DEFY Wrestling held their Wild One’s event in Seattle, WA on Saturday night. DEFY, for the first-time, ever streamed a live show on Pluto TV’s Wrestling Channel Saturday night.
The event was held at the Washington Hall and was headlined by AEW star Jon Moxley vs. ‘Filthy’ Tom Lawlor. In addition AEW star Swerve Stickland was involved in a six-man tag team match.
And the end of the night, Jon Moxley teased the possibility of Aberdeen, WA native and fellow Blackpool Combat Club team member Bryan Danielson coming in at a future DEFY event to team with him. Moxley also had mentioned a relationship DEFY has with AEW, which also received a huge pop from the crowd.
Rich Bocchini and Colt Cabana served as the commentary team for the sold-out show.
Below are the quick results, along with some video clips, photos from fans in attendance, and my review of the show.
As noted above, the venue was sold-out, and the crowd was absolutely hot and loud all night long. There was not a time during the 3-hour show that the crowd was quiet.
–Nick Wayne, Swerve Strickland and Adam Brooks defeated DEFY World Heavyweight Champion Christopher Daniels and Midnight Heat (Eddie Pearl and Ricky Gibson)
This match was a great starting match to get the crowd into the show. Daniels plays a great heel and certainly got the heel heat he needed from the crowd. Strickland also acting like a heel at times to his team mates at times, which could possibly make for some interesting television if mentioned or done on AEW programming.
The near falls in this match were awesome. Although I expected the heels to go over, much to my surprise, Wayne pinned Daniels, which popped huge for the crowd and Daniels sold the pin very well. This was a great physical match.
Back in February, AEW star Darby made a surprise appearance to offer an AEW contract to Wayne, who accepted the offer. Wayne is expected to start with AEW upon turning 18-years old. Allin is a Seattle native and makes appearances for DEFY.
Nick Wayne is the grandson of “Moondog” Ed Moretti, and son of the late Buddy Wayne. Both were veterans of the territories and independent scenes and occasionally worked in the undercard for WCW and then the WWF. Nick has been wrestling in the independent scene in the Pacific Northwest since he was 12. He trained at his father’s wrestling school. After Nick’s father died of a heart attack in 2017, Nick made his professional wrestling debut just few months later.
-Big Damo defeated Kevin Blackwood
Big Damo (formerly known as Killian Dain in WWE). Blackwood, though not huge like Damo can really work in the ring. The crowd was hot for this match and it was a very enjoyable match to watch.
-PCW Ultra Women’s Championship Match: Danika Della Rogue (c) retained over Kikyo
PCW is a promotion based out of California. Both women worked hard and Rouge got the heel heat. The one aspect of this match I really appreciated was that Bocchini and Cabana explained the background of how Rouge and one point was a babyface and then why she turned on the fans, which made it easy to understand. It’s nice when a commentary team explains history for those who are exposed to the promotion’s product for the first time on a national level.
–SCHAFF defeated Timothy Thatcher
This match had a lot of physicality. Thatcher being a former WWE NXT Superstar is who I expected to go over. However, SCHAFF, who was the babyface, was way over with the fans in attendance.
–Steve Migs defeated El Phantasmo
Again this was a case of the commentary team, along with video packages explaining why this match was taking place. It provided good history and with no prior knowledge, after the video packages and the explanation from the commentary team, I was invested already and wanted to see Migs get his revenge. Migs is the host of the morning show on long-time FM station KISW in Seattle. There was a possible swerve in the match where Ethan HD, who came out with Migs had turned heel and joined Bullet Club, and gave another swerve and assisted Migs to get the win, which popped huge for the crowd. This was a fun match with many near falls. Very good booking in my opinion.
DEFY Worldwide Tag Team Championship Match: The Bollywood Boyz (Harv Sihra & Gurv Sihra) (c) retained over C4 (Cody Chhun & Guillermo Rosas)
The Bollywood Boyz are best known for their time in WWE as Sunil Singh and Samir Singh. The fans were behind them. However, the crowd was more into C4 and it was evident they wanted C4 to be crowned as new champions. There were great near falls in this match. Great sportsmanship was displayed at the end of the match when all four men hugged and shook hands. It makes sense for the champions to gave gone over as it mentioned that the Bollywood Boyz had recently won the tag team titles. Hopefully these teams will meet again.
-Jon Moxley defeated “Filthy” Tom Lawlor
Washington Hall erupted when Moxley came out. Lawlor plays a good heel. This match had a lot of near falls and lots of blood. Both men worked hard as this match was brutal, and with Moxley going over, it sent the fans home very happy.
Having lived in the Pacific Northwest, I never made it a DEFY show before moving to another state. Over this show was great. The action was non-stop, the fans were hot all night, and the building you could tell was loud. Rich Bocchini and Colt Cabana did an excellent job on commentary. This is the first time I have actually heard Bocchini, and I have always enjoyed Cabana doing color, going back to his Ring of Honor days under Sinclair.
The promotion has the strong-style look and feel with no turnbuckle pads, but one pad that covers the exposed turnbuckles.
This was some of the best booking I have seen from an independent wrestling promotion. With AEW talent coming in yet again next month (Dante Martin), DEFY has the potential too much more than tagged as an independent promotion. I am not sure if the show with replay on Pluto TV’s pro wrestling channel, which is 732 on the streaming platform, but if they do, it is certainly worth checking out. Hopefully DEFY will do another live-stream again.
It’s the little things that make a difference for me. Kudos to production for the outside shots of Washington Hall, giving things that old-school feel when both WCW and WWE used to do that on a weekly basis.