holy fuck. Oliver gets laid out and WE HAVE NEW CHAMPIONS! This shoot surprised me and man, I can’t recommend this match enough to you.

Nick Gage and John Wayne Murdoch run out to even the odds with Violento looking around in a haze of confusion. God i love this. RINA IS HERE WITH LIGHTTUBES! Violento gets peppered in the face with them and a ref is in the ring for the Ultraviolent title match!

Rina Yamashita(c) vs Violento Jack for the GCW Ultraviolent Title

The plunder gets delivered mid match with panes of glass and lighttubes strewn all around the ring. Rina gets some tubes headbutted into her face and it’s blood city right away. There’s some Japan forearm exchanging until Rina gets low blowed, obviously no sells and basically rips Jack’s dick off with her bare hand. Fuck yeah! Jack finds another way to cheap shot and sets up Rina for a sickening powerbomb through glass in the corner! Jack uses a chair to create a little mound of the broken glass and drags Rina’s face in it! Good god this is gore galore and it’s wonderful. Jack gets really cocky here basically strutting around while inflicting violence but any attempts to win fail because Rina is the baddest bitch alive today. Jack gets so cocky in fact he takes off his mint FREEDOMS shirt and seems to not worry about falling into the sea of glass in the ring. Rina starts slowly fighting back up and starts smacking Jack around before she gets chopped down to shit. Jack’s gonna make her bleed even more in the glass, but she won’t let him do it. Suplex into the broken glass to Jack and he’s his own enemy as she throws tubes into his face repeatedly before he gets slammed into the jagged remnants of the tubes. Chair shot into some tubes in the crotch to Jack and somehow he kicks out, I wouldn’t have trust me. The fight spills out to the apron where there’s a glass pane bridge set up. Jack does a Finlay roll from the apron into said glass and Rina looks dead it’s a spot to witness for sure. Rina pulls a Terminator 2 and keeps coming back for more with the crowd loving her for it more and more. Jack deadlifts her up and rib breakers her into oblivion for just a two count! Jack’s ready to kill this bitch but Rina no sells him and nails an air raid crash onto the glass that leaves his back fucking gross. It’s now time for lighttube sword fighting and it goes the way of Jack when he chucks a whole bundle at Rina’s face but she gets a quick roll up for two, though this seems to have rejuvenated her. She fires up and runs right into a vicious lariat for a near fall. She won’t die though, she won’t EVER die it seems. Jack can’t even win with a fucked up muscle buster kind of move that I thought was the end. Jack unveils a literal red carpet of lighttubes with two chairs at each end to support the last pane of glass for surely something sinister. Rina reverses Jack’s top rope ideas with a kiss followed by a light tube to the spine and a crucifix bomb through all the plunder! Jack locks on his wild submission though in the sea of glass and Rina can only roll him up and it gets her the win! What a fucking match. 

Jack isn’t ok with this and starts beating the champion down which leads us back to the multi man battle of Gage, Murdoch and Team FREEDOMS the new tag champions in the plunder. Security comes out to contain this madness to not much avail.