A day on the Indy circuit

I do not have the pictures for this yet,but I wanted to get this up and finished before the return of the Pirates tonight in Colorado.

I attended a CPW wrestling show a few weekends back in my first live wrestling show in about 13 years and had a few thoughts on it.
One,this is more like 1970's and 80's wrestling than the product shown on television today.
Two,the fans are worse than I remembered.
Three,for guys that are not getting paid a mint and do this for the love of the business,they certainly went all out to provide the audience with what they came to see.

Please keep in mind,I am not a huge fan of Independent Wrestling.
I find it hard to suspend temporary belief when the guys in the ring are the same fellows that you see working everyday jobs like the rest of us and when wrestling is at its best-that suspension of what wrestling is for a few hours is what makes it fun.
That said,the grapplers on this card in Riverbend Park did what they could do (sometimes well and sometimes not so well) to entertain a larger crowd than I expected and I would say most of the fans came away having had a good time.

Some things were right out of old school wrestling,guys belittling fans and telling them to shut up etc and were quite funny.
Others were not so amusing as fans getting overly liquored up and wanting to be part of the show instead of watching the matches.
The CPW wrestlers tended to keep the matches inside the ring and used more on the mat moves than the nationally known products and that tended to make the matches more slow paced and attempted to tell more of a story than the "crash television" that wrestling has become today.

CPW attempts to bring in one or two top names from the past to each show to attract the casual or old time fan.
On this day,Demolition Ax from the 80's and 90's WWF tag team champions was the star of the show.
This tends to bring in a few extra fans that may not usually attend,but might want to bring their kids or grand kids to see someone from their youth and considering the rural Virginia and West Virginia towns that CPW runs this is usually as big of a celebrity that these towns will ever have appear.

Is small time wrestling for everyone?
No,but for small towns that have little that come there and wrestlers that have no designs on ever being a full time star that wrestle for a few dollars and the chance to do what they enjoy best-it sure is.

Thanks to the CPW guys for giving me access to the card and giving me the chance to meet Ax (Bill Eadie) behind the scenes and add some cards to the collection.

The Pirates return to action tonight in Denver against the Rockies at 9.
I will be listening to the game via XM at work on the Rockies network.

Pitching Matchup
Pittsburgh:Paul Maholm (6-5 3.93 ERA) at Colorado:Ubaldo Jimenez (4-9 4.22 ERA) 9:05

Bullpen Notes

After his terrific performance against the Hagerstown Suns,Brad Lincoln was promoted to Lynchburg before yesterday's game in Frederick.
Lincoln joins the Hillcats to bolster their rotation for their second half title bid.
The Hillcats are just a half game behind first place Potomac and they visit the Nationals for a four game set that starts tonight.
Lincoln is scheduled to start the Friday game.

The parent club in Pittsburgh recalled Marino Salas for the 40th time this season from Indianapolis and returned Romulo Sanchez to the I-Tribe.
Salas will be in uniform in Denver tonight.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a look back at one of the coolest cards of the 70's and where Oscar Gamble is today.
The former Indian outfielder's 1976 Traded to New York card is representative of the hair style of its time for sure!

Until next time when we finally have a game to talk about!