Wrestling Review //
Blitzkrieg! Pro
Live from Retro World Expo!
11/6/21 & 11/7/21
@ Connecticut Convention Center, Hartford, CT
When it was announced that Blitzkrieg! Pro would be a part of Retro World Expo, I was excited because RWX is an event that Quentin and I attend because we like it so much so not only does adding professional wrestling to that make it even better but when you add one of my favorite promotions- Blitzkrieg! Pro- then it is even better than that. Our weekend at RWX revolved around these three shows and it was a lot of wrestling but it was still a lot of fun.
One thing I was trying to imagine during this weekend was what it would be like to be someone who was coming to Retro World Expo as a fan of video games (which everyone there was) but either wasn't into professional wrestling or just hadn't watched it in a long time. It's one thing for Quentin, Jess and I because we're at the Blitzkrieg! Pro shows outside of Retro World Expo. I was thinking about the fan who had never seen Blitzkrieg! Pro before and maybe hadn't even seen pro wrestling in general before.
To that end, I feel like this show was a lot of fun. The seats set up around the ring were always packed. And the crowd just also seemed really into it, booing or cheering for someone based upon how they acted. To be fair, as a heel all you really had to do to get the crowd to turn on you was insult video games. It was that easy. But I wondered what random people walking by thought about seeing someone like Bobby Orlando, holding Bobby Jr and with Bryce Donovan. If you're the type of person who thought that was cool, then you probably should be at the future Blitzkrieg! Pro shows as well.
I just feel like one of the biggest obstacles professional wrestling has right now is that people either don't know that it exists outside of cable television or they have ideas of what independent wrestling is like and they're wrong. Watching the wrestlers interact with the fans- and especially the children- I feel like a lot of these fans will hopefully come back to Blitzkrieg! Pro on another show because it really is just so much fun that you feel like you should be paying more for it than what you do.
Seeing the different wrestlers on this show was fun because many of them were part of that core Blitzkrieg roster while others were making their debuts. Shannon LeVangie is someone we've seen play the face in Chaotic Wrestling but here she was going up against Big Juicy, playing the heel and cheating to win! Kylon King also was in a tag team with Jordyn Rowe, which made him a heel, but they also faced Even Stevens, who I mostly know from Invictus Wrestling and thus as heels. (But I believe in Create A Pro, Even Stevens are good guys?)
For me, this was that perfect combination of sending out the wrestlers that you think of when you think of Blitzkrieg! Pro- names like Shook Crew, VSK, CPA, Logan Black, Leary, Perry Von Vicious, Skylar, Big Juicy, etc but then also bringing in some fresh faces to see how fans at a video game convention might feel about them. Mike Anthony might be slowly finding his way into a regular role within B!P and I'm completely okay with that. The same goes for Riley Shepard, who I joked with about her walking around in her gear and people wondering who she was cosplaying as (She said "I'm cosplaying as me!", which was awesome)
Then I look at someone like Big Game Leroy, who made their B!P debut at this event, and just how perfect it is to have a wrestler who loves video games wrestling at a convention about video games. Fans might not care about wrestling but could still look at the merch table and think Big Game Leroy's merch was cool. That was definitely the type of crossover we needed and Big Game Leroy can also get it done in the ring, many people surprised that he continued to wrestle while playing his Switch but also that he was winning while doing it too.
At the same time, I was really happy to see Mike Skyros wrestling for B!P and he brings something different to the ring than Big Game Leroy does, though both should be on all your shows. Mike Skyros took on Aaron Rourke on the first day and there is this character to Aaron Rourke that feels like the scared heel a lot of the time, but when you get Aaron Rourke in there with someone like Mike Skyros he shows you just how hard he can hit. I've seen this in other Aaron Rourke matches before and Mike Skyros really brought that out in him here as well. I also have a list of B!P wrestlers I'd love to see Mike Skyros face so I hope he's on their December show.
As much as I was happy to see the B!P roster, wrestlers such as Big Juicy and Kirby Wackerman (who make for a great tag team) and as happy as I was to see Big Game Leroy, Mike Skyros, ABBS and other wrestlers I knew make their B!P debuts I was also happy to see the wrestlers I had never seen before this weekend. One of the stand outs from these shows was "Dr Cool" Jay Klang who has the look and presence of a star. Having a match against Mike Anthony also helped this though, as the two fed off of each other so well- Mike Anthony (who assures us he is not crazy) playing the heel to Dr Cool's good guy.
The wrestling itself was a lot of fun and I hope that the fans who might not be into pro wrestling or maybe were at one point but no longer are had a similar experience as I did. From Quentin joining a conga line and refusing to chop Bobby Orlando and chopping Leary instead to Quentin later running around the ring with CPA to chop Logan Black, I know Quentin had fun during the show. I had Elijah 6ix and King Crab land on me at one point (and someone asked me if I was part of the show) and I also got CPA to do a Polish Hammer, which I just feel not enough wrestlers do any more, so for wrestling content I couldn't have been happier with my weekend.
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