Bang! Pro Wrestling Presents Bang! In Mexico: Bang! Marry Kill, Night 1!

It’s the night before PWA-02, and I have to say that it’s a fantastic time to Bang! Tonight, three championships are on the line! The stars of PRIME, HOW, MVW, and more are watching tonight! Some are even competing! What’s going to happen when, for the first time ever, we’re here to Bang! in Mexico?

JUNE 9^th, 2023: BANG! IN MEXICO: BANG! MARRY KILL SUPERSHOW IN MEXICO CITY, NIGHT 1

• The Crownless Kingdom (Powerslam Anubis & “Lunch Lawyer” Lord Gavin Yum, Esq.) def. The Beasts of Tokyo (Seiko Serizawa & HAMAYUMI) @ 15:58 by submission after the Lord’s Lunchtime (Fujiwara armbar) from Yum to Serizawa
• “The Godslayer” Akira Hanazawa def. Ignacio el Jaguar @ 10:19 by pinfall after the Ragnarok Driver (Argentine rack into piledriver)
• Los Cangrejos (Rey Cangrejo & El Cangrejo Asombroso) def. DESTROY IT ALL (“Grim Face” Ichiro Kuwayama & EIJI) @ 15:18 by pinfall after an O’Connor roll from Asombroso to Kuwayama
• No Quarter (Bracken Krueger & Daryn Thompson) def. The Monster Menagerie (“Hippo of the Deathmatch” Rory Hayes & a mysterious birdman) @ 11:47 by pinfall after the DNR (Shatter Machine) from Krueger/Thompson to Hayes
• Bang! With Your Partner Championship: The Winds of Change (Joe Fontaine & Sid Phillips) def. the New World Trash (Bex Savage & Angel Quinley) © @ 22:13 by pinfall after the Fontaine of Youth (Busaiku knee) from Fontaine to Quinley to win the titles!
• Bang! Conception Championship: “Hawkeye” Taka Sakuragi © def. “Giant Tekkai” Bando Ichikawa @ 25:11 by pinfall after the Iron Sight (Kamigoye)
• Bang! Hardweight Championship, Unification Free-For-All!: Generalissimo Garry “Ray-Ray” Bolamba © def. Claire Merci ©, “TOUGH LOVE” Darin Zion and Pom Shinjoku @ 24:09 by pinfall after pinning Shinjoku following a Durandal (single underhook pumphandle piledriver) from Merci

We begin the festivities of Bang! In Mexico Supershow with the Crownless Kingdom’s Powerslam Anubis and Lord Gavin Yum, Esq. taking on the Beasts of Tokyo, representing the Monster Menagerie! The Menagerie and the Kingdom have been going at it since last month, when Generalissimo Garry “Ray-Ray” Bolamba wanted Powerslam Anubis “deported” to Bolambaland. The Menagerie’s pursuit of the Judgement King continued tonight, as both Serizawa and HAMAYUMI worked to keep Anubis out of the match and keep Lord Yum from doing much more than quiver on the ground and take a beating.

It’s a strange feeling when a known group of rogues like the Crownless Kingdom are cheered as technicos in Mexico!

After enduring a beating from the two beast-like joshi wrestlers, Lord Yum managed to tag in Anubis who cleaned house by way of frequent judgement. After the joshis cheated to turn the tides, though, Anubis looked to be in dire straits… until Lord Yum tagged himself back into the match. After an attempted roll-up on a Serizawa trying to perform a double-team maneuver only gets two, he catches her with the Lord’s Lunchtime armbar. HAMAYUMI attempted to intervene, but was intercepted with a pounce from Anubis that ejected her all the way to the outside of the ring, leaving Serizawa little choice but to tap out!

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Things did not go as well for the third of the Kingdom’s four members, as Ignacio el Jaguar had to deal with the brick wall of a very pissed off “Godslayer”, no doubt still fuming about how the Saikyou Cup ended for him and maybe even the fact that he was in Mexico at all. Jaguar, who gave up nearly a hundred pounds and half a foot to the titanic slayer of gods, found himself getting ragdolled for much of the match.

Jaguar managed to come back and land some good hits, and managed to actually land the Twin Helix for a narrow two count before Hanazawa powered out. However, his end came when he attempted to follow up with the Sacramento Necktie, his headlock driver. Hanazawa blocked it, landed a filthy backdrop driver, and then put him away with the God’s Shattering Star lariat and the Ragnarok Driver. Jaguar appeared to need help getting to the back, but eventually shrugged off his help and walked out on his own power. Considering that Jaguar still has to defend his third of the Bang! With Your Friends championships, this might not bode well for the continued reign of the Kingdom!

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The crab-themed Los Cangrejos next teamed up to take on the surly DESTROY IT ALL pairing of Ichiro Kuwayama and EIJI. From the onset, neither DIA member took the crabs seriously, constantly disrespecting them despite their pedigree. Even when Rey Cangrejo outmuscled EIJI into the corner, EIJI’s only reaction was a thumb to the eyes.

After things picked up, it was Cangrejo Asombroso who hastened the pace and harried both EIJI and Kuwayama. The DIA pair eventually smashed him, EIJI slamming him out of midair for a close near-fall. The beatings continued until Rey Cangrejo got back into the ring, leading to an all-out brawl between the four men. It looked like the end would be near after Asombroso tagged himself back in, only to get blasted by a roundhouse kick from Kuwayama. However, when Kuwayama attempted to finish things with the Grim Dawn, Asombroso slipped out and used an O’Connor roll to take a surprising victory over DIA!

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The No Quarter pair of Bracken Krueger and Daryn Thompson is used to bulldozing their opposition, but they had their hands full on account of dealing with the Monster Menagerie’s Rory Hayes and its still-unnamed mysterious birdman! It’s a match involving Hayes, so there was a Homicycle sighting. And by “sighting”, I mean that Krueger was introduced to the vicious murder bicycle! That should be a rare sentence I’m typing, but since it’s Bang!, it must only be Friday!

As usual, referee “Soft Hands” Tsukuji had his very soft hands full with this one! Chaos happened immediately, and the rules were merely suggestions! The brawl was one of the first times since the end of the Hell’s Blazing Garden tour that Krueger and Thompson have been truly tested in Bang!, and things looked dire when Hayes actually managed to land the Mindbender piledriver on the massive Krueger! But Thompson made the save even despite giving up a lot of size to both hippo and bird. Eventually, Krueger recovered from the Mindbender and clotheslined a birdman out of the ring, and then managed to catch an incoming Hayes into his end of the DNR to pick up the win!

No Quarter is certainly going into the upcoming tag league with a lot of momentum, and the Menagerie is now 0-2 on the night! The Generalissimo can’t possibly be happy with that, can he?

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There was a lot of bad blood between the Winds of Change, formerly (and barely) a part of the Crownless Kingdom and now a part of the Glueminati of PRIME, and the Bang! With Your Partner champions, the New World Trash. Tensions started quickly after the Winds jumped the Trash and three other teams immediately after the Trash retained the titles in Sapporo, and then ramped up after the Winds joined Cecilworth Farthington’s “Glueminati” faction.

The match was ferocious from the onset, with Savage and Quinley taking turns beating the snot out of Fontaine until he was able to turn things around by viciously clotheslining Savage’s throat against the top ropes. He attempted to throttle her with Phil Atken’s own “Tarp” chokehold, only for Quinley to break it up. When Sid Phillips came in, he bulldozed Quinley with a powerbomb and attempted to do the same with Savage, only to get knocked out of the ring off of a Bakebrainer.

Fortunately for the Winds, Fontaine tagged himself back into the match because Phillips was… well… bakebrained. After getting rid of Quinley by shoving her off of the top rope mid-springboard, it was down to Savage and Fontaine. Savage looked to have things at hand when she went for the De-Rezzer knee drop from the top rope, but Fontaine moved out of the way and Savage came down clutching her knee. Fontaine took over the match, working over Savage’s knee, while both Quinley and Phillips recovered on the outside.

Things looked dire when Fontaine applied a figure four leglock, but he realized his terrible mistake when he saw Quinley ascend to the top rope to land the Eternal Sunrise on his chest with him being unable to do anything about it!

This enabled Savage to make the tag to Quinley, but the delay between the Sunrise landing and Savage making the tag meant that it could only get two. Quinley blitzed Fontaine with many high risk moves, but she took down referee “Hot Pants” Shiraishi on a dropkick. Quinley looked like she was going to finish things with the Icebreaker, but Phillips finally re-entered the match and hit her in the back with a steel chair, then he kept Savage from helping her out. Fontaine recovered long enough to land the Fontaine of Youth on Quinley… for the three count from the recovered Shiraishi!

Fans were furious at the result as Fontaine and Phillips collected their first tag team championships in their careers. Things became even more interesting when their path out of the ringside area was blocked by the four members of the Crownless Kingdom, none of whom willing to give the exhausted new champions any way to the back. They were then blocked in their route back to the ring by the New World Trash.

Trapped between the two sides, it allowed Coral Avalon to sneak into the ringside area and hit Phillips with a Rhongomyniad that knocked him into the guardrail! Then all seven of them were set upon Fontaine and Phillips, beating them until they managed to escape through the crowd. Avalon gave chase, while the rest of the Kingdom – minus Merci who still has a match later tonight – went with him. There was a tense moment between Merci and the Trash, before they exchanged nods and went their separate ways.

One thing’s for certain, the Winds of Change have already made a lot of enemies in Bang! Pro Wrestling and elsewhere… and they’re going to have a target on their back with those titles around their waists! Especially with the Celestial Dragon Tag League coming up!

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Speaking of! There is an announcement of the sixteen teams that will be competing in the CDTL this year, and they are the following:

The Beasts of Tokyo (Seiko Serizawa & HAMAYUMI) (winners, 2022)
The Crownless Kingdom (Powerslam Anubis & Ignacio el Jaguar)
DESTROY IT ALL (“Grim Face” Ichiro Kuwayama & EIJI)
Intelligent Design (“Stunning” Sam Smart & “Thick Walls” Wally Wallace)
The Ironhearts (“Iron Idol” Riko Tsukino & “Giant Tekkai” Bando Ichikawa)
The Kazuyagumi (“Ace of Hearts” Kazuya Fukumaru & Pom Shinjoku)
Los Cangrejos (Rey Cangrejo & El Cangrejo Asombroso)
Magnus Destructo & “The Godslayer” Akira Hanazawa
The Monster Menagerie (Admiral of the Pacific and Its Fleet Lord Kurosame-sama & a mysterious birdman)
The New World Trash (Bex Savage & Angel Quinley)
No Laughing Matter (Frank Pastore & Domingo Cruz)
No Quarter (Bracken Krueger & Daryn Thompson)
Roosevelt Black & Tani Albright
The Scurvy Knaves (“Cap’n” Brianna Kincaid & “Fancy” Dan Winthrope)
The Sound and the Fury (Ian Nackedy & Gildenstern)
The Winds of Change (Joe Fontaine & Sid Phillips) (now-current Bang! With Your Partner champions)

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Whew! That’s a lot of strong teams! In addition to current powerhouses like the Beasts, the Kingdom, DIA, the Kazuyagumi, and more… there’s even a returning former Partners champions in the Sound and the Fury, and the extremely unlikely yet utterly terrifying alliance of “the Godslayer” and Magnus Destructo! The tournament starts July 17^th, with the finals taking place on July 31^st! The winners will receive a guaranteed shot at the Bang! With Your Partner championship at the Infinite Anniversary show on August 8^th, and should the current champions win the tag league, they’ll be able to choose their own opponents!

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The bad blood between the Ironhearts and its former member, current DESTROY IT ALL leader, and Bang! Conception Champion, Taka Sakuragi, continued tonight as Sakuragi defended his championship against “Giant Tekkai” Bando Ichikawa!

Sakuragi had trouble early on in the match considering the power difference between the two men. Ichikawa ragdolled him early on with various suplexes, and it looked like Sakuragi might have finally bitten off more than he could chew against the powerhouse of the Ironhearts! But Sakuragi was a resourceful rat, and he smashed Ichikawa’s face into a turnbuckle when he got too overzealous in avalanching him in the corner.

The Conception champion then battered Ichikawa with his vicious kicks, each one doing more damage than the last. He took especially sadistic pleasure in aiming some of those kicks at Bando’s surgically repaired knee. Eventually, the DIA mastermind got too overconfident in his strikes and allowed Bando to make a comeback when he caught the vicious buzzsaw kick that’d felled many of Sakuragi’s opponents before and dropped him with a spinebuster!

It was all Bando after that, and Sakuragi once again found himself being pinballed around the ring by the world’s angriest flipper. Bando looked to have things put away when he went for the chokebomb, but then the other members of DESTROY IT ALL ran interference – distracting referee Ryuunosuke Doi long enough for Junpei Tsukioka to hit Ichikawa with the Conception championship belt. An Iron Sight later, and Sakuragi is still the Conception champion.

However, he may have a problem – Gorou Ichikawa, the former Bang! Openweight champion, came to the ring in support of his brother, and challenged Sakuragi for the title! Sakuragi blew him off rather than giving an answer, however. Considering that he will have another title defense tomorrow, it’s not yet known when Sakuragi will meet his one-time leader in the ring.

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The main event, for the Bang! Hardweight championship, had a wide variety of competitors looking for gold! The champion remains the Bang! Openweight champion, Claire Merci, who has been champion since October when she knocked off Kensuke BLACK of the Ironhearts for the belt! Pom Shinjoku once challenged her for the belt, and now she does so again tonight! “TOUGH LOVE” Darin Zion, a star who works in both PRIME and High Octane Wrestling, is making a special appearance tonight to challenge for the belt! And finally… last month, the Generalissimo of the Monster Menagerie, Garry “Ray-Ray” Bolamba, won the interim Bang! Hardweight Championship, guaranteeing himself a shot at the champion. A shot he decided he was taking tonight.

So, obviously, in a falls count anywhere free-for-all where anything goes and the only real rule is mayhem… there was unmitigated violence. All four combatants were used to that, of course, be they from HOW or from the deathmatches of underground Japanese wrestling or the insanity of Bang! Pro Wrestling or the slap fighting leagues of Nelson County, Kentucky!

The match quickly left the ring. The brawl between Merci and Shinjoku ended up somewhere in the crowd, while Zion and Bolamba brawling around ringside! Weapons were quickly introduced as Zion and Bolamba took turns hitting each other with kendo sticks, while Merci and Shinjoku were throwing each other into the quickly-cleared-out seats within the audience! Security, obviously, had their hands full containing the ladies!

Zion finally got rid of Bolamba by backdropping him into a commentary table, and that let him team up – albeit reluctantly – with Claire Merci to get rid of Pom Shinjoku, nailing her with a double suplex into a pile of the overturned chairs.

This alliance of convenience quickly grows inconvenient for the two of them, though, and Zion nearly steals the Hardweight title from its champion by trying to inside cradle her on the outside! Then it was Claire and Zion fighting each other until they reached the guardrail, whereupon Garry “Ray-Ray” Bolamba yanked them both back over the guardrail and started a-slappin’! This lets Shinjoku recover and barrel over the guardrail to take out all three of them! Shinjoku tries to pin all three of them, but doesn’t get anywhere with that, so she threw Merci back into the ring along with a barbed wire baseball bat. The Hardweight champion was the first to get cut open after taking shots from the bat, but when Shinjoku tried to use the bat as a fulcrum for the Great Wave off of Kanagawa, Zion entered the fray and hit Shinjoku with a cutter!

With Shinjoku stunned, he locked in a Tarantula in the ropes, and because the match was falls count anywhere, he stood a real chance of scoring a submission! That was, until the Generalissimo found himself behind Zion out on the floor. Many slaps followed, and Zion had little choice but to release the hold to protect himself from the onslaught of the slap-happy Generalissimo!

After Zion fell off of the ropes, there was a brutal striking exchange between Merci, Shinjoku, and Bolamba. Bolamba landed the Blood on the Plow elbow on Shinjoku, only to take the straight knee from Merci. That brutal strike got two after Zion made the save. Zion threw Merci out of the ring, then grabbed a length of barbed wire and used it as part of his leverage to lock in the Love Handle on Shinjoku! Things looked dire for Pom and her chances at the Hardweight championship in this moment, but Merci came back into the ring and hit Zion in the head with a steel chair like she was looking for a golf swing!

Merci swooped in on Shinjoku to look for the newly christened Durandal piledriver, the one that won her the Openweight championship from Gorou Ichikawa just last month, but Shinjoku pushed her into the turnbuckles and landed the Great Wave Off Of Kanagawa… for two!

The fighting continued on the outside between Zion and Bolamba, while Shinjoku pulled Merci up to try for a second Great Wave. Instead, Merci shoved her out onto the apron. An attempt by Merci to suplex her back into the ring led to Merci and Shinjoku fighting out on the apron. Shinjoku got the upper hand and delivered a suplex from the apron to the ring floor… and on top of the still-brawling Bolamba and Zion!

The fighting continued after that, with tables independently getting set up by Zion and Bolamba. Bolamba stopped Merci from leaping upon him with a slap that knocked her out of the air, and then he delivered a powerbomb through the table that only got a two count! Meanwhile, Zion tried to take down Shinjoku with his own powerbomb through a table, but Shinjoku countered with a hurricanrana out on the floor and then blasted him with the Executioner’s Cleave!

That left Bolamba and Shinjoku to battle it out for Hardweight supremacy. Their fight went back inside the ring, where Bolamba used every weapon introduced to try and overcome Shinjoku’s experience and comfort within the hardcore scene. Shinjoku eventually landed a spinning back heel roundhouse kick to a kneeling Bolamba to take him down, but that’s when Merci re-entered the fray. Shinjoku avoided the buzzsaw kick, only for the Executioner’s Cleave to miss and for her to take the straight knee from Merci!

This left Shinjoku vulnerable to the Durandal, but before Merci could make a cover, Zion re-entered and pulled Merci from the ring. Unfortunately for Zion, this does nothing but cost him and Merci the title, as the Generalissimo crawls on top of Shinjoku… for the three count and the undisputed Bang! Hardweight Championship!

Bolamba headed for the hills with his new championship, and a fuming Claire Merci could only watch as he celebrated his win. A victory for the Generalissimo! A victory for Bolambaland!

All I know is that this doesn’t appear to bode well for the Merciless Queen. She’s lost one of her two championships tonight… will the Devil that awaits her tomorrow night take her other one, too?

Karen Nakano
RingDispatch.com