IWA Mid-South "Ted Petty Invitational, Night 1" 9/17/04
By: Magnus Donaldson
 

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Also feel free to e-mail me with requests for shows you would like me to review.

I originally reviewed this show back in 2005 for another site, so now I am coming back to watch this classic show one more time.

We start with a music video highlighting this years tournament competitors, and some of their big moves.

The Woman’s Title match later on is hyped with interviews with Mercedes Martinez and Lacey.
I’m confused as to why they put this before the Ian Rotten promo.

Ian Rotten comes out to give us a tribute promo to the late Ted Petty, and also ran through some announcements before the show starts properly.

Match 1: Mercedes Martinez vs. Lacey
I’m not a huge fan of women’s wrestling so it was hard for me to get into this, but it was a decent opener.
Mercedes Martinez won this with an Inverted Figure 4 Leg Lock. Rating- *3/4

We then get our intro’s to the TPI competitors. I’d say the wrestlers who got the biggest ovations here were Samoa Joe,
CM Punk, Petey Williams, Austin Aries, Super Dragon and Chris Sabin.

Match 2: Sal Rinauro vs. Matt Sydal
I enjoyed this, it turned out to be a lot better than I thought it would be, and these two clicked extremely well. You could call it a spotfest,
as both men were pretty much using big move after big move, but for me I enjoyed it as everything was crisp and well executed.
Sal really impressed me here, more-so then he has in other matches in ROH and FIP.
Sydal would win this following his Top Rope belly to Belly.- ***

Match 3: Hallowicked vs. ‘Spyder’ Nate Webb
A bit average in my opinion. There were a few decent moments, and I am a fan of both men, but they just didn’t click and thus this
ended up being a bit disappointing. Webb would advance in this match via pinfall with the Soylent Green (inverted version of the Hurricane DDT).
 Weakest of the first round- *3/4

Match 4: Rainman vs. ‘The Future’ Chris Sabin
Having seen Rainman in NWA Wildside, I was nice to see him outside of that promotion in this bout with someone highly ranked on the indy scene.
 I found this enjoyable, but it seemed like nobody felt that Rainman stood a chance and thus they pretty much sat on their hands when he did any
 of his big moves. They would be proved wrong as Rainman got the shock win, pinning Sabin with a Standing Blue Thunder Bomb.
 While Rainman’s win put across the point that anything can happen in the TPI, I would have preferred to have seen Sabin advance since
 there were more possibilities with him in the next round- **1/2

Match 5: Austin Aries vs. CM Punk
Excellent match, and I find it very difficult to pick whether this or the excellent Samoa Joe/Roderick Strong match later on is the match
 of the night (especially considering they were so different). This match was slowly built, with Aries using the strategy of working over the knee of Punk,
 and how this played out throughout the rest of the match was brilliant and perfectly executed. The crowd were on their feet for the end of this as
 both men busted out near falls, including Aries with a Top Rope Brainbuster. Aries tried to use Punk’s own move, the Pepsi Plunge, on him,
 but Punk blocked it and hat an inverted version of the move to get the pin fall. Arguably as good as their final ROH encounter, and up there with
 the best match in IWA during 2004- ****1/2

We get a view of Delirious with a ladder, as he is panting (I don’t know why).
I guess this is Delirious’s way of showing us what he is thinking about tonight.

Then we get a promo with Jimmy Jacobs, claiming that he is crazier than Delirious and will prove that tonight.
 I do appreciate these promo’s, but why not have them before the match itself than before a completely different match.

Match 6: Todd Sexton vs. Danny Daniels
This suffered from the same problems that the Sabin/Rainman match did: pretty much nobody had heard of Todd Sexton
 (unless they watched NWA Wildside) and thus they didn’t believe that he had a chance of beating a former IWA Champion.
 As a result, the crowd were quiet when he was on offense and the match was hurt as a result. Decent at best, and possibly a little disappointing.
 Daniels would advance as expected with the nasty looking Rubix Cube move- **

After the match, Danny Daniels was attacked by BJ Whitmer, hitting him with an Exploder through several chairs, and this furthens their feud.

Match 7: Ladder Match- Jimmy Jacobs vs. Delirious
Great match of it’s type, and proved the insanity of both men as they would pull out a huge range of high risk moves, and got the crowd very into it.
 In a way this was a big novelty for this promotion, being the only official Ladder match in their history. Everything was going along well up until Jacobs
 botched a Senton from the top of the ladder, hitting the ropes very hard and it looked like it winded him a lot. He managed to continue and win the match.
 He climbed the ladder to win the belt, but Delirious knocked the ladder away, but Jacobs hung onto the belt and eventually pulled it down- ***1/2

We see Delirious lying on the ground backstage after the match, looking like he’s been hat by a car.

Then we get a promo with Jimmy Jacobs saying that he proved tonight he’ll do whatever it takes to win the belt,
 and won thanks to the spikes he had in his boots. He then says he will do anything to keep hold of this belt.

Match 8: Chris Hero vs. Mike Quackenbush
Two of my favourite indy wrestlers are facing off in this one, and I have to say that they put on an absolute clinic, and a match that on any
 other night would arguably be match of the night. The match was just filled with submission, counter, and counter of counters, and I love this style
 of wrestling, especially when done by two of the masters of the style. So a well paced and hugely entertaining technical wrestling masterpiece.
 It would be Mike Quackenbush who would win this to nobody’s surprise (Hero was going to Japan the very next night and had a losing
 streak in this building) via pin fall with the Alligator Clutch pinning combination- ****

Ian Rotten comes out and tells Chris Hero that they could have pushed his flight back so he could wrestle here tomorrow,
 but says that he didn’t so Hero could go and prove he is the best the IWA has to offer.

Match 9: Jimmy Rave vs. ‘The Phenomenal’ AJ Styles
I was disappointed with this match. For me it just had something missing that their ROH encounters managed to find. Maybe it was Rave’s lack
 of personality that hurt it (he soon gained one in 2005), but I just didn’t get into this as much as some of their future encounters. That’s not to say
 it was bad, as there was some good high flying moves and mat work, but it didn’t have everything that you’d expect. AJ would advance when he
 blocked a Rave Clash attempt and was able to make Rave tap to a Neck Vice submission- **1/2

Match 10: Roderick Strong vs. Samoa Joe
This was sheer brutality, and at the same time hard to separate from the Punk/Aries match for match of the night honors. These two just killed each
 other, with Strong using hard chops, strikes and his range of backbreakers to try and put down the ROH Champion, but nothing seemed to work.
Even one of the most brutal kicks to the face that I’ve ever seen couldn’t keep Joe down for three. Joe did everything you’d expect him to,
 but it was the beating he had to endure from Strong that separated this from the usual Joe match. Eventually, Joe would be able to put down
 Strong for three with the Muscle Buster, but he had a real fight on his hands in this match, and I loved it. I’ll put this slightly below the Punk/Aries match,
 but this is still must see stuff. The match that signalled how good Strong was going to get in 2005- ****1/4

We get some replays of the biggest moves from that last match, including slow motion replays of that boot to the face.

Match 11: Nigel McGuinness vs. ‘Double C’ Claudio Castagnoli
A decent little match between two skilled European wrestlers, maybe a little overlooked due to the huge amount of strong matches on this show,
 but it didn’t quite match the two other technical masterpieces on this show (Hero/Quack and Shelley/Dragon). Good for what it was though,
 that being a solid European style match, and it provided a nice way to calm the crowd down a bit after that last match (since it did have that to follow).
 Nigel would advance when he made Claudio tap to an inverted Rings of Saturn stretch- **3/4

Match 12: Alex Shelley vs. ‘American Dragon’ Bryan Danielson
I put this right up there with their two ROH matches in terms of wrestling quality, as this was yet another excellent match on a show filled with them.
 It would be match of the night easily anywhere else, but on this night is fourth best, showing you just how high quality this show has been.
 Similar to the Quack/Hero match in the fact that these two used lots of strong mat work, submissions and counters, and the crowd were very into it.
 It was more American style that the Hero Quack match with more playing to the crowd, so that separated it from the other match.
 Dragon would advance by rolling up Shelley in a pinning combination from the Cattle Mutilation- ***3/4

Match 13: Super Dragon vs. ‘The Anarchist’ Arik Cannon
A hard hitting, strong style encounter here. Cannon was dominated for a fair part of this match, as Dragon got in all of his usual signature moves,
 while the crowd ate it up. Cannon did what he does best: play a heel as he got on the crowd’s nerves as well as matching Dragon blow for blow.
 He would eventually manage to advance with a Glimmering Warlock getting the pin fall after two consecutive Backdrop Driver’s. The crowd
weren’t pleased to see Dragon go out so early, but I’m guessing Dragon was booked for this show only as he didn’t appear the next night- ***1/4

Match 14: IWA Title Match- Petey Williams (c) vs. BJ Whitmer
The IWA Title is being defended throughout this tournament, so Petey would have to win the tournament to retain the belt. While this was a good
 main event, it was not on the level of some of the stronger matches earlier in the night, and maybe should not have been the main event on this night.
 Petey got all of his usual moves in, and BJ also put up a good fight to try and win back the title in this rematch (since it was BJ that
Petey won the title from). However it was Petey Williams who would advance to the next round following the Canadian Destroyer- **3/4

Ian Rotten announces the next night’s matches, which I won’t spoil for you if you haven’t seen that show already.

I enjoyed this event a lot, it’s one of IWA’s greatest ever shows. It’s very rare that a promotion has one four star match in one night,
but IWA had three here and a fourth was borderline on being a four star match (and some will call it that). The whole card is very, very good,
and there’s rarely a dull moment. My only grievance would be that some of the matches just didn’t deliver that should have done:
Rave/Styles and Rainman/Sabin for example. But putting those aside, this is an easy high recommendation,
and a show that every true indy wrestling fan should have in their collection.


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