Hello, everybody! This blog is about my time at Empire State Wrestlings Frontier Freeze their latest event on January 19 in Niagara Falls. Let’s jump into this fun time for me!
Frontier Freeze featured one of my favorite wrestlers of all-time: 2 Cold Scorpio. I started liking him when he was Flash Funk. Even for a future metalhead, I thought the gimmick and aerial maneuvers were cool.
When he jumped to ECW and went by the Scorpio gimmick again, I liked him even moreso. I even bought the Pure Funk CD just because he came out to “Jungle Boogie”!
In middle school, when my friends and I were giving ourselves wrestlers names, I went with 2 Hot Aquarius in his honor. Eventually I did wrestle in the backyard under that name.
His influence continued when I attended wrestling school. I struggled with front bumps for a time. On one of our psychology days, we watched a 2 Cold Scorpio match in which he did a slingshot somersault leg drop.
My trainer pointed out the motion to me on how to flip myself over. I remembered that for the next practice, and it helped me markedly improve my bumping.
Considering all that, when the graphic came out that Scorpio was coming to Frontier Freeze, I told ESW promoter Brett Stymus he was a bucket list guy for me to referee.
He greenlighted me assigning myself the match between him and Channing Decker, and I was pumped! Among my all-time favorite wrestlers, very few of them I’ll ever have the chance to referee them. I always considered Scorpio the most realistic and was excited for it to become real.
Empire State Wrestlings Frontier Freeze
Leading up to Frontier Freeze, Western New York was smacked by another infamous, nasty winter storm.
As event day approached, we got nervous that Scorpio’s flight might get canceled. The storm itself was stressful, but the flight concerns added to it. Luckily for us, Scorpio made it on time, and all was good to go.
The referees for the night were myself, Richard Head and Ryan Rice. On top of getting Scorpio vs. Decker, I also reffed two other matches and was involved in a breakup.
My first assignment was Darren Crowe against Matt McCoy – a pair of Buffalo Wrestling Academy students. Crowe was accompanied to ringside by the rest of the members of Edge of Hope who were real headaches for me. Crowe picked up the win.
In between assignments, I rushed out to the ring with many other people to pull Bill Collier off Vince Valor after he brutally attacked him and seized the ESW Heavyweight Championship. I did not see this side of Collier in a long time and hope Valor did not receive further damage to his injury.
Second up was Scorpio-Decker. This was also my first time reffing a match with Decker. It was so much fun to be a part of this. Scorpio can still go, and Decker was the perfect opponent to complement what he does in the ring. Scorpio hit the tumbleweed for the finish.
Last up was Tommy K against Jeremiah Richter. I was not in the mood for Edge of Hope’s nonsense again, so before I even started the match, I tossed them all from ringside. Watch it here:
Unfortunately, those pesky Edge of Hopers tried to interfere again and I did my best to prevent them from doing so. Richter picked up the victory and his stablemates beat up Tommy more after the match. McCoy tried to save his friend but was overwhelmed, too.
After the show ended, I took a picture with Scorpio. I was taught not to “be a mark” about stuff like that, but recently, my demeanor in wrestling has changed. It’s now fully accepted to “take the picture” with your heroes and friends so I decided to do so.
You can watch Frontier Freeze on demand on IWTV.
My next event is Off The Ropes Studio’s Pop Off at the Red Papaya in Guelph, Ont., Canada. I hope to write about some cool things from it. As always, thanks for reading!
