Ted Petty Invitational

[Knapik]

IWA-MS holds the Ted Petty Invitational every year, and it's one of the most prestigious tourneys in the indies. Here are how some LOTF guys are doing so far!:

- R1: Claudio Castagnoli defeats Jimmy Jacobs with the press swiss uppercut to advance to night two of the TPI. Castagnoli did the Big Swing for an impressive TWENTY-FIVE TURNS, leaving himself exhausted and Jacobs completely nauseated. Castagnoli was the only member of the 2007 finals to advance to tomorrow night and was easily one of the most over men of the entire night, getting a very tired crowd to pop repeatedly for his near falls and call for the Ricola Bomb multiple times.


- R1: Eddie Kingston defeats Necro Butcher in an unannounced surprise match which the live crowd was ABSOLUTELY ECSTATIC FOR. Necro was over like a million bucks and Kingston got a huge WELCOME BACK chant after the match. With the shuffled card due to Quack's absence, this match fills a slot for night two. As Dingo is also out of the tourney, we will have Elgin vs. Ricochet to fill the other incomplete bracket. Kingston thanks Ian Rotten afterwards for "giving a piece of s#@t like me a chance." There are literally no words to describe Necro's wrestling style - it's the lack OF a style, just wild brawling and insanely risky maneuvers which are undoubtedly shortening his life even as the crowd pops crazy. You can't fault him for doing what he wants though. (LOVE TO HAVE EDDIE IN LOTF!)

- R1: Sami Callihan defeats Chris Hero after being dominated for two-thirds of the match, in what was basically a set-up for Trik Davis to come out and confront Hero afterwards. Hero repeatedly tried to give Trik props for growing a set of balls, but Trik wasn't having it and slapped him repeatedly so Hero begged Ian Rotten to give him a match on night two to teach him some manners. Rotten finally agreed. Trik got a little TOO chummy with me during this angle, but I was the obvious target for wearing a CH t-shirt.

- R1: Drake Younger defeats 2 Tuff Tony with an unbreakable Bryan Danielson style small package to move on in the TPI. Tony is a JUGGALO with quite a lot of girth but he moves well for a big man and was an excellent heel opponent for Drake, who is very popular with the IWA crowd.


I pick Younger over Castagnoli in the finals. That's more wishful thinking than anything, but the guy deserves a big win!

Here are the first round winners:

Dave Taylor
2 Cold Scorpio
Sara Del Ray (really!)
Claudio Castagnoli
Drake Younger
Eddie Kingston
Michael Elgin
Ace Steel
Ricochet
Josh Abercrombie (now Josh Raymond... I think using his redneck gimmick)
Sami Callihan (no idea who this is, but he beat Hero!)
Cassandro (Mexican wrestler? He beat Chuck Taylor!)

Last year Mike Quackenbush and Chuck Taylor were, I believe, in the finals. Chuck's loss is a big surprise. Maybe Eddie Kingston is ready for a big moment? Cool to see LOTF represented so well!

[EpicDave]

Sami Callihan is a guy from Northwest Ohio who trains in Cincinnati. I give the guy credit- as a rookie he wrestled as "Cannonball" Callihan and was about 100 pounds heavier than he is now:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aRquDaxtZU

[j]

"Josh Abercrombie (now Josh Raymond... I think using his redneck gimmick)"

from what I read it said he had braided blue hair so I'm guess he not using a redneck gimmick.

Quackenbush was supposed to be there but had a family emergency and couldn't make it

[Deleted]

This year's TPI, in my honest opinion, sounds like total and complete garbage. Then again, we're talking about IWA-MS, so yeah. Good to see Drake get the win over Tony, hopefully he wins the whole thing.

[bluelantern]

Ace Steel (trainer of champions) for the win.

Actually, I don't see that happening. I'd have to see how the brackets for round two shape up to make a real educated guess, but it's more likely Claudio.


In other LOTF news on this "tournament weekend", Larry Sweeney advanced to the second round of the Jeff Peterson memorial tourney down in Florida. He'll face Sal Rinauro in the second round tonight.

[j]

Here is the full write up:

IWA-MidSouth Ted Petty Invitational Results 9.26.08 – Night One

All of the action from night one!

IWA-MidSouth Ted Petty Invitational Night One
Hartman Rec Center in Joliet, Illinois

- Ian Rotten announces that Mike Quackenbush is out of tonight's tournament due to a family emergency.

- R1: Egotistico Fantastico defeats Prince Mustafa Ali with an inverted corkscrew moonsault to advance in the TPI. Joey Eastman was in Ali's corner, but Ali generated plenty of heat on his own due to the arab gimmick. Still amusing to hear Eastman yell "BALI BALI BALI" at Ali anyway.

- R1: Dave Taylor defeats Tracey Smothers with a double underhook suplex into a cradle to advance. Great catch-as-catch-can match, and in my own audio commentary I was heard uttering the words "I am not worthy of Dave Taylor." Both men were over with the Joliet crowd.

- R1: 2 Cold Scorpio defeats Bobby Fish with a powerbomb off the top turnbuckle to advance. He got the most out of the little known Fish and the crowd gave him a healthy round of applause and thank yous afterwards for a fine first round match.

- R1: Sara Del Ray defeats Trik Davis via a rollup in the corner to advance. Del Ray was awesomely over in this match, as the crowd chanted things like DIE TRIK DIE and SARA'S GONNA KILL YOUUUU. She was over like Joe in ROH.

- R1: Drake Younger defeats 2 Tuff Tony with an unbreakable Bryan Danielson style small package to move on in the TPI. Tony is a JUGGALO with quite a lot of girth but he moves well for a big man and was an excellent heel opponent for Drake, who is very popular with the IWA crowd.

- R1: Cassandro (working a VERY exotico style AAA gimmick) defeats Chuck Taylor using a modified 'rana into a facebuster. Cassandro got the crowd on his/her side very early, which was not hard to do as Chuck Taylor is a very hated man... but not so hated the crowd didn't chant "THANK YOU CHUCK" after a long and exciting match. This leaves both a finalist from last year's TPI as well as last year's champion out of night two's main event.

- R1: Sami Callihan defeats Chris Hero after being dominated for two-thirds of the match, in what was basically a set-up for Trik Davis to come out and confront Hero afterwards. Hero repeatedly tried to give Trik props for growing a set of balls, but Trik wasn't having it and slapped him repeatedly so Hero begged Ian Rotten to give him a match on night two to teach him some manners. Rotten finally agreed. Trik got a little TOO chummy with me during this angle, but I was the obvious target for wearing a CH t-shirt.

Intermission followed. Sara Del Ray, Claudio Castagnoli and Tracey Smothers were signing autographs and posing for photos with fans.

- R1: Eddie Kingston defeats Necro Butcher in an unannounced surprise match which the live crowd was ABSOLUTELY ECSTATIC FOR. Necro was over like a million bucks and Kingston got a huge WELCOME BACK chant after the match. With the shuffled card due to Quack's absence, this match fills a slot for night two. As Dingo is also out of the tourney, we will have Elgin vs. Ricochet to fill the other incomplete bracket. Kingston thanks Ian Rotten afterwards for "giving a piece of s#@t like me a chance." There are literally no words to describe Necro's wrestling style - it's the lack OF a style, just wild brawling and insanely risky maneuvers which are undoubtedly shortening his life even as the crowd pops crazy. You can't fault him for doing what he wants though.

- R1: Josh Raymond (the former Josh Abercrombie, now with blue braided hair) defeats Tyler Black from AOTF to advance to the second round, which was quite a surprise to those in attendance. Raymond's finisher was the phoenix splash 630. No one in the building could be said to be happy but at least the post-show announcement about Black's role for night two made up for it (more on that in a second).

Afterwards Sal and Vito Thomaselli get into an unscheduled brawl which immediately spills out into our section of the crowd. Chairs got knocked over, autographed shirts got stepped on, and my bottle of Pepsi was used as a weapon - whipped hard into the back of one of the two men during the melee. Nobody said TPI wasn't an interactive event! We had to move, run or duck virtually for at least half the night to stay out of harm's way.

- R1: Ace Steel defeats Ares to advance in the TPI in what was easily the most heatless match of the night. Considering they had to follow Kingston vs. Necro, Raymond vs. Black and a wild crowd brawl between the Thomaselli brothers you can hardly blame the crowd for being dead. Ares tries to get heat by wearing a Irwin R. Schyster-worthy suit and carrying a briefcase to the ring, but there was no Money in the Bank of this Swiss Money affiliate. He'd repeatedly try to mimic Claudio's crowd responses and the crowd died every time. One gets the feeling the attendees were as much relieved as pleased when Steel finished the match with a rollup. Again no fault of Steel's given what he had to follow. 11:25 CST at this point and the crowd is pretty tired.

- R1: Ricochet, originally scheduled to face Mike Quackenbush, was defeated by 'The Canadian Crazy Horse' Michael Elgin to advance in the TPI. The finish was very confusing as Elgin had taken Ricochet down and was hitting him with ground 'n pound, and it appeared the ref was calling for the bell due to excessive violence, but unbeknownst to us Ricochet was actually tapping out to the beating - making Elgin the winner.

- R1: Claudio Castagnoli defeats Jimmy Jacobs with the press swiss uppercut to advance to night two of the TPI. Castagnoli did the Big Swing for an impressive TWENTY-FIVE TURNS, leaving himself exhausted and Jacobs completely nauseated. Castagnoli was the only member of the 2007 finals to advance to tomorrow night and was easily one of the most over men of the entire night, getting a very tired crowd to pop repeatedly for his near falls and call for the Ricola Bomb multiple times.

- Loser leaves town for one year, IWA-MidSouth world heavyweight title match - Dingo defeats Jaysin Strife in a horrifically brutal brawl where both men had a full crimson mask worthy of Ric Flair - Dingo in particular. Strife quickly re-opened a wound given to Dingo during the TPI's opening introductions, and Dingo gave him one hell of a receipt in return. Everything was used from pliers to chairs to a turnbuckle spike that had been removed from the corner post. At one point Dingo gave multiple headbutts to Strife's back, leaving a bloody imprint each time, and had the ring canvas not been red there would have been a back-sized bloodstain when he slammed him to the canvas. Rotten ejected an unruly fan personally during the match. Dingo was very over, absolutely no one in the building liked Strife, but that's exactly what they were going for. Ian Rotten thanks us for coming, announces the night two brackets, and reminds us that Hero will be facing Trik Davis. BONUS MATCH ANNOUNCEMENT - as both Tyler Black and Jimmy Jacobs are out of the TPI finals, the Age of the Fall will be having an OPEN INVITATIONAL to take on any tag team that wants to challenge them. Very good albiet very long night one TPI show!

[TTX]

and Drake ends up winning it. Congrats Drake and good show by Claudio as well.

[holland227]

Good to see some LOTF winning stuff

[Gunslinger]

Might we see Dingo in a future LOTF set?

[bluelantern]

Good win for Drake Younger. That will help him continue to gain respect as more than a grabage (or deathmatch) wrestler.

Claudio wrestled Squire Dave Taylor in the second round. I really would've liked to have seen that match.