NEW YORK, NY – Roll up roll up! The last show of Just Wrestling’s Homecoming Tour – and, indeed, of 2009 – was a cracking way to end Just Wrestling’s first full calendar year. We had a new Champion, and a unique ending to the traditional MVP Battle Royal. We had stars aplenty and a capacity crowd. Most importantly we were back where it all began, in the Spiro Sports Center…
…and in tribute to the Spiro being such a great place to have begun, our first match was booked to get the pulses racing from the very start. Aaron Nothings and Andy Murray are both former Just Wrestling Champions, but the king of the streets far more successfully – bizarrely so – than the King of GCW. Andy Murray had wrongs to right, and at last he had the vengeance he has long desired, Nothings showing just how far he really can fall with an entirely limp performance that led us to question whether Nothings even cared for his home promotion anymore. The fans were disillusioned, increasingly accepting what the rumour mill has spat out about how far Nothings’ head was turned by his GCW stint. But on this showing he could never succeed on the big stage, and the Admiral of Awesome rammed home that point in brutal style, three consecutive Hex Breakers and an emphatic pinfall clearing the last few dark clouds from Murray’s clear blue sky. At last the Scot can hold his head high as one of the true greats of world wrestling today.
Bizarre GCW sideshow Zoey was in action next, winning his three-way match against Juicy and Skylar Montgomery and taking home a big chunk of new fans for his boyish energy. The Back Alley Brawler then rolled back the years to take apart Jak Nemesis in a storming performance, a gulf in class between the two veterans allowing the Brawler to truly run the ring and show himself as one of the major threats to the JWC title scene in 2010 – if his body holds out over the long cold winter, that is. John Lexicon is another who could take that step, upping the ante on Steve Harrison whose valiant efforts could not match Lexicon’s ring expertise.
Clark Fox and Hush took to the ring next, the winner banking a title shot via the WWW rule. Hush was the clear favourite having impressed the Just crowds throughout the tour, but seemed below par tonight and Fox made pluck and luck a winning combination. The next match would determine who Fox will be facing if he returns to cash in the title shot in the new year, with Jacob McKail, Jay Terror and “Normal” John Johnson each having earned the right to face Peyote Jones in his first Championship defense. Opinion was split four ways, and an entry poll found no greater than 29 per cent favour for any one of the combatants. For the first time in a while, the Just Wrestling Championship really was wide open, and each of McKail, Terror and Johnson had plenty of evidence to back up their claims on the belt.
But Peyote Jones would be dogged in his defence of it, having been the surprise dethroner of Aaron Nothings two weeks ago, and he cunningly stayed out of much of the right, allowing his three challengers to knock the spittle from one another’s mouths as they clashed fiercely. Nonetheless Jones was the first to fall, unable to respond to a dual powerbomb executed by Johnson and McKail, the two having grown wise to the Champion’s ways. We were guaranteed, then, to have a new Champion, but if Jacob McKail foresaw a fairytale ending to his nightmarish month of controversy and tragedy, he was getting ahead of himself, Terror’s Bandstand Bust sending him packing. Either Terror or Johnson would inherit the earth, figuratively speaking, and a battle that had already been long fought went up another notch in intensity, the GCW veteran finding he had met his match in the unknown from Buzzards Bay, MA. Once more, though, there would be no fairytale ending for the everyman made good as Jay Terror’s impeccable skill set had no holes for Johnson to dig into, and NJJ dug himself a hole with a desperate and ill-advised top rope ascent that ended in an angry encounter between the turnbuckles and his privates and – moments later – the Bandstand Bust off the top. Jay Terror had worked as hard as anyone to earn himself the right to stand atop Just Wrestling’s mountain, and now he has that honour.
The traditional MVP Battle Royal would end the show and also perform the task of providing another challenger to Terror. A healthy contingent of the touring roster piled into the ring set on salvaging what they could from their last chance to make good. Zoey was quickly on his way, unceremoniously despatched by The Back Alley Brawler who seemed to bristle with dislike for the entertainment character. Moments later Andy Murray took great pleasure in again getting one over on Aaron Nothings, sending him cascading over to the mats and landing with a thump, but the showman committed the schoolboy error of goading his seething foe and the Brawler once more took care of business, landing GCW’s Champion on mats far less soft than those he’s used to. Brawler made it a hat-trick of eliminations by getting rid of his opponent from earlier, Jak Nemesis, but any hopes he had of continuing in this vein were dashed when Lexicon and Jones conspired to eliminate him.
Harrison, Montgomery, Fox and Juicy were all despatched of in a sweeping spot, the new JWC contender Fox leaping swanlike from the top and landing across all three bodies as they fought near the ropes, the four of them tumbling over in an angry heap. That left six, McKail and Jones each with points to prove continuing their brawl from earlier while new Champion Jay Terror fended off the attentions of Hush and Johnson sparred with Lexicon. A good while passed with some solid ring action before McKail became next to go, followed promptly by deposed Champion Peyote Jones. John Lexicon finished in a credible 4th place, but it is only MVP status that the competitors are after and he slammed the apron with his fists at the chance he had let slip. Hush and Johnson together removed the Champion from contention and it was down to the two of them to settle MVP status.
Blow by blow, brick by brick, nothing could separate them, and this was true to the end as Johnson shaped to finish Hush, drawing back for a huge clothesline over the top rope that would seal victory – only for Hush to grab a solid hold of Johnson’s arm and pull him over the top with him. They hit the mat in an undifferentiated heap and, without the benefit of a video screen or replay functionality, the officials eventually concluded that the match had been drawn. Hush and Johnson will share MVP status, each receiving a JWC shot for their considerable efforts, to be taken in the New Year when Just resumes normal service. Happy holidays!
