This past Saturday night, February 21, a very vocal standing room only crowd filled the National Guard Armory in Quincy, MA to join NECW for their “Biggest Event of the Winter“, GENESIS 8: Measure for Measure.
In the opening contest, the first time ever in the company that a match was contested with a Hair vs. Mask stipulation, the masked Asian Star Makoto defeated “The Talent” TJ Richter after a cradle pin fall. After the match, Makoto sheared Richter of his trademark ponytail using a samurai sword!”The Natural” Scott Osbourne continued along on his quest for a repeat bid to the annual IRON 8 Championships by pinning Davey Loomis in a technical wrestling contest.
The NECW Television Title was on the line next in a special Lumberjack Match, as champion Handsome Johnny with Sammi Lane defended the title against “The Real Deal” Brandon Locke. The match was the culmination of their 16-month feud. As the lumberjacks began to settle their own person disputes and left the ringside area, Sammi Lane attempted to interfere but was speared to the mat by Taeler Hendrix who had volunteered to be the match’s only “lumberjill”. Handsome attempted to use the title belt on Locke, but instead was met by a crushing Locke-Down slam for Locke to regain the title in classic form, with the fans jumping to their feet at the finish.
NECW President Sheldon Goldberg came to the ring and announced to the overwhelming crowd that unfortunately he had to be the bearer of bad news that Mikey Whipwreck was having auto troubles and had not yet reached the building. Fans were not upset and cheered when Sheldon mentioned that the Blue Meanie was in the building and had chosen a replacement partner.
The Blue Meanie came to the ring to deafening chants of BWO. He got in the ring with the NECW Tag Team Champions Pride and informed them that he would have wrestled them along, but NECW would not allow that in a sanctioned title match. So his announced partner Whipwreck made a career of being an underdog in ECW and so he was going to pick a guy who has the same reputation in NECW, Nick Westgate. Despite not ever teaming and only meeting a few hours before the match, Meanie and Westgate gelled extremely well and on several occasions almost won the NECW Tag Team Titles, until Pride were able to gain the upper hand and then victory retaining the titles.
After intermission, the Crown Jewels came to the ring and announced that they had offered each member of Team Nightmare $5000 to sell out and walk away from NECW. Nick Steel accepted the offer and walked away from Evan Siks, leaving him alone to face them. They then announced that their match would be officiated by their new stylist and lifestyle consultant… “Mr. Fabulous” Tony Ulysses (Ulysses was one of the most controversial stars of Killer Kowalski’s All Star Wrestling in the 80’s as the “Soul Sissy” Tony Ulysses). It was obvious that Evan Siks would be wrestling an uphill battle. Evan seemed to have the match won, but Ulysses wouldn’t count the three. Evan then went to piledrive Bad Boy Jason, but Darling Damon attempted to spray Evan in the eyes with their perfume. Siks ducked and Ulysses got the full brunt of the spray in his eyes. Evan leveled Damon with a Lariat, threw Jason from the ring and went for a pin. Referee J.T. Franks ran out and counted the pin, but Damon was able to barely kick out. Bad Boy Jason came back into the ring brandishing brass knuckles and blatantly knocked out Siks. As referee Franks went to ring the bell and call for a disqualification, “Mr. Fabulous” hit him with a low blow and then threw him from the ring, then quickly counted the three on Siks. After the match the Jewels and Ulysses has a huge celebration in the ring. When the Jewels had left, Evan Siks recovered and slowly took off his boots, which he left in the ring, often signifying a wrestler had fought his last match.
“Superstar” Ryan Matthews came to the ring for his annual Superstar Challenge. He spoke with revisionist history about how he was undefeated in all his previous contests (a blatant lie). Matthews called out ref Rob Teutel and then challenged any former NECW or PWF champion not on the card to take him up on his challenge and face him in the ring tonight… and before anyone even could answer told Teutel to start to count out his opposition. As Teutel counted to ten and rang the bell, Matthews began to celebrate holding a victory over the “whole title history page” on the NECW website. He was interrupted by Pat “The Brat” Piper, who came to the ring and said they had unfinished business. Due to Matthews’ attack on Piper a few months back, Piper was given the opportunity to choose Matthews’ opponent for March 21st March Badness. He did just that… he found a former NECW Champion… and a guy who couldn’t stand Ryan Matthews… Slyck Wagner Brown! Matthews freaked out and ran off from the ring in a near tantrum and the crown buzzed about Wagner’s return to NECW.
In a World Women’s Wrestling Championship match, “The Portuguese Princess” Ariel with Brendan Michael Thomas retained her title, defeating Taeler Hendrix with the Dariel to retain the title.
The NECW Triple Crown Championship match ended the show in true main event fashion. Triple Crown Champion “The Enforcer” Max Bauer defended his title against his archrival and number one contender “The Golden Greek” Alex Arion. The near 30-minute match saw Bauer nearly have to forfeit the title due to a knee injury, Alex and Max brawl through the crowd and throughout the National Guard Armory, Arion dropping a huge leg drop putting Bauer through the ringside commentary table, and much more. In the end, Bauer retained his title using a modified chokeslam facebuster for the three count. After the event, NECW President Sheldon Goldberg and Event Producer Matt Storm went on record that it was indeed the Best Main Event match in the history of the company… a huge accolade considering the rich history of NECW’s near 10-years.
NECW returns to live action on Saturday night, March 21st at the National Guard Armory in Quincy, MA. Tickets are on sale at all FYE locations, K. C. Sportscards, 133 Temple Street, Quincy Center and online at www.NECWwrestling.com.