THE FRIENDS WE MADE ALONG THE WAY 2020 REPORT

Well, that show certainly happened, didn’t it? You know the drill, check the show out here, then come back. Or don’t, whatever.

Match #1: Big Baby Lucifer and Reverend Freakout fought to a 30 minute time limit draw

Nerd Rating: 76% ⭐⭐ 1/2⭐

Fuck this match. I dunno. Just fuck it. Baby Lucifer had been looking like he was ready to break out as a top guy, but this was just 30 minutes of that fatass bent over, gasping for air, being repeatedly clotheslined by a man who’s too hopped up on goofballs to ever bother going for a pinfall. I hate this match forever.

Match #2: #8 Seed BIG BOI SEASON defeated #1 Bad Religion in 21:04 when BIG TREAT BOY hit Father Mayhem with a diving senton

Nerd Rating: 87% ⭐⭐⭐ 1/2⭐

Well, there’s a shocker. Not to say that the BIG BOIs are exactly slouches, (spoilers?) but I think a lot of bookies are going to have to break a lot of people’s legs after the Bads went out in the first round of the tournament. Unless I’m mistaken, this is their first lost since they’ve been here. To be fair, their refusal to wear the fancy white gear that Billy Wayne Humble bought for them prevented them from getting outside assistance, plus they both smelled an awful lot of liquor and strip joint funk, so they probably weren’t at the top of their game. But even if they were, that’s a lotta tonnage coming off the top rope.

Match #3: #2 Team Twizzy defeated #7 The fighting Cocks in 11:58 when Doug Graves hit Rhode Island Red with a top rope legdrop

Nerd Rating: 70% ⭐ 1/2⭐

The Cocks’ run of surprising people in title-related situations comes to an end, as Team Twizzy (is that even a word?) made a statement win, taking them down with relative ease. I’m really trying to avoid writing a sentence with some variation of “beating the Cocks” in it, and I don’t think I can, so let’s move on.

Match #4A: #3 Secret Evil Service Elite fought #6 The 46 Defenders to a 30:00 time limit draw

Nerd Rating: 85% ⭐⭐⭐ 1/2⭐

Welp. for the record, I was against time limits in a tag tournament, but Nate insisted, because they’ve had pretty strict curfews lately after all the local unrest over the local cops firebombing that guy’s car for failure to signal back in June. This is why we try to keep them away from the shows, you guys. Anyway, between this being a pretty intense back-and-forth matchup and and the bulk of pinfall attempts happening while Referoth was knocked the fuck out, (still finished the show, because he was a former No Police Involvement Champ, you know) the clock ran out. So we had to invoke an obscure rule in the Tri-Stae Area Athletic Commission rulebook, which states that when a draw happens in a tag tournament, each team must designate a champion, and the these two will immediately have a singles match to see who advances. And welp…

Match #4B: Agent Fang and Neal Grabowski ended in a fucking double countout in some time, hell I dunno and don’t care.

Nerd Rating: 82% ⭐⭐⭐

You fucking idiots. Anyway, after Fang and Neal shit the bed in spectacular fashion, we had to invoke another obscure rule, eliminating both teams, and giving BIG BOI SEASON an express ticket to the finals. You. fucking. Idiots.

TALES OF THE INVISIBLE BACKSTAGE CAMERA!

(A dejected AGENT FANG and AGENT BULLDOG make their way to the back, where a decidedly displeased PRESIDENT EVIL is waiting, alongside AGENT 35.)

FANG: Oh, uhh… Look, boss, I can explain-

EVIL: No. No, I don’t think you can, Fang. Because anyone stupid enough to stay outside the ring at the eighteen count while their partner is beating on their opponent and the referee doesn’t seem to care, is not smart enough to explain anything. To anyone. For fuck’s sake, man. You had it, and just dipshitted it all away!

FANG: Well, I mean, I dunno, it’s just, that-

EVIL: (takes a deep breath) I swear to fuck, I am this close to just ending this whole tag team experiment with you two. Just let you two morons focus on your own little weight classes, and bring in another team to the Administration for the tag division.

FANG: Aw, come on! We make a good team. You know… Usually.

EVIL: No. Just… No. I’m not doing this right now. I have a match I need to get ready for, and just… No. We’ll talk about this later. Right now, I’ve gotta focus on stomping the shit out of that little Bird brat.

BULLDOG: Remember to change masks first, sir.

EVIL: Ugh, not this again…

FANG: Yeah, seriously. Your nose is still healing from the surgery, and the hood is just a bad idea right now.

(EVIL pulls out the new hockey style mask and eyes it with disgust)

EVIL: But I hate this thing! Look it it! It barely covers anything! It makes me feel naked, and not like in a cool, sexy way.

FANG: But it’s scary! You’ll look like Jason!

EVIL: Oh boy, I’ll look waterlogged and deformed. Can’t I just put it on under the cool mask or something?

BULLDOG: You tried that, sir, and the eye holes didn’t line up. and again, your nose, sir.

EVIL: Well, if that’s the concern, I just won’t get hit in the nose!

AGENT 35: Uhh, hate to break this to you, dude, but Lil’ Bird already kinda displayed an aptitude for hitting that area.

(EVIL turns to 35 and gives him the literal evil eye)

FANG; look, you have to wear that thing, because if anything happens to your nose, your wife will kill you. And then, she’s going to kill all of us.

EVIL: Goddammit, fine. (he starts to pull on the top of his hood) Hey, wait a minute… Have any of you guys ever seen me without a mask on?

(All three evil agents kind of lean forward a little)

BULLDOG: No… No, actually, we haven’t, sir.

EVIL: Ah, well, that’s too bad. You guys are really missing out; I look fly as hell under this thing. Now turn the fuck around.

(All three sigh disappointedly and turn around while EVIL switches masks)

AGENT 35: For the record, it’s kinda fucked up that you’ve seen all of us unmasked, and we’ve never seen you.

EVIL: Well, you know, I’m special, so fuck you.

FANG: Well 35, you gotta understand that if any living creature sees him without his mask, he’s bound by The Old Ways to never put it back on.

FANG AND 35: (solemnly) This is the way.

BULLDOG: This is the way, sir.

EVIL: The fuck was that!? Ya fuckin’ weirdos.

FANG: You still haven’t watched The Mandalorian?

EVIL: I’ll get to it eventually. Now get out of here and go hit the showers, to wash off the stench of failure.

(BULLDOG and FANG leave)

EVIL: And 35, remember what we talked about. There’s no way I’m gonna lose to that little prick, but I want nothing left to chance. If shit starts to head south out there, you come running.

AGENT 35; and if things are going okay?

EVIL: Heh. Don’t let that stop you.

(AGENT 35 picks up a conveniently-placed barbed wire baseball bat and nods)

AGENT 35: This is the way.

EVIL: Fuckin’ dork.

Match #5: #4 Reverse Racism defeated the #5 Turd Experience in 19:11 when O.G. Minh hit Turd 2A with a Karelin’s Lift

Nerd Rating: 77% ⭐⭐ 1/2⭐

words

Match #6: #2 Team Twizzy defeated #4 Reverse racism in 40:08 when Cobra Nightraven hit O.G. Minh with a moonsault

Nerd Rating: 93% ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thanks to the Neal and Fang being mentally defective, (and thanks to only two extra matches being booked, out of what ended up being well-justified fear of tag matches going long) the RRs had to fight twice in a row, but you’d never know by watching this. If not for extending the time limit to 45, this would’ve been another draw, but at least it was three fairly fast-moving guys and one entertainingly violent guy, unlike the BBL/Freakout debacle. In the end, the Twizzies outlasted their opponents and move to the final. Despite the annoying longness, probably the match of the night.

Match #7 President Evil defeated El Hijo Del big Bird Machine in 16:22 with a thumbtack-assisted stomping surfboard stretch

Nerd Rating: 78% ⭐⭐ 1/2⭐

Welp, El Hijo Del Big Bird Machine came prepared to fight, but the Prez was on a mission out there, and ended up pretty much painting the entire arena in the kid’s blood. Seriously, he pulled out very imaginable weapon aside from a chainsaw (which actually happened once) and went fuckin’ nuts out there. In the end, he finished in pretty brutal fashion by just repeatedly grinding the kid’s face into a pile of thumbtacks. I didn’t hear a verbal submission, and there was no possible way to tap out, so it may be that Gus just decided to end it there, and I can’t blame him.

The real story here is what happened after the match, which you people didn’t get to see, because Buddy From the Ring Crew had gone to the post-match graphics, followed by the batteries in the little doohickey he switches angles with dying. (Great job, everyone.) So anyway, The Prez just kept up the assault after the match, followed by that mean little shit Agent 35 (some of which actually did make the stream, I think) running out with a barbed wire bat (which was unnecessary, as I’m reasonably sure there were two or three still at ringside) to make it a 2-on1 beating. (*and barely ven “one” as El Hijo was pretty much out by that point) Then, I dunno who cued up the music on the PA system, (I delegate that job, as I usually fuck it up) but all of a sudden….

Who should show up, but a surprisingly healthy and chair-wielding Ace damn La Grange, who proceeded to knock 35 smooth the fuck out and start going to work on the Prez before he wisely bailed out of the ring.

After the match, they had this to say:

ACE LA GRANGE: You thought I was done, didn’t you? “One down, one to go,” huh? Well, brother, I guess you gotta put those shirts on clearance, don’t you? You think dropping me on my head was gonna get rid of me, brother? Well I got news for you – If cocaine couldn’t kill me, and pills couldn’t kill me, and speed couldn’t kill me, and huffing jenkem couldn’t kill me, and licking poison dart frogs couldn’t kill me, what hope did you have? You might have been able to put me on the shelf for a while, but the Ace is good now, brother, and I got unfinished business with you, Evil!

PRESIDENT EVIL: Hmph. Not the one I was hoping for.

Match #8A: #8 BIG BOI SEASON and #2 Team Twizzy fought to a 45:00 time limit draw

Nerd Rating: 82% ⭐⭐⭐

ANOTHER FUCKING DRAW. IN THE FINALS. FUUUUUCK. Invoking obscure rules, blah blah blah, etc.

Match #8B: BIG TREAT BOY squashed Cobra Nightraven in time with blah to make BIG BOI SEASON the NEW STRUGGLE Tri-State World Tag Team Champions

Nerd Rating: 63% ⭐

Man, in hindsight, it would’ve been a better idea to send the heavyweight half of the team out there to face a 400-pounder who’s also probably one of the more underrated singles wrestlers we’ve got. But they picked Nightraven, and he got stomped, and BIG BOI SEASON are the champs, and congrats to them, but fuck this match entirely.