GCW Presents Chopper City In The Ghetto
Live from the Voltage Lounge in Philadelphia, PA
Streaming on FITE.tv
November 27, 2019
by Tiffany Rose
Just less than three weeks after a fantastic show in L.A. with Slime Language, GCW is back in Philly tonight for Chopper City in the Ghetto. This show is running concurrent this evening with both AEW Dynamite and NXT, and once again I feel that GCW is stepping up its game by putting on a show head-to-head with the billionaire companies. Bet on GCW having the better overall show tonight, just like with Frightfest back in October when it ran on a Monday night alongside RAW. When you’ve clearly got something to prove there’s no sense in holding back and letting bigger business take the shine; this is the statement I think GCW’s out to make and the card for Chopper City is stacked enough to rival any promotion’s show. Now let’s get on with the fuckery!
Tonight’s Commentary: Emil Jay ran a one-man production in the commentary booth and doing announcing for this show. This man is a soldier! He did great work in both positions; I’m not sure many could pull this off with the show still flowing as smooth as this one did.
Match 1: Tony Deppen vs. Matt Vandagriff
I’ve not seen a lot of Vandagriff’s work before, but this is one of the reasons I enjoy GCW so much. They aren’t hesitant about introducing new names and testing them against proven talent like Deppen. Vandagriff had a very impressive showing here and is worth another GCW match soon in my opinion. Deppen looked like royalty in this opening bout and took the victory while Vandagriff got the respect of the Voltage Lounge crowd with “Please Come Back” chants. Strong beginning to the show.
Match 2: Matt Tremont vs Manders
It’s great to see Tremont back at the Voltage Lounge after taking a rough hit last month at Frightfest against Atticus Cogar. Tonight Tremont and Manders went head to head and it was a good time watching two big beefy guys chop away at each other and brawl their way through this match. Manders is one of my standout choices for top indie talent in 2019 and his time to shine will be in 2020, I’m calling it now! In the meantime Tremont was able to sway the balance of power back in his favor in this back and forth banger and got the win over the cowboy, restoring his dominance after being injured in the same venue last month.
Match 3: Blake Christian vs. Ophidian
Blake Christian continues to earn much-deserved respect on the indie scene and GCW’s got a lot to do with that by promoting him in high profile matches like this one with Ophidian. This was a well-paced and fun match that turned out to be more of a duel between two very capable opponents. Ophidian used the years of experience on his side to give a worthy fight to young Blake, who put a lot of effort in matching the veteran’s style in the ring for this match. Excellent to see these two matched up here; Blake Christian gets the victory pinfall after hitting his signature Elia from the top rope on Ophidian. Great work by both guys!
Match 4: Young, Dumb, & Broke vs. Shlak & Spyder Nate Webb
Shlak was originally supposed to have Markus Crane as his partner for this match, but an unfortunate emergency situation prevented Crane from being able to be at the show. Shlak was prepared to make his entrance but was immediately attacked by Jordan Oliver, allowing the rest of YDB to jump in the attack as well. Just as it looked as if Shlak would be going at it alone we hear “Teenage Dirtbag” cue up and none other than Spyder Nate Webb is here to take Crane’s place as Shlak’s partner! Shlak & Spyder Nate proceed to make YDB pay for their audacity of a 3-on-1 onslaught and get the victory after possibly killing Jordan Oliver by dropping him through a table.
Match 5: Steve Sanders vs. JJ Garrett vs. Frankie Pickard vs. Cole Radrick vs. Lucky 13 vs. Pinkie Sanchez
GCW is the best at bringing us the craziest of scramble matches, and this one was a wild and chaotic scramblefuck. Cole Radrick has been building his career here in the mid-south promotions and got his chance to show off in the GCW ring; he was outstanding in tonight’s scramble. JJ Garrett is also impressive and likely legit insane since he risked his life at one point coming off the balcony and right into the ring, HARD onto the mat. Steve Sanders and Frankie Pickard showed off on the balcony too, with Sanders going crashing through a door when falling off the balcony after taking a chair to the head from Pickard. Just plain NUTS. Sanchez got dramatic in this one, even hitting a burning hammer onto a stack of chairs. El Presidente was on the receiving end of a series of chairs thrown from all other 5 competitors at once, too...ouch. Lucky 13 gets the win here after everyone else in the match is nearly dead from hitting all these crazy spots.
Match 6: KTB vs Dan Maff
This was a hard hitting match! Maff was the difficult one to take out here but KTB maintained a commanding presence as these two went to war. Maff is moving on to ROH but left us something to remember in the GCW ring at this show. KTB put up one hell of a fight in this match but Maff would not be the one to go down tonight; Maff took the win and both these men deserve respect for this solid battle.
Match 7: Jimmy Lloyd vs. Ruckus
Ruckus comes to the ring with a dude rapping to the Night Court theme and this is every bit as fun as it sounds. Seriously, I’m glad Night Court still gets so much love; that was my damn show as a kid. Lloyd and Ruckus had a good match here with more mat combat than out and out fuckery; it’s important to note that Jimmy can work damn well in the ring in addition to being a ruthless deathmatch wrestler (he is, after all, a different boy). Lloyd wins an impressive fight here against Ruckus and is attacked afterward by Young, Dumb, & Broke, who are just itching to put themselves over as heels at every opportunity. The biggest surprise of the night comes next when Joey Janela(!!!!) comes out to make the save and clear the ring, because he’s home and he’s got something to say.
Joey Janela appearance
It’s Mr. Wednesday Night himself here in Philly while the rest of his new crew is in Chicago. Joey’s fired up, looking great, got a mic, and he’s here to let us know that he accepts Jon Moxley’s open challenge that was issued at AEW Dynamite. The Bad Boy is ready to fight next Wednesday (December 4), and damn if this one won’t be a brutal banger!
Match 8: Nick Gage vs. Atticus Cogar (GCW World Championship match)
Cogar comes into this main event feeling pretty good since the last time he was at the Voltage Lounge he got a surprise victory over Matt Tremont. Since then he’s had a good run of luck; apparently he was testing that luck by wearing a Rickey Shane Page shirt to the ring to show the world he’s a proud RSP follower. This only served to piss off Nick Gage, which is a huge mistake in the first place. Cogar must have known that he’d need reinforcements against the King, because he brought the whole RSP army along with him (Gregory Iron and Eddy Only) in this main event. That makes sense, since Gage is gang-affiliated and didn’t mind letting MDK in attendance help in jumping Cogar and RSP’s guys. This main event had its share of fuckery too with doors, glass panes, and chairs. Props to both Gage and Cogar for going through those damn panes of glass like warriors, because it got brutal in the end. Gage won the match and retained his title, inviting the Voltage Lounge’s MDK affiliates to bury RSP’s boys in the middle of the ring under a pile of chairs (just like ECW’s Hardcore Heaven ‘94)!
Post-Show Thoughts:
GCW delivers another show worth the money and makes another good point as to why you should plan on attending the Collective in Tampa in spring 2020. If shows like this are consistently good then imagine what it’s going to be like for an entire weekend of back to back GCW-promoted events! I’m ready for next weekend’s shows Tennessee shows in Tullahoma in Nashville and will be reviewing both. This will be my first live GCW experience...a hell of a way to close out 2019!