On Saturday November 21st I made my first real outing since my kidney surgery in October and I couldn’t think of a better way to head back out into the world than by seeing the awesome wrestling shows that the WXW puts on each month. This month there was quite the special show going on as well and it is called the Samoan Cup Tag Team Tournament. This is an awesome tournament that starts off with 8 tag teams and they keep battling until only 1 team is left. This year was extra special though as the day of the tournament fell on the shared birthday of WXW Owner Afa the Wild Samoan and WXW Commissioner Ricky Santana. Due to this, Ricky thought that things should be shaken up some and announced that the winner of the tournament would be able to take on the Prophecy in a 2 out of 3 falls match for the Tag Team Titles that night no time limit for the match. While this is a great opportunity it also means that the winners of the tournament would end up having to wrestle in 4 grueling matches throughout the night!

The action that night started even before the night could really get underway. As we waited in line for our tickets, which we prepurchsed on WXWWrestling.com, we started to hear some yelling in the gymnasium area. Seeing as we were at the front of the line by this point we were able to see that ERA was trying to get at Jaxen Blade. ERA had just recently lost the Heavyweight Title to Jaxen during one of the matches I couldn’t make it to and he wanted the title back. So ERA was trying to get at Jaxen and was screaming at him. The various Ref’s came rushing out to separate the two and escort ERA out of the building as Vale told them to get rid of him. The whole time the Ref’s held back ERA and pushed him towards the doors you could hear Jaxen laughing at him and taunting him. ERA was pushed right past us and out into the cold night. After things calmed down, Vale saw us and welcomed me back and we had a laugh about things already heating up for the night.

This night was a good night for me as I was able to finally get out and about and enjoy something other than the inside of the house. The great thing is that from going to these shows for over a year now I have started to get to know the wrestlers and I have many of them friended on facebook so a lot of them know what I have been going through and have been in some way shape or form cheering me on on facebook. Well before the night got started I decided I was going to head to the restrooms and on the way there I saw Jaxen Blade and the lovely Angelina Cruz. Jaxen stopped and talked to me and welcomed me back to the shows saying it was good to see me up and about. At this point Vale came by and got a picture of the 3 of us together. It was very nice having an A-Lister like Jaxen Blade take a moment out of his busy schedule to welcome me back and such. On my way back to my seat I was also able to talk to Sugaa, Reggie Rhythm, and Nathan Vain. They all welcomed me back and said how good I was looking for what I had gone through and said they were glad to see me. It truly warmed my heart that they took the time to welcome me back. I was also able to see my friends Marc Mandrake and Danielle Raiff before the show started. These two have been great friends always checking on how I was doing and giving me some healing stones back when I first found out about the cancer. I have been very lucky to have them as friends and as such my wife and I gave them a present of copies of the books we have written. We got to talk a little but then it was time for the show to start.

In the first rounds of the Samona cup we saw a total of 8 tag teams starting the competition. We had the combination of Sweet Johnny Velvet and the Haitian Sensation competing as Sweet Sensation, we saw the Sons of the Atlantic, the MM’s, the Samoan Hawaiian Island Tribe, Mr NYR D Ramos and Irish Jack, Tony Ice and Devin, Shadow teamed with Diamond Kid and finally the team of Vertigo and Raziel. This promised to be an exciting night as these teams gave it all they had to get the prestigious award of the Samoan Cup trophies for their team.

In the first rounds we saw the team of Sweet Sensation go up against the Sons of the Atlantic. These two teams probably have some of the biggest differences in fighting styles between any of the teams in this whole competition. Sweet Sensation is full of flashy moves and energy while the Sons of the Atlantic are more of a powerhouse brawling pair. The SoA have a tendency to steamroll their opponents; however, this night their bulldozer tactics weren’t quite enough. I have always been a huge fan of Sweet Johnny Velvet no matter who he is tagging with. Sweet is always a high energy guy and has a great rapport with the WXW fan base. I always enjoyed when he tagged with Reggie Rhythm and when they broke up I was afraid that Sweet wouldn’t find someone that could keep up with him; however, the Haitian Sensation had so much energy I couldn’t help but grin just watching him. This guy bounced like crazy even when he was standing still and his energy was contagious. I was quite glad to see Sweet Sensation pull out a hard fought win against the SoA. Jody Kristofferson didn’t seem to take the loss very well but in the end he and his partner hugged and walked off scowling and yelling at the audience.

We also saw the team of Vertigo and Raziel taking on the MM’s. As with the other matches this night the match was hard fought. I have seen Vertigo wrestle before and I think he may be better as a tag team wrestler than individual in my opinion. Some people just seem to lend themselves more to the team scene and I liked his chemistry with Raziel who I don’t remember having seen before. I thought Raziel was pretty cool, he had an interesting look. While being a big guy he had the look of one of the Lin Kuei assassins like Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat. While Raziel and Vertigo did well in their match it’s always hard facing off against the sly MM’s who will do anything to win by hook or by crook. The MM’s are past Samoan Cup Champions and Past Tag Team Champs in the WXW and that was just a bit too much for the team of Vertigo and Raziel to take on that night and the MM”s came away with a first round win.

Mr NYR D Ramos and Irish Jack were seen to join up together. This was an interesting pairing since they are both in the hunt individually for the WXW HeavyWeight Championship. They took on the team of the Diamond Kid and Shadow. Diamond Kid was interesting in that he came out in NuYoricans shirts and hat. At first I thought perhaps he was a friend of Ramos’ which could make for an interesting match but then the trash talking started and it seemed that he was wearing the clothes to get under Ramos’ skin. Well it worked a bit too well and instead of throwing Ramos off his game it focused him in giving the kid a beat down. In the end, Jack and Ramos moved on to round two with a win over Diamond Kid and Shadow

Thats leaves us with the team known as the Samoan Hawaiian Island Tribe against Tony Ice and Devin. I love the look of both Tony Ice and Devin, they are smaller guys but they are ripped when it comes to muscles. The two guys from the Tribe kinda reminded me of the Usos in the way they dressed for their matches. At first I wanted to root for the Island Tribe but we found out real fast that these guys must be used to being the heels wherever they are from and didn’t seem like they wanted to change that appearance for the new crowd. I wasn’t familiar with them and neither were most of the crowd and they got cheered as they came out but those cheers swiftly became boo’s as they gave the crowd attitude. One of the things I thought was interesting is that one of the members of the Island Tribe would whip a guy into the corner and slam into him and then yell out “Who sucks now?” Considering at the time they were being cheered it had seemed very off to me for him to be saying such things. This attitude from them continued through the night however as they won this match and continued to the next. By the end of the night, my wife and I were in agreement that they missed a great opportunity here in the WXW. They could have easily gone over as the faces this night if they had played their cards right. I mean we all expect to see Samoans and Hawaiians holding good matches here considering the WXW is run by Afa the Wild Samoan. We love cheering for the Samoans. They could have used this to their advantage and been the heroes of the night using the crowd reaction to help them gain momentum. At first we were all ready to do that but by the end of the first match their attitudes had cooled the crowd and ended the cheers. Devin and Tony Ice proved to be no match for the Island Tribe this night.

To start the second round of matches we saw the team of Mr. NYR D Ramos and Irish Jack facing off against the MM’s. As would be seen in most of the matches this round each team was in a bit rougher shape since they had already had to go through one other team to get this far. Ramos and Jack took it to the MM’s hard but as usual the MM’s tried to pull their sneaky stunts. Both Jack and Ramos took some hard hits though Jack seemed to be getting the worst of it. At one point though everything went crazy in the ring. Jack had tried to pin an MM and the other MM pulled the Ref away from the three count from the outside. This distracted the Ref as he reprimanded the MM on the outside and Sean Maluta ran in from backstage and entered the ring. Jack and Ramos seemed wary but then Sean made a motion to the MM that was getting up from the mat and Ramos and Jack stood aside and allowed Sean to Savate Kick his one time ally and set Irish Jack and Ramos up for their second win.

The second match of the second round was the Samoan Hawaiian Island Tribe vs the team of Sweet Sensation. During this match the Haitian Sensation was almost as energetic as during the first match but it didn’t really matter in this case. The Island Tribe was able to mostly keep Sweet in the ring concentrating on wearing him down. The few times that the Haitian Sensation made it in they would mostly dominate him as well. The Tribe did not seem nearly as worn out by their first match as the other teams did and it seemed to really help them during this round as they picked up their second win.

With both teams winning two matches we saw a very tired D Ramos and Irish Jack come down to the ring to square off against the Samoan Hawaiian Island Tribe who while winded still didn’t seem much the worse for wear comparatively. As Ramos and Jack waited for the Tribe to make their way out Ramos caught sight of me and jumped down off of the ring and came over to where I was sitting. He shook my hand and said something that I couldn’t really hear before going back up to the ring and taking his place on the apron. The two teams fought hard and each gave as good as they were getting. The match was very exciting and in the end we saw D Ramos and Irish Jack pick up this most important of wins and secure their place as the new Samoan Cup champions.

At this point Vale and Lynn Anoa’i come out and presented the trophies to the winners and the runners up. All the other teams also come out to the ring and received medals to show that they took part in this awesome show. While this was an awesome achievement for the winning team the night wasn’t over for them yet as they now had a chance to become the WXW Tag Team Champions by surviving a 2 out of 3 falls match against the Prophecy if they could. At this point I was having my doubts, as much as I liked this team of Ramos and Jack they did just go through 3 grueling matches and had to now go up against the Tag Team Champs of Reggie Rhythm and Nathan Vain who were fully rested and more than ready to take on whoever had won the tournament.

Ramos and Jack stayed in the ring as the other wrestlers went back to the back. Reggie and Nathan then came out making their way to the ring. Nathan drank his usual vial of blood showing off his fangs as Ramos and Jack looked on. The Prophecy was quick off the mark both of them charging after Jack and Ramos and starting the beatdown before the Ref could even ring the bell. Due to this the first fall came very quickly and the Prophecy took an early lead in the 2 out of 3 falls match. It wouldn’t take too long for Ramos and Jack to come up with the second fall as Ramos pulled out a trick from Eddie Guerrero’s playbook. Basically what happened was that Nathan Vain distracted the Ref and Reggie brought the title belt into play. The problem however is that Reggie couldn’t pull it off and the belt ended up in D Ramos hands. Ramos falls to the floor letting out a yelp and a large slamming noise as he falls and then tosses the belt up at Reggie who instinctively catches it. At this point the Ref turns to see what happened and finds Ramos on the ground clutching his head and Reggie standing over him the Tag Title belt in hand. The Ref put 1 and 1 together to get 2 when in this case it should have been 3 and he made the call he thought happened and DQ’ed the prophecy to bring the fall count to 1 and 1 making it where the next fall would win for either team. Both teams took it to each other then and left nothing in reserve. The battle was fierce but Ramos and Irish Jack came out with the third fall to end the night. As Rasmos stood in the corner holding his trophy and his portion of the Tag belts high he met my eye and nodded to me giving us the perfect opportunity to snap a few pics of one half of the new champs with their belts.

At this point the locker room emptied to congratulate the new champs and Ramos and Irish Jack celebrated in the ring. Some kids that I am assuming were Ramos’ were lifted over the rail and went into the ring to celebrate with him. He held some of the kids up with his belt and the trophy allowing them to hold those for him. The night left a lot of us with great feelings to see the joy in both the champions and their family and friends as they celebrated. It was a long tough battle but this team of Mr NYR D Ramos and Irish Jack went in and excelled at it leaving their all in the ring and coming out victorious after 4 hard matches.

After the show I got to talk to Ramos for a moment and get a picture with him and his new belt and trophy. He shook my hand and thanked me for coming and told me to keep fighting the cancer that I have been battling against since June. He also told me what he had said when he came to shake my hand earlier in the night. He told me that the wins were for me and my fight and to keep going with things. I have to admit seeing him fight so hard that night and then to have him say such to me, well I was almost in tears to tell the truth.

My wife and I left that night with a lot of exciting things to talk about and a lot of great memories made with some great people I am glad and proud to call my friends!

DraxisBlog, WrestleBlog

WXW Samoan Cup Tag Tournament

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Login