XWF Xtreme Rumble
West Warwick Civic Center, Rhode Island
Report by Dot Net staffer Zack Zimmerman

There were probably between 300-400 people at the show. It was held in a big, open gymnasium that didn't feel intimate and didn’t hold the crowd heat. The crowd was receptive throughout the night, but certainly not hot by the standards recent RI crowds have set.

1. Kristian Frost beat Vinny Marseglia in a ladder match to retain the XWA Championship. Decent match. The crowd was into the ladder spots and these guys did plenty without getting reckless.

2. Shane Strickland pinned Matt Cross. The crowd was into Strickland, and gave Cross a hard time with "You look homeless" and "Shave your beard" chants. Both guys are athletic marvels in the ring, but the match wasn't memorable. Strickland got the win after hitting a diving double-stomp on a sitting MDogg.

3. Eddie Edwards and Tommaso Ciampa defeated Ricochet and Uhaa Nation. Match of the night, as one would expect. Ricochet and Nation are members of Dragon Gate's Monster Express stable and are two of the best athletes in wrestling right now; it was a treat to get to see them perform stateside. Edwards and Ciampa always bring it, and this was no different. Lengthy, back-and-forth match that ended when Ciampa hit Project Ciampa on Ricochet.

4. The Hurricane beat Todd Hanson. Biff Busick, Hurricane's scheduled opponent, made his way to ringside on crutches accompanied by Gregory Edwards and Larry Dallas. He said injured or not, he was the toughest man in the building (in his all-out heel CZW character). He said he'd picked Hanson to make a man out of Hurricane. Hurricane played the outnumbered babyface in peril throughout the match and eventually overcame the odds en route to the win.

Intermission

5. David Starr won the 30-Man Xtreme Rumble match to become No. 1 Contender to the XWA Championship. Several notable names in the match include Robbie E, (a) Kim Chee, JT Dunn, referee Rick Bass, a commentator, and 25 others. Long, boring match interspersed with moments of excitement and entertainment. At one point, two guys who had eliminated each other brawled through the gym, ending up on top of a moving truck which was presumably the ring truck. The two men proceeded to take Mankind-style bumps, crashing through a table below. Heinous and unnecessary. Otherwise, the match went about ten or fifteen minutes longer than it needed to, but it was fine.

Zim Says: This was a fun show, but the lengthy Royal Rumble-format match doesn’t work well on an indie card. Maybe being faster paced with less time between entrants would've helped, but I found myself checking the clock around the 12th entrant and was ready for it to be over with at that point. The first half of the show delivered what was advertized. I'm not walking away from this show stunned, but I was entertained.

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