Weekend Wrap-Up: "DON'T COME BACK! DON'T COME BACK!"

Very European

The first HUGE wrestling weekend of 2011 was this past weekend, and the Royal Rumble (review coming later, PROMISE) was the main event of it. But the undercard wasn't too shabby either.

- PWG Kurt RussellMania 2: The Reunioning headlined WrestleReunion in Los Angeles on Saturday, and whoo boy, do I have a doozy of a story to report for you. Apparently, Shane Helms got his knickers in a twist because Joey Ryan DARED give him a superkick. For those of you not in the know, Helms picked a fight with Shawn Michaels on Twitter, a fight HBK has largely ignored actually, and has been spending the last two months telling anyone who'd listen how much of a jerk HBK is. Let's just forget that the superkick has become a commonplace move in indie wrestling, used by everyone from Tyler Black to the fucking Bravado Brothers and everyone in between. It's a staple move in Ryan's moveset, but don't tell that to Helms, who thinks the world is in debt to him for playing a superhero character on WWE TV for years. He proceeded to no-sell the kick and then continue on with the match like nothing happened. The crowd chanted "DON'T COME BACK! DON'T COME BACK!" at him. You don't fuck with PWG crowds. You just don't, because they will eat you alive, especially if you act like a raging douche. Ugh.

In non-enraging matches, the RockNES monsters team of Johnny Goodtime and Johnny Yuma (AWESOME TEAM NAME) beat out three other teams to earn the first spot in the DDT4 tournament this year. Jake Roberts beat Sinn Bodhi in his retirement match. Roddy Piper won the Legends battle royale in a show-stealing affair by eliminating Terry Funk last. The two were said to have really gone all out. Claudio Castagnoli was successful in his first title defense, defeating El Generico. The match apparently didn't go on until 1 AM local time, which means most of the East Coast was in bed when they were finishing up this defense. That's dedication.

- ROH opened the WrestleReunion weekend with a hot show of their own. The big news was that the World's Greatest Tag Team defeated the Kings of Wrestling in a non-title match, which can only foreshadow a big title match for the former WWE staples later on in the ROH slate. Roderick Strong defended his World Championship successfully against, yep, El Generico, and Christopher Daniels, seconded by Allison Danger, retained his TV Championship against Mark Briscoe.

- Of course, the DGUSA East Coast Triple Shot was this weekend, featuring the crowning of the Open the United Gate Champions as well as three BxB Hulk Open the Freedom Gate title defenses... well, it would have been three if he had made it out of the first show in New York without dropping the title to YAMATO. Personally, I wanted to see Jon Moxley be the one to dethrone Hulk but whatever. PAC and Masato Yoshino became the inaugural United Gate Champions, sweeping their matches for the weekend, including a win on the final night over Johnny Gargano and Chuck Taylor. Gabe Sapolsky seems to be happy with the weekend on Facebook, so that's always a good sign.

- Clash Wrestling in Michigan had its inaugural 2011 event, on Saturday, featuring Mena Libra beating Truth Martini in a special attraction match as well as Gavin Quinn defending his Clash Championship against X-Pac. According to TWB superfan Dorian Jackson, the match was short and not that good, but X-Pac got on the mic afterwards, thanked the crowd, apologized for his performance (which he really didn't have to do given that it was due to him taking a hard kick to the throat) and then stuck around and signed autographs after the event was over. I rip on Sean Waltman a lot, but this was a classy thing for him to do. Pro wrestlers often don't get enough credit for being good to their fans, but really, I've found that no entertainment medium has workers as friendly to their fans as wrestling, and Waltman was no exception here. In fact, I think he went above and beyond. Good for him, I hope that whatever demons he's battling right now can be defeated and he can live in peace.

Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!