WrestleCon Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow 2025 (4.17.25) review 

 

I asked for it, really.  

 

We’re in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Pearl Theater. It’s a good building. If we’re chasing early positives. Hosts are Nick Knowledge and….Veda Scott. 

 

 

Arez, Latigo, Toxin, El Bendito & El Hijo de Canis Lupus vs. Aero Panther, Fight Panther Jr, Gravity, Spider Fly & Vengador 

I have tried, damn hard, to enjoy lucha libre and I simply don’t. I can only apologise for this, but the cooperative style of wrestling simply doesn’t work for me. However, I do also like cool looking Mexican submissions and dives and shit. So, let’s see how this works out. I was hoping that Gravity’s gimmick would be either a) he was just really heavy and couldn’t be lifted or b) gravity didn’t affect him and he just floated away into the ceiling. 

 

The match has a lot of irritating spots with the occasional good one. It’s absolutely what I expect from lucha, and I would generally enjoy it live but when it comes to analysis, it just fails. The Panthers both do cool dives. I keep being told to watch them. As the match progresses it gets progressively worse. It’s just a big ugly mess with the odd cool looking dive in it. Arez then finishes with a hugely underwhelming double stomp and the SILENCE that meets it is telling. Anyway, this is the same as every other spotfest lucha thing. Every year there’s loads of them. I had fun, I guess.Crowd enjoyed it.  

 

SEAN MOONEY IS HERE! They even play the theme music from an 80s WWE show. Is it Wrestling Challenge? He’s out here to shill some bits and pieces he’s doing over the weekend.  

 

Ninja Mack vs. Mascara Dorada 

This is Mascara Dorada Dos. Not Gran Metalik. While there continues to be cooperative stuff here they do throw in a super rana where Mack lands on his feet. “Action you’ll only see at the Mark Hitchcock Memorial show” says Nick Knowledge. Ignoring every other lucha show, ever. They start working the stage and Ninja Mack gets a rana down the steps. Yeah, dive over the fans. That’s what I want.  

 

While there are some awkward moments, a lot of this match lands. Even little things like Ninja Mack getting his feet over Dorada’s shoulders on a sit out pin. The craft is there. Dorada gets the SSP for the win. I enjoyed this. Clean, clinical. Nicely put together. It didn’t really escalate very well but a minor complaint. *** 

 

Sin City Scramble 

Ah, WrestleCon, permanently stuck in the “Scrambles are good” mentality of pre-Covid. Seven guys in here and they join the match in staggered intervals, and you can’t get a pin until all seven are out here. What a fucking stupid idea. We start with Vaughn Vertigo and TJ Perkins. Predictably, nobody gives a fuck because there are no pins. Super Crazy joins them. He’s 51 and hasn’t been mobile in a decade but hey, let’s book him anyway! Next in is Mike D. Vecchio. Happy for him. Absolute stud. 

 

Manders is also in this. He’s the champ in Germany now. Mike D basically crushes it here. The power, the flying. Brilliant. Cheeseburger is the penultimate guy. I’m quite enjoying this but the last guy in is Danhausen. KILL HIM MIKE D. Danhausen runs through his usual shit stuff, and he just pins Vertigo. Well, this was quite fun until Danhausen arrived. Absolute dogshit afterwards. Surely people are tired of this one trick meme?  

 

Matt Mako vs. Matt Riddle 

Mako used to be called Makowski. I seem to remember quite liking him last year. Quite funny how some people completely no sell Riddle’s entrance. Literally just sat there having a nice drink of water. The crowd amuse themselves by chanting about the guys having the same first name. It threatens to turn into something good when Mako hits this big overhand chop. It never quite gets going though.  

There are definite attempts to get an MMA inspired shootstyle match going. You would think two former MMA guys could do that, but they find it hard to get the style down. Once you’re pro-wrestling it’s hard to lose that mindset. Mako gets his eyebrow split open, which helps to sell the brutality of the strikes. I’d rather one guy just got pummelled into submission but sadly Riddle has to hit one of his finishers instead. Bro Derek strikes again. This was legitimately good. *** 

 

Maki Itoh vs. Mickie James 

Two wrestlers here that I’m very fond of. Maki in more recent years. They do some nice, tidy mat counters. Mickie is sucking down air after them though, which is a worry. She is 45 now. In a worrying turn of events Mickie stops the match to shoot on Dave Meltzer. I get that Meltzer has only ever gone ***½ tops on Mickie’s matches but there’s a reason for that. Hey, could have changed it here. Maki is great. I guess we’ll never know.  

 

Kinda weird everyone is chanting “Meltzer sucks” too. If Dave wasn’t holding this business to account over match quality would wrestling be as popular as it is today? People went chasing snowflakes because they figured that made them good at wrestling. The product without that pursuit looks very different. So, unless you hate wrestling, don’t chant that. I think Dave sucks personally but for different reasons. 

 

The match doesn’t improve much after that, to be honest. Mickie finishes with her pendulum DDT, which Maki doesn’t understand and bumps wrong. It’s not the legendarily bad match it’s been painted as and is still better than John Cena vs Cody Rhodes. 

 

Dan “The Beast” Severn is out here to referee the next match. Comms talk a lot about his UFC career, which is also a bit odd considering what a lengthy pro-wrestling career he had. Especially for NWA when it lacked leadership. I guess that’s just what he’s known for. Personally, I think he had a better wrestling career than people give him credit for. Just because the WWF run didn’t really pan out.  

 

Minoru Suzuki vs. Butterbean 

The presence of everyone in this match goes to prove there’s a huge void in the Indies right now. Having to resort to this freakshow attraction is sad. Butterbean was quite the star in the late 90s. Just a big fat brawler, freakshow boxer who would knock people out. Including twice appearing on WWF PPV. Once to shoot KO Bart Gunn and previously to work Johnny B Badd in a rounds system. Butterbean has never, at any point, been a wrestler. Never. 

 

Butterbean doesn’t know what to do here. So, they do some chops for a bit, and he can’t do that. Alternatively, in R2, we hit the canvas and Butterbean hugs Suzuki’s leg for a few minutes. This is about as thrilling as it sounds. I’m briefly confused because I thought they’d reanimated George Steele’s corpse. They go for a brawl on the floor in R3, with no brawling at all, and Severn counts them both out. Good. The crowd are not happy about this AT ALL. “This may not be the end” says Veda Scott. I think it is, mate. Negative stars here. Terrible. 

 

Justice for Johnny Knoxville, in my opinion, who may have been at the wrong end of a Butterbean beatdown but had the better pro-wrestling match by a fucking mile. In your face, Eric.  

 

Michael Oku, Hechicero & Flip Gordon vs. Zack Sabre Jr, Shane Haste & Bad Dude Tito 

Pure Quildanism here. Oku looks great in this. I get the feeling he was hoping a major promotion was going to pick him up. He is good enough to work for one of the majors. Whether the perception of him, as skinny and lightweight, is an issue for those companies or whether it’s more due to those companies having no open spots. Sabre always felt too lightweight and skinny, and it didn’t stop him getting booked for NJPW.  

 

Sabre, as always, does effortlessly good mat work. Even though I’ve seen him wrestle hundreds of times, he still keeps popping up with new counters. He’s so inventive and smooth. We’ve had creative wrestlers throughout history, but they weren’t always so good at the execution of it. I’m sad when he tags out. No offence to Shane Haste.  

 

The biggest issue with this match is that it feels like a NJPW undercard tour match. It doesn’t feel like a big deal at all. Which is a problem when it’s your main event. It’s good. It flows nicely and everyone in it is good enough. Is it main event good? I don’t think it is. It needed to be exceptional if it was going to salvage this show.  

 

The other issue is that it runs over 20:00 and runs out of steam when Flip Gordon is in there. Luckily, we get a lot of Sabre-Hechicero stuff, which is all good. Seriously though, Flip is poor here. He’s so off the pace of everyone else. Zack puts him away with one of those pretzel things. Good stuff. ***½ 

 

The 411: 

It’s true that the Butterbean match was a horrible idea that didn’t work at all. The rest of the card is just fine. Main event was pretty good and both Riddle-Mako and Dorada-Mack landed for what they were. I was expecting an abortion here. It’s merely another Mania show. Nice to see Sabre here. A reminder that he’s great at pro-wrestling.  

 

The bigger issue is the state of the Indies. With WWE and AEW hoovering up massive amounts of talent, what’s left has become a sad reminder of capitalism ruining pro-wrestling. It’s like it was back in the day. Lots of talent out there but no established guys for them to work with. So, you have to resort to older wrestlers who the big companies aren’t interested in. Get that one-off Mania weekend pop.  

 

The consistent issues with shows over this weekend has been a talent grab by the big companies. Much like in football where the talent all goes to Chelsea or Man City. The difference between football and wrestling is that football has loans. You loan the player out to the lower leagues (or Indies in wrestling parlance) and they get reps there. WWE doesn’t like to do that. Although, they did send workers to Bloodsport. I can only assume it’s because they don’t understand what Bloodsport is. Wait until it’s WWE Presents Grapplefest in 2028, sponsored by Hershey’s new lime flavoured chocolate. Josh Barnett forced to work a mascot dressed as a chocolate bar pre-show.  

 

Another complaint I have is about variety. All these shows try to be variety shows. Especially GCW. Which is all fine and dandy but back in the early 2000s you had different promotions. Like PWG (now everyone works like that) or Chikara or CZW. Each having their own distinct approach to wrestling. Now everything is hybred. Look at how much Zack Sabre Jr stands out here and why is that?  

 

Anyway, hope you’ve enjoyed my Wrestlemania coverage this year. I apologise for it being so slight, but time was a factor. I do have some issues away from the internet and I don’t know how long I’ll be affected by them. This is why you see so much less from me. One day, maybe we’ll be back. We shall see. Until then. 

 

Much love,  

 

AF