ACTION Wrestling We Gambled Way the Graphix Budget (4.17.26) review 

 

April 17, 2026 

 

 

WRESTLEMANIA WEEK REVIEW #27 

 

We’re in the Bizarre Bar and production is diabolical here. I’m here for it. Every time they cut to a different camera, the sound changes.  

 

Aaron Williams & Gary Jay vs. Kasey Owens & Suge D 

This is surprisingly hard to watch with the blurry camera, the audio changing every time we cut and comms being completely inaudible at times. Kasey and Suge play partners who don’t get along. They still win by picking off robo ginger Gary Jay. This was very ok. Audio issues did hurt proceedings. *¾ 

 

IWTV Independent Wrestling Championship 

Krule (c) vs. Mance Warner 

So, there was an incident at a show recently where Krule pretended to get stabbed by a fan and the locker room proceeded to kick the fan’s ass. The result of this stupid bullshit was indie wrestling losing a venue. It’s fair to say people were not best pleased with the situation. Krule comes out here, Mancer kicks him in the balls a few times, smacks him with a chair and hits a running knee for the belt. Bye Krule, you stupid fuck. 

 

Alexander Lev vs. Big Dave vs. Bobby Flaco vs. Landon Hale vs. OXP vs. Tyler Stevens 

Oh no, the dreaded scramble rears its ugly head. Big man Tyler Stevens is involved in some pleasing comedy where people just bounce off him. The audio is so loud on the ring here that it sounds like thunder. All you can hear is the noise of people running the ropes. It’s genuinely pushing the levels of what I’m prepared to sit through. STOP RUNNING. JUST STOP RUNNING. I end up muting it. I can’t take it anymore.  

 

In a way, doing botched high spots in a blurry ring with terrible audio is a tribute to the days of tape trading. I hope Dean Rasmussen got a kick out of watching this in heaven alongside Larry Csonka. Miss you fellas.  

 

ACTION Championship 

Darian Bengston (c) vs. Timothy Thatcher 

A new video issue is the hardcam shaking when the music plays. Shouldn’t have gambled so much lads.  

Bengston finds himself rapidly entering a world of pain. A world of pain, smokey.  

Bengston is wearing a Vancouver Whitecaps shirt, which is surely a Daniel Makabe shoutout. Considering Makabe wrestled Tim at the ACTION show last year at Mania weekend, I would assume so. Tim does top mat work here. It’s so much better than his match with Sam Holloway. So much more inventive. It happily clears the Dempsey match too as Tim is free to do whatever he likes. 

 

Shirt update; it’s Makabe’s actual shirt. As in, it was his shirt and now it’s Bengston’s shirt. Bengston also lifts the Makabe Lock Pi, which he’s using as a tribute. Now all he needs to do is fly to England to wrestle in a cave and he’s all set. Oh, shit, he’s doing the fastball punch too! Do I have to interview him now? Bengston steals this with a sneaky pin and Tim, enraged, stomps off back to train WWE ID prospects. CONSARN IT. Hey, this was really good! ***¾  

 

We get some sort of thing in the ring. I can’t hear the microphone. Although, I do see Phil Schneider in the ring.  

 

Minoru Suzuki, Fuminori Abe & Adam Priest vs. Zack Sabre Jr, Jonathan Gresham & Erick Stevens 

There’s a funny bit where you can see them searching for Zack’s TMDK theme on the screen as he’s coming out. MiSu vs ZSJ in front of a crowd this small feels like a crime. The technique here is off the charts good compared to just about everything else I’ve seen this weekend.  

Suzuki mistreating Gresh is a joy as Suzuki doesn’t sell the ball shot. HAHA. I was about to complain about Gresh recycling his shit in every match. Instead, he eats an enormous forearm shot. Deceased. Suzuki then demonstrates an arm ringer for the fraud Erick Stevens.  

Everyone seems to be having a nice time, doing bits, rolling around on the mat and slapping the shit out of each other. Gresham is willing to make a total arse of himself, which is refreshing. Zack eats a baseball punch and lies out in the front row. To give you an idea of how small the building is, his leg is draped into the ring.  

The referee absolutely fucks the finish here. It’s supposed to be a KO but he takes forever to call it with Abe standing there celebrating. He looks like an idiot for not pinning. Damn. Great match apart from the ending. **** 

 

Gresham complains about Zack not having his back, and Bengston comes out here to challenge Sabre to a match in June.  

 

Jameson Shook vs. Grayson Pierce 

Two guys who were named by pulling two random words out of a bag, presumably. This is a tough spot. Having to follow those wrestlers is hard under any circumstances but after they’ve had a cracker, you’re fucked lads. Luckily, the crowd is generous and supportive. Both guys are relatively inexperienced. Pierce is slightly better. I like his spots, his crowd interaction, and his bumps. He could be genuinely one to watch because he can do all the WWE ID nonsense but also has a personality and the capacity to improvise. **½ 

 

Danny Jones vs. Tim Bosby  

We have a big meaty match here with Bosby throwing his weight around. Bosby is out of Memphis, so you know he knows how to do the basics to a very high level. Jones blows hot and cold with me. Some of his stuff is pleasingly impactful, and at other times he’ll be slapping his thigh on nothing. Not in different matches, even, but from one minute to the next.  

 

Bosby hits an F5, which gets heat. I can’t tell if that’s a shot at the fed or at Lesnar’s…issues. Bosby is also good at crowd interaction, which you’d expect working in Memphis. Bosby also has good ring awareness and positioning. He’s really winning me over here. Sometimes wrestling is just about doing lots of little things right. He wins with a handful of tights, skillfully hidden on the referee’s blindside. Great effort from Bosby here. He made Danny Jones look like a dynamic babyface. *** 

 

ACTION Tag Team Championship 

Terry Yaki & Jay Lucas (c) vs. Danny Orion & Shimbashi 

This is a faster paced encounter. It is, perhaps predictably, a bit of a mess. I’m having trouble processing it all because it’s so fast paced there’s no time to absorb anything. They do have some nicely stiff chops mixed in there. The ambition outstrips the talent but the ideas are interesting. Some of the bumps are very nice. There’s a dive too crazy for the cameras. I don’t know where it landed. Meltzer Driver finishes. This was…a lot. They did a 20:00 match in 7 minutes. This would have been considered spotty by Lucha Underground standards. **¼ 

 

1 Called Manders vs. Paul Walter Hauser 

Manders has been consistently good this weekend, Hauser has been consistently bad. Something’s gotta give in the Bizarre Bar! At what point does a non-wrestler become a wrestler through sheer number of matches competed in? Hauser has had, what, 40 matches now? If I’m to start judging him as a pro wrestler and not a celebrity playing dress up, his match ratings are going to drop sharply.  

That said, Manders is displeased at Hauser’s very presence here and CHOPS THE SOUL OUT OF HIS BODY. “Get out of my fuckin’ world”. Still want to play pro-wrestling, Paul? If the match was just Manders beating the piss out of Hauser, this would be a good match, but it isn’t. Manders takes the business of selling Hauser’s stuff seriously.  

Manders goes back to teeing off on the poor bastard. Hauser even covers up and Manders is all “naaaahhh, bitch” and keeps teeing off on him. Hauser still hasn’t mastered the art of actually kicking out but after Manders has rearranged his jaw on a lariat, I don’t blame him. Another lariat finishes. **½. Easily the best match I’ve seen from PWH. Mainly because he took his beating. Manders fucked his shit up here. Great to see. God bless ACTION.  

 

Manders gives him a little word after the match. Now you’re a wrestler, boy.  

 

Mad Dog Connelly vs. Carl Malenko 

CARL MALENKO??? CARL MALENKO?? The Carl Malenko? What year is this? I feel like Marty McFly walking around the town square in 1955. They pull the worked shoot style here. The palm strikes in this are sick. I also like how conventional wrestling moves are easily countered. The Malenko escape from the Boston crab, for example. Connelly brings amazing strikes in this. The palms, the kicks, the forearms. He’s so good at striking. Carl catches him with a knee and works a choke to win in about five minutes. This was fucking sick, lads. ***½ 

 

The 411: 

Hot damn there was some goooood shit on this show. The production issues made it a very tough 2h30m to sit through as well. So, you have to consider it a roaring success that I even got through the whole thing. The scramble matches, with the audio issues, did my fucking swede in.  

 

However, look at the list of good shit on this show. Mance Warner wrecking Krule, Thatcher-Bengston, MiSu and ZSJ mixing it up, Abe, that whole trios match honestly bar the finish, Gresham’s comedy, Bosby bringing the Memphis work boots, Manders initiating Paul Walter Hauser into the SPORT of pro-wrestling and Carl fuckin’ Malenko in the main event against a hungry Mad Dog Connelly. Just fucking great pro wrestling guys. This was totally my shit.  

 

There’s nowhere to go from here. What would you even follow this with?  

 

Show Ranking:   

ACTION 8.2  

Effy’s Big Gay Brunch 8.0  

WWE Wrestlemania N2 7.8  

NJPW Death Vegas 7.5  

CMLL 7.1  

Stardom 7.0 

New Texas Pro 6.7  

TJPW 6.5  

Wrestlecon Supershow 6.3   

HOG Culture Clash 6.1 

MLP Multiverse 5.9  

Dragon Gate USA: Gate of Sin City 5.8   

Progress 5.6   

Bloodsport 5.5  

Spring Break 5.2  

Gringo Loco’s WRLD on Lucha 5.0  

Clusterfuck 4.6  

Ladies Night Out 16 4.5   

Hybrid x PWU Midnight Xpress 4.1   

MDK Fight Club 4.0   

Wrestlemania N1 3.8  

CCW High Rollers 3.4   

Podermania~! 3.1  

FSW Killer Kross Mecca XI 3.0  

FSW ID Showcase 2.8  

Boca Raton Vegas Vacation 2.4 

Juggalos 2.2   

Comptonmania* 2.0  

 

*reviewed by Al Scoops.  

  

Best Matches:   

Blue Panther vs. Ultimo Guerrero (CMLL) ****½  

Tremont & Gage vs. Takeda & Yamashita vs. Desperado & Kasai (NJPW Death Vegas) ****¼   

Roman Reigns vs. CM Punk (Wrestlemania N2) ****¼  

Brick Savage vs. Mad Dog Connelly (Effys Big Gay Brunch) **** 

Suzuki, Abe & Priest vs. Sabre, Gresham & Stevens (ACTION) **** 

Bandido vs. Amazing Red (HOG Culture Clash) **** 

Athena vs. Rina (Stardom) ***¾  

Zack Sabre Jr vs. Fuminori Abe (NJPW Death Vegas) ***¾   

Mark Davis vs. Masato Tanaka (Wrestlecon Supershow) ***¾   

Darian Bengston vs. Tim Thatcher (ACTION) ***¾  

Carl Malenko vs. Mad Dog Connelly (ACTION) ***½  

Miyu Yamashita vs. Miu Watanabe vs. Mizuki (TJPW) ***½  

Man Like Dereiss vs. Michael Oku (Progress) ***½   

Charity King vs. Gabby Forza (New Texas Pro) ***½  

Tim Thatcher vs. Charlie Dempsey (Bloodsport) ***½  

Gisele Shaw vs. Persephone vs. Killer Kelly vs. Shotzi Blackheart (MLP) ***¼  

Manders vs. Timur the Great (New Texas Pro) ***¼  

Gunther vs. Seth Rollins (Wrestlemania N1) ***¼  

Persephone vs. Tessa Blanchard (CMLL) ***¼  

Manders vs. Thomas Shire (Hybrid/PWU) ***¼   

Zack Sabre Jr vs. Effy (Effys Big Gay Brunch) ***¼  

IC ladder match (Wrestlemania N2) ***¼  

Jacob Fatu vs. Drew McIntyre (Wrestlemania N1) *** 

Bandido vs. Galeno del Mal (Wrestlecon Supershow) ***  

Hechicero vs. Jonathan Gresham (MLP) *** 

Perry & Stunt vs. Stackhouse & Orso (Spring Break) *** 

Charles Mason vs. Michael Oku (HOG Culture Clash) *** 

Mascara Dorada & Neon vs. Capitan Suicida & Flip Gordon (CMLL) *** 

Ben K & Hyo vs. Aero Panther & Fight Panther Jr vs. Jordan Oliver & Alec Price (DGUSA) ***  

Fuminori Abe vs. Erick Stevens (Bloodsport) *** 

Thunder Rosa vs. Julissa Mexa (WRLD on Lucha) *** 

Dark Sheik vs. Nyla Rose (Effys Big Gay Brunch) *** 

10 person tag (Effys Big Gay Brunch) ***  

Bryan Keith vs. Danny Orion (New Texas Pro) *** 

Tim Bosby vs. Danny Jones (ACTION) *** 

Willow, Cameron & Statlander vs. AZM, Mei Seira & Starlight Kid (Stardom) *** 

Claudio Castagnoli vs. Atlantis Jr (CMLL) *** 

 

Sandman vs. Invisible Man (Spring Break) 

Manders vs. Paul Walter Hauser (ACTION) 

  

Matches watched: 208 

Number of coffees drunk; 17 

Number of Geoguessr seeds played as a welcoming distraction: 17 

Number of motivational/tactical Irn Bru’s drunk: 8