Empire State Wrestlings Friday Night Heat | Jarkaster Journey

Hello, everybody!

As the summer keeps grinding on, I am slowly working on getting my blogs updated. This one is about my time at Empire State Wrestling’s Friday Night Heat their June event.

Friday Night Heat took place at the Frontier Fire Hall in Niagara Falls. A major reason it was held on a Friday instead of a Saturday was due to Forbidden Door happening in Toronto that weekend.

If the event went down on the following Saturday instead, I would have missed it due to my daughter’s recital being that day (and the next one). On top of that, My wife left for an out-of-state concert that weekend. Luckily, my parents watched our kids for the whole day to allow me to make the show.

Empire State Wrestlings Friday Night Heat

For Friday Night Heat, we held a food drive for the Little Free Pantry of North Tonawanda. We are grateful for all the fans that provided donations, as they will go to good use within their own community. I hope we can continue this on a regular basis. Niagara Gazette wrote a nice article about it here:

Niagara Gazette also did a feature article on ESW at Friday Night Heat. For a long time, I hoped to get coverage from the Gazette. I am glad it finally came together, and think they did a splendid job. The feature is a behind-the-scenes look at ESW.

You can read it here:

I refereed three matches on the night. I shared referee duties with Ryan Rice and Richard Head. My first assignment was a dark match featuring two students from the Buffalo Wrestling Academy, “Buckwild” Tommy K and “Real One” Matt McCoy.

It did a good job of getting the audience warmed up for the show, as an opening match should. I am happy for both of them to get showcased in singles matches as they worked hard over the last year to establish themselves within the new crop of the area’s wrestling talent.

I encourage anyone interested in entering the pro wrestling business in any fashion to contact BWA to get their start.

My second match was a triple threat match between “Courageous” Christina Marie, Haley Dylan and Catie Brite. This was the first-ever women’s triple-threat match in ESW history. It is good to ESW invest more in the women’s division as I see it as an area that can help grow the promotion, and hope to see it expand more.

I worked with Christina a few times now, but this was my first time refereeing matches with Haley and Catie. Christina delivered the goods like usual, but I think Haley shined well in this match, as well.

My final match was between “The Good Looking God” Sebastian Braun and “Rockstar” Robby Vegas. I really enjoyed working on this match. Braun’s gimmick is being an over-the-top lady’s man who is obsessed with his looks.

The persona is ridiculous in a great way. His entrance involved coming out with a mirror and then putting it around my neck so that he could check himself out in the middle of the ring. Playing along with it was a lot of fun.

The match went well, too, and I liked the psychology behind it. This was Vegas’s first singles match in ESW, and he showed he belonged here.

After we cleaned up, many of us hung out at Mooney’s on Main for the after-party, and it was a good time getting to chat with some people. With the kids with my parents and my wife not home, it felt rebellious staying out later than I normally do. Do not worry, though; I kept myself out of trouble!

That wraps up my experiences at Friday Night Heat. My next blog will be about ESW’s July event called “Mayhem at the McCarthy”. As always, thanks for reading!