The Blood Ritual: GCW Presents Take Kare
Live from the Carousel Room at the Showboat Hotel in Atlantic City, NJ
March 6, 2021
Available on FITE.tv
Once more to the shore I went.
There was some arduous decision-making for me to do prior to GCW’s Take Kare. A lot - and I mean a lot - of damn good wrestling events would be going on the weekend of March 6th. The world’s opening back up and that means shows with amazingly stacked cards are popping up all around again. It was all contingent upon where I wanted to be. That wasn’t easy, because I damn sure wanted (if not needed) to be in two places at once. Looking at the lineup in making my judgment, it all came down to one name - Nolan Edward.
If you know me, you know that’s a name I speak pretty often. I speak it highly, too. It’s a name that’s blown up on the independent wrestling scene over the past 6 months or so, and it’s about time everybody took notice. That’s one hard working young man, friends. The night before Nolan Edward flew out to Atlantic City he wrestled O’Shay Edwards in Alabama for New South’s HOSS tournament, and the night after Take Kare Nolan left town to go wrestle again in Ohio. The guy busts his ass and hauls it too. It’s his match with Colon I needed to see live, though. Why?
Let this sound as crazy as it will, but I wanted to be there to see Nolan Edward bleed in the Carousel Room. More on that later.
You’ll recall the last time I was in Atlantic City was for the long New Year’s weekend. Having gone back and read the recaps from those two shows, I swear one day they’ll make a very violent, loud, blood-soaked, smoke-filled, and alcohol-drenched movie about everything that went down at the Showboat over that four day party. It’s become a hallowed place to me, the Carousel Room. It’s where shit goes down. Note that a couple of the most loved GCW shows in recent memory have taken place there - Run Rickey Run and So Much Fun (both of which I missed out on live…).
So the odds were that Take Kare would be a palpable hit and complete a trilogy of Carousel Room greatness. I told myself that I would not miss out on seeing this one happen in person. This assuredly was going to be something on the level of the other two shows. Spoiler alert: I was right.
Before I delve into the review from my perch near the hard cam I have to state my love and apologies to the GCW fam for my utter inability to function properly by the end of this show to even say goodbye to anyone. At this point you, dear reader, should know pretty well how I celebrate at a GCW show. I will not say that this was the absolute drunkest I’ve ever been in the Carousel Room (New Year’s Eve 2020 gets that dishonor), but I will say that this was the most incapacitated I’ve been due to distilled spirits combined with me just being spirited.
Commentary Shoutout: Kevin Gill
It’s fun to do GCW shows on two levels whenever possible: be there to see them live and then get home to hear what KG said. I’m using this space as a personal shoutout to KG for being that dude who likes to speak to whatever the hell suits the match with no regard to the pettier criticisms. I’m all for commentators not attempting to mirror someone else’s style at the table. You never get the feel that GCW commentary is trying to be something it’s not, and that’s thanks to Kevin Gill. Plus, he’s the man who gives amplified voice to my unending lava flow of 44OH! hate and not everyone’s good at conveying that kind of contempt. KG has a knack for it.
Match 1: G-Raver vs. Jimmy Lloyd (No Rope Barbed Wire Deathmatch)
I hadn’t realized how much I had to drink and how many blunts our crew had smoked by the time this match started. I wasn’t ready for this at all! They had Raver and Jimmy out first to set the tone, though, and I don’t mean just for Take Kare. The word of the wrestling weekend was ‘hardcore’, and this match delivered for days. Tension and violence from beginning to end, and by the very end the ring was devoid of all four of its barbed wire sides, both Jimmy and Raver having gone around and destroyed all of them (and damn near destroying each other in the process). Jimmy got the victory, the first blood of the show had been spilled, and anything else ‘hardcore’ that happened that weekend would in no way top the fuckery we saw in this opener.
Match 2: Charles Mason vs. Mance Warner
What happens when you have a rich psycho take on a Southern psycho in a wrestling match? You end up with two fucking psychotic people in the ring fighting and that’s exactly what happened here. Now, I’m intrigued by Charles Mason even though he’s a pompous ass. Charles is a sick smug fuck, apparently even too twisted for Twitter. I can rock with that, but when you put someone like him up against a tried and tested crazy motherfucker like ol’ Mancer then the odds change drastically. This match was a solid GCW initiation for Mr. Mason, who did not have a scheduled opponent until he ran his mouth too much and my man Mance decided to close it for him. No doubt at all that Mancer would win this one, but I would be glad to see Charles Mason back in GCW again. There’s a place for twisted fucks in the Carousel Room, especially ones who can take a chairshot to the head and get chokeslammed through a door.
Match 3: Brayden Lee vs. Calvin Tankman
The come-up of new indie wrestlers in 2021 is going to be so fun to watch as last year’s names go on to the bigger stages. The opportunities are given, the talent rises up, and we see the process of ‘getting made’ begins. This happened last year with Calvin Tankman’s GCW debut, and now we see Brayden Lee stepping up. He got noticed back in January at Fight Forever, and I was ready to cheer for him in his big AC debut. I have great expectations for Brazy and I was initially glad to see that his first match would be against Tankman, but in hindsight I wonder if Tank was just too much as a debut opponent. It takes a lot of nerve to go up against that huge of a man, especially in the top indie promotion where you’re damn good and ready to show everybody who you are. It takes nerve; sometimes nerves take over as a result. Tankman gets the win and here’s to Brazy getting more opportunities to make his name in the near future. I’ve got a betting feeling Brayden Lee’s next GCW match is gonna be the one that’s the most money.
Match 4: Atticus Cogar vs. EFFY
So here’s where the show climbed up into some dramatic heights I haven’t seen out of GCW in a minute. There were the well-done pre-taped video packages that built the intrigue of EFFY joining RSP’s crew, and then any time a match involves Cogar it’s an impassioned scenario for me because I passionately can’t stand his ass and strive to let him know this every time I see him. Conversely, I’d gouge someone’s eyes out (preferably Atticus Cogar’s) for EFFY and I love him from here to eternity. This match was bound to bring out all kinds of emotion, yes, but I didn’t know how much. By now we all know how the show itself ended. However, I’ll say that the conclusion of this match had me absolutely enraged. Cogar won the match, yes, but when it looked as if 44OH! won over a beaten and bloodied EFFY I allowed the utterly irrational wrestling fan side of my brain to step forth and just take in the horrible notion of RSP’s dumbasses taking away a cornerstone of the Second Gear Crew. It wasn’t a happy scenario! For the rest of the show up until the main event, theories started formulating around everyone in attendance as to how this match’s end would affect the outcome of Janela/RSP.
Match 5: Alex Colon vs. Nolan Edward
Now back to Nolan. Nolan, Nolan, Nolan, Nolan, Nolan. The new guy. That one with the growing reputation on the scene. Alex Colon surely had a premonition how important this welcoming would be; he dubbed it the ‘audition’. From where I sat, perched on the wall near the hard cam, I called it a blood ritual. No matter the outcome of this match, Nolan Edward would bleed, and his blood christening the GCW ring and the floor of the Carousel Room would solidify his place in the indie promotion that stays on the world’s radar. He’d be ‘made’. So I had to be there to see, to witness, to yell his name, to scream with abandon every time he kicked out as it looked like Colon had him down for the count.
It was a deathmatch wrestling match. Alex and Nolan crafted something that worked on different levels, and if you watched the show you can tell that all in attendance deeply appreciated the effort. It was a good decision to be there for this one. By mid-match Nolan had won the Atlantic City regulars over enough to chant his name. Colon had to take what was left of a door and attempt murder on Nolan by bashing his head in with it before he could even make him submit...and even in submission Nolan held a defiant middle finger up.
And from there, Colon welcomed Nolan to the promotion. The Carousel Room regulars demanded his return. Definitely the right decision to be there and witness this happen live.
Match 6: Ken Broadway vs. Tony Deppen
It’s satisfying to see Deppen back on the scene again in 2021 and quickly regaining the momentum he had this time in 2020 going into what would have been last year’s Mania season. Meanwhile Ken Broadway’s making solid progress in establishing himself as one of the new names to notice this year, and this match was a good way to catch everyone’s attention. Deppen got the win here, a reminder to everyone that he’s picking up where he left off last spring and he’s only gotten better in a year’s time. Broadway, in my opinion, has a lineup of banger matches ahead of him in GCW with stellar opponents, and this one was a fine start.
Match 7: Jordan Oliver vs. AJ Gray
The last time we saw Jordan Oliver in the Carousel Room he hadn’t broken any world records, so now that he’s been through the Iron Man match with Deppen we’ve been served a whole new big breakfast. You know how in the original Mike Tyson’s Punch Out where you’d see one of the original opponents back again with a much more difficult fighting style? That’s how I look at everyone who’s faced Jordan Oliver before and now has to face the 2021 version of him. And AJ Gray’s not one who sat down much at all last year either; he put in a hell of a lot of work himself. For Jordan Oliver to get such a hard-fought victory over AJ Gray of all people means that Jordan has officially moved past the skinny kid we first saw a couple of years ago. He’s arrived to a place in his career where he can believably issue a post-match challenge at the Collective to Lio Rush, and Jordan has made it to the point of where I’d say he deserves that match.
Match 8: Allie Kat vs. Levi Everett (Allie Kat’s Open Meowllenge)
This match changed due to Shlak’s injury, and hopefully somewhere soon we can see the originally planned Allie Kat/Shlak match that’s bound to be crazy beyond expectation. In the meantime I had a good time watching Levi Everett answer the Meowllenge; Levi’s always going to bring that solid match energy with him along with his trusted old churn. It’s too bad this one went by so quick in favor of getting to Janela/RSP for the sake of time; Allie Kat got the victory and off we went to the main event.
Main Event: Joey Janela vs. Rickey Shane Page (GCW World Championship match with Spring Break control on the line)
So by now all of the world knows about this one and I can say this...what the fuck?!
Everything was in place for Janela to win this. He looked fantastic. Joey had new gear, he was in great shape, he had the support of the whole damn locker room welcoming him out to the ring. This was gonna be his moment. After all of the bullshit of 2020, we could go into this year’s Spring Break legit and without RSP as champion. At least that’s the way it played out in my mind. At least we would have seen if things had turned out that way if it just stayed with EFFY’s big reveal of swerving 44OH! and Chris Dickinson hadn’t gotten involved. What the fuck?!
Prior to the Dirty Daddy’s interference I was into this damn main event. RSP is a complete asshole but he’s also one of the better opponents Janela has had in a while. Crazy spots abundant in this one with the only predictable thing being that Joey would do something unpredictable off of something raised significantly high off the ground. Action went in and out of the ring, back and forth up until the dramatic and climatic finish; the wave of emotions went high when EFFY delivered the world’s most satisfying low blow to RSP and seconds later everything went crashing off the rails once the Dirty Daddy hit the damn ring. One sick suplex on Joey Janela ruined all our hopes and allowed RSP to get the win (and a newfound ally, maybe). Water bottles both empty and full started flying from all directions, and in my very drunken haze I dodged them and threw them alike, because fuck 44OH!. Everyone in attendance saw how this was playing out and paid their respects in projectiles.
The saving grace of it all? The return of the King and the GOD of this shit, naturally! We didn’t get the finish we wanted, but we got the challenge we needed to see. Just as hell broke loose and garbage pelted the ring, Nick Gage’s music hit and instantly the mood changed. By this time I was nearly weak from having screamed out all my alcohol-fueled rage and only had it in me to bask in the amazing energy that comes from hearing the intro to For Whom The Bell Tolls. The King was here, and he was here to make it known he’d be making good on his title shot at this year’s Spring Break, no matter who’s in charge of it. Nick Gage is back, and it’s still MDK all fuckin’ day.
As awesome it is to have Gage back for Spring Break, we have to look at what the event’s gonna look like now. Not only was Dickinson’s involvement at the end clearly the death of any dream we had of Joey beating RSP for the title, but it was also the nail in the coffin for Spring Break as we knew it. As you can see, that bastard RSP has already declared the Clusterfuck ‘cancelled’ and will probably have something stupid in its place like a Gregory Iron and Eddy Only sing-a-long or some sad shit like that. Something’s got to be done.
Post-Show Thoughts
I knew damn well not to miss this one. By the end of the show I was hopelessly drunk, physically drained, and the only thing I could do was wander back to my room in a daze. That’s how you know you’ve just been to a hell of a wrestling show. I’d seen the blood ritual I came to witness, I’d seen the drama and spectacle of great storytelling, and I could take it all back home and make the usual attempt to put it all into words. I don’t know if time will prove any different, but in my opinion Take Kare completes a trilogy of excellent events at the Carousel Room: there was Run Rickey Run, one of the last great shows of the pre-COVID era, then So Much Fun proved amazing wrestling shows still happen in trying times. Thankfully the third time was the charm and I was there to see this one live.