AAW EPIC - 12th Anniversary Event Review
AAW presents EPIC held at Logan Square Auditorium in Chicago, IL on 4/9/16 Candice LeRae vs. Heidi Lovelace vs. Jessicka Havok vs. Kimber Lee **¾ Andrew Everett vs. Johnny Gargano ***¾ Kongo Kong & Shane Hollister vs. An Officer & A Gentleman (Chuck Taylor & Dan Barry) vs. Zero Gravity (Bret Gakiya & CJ Esparza) **¾ Silas Young vs. Timothy Thatcher ***½ Chris Hero vs. Trevor Lee ****¼ Gregory Iron vs. Kongo Kong DUD AAW Tag Championship: Davey Vega & Mat Fitchett vs. The Hooligans© ** Tommaso Ciampa vs. Zack Sabre Jr. ****¼
AAW THE WINDY CITY CLASSIC XII Review
AAW presents The Windy City Classic XII held in the Logan Square Auditorium in Chicago, IL on 11/26/16 ACH vs. Prince Mustafa Ali ***¾ The Hooligans, Buck Nasty, & Connor Braxton vs. The Wet Bandits (Markus Crane & Dan Lawrence)Kongo Kong, & Colt Cabana DUD Shimmer Championship: Kimber Lee vs. Mercedes Martinez *¾ Alex Daniels vs. Chuck Taylor vs. Jake Crist **¾ I Quit Match: Heidi Lovelace vs. Jessika Havok **½ Eddie Kingston, Homicide, & Low Ki vs. Brian Cage, Drago, & Pentagon Jr. ***¾ Trent? vs. Zack Sabre Jr. **** AAW Tag Team Championship: Those Carolina Boys (Trevor Lee & Andrew Everett) vs. The Besties in the World (Davey Vega & Mat Fitchett) ***¼ AAW Heavyweight Championship: Chris Hero vs. Sami Callihan ****¼+
These shows were my first encounters with Chicago based indy promotion AAW. They were really fun shows to sit through and featured numerous great to excellent matches throughout. Chris Hero, a guy who is having a phenomenal 2016, was in the best matches on both respective shows. His opponents were guys I’ve never been especially blown away by, but they were in quite possibly the best matches I’ve ever seen from them, which is a true testament to how great a worker Hero is these days. ZSJ was also in a couple of exceptional contests too, coming a close second in the most impressive department. Both of these shows were consistently enjoyable, featuring constant action, a load of fantastic workers, at least four stand-out matches on both, and even though there were a couple of DUDs, it didn’t matter as they were blown away by the good stuff. I’d recommend them to any wrestling fan looking for something different.
Special mention must go to the production on these events, as its great too. In terms of US Indies, it probably looks the best out of any I’ve seen. The camera work and backstage stuff makes it look way better than some of its bush league contemporaries and sets AAW apart from the pack (whilst in a similar setting to Ring Of Honor circa 2002, it looks approximately a million times better). All in all, AAW is a promotion I will probably watch more of moving forward.
NDT
