The Cast: Who's Who (April 2017)

Guys,

Two new guys, depending on how you view Dino. His real identity has certainly received his share of press on this site in the form of reviews.

An interesting tidbit, perhaps, is that I made a last minute switch on my stories. Bird Boy v Puffin wasn't supposed to appear for months, but I learned that Puffin's alter ego is buddies with an underground wrestler and I worried he'd be recruited to appear somewhere before I used him as Puffin. Call me psychic, because that's exactly what happened, but now I was first. :)

The Cave Undercard 16

Xaq/Bird Boy = Jeff Seid (Bodybuilder)

Review: Kid Karisma vs. Chace LaChance (BGEast)

Kid Karisma vs. Chace LaChance is the second match I watched from Backyard Brawls 9. It's been a while since there was a BGEast compilation where I was this excited to watch all three matches, but this is one is just jam-packed with awesomeness. I already covered my first and favorite (Carter v Kirk), but I want to give some love to the other two, as well. And so, I'll start with this one.

Review: Bolt vs. Slash (Thunders Arena)

Full disclosure: This video was provided to me by Thunders Arena.

I only have so much time and there are so many wrestling videos to watch. April suddenly got me overloaded with potential content. I know, #firstworldproblems, right? Anyway, I'm not looking for sympathy, just saying, that it's easy to miss good stuff. Like this one.

I'm glad that Bolt vs. Slash came to my email. And I'm glad I actually watched it. That's not a sure thing. It's two wrestlers I like, but not love. And I wasn't sure what it'd be. So I easily could have de-prioritized it. I still haven't watched Scrappy vs. Mark Muscle, even though I pulled a still from it for my final Cameron interview post (here). So I'm glad I watched this, because it was worth my time.

Contrasts galore make this a joy to watch.

Review: Carter Alexander vs. Kirk Donahue (BGEast)

There's a Seinfeld episode where Jerry dates someone that he sees as attractive, but everyone else in the show sees as a loser. I don't claim that this is exactly what's happening with Carter Alexander, but it sure seems like he's under-appreciated.

Bloggers love him, but producers and fans don't seem as enamored. No year-end nominations from the muckety-mucks at BGEast. My review of his match vs. Kid Karisma was my lowest viewed BGEast review of 2016 for a long time (that honor now belongs to the more deserving Trent Blayze vs. Mike Pitt, which was all kinds of disappointing). And as far as I know, he only has one other match at one other company (he's Wrestler4Hire's Jake Steele). Geez, what gives?

Maybe it's just me, but I'm a huge fan after just three matches. Now, those were against superstars Jake Jenkins, Kid Karisma and Brad Barnes (at W4H). Did they elevate his performance? I could see that happening. Regardless, this was the first match I decided to watch from the new Backyard Brawl compilation, choosing it over Kid Karisma vs. Chace LaChance and Jonny Firestorm vs. Christian Taylor. So you know I'm on the case.

Yes, please. This is THE best Backyard Brawl.

Review: Superman/Mark Muscle vs. Robin/Will Favero (Wrestler4Hire)

Mark Muscle as Superman against Will Favero as Robin is another video that jumped the queue. Probably not surprising. I love superheroes and I like these wrestlers. Wrestler4Hire has been doing a good job with wrestlers in costumes. And the casting is just cool. So I watched it, pulled the images and here we are. So what did I think?

Uh, Robin, point that finger somewhere else.

Review: Marco vs. Spike (Thunders Arena)

Marco: "Why are you all hairy? You know this is a modeling gig, right? You need to look like a model not a fat bear."

I still have a ton of free stuff from Thunders Arena to watch and potentially review, but what do I do? I buy Marco v Spike from Thunders Arena and watch it instead. Sure, I might never get around to something like Marco/Slim, but Eagle/Logan/Vinny, Bolt/Frey and Vinny/Marco sound right up my alley. Nope, they're taking a backseat for Spike.

It's not often that I want to buy a match the day it comes out because of an unknown rookie, but this is one of the exceptions. I simply had to see Spike in action, so here we are. Turns out, I made a good call. I won't say the right call, because I haven't seen the other videos, but this one was a winner for me, so yay.

Two hot studs face off in a hairy vs. smooth,
newbie vs. veteran showdown.

Q + A: Cameron Matthews (Part 3 of 3)

And we're at the end of my questions for Cameron. I think you can see how great Cameron was in all this. I asked him a ton of stuff that took a ton of his time.

PART 1

PART 2

One thing you'll notice here is that I segmented Cameron's roster into several categories and labeled them. He didn't necessarily agree with the labels or even the basic idea of segmenting his roster. However, he was a trooper and answered anyway. I just wanted to make sure that you take note of where I ended up leading Cameron's answers in the talent section. 

Cameron was a great sport
to answer all of this for me.