On Saturday, August 15, 2015, the premier Staten Island promotion Warriors of Wrestling returned with the event called “Hit the Lights.” With some changes to the Fun Station venue such as dimmed lighting and a ring spotlight, the new presentation set the mood for an eventful evening. The stacked match card with multiple debuts, along with the main event featuring former WWE Superstar and multi-title champion Shelton Benjamin against the current Warriors of Wrestling heavyweight champion Rude Boy Riley, the promotion looked to end the summer with a huge bang.
Matches:
Hostile Collective (Just Neph, John Cannon, Abdul Nasir w/ Harley) vs. ABSolutely Latino (Scotty “Scotchi” Priest, Dirty-bag “Danwin” Dan, and Jose Salvadore: The opening match was a six-man tag match which was Jose Salvadore, the masked luchador’s debut match. Salvadore, who has been associated with Priest and Dan’s comedy act over the past few months put on a pretty good showing for his first in-ring performance. The match included a comedy spot where Salvadore delivered an arm drag to everyone in the match including his partners and the referee. The Collective controlled most of the match by keeping Salvadore isolated. Towards the end, Salvadore unexpectedly picked up the victory by pinfall after a quick corner Irish whip reversal into a Sunset Flip to Neph. After the match, Jasin Karloff came out and destroyed Salvadore, Scotchi and Danwin. Joey B came out to fight but was held back by referee’s. Joey then announced that he would put his number one contenders spot on the line later that night against Karloff in a No DQ match.
Jason Nevins vs. Eric Adams: Nevin’s has been quickly becoming a fan favorite in WOW due to his fast-paced, risk taking and high-flying offense. Nevins took on the debuting Adams who looked to use his size and strength to overpower Nevins the entire match. The match was an evenly contested back and forth match which saw Nevins use his speed and athleticism to his advantage early, but Adams to control midway through. Nevin’s rallied late and hit a Springboard Tornado DDT on Adams’ and followed up with a Springboard Frog Splash for the three count pinfall.
J George vs. Logan Black: At last month’s event, Black had an opportunity to capture the ICW title from Drew Galloway, but thanks to George’s interference it didn’t happen. Black came out furious by ambushing George at the entrance way and was really dominating him on the outside until the ref stepped in. Once the action finally got back into the ring, George used a number of heel tactics to get the upper hand. Once again George’s technical skills were on display, but Black matched his technical skills with his own technical ability. Shortly after a Superplex from the top rope which didn’t put away George, Black out of frustration really begin to put the boots to George in the corner. The ref stepped in to stop the beating but Black pushed him off and was DQ’ed awarding the victory to George.
Chris Steeler vs. Michael Massacre (Loser leaves town match): This was the last match in the feud between Steeler and Massacre (Who has impersonated Steeler since the end of 2014.) The stipulations were that whomever lost had to leave WOW for good. The match started out as a pure slugfest much like the previous two matches between the rivals. Both men showed off their wrestling skills once the match began to really unfold in the ring. The match consisted of a number of trade-off exchanges with no clear advantage as the crowd saw a number of close pin-falls. In the end, Steeler was able to walk away with the pin-fall victory and his WOW career, after delivering four Superkick’s to Massacre’s until he was unable to stand.
Hostile Collective (Abdul Nasir and Just Neph w/Harley) vs. Style & Finesse v TJ Marconi and Quinn ( WOW Tag Team title match): Since Rob Vegas of S&F was suffering an ankle injury, Mike Donnovan would have to defend the tag team titles on his own against Marconi & Quinn and the Hostile Collective. Most of the match saw Quinn taking most of the damage and being worked on by the Collective and Donnovan, until TJ was able to get in with a hot tag. After clearing the ring of all his opponents, Marconi had become distracted by John Cannon who had come to ringside with a baton. Marconi had exited the ring to confront him but was held up by a number of refs from the back who had come out to separate them. While this distraction was taking place, Donnovan had knocked out Quinn with one of the Tag titles, but was tossed outside by Neph who stole the pin and capture the titles for the Hostile Collective.
“Bonesaw” Jessie Brooks vs. Brooke Danielle: Brooks took on the debuting Danielle. The match was a short match which sole purpose was to keep the crowd warm, but mellow them out after five straight adrenaline pumping matches. Danielle was able to get a few moves in but Brooks’ tough mentality allowed her to power through Danielle’s offense and make her tap out with a Cross Armbar.
Darius Carter w/ Harley vs. Joey Ace (No limit’s title match): Ace came into this match looking for revenge after he was viciously attacked by Carter and the rest of the Hostile collective after last month’s event. (The footage of the attack can be found on the WOW video wire on the promotion’s Youtube channel.) This was a great all out open-ended match which saw Ace start off hot with a fury of strikes on Carter in the ring until the fight spilled to the outside. On the outside, Ace took out Harley first then continued to work on Carter. Once the two competitors returned to the ring the back and forth duel continued. Ace used a number of athletic maneuvers to get the advantage on his end but wasn’t successful. Carter on his end tried to use as many heel tactics as possible but couldn’t get a pin fall either. At the end of the match, Carter delivered a Spike Piledriver to Ace, but it wasn’t enough to put Ace away. After the resilient Ace made it back to his feet to a stare down with Carter, Carter leveled Ace with a Code Breaker and pinned him to become the new No Limit’s champion.
Jasin Karloff vs. Joey B (No DQ Number One Contenders match): This match was a total brawl due to the fact that both men came ready to do one thing and one thing only, fight. Karloff didn’t give Joey B a chance to make it to the ring, as he came from the back moments after Joey to attack him with a kendo stick. Both men really took it to one another, but Karloff eventually came out on top. In what was a hard-hitting slug-fest, came to an end after Karloff nailed Joey with a Spear and followed with a Brainbuster on a chair. Immediately after the pinfall victory, Karloff unfolded that same chair and delivered another Brainbuster on to it leaving Joey laid out just like the end of last month’s even.
Shelton Benjamin vs. WOW Heavyweight Champion Rude Boy Riley: The main event was a solid all-around wrestling match which was a solid conclusion to an already stellar event. Riley who has been extremely hot over the past few months in not only Staten Island, but in every promotion from the Northeast to the Midwest, looked to show Benjamin why he has headlined with TNA and former WWE Superstars. The match started off as a slowed down technical wrestling pace but later built up to a faster more athletic showing. Benjamin showed his athleticism that he was best known for in WWE, when he countered many of Riley’s patented maneuvers. Benjamin had Riley on the brink of tapping out with the Ankle Lock, but Riley held on long enough to power out. After a Super Kick to Riley, Benjamin looked like he was setting Riley up for a finisher, but Karloff came out and leveled Benjamin with a clothesline giving him the DQ win. After the match Riley was able to gather himself and nail Karloff with the Lights Out leaving him to stagger into a Superkick by Benjamin. Both Riley and Benjamin posed over the unconscious Karloff and shook hands after he slowly rolled out to the venue floor.
Photo by Sulaiman Larokko
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