FanPost

How Rob Terry won me over: My first German indie wrestling adventure

Lepsy

Let me start this post by sucking up to Geno, Sean & Co. a bit: Cageside Seats is truly an amazing place.

No, seriously, it really is! Not only does it offer great articles and fan posts about everything pro wrestling, not only are the people that I have met and conversed with on here downright wonderful, but this site has also stirred my interest in pro wrestling outside WWE. Before I found this site, I was practically completely ingorant of the world of pro wrestling that lay beyond Raw and Smackdown. To be honest, I had little to no interest of venturing outside the known realm of WWE. But thanks to the brilliant people here, since I have set foot mouse into Cageside for the first time roughly a year ago, I have found myself caught up in the wonderful world of NXT, and then slowly but surely broadened my horizon even further – so much that I have now started looking into the German pro wrestling scene.

I have to admit that I had always thought that pro wrestling here in Germany would only exist in the big cities, like Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg or Berlin, so I was more than surprised to find that there is, in fact, a rather big promotion just an hour's drive from where I am living, and that they had a show planned for 1 May, 2015. When I told the wonderful people in the Cageside Daily about the card (of which I didn't know a single person – I have only rather recently started to venture into the pro wrestling world beyond WWE), the tenor of the reactions was "Gooooo!"

So, two weeks after I went to my first ever WWE live event, I went to Schwabach for my first ever indie wrestling event: GWP's Focus On Optimum 3. This here is my report of the experience, along with a handful pictures I took of the show. If you want to see all the pictures that I took, you can go here and check them out.

When I arrived at the venue the first thing that did surprise me was to see such a broad variety of fans: There were families with little kids (I'm guessing the youngest to be 6 years), twenty-something couples, middle-aged smarks, but even a few older people in attendance. If I were to guess, I'd say at least 1/3 – 2/5 of the audience were women. In fact, this was a more diverse crowd than I'd seen at the WWE event two weeks prior.

The second thing that surprised me was that all around the foyer the wrestlers were standing around waiting to be talked to and asked for autographs/photographs; many also had their own merch in front of them to sell to the fans. Right next to the entrance stood Rob Terry of TNA fame as especially ReverendKain and Treybeez had explained to me. As his face was on the promotional poster with his name beneath, he was the only one I recognized.

To be honest, Terry stood out in every aspect: He's frickin' huge, and he's frickin' gorgeous; but most importantly though he's also frickin' sweet. It took me a while to gather up all my courage but eventually I walked over and asked him for a photograph which he was happy enough to pose for. After wishing him all the best for his fight later I quickly fled the scene, struggling to believe I had indeed just dared to ask this gorgeous man for a photograph.

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I strolled around the foyer a bit more, checking out the merchandise they offered (photographs (which you could then ask the athletes to sign), t-shirts from all kinds of promotions, including WWE and ROH, action dollies (™ThingsandStuff), DVDs, replica belts, keychains, necklaces, you name it), and ogling the other wrestlers standing around. As I have mentioned above, I didn't recognize any of them – in fact, some of them I didn't even recognize as wrestlers, but more about that later. Thanks to my shyness I didn't approach anyone else anymore, but just bought a GWP t-shirt and then headed inside to sit down. My seat was behind the timekeeper's table in the second row. Unfortunately the row before me was occupied by a pretty big guy so my view was partly blocked. Even more unfortunately, that guy also reeked of stale beer and cold cigarette smoke which for me, as someone who is a self-proclaimed radical non-smoker and who rarely ever drinks alcohol at all (and if I do then only champagne) was quite annoying and disturbing, and also saddening – because this guy fulfilled every last negative cliché of a pro wrestling fan that there is: long-haired, overweight, middle-aged smoker guy with questionable hygiene and an alcohol problem.

(To make something clear though: smoking was not allowed inside the venue thanks to German anti-smoking laws; I guess that guy simply did have a cigarette or two or three before he came inside.)

Anyway, then it was 6.45 pm and the show started... with the VLC player crashing visibly for everyone on the big screen on the stage that was used as titantron. But eventually they did get it to work and the GWP promo video played, and then the ring announcer Thomas Giesen came out. He welcomed us to the show, then put over the sponsors for the event before he introduced the commentary team for the DVD production and the timekeeper and...

…then he got interrupted by a guy in a suit flanked by two other, more muscular guys in suits. Judging by the jeers sounding around the room these guys were the ultimate baddies. The announcer introduced them to the newbies like myself as Die FIRMA (The Federation for Intellectual and Respectable Mad Arts, although Firma in German also means simply firm/company). I have not caught the all the names, but apparently the small suited guy was the head of the faction, and the two muscular guys were his bodyguard and also their latest recruit, Felix Reiter. The latter we were promised to see in action later at the Battle Royal. The head of FIRMA cut a rather good promo about the star of his faction, Mr Wrestling V (a guy I'd say of about the same size and shape as El Generico, and he was also wearing a mask, but that's where the similarities end, I'd say), how he was the best ever and how he would come for the title and all that jazz, and how he would dismantle his opponent for the night, Johann Schuster. The crowd didn't buy into any of his words and just booed with all their might. Many called for Mr Wrestling I. and got more insults from the main baddie for their troubles.

Mr Wrestling V's opponent was a guy named Johann Schuster, and he is... Let's just say that I honestly caught myself wondering if that guy was even of age yet. He certainly has the babyface to fit his babyface status, but man, can he work! The match was a pretty fast-paced affair, with plenty of high-flying spots from Schuster including a somersault to the outside, taking out Mr Wrestling and the other FIRMA cronies, and some more athletic spots from Mr Wrestling as well. It could have been a fun match, but it suffered quite a bit from overbooking: As Mr Wrestling V had three helpers at ringside with him and Schuster none, he repeatedly fell victim to shenanigans and distractions from the outside. He battled valiantly, but eventually Mr Wrestling V got the win, much to the chagrin of the crowd.

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The second match of the night started once again with a VLC player crash, but eventually the engineers got the Titantron running for a German lady called Stella who would take on Shanna from Portugal in the second match of the night. The crowd was pretty much divided down the middle for this one, and we got the first dueling chants of the night. The match itself was good but like in WWE it was far too short – after just five minutes Shanna had gotten the pin, although NOT via roll-up, but thanks to her finisher (which I can't remember what it was though). After the match Shanna celebrated together with Stella and the two walked back to the curtain arm in arm which was a nice touch. Also nice was to hear the women being referred to as ladies and not as divas.

After – you guessed it - another VLC crash the next competitor came out, "It Boy" Ken Floyd, the reigning Dragonhearts Champion (Dragonhearts being the name of a wrestling school in Nuremberg). This guy is so very camp, it makes Tyler Breeze seem completely normal, and the crowd hated him for it. But honestly, no matter how camp this guy is: I hated that the crowd chanted "Schwuli" (German version of faggot) and "You're so gay" at him. We're living in the 21st century, people! There must be no more time or space for homophobia, especially with so many kids in attendance as there were. Yes, his gimmick is camp and full of clichés, but that doesn't mean that these chants are in any way okay – on the contrary. /rant

Floyd's opponent was a Brit, The Wonderkid Jonny Storm. It's honestly funny, but Storm was more over than his German opponent – at a show in Germany! The match they had was really good and had some fun moments (like Floyd cowering in the corner and screaming like a little girl when Storm came running at him), but not great, and in the end Storm lost due to some cheating from Floyd. This brought out the "CEO PR" Andreas R who told Floyd that he would have to defend his title at Night Of Decisions in October against the winner of the Battle Royal that would later be held. Floyd threw a nice little tantrum that went perfectly well with his gimmick, but the CEO's decision was final.

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Guess what? Yep, the engineers had more trouble with VLC, but then it finally cooperated to play the titantron for "The Ottoman Warrior" Murat Bosporus, and just like It Boy he had a completely clichéd gimmick, including harem pants and Turkish flag. He had a GWP World Championship Qualifying match against "Forever Young" Crazy Sexy Mike – although I don't really know what about this guy was crazy or sexy.

This match was a pretty stiff hoss fight and not overly bad, and yet:

Seriously, their constant grunting and groaning distracted from an otherwise really good bout. Please ignore the typo, though - stupid auto correct!

There were a few nice spots in that match, one particularly fun when one of the two verbally (I have forgotten who) ripped into the referee for some decision they weren't happy with, and the poor ref was cowering pretty much like Floyd had before. Only minus the girlish screams.

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And then it was time for the 15-man Battle Royal, and you know what? Battle Royals are even more confusing live than they are on TV. And when you add malfunctioning soft-/hardware to the mix, it's pretty much a clusterfuck. Entertaining, yes, but still, a clusterfuck. It Boy came out to join the commentary team for this one, as he would have to take on the winner in half a year as announced earlier in the show.

During the BR the VLC crashed over and over again, resulting in sometimes more than 90 seconds passing before another entrant would join the action in the ring. One would like to think that as one of the biggest pro wrestling promotions in Germany (as they claim to be) they should have better equipment, but the problems they had were beyond embarrassing.

What else did I take away from that Battle Royal? Germans surely love clichéd gimmicks. Here's some of the participants of the BR:

  • Brother Chaos – a Fanciscan monk who came out clad in a rough cowl and wore a rosary around his neck. At least he hadn't had the tonsure shaved into his head

  • Farmer Joe – a gentle but stupid giant who loves apples and farm animals and has a great appeal for kids; he wears flap trousers and straw hat

  • The Insane Killer – who apparently broke out of the asylum. He came out with straightjacket and Hannibal Lecter mask and a crazy glare. Rather fittingly as well, that he eliminated four or five wrestlers that had come into the ring before him in quick succession within hardly a minute of his entering the BR.

  • "The End" Mohamed Jnibi – An Indian warrior kind of guy.

  • The Caribbean Killer Rambo – wearing bandanna and flak jacket thanks to which he can withstand chops to the chest but isn't very bright otherwise (as evident by the fact that he wanted to lift Farmer Joe (about three times his size) up and carry him to the rope to toss him over)

  • Cash Money Erkan – fulfilling all clichés that the name "Erkan" is associated with in Germany,

  • Ivan Kiev – you guessed it, he's from Ukraine, complete with gold-and-blue gear.

  • Aaron Insane – yes, the name is the gimmick!
    and finally

  • "The German Wrestling Icon" Boombastic – Kane-like gimmick and Kane-like boring

The other six participants' gimmicks were not quite as cliché-laden, although, that the smallest and lithest of the bunch did the Kofi Kingston-like spots (he got tossed out, landed on his hands, walked a few feet up and down on his hands and then re-entered the action), was pretty cliché again, as well. Felix Reiter, FIRMA's representative stayed in longer than he should have thanks to interference from his stable mates (he got knocked out, they caught him as he fell off the apron and put him on the timekeeper's table so that his feet wouldn't touch the ground, splashed water into his face and then helped him back into the ring), but eventually he got dumped out rather unceremoniously – I don't remember who had the honour, though.

I couldn't quite make out any crowd favourite for the BR (at first I thought it was a guy named BAM – he quickly became my favourite as he was rather athletic and also had a Solomon Crowe-ish feel to him only not quite as deranged – then Blaze, Cash Money Erkan and finally Ivan Kiev), but in the end the audience was happy enough that Ivan Kiev won against CME. It Boy of course wasn't too happy with this, but I don't think he would have liked whoever'd come out on top.

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After that they played a video message from Tatanka who announced that he'd be at Catch At The Beach, the summer open air show in July (I will have to work that weekend, hrmpf!) – well that's what the message was according to the ring announcer, because I couldn't understand a word of what he was saying due to badly balanced speakers. Either way, that concluded the first half of the show.

Because at the WWE show I'd not had enough to drink which had ultimately resulted in a nearly 3-day long migraine, I decided to use the intermission to get myself something to drink. To my surprise most of the wrestlers (both those who had already competed, including some who'd just been in the BR!, and those whose matches were yet to come) were standing in the foyer again, once more offering their merchandise for sale and providing more opportunities to talk to them and take photos with them.

Apparently the engineers had used the intermission to fix whatever problems they'd had with their equipment, because after the break no more VLC crashes happened. Although, they still didn't quite manage to properly time the switching on/off of the titantron so that the audience would not see them move the mouse around a folder for the next video, and the sound mixing/balance was still off so that every entry tune sounded the same. As this was already their 10th event (and they only do these events about twice to three times a year), surely the engineers should have had enough time to work out the kinks, right? Especially as the event is entitled "Focus on Optimum"...?

Anyway, the show restarted with the second GWP World Championship Qualifying match, this one between Chris Colen from Austria and Joel Redman from England. Both guys were equally over, making this the third time of the night (the second had been at the end of the BR when CME and Ivan Kiev were going one on one) that dueling chants for the athletes rang around the venue.

I have to say, up to this point this bout was my favourite of the night. Not because it was the most pleasing on the eye, which it was – Colen is really handsome, and Redman has probably THE most gorgeous smile in all of pro wrestling. No, I loved it so much because it was action-packed, fast paced and also offered quite some athleticism from two guys who don't really look overly athletic but more like power wrestlers. The highlight of the match for me was when Redman did a headstand-thingy in a corner for nearly a minute, and Colen tried to break his balance by pulling at the ropes, but to no avail. In the end Redman won, but like Shanna and Stella had done in the first half of the show, he and Colen shook hands fairly and celebrated together which the crowd loved.

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Next up was another championship match, this one for the Wrestlingcorner.de championship. Doug Williams (of TNA fame, as I was told) took on the champion Saša Keel of Croatia, and it was another awesome match. Unfortunately quite a lot of the action took place in that part of the ring of which I had only partial view thanks to the guy in front of me, and in addition the referee kept jumping into my line of sight as well, so I do not know if Williams pulled Chaos Theory out of the bag or not. Still it was an entertaining affair, and provided another comic relief moment when Keel, after Williams kicked out at 2 yet again, complained to the ref that "that was even an 8-count!!" which became a bit of the thing to chant afterwards. In the end Williams won and thus became the new Wrestlingcorner.de champion.

Unfortunately his title reign did not last long at all, because suddenly the FIRMA were out and reminding us that this particular title is on the line 24-7, and that wherever and whenever the champ was challenged he would have to accept the challenge and fight for the title. So Mr Wrestling V was challenging Williams for the title right now. Because of the rules of that particular championship Williams had no chance but to comply, but as he made ready to face Mr Wrestling before him, suddenly the real Mr Wrestling V pummeled him from behind with a metal briefcase and pinned him for the victory (the fake Mr Wrestling turned out to be Felix Reiter). The crowd jeered and booed with all their might as the FIRMA leader demanded his cronies to finish Williams and they probably would have, but then Chris Colen came out and chased them off and destroyed the metal briefcase, and then he challenged Mr Wrestling V to a match. The FIRMA leader laughed that demand off and said that Mr Wrestling would only fight winners, but as Colen had lost his match earlier, he did not fit the criteria and therefore would not get a match, especially not for the title.

Yeah, so much for that "you have to defend the title whenever, wherever, against whoever challenges you right then and there" rule that had cost Williams his title just minutes after having won it.

This brought out the CEO again and he said that he was the one making decisions around here, and he decided that Colen and Mr Wrestling V would indeed go head to head in October for the title. The FIRMA leader protested that Colen would first have to prove his worth and suggested that he should take on an opponent of their choosing at Catch At The Beach, and IF he did beat that opponent, he'd get the title shot. The CEO grudgingly accepted that compromise but then got one back over FIRMA when he declared that WHEN Colen beats his opponent and gets to face Mr Wrestling V in October, it would be in a Schwabach Street Fight.

I can't help but wonder where all of that leaves poor Douglas Williams – what about his rematch? Does he not deserve it? After all, he was cheated out of the title... Yep, WWE aren't the only ones with continuity and logic problems, it seems.

The next match as an "Aerial Xplosion Fatal Fourway", which, to celebrate the 10th event that GWP have put together, would be carried out under Elimination rules, and it was between "The Aerial Assassin" Will Ospreay from England, "Villain" Marty Scurll, Paul Robinson (both also from England) and last but not least "The Untamable" Emil Sitoci from the Netherlands. Except for Scurll who, although not very tall (he's billed at 5 ft. 7 in.), kinda looks like a wrestler, if I met any of these guys on the street, I'd never, ever take them for wrestlers. If Ospreay hadn't been wearing his ring gear during the meet & greet thing in the foyer before the show, I would never have known that he was one of the athletes. And in fact, I did pass Paul Robinson (they billed him at 5 ft. 4 in., so he's as tall – or short – as me) in the foyer before the show, and I didn't even look twice. He looks more like a hooligan (cliché, anyone?) than a wrestler, and he also had the fewest spots in the spotfest that was this match, one of which was simply to spit on Ospreay. Yep, that's what he did, twice, and then rubbed the spit all over Ospreay's body. Yuck!

Apart from this disgusting bit this was, as I said, an awesome spot fest of the high flyers. I urgently need to take lessons from Rev so to be able to name the spots they did, but my lack of knowledge of the moves did not lessen the feeling of entertainment that this match provided. Especially Ospreay hit a few amazing spots and eventually won, much to the crowd's delight.

And then it was time for the main event which was for the GWP World Championship, and it was between the reigning champion, Absolute Andy, and Rob Terry, and please forgive me if I go a bit more into detail for this one. That's because this one stands out the clearest in my memory, and because I really loved this match. I have to admit that I am torn between this and the Colen/Redman affair for match of the night.

Now, during all previous matches, there had always been at least a quarter of the crowd that would not cheer for the fan favourite, but rather for the opponent. For this match however, at least 98% of the audience were rooting for the champ. I think there were only ten people at best in the whole audience rooting for Terry, and I admit I was one of them due to how kind he'd been to me before the show. The rest of the roughly 400 in attendance all cheered for Andy. Of course, as the champ is from Nuremberg (which is just ten miles away from Schwabach where the show took place), he had the home advantage, but he is also rather charismatic, I have to admit, so it was easy to understand why the crowd was cheering him.

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Before the match Rob Terry snatched the belt and posed with it in a ring corner to a chorus of jeers, causing Andy to take the belt from him and climb the corner himself, and of course the crowd loved it. Needless to say Terry was... not amused.

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And then the match started, and I loved every minute of it, although it was neither as fast nor as athletic as Colen/Redman had been. This was a stiff hoss fight with mostly power moves, and a great back and forth all throughout. Terry kept intimidating the referee which was fun to see, because the ref was a skinny looking guy of maybe 25 – 30 years, and Terry is, indeed a freak. I mean, I felt like a dwarf next to this guy when we took that picture together!

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I said that the fight wasn't as athletic as Colen/Redman, but that's not to say that there were no athletic spots at all. Despite his size (billed at 6 ft. 3 in., and 242 lbs) Andy did show some athleticism as well, for instance a suicide dive to the outside, or, later on, a dropkick from the top rope. In the former spot though a little girl almost got hurt because she was leaning with her back against the balustrade right in the spot where Rob tumbled into it. Thank God her grandmother was quick enough to pull her away, but that was a really close call as she could easily have gotten hurt here. Why the grandmother didn't tell the kid to keep her eye on the action so to be able to jump back or aside if necessary is a mystery to me, though. I mean, the way they acted, this surely wasn't their first pro wrestling event, so they MUST have known that stuff like that could happen, right?! After that scare the gran showed some sense though and took the girl to the back of the audience for the rest of the fight, and it was good thinking, for sure.

Andy's suicide dive was also the cue to take the fight out of the ring as well. At first the two stayed around the ring, and first Terry hammered Andy's head into the officials' table (which had been used to put the wrestler's props on (Brother Chaos' rosary, Farmer Joe's bucket of apples, etc.) , and then Andy returned the favour. At this I called out "Come on, Rob!", although I was not sure he could hear that through the general chants for Andy. But when he straightened up, he caught my eye and gave me a tiny wink, so it seems that he had heard it after all. Either way, I think my bones turned into rubber right then and there... The fight then spilled into the audience itself, and for a while Andy was backtracking and Terry was stalking him, hammering head first into the wall and such. The poor referee tried time and again to get the two to return to the ring, but it took a comeback from Andy to achieve that. He got a chair out and knocked Terry out so that he landed seated in the chair, and then hit him with a running dropkick thingy, or however that is called. To the crowd's overjoy he did that spot three times. Poor Rob!

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Terry wasn't beaten yet, though. The action continued to go back and forth, all the while the audience chanted "pipe wrench!", and then Andy dove beneath the ring and brought out the requested tool (apparently that's his Sledgehammer, if you get the analogy), but when he wanted to use it against Terry the ref intervened and took the wrench away. Terry tried to use this opening to hit a running power slam, but somehow Andy got out of it and hit some kind of slam himself and that was the win. Rob didn't take too kindly to the loss though and when he'd recovered enough from that slam, he got up, overpowered Andy and put him on his shoulders and hit him with a beautiful running power slam as he had intended to earlier. This brought the second referee out, and together the two officials managed to make Terry leave the ring.

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But that wasn't the end of the show yet, because suddenly there was another titantron video for N.E.W. which apparently is another wrestling school in the area, and these guys hijacked the show and goaded Absolute Andy into a title match against one of their wrestlers, a guy named Juvenile X, reminding him that he'd always claimed to be a fighting champion etc. Andy agreed to the match, and it was a short affair. He did his best to come out on top, but at the end of the day his match with Terry had cost him too much energy and he lost, and that was, after nearly four and a half hours, the end of the show.

Outside in the foyer the wrestlers were back, and after I bought my ticket for the next show on 31 October, I did stop by a few of them (incidentally all the Brits) and thanked them for a great evening and told them that hopefully I'd see them again - yes, including Rob Terry. With him, Marty Scurll and Jonny Storm I had a rather fun exchange when I said to them "Awesome matches, both of you!", because Jonny was back in his normal street clothes and I mistook him for normal staff. I know, I know, bad Lepsy! Jonny's reaction was awesome and sweet, though: He scoffed and pretended to be offended and threatened to hit me with a clothesline, and all four of us laughed. After that I bid my final goodbye to them and headed home, full of new impressions and excitement, and with at least a handful of new names to look up on Youtube & co.

And that was the end of my first indie wrestling experience. Overall it was a fun night that I won't forget quite so easily. The problems with the equipment (bad sound, malfunctioning VLC player, badly-timed activation of Titantron) did not really dampen the mood, although I sincerely hope that they will work hard on these issues and get them right by October.

And I will work hard on myself so I will actually dare to approach the wrestlers and talk to them rather than just stare at them from the distance.

What do you think GWP, is that a deal? Oh yes, and could you please get Rob Terry for the next event again...?

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Cageside Seats readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cageside Seats editors or staff.