GCW JJSB Clusterfuck Forever (4.6.24) review 

 

April 6, 2024 

 

WRESTLEMANIA WEEK REVIEW #25 

 

Source: Triller TV+ (£7.99 per month) 

 

We’re in Philly at the Collective building for one last hurrah. This is probably (never say never) my final review from this year’s Wrestlemania week. I shot for 22, so we beat that. Doing 41 (which was my full Wild Ride spreadsheet) was never going to happen. I would have had to take a couple of weeks off work. I don’t know how cass (on Twitter) managed to do a staggering 37 shows. I assume he didn’t sleep for a week. Wabz did 40! In previous years, I’ve done sleep deprivation as a way to get through the volume but honestly, I’m too old for that shit now. I was out touching grass on Friday. Also, I got sick on Saturday and the whole thing has been hard work. Anyway, let’s get this stupid fucking Joey Janela show done and we’ll hit the road. Hosts are Dave Prazak and Veda Scott.  

 

Yes, we have an actual Punjabi Prison match on this show. Amazing. 

 

Punjabi Prison Match 

GCW Tag Team Championship 

Dominic Garrini & Kevin Ku (c) vs. Bollywood Boyz vs. Zilla Fatu & Juicy Finau vs. Ciclope & Miedo Extremo  

Bamboo and gaffer tape for this Punjabi Prison. I’m not sure it was worth the effort. I mean, we never see cage matches on the Indies anymore. Could have done a cage match here? Fair play for doing it though. It looks cool. Once you’ve got past the image of it though, it lacks of all the potential of the actual Punjabi Prison because you can’t really do much with it. The match also has a horrible botch where they try to do a big suplex on Finau and it just collapses.  

Bloodshed occurs. If this isn’t bad enough for Harv, he also eats a Samoan drop off the outside of the prison. HE IS DEAD. Juicy takes a bunch of chair shots. It’s pretty sad watching him just stand there and take plunder shots, as that’s about all he can do. Given his extreme limitations. They do a lot of setting up of spots outside, which mostly happens off camera, and then someone tumbles through it.  

 

There’s a surprising amount of unprotected chair shots. Lots of dreadful stuff involving Juicy Finau. I wouldn’t call this a disaster because Violence is Forever are a great team and they did good stuff in this match. Also, I liked everyone else, to varying degrees. But…you put Juicy Finau in a match and it’s going to suck. He was in all the big spots too. Just put him through a table on the floor and move on. Or don’t put him in the damn match at all. Points for effort but way botchy and bad.  

 

I’m amazed how quickly they pull down the Punjabi Prison. It’s gone in like five minutes. Then they bring out Blake Christian for a chat and I’m like WHY DIDN’T YOU DO THIS WHILE THEY WERE TAKING THE SHIT DOWN? Blake talks shit so Joey Janela comes out and murders him with a package piledriver. Dude, you lost yesterday. Why are we still doing this? Mance Warner shows up, as he has one of those stupid ‘anytime’ Money in the Bank title shots. I swear those need to just go away. Before he can call his shot, Effy runs in. That’s two feuds GCW failed to blow off this weekend! From a booking perspective, it’s not been great for GCW. Right, let’s get all the silliness underway!  

 

The Clusterfuck 

This takes place under Royal Rumble rules only with pinfalls, submission, “leaving the building” or “death”. Jimmy Lloyd is #1 and #2 is SHANE DOUGLAS???? When the music kicked in (Deep Purple, GOAT entrance music) I thought someone had stolen it but it’s Shane Douglas. Shane is looking chunky. Despite the beer belly he can still take a bump, which is one up on Juicy Finau.  

I’m aware there’s a whole bunch of guys in this thing and it’s going to be around 2 hours long, so I’ll just mention stuff that pops me. Douglas does pin three guys in a row, which is pretty funny. The ECW run continues with the arrival of Jason Knight. I briefly thought it was Perry Saturn. Just as I’ve recovered from that we HC Loc and Tony DeVito; Da Baldies. I like how ECW-styled this whole weekend has been, even YEARS after any of them were relevant.  

TOMMY DREAMER is here! Justin Credible is also in here. He looks like he was never a wrestler. Presumably he couldn’t take a DDT because he just bails. The ring fills up with people because they pile them in so quick. Masha Slamovich starts choking people out to thin out the numbers. Masha has been one of the stars of this weekend. She even throws Dreamer out. Frank the Clown appears, and I had forgotten he existed.  

 

Mike Bailey appears in his billionth match of the weekend. He gets thrown straight out. STAT PADDER! It was his last of 12 matches this weekend. Parrow has a bit of a run of being a spoiler. The match runs through a dead patch where they try and actually wrestle, instead of doing memes. It doesn’t help that they all come in as tag teams. It’s a real grind to sit through. There are some rough workers after that too. Like Sexxxy Eddie and Green Phantom. Real dirt tier guys.  

I do pop for CPA, who has the same shirt on under his shirt. It’s exactly the same. Then he takes that shirt off and there’s another one underneath. Each layer also has a tie. Tank tries to throw him by the tie and it’s a clip on! Genius.  

Spyder Nate Webb’s music kicks in and we know that’s going to be a good time. When I first saw Nate Webb in like 2003, I didn’t realise he’d be a constant for most of my life afterwards. It’s 2am, Webb does his entrance TWICE and everyone is singing along. It’s beautiful, honestly. Best part of the match.  

Emil Jay is briefly in the Clusterfuck but realises Tank is in the ring and jumps out. Sensible. Man Like Dereiss rapping the moves he’s using on CPA is a great bit. “Gonna throw this wasteman out”. Mercedes Martinez cleans out a lot of the filler that’s been building up. The more I think about this match; it would benefit from being slimmed down and them only using the people who’ll pop the audience. But then subtlety isn’t Joey’s style.  

Manders is still in this! He keeps bailing to drink beer. I’ve noticed a couple of wrestlers eating on the outside too. The schedule is so punishing that they’ve not had time to eat anywhere. Veda Scott was eating pizza on the Mike Bailey show. Beast Man and Sam Stackhouse engage in a BATTLE OF THE FAT BOYS. That’s a lot of meat. Dereiess again comes into play by feigning being unconscious in the hopes that Viva Van will give him a Stinkface. The facial reaction shots from him are incredible.  

Johnny Kashmere shows up. Johnny Kashmere? That’s a deep cut. I was an Indie nerd when Kashmere wrestled, and I struggle to recognise his face. Someone needs to bring back the T-Gimmick. American Giant, someone Joey obviously thinks is funny, is in this. He struggles to step on someone for a lazy pin.  

We kick things into a higher gear with the main event talent; Microman and Chiitan. The latter followed me on Twitter over the weekend, but it was merely a rouse to get me to follow back. Benny St Hubert, the Quebecois Fighting Chicken, is in next. 

For those who missed Mike Bailey’s dumb inflatables show this is clearly Mike Bailey in an inflatable chicken suit. The Kaiju Big Battel guys are in next and the costumes have gotten very low rent compared to back in the day. Just to confirm we’re into the big talent, Aja Kong is here. Benny St Hubert eating a spinning back fist is one of the spots of the weekend.  

Parrow, as he has done all match, ruins it. YOSHIHIKO vs. Johnny Kashmere is the Indie dream match you never knew you wanted. The final three is Microman, YOSHIHIKO and Nick Gage. When Nick steps into the ring, I’m thinking back to when he hated wrestling Hornswoggle because he thought they were making fun of him. Well, NOW they’re making fun of you.  

Overall, this was a fun match, but they front and back loaded the most fun parts. The middle of this match is just chock full of Indie dweebs, and nobody cares.  

 

The 411: 

How do you even rate a show like this? It was fun, yes, but less fun than Spring Break. There were just too many dead spots in the Clusterfuck. The tag team section in particular was just dead air. The Punjabi Prison wasn’t a success either, although I’m pretty sure you can blame the booking for that. Bollywood Boyz and Violence is Forever tried hard to get the concept over. Juicy Finau is not who I’d want in there for all the big spots. Overall, I thought this was fine but three hours of stuff to ‘pop the boys’ rather than a wrestling show. I saw far worse shows this weekend.