Hello, everybody! This post is on Empire State Wrestling’s latest event in July, called Mayhem at the McCarthy. Let’s dive in!
Mayhem at the McCarthy was ESW’s debut in Batavia, N.Y., at the McCarthy Ice Arena. The city is located almost equidistance between Buffalo and Rochester. Over the years, other wrestling promotions ran in Batavia, but this was the first time ESW held its own event there.
Batavia is a typical rural Upstate New York City but possesses a few attractions that make it stand out. Batavia Downs holds a horse racing track and casino. Dwyer Stadium houses the Batavia Muckdogs – a minor league baseball team that plays in a collegiate league.
Many eventual MLB players came through Batavia, such as Ryan Howard, Matt Carpenter, Manny Sanguillen, and Chase Utley. NFL star Ricky Williams even played for the Muckdogs.
Some of our talent attended a game and helped promote the debut. Notable people from Batavia include former World Bank president Barber Conable and ex-National Football League center J.C. Tretter.
Empire State Wrestling’s Mayhem at the McCarthy
Prior to coming to the show, I hit up a vendor fair at Buffalo RiverWorks to gauge interest in vendors wanting to come to our return there in November. I had some good conversations with some vendors and swapped business cards. Hopefully, some business relationships will come about from this.
My car’s muffler broke during the week leading up to the show. With needing to attend the vendor fair at RiverWorks and then heading right to Batavia afterward with a late afternoon start time, it was not practical to the ride out with anyone.
Lucky for me, I did not get any noise violations while driving to the arena and on the way home. Taking the highway most of the way from Buffalo to Batavia helped as it is tougher for patrols to hear broken exhaust pipes on it.
Heroes Hideout helped line up talent for a meet & greet. There was a few bumps in the road regarding that, but eventually, everything panned out. Main Street Pizza Co. provided food. Thank you to all these sponsors for their support.
Each sponsor helped make this event special in their own ways. If you are interested in sponsoring an ESW event in any way, feel free to reach out to me at media@eswwrestling.com for more information.
Referee Richard Head needed to help with talent-handling duties. This allowed for Brandon Williamson to debut as a referee. Williamson began training at the Buffalo Wrestling Academy earlier this year and did well working as a wrestler and referee at practice.
I am glad he finally got the opportunity to work on an actual show. He did a good job for a first-time referee and can continue to grow from it. Referee Ryan Rice also worked at Mayhem at the McCarthy and had a hell of a night.
My first assignment was Cerin Rahne of Edge of Hope against To Infinity & Beyond’s Colin Delaney. This is the first time I refereed Rahne in a singles match. I last worked with Delaney at Revenge Pro Wrestling a few months ago.
I thought this match went well. Rahne is one of the younger talents in our area that is on the rise. Pairing him in a match with a veteran like Delaney served as a good learning experience for him.
He is known for being a part of the Greed faction. I actually worked with his stablemates in April. The match was solid and did well establishing Purgold with the ESW crowd while continuing to demonstrate Sayga’s power.
My last assigned match was CXR and Robby Vegas against the other members of Edge of Hope. This one got wild and was tough to contain, but it was fun to see how it panned out. Lately, I am trying to find a happy balance between rule enforcement and being flexible on what occurs during a tag team match, and this one put my new theories to the test.
The main event between Kevin Bennett and Cheech got even wilder. There were multiple interferences from many people in the locker room, plus dives to the outside. Even Referee Ryan Rice got involved with the jumps.
Watch his leap here:
There was no after-party spot for this event. It was tough to find, considering it was a Sunday in a small town, but I think that could change if we return to Batavia next year. I stopped at Burger King for a bite and saw some of my colleagues there. I took Route 33 straight home without any issue. I actually got home from a wrestling show before my kids went to bed which was a good feeling.
That wraps up my time at Mayhem at the McCarthy. My next blog will be about my time at Buffalo Championship Wrestling’s Thank You Veterans event in Cheektowaga. As always, thanks for reading!
