New Korean Professional Wrestling Association Proudly Presents…
NKPWA IMPACT 2009
Welcome, cats and kittens, to yet another installment of the only review supported by Tom Zenk Fanatics everywhere, Cewsh Reviews… Today we have yet another special treat as we head out to the Far East for another foreign wrestling spectacular. Rather than go all the way to Japan, however, we’re going to be lazy about it, and park our review plane on the runways of Seoul, South Korea, as we review our very first show for NKPWA. Now NKPWA are an organization still trying to find their footing in comparison to their gargantuan Japanese counterparts, so we thought we’d give them a bit of the Cewsh Boost by giving them some attention here, and see just what exactly is going on in the land of beautiful women and Starcraft pwners alike. It also doesn’t hurt that a mini American invasion is going on here, as TNA stars like Christopher Daniels and Petey Williams are here to rock the Oriental party.
Did Cewsh agree to this just for the potential possibility of scantily clad Korean women? He’s not answering that. But he is winking suggestively. Verrrry suggestively.
So without any further ado, let’s do a motherfucking review!
Segment 1 – OPENING VIDEO FEVER!
Cewsh: Usually when I cover the opening video of a wrestling show, its just that. A video. Here, however, the traditional highlight reel video has been replaced by two dudes at a news desk discussing things. I will use my powerful powers of translation to inform you that tonight we’ll have a great competitive show featuring many great stars which we will no doubt enjoys, the great Cewsh’s translation powers. I AM available for birthday parties.
Cewsh: Ordinarily, here at Cewsh Reviews, we are absolutely fastidious and downright persnickety (using that word in a sentence was on my Bucket List), about getting every detail right. Quite often we fail horrible at this, and as such are open to ridicule and scorn, but we do at least try. In this case, however, nothing short of actually physically learning how to read more than the bits and pieces of Korean I know is going to offer me any sort of card for this show other than one, and only one, I found on the back alley streets of the internet. It is a complete card, aside from this opening match, where the names of these two combatants were not offered. So instead, for the duration of this segment, their names are Pele and Shaggy.
Pele, so named because he is wearing full soccer regalia from head to toe, possibly even including cleats, actually looks like he’s in some good shape, and is capable of wrestling a match here. Shaggy, on the other hand, looks like some Korean dude rolled out of bed, put on some board shorts, and surfed down to the ring, eating donuts all the way there. They are both, by the looks of them, rookies, and both look incredibly awkward in the ring.
Methinks we’re in for a treat.
The match starts with Shaggy punching Pele, and Pele no selling it. Then Shaggy clotheslines Pele and Pele no sells that too, and proceeds to clothesline the everloving shit out of Shaggy for about 10 minutes. Believe me when I say that there is nothing like a wrestling match taking place here. Pele just bludgeons Shaggy all around the ring so bad, I’m actually afraid for him, and caps it off kick a soccer kick to the face so vicious it legitimately knocks Shaggy out, along with at least one of his teeth. Jesus fucking Christ, I knew that one looked more like a wrestler than the other, but I didn’t realize it was Job Night of the Korean Apollo. Whew. Welp. That’s one match down.
45 out of 100.
(Cewsh Note: Their names have been revealed by magical ninja sources to be Doo-Hoon Kim and Dong-Won Yoo. Yes seriously. Also, in all seriousness, this is both of their debut match. As wrestlers. Yeah. So good show considering that.)
Vice: As a note, I’m being joined here by Sign Girl. While she’s definitely not my Ms. Vice, she’s going to chime in here and there with her thoughts.
First match for both of these guys right here, and they were about as good as most American indy wrestlers that have been wrestling 4-5 years.. even though that’s not saying a lot.
Piano Keys gets KILLED by Super Soccer at the end. Jesus fuck.
Pwned.
Um, Sign Girl, that’s not until later.
Pele Over Shaggy Following The Knockout Kick From HELL!
Segment 3 – Tae Yoon Han (In The Blue and White) vs. Nam Suk Kim (In The Black and More Black).
Cewsh: When we got this show to watch for this review, I’ll be honest, we saw Christopher Daniels was on it, and that it had a bunch of dudes we’ve never seen before, and we pretty much said, “Yeah, this’ll have one decent match, and the rest will be amusing dogshit to joke around about.” So with our lowered expectations for the show in general, I trucked into this match and was pretty much blown away.
The match starts off with both guys pretty much stiffing each other to death with kicks and clotheslines, as Han pretty much heels it up through the roof. The momentum swings back and forth a bit, as both guys try to outshow the other, but inevitably, Han gets the advantage back, and starts holding Kim to the mat, trying to restrict him from his high flying ways. It works really well, until he showboats one too many times and finds himself on the receiving end of just about every attack that Kim has in his arsenal, only to answer back with every move he has in return. These guys start throwing absolute bombs on each other, with Han seemingly coming out on top in every exchange. Finally though, Kim grabs the advantage, nails Han with his finisher (sort of a Styles Clash with the other guy’s head locked under his left leg). 1…2… wait a second, where’s the ref? Oh yes, he’s on the ground, because they even have ref bumps in Korea. A low blow, and one of the most vicious finishing moves I’ve ever seen performed (A full nelson Rock Bottom, and its better than it sounds), and we have ourselves a winner.
To say that we were surprised by how good this match was is an understatement. This wasn’t a great match or anything, by normal standards, but between two very green kids, opening for bigger stars, they put on a helluva show to keep me interested, and I’m actually really psyched to see more of them both, especially Han. Its funny though, all through this match they kept going back to famous American moves for their transition moves, and that struck me as odd. I counted a Tombstone, a Swanton Bomb, an Attitude Adjuster, a Scorpion Death Drop, a Frog Splash, and a Lion Sault. To name a few. Which is funny, especially since you consider that green Asian kids do American moves, while green American kids do nothing but Japanese moves. Heh, funny old world.
76 out of 100.
Vice:
DashboardFonz: Ahaha, these guys are so green.
Envious Vice: But AWESOME.
DashboardFonz: Much like Gumby.
Envious Vice: How long have you been waiting to make that joke?
DashboardFonz: Roughly forever.
Awesome match despite them being green and it being a spotfest for the most part. If this match was between two random white dudes in bumfuck America, I’d probably shit on it massively as it breaks practically every “rule” of wrestling. But since this is Korea, it’s automatically awesome enough to break the rules and get away with it. Kinda like Matthew.
Highlights include chants such as “THIS IS AWESOME” and “YOU SUCK”. This is in Korea, remember?
You know what really is awesome, though?
I think that may be one of the greatest moves I’ve ever seen.
Take it away, Sign Girl.
Tae Yoon Han Over Nam Suk Han Following The Full Nelson Uranagui.
Cewsh: Alright now, are you ready for a women’s match?
No?
I said, ARE YOU READY FOR A WOMEN’S MATCH?!
No, and now you’d like me to stop yelling?
Spoilsport.
Anyway this is an interesting match because Ji-Hye Kim is actually a pop star and actress in South Korea, and I don’t know if this is her first time wrestling or what, but I found a ton of press junkets and such all over the place hyping up her appearance in this match, so there’s sort of a special atmosphere around the whole thing. Then we have KUZUKI, who is essentially your Aja Kong ripoff of this women’s division, as she’s big, butch, and badass. Finally, we have Fuka, a completely adorable young lady who, as it turns out, is a goddamn workhorse in the ring.
The match starts off with Fuka and Kim working together to try to eliminate KUZUKI. Now I didn’t know going in that this was an elimination match, and that would have been great info to have, since throughout much of this match, pins are occurring RIGHT in front of the third lady, and they don’t bother to do anything about it. Makes more sense now. So the story behind this match goes like this. KUZUKI is a monster, Fuka is the sly heel, and Kim just wants to prove that she belongs here and can hold her own. As such, Fuka switches sides constantly, and through her heel work, holds this match together. Which is good, because Kim has pretty much the skills of most wrestling celebrities. That being very little. She tries her heart out though, and through pomp and circumstance and a big top rope splash, she eliminates KUZUKI all by herself.
Before she can celebrate, however, Fuka jumps on her from behind, and they engage in a series of awkward rollups, until finally Fuka pins Kim to the mat. As the ref counts to three, however, Kim bridges up on her neck, effectively kicking out of the pin. However somehow the ref doesn’t notice this, or doesn’t acknowledge it, and Fuka gets the very tainted win, over the star.
This was kind of a wonkily paced match, with a lot of things that were sloppy and kind of strange to watch, but it was actually a damn entertaining women’s match overall. Kim showed that she has the skills to pull this off, KUZUKI played her part, and Fuka was just absolutely brilliant at holding this all together, and calling the match. Fuka showed some damn fine skills out there, and I should really take a better look at her in the future.
Ahem, for entirely unperverted reasons, of course.
68 out of 100.
Vice: I’m rooting for purple here. She has plastic thighs and burns all over her back. It makes me feel better about Korea as a country. WWE would cover her up in a second because she wouldn’t be considered human.
Surprisingly watchable for a women’s match. Couple botches here and there and a general sense of sloppiness, but it wasn’t atrocious.
Fuka Over Everyone Following A Bad Ref Call.
Cewsh: Alright, see what we have here is a Dragon Gate match. Contained within your average Dragon Gate match is some flips, a lot of stiff kicks, some running around, a lot of wacky hair, and CIMA beating somebody. It’s a fun formula, no doubt, but the fact of the matter is that the Dragon Gate guys never really bring their A game when wrestling anywhere except for, well, Dragon Gate. Whenever they wrestle anywhere else, they get together and wrestle, essentially, exactly the same match. It was a fantastically fun and unique match 3 or 4 years ago, but the well has begun to run dry, and this match was lazy, even for these guys.
It wasn’t bad. How could it be when they have it down to a science like this? But it damn sure wasn’t anywhere near as good as I’d hoped for from these guys. Guess I’ll have to watch them in their natural environment before they’ll put on a real show.
72 out of 100.
Vice: It was a Dragon Gate match. Now you can show your sign off, Sign Girl.
Wooo. Fitting.
CIMA and Yokosuka Over Ryo Saito and Genki Horiguchi Following The Emerald Fusion From CIMA To Horiguchi.
Cewsh: Alright, here we have the match that made this show fairly attractive in the first place. Two people we’ve actually heard of, and one of them is the amazing Christopher Daniels. Now, granted, the other man is Petey Williams, he of Little Petey Pump fame (kind of). While this may not seem like the ideal situation, let us remember that once upon a time, Petey actually had a habit of having decent to good X Division matches with guys like Chris Sabin and AJ Styles, so he has the ability to turn out something watchable here. Let’s take a look.
They start the match by locking up before launching into every single X Division stereotype move that you can possibly think of. The ridiculous over the top chain wrestling, the 17,000 reversals into roll ups, the 75 finishing moves masquerading as transitions, and everything else. Its all here. This match is like a blast from 2004. Anyway they launch into their X Division repertoires and come out guns blazing, with move after move, before Petey’s heel antics slow the pace down a little. He tries to ground Daniels with the sharpshooter and some headlocks, but the wily Daniels squirms out, and keeps him down just long enough to hit the Best Moonsault Ever.
Christopher Daniels Has Won The First Fall.
Petey, outraged by this loss, immediately begins dicking it up at every turn, frustrating Daniels, as Petey uses his slightly superior strength and quickness to outmaneuver Daniels. Finally he gets a chance and exploits it, with a roll up aided by the mother of all handfuls of tights.
Petey Williams Has Won The Second Fall.
Now these two start traipsing into our flippy portion of the evening, as one after another they jump over, onto, and through the ropes to the outside, using all of their familiar moves in the process. The only problem with this is that there aren’t actually any lights past the ring apron, so every time a move is done outside the ring, you never see if it connects or not. Both guys just stumble back into the ring and you just choose the one you assume did the damage this time. Daniels gets the best of this exchange and seems to have the match well in hand, before that DASTARDLY Canadian shoves the ref, distracts him, and hits the Canadian Destroyer on Mr. Daniels.
No! Not this way!
This match could have been better, yeah, and it would have been great if it hadn’t been pretty much a stolid retread of both guys’ old TNA matches that we’ve seen a million times. Maybe the Korean audience wasn’t as familiar with these two as I was, so it could have seemed super fresh to them, but much like the Dragon Gate match before it, it just had no pop to it. No pizazzzzzzzzz.
70 out of 100.
Vice: Booking advice: never follow up a Dragon Gate match with a 2/3 falls match featuring Petey Williams. And for the love of god do not have Petey win.
Um, what?
Petey Williams Over Christopher Daniels Following The Canadian Destroyer.
Cewsh: This is the worst main event that I have ever seen.
Wait, scratch that. Ian Rotten vs. Viper is the worst main event that I have ever seen. In its own special way, though, this match has earned a place in infamy right alongside that other masterpiece. While that match was the perfect cap to the worst show ever put on that had no theme to it whatsoever, this match was the worst possible end to a show that had a ton of potential early on and just sort of faded into obscurity as time went on.
Here we have the three most random people ever assembled, beginning with Osamu Nishimaru, who is WAY too big of a name for this bullshit, and spends the entire match looking like he’s trying to remember where he parked. Then we have Chul Kang Yoon, the trueborn talent clearly, and the fan favorite by a mile. He actually seems interested in being here, and is pretty much the center of the match while the other two beat him up. Oh, did I say other TWO? Why yes I did, because there’s another man in this match. Now, coming into the match, the third man was billed as a mystery opponent, probably representing some enormous threat to the other two men who could only tremble in fear, wondering who this mighty titan of the turnbuckles could possibly be.
Its Iki Extain.
Who’s that you ask?
I wish I fucking knew. No internet search, no matter how detailed and deep it is, has any information on this man aside from the following facts.
-He’s German.
-He competed in this match.
No seriously, that’s it. I actually strained to get a third fact so that list wouldn’t look so pathetic, but I couldn’t do it. As far as I can tell, this is his first professional wrestling match ever, and nothing he does in this match discourages that opinion.
Oh fine, I’ll do some play by play.
The match begins with Chul trying his best to fend off both of the other men, as this match quickly becomes a handicap match against him. Extain proves largely ineffective against him (no shit, really?), while he has significantly more troubled with the experienced and skilled Nishimaru. As time wears on in the match, Extain and Nishimaru begin to play a game I’d like to call “Who can longue around for the longest without doing anything?” As near as I can figure, they are the World Tag Team Champions of this particular game, as they focus all of their energy on wishing they were anywhere but here.
Meanwhile, to his credit and shame, Chul is firing up like Hulk Hogan, trying to get the fans behind him, as Nishimaru essentially chops his chest to bloody ribbons. The crowd, who to this point have been absolutely rabid, starting no less than five “Holy shit” chants (yes, they chant in English and its adorable), respond to their Heavyweight Hero with a resounding chorus of “Booooooring. Boooooring.” Clearly inspired by the passion of his countrymen, Chul fights back, only to be shut down again and again. The man basically gets in one kick for about 25 minutes. Then, when all seems bleakest, he throws a dropkick, which knocks Nishimaru for a loop, and gets Extain up in some kind of wacky Death Valley Driver/Powerslam combination, and snatches the victory from the jaws of defeat. Immediately following the move, Extain stands right back up, until Nishimaru wanders over to him, whispers in his ear, and then Extain falls down immediately to the ground, and sells like he was stabbed to death.
Nishimaru, on the other hand, proceeds to looks absolutely crushed to not have won this World Heavyweight Championship, as he leans on the ropes and just sort of hangs out. Then Chul gives a lot of high fives, steals a bottle of water from a small child, writes 26 pages on a guy’s autograph books, and limps home, still the champion of the people.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, a fucking mess. Nothing made sense, nobody made any effort, and aside from Nishimaru, nobody seemed to have one iota of talent to work with here. Despite all of this, this match got damn near half an hour and actually, in that half hour, managed to undo all of the goodwill the rest of the show had built up. After this match, I don’t even want to drive a fucking Hyundai, much less ever watch any of these guys again. I am boycotting all South Korean products until Iki Extain is forcefully deported. Like Uncle Phil deporting Jazzy Jeff style.
Fucking ugh.
11 out of 100.
Vice: Iki Extain will be the greatest wrestler of the next decade. Unless Necro Butcher gets it.. though what are the chances of him being the greatest wrestler two decades in a row?
Anyway, what do you think of Iki, Sign Girl?
…
…
That’s not very polite.
Chul Kang Yoon over Everyone Else Following My Eyeballs Leaking Out Of Their Sockets.
-------------------------------------------
Cewsh’s Conclusion:
Cewsh: Man, talk about a show of two halves.
First we have the first half, full of hungry kids desperate to make a name for themselves. Those guys were green, sloppy, but passionate and got you caught up in what they were doing. That’s the kind of thing you watch indy shows for in the first place. The rest of the show was just veterans going through the motions until payday. Sad really, all of them seem capable of so much more than they gave here.
Well. Except for Extain, who is giving Egotistico Fantastico a run for his “Worst Wrestler of the Year” crown.
Cewsh’s Final Score: 57 out of 100.
Vice’s Verdict:
Vice: Overall it was a show that seemed to have potential, but was hurt by far too many different styles. It made the card order hard to book because the matches did not flow into the next. It just seemed like a bunch of random matches. One thing it had going for it was its run time of about an hour and 45 minutes. Maybe I’m getting old or just losing interest in wrestling altogether, but I have a hard time making it through 3 hour shows these days. It’s just too much. Shorter shows are great. I could never imagine WWE doing a 2 hour PPV though, but maybe TNA could try something like that. $15 or $20 for a two hour PPV could be pretty awesome. It’d have less filler, be easier to watch, easier to afford and could set itself apart from the competition. Yeah, that was a random ramble, but short shows are good. This one was certainly watchable outside of the main event.
Kurt Angle and AJ Styles, among others, have done NKPWA shows, and this one wasn’t bad.. so maybe we’ll revisit Korea.
Vice's Final Score: 55 out of 100.
Well that'll do it for us this week boys and girls. We hope you liked this heaping dose of something different from a country that isn't really thought of in terms as a big center for wrestling. There's fun stuff going on all over the globe it seems, and we'll keep right on trying to cover as much of it as we can. Be sure to tune in this time next week for our review of TNA's Hard Justice, because as you well know, when the going gets tough, the justice gets...hard. Okay, that's a little more suggestive than I intended. Let's preserve my diginity, if I have any left and i'll just tell you to keep reading, and be good to one another.
Also, because we’re nice, here’s a link to a bunch a fan taken pictures from the event.
We sort of assume that most of you can’t read Korean, so just go ahead and assume that he’s a HUGE fan of this promotion, and that his name is, possibly, Steve.
Some Korean Dude's Blog
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