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Homecoming Part 1 preview
This is a two-night event, with Part 1 on Saturday, July 24 (7pm EDT) and Part 2 on Sunday, July 25 (also 7pm EDT). Each show is available to stream live on Fite.tv for $13.99 apiece. Or you can order the weekend pack to get both shows for $21.99.
I won't have a lot to say about this card because it'll be my first time watching GCW and I don't know most of the guys. But I have plenty to say about the main event.
Nick Gage vs. Matt Cardona - Gage is defending the GCW world title. Cardona still has the internet championship he made up when he was Zack Ryder, but that's not on the line. I can't find any information about the rules, but I have to assume there will be no count-outs or disqualifications.
Cardona is a former WWE Superstar that runs a podcast about collecting toys. Gage is convicted felon that wrestles in broken glass. In May they exchanged a series of tweets that ensured wrestling fans would back one and loathe the other. At a June 5 GCW show Gage called out Cardona, who wasn't there. On the next day's show, a mystery man laid out Gage and seemed to be Jon Moxley (Gage has many enemies for some reason) until he unmasked to reveal he was Cardona. So suddenly Cardona had nuclear heat with the GCW fans. Now Cardona is acting all big-league, as if it shouldn't be hard to beat Gage but he'd really rather not get into all of Gage's deathmatch stuff.
The obvious selling point here is to see Cardona massively underestimate Gage and get fucking destroyed. But on a different level, there's a perverse fascination with how Gage's fans would revolt if Zack Ryder of all people took the GCW title from him. The best part is that both guys are sure to benefit from the feud. Cardona can lose and still gain the respect of a whole new audience if he takes a few deathmatch spots and proves his grit. Gage can lose and create an archrivalry with a worldwide star that will only elevate his profile. Consider that GCW has been doing a slow burn all year for Gage-Moxley, and Gage is booked to wrestle Chris Jericho on AEW Dynamite, but this is the match everyone's talking about.
I have to say I'm rooting for Cardona. It'll be fun watching him take all kinds of Nick Gage offense, but I really, really want to see him become the GCW champion and spend a couple of months gloating about being the king of deathmatches or whatever. Woo woo woo, you know it.
Alex Colon vs. Drew Parker - This match is for Colon's GCW ultraviolent championship. Parker actually just won the BJW deathmatch title in Big Japan, but I assume that belt is not at stake. Again, no idea what the rules for this are, but you gotta figure an ultraviolent title is always contested without count-outs or disqualifications.
So if this match and Gage-Cardona are both deathmatches, then I'm curious how they coordinate all the spots and stuff. In the big leagues it's a faux pas if two matches on the same show feature the same big move or a spot with the same weapon. With companies like GCW and CZW, I wouldn't know, because I only ever hear about one crazy match on each show. In theory you'd want Colon and Parker to tone it down so they don't outshine the main event. In practice, I don't know how you tell the ultraviolent champion and the deathmatch champion to "tone down" anything.
I have no idea who should win this, but it feels like Parker shouldn't lose right after winning that BJW title, so I'll go with him.
G-Raver & Jimmy Lloyd vs. Mance Warner & Matthew Justice - Raver and Lloyd are defending the GCW tag team title.
G-Raver nearly bled to death in a 2019 match, which led to Jim Cornette saying something tasteless, which led to Raver making a "Fuck Jim Cornette" shirt, which led to a rather amusing lawsuit. Lloyd is the dude who wore a GCW shirt to Wrestlemania this year, and "joined" WWE's Hurt Business when they made him change his shirt. So I like these guys already.
I mainly know Mance from seeing him on MLW, where he seemed like a pretty cool good ol' boy. I can't find much on Justice, but he based his name on the Metallica album ...And Justice For All. So both teams have some pretty solid points. Maybe they can all be friends and share the tag belts! (I'm pretty sure they won't.)
2 Cold Scorpio vs. Grim Reefer - I first saw 2 Cold nearly 30 years ago, so when I heard that he was still wrestling after he left WWE I thought "wow, he must be kinda old, but he can still go." That was maybe 20 years ago, though. I had no idea he was still wrestling now. Luckily for him, there's been a renaissance of old guys running around, so even though he's 55 you can plausibly hope he's held up more like Christian Cage than Bill Goldberg.
As for his opponent, I guess Grim Reefer enjoys the mari-ja-wana, but I don't care because EVERYBODY HERE COMES 2 COLD SCORPIO~!
Marko Stunt vs. Starboy Charlie - Mark is the scrawny little guy on AEW. Charlie is another scrawny little guy who is not in AEW. Guess who wins.
Tony Deppen vs. Ninja Mack - I just saw Deppen lose the ROH television title a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn't tell you a thing about him. When I went to look up Ninja Mack, I was hoping he'd just be some white guy wearing a T-shirt and a black mask over his face doing a ninja pose, and I was not disappointed. Clearly Mack has the superior "made my own guy in a WWE video game" gimmick, so I'm pulling for him.
AJ Gray vs. Nolan Edward - Gray is a former GCW world champion. Edward is only 23 years old. I don't know if this is supposed to be Edward stepping up to a big name or Gray sliding down to working with prelim guys. Guess I'll find out.
Dante Leon vs. Atticus Cogar vs. Jack Cartwheel vs. Brayden Lee vs. Jordan Oliver vs. Shane Mercer - This is billed as a scramble match. I'm not sure what that means in GCW. I'm going to guess that it's just a standard six-way match where the first person to score a fall wins. Everything I can find about GCW scramble matches suggests that it's less about the rules than about crazy spots.
I'm not familiar with any of these guys and I get the feeling this match will not be a way to get to know any of them as individuals. I guess I'll pick Jack Cartwheel to win because that's a hell of a name.
#gcw#game changer wrestling#gcw homecoming#nick gage#zack ryder#matt cardona#major detolf kollectors#all day every day
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