The GCW Experience
Becoming a fan of Game Changer Wrestling.
Inside Harpo’s Theatre (Credit-CSM)
What good is a man who cannot admit when they’re wrong?
For the past year, Sean (along with some of our other friends) have been attending the GCW shows that come to Detroit at the legendary Harpo’s Theatre and I’ve always had a convenient reason to not attend. I was open about it both to my friends and on the podcast. I’m uncomfortable with the idea of broken glass flying around and the craziness that you see get posted on social media with GCW shows. I had been to only one GCW show prior to this, which was a WrestleMania Week Bloodsport in Dallas.
I’m not opposed to blood or a good hardcore match but my exposure has been more on the WWE side of extreme than peak ECW extreme. The clips you see online of lightubes shattering or scaffold matches had me nervous. But this past weekend, I was out of excuses. Hell, even the comedy show I wanted to see (Rory Scovel!) that night was moved to August so my comedy fan fomo was eliminated. So I made the trip to Harpo’s in Detroit for GCW The Way I Am, with my safety goggles in hand.
The first match of the night was a last minute change due to Ninja Mack not making it for his scheduled match with The Bad Boy Joey Janela. “Great, one of the people I wanted to see most isn’t even here,” I thought. The fill in was Detroit’s own Karam who did a great job of playing the evil big guy for Joey to overcome. We also saw a quick Charles Mason promo and match followed by the match I was looking forward to most: MCMG vs East West Express vs Los Macizos. Great! A fun match and still an incredibly low amount of busted light tubes up until this point.
But then “Simple Man” by Lynyrd Skynard hit, meaning it was time for Mance Warner vs Tommy Vendetta. The first of the ultraviolent style matches we saw. Staple guns were used, barbed wire wrapped doors were destroyed and boom, a bundle of light tubes. Okay that wasn’t so bad.
Then the real ultraviolent matches started. Crazy King vs John Wayne Murdoch (now a friend of the show after fist bumping me post match). This match, along with the main event of Rina Yamashita vs Jimmy Lloyd both had everything I was dreading about attending this show live. But you know what? I LOVED IT.
The thing I learned about these matches by being there live is how much impact the breaking of light tubes and panes of glass has from an extreme spot standpoint despite ultimately being relatively safe. The performers are certainly putting themselves in danger for us but it’s not the unsafe environment it may come off as in clips. I saw the art of what they do by being there live and I think I’m now a deathmatch guy, which is not the outcome I expected.
Is it August 4th yet? I can’t wait for the next GCW show (and to learn what Eminem song it’ll be named after)!
Mance Warner (Credit-CSM)
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