Reported by Bob Magee of WrestleView.com
On Sunday, August 13, 2006 at 8:36 AM EST

Combat Zone Wrestling returned to Philadelphia last night at the ECW Arena.

So..you're a wrestling promotion. You have a surefire gimmick called Cage of Death that you've used to draw your largest Philadelphia crowds yearly over several years and that you've taken to another promotion on your city to help them draw their largest crowd they've ever had in the city. Wouldn't it make sense to tell potential fans that ahead of time?

Apparently not, as CZW returned to Philadelphia for "Trapped" last night before a smaller than usual crowd.

The fact that it was the single nicest day of the entire summer in the Philadelphia area didn't help. Promotions can't control the weather. They also can't control the Capital Wrestling Legends Fanfest taking place in the DC area, taking away some from the crowd.

But the fact that fans found out ahead of time that Chris Hero, CZW's World Heavyweight Champion, was booked on Ring of Honor's Liverpool, England show (with the time difference, the ROH show started at 1:00 pm Philadelphia time) didn't help the crowd. Nor did the fact that fans knew that JC Bailey was double booked working for Big Japan Pro Wrestling and wouldn't make his scheduled match with Danny Havoc didn't help either.

Hallowicked and Jigsaw also were no-shows.

Here are the matches that DID take place:

Sonjay Dutt defeated Andy Sumner, Drew Gulak, and Derek Frazier to become number one contender for the CZW Junior Heavyweight Title.

The scheduled JC Bailey vs. Danny Havoc match wasn't going to occur, so out came promoter Maven Bentley on the mike with Danny Havoc and DJ Hyde. Then comes the sound of a weedwhacker and Wifebeater comes out to the ring (sans weedwhacker to make the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission happy) .

Wifebeater defeated Danny Havoc with the chokenstein (tree slam).

Post-match, BLKOUT hit the ring, followed by members of The Forefathers team in the main event, followed by members of The Canadians in the same, brawling in a wild in and out of ring...er...cage brawl that wrote Zandig out of the main event after his son was injured with a broken rib (no idea if storyline or not).

Then, Blackout blamed Kingston for teaming with Chris Hero at the Ring Of Honor-CZW Cage of Death show, plus other things that couldn't be made out on the house mike, and then attacked him.

Larry Sweeney defeated LuFisto by rolling LuFisto up and using the second ring rope for leverage. Then, Kevin Steen came out and namecalled LuFisto. Zandig then made the "All Out War" main event one where Steen lost his title if he was pinned.

Lucky and JC Ryder defeated Cheech and Cloudy.

Adam Flash and The Messiah defeated Luke and Necrobutcher.

Post-match, Necrobutcher got on the house mike, and said he's moving back home to Texas, and said that it could be his last night in CZW, and thanked the fans. Several stories around the building are that Necrobutcher wants to run shows in Texas, with another that

The fact that Necrobutcher was leaving, or at least is appearing less frequently, made the out-of-nowhere BLKOUT turn on Eddie Kingston to give CZW a new babyface at least make a little bit of sense.

After intermission, the "All Out War" main event took place...essentially a modified War Games format (except all team started in the cage rather than one by one entrances) where the match ends after two full teams have been eliminated. Also, if Kevin Steen gets pinned, he loses his CZW Iron Man Title

ALL OUT WAR main event

Forefathers of CZW: Justice Pain, Nick Gage, and the newly turned Eddie Kingston
The Canadians: Kevin Steen, LuFisto, Frankie The Mobster, El Generico
Blackout: Ruckus, Sabian, Joker, Robby Mireno

During the match, LuFisto pinned her own teammate Kevin Steen to eliminate him and to win the CZW Ironman belt. (I don't make these things up, folks...I just report them).

The "Forefathers of CZW" team won after LuFisto of the Canadian team was pinned to eliminate two teams.

So let's go over the evening:

1) The CZW card after Tournament of Death was barely advertised...at a time of year when advertising was essential to deal with the dropoff that would be expected at the height of Jersey Shore season.

2) The most effective gimmick that the promotion has was used in a show where its presence wasn't even advertised ahead of time.

3) A six match show...with three wrestlers no-shows.

4) A title changed hands in a tag team match with one of the partners pinning another partner.

To put it mildly, this wasn't one of CZW's better evenings.

Back to Wrestleview.com