A Pay-Per-View from Impact Wrestling AKA IPWF Presents: Winter War ’84

I was a huge fan of the WWE affiliated web series Southpaw Regional Wrestling from a few years back. It came across as a loving tribute to how wrestling used to be, and how absurd things like open sexism, xenophobia, tiny belts, ridiculous gimmicks, and even terrible ring names were. It lasted two seasons and was shuttered soon after, probably because Vince fired almost everyone involved. Some of the characters have been going strong in the indies as an inside joke with the fans, namely Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson as Sex Ferguson and Chad 2 Badd, respectively. It’s always funny, and they don’t overdo it – it’s basically rolled out for their own drunken wrestling PPV shows, Talk ‘N Shop A Mania. When watching Southpaw, I always thought it would have been cool if they did a full show with the gimmick, and Impact Wrestling answered that call.

This is actually the second Throwback Throwdown, with the first being an event in 2019 that I sadly missed. It tells the story of a Canadian Wrestling company out of Ontario called Impact provincial Wrestling Federation (IWPF), this time a show taped in Louisville, Kentucky called IPWF Winter War ’84. It was taped right before Christmas, and has all the clichés of the season including a poorly made Christmas set, appearances from Santa Claus, who would then wrestle in the main event, and even goofy holiday themed stipulation matches. The main storyline revolves around Sex Ferguson’s stranglehold on the IPWF International Commonwealth Television Championship, after causing his rival Muscles McGee to be caught at the US-Canada border, he’s celebrating his day off, until Santa has other things to say. Some say Mr. Claus bears a striking resemblance to Ferguson’s arch nemesis, Downtown Danny Brown, but we shall see if that’s true.

For anyone wanting to watch this, I would recommend Fite.TV. you can get some FITE credits (10 dollars I believe) with the following code: “6m6lyyn”. I’m sure there are other ways to watch it, but FITE has a solid interface and has been worth it so far. I actually learned you can also use Google Play points to by shows through this app, which was great to find out!

The Card:

• 1P Duke Winchester (Sam Beale) defeated Mr. E (Jackson Stone) by pinfall Singles match 3:46
• 2 Chad 2 Badd (Karl Anderson) defeated Bill Ding (Trey Miguel) by pinfall Singles match 6:37
• 3 The Rhythmic Warriors (Johnny Swinger and Mikey Singer (Mike Jackson)) defeated Sunday Morning Express (Editor-in-Chief (Chris Sabin) and Ace Reporter (KarDaniel Dunn)) by pinfall Tag team match 6:13
• 4 Frank the Butcher (Rhino) defeated Rip Rayzor (Ace Austin) (with Rusty Iron (Gia Miller)) by pinfall Singles match 5:05
• 5 Georgia Cobb (Jordynne Grace) defeated Lady Bird Johnston (Havok) by pinfall Singles match 6:16
• 6 Giuseppe Scovelli Jr. (Josh Mathews) defeated Quincy Cosmos (Rohit Raju) by pinfall Singles match 4:34
• 7 Harry Hall (Jake Something) defeated Badlands Bart (Larry D) Four Corners Bullrope match 7:51
• 8 Ima Belle (Deonna Purrazzo) defeated Rusty Iron (Gia Miller) (with Rip Rayzor (Ace Austin)) by pinfall Singles match 5:38
• 9 Tim Burr (Josh Alexander) defeated Eric The Red Wood (W. Morrissey) by pinfall Singles match 5:23
• 10 Jazzy Fitbody (Madison Rayne) defeated Wanda the Werewoman (Savannah Evans) by disqualification Singles match 4:46
• 11 S.T.O.M.P. in Paradise (GI Broski (Matt Cardona) and Brian Bone-Crunchin (Brian Myers)) defeated The Russians (Sergey the Siberian (Madman Fulton) and The Stalingrad Strangler (Tony Gunn)) by pinfall Tag team match 10:04
• 12 Santa Claus (Willie Mack) defeated Sex Ferguson (Doc Gallows) (c) by pinfall North Pole Street Fight for the IPWF International Commonwealth Television Championship 10:05

My Thoughts:

As I’ve stated before, my methodology for this is to avoid giving arbitrary star ratings or anything. I usually go through the show and pull a half-dozen or so things that I thought were significant or that I liked. You might think some of my choices are dumb and that’s okay – we all like different things!

The Set:

I think this made me laugh so much because it looks very much like a 1980s wrestling set, but also the spitting image of just about every cheap regional independent wrestling fed I live near. I’ve gone to many Christmas shows, and seen basically this same set-up many times.

Returning SPRW Guys:

Aside from Chad 2 Badd and Sex Ferguson, we see the likes of Pelvis Wesley and Frank the Butcher who were also in Southpaw Regional Wrestling. Since this alternate dimension takes place in 1984, and Southpaw in 1987, it looks like a bunch of guys jumped ship after just a few years, Chad and Ferguson must have become a tag team then started feuding in those three years as well. Somebody needs to make a wiki of all of this stuff LOL!

Terrible Names:

People make fun of WWE for awful wrestling names, but old-school indies are the absolute worst. This show has a few with Bill Ding, the name of a wrestling architect, and Tim Burr, a Lumberjack at the top of the list. Once again, my local old-school indies do this stuff as well, and it always unintentionally great.

Whoever got Rohit Raju to wear this:

My biggest laugh was seeing this awful David Bowie gimmick as portrayed by Rohit Raju. I literally had to pause the stream because I was laughing so hard.

Origin Story?

With Al Snow being 21 in 1984 and just starting out as a wrestler, I’d like to imagine that “Dr. Snow” is in some way his father and we just saw the origin of Head. I didn’t realize mental illness ran in the family.

No Gimmick Change Needed:

With Johnny Swinger’s long-running gimmick already being a weird throwback, I LOVED how he just played himself, as if he has had the same gimmick since his debut, went serious in his ECW Days, and now went back to his roots. This was another big laugh. I know he’s not really that old, but it’s still is funny to think about.

That’s Not Santa!?

Who would have thought that wasn’t Santa under that Lucha Mask? It looks like Downtown Danny Brown has his title back after dropping it to Ferguson, but time will tell if Ferguson will get a rematch or if Muscles McGee tries to get his shot back from Brown, that is assuming he gets released at the US border. The IPWF International Commonwealth Television Championship has never been in better hands than this working class hero!

Conclusion:

This was a fun show, although the gimmick got a little tiresome in the middle. I think this idea works better with smaller chunks than a full three hour PPV, but it never got bad or ceased being entertaining. I even chalked up the technical issues as being part of the gimmick, intentional or not. I think the commentators got tired of doing voices or ran out of things to say at one point, and resorted to random Anchorman references or backhanded things about WWF in the 80’s, which was a bit to over-the-top for something already pretty silly. I will commend them for staying in character the entire time though, with Stryker’s character constantly talking about how many PBRs he had been drinking, even slurping into the microphone.

All-in-all it was enjoyable throughout. Some people truly embraced their characters, for example – Crazzy Steve played the backstage interviewer Dexter Petticoat, since I rarely see him without facepaint I initially had no idea who he was. Chad 2 Badd, Sex Ferguson, and even Jazzy Fitbody were great, while some others phoned it in a bit. If they do one of these next year, I think it would be amazing to have them add commercials in – I think that may have been the only missing ingredient.