Sermon on the Mat (Jan. 24, 2019): Beyond, Greektown, CMLL, AAW, wXw, & FIP cards

Welcome back to the Sermon on the Mat, your weekly one-stop shop for news from the wider world of wrestling beyond the big cable TV monoliths that get all the coverage.

Coming soon...

Beyond To Greektown and Beyond! (Jan. 24, 8PM Eastern)

1. Alexia Nicole vs. Kris Statlander
2. Jock Samson vs. Puf
3. Josh Briggs vs. Trent Gibson
4. Channing Decker vs. Chris Dickinson (Hardcore Match)
5. Anthony Green vs. Josh Alexander vs. Kobe Durst vs. Seleziya Sparx
6. John Atlas & Space Monkey vs. Maxwell Jacob Friedman & Stokely Hathaway
7. RJ City (c) vs. Sonny Kiss (Greektown Cup)

Beyond are teaming up with Toronto, Ontario’s Greektown wrestling for a little Thursday night action for y’all this week! The Frat are split up with hard singles contests against Briggs and Dickinson, we got a big-time four-way, Stokely Hathaway looking to spank the Space Monkey, and on top of it all, RJ City defends against the Concrete Rose, Sonny Kiss!

Get your tickets here or check it out when it hits IndependentWrestling.tv, folks.

CMLL Super Viernes (Jan. 25, 9:30PM Eastern)

1. El Coyote & Grako vs. Electrico & Oro, Jr.
2. Black Panther, Blue Panther, Jr., & Rey Cometa vs. El Sagrado, Misterioso, Jr., & Universo 2000, Jr.
3. El Audaz, Flyer, & Titan vs. El Felino, Shocker, & Vangellys
4. Soberano, Jr. vs. Templario (Lightning Match)
5. Atlantis, Caristico, & Volador, Jr. vs. Barbaro Cavernario & Los Guerreros Laguneros (Gran Guerrero & Ultimo Guerrero)
6. Diamante Azul & Lucha Brothers (King Phoenix & Penta el Zero M) vs. Los Ingobernables (Bestia del Ring, El Terrible, & Rush)

CMLL are back in the legendary Arena Mexico for your weekly Friday night dose of lucha libre action and boy howdy, folks, you can certainly tell that the roster is back from Fantastica Mania, can’t you? This is a stacked, stacked show, and likely a quality way to spend a Friday night.

Check it out, as always, free for nothin’ on Marca Claro, folks, and the VOD will go up on CMLL’s YouTube channel (where they also stream shows every Monday and Tuesday free of charge) after the fact for those of you who can’t watch live.

AAW The Final Stand (Jan. 26, 7:30PM Central)

1. Rey Horus vs. Trey Miguel
2. LAX (Angel Ortiz & Mike “Santana” Draztik) vs. Lucha Brothers (Penta el Zero M & Rey Fenix)
3. ACH vs. AR Fox
4. Trevor Lee vs. ???
5. DJ Z (c) vs. Myron Reed (AAW Heritage Championship)

Yes, folks, much like at PWG last week, it’s swansong time as AAW return to Chicago, Illinois. ACH’s final match is set against AR Fox, but at the time I write this, Trevor Lee’s opponent has not yet been announced. Fortunately that’s not all the festivities they’ve announced either, as we’ve got a couple killer lucha matches set, including Zema Ion defending his shiny new Heritage Championship against “Hot Fire” himself, Myron Reed!

Tickets are sold out, so y’all will just have to catch this bad boy when it hits Highspots and Smart Mark Video.

wXw Road to 16 Carat Gold: London (Jan. 26, 7PM GMT)

1. Francis Kaspin vs. Ivan Kiev (Road to 16 Carat Gold Block A Semifinal Tournament Match)
2. Mark Davis vs. Oliver Carter (Road to 16 Carat Gold Block A Semifinal Tournament Match)
3. Jay Skillet vs. Kyle Fletcher (Road to 16 Carat Gold Block B Semifinal Tournament Match)
4. Julian Pace vs. Shigehiro Irie (Road to 16 Carat Gold Block B Semifinal Tournament Match)
5. Bobby Gunns, Lucky Kid, & ??? vs. Chris Brookes, Timothy Thatcher, & ???
6. ??? vs. ??? (Road to 16 Carat Gold Block A Tournament Finals)
7. ??? vs. ??? (Road to 16 Carat Gold Block B Tournament Finals)
8. Absolute Andy (c) vs. David Starr (wXw Unified World Wrestling Championship)

wXw are back in London, England as part of their ongoing partnership with Progress, and they’ve brought not one, but two Road to 16 Carat Gold mini-tournaments with them! And in addition to that, Davey Wrestling gets his long-delayed title shot, and there’s an all-star six-man tag.

Get your tickets here or check the VOD out when it hits wXwNOW!, folks.

FIP Everything Burns (Jan. 27, 8PM Eastern)

1. Darius Lockhart, Markos Espada, & Troy Hollywood vs. the Skulk (Adrian Alanis, Leon Ruff, & Liam Gray)
2. Blanco Loco & Joey Ozbourne vs. Milk Chocolate (Brandon Watts & Randy Summers) vs. Precipice (Chance Champion & Omar Amir) vs. Ugly Ducklings (Lance Lude & Rob Killjoy) (FIP World Tag Team Championship #1 Contender’s Match)
3. The End (Odinson & Parrow) (c) vs. ??? (FIP World Tag Team Championship)
4. Aja Perera (c) vs. Stormie Lee (Shine Nova Championship)
5. Austin Theory vs. Tracer X
6. Bryan Idol vs. JD Drake (c) (WWN Championship)
7. Anthony Henry (c) vs. Eddie Kingston (FIP World Heavyweight Championship)

FIP are back in Ybor City, Florida to give you an alternative to the Royal Rumble if you’re not feeling WWE’s product right now, and I’ll be straight up with y’all folks-- the main event here is THE match to look out for. Kingston and Henry should go together like chocolate and peanut butter, and after the weekend both men had in Evolve last week, this is gonna be killer.

Get your tickets here or check it out on WWNLive, whether as an individual purchase or at no additional cost as part of your Club WWN subscription.

Free matches here!

#COMBATWRLD TV Selection Show

From the folks down at Combat Entertainment in Georgia, formerly AWE, we’ve got a full show of sorts, as they run their tournament field down for the Combat Series and feature matches from the men so selected. Check it out!

Matt Cross vs. Sonjay Dutt

A real blast from the past courtesy of CZW, we’ve got two long-time indie stalwarts going to war at Cage of Death 6. M-Dogg vs. Sonjay, enjoy!

David Starr & Tessa Blanchard vs. Janelope (Joey Janela & Penelope Ford)

From the fine folks over at Beyond and Women’s Wrestling Revolution Pro, we’ve got some top shelf intergender tag team action for you here. Would-be aces Starr and Blanchard face off against the Bad Boy and the Bad Girl, don’t miss it!

Results

PWG Hand of Doom (Jan. 18)

1. Brody King over Jungle Boy
2. Puma King over DJ Z
3. LAX (Angel Ortiz & Mike “Santana” Draztik) over Laredo Kid & Rey Horus
4. Robbie Eagles over Jonathan Gresham
5. The Rascalz (Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz) (c) over Best Friends (Chuck Taylor & Trent?) to retain the PWG World Tag Team Championship
6. Bandido over ACH
7. Jeff Cobb (c) over Trevor Lee to retain the PWG World Championship

A big night at PWG, with Jonathan Gresham impressing the hell out of the PWG faithful in an arm work tour de force against Robbie Eagles in his debut, and in the main event, Trevor Lee came up short before giving a farewell speech for the ages, including noting that he full well expects to get released from WWE and come back and win the title, which, hey I appreciate him just putting it out there like that if nothing else!

Pre-order the DVDs from the website, folks, you know the drill.

Evolve 119 / 120 (Jan. 18-19)

—Evolve 119 (Jan. 18)—

1. Joe Gacy over Colby Corino
2. The Skulk (Adrian Alanis & Leon Ruff) over Beaver Boys (Alex Reynolds & John Silver), Lotus (Gavin Quinn & Juntai), and Milk Chocolate (Brandon Watts & Randy Summers) to become #1 contenders to the Evolve Tag Team Championship (Scramble Match)
3. Priscilla Kelly over Trish Adora (Shine Showcase Match)
4. Anthony Henry over Curt Stallion
5. Fabian Aichner over Darby Allin
6. Liam Gray over Cyrus Satin
7. Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins & Montez Ford) (c) over the Skulk (Adrian Alanis & Leon Ruff) to retain the Evolve Tag Team Championship
8. JD Drake (c) over Eddie Kingston to retain the WWN Championship (No Disqualification Match)
9. AR Fox & Johnny Gargano over Austin Theory & Josh Briggs

—Evolve 120 (Jan. 19)—

1. Montez Ford over Eddie Kingston
2. Josh Briggs over Angelo Dawkins
3. JD Drake over Joe Gacy
4. Curt Stallion over Leon Ruff and Orange Cassidy
5. Anthony Henry over AR Fox to become #1 contender to the Evolve World Championship
6. Darby Allin over Fabian Aichner by pinfall with Last Supper.
7. Johnny Gargano over Austin Theory

As always with Evolve I’ll keep it short and sweet here and just point y’all to my recaps (119 here, 120 here) and also to Henry T. Casey’s article about his experience at the shows live, but suffice it to say, these shows ruled. Stallion got signed, Allin finally got another big win, and my dudes the WorkHorsemen lived up to their name and kicked SO much ass.

Check the VOD out on WWNLive, whether as an individual purchase or at no additional cost as part of your Club WWN subscription, folks.

wXw Back to the Roots XVIII (Jan. 19)

1. Bobby Gunns over Shigehiro Irie
2. Avalanche vs. Jurn Simmons went to a double count-out
3. Jay-FK (Francis Kaspin & Jay Skillet) over Veit Mueller & WALTER
4. David Starr over Timothy Thatcher
5. Toni Storm (c) over Melanie Grey to retain the wXw Women’s Championship (Loser Leaves Town Match)
6. RISE (Ivan Kiev, Lucky Kid, & Pete Bouncer) over RISE (Da Mack, Marius Al-Ani, & Tarkan Aslan) (c) to win the wXw Shotgun and wXw World Tag Team Championships (Käfigschlacht Match)
7. Absolute Andy (c) over Ilja Dragunov to retain the wXw Unified World Wrestling Championship (Käfigschlacht Match)

Let’s just hit the highspots here, shall we? Bobby Gunns finally scraped a victory out over Irie, David Starr broke Tim Thatcher’s developing undefeated streak ahead of his match against Unified Champion Absolute Andy, Toni Storm literally ran Melanie Gray out of wXw by retaining her title, and the true RISE is the one we knew in our hearts all along, or at least ever since Pete Bouncer got that HUGE reaction for turning on Bad Bones.

Check the VOD out when it hits wXwNOW!, folks.

Progress Chapter 83: Remove Child Before Ironing (Jan. 20)

1. Ilja Dragunov over David Starr
2. Nina Samuels over Laura Di Matteo
3. Do Not Resuscitate (Drew Parker & Spike Trivet) over Eddie Dennis & Mark Haskins
4. Angelico over Jody Fleisch
5. Aussie Open (Kyle Fletcher & Mark Davis) over Do Not Resuscitate (Chuck Mambo & “Present” William Eaver) to become #1 contender to the Progress World Tag Team Championship
6. Chris Ridgeway over Shigehiro Irie
7. Swords of Essex (Paul Robinson & Will Ospreay) (c) over CCK (Chris Brookes & Kid Lykos) to retain the Progress World Tag Team Championship

The big news coming out of this one is a bummer, folks-- Kid Lykos got hurt again. Fresh off coming back from this most recent injury, while wrestling Swords of Essex he dislocated his shoulder. Poor shitty little wolf just can’t catch a break, and we wish him a speedy recovery.

Check the show out on VOD when it hits Demand Progress, if you will.

As always...

Remember folks, no matter what type of wrestling you like, no matter how down you feel about the state of WWE, Impact, ROH, or any other “big-time” pro wrestling, there’s something out there for you. There’s a pro wrestling product that can hit you in the right spot and make you love wrestling like you thought you’d never be able to love it again. It’s there, I promise. You just gotta reach out and find it, and that, my friends, is what the Sermon on the Mat is all about.