RIP All the Mohawk's Chairs: ACW Guilty by Association 6 Review

Robert Evans or the chairs? Who was the bigger victim at this show?
Photo Credit: Texas Anarchy

In the TWB standard format

Highlights:

• Junior Garza made his ACW return, and Angel Blue interfered to help Darin Childs eliminate Shawn Vexx in the eight-man elimination tag match opener.
• Just Willie, with help from his partner Sabrecat, provided inspiration for fat people everywhere by landing a springboard moonsault on the outside to the other four competitors in the three way tag match.
• However, it would be Team SEX of Johnny Axxle and Highroller Hayze taking out Aiden Colt, who partnered with Omega, with a spike Vertebreaker.
• Jaykus Plisken used help from his Takeover to make JT LaMotta tap out to the Last Chancery.
• In a match that also featured Lillie Mae, Angel Blue captured the American Joshi Championship from Athena using powder to the eyes and a roll up while grabbing the tights.
• Bolt Brady and Ricky Romida busted up Evan Gelistico's back with a Doomsday Lungblower en route to a victory over him and his tag partner, Pierre Abernathy.
• JC Bravo won the U-30 Championship in a title vs. hair vs. career match against Chingo (the former Champion) and Berry Breeze (whose career ended thanks to the loss).
• After the match, Berry Breeze proposed to his girlfriend. It was accepted.
• In the most intense war started over a scorned heart since the Trojan War, Robert Evans used two inverted Styles Clashes sandwiched around an ankle lock to defeat Portia Perez.
• Masada jammed skewers into the top of Matthew Palmer's head, and it still wasn't enough to deny the challenge of the Centerfold in the World Hardcore Championship scaffold match. Palmer won with a Centerfold Splash off the scaffolding.
• Davey Vega won the ACW Televised Championship against Scot Summers, Jerry Lynn and Mat Fitchett with a turnbuckle Air Raid Crash on Fitchett.
• Rachel Summerlyn fended off her tag partner Jessica James with a series of counters out of an attempted Gory special.
• After the match, Lady Poison retook the body of James, and she gave the poison kiss to both Summerlyn and her manager, Machiko.
• In the main event, ACH tapped out Gary Jay with the Muta Lock to retain the ACW Anarchy Championship and regain physical possession of the belt.
• After the match, Vexx and his Children of Pain 2.0 appeared to jump ACH.

General Observations:

• Jeff Gant and Donnie Davis III are apparently former referees, as shown by their strict adherence to the rules vis a vis a wet willy from the former to the latter. I believe that was the move Gotch defeated Hackenschmidt with.
• The entire theme of the night was selective enforcement of rules. I was always under the impression ACW was ECW rules where anything went, but there were plenty of rope breaks and ref distractions. It was... weird but only mildly distracting.
• I appreciate that every multi-man/team match is elimination style, by the by.
• I don't care if Willie needed to have his hand held during the set up to his big moonsault. That was a breathtaking moment.
• There was a lot of unique and innovative "small" offense in the three-way tag. A lot of neat variations on arm drags and hammerlocks. It's great to see guys trying to shake up the formula a bit.
• Yeah, so I could barely understand what Plisken was saying before the match, but man, he went on what seemed to be an epic shoot on River City Wrestling. Awkward if not part of cooperation.
• A lot of innovative offense in the Plisken/LaMotta match. From LaMotta leg dropping Plisken from the Tree of Woe to the converse hitting a pumphandle lungblower, it was well appreciated.
• Lillie Mae is a thick girl in a flannel shirt who flipped the double birds to her opponents before the American Joshi title match. She is definitely Texas distilled into an elemental spirit. I am not complaining.
• It started to rain intermittently during the joshi title match.
• Lillie at one point hit Blue with a bridging gutwrench suplex pin (let that sink in for a second), which was only broken up by a double-knee moonsault by Athena. And ROH is booking Mike Mondo.
• Lillie broke up a Boo!/Yay! volley at one point. I think I'm in love.
• This match was full of really unique three-way sorcery, including a combo superplex/hurricanrana that has to be viewed to be believed.
• Leslie Lee sighting! He gladly gave his chair unto Athena for usage upon Blue's skull, a noble use, but not the first chair sacrifice of the night.
• Pierre Abernathy's spit hand-and-rub in Bolt Brady's hair was only the second most gag-inducing thing of the night.
• But his "moonsault" (i.e., climbing the top rope, hopping off and splashing with the grin of a 12 year old kid with a fudge pop) is breathtaking.
• If JC Bravo was really hurt, then his performance in the U-30 match was pretty insane. Be that as it may, I thought this was the one match that could have used a little truncating.
• I wasn't too impressed with Berry Breeze during the match, but it was a legit feelgood moment when he got engaged and then beat up poor Chris Trew.biz after the match. I'm a sucker for those kinds of endings.
• Robert Evans' facial expressions all match were just epic, especially in the beginning when he had that creepy, crazed look in his eyes shrugging off Portia Perez's early offense.
• The scaffold match. Whoa, yeah, this was among the most hardcore, cringe-inducing things I've ever seen. Rachel Summerlyn saw me tweeting about it and replied with these retorts:

  and it still made you feel something :) art at it's finest really. it evoked emotion of some kind and that is the amazing part to me.

  So yeah, even if it was hard to palate at times, it made me feel something, so it at least accomplished a goal.
• But seriously, Palmer had skewers shoved in the top of his head and into his mouth. What the hell, man? What the hell?
• I don't know what Masada has against chairs at all, but he was the architect of the biggest genocide against chair since all those mutants at the ECW Arena nearly buried Cactus Jack and Terry Funk under them about 15 years ago.
• Davey Vega and Scot Summers doing the slap fight thing to open the four-way Televised Championship match was the funniest shit I saw all night. I hope that's how they meant it.
• The pace these four guys ran in the match, especially for a guy pushing 50 like Lynn was, was damn incredible. They totally laid this match out perfectly.
• Awesome Andy and Aiden Cole interfered to get rid of Summers and Lynn for whatever reason. I guess that's why I have to get the next DVDs!
• Seriously, that Vega-death (the Air Raid Crash onto the top turnbuckle) was just so goddamn awesome. I like the trend of guys doing moves off the top rope onto the turnbuckle. El Generico is an innovator, dammit.
• lol @ Mrs. Jay
• Summerlyn and James cycled through pinfalls and holds through the early part of their match like old pros. It was beautiful.
• I loved the progression on the match too. It started off as a civil contest, and it slowly bubbled to the point where James was throwing bombs at her best friend like she was Osama bin Kelly Kelly. It was a clinic in storytelling.
• Dunno what was more impressive, that Machiko knew how to be a good manager by offering Summerlyn the ropes or that the announcers picked up on it. For one guy in Biss and a rotating group of wrestlers, they're actually quite good at doing the announce thing.
• Mrs. Jay again!
• I know I say it every time I review one of his matches, but ACH really, really, really is good at this thing we call pro wrestling.
• No, seriously, he got MAD FUCKING AIR on a standing leg drop.
• ACH picking up Jay after he had him pinned twice was odd for a fan-favorite, but the announcers did a great job of filling in the story details all match that it made sense. ACH hated Gary Jay.

Match of the Night: There were a ton of strong contenders, but it was definitely Robert Evans vs. Portia Perez for me. Everything about this match was perfect. Biss and Rachel Summerlyn set the stage perfectly and gave at least the company line on what was happening. For someone like me, who hadn't been following as closely as I would have liked, it was a great way to play catch up on the story, even if according to other folks like Brandon Stroud, it took on a different tone.

There was just so much going on in this match. There was base emotion, Evans acting like a man possessed because Perez ripped his heart out. It was wondered whether Perez had a heart with which anyone could do the same. Regardless of how the story played out, let's meditate on the fact that a professional wrestling love story between a man and a woman played out to a match between the two, and it was even mostly throughout. If that doesn't feel game-changing to you, then you're not paying attention.

To the untrained eye, I think it might have come off as misogynist fantasy realized, especially given the results. That would be patently ignoring the fact that Perez had an advantage throughout most of the match and spent a good portion of the closing minutes of it wrenching Evans' neck in the crossface. In fact, it could be argued she was the better competitor but was only felled because Evans got breaks, literally, on being able to target her back and to benefit from her "slipping" on a steel chair to cause an ankle injury.

Regardless, this was a phenomenal realization of what storytelling in wrestling could be about. It had all the classic tropes of technical wrestling thrown in with the things that made matches like that "personal." It had a big match feel and it hit on every note that I was looking for in a match. When the year's over, I wouldn't be shocked if I considered this my favorite match of the calendar frame.

Overall Thoughts: Guilty by Association is ACW's biggest show of the year, and even for an Anarchy greenhorn such as myself, it was easy to see why. Nearly every match had some kind of backstory going into it, a feat that not even WWE can do with weekly television. Each match was fully fleshed out, sometimes even to excessive levels. Like I said before, the U-30 title match could have stood to be a bit shorter, but then again, there wasn't any other match that I thought went excessively long.

The event run time was 20 minutes short of five hours with eleven matches. That means that each match got a lot of time by design. There are no such things as "cooldown" matches, yet the show didn't feel like it dragged to me. It shouldn't have happened like that, but ACW breaks all the rules and gives no fucks. It's good to be different as long as you can be good doing it.

ACW, thankfully, put on a flagship show that was excellent in most facets. Yes, the scaffold match made me cringe, and not every match was a MOTY candidate. Expecting perfection out of any show is insane though. GBA6 was definitely several notches above average, and it would be a great starting point for any fan who wants to get into Anarchy. It would be well worth your time.