Wrestling Underground - Origin of Mayhem DVD

The show that was to be Joey Styles' "Extremely Hardcore" pay per view spectacular that was to air on September 9, 2005 finally hit pay per view in December under a different name. Now known as "Wrestling Underground: Origin of Mayhem," the pay per view took the air with some very high and very low points. Below are some of the results of the show and below that are my thoughts on the event as a whole.

Quick Match Results:

-- Mikey Whipwreck defeated CW Anderson with a stunner.
-- "Rottweiler" Rodney Mack w/ Jazz defeated "Pitbull" Gary Wolf when Jazz held the Pitbull's foot during an outside-in suplex attempt.
-- Diamond Dallas Page defeated Justin Credible w/ Francine with the Diamond Cutter.
-- New Jack & Murder 1 (?) defeated Balls Mahony & Axl Rotten in a bloody mess.

I've just finished watching Wrestling Underground's Origin of Mayhem on pay-per-view. I always do a "good, bad, and ugily" style review of each of these smaller independant pay per view events so lets cut right to the chase.

The Good:
There's a lot of good things to discuss about this pay per view. Firstly, you must put over the variety of talent signed to this event. DDP, Justin Credible, Francine, New Jack.. Fantastic!

There was a little something for everyone. Wrestling fans got a great wrestling match out of CW Anderson and Mikey Sheepdip... I mean Whipwreck, the hardcore fans got a bloody mess out of New Jack and whoever the bloody hell his partner was against Balls and Axl, and the sports entertainment fans got both a great match out of DDP and Justin Credible with awesome entertaining spots from Francine including her taking the Diamond Cutter and DDP kissing the lips tattood on her butt... Yes, you read that last part right. Can you believe the luck of DDP? He becomes a wrestler and survives and thrives when everybody bet against him, he marries a beautiful woman in Kimberly Page, he makes millions in the wrestling business only to branch out to the movie industry, and he gets to kiss Francine's butt on pay per view? God love 'em!

One of my all time favorite wrestling announcers, Scott Hudson, fit the bill nicely as the only announcer on this card. He attempted to do both color and play by play and did a pretty good job. There were a few times where he was a touch too negative about certain people on the show to the point that it reflected badly upon him but for the most part, Scott really worked hard to do this justice and he was up to the task.

The Bad:
Just as there was a lot of positives, there are a lot of negatives.

Some of the backstage promos were good, some sucked. The pay per view opens with a great backstage promo between DDP, Francine, and Justin Credible. I liked that because it built towards something. As for "Pitbull" Gary Wolf? Well, he's a good in-ring performer but leaves a lot to be desired behind the stick. I felt like I was watching really bad 1980's amateur local wrestling with his promo which may or may not be entirely his fault. He didn't really have much to talk about and as a face, it's tough to cut a promo if you haven't been savagely beaten by the other guy. Singing your own praises is a sure fire way to turn yourself heel. So, while I was not a fan of his promo, I understand why it didn't exactly set the world on fire.

The theme music was simply dreadful. It was clearly dubbed in later using very generic sounding alternative rock likely performed by the owner of the company's friend. I've never heard any of the songs before and for good reason, they suck. So if you are looking at this thinking about Justin Credible's ECW theme or DDP's WCW theme, you'll be disappointed. Instead, you'll get some android with no understanding of religion giving you his views on it - Great! I'm a fan of letting the wrestlers choose their own music. No matter if I like it or not, and 9 times of 10 I hate it, I think it is a way to have the audience identify with the wrestler a little better. For people ages 12 to 30, music is a very important part of the process of growing up. If they like a song that a wrestler uses as his or her theme song, they develop a closer bond to that wrestler and likely will become a bigger fan of theirs.

The pay per view was just WAY too short! Only an hour? Even the WEW shows go an hour and a half! But, to be fair, at least a half hour of that is some would-be porn star dancing around nude "auditioning to join the pWo." I guess without the adult content, a WEW wrestling show would be about an hour...

The Ugly:
The arena looked pretty bad. I've been to concerts where there have been a few hundred in attendance but come on now. This card was way too well put together to have maybe, and I'm being generous, 200 people in attendance. There were times the crowd was starting to sound like a little league baseball game. And, I think the audio of the event was doctored up a bit to hide the low crowd level as best they could. Lighting was also very dark to hide the empty seats. I just don't get why. I'd pay to see the event. Hell, I did! But, I did so on pay per view.

Overall:
Overall, I'd give the event a thumbs somewhat up. Because of the low attendance and doctored audio, the ECW feel is NOT there. But, there is some good wrestling there and some good stories told. They say the company will return in March for another pay per view. If that indeed is the case, I'll give that one a shot as well. Hopefully they advertise the live event a little better to get the attendance and energy up. But, for a first time out, I'd say this was a pretty good show.