MONTREAL — Sid Vicious shocked the wrestling world by making an unexpected comeback in the ring at the Internet Wrestling Syndicate’s fifth anniversary show Saturday night. He had been inactive since badly breaking a leg in January 2001 during a WCW PPV. Many people never expected him to enter a wrestling ring as a participant again.
Then again, Sid’s return wasn’t nearly as shocking for the wrestling world as it was for the over 300 in attendance when he derailed the show with a bizarre rant that went on for almost 35 minutes. After arriving at Pierre Carl Oulett’s side, and winning the tag team Royal Rumble, Sid took the microphone, divided up the ring into sections, talk of speaking to the gods, and claimed that he and PCO were now ‘Da New Shit’. Oh, did we mention the scantily-clad woman and midget in the ring as well?
But not to be overplayed, all the regular IWS wrestlers were quite upbeat even after being upstaged in such an unprecedented manner by the long incomprehensible monologue by a man never known as a virtuoso on the stick.
The show started with the announcement that the whole anniversary show was being taped for Aaron Weiss’ “Wrestling, Past, Present & Future” PPV show in July. Weiss was present to see and feel the hype about the IWS shows he had only seen on tape.
The IWS fifth anniversary show, simply called “V”, began with le Syndicat de Lutte Internet, Viking and Damian, defending their IWS tag title against the New Breed, DJ Sick and Hellstorm. The SLI have a reputation for attacking tag teams that don’t speak French. But last night, they also showed they could brutalize a francophone team from Quebec City, the New Breed. While DJ Sick and Hellstorm proved their skill, the SLI continued their dominance winning with their favorite finisher “Le Tueur des Policiers.” The plethora of federal election signs in the audience added something special too, and the “Gilles Duceppe” chant, honoring the Bloc Quebecois leader, could only happen in Quebec.
The highlight match of the night had Mr. Wrestling Kevin Steen defeating his long-time rival, the baby-oil phenom EXcesS69, in a match that combined technical wrestling, incredible high flying moves and the foul mouth rants that are fast becoming a Kevin Steen trademark. As a result of a stipulation agreed to by Commissioner Joseph FitzMorris before the match by beating EXcesS69, which Steen won with a pile driver, he earned the right to a shot at the IWS title at anytime.
In the comedy portion of the evening, Beef Wellington was able to overcome a bear. Well, make that a man in a bear suit who almost won the match with a … bear hug … only to see Beef pinning the bear after the bear suit wrestler was distracted with some interference by a cow. Well, make that a person dressed as a cow, with only three legs (because the bear ‘ripped’ off the arm earlier, naturally). Beef won the match with his famous ass punch. Beef Wellington and comedy are always much appreciated by the fans in attendance.
In a match for the IWS championship, El Generico stunned Pierre Carl Ouellet with a flash pin to win the title after somw timely distraction from Kevin Steen. But the celebration was short lived, as Kevin Steen ambushed El Generico by bashing him with a chair all the while declaring that he was taking his title shot right away. Despite a valiant effort by the masked Mexican to regain his composure, Kevin Steen won the match with the package pile driver after 53 seconds to claim the IWS title.
The new team of Sid Vicious and Pierre Carl Ouellet won the ten team tag rumble beating the teams of the Flying Hurricanes, 2.0, the Masked Assassins, Dan Paysan and Tomassino, Dolla Bill and Big Larry aka T-Unit, Los Latinos, Fred le Merveille and Marc le Grizzly, and the team of Crazy Crusher and Nightmare Manson, Extreme Revolution. The only time to have any sort of success against PCO and Sid were the Kid Kamikaze Experience featuring Kurt Lauderdale, with Lauderdale measuring up surprisingly well to Sid Vicious. In the end, Sid Vicious and PCO used the old Quebecker’s finisher, the assisted Cannonball to finish off Kurt and win the Rumble.
And that’s when the evening turned utterly weird as Sid, not known for his mike work took the microphone away from Brian “The Guppie”, MC for the evening, and started ranting about dividing the ring into sections, then talking about his new teammate PCO. Finally, he switched gears and demanded the fans remove their shirts or turn them around inside-out to hide the old slogans. The idea was that the crowd should be a part of ‘The New Shit’ rather than the old shit. The bewildered crowd could only stand and listen, trying to make out any logic on what Sid was talking about. Eventually, the crowd turned on Sid, chanting for him to leave the ring. After 35 minutes of ranting about nothing, Sid dropped to the mat to the PCO entrance music and to left the ring and the flabbergasted crowd.
The IWS has always been known for their extremely violent hardcore matches and Saturday was certainly no exception. The anniversary show ended with five men who helped start the IWS: the Green Phantom and his partner Sexxxy Eddy, the Arsenal and his partner Evil Ninja, and with special guest referee, PCP Crazy F.N. Manny who hadn’t wrestled in quite some time. It was an old school IWS death match that saw the wrestlers break out light tubes, glass and fire, in an incredibly insane display of high flying, blood and sadism. The Green Phantom and Sexxxy Eddy beat Evil Ninja and the Arsenal after the Green Phantom Phantasmed Evil Ninja through a burning pane of glass. Even the crowd had to step away from the ring to avoid being sprayed with broken glass. Even Manny was dropped onto a pile of fluorescent tubes to the awe of the crowd.
This anniversary show had many wrestlers on an emotional ride as some had been there since the very beginning of the IWS. The Green Phantom remembers when they started: “We had set up gym mats on the floor of a church basement with a yellow rope tied to four support pillars. I have been living a dream ever since,” he said.
Sexxxy Eddy wants to continue his career as long as he can “It’s been a long road of pain and happiness and I’m not ready to stop just now,” he said.
Brian “The Guppie” Strolovitch, Team 990 am radio host and IWS announcer, wouldn’t have it any other way ” I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now. The IWS helped me become who I am today”.
The show was held at the Spag, a bar built into an old swimming pool, with the hardcore fans sitting around the ring at the bottom of the pool, and the rest of the crowd around the upper rim at about six feet above the ring, a fantastic and unique venue for a wrestling show.
The next IWS show is Hardcore Heat, Saturday, July 10th at Le Spag, 2915 Ontario Est at 9:00 pm. Tickets are fifteen dollars. For information about the show, visit the Internet Wresting Syndicate at their web-site: http://www.syndicatewrestling.com.
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