The ring went boom in the Rhino vs Jason Bane match.

Wrestlelution 5: An Enduring Spirit was a fine event but getting back to my place at 10:30 PM made it a little hard to do a write up about it. There were two elements that led to a late arrival back in Columbus. The first part was that the event was supposed to start at 3:00 PM. Luckily for myself and my girl, since we showed up at 3:05,  they didn’t start the event until about 3:20. The second problem is pictured above. I’ll get to that when I talk about the match between Rhino and Jason Bane.

I’m hoping to post pictures from the event on Facebook later because the girl was taking pictures during the majority of the event until her camera died for the main event. Maybe I’ll even post Dan Kuester’s pictures from last year’s event. It didn’t dawn on me until we got there that this was her first live wrestling event. She’d never seen a wrestling crowd for real, so that was very entertaining. I had bought us tickets to the first two rows which ended up putting us in the view of the hard camera off to one corner of the ring. If you got the iPPV, as Dan did, or you catch some of the matches on SportsTime Ohio, look for the guy with the brownish Hawaiian shirt on.

Jason Gory took on Michael “The Bomber” Facade for the TV Title. I thought it was a good match to start with because it gave us some violence since it was a casket match. Facade is also pretty popular and signs posters with his spray paint so he gets the crowd involved. Gory was in a ridiculous Freddy Krueger outfit that even had striped pants just like Freddy’s sweater. They also billed Gory at 185. If he weighs that, my scale is lying to me because he isn’t the same weight as me. Facade is normally a very sloppy wrestler but he cut down on his mistakes and delivered a good match with Gory. Facade retained his title which is good since he’d been gunning for it for the past year and a half. No reason to yank the rug out from him like TNA would have done since he’d won the belt only a couple of months ago.

Louis Lyndon took on Benjamin Boone next. This match received very little build up so it was hard to get invested in it. They did fight against each other in tag teams last year so they had some back story. Lyndon surprised me because I don’t remember him being that tall. It continues to confuse me as to why Flip Kendrick got the deal with TNA and not him. Mattson did good crowd work during the match. It was a solid match that ended with a roll up by Lyndon for the three count. I feel bad for Boone who had worked himself into good shape then just keeps losing. I hope he gets a better direction next year especially since he’s one of the few big men in the league.

Kirst fought Matthew Justice. This match was another one with very little build up. It looked like Justice was going to join the Dead Wrestling Society the last time he was on TV but that was not the case. As a whole, Justice has not been on TV much since his return from WWE Developmental. The end of the match saw Kirst kick out of a Death Valley Driver then roll up Justice less than a minute later with a hand full of tights, which I couldn’t see. (I think the ref was in the way.)

Zach Gowen against Gregory Iron was up next in an inspirational story vs an inspirational story match. I thought this story had some flaws in it because Gowen came into the league to help Iron against the Dead Wrestling Society but ended up joining forces with the other heel faction in the Sons of Michigan. The idea that Iron “stole” Gowen’s thunder for an inspirational story doesn’t seem right either. I’m pretty sure you relinquish that when you admit to substance abuse problems that you just overcame. That aside, it still didn’t make much sense to turn on Iron this quickly. The match was good. The ending helped wrap up a story that made no sense. The referee was going to allow a blatant cane shot by Gowen, who passed up the opportunity. The hesitation allowed Iron to hit the Destabiler aka the Stunner for the win. N8 Mattson attacked Iron after the match and was going to let Gowen make up for his earlier mistake but he decided to attack Mattson and Benjamin Boone who was holding Iron back. A feel good hug came after wards but it was a confusing story arc.

“The Megastar” Marion Fontaine with Aaron Maguire took on “Omega” Aaron Draven with Justin LaBar. My girl got some good pictures of this one including Fontaine’s outstanding mustache which he had grown out more than normal. He had a mustache on his new tights which wrapped around his hips onto the front with his initials in his crotch. They looked slick. The two things I noticed about Draven was the fact that he wore pants instead of tights. Realizing that he’d gained twenty pounds in his stomach could be why he made the switch. These two were part of a tag team match with Brodie Lee and Kevin Nash so I expected something out of this match. I don’t think it was bad but I thought more of a match would ensue. It was also painfully obvious, as Jeremy pointed out to me before I played catch up, that Vic Travagliante was going to cost LaBar by way of Draven the match. Vic cost them the match after a ref bump. LaBar inserted himself as referee. Maguire tried to stop him but was assaulted by Draven. He then gave Fontaine his finisher. As LaBar was counting, Vic pulled him out of the ring and kicked him in the balls. Draven wondered why he did that which allowed Fontaine to recover and hit his finisher just as the referee was waking up from his bump. I would have preferred a clean win for Fontaine but this works. Fontaine needed a win if they wanted to keep pushing him as a top tier heel in the company.

Rhino came out first against Jason Bane. We’ll never be quite sure if this match was cut short because when Rhino hit the ropes, the ring broke. The tension rod that connects two of the posts popped and collapsed the ropes. I don’t think the match was cut too short because a Gore had already been hit that Bane kicked out of. Bane hit his Baneline shortly after the breaking which Rhino kicked out of. That made sense since both guys were billed as super tough and they thought their finishers would do the trick after one attempt. What didn’t make much sense to me was Rhino winning with a second Gore. I understand that Rhino is more current than anyone else PRIME/PWO has brought in because he’s in a league that reaches 75 million as opposed to 6.8 million. He’s not a big enough deal in ROH for it to hurt him though. Let the local guy win unless you’re sticking around because PRIME is going to give you more camera time.

After taking over thirty minutes to repair the ring, Brian Bender took on Bryan Castle with “Bat” Dan Arkham. They didn’t test the ropes very much. It was a really quick squash of the mentor (Bender) by the pupil (Castle). It was what I expected.

Bobby Beverly against Bobby Shields in a hair vs. hair match was the next one out. I had thought this could be a show stealer because both of these guys are good and they had a good story line. Nicki Valentino provided some comedy into a fight as the referee between the two former serious players in Sex Appeal. Valentino even played into his 80’s gimmick by wearing black shorts, a blue shirt and a black bow tie a la the old WWF referees. The match lived up to the billing with a couple of sloppy, but not botched, moves near the end. Beverly ended up winning with a thrust kick. Shields had a fifty some odd year old woman in leopard print cut his hair which annoyed us. Shields didn’t have his head shaved as advertised. According to Dan who got the iPPV feed, the announcers said the job would be finished back stage. Boo.

Petey Williams took on Matt Cross was on the docket next. Two guys with similar builds, similar move sets and a history of quality wrestling lived up to what Aaron Maguire thought would be the best in ring action of the show. They delivered for sure. Fun stuff with both guys kicking out of their finishers with Cross nailing a Shooting Star Press for the win. The flip pile driver, while completely ridiculous, is a lot of fun to see live.

Matt Mason attacked Krimson as he came out for their match which was fitting since Mason’s wife Jayme had been brain washed by Krimson. I thought Mason played to the crowd too much during this type of match asking for approval of the violence he would use. The brawl was a fun one though. Jayme came out later in the match along with Kirst, but she ended up turning on the Dead Wrestling Society. It didn’t help her husband as Krimson won with the Witch’s Wheel aka Roll of the Dice. I liked the result since Krimson has been killing it on the mic and he’s been around PRIME/PWO longer.

The main event was Jimmy Jacobs against Johnny Gargano for the PRIME Wrestling Title. The match started on an odd note with Jacobs coming out first. The one thing that I don’t like every year at Wrestlelution is that a match spills out into the crowd. There is no good vantage point to see all of the action. The other by product of this is fans taking up seats that they didn’t pay for. My girl & I ended up with children standing in chairs in front of us. It’d be nice if PRIME/PWO fixed this problem as it’s happened every year. I paid extra money for my seat. If I knew I could get a $30 seat for $10, I’d do it. I loved a spot where Nicki Valentino, who had received some guidance from Jacobs along with the rest of Sex Appeal, came out to hit Gargano with a chair. Jacobs looks annoyed with the help. The smartest thing Jacobs did though is he didn’t trust Valentino to hit Gargano so he ducked out of the chair swing one way while Gargano ducked out in the other direction. The end came when Gargano nailed Uniquely You to become a two time PRIME Wrestling Champion.

We didn’t stick around for the celebration because it was 7:45 when the event ended. A twenty minute delay at the start and the unexpected ring break lead to a very late end time. I’ll have more to say when I join forces with Dan to jabber on about this event in audio form. Thank you to Aaron Maguire who on the iPPV mentioned us amongst the places you can hear a podcast about PRIME Wrestling. He mentioned it, we need to deliver. -Kevin