Pro Wrestling ::: Best of January 2023

The year started off with me feeling sick for the first week or two and that lead to a lot of things not happening that should have happened.   On January 15th, Quentin and I went to Garden State Pro Wrestling "Duality".   This had just such a solid card from top to bottom that no match felt like a miss.   If I could put the entire show here, I would, but if I had to narrow it down to one match for the sake of this column I would say it's Bryan Keith vs Manders- the battle of the cowboys.  

The following weekend on January 21st, Jess and I watched ICWNHB 40 on IWTV, which was a good show but I could do without the Crowbar stuff.  Then the next day we watched GCW vs New South live on FITE and it was, top to bottom, my favorite show I streamed in January, with matches like Kenzie Page vs Billie Starkz and Tony Deppen vs Cabana Man Dan.  However, my favorite match was Hunter Drake vs Blake Christian and that had big Match of the Year vibes as well.

Enjoy Wrestling took their show "Enjoy Odyssey" from 12/17/22 and broke it down into three parts, streaming in three weeks in January on YouTube.   The first episode had a six person tag match and then Lee Moriarty vs Allie Katch.  I'm confused by Moriarty now because he started the match as a heel, played the heel throughout the match and then kind of gave props to Allie Katch at the end of the match.   I also need to watch the last two parts still!

When Women Of Wrestling aka WOW Superstars announced their return I was excited.  But, I couldn't find out how to stream it because it was mostly on cable which I don't have because I'm not a boomer.   Thankfully, WOW decided to put their episodes from this new season on YouTube for free so I've been slowly catching up with them.   Four episodes in, one of my favorite characters is Killa Kate playing "BK Rhythm".    It's funny how Vertvixen, for example, comes out as "Glitch The Gamer" but someone like Holidead remains as Holidead.

Watching this show makes me miss Holidead, who we used to see live all the time but didn't see all of last year.   They're doing a tag team tournament, which is nice, and one of the biggest stars thus far as I've been watching episodes has to be Reina Del Rey (aka Ruby Raze) and as someone who lives on the east coast while Raze lives on the west coast, just being able to see her here is enough reason for me to watch it.

        We closed out January with Beyond Wrestling "Miight Snow" at the White Eagle in Worcester, MA.   This show gave us matches such as Best Bros vs The Mane Event, Wheeler Yuta vs Marcus Mathers, Trish Adora vs Manders, AVD vs Miracle Generation and the main event itself was an easy Match Of The Year contender as Alec Price took on and defeated Lio Rush.  

        

        Every year I feel like I see a match and it sets that bar for the year.  I'm trying not to do that as much this year because different matches feel important for different reasons.  My two favorite matches from January alone prove that, as one was two cowboys going at it and the other was a fast paced car crash type of technical affair.    I'm looking forward to what the rest of this year brings, as we're only one month in!