by Daniel Johnson

Last night’s Beyond Wrestling Americanrana show in Providence, Rhode Island at Fete Music delivered. Over the course of the night I took 450 photographs as I stood at ringside (note: and I really mean stood because there were no chairs!). Here are some of the better photographs as well as some thoughts about the event.

Before any of the advertised action began Beyond Wrestling spoiled it’s fans first with a pre-show segment featuring Biff Busick, “The Juice” JT Dunn and Anthony Stone:

Then with a pre-show match, which featured Latin Dragon winning a four corners match by last defeating Shane Strickland. David Starr and Sozio were also involved in the match.

The official opener was Chris Dickinson facing Drew Gulak in a stiff contest. The scariest part of the match had to be when Gulak took a spill outside, which caused several fans at ringside to think he was legit hurt. Despite this Gulak eventually got the win and along the way made Dickinson feel his pain by putting him in moves like this:

Up next was a four corners tag team bout, which featured Tremendous Investigations, Inc. (Bill Carr and Dan Barry) defeating EYFBO (“The Funky Monkey” Angel Ortiz and “The Real Deal” Mike Draztik), Da Hoodz (Kris Pyro and Davey Cash) and The Minute Men (Devin Blaze and Tommy Trainwreck). The best part of this match was when the action spilled outside and everyone was doing high spots. Since I don’t have a great high speed camera to capture those spots here is a photo of  The Funky Monkey looking upset instead:

In the next performance Aaron Epic came out and was announced as one-half of The KOA. However, there was no Sugar Dunkerton in sight. Instead Dave Cole joined him for the match. Epic and Cole did some great selling as Le Tabarnak De Team (Mathieu St. Jacques and Thomas Dubois) dominated the match on the way to a victory. Here is just a taste of that selling for you:

Up next was the mid-show main event, which presented Jaka:

Jaka took on Colt Cabana. At the start of the match Cabana kept pointed out how gross Jaka’s bare feet were. This led to Jaka licking his own toes, which at first made Cabana have this reaction:

Followed by this reaction:

Eventually Cabana put Jaka away with a go to sleep finisher, which Cabana must have on loan from CM Punk.

Before I get into the action that took place after intermission I just have to say that Fete Music has the cleanest men’s bathroom of any bar or wrestling venue in general that I’ve ever seen. Really, just sparkling clean. Also, the bathroom wasn’t crowded at all.

Back to the action after intermission Darius Carter came out with Jessie Brooks to cause trouble. Carter complained about not being booked on Americanrana and said he should be awarded 10 points from Beyond Wrestling. This brought out Johnny Miyagi and Addy Starr who faced the bothersome duo in an impromtu match:

Carter took a beating and retreated from the ring:

However, Carter also hit Starr with some super loud kicks to the face. Eventually, Carter and Brooks won and a beat down involving some further interference happened.

Up next was the marquee match of Kevin Steen taking on MASADA in what was hyped as the first ever battle of the two. MASADA came out with the CZW World Heavyweight Championship and proceeded to look unimpressed as Kevin Steen was announced:

Actually, that photo might even make a good meme! Let’s try it out!

Or maybe that was just a stupid idea. At any rate Kevin Steen came out and was all smiles for a while:

Then MASADA shoved the sticks from the photo below in Steen’s head:

The match had a ton of brawling and Steen worked heavily on MASADA’s leg throughout the match. At one point Steen even shouted that MASADA should start another Kickstarter referencing his need for knee surgery. Steen forced MASADA to tap out then begrudgingly shook his hand and said he respected him for working hurt.

To close the show there were three more contests featuring fairly big indie names going against more local talent. First, Johnny Gargano defeated JT Dunn. However, Dunn got in plenty of offense resulting in Gargano often looking like this:

After the match Dunn asked for a handshake:

At first Gargano left Dunn hanging, but eventually slapped his hand.

Next was Anthony Stone having a competitive match with AR Fox:

Stone scored a surprising upset on Fox, which got this reaction out of him:

To cap off the night was Eddie Edwards wrestling Biff Busick. Like MASADA/Steen the two battled all over the place:

Also, like MASADA/Steen this match ended via submission with Edwards winning with a single-leg Boston crab after a match that lasted over 20 minutes:

All in all Beyond Wrestling will have a lot to live up to when they return for their next show at Fete Music in September. Denver Colorado must be proud.

Photos 1-21: Daniel Johnson / Johnsontranscript.com

Categories: Smooth Runs

Tags: "The Funky Monkey" Angel Ortiz, "The Juice" JT Dunn, "The Real Deal" Mike Draztik, Aaron Epic, Addy Starr, Angel Ortiz, Anthony Stone, AR Fox, Beyond Wrestling, Beyond Wrestling Americanrana, Biff Busick, Bill Carr, BW, Chris Dickinson, CM Punk, Colt Cabana, CZW World Heavyweight Championship, Da Hoodz, Dan Barry, Darius Carter, Dave Cole, Davey Cash, David Starr, Denver Colorado, Devin Blaze, Drew Gulak, Eddie Edwards, EYFBO, Fete Music, Jaka, Jessie Brooks, Johnny Gargano, Johnny Miyagi, JT Dunn, Kevin Steen, Kickstarter, Kris Pyro, Latin Dragon, Le Tabarnak De Team, MASADA, Mathieu St. Jacques, Mike Draztik, Shane Strickland, Sozio, Sugar Dunkerton, The KOA, The Minute Men, Thomas Dubois, Tommy Trainwreck, Tremendous Investigations Inc.