The show opened with the match between Peter Pannache and Kaszub. These two have been feuding for a few shows now, ever since Kaszub turned on Peter and joined The Cavalry, KPW's heel stable. I must say that when I first saw Kaszub, he didn't impress me - nothing stood out about his wrestling or character. But as it often goes, the heel turn has done wonders for him. He now gets to show amazing intensity, getting in others faces all red and yelling. His strikes look better, he moves smoother. He's just cool. On the other hand, I liked Pannache right after he debuted, but he's been very stale since. His promos turned into catchphrase spewing and all his matches are very same-y. The same kicks, moonsaults and that's it (although to be fair, they look really good). He just doesn't seem capable of telling an interesting story. As a result, the match, which Peter ended up winning, didn't blow me away, so I'm hoping for some improvements from Petey. And please return to the old intro with choirs and epicness, instead of another generic buttrock indistinguishable from the rest of the roster.
Next was the debut of Alisa against her sister, Mira. The two have served as dancer-valets for Boski Ostrowski for the past year, until the last show when Alisa turned on him during a title match and joined The Cavalry. This lead into this obvious encounter, as the story seems to be that Alisa felt like she was in her sister's shadow and snapped. She came out in a leather jacket and with a baseball bat. looking kinda badass. Then she proceeded to assault Mira during her entrance, and as the result the match never started. At one point Mira started fighting back, but as she was already hurt by the initial flurry, Alisa ended up getting the upper hand. Some of her throws and big strikes looked really cool, but she seemed to suffer from the same issue as a lot of beginning wrestlers. Namely, at times she just looked lost, as if she forgot what to do next, and in those moments she seemed really out of character. She would end up just throwing really weak, unconvincing strikes, fixing her hair or just casually walking up. Still, she looked cool in the quick, fast-paced brawl and I'm curious about what she's got in store - I'll be awaiting her real debut.
I wasn't too crazy about Mika vs Kamil Aleksander. They both have somewhat-patriotic gimmicks, the former representing Poland abroad and the latter billed as "the first Polish wrestling champion". As such the match was a respectful bout between the two. They had a solid, basic wrestling match, but there was no story, and no heat. They just traded moves until eventually Kamil won, perhaps solidifying himself as the true posterboy of Polish wrestling. Unfortunately, the "workrate" did not sell the encounter on its own, which is why I don't have much to say.
The following altercation did have a story. Another wrestling classic - Gracjan Korpo, an office worker who wrestles in a suit, has mistreated his subordinate, Krzysztof Zasada, until he finally had enough and struck back, and now the two will settle their differences in the ring. Gracjan is the tallest wrestler in the roster and uses his size and power advantage in matches. Also, he insists on cutting promos before every match. I have to say, he's not very good at them. He gets the "shut up and fight already" heat, so if that's what he's going for then job well done. But in terms of grabbing the audience's attention and getting them interested in what he has to say, he's got miles to go. Meanwhile Krzysztof seems to shoot for the classic catch wrestling style, wearing a singlet and all that (unfortunately, it seemed like he forgot to wear underwear underneath). The match was short, and the story was basically "fairy tales don't exist, this is the real world". Gracjan quickly dispatched Krzysztof, showing that he still has a long way to go before he can beat his boss. How will the story develop? Guess I'll have to keep watching to find out.
The last match before the break was for KPW's second title, the post-apocalyptic OldTown Championship. For context - OldTown is a post-apocalypse themed festival, and among other things, it hosts KPW shows. Because of that, the promotion decided to create a special title belt and introduce it during the last festival. Greg, a member of Cavalry, became the inaugural champ, and he had his first defense during Zero Hour. The contender was Fynn Feyhart, a German wrestler - it's common practice to fly in an experienced worker from a different region so that your locals can prove themselves. The match was OK, can't say I remember much from it, but it served it's purpose as Greg ended up taking the V. More importantly, Fynn produced a cool moment when in the middle of post-match promo, he revealed that he can speak Polish, as he has Polish family roots. On that note, I have to say that I'm a big fan of Greg's promos. He's really good at playing with crowds' comments and dealing with hecklers, he gets his points across and can be funny or mean depending on the subject. Good on him for retaining the championship.
Before I talk about the last four matches, I have to say that I'm getting really tired of the ring announcer, Arkadiusz Mr. Pawłowski. When I first started coming to these shows, I thought his ringmaster antics of running to the ring full of energy, getting crowds to chant and introducing competitors with little jokes were cute. But I never thought it was cool, and with each passing show, I wish more and more that he would cut his introductions short so that we could get to action faster. It's also really annoying that he introduces wrestlers not only before they come out, but also after the bell rings and match starts, asking for applause as well. Ironically it can sometimes suck the energy out, especially when someone gets assaulted and the ref has to call for the bell after they already started fighting, and then we suddenly here "Ladies and gentlemen, Wrestler versus Fighter, applause!"
So with that said, let's get into the 6th bout - the Englishman Joey Ozbourne against the Pole Robert Star. I must say that "the rockstar of Polish wrestling" in a way has reminded me what wrestling is really about - getting fans behind you whatever way you can. And also, that having a good entrance goes a long way. I'm saying this because quite frankly, he bores me in the ring. But he goes out to energetic rock songs, runs around, walks up to ladies in the crowd to get good-luck kisses on the cheek, and I guess he looks kinda OK. Because of that a lot of the audience seems to like him. Meanwhile Joey was just perfect at playing the cocky, foreign heel. "I'm better than you because I'm bigger, better looking and from a better country", is what he said indirectly. "I'm the best thing to happen to this country since 1939" is what he said directly. Before the match, he spent a lot of time agitating the crowd, motioning people to get inside the ring if they have a problem with him, telling girls "they were probably never with a real man like him", stuff like that.
For some reason Robert's entrance was spec ops themed, with guys dressed in military uniforms and holding guns assisting him to the ring, and Star himself wearing a police vest, as well as being equipped with a pistol and a baton. As the entrance was going on, Joey mocked it by pretending to check the watch on his wrist and lying on the ropes as it went on. Finally he's had enough and assaulted Robert from behind while he was posing in the corner. The following match was a clinic of Big Muscular Coward taking cheap shots, assaulting Robert while he's down or hurt and just doing the most lame and boring offense. At one point he put Robert on ropes in what crowd recognized as the "619 position", but as the audience was yelling for that move, he shouted back "fuck your 619" and just did a simple kick. He did every single thing possible to make the crowd despise him, and love Robert when he finally snapped back and started hitting his flashy signature moves. Star ended picking up the victory and the foreign villain was sent home. But of course for someone like me, Joey was the real star here.
Next bout was bound to be a treat - an 8-man ladder match for a KPW Championship title shot (it was announced as a 7-man, but Gracjan joined the battle in the last moment). It was pure rapid, fast paced action. It's really hard to have a bad multi-man match, because with so many bodies, there is no downtime - something is happening somewhere at all times. The stories here were about two goons, Sawicki and Rosetti, working together seemingly ok with any of the two winning, Ostrowski and Oliwa also having an alliance, and Hungarian Ron Corvus standing strong on his own. The match had an additional rule - participants could be eliminated by pin or submission, which ultimately left only few competitors in the ring. In one of the highlights, Ron caused an elimination by throwing Oliwa on Ostrowski, who, unable to move, scored a pin on his friend. In the end it was Corvus who grabbed the contract which means we should expect him to challenge the champion at a future show.
But before we got to see the champion that night, there was one last match - Bianca vs Kat Von Kaige. It didn't blow the roof off, but I have to say that Kat somewhat impressed me. She looked mean and had pretty good offense. On the other hand, Bianca didn't really do much. I was really suprised when she tapped out to Kat's submission move, because she sustained it for pretty long and I thought she was about to get out of it, but I guess that was not the case. Anyway, this was clearly just a cool off match to let the crowd rest a bit before getting hyped for the final bout.
And what a battle that was. Wild Boar of ICW fame against the undefeated local champion, the leader of Cavalry, Piękny Kawaler (Beatiful Bachelor, or Beatiful Cavalier). PK is a pretty standard heel-factionleader-champion. He's very talented and can hang in the ring with almost anyone, but he takes the extra insurance of having his goons on the ringside to interfere if things are looking shaky. The match started with a bang, Boar going all guns-blazing, hitting move after move, forcing the champ to go the the outside and hide behind his "students" to take a breather. Afterwards PK's plan was to slow down the match and get in control of it, carefully wearing down his opponent to get a safe victory. But after several minutes of taking the beating, Boar got a sudden burst of energy and hit a couple of scary looking moves (including a cannonball senton that looked absolutely brutal) and it looked like he was about to win. This of course meant it was time for interference from Cavalry to protect their master from losing. Ref distraction, low blow, PK hits his finisher, 1-2-3, the end. The story here is pretty clear - no matter how many people try, as long as the Cavalry has the back of the champion, he is not gonna lose it. If anyone wants that title, they will have to figure out how to deal with that factor - and as the previous event has shown, having your own entourage isn't exactly the solution, because PK will find the weak link, prey on their insecurities and convince them to join him. So what will it take to deal with the stable and it's master? I don't know. But I'm curious to find out!
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