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DEJ Experience District
DEJ Kevin: Covering Pro Wreslting Ohio - The Art of the Promo Jun 14, 2008 - 4:01:45 PM
The ability to convey your state of mind to the viewer is brought about in your promotional skills on the microphone. The common settings for the promo are backstage and in the ring, both of which can be achieved with or without an interviewer. Two less frequent settings are bringing a wrestler to the announce booth and the inset promo while the wrestler makes their way to the ring. Pro Wrestling Ohio. brought the two main settings into play this week in a couple of forms.
Michael Cash interviewed "The Deviant" Michael Hutter at the start the show. Hutter ran over Josh Prohibition and Johnny Gargano's sins and said that they will pay for them now that he has a contract in Pro Wrestling Ohio. He then introduced his tag team partner, Jason Bane, for their match against Prohibition and Gargano. Bane vowed to take out his frustrations over not getting a match with Cronus on their opponents.
Pedro the Ring Announcer called Vincent Nothing to the ring. The cameras went to the announce desk where Joe Dombrowski greeted us with his recycled color commentator Jamie Scott, who had been suspended for being too controversial. Marion Fontaine came to the ring second. Scott then showed his controversial side by being an over-the-top heel supporter. Unfortunately, his microphone cut in and out throughout the night but never long enough to miss his points about why each heel wrestler was in the right for doing their underhanded tactics. The match was not as smooth as their match on the last program, but they did let Nothing dominate the majority of the match. "Deelicious" Jimmy DeMarco was banned from the arena but still interfered in the match when he hit Fontaine with his purse because he was dressed up as a female fan sitting at ringside.
Michael Cash caught up with DeMarco backstage and asked him why he interfered again. Jimmy did a poor job of trying to convince the audience that he did it because he's crazy and needs to be put in a straight jacket.
"The Clash", Earnie Ballz and Brian Bender appeared in the ring with microphones in hand after the commercial break. They challenged Bobby Beverly because he caused their talk show, "The Rock Show", to be canceled. Beverly came to the ring with Benjamin Boone as his partner. The match started with some offense by Brian Bender followed with by a turn by Bobby Beverly. "The Clash" then went on sustained offense against Benjamin Boone. Beverly got the hot tag; cleaned house and won with a sunset flip on Earnie Ballz. "The Clash" screamed and made cartoon faces to appear anguished at the loss.
Cronus came to the ring with his agent Aaron Maguire first followed by Tim Horner Jr. Cronus won in a squash match to keep up his killer heel status. Maguire talked up his order of protection and said the match between Cronus and Jason Bane will not be in place until they get the money they're looking for.
Michael Cash interview Vincent Nothing in the locker room. Nothing talked up his in-ring abilities because of his wins over Mike Tolar and Marion Fontaine. He really played up the disrespect angle because of his previous status of being just a great tag team wrestler. Vincent had good fire and was the best promo of the whole show.
Josh Prohibition and Johnny Gargano came to the ring for the main event. Jamie Scott turned up the heel rhetoric by saying it was great that they put Gregory Irons out of wrestling. Michael Hutter and Jason Bane entered the ring second. Prohibition and Gargano stalled outside of the ring for a couple of minutes before the match officially got under way. Bane and Hutter attacked together and double press slammed the both Gargano and Prohibition. They then both clotheslined their opponents over the top rope and back on to the floor. Bane went up to the entrance ramp to block Prohibition and Gargano's retreat, which forced them back towards the ring where "The Deviant" hit them with an over the top rope suicide dive. That move was very impressive because Hutter is close to the size of Hernandez from LAX. Hutter threw Prohibition back into the ring where Josh took over the offense by attacking "The Deviant" as he reentered the ring. After sustaining a mild beating, Bane got the hot tag. After cleaning house, Prohibition went back on offense with a sleeper. Michael Hutter got back into the match after a groggy Bane tagged him back in. A miscommunication between Gargano and Prohibition led to Hutter hitting a sit down power bomb for the win, which was Prohibition's first in ring loss in Pro Wrestling Ohio.
In the waning seconds of the program, the announcers hyped the ladder match of the Viruses vs. "Bloody" Morty Rackem & Matthew Justice for Rackem's heirloom pirate swords on the next program.
Analysis: Michael Cash does a great job of facilitating interviews. Unfortunately, he acts as an on-air director because some of the wrestlers have a hard time either reading their interview of cue cards or they simply can't remember their lines. Cash has also served as the color commentator occasionally during Jamie Scott's absence and also did well there. With that information in mind, let us move on to the wrestlers.
Michael Hutter and Jason Bane started off the show with a joint backstage interview with Cash. They were both OK but nothing spectacular. The upside to this interview was the fact that it helped to hype the main event right at the beginning of the show. Jimmy DeMarco was next in line for a backstage interview after attacking Marion Fontaine. I'd call this a slight variation on the backstage interview because the announcer has to catch up to the wrestler leaving ringside which makes it feel like an impromptu interview. "Delicious" Jimmy did not deliver anything tasty on the microphone.
"The Clash" had the first in ring promo of the night and did a passable job that was killed off by their cartoonish antics after their loss. Aaron Maguire did not have a good showing on the microphone during his in ring promo. That could be bad news for Cronus because one is usually saddled with a manager because their promo skills aren't good.
The final interview of the night was backstage again with Vincent Nothing. He had good fire and was the best promo of the whole show. In the era of needing to get your personality across to the audience, Nothing delivered everything that one needs to be a star in the wrestling business.
Kevin DiFrango is the hardest working member of the DEJ Experience. Keep an eye out for Dusty, Eric or Jeremy's articles and our Ask the Experience blog. If you feel like you have some ideas to stir into our pot, email us at theaudioexperience@gmail.com
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