A Gutful of Cîroc and Three Blunts In: GCW Presents Good Riddance
Live from the Carousel Room at the Showboat Hotel in Atlantic City, NJ
December 31, 2020
Available on FITE.TV
Years down the road when we look back at 2020 and how bad it sucked, I’ll be someone who can claim with confidence that I made such an annus horribilis work for me. The uncertainty and dread that set in on the independent wrestling scene last spring gave way to hope and a sense that finally things were moving in the right direction by December. New Year’s Eve would be a grand celebration of good days ahead. By the time I arrived in Atlantic City last Thursday, the festive vibe was near its peak. This was a reunion, mind you - the two shows over the holidays made an excellent chance for a number of GCW faithful to meet up and welcome 2021 together. Beautiful faces I hadn’t seen in months would be there in the Carousel Room waiting to reunite and to bring the constant devout energy they’d brought so many times before in this location. Good Riddance, indeed.
The Carousel Room! I don’t think there’s much that can be compared to looking up at its showy and multicolored ceiling with a few minutes to midnight from the comfort of the folding chairs as I passed out on a headful of edibles and a gutful of Cîroc while Joey Janela ran the ropes to kill some extra time - actual extra time at a GCW show? If that’s the way I was destined to leave 2020, then I like that just fine.
On Commentary: Kevin Gill and Joey Janela
The New Year’s partymeisters did a solid job of calling the action while the riff-raff (and that definitely includes me) shouted and screamed and hurled invective when deserved. Going back and re-watching the show, I’m trusting everyone at home had fun bringing in 2021 hearing KG and Joey do their thing. They were having a pretty good time with this show, and it’s lovely to have that enthusiasm around to bring in the new year.
Match 1: Crazy Tough Enemies (Joshua Bishop & Matthew Justice) vs. IronBeast (KTB & Shane Mercer)
Let’s not fuck around in getting rid of 2020, right? Start the show off with four beastly big dudes beating each other senseless around the cranium! I’m a fan of both C.T.E. (that name never fails to make me laugh) and IronBeast, so I was bound to be satisfied no matter what. It was awesome to see my man John among the IronBeast crew when they made their way out to the ring; KTB and Mercer have found a strong following among the GCW faithful and I love to see it. On to the match itself, everyone involved worked incredibly hard in this opener. By that, I mean everyone - we even got to see a sick ref door bump in addition to all of the plunder these guys tossed in the ring. When, oh when will everyone learn that it’s futile to try and take C.T.E. out by attacking the head? Hit them with every chair in the building and all you’ll do is piss off Brett Lauderdale for wasting the chairs. It’s like trying to hit King Hippo from Punch Out in the head. I think, however, we have in this case two teams who are almost evenly matched in the ways of fuckery. That’s why we ended up with a double pin here. When, though, do we get to find out who the better team is?
Match 2: Treehouse Lee vs. Saieve Al Sabah
Ok, I’ll admit, the crazy opening tag match twisted my already-stoned head around and the night was just getting started. Also, I was on my second cranberry and Cîroc for the night, three blunts in, and several delicious doses of THC here and there. I had to go back and watch this one on the replay because I was too lit at the time to give it the attention it deserved. Man, does this one deserve your attention. Treehouse Lee gets on another level whenever he’s in the GCW ring, and I wonder how many people out there had their minds changed and made this one or the Tankman/Moriarty bout their last-minute Match of the Year pick. As much as I like Treehouse Lee and enjoyed him getting the win here, Sabah is damn good in his own right and innovative as hell. Both these guys are wrestling visionaries and I’m excited to see what they’re gonna do in the months ahead.
Match 3: Elayna Black vs. Atticus Cogar (w/Gregory Iron)
Our crew wasn’t going to let the year go out without giving Cogar all the shit in the world. If you watched this one you’ll hear my girl Shelby and I screaming “ATTICUNT!” at the top of our lungs. It’s something of my own creation that I enjoy sharing at shows. This was one of the shorter matches on the card but Elayna held her own against that asshole Atticus, who was a dick from bell start to bell end. Elayna’s moveset continues to impress me as she has more GCW matches; there was a point in the match where she dropped Atticus with a DDT sicker than I’d seen from anyone in a while. However, her finess didn’t deliver the win we wanted to see. It didn’t help things for Elayna that Gregory Iron was on hand to get involved, either. Had there been less interference there would have been a lot more for Cogar to worry about, but Atticunt got his victory.
Match 4: Calvin Tankman vs. Lee Moriarty
Give me this match any time and I’m one hundred percent appeased. I’ve seen Tankman and Moriarty go one on one in other independent promotions, but we’re on a completely different wavelength when this match happens in a GCW ring on New Year’s Eve. Again, this was one more last-minute Match of the Year candidate that likely changed more than a few made-up minds. Both Tankman and Moriarty tore it the hell up in this match, and I’ll go so far as to say it’s the best one I’ve seen between them to date. Moriarty got the win but I still feel like there’s a lot more to see in matches from these two. Give us more whenever possible, whether it’s in GCW or any other promotion.
Match 5: 1 Called Manders vs. SHLAK (Deathmatch)
Manders stepped up for the SGC crew in AJ Gray’s place to take on SHLAK, and I gotta say I’m proud of the cowboy for doing so since he’s nowhere near as experienced with deathmatches. We applaud guts in this house, though, and it takes balls of steel to go up against SHLAK. Believe me when I say Manders has a future in deathmatches! If he can take the beating he took and still be game for more, then I say this man has arrived. SHLAK won by having to almost take Manders out completely by asphyxiation and I sincerely don’t know if Manders would have been defeated by any other method, because he sure the hell wasn’t going down by any other means.
Match 6: ACH vs. Jordan Oliver
My good friend Mike asked me an interesting question before this one - when exactly did Jordan Oliver become a face? If you look at this time last year we all hated his ass. Was it the Covid Effect where he just transformed himself into something so great that we couldn’t help but cheer him for the effort? That’s my theory. Either way, many of the faithful damn sure wanted Jordan Oliver to win this one and they weren’t disappointed. Big Breakfast closed out the year with a big win over ACH, and damn did it take a lot of effort from both sides because ACH is way too full of himself to lose to someone coming up on the scene. The younger, dumber, and broke one did it, though, and Jordan Oliver’s going into 2021 with cheers from the crowd. That’s how far-out the previous year has been.
Match 7: Blake Christian vs. Cole Radrick vs. Mance Warner vs. Effy vs. Chris Dickinson vs. Allie Kat
The last match of 2020 was a treat; we’d have a scramblefuck featuring the year’s All-Stars. All our rowdy friends were in on this one and I was blitzed on vodka and THC, so I honestly had to go back and watch the replay to recall everything that happened in this one. I do remember at the time being freaked out by hearing the Blackheart music hit out of nowhere near the end because I didn’t know if it was just me hearing it or not. Upon rewatch, this was one of the better scrambles with a lot of fun spots and some tension and drama in just the right place. Everyone had a chance to shine here (Effy, Mance, and Allie Kat are wrestling’s treasures) and I thought maybe Cole Radrick could get a surprise win over the rest of the All-Stars or the reigning King of the Scramblefuck Blake Christian would win, but Blake was distracted by an unseen Lio Rush’s mind games in the end and as a result Dickinson got the victory.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Never in my life have I brought in the new year at a wrestling show. That was the draw of this trip, and I have to say the payoff was pretty damn satisfying. After I’d gotten up from my brief chair nap still very dazed but only slightly confused after the scramblefuck match, I joined my crew, the GCW faithful, at ringside as all of the talent on the Good Riddance card gathered in the ring with party favors and plunder. In the bright forefront of my mind I clearly recall we all counted down, we cheered, there was confetti and very convincing hundred dollar bills raining down, and the family surrounded the ring slapped the mat rhythmically for all we were worth. It was loud and lovely, and I was drunk, stoned, and pretty pleased with wrestling.
We gotta do that again next year!
Main Event: Jimmy Lloyd vs. G-Raver (‘I Quit’ Deathmatch)
Okay, I was way too high for this at the time.
If you want to know how GCW plans to handle 2021, the first match of the new year is a pretty good indicator of where we’re all going on this train with no brakes. I’ve watched this match on the replay and it’s even sicker than it was in person. Everyone at home got to see every bit of carnage that went on at this one; at least those of us there in the Carousel Room were spared from the shock of camera close-ups. This was a for-damn-real deathmatch and absolutely excruciating to watch. If you’ve yet to watch the show, you’re likely to have seen the gifs or video clips from this one and they’re intense, to put it lightly.
The fuckery involved in this one, though? PTSD-inducing, especially since we see the same type of damn light tube ladder come into play that was used back in 2019 at Two Cups Stuffed where G-Raver was so badly injured. Tattoo needles are jammed through soft flesh. Doors and glass. A weedwhacker to Jimmy’s jimmy, for Christ’s sake. It wasn’t until the scissor board was brought out that shit got too real and Jimmy was the one who ended the pain. If you’re planning on introducing new fans to GCW, test their level of fortitude before showing them this one. It’d be like giving a megadose of acid to someone who gets wasted off two White Claws.
Post-Show Thoughts
Good Riddance was a show we absolutely needed to bring in the new year after ending the old one on such a tragic and somber note. I embrace the crazy and everything that’s outrageous when a sad situation’s too much for me to handle, and I was pretty happy to not be alone in that mentality when I lay there seven minutes to midnight looking up at the ceiling of the Carousel Room with the colors more vibrant than I’d ever seen them on a live stream. Things can only get better from here, and that’s something worth celebrating.