“Impressive” Indi Hartwell vs “Riebell”.

I haven’t been doing much hobby painting or gaming in the last week. Lots of cleaning up and painting small bits for my friend Carlo, and helping sort things out for my Dad. I did manage to pick up good seats for the New Japan Pro Wrestling Australian Tour when they come to town in February, though – so that’s a good thing.

So on Friday, we happened to look around online and noticed that MCW had a show the following evening, so we decided to go and check it out. MCW is a small(ish) local indie fed, though they have been around for a few years now, and have brought out international talent including Will Osperey, Marty Scurll, Bad Luck Fale, and most recently, the IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada, who you will probably know of if you’re a wrestling fan who watches stuff outside of WWE – and if not, all you need to know is that he’s pretty much unanimously agreed to be one of the three most talented wrestlers in the world today – between Kenny Omega, AJ Styles and Okada.

“Slex” holds Robbie Eagles vertically for a good 10-15 seconds or so before completing the suplex from the middle turnbuckle.

Anyway, none of the international stars were in attendance last night. The performers seemed to be well-known in the local scene, but this meant that I really had no idea really who any of these people were. I had heard of “Slex”, as he was the guy who Okada wrestled, and also one other guy – “Mr Juicy” Gino Gambino who competed briefly in the New Japan Rumble through his relationship with Bad Luck Fale. Who also (sort of) inducted him into Bullet Club at a local show last year.

Since this was my first show at this promotion, I had no idea who anyone else was – who the babyfaces or heels or tweeners are, or what their characters, gimmicks or finishers were. Most of them managed to get that across reasonably well. The matches ranged from pretty meh, through to surprisingly good. Match of the night was the main event for the Intercontinental Inter-Commonwealth (what?) Title, which ended in a disappointing clusterfuck finish, and the women’s match. Not a bad night in the end, so we bought some merch from a couple of the wrestlers as souvenirs of the night and to show them some support.

Tomorrow: Back to wargaming stuff.