Wrestling Review //
Chaotic Wrestling
"Chaotic Countdown"
7/16/21
@ Gametime Sports & Fitness, Lowell, MA
Let me first preface this review by saying that I know "Chaotic Countdown" was being taped to air on the Twitch show for Chaotic Wrestling so my original plan was to write about this as best I could without any spoilers. However, since Friday night I have seen results all over social media- many from Chaotic Wrestling themselves- and so I am just going to write this as I see fit and spoilers be damned.
For a little backstory here (because I enjoy a good backstory) the last time Quentin and I were at a Chaotic Wrestling show it was 2/21/20 and it was also at Gametime. Oddly enough, Hammerstone was also there and he took on Anthony Greene in the main event. That was not our first Chaotic show, but Quentin's first live wrestling show ever was part of the Chaotic brand on 12/13/19 so Chaotic has always been a special place for both of us.
Now the thing about the Chaotic Countdown is the match itself is one big Rumble match and then there were three other announced matches for the show, all title matches. I assumed we would do the non-Chaotic Countdown matches first, intermission and then the Chaotic Countdown and that was pretty much how it all went down. I will say this now because it is perhaps the most important piece of this review: Every match on this show could have been a main event on another card. You take any of the matches before intermission, put six or seven matches ahead of them and you got yourself a show.
This was our second Friday night in a row seeing Brad Cashew challenge for a championship and it was really special to see him win the New England Championship in a two out of three falls match against Adam Booker. I have always felt that Brad Cashew has this star power because of that combination of athleticism that you simply cannot teach combined with a character that just resonates with the crowd. If you don't yet know the name Brad Cashew, you will and this is just the first of many championships.
During the pandemic, Chaotic Wrestling was running a no fans show that they streamed weekly on Twitch for $4.99/month (a really good deal based on the quality) and I feel like that really helped to elevate a lot of the Chaotic Wrestling roster. I believe this was the second Chaotic show back with fans but I could be wrong. Seeing the character development was just such a big part of coming out of the pandemic for me, so I'm just really happy for everyone.
Speaking of character development, JT Dunn has put together The Unit with Trigga The O.G. (who I last saw with Christian Casanova), Ace Romero and Danny Miles. It's quite the faction and they are seemingly running things in Chaotic Wrestling right now. I also enjoyed how their segments were in the ring and shifted from one match to the next on this show. The Unit did an in ring promo before the second match, which was then revealed to be the TLC Match.
I searched my mind as much as I could and I do not believe that I have ever seen a TLC Match live before. I've seen a lot of tables, ladders and chairs because of ECW, but never an actual TLC Match in person. This match was crazy because Ace Romero and Trigga The O.G. were in it representing The Unit. Then you had the team of Max Smashmaster and Mortar, who are both just so powerful and nearly killed everyone else in the match. TJ Crawford and Love, Doug were also in this match- which is just a hell of a team- and this is all topped off by the Chaotic Wrestling Tag Team Champions MSP.
This was definitely main event worthy and it was only the second match! I'm never sure how things translate from television to live and I also recognize that the way I feel about wrestlers isn't always the way that everyone else feels about them. But I need to point out that during this match Love, Doug was over huge with the Chaotic Wrestling fans. Chaotic Wrestling loves Love, Doug and rightfully so. Having one of the best wrestlers in the world as a tag team partner in TJ Crawford also helped.
What is the best word to describe this match? Carnage? Destruction? There were so many broken ladders I didn't know how anyone was going to climb for the titles. This match was just-- I'm ready to watch it back on Twitch that's how much I enjoyed it and also because there were so many people in it that I might have been focused on MSP when someone else was doing something else crazy on the other side of the ring.
Next was an in ring segment with Chase Del Monte and Becca which, long story short, saw the retirement of the Chaotic Women's Championship and the birth of the Chaotic Pan Optic Championship. This brought out Aaron Rourke for a match and not to take anything away from what happened during the match but some fans in front of me were yelling when Aaron Rourke would get offense in about how he was a "woman beater" and it was a "domestic". I don't really think those are things to joke about, but also it's like those fans missed the whole point of Chase Del Monte making the belt where anyone could challenge for it.
I'm actually really excited for the Pan Optic Championship to come to Chaotic Wrestling. It has literally only been a thing for a day and people on social media are already talking about it (good and bad) and I just feel like we need to let it play out though, see where it goes. And Becca is the titleholder so I don't think it's going to go badly based on all of the Becca matches I've seen. So can we get Effy back to Chaotic to challenge for it? Perhaps Edith Surreal? Veda Scott is another great choice. Jordan Blade is a name I will also put out there alongside Avista Varlowe, Max the Impaler and Eddy McQueen.
The fourth match saw JT Dunn defend the Chaotic Championship against Hammerstone and when The Unit got involved, Chase Del Monte came out with Mike Verna to seemingly help Hammerstone but then Mike Verna ended up turning on Hammerstone and joining The Unit. I don't know if Chaotic Wrestling has ever done War Games before but this might be leading to that style of a match and I'm really excited for it.
During intermission we took photos with Hammerstone and MSP. It felt like a lot of the wrestlers weren't out selling merch but I think that was because they were all either getting ready for the Chaotic Countdown match or at least they wanted us to think that there was that possibility that they would be in it even if they weren't. I had seen several people tweet about being ready for the match itself and being in it, but I never saw a definitive list of 30 competitors and preferred going into the show with them being largely surprises.
The Chaotic Countdown match started with Ichiban at number one and Ricky Smokes at number two (heh number two) We have seen Ichiban all over Test Of Strength, so I think at first the crowd was a little bit unsure but when you put him up against Ricky Smokes he's going to get cheered. A lot of wrestlers came out during this match that I didn't know and they seemed to be students (which was a perfect way for them to be showcased) and several of them even came out, ran into the ring and then were immediately eliminated.
One of the bright spots of this match was seeing Brian Milonas fighting Ace Romero. Ricky Smokes played the long game as he managed to stay in the match for most of it. But Davienne was the workhorse of this match, staying in for nearly the entire time (I believe she entered around 6) and winning to get the title shot against JT Dunn and boy is there history there. But it was a really fun match and it went by fast because I felt like I'd be watching something inside the ring- concerned someone was going to be eliminated- and then someone else would enter. It didn't feel like a long wait between competitors and that was good.
This was a show of main events and I read on Twitter that it will air over the course of two weeks on Twitch. I definitely recommend watching it when it does because even I am going to watch it back. It's so crazy how back in 2019 I started going to live wrestling shows again (after 13 years of not) and because of IWTV and Blitzkrieg I knew who Ava Everett was, which brought me to my first Chaotic show and now it just felt like everyone on the card had such star power and it was just so many of my favorite wrestlers.
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