A live professional wrestling show in Independence, MO from KCXW

Considering how many local wrestling shows I’ve been to in the past year, it’s not often that I get to experience a number of firsts, but that is exactly what Saturday, January 20th signified for me as I attended KCXW Destiny in Independence, MO. Unless you count a co-branded show I attended years ago in Sedalia, Missouri (with NBW), I have never actually been able to attend any shows by KCXW.

Usually, professional wrestling shows around here are clustered around in the summertime, and seemingly all happen on the same two weekends in any given month. This forces me to “pick my favorite” a lot of times, which is never ideal. I’m hoping that KCXW’s next show, on April 20th, doesn’t clash with anything because I’d like to see if I can make it. More than anything, I’d love them to come back to Independence for reasons of me enjoying a short drive and the fired up crowd that came out to this show.

Another first for me was being able to take my fiance along with us (my son and I), a rare treat because she is not a fan of the potential long drives I take to rural hamlets in Northern Missouri or the far-flung reaches of Eastern Kansas. She also isn’t really much of a wrestling fan, but I think she wanted to see what all the hoopla was about considering how much free time this little hobby takes up for me.

This was the first wrestling show I’ve ever seen in Independence, MO, and honestly the first wrestling show (unless you count AEW or NXT) held in that particular city since a short-lived company called GWF: Global Wrestling Federation held like a single show there six years ago. Finally, it was my first time seeing a show at the Independence National Guard Armory, adding yet another one to my collection (I joke about how many of them I’ve been to on here).

Overall, the Independence Armory is a smaller building than what I’m used to, which had its pros and cons. There ended up being close to three hundred people in the crowd, which is awesome and shows that Independence is hungry for wrestling. The flipside to that is that the crowd felt too big for the building, which I’m sure is not a bad thing for the promoters. They might not have to have front row tables installed at the next show they do at this venue if the crowd draws as much or more. The crowd was solid and had some cool people, a lot of whom had not been to a live wrestling show in a while. Shout-out to the guys I was sitting next to, they were awesome and had the sort of energy these local live crowds need.

Now that I’ve rambled for like 1000 words about the building, let’s get onto my review of this show! My apologies for not knowing a lot of the background on this one or being familiar with all of the wrestlers, but with any luck, I will get better as I see more from them. I’ve mentioned on other posts that I am somewhat bummed by the fact I don’t get to see these guys considering I have made it my goal to cover Kansas City more or less, so here’s hoping today is the day that changes! Without further ado, what happened at KCXW Destiny 2024?!

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For More about KCXW, check out their Facebook Page HERE, Their YouTube HERE. KCXW is also on Cagematch, HERE (although missing a few years). If you are a fan, make sure to drop likes, and reviews, or join their social media pages! For more pro wrestling content, click HERE.

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If you want other wrestling shows, I 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 some of these, but FITE has a solid interface and has been worth it so far.

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The Card:

• Bert Candy (w/ Shooter Shylynn) Defeated Trey
• The Marksman Defeated “Hard Luck” Hal Rogers by DQ after Hal attacked the referee.
• The Xtremists (“The Chain Wrestler” Jude Vice and “Smooth As Satin” David Cattin) Defeated the team of Bert Candy and Lady Pride AND the team of Dragon Ninja and The Guff – This was a three-way tornado tag team match with Xtreme Rules (NO DQ, NO Countout)
• “The Natural” Atlas Armstrong Defeated Antonio
•  El Diablo Defeated “The Realist” Calvin Aldridge to retain the Metro Championship
• SEGMENT – KCXW Youth Camp participants address the crowd.
• The Marksman and Clay Huna Defeated The Main Attractions (Blair Dior and Antonio)
  • The Main Attractions are usually Blaire Dior and James Moore (W/ Calvin Aldridge), but James Moore was ejected from the building, so Antonio subbed in.
• SEGMENT – “The One Percenter” Richard Goldman was set to present Tobias Storm with a blazer “hand-made in Paris”, Tobias was not there and Bert Candy comically tried to wear it and ripped the seams.
• “All Slay” Angel Shay Defeated C.K. Cosmic – qualifier for the Season of Xcellence Tournament 
• “Hard Luck” Hal Rogers Defeated Bigg Dogg – Winning the KC Championship

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DISCLAIMER:

I try to go through most, if not all, of the matches and report on what happened and if the match had any significance to any ongoing feuds. You might think some of my opinions are dumb, or the way I review things is dumb, and that’s OK! We can all like different things, that’s what makes something like wrestling so great! I honestly try to stay positive because there is too much negativity in the overall wrestling community (in my opinion) and we can all do better. That isn’t to say I won’t offer opinions or criticisms, but that will apply when warranted. Remember, cut the B.S. and as the old saying goes, “Just enjoy Wrestling!”

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The show kicked off with two pre-show matches including this bout between Bert Candy and a trainee named Trey. While this was no barn-burner, Trey was able to keep up with the much more experienced Bert Candy fairly well, and the two of them were able to put on a pretty solid (and more importantly, fun) match. Bert, of course, challenged Trey to a bit of sumo wrestling which is a surefire way to pop most of the audience. With people pounding the tables and chanting “Sumo! Sumo! Sumo!”, a Bert Candy match isn’t like anything else you come across around here. Trey, however succumbed to the one-two punch of some massive corner splashes and Candy’s dreaded Steamroller – a move where Candy lays on this opponent and rolls across their body as the name would imply. Better luck next time for Trey, and I will definitely be interested to see where he goes from there.

Next up was a quick bout between the nefarious “Hard Luck” Hal Rogers and The Marksman as a special treat to the crowd. The treat immediately soured as “Hard Luck” decided that he would attack the referee at one point getting the match thrown out and a big “W” in The Marksman’s 2024 win column. This was my first time seeing either Rogers or The Marksman, but, I get the impression that Hal Rogers doesn’t really care about any of that unless he gets to hurt people. With him being in the main event later on in the show, I’m sure he wasn’t going to take any chances.

Why get all tired and beat up in an exhibition match when the gold is on the line a few hours later? If that was where his mind was at, I have to hand it to the guy, that’s a great point and pretty smart. I’m sure this isn’t the last time we’ve seen this pairing, and after something like this I can’t wait to see The Marksman’s response. Side note: I absolutely love Hal’s Mjölnir logo and need to see if he sells like shirts or something.

This match was a three-way tornado tag match between the following – The Xtremists (“The Chain Wrestler” Jude Vice and “Smooth As Satin” David Cattin), against the team of Bert Candy and Lady Pride, AND the team of Dragon Ninja and The Guff. However, this match ended up being the first salvo in a war against what The Xtremists perceive as the company going soft, so they were able to politic this into an Xtreme Rules match. Their target? David Cattin seemed to have his eyes largely set on taking down Bert Candy, a man who epitomizes the fun-loving and family-friendly nature of recent shows. The Xtremists managed to take down Dragon Ninja and The Guff fairly early on in the match leaving the “tough as nails” Lady Pride and Bert Candy standing strong in the ring. Despite his cheerful demeanor would indicate, Candy is a beast in the ring and absorbs punishment like none other. This stand would soon falter as the unthinkable happened…

Lady Pride seemingly joined The Xtremists, attacking her own partner. While fans did a see bit of Dragon Ninja and The Guff getting some licks in on their assailants, nobody really prepared to being ready to wrestle people wielding chains and stop signs, so the offense was short lived. Eventually The Xtremists hoisted Bert Candy up onto the top rope and dropped him into what I would consider perhaps the most unforgiving table I’ve ever seen at an indy show. It was like an old painter’s table or something and it had absolutely NO GIVE whatsoever. After that, the outcome of the match was a done deal with all three members of The Xtremists standing tall and vowing that their crusade against everything cute and happy wasn’t over. I wonder who is next on their chopping block?

Next up was a couple of familiar faces for me, as I had previous seen both “The Natural” Atlas Armstrong and Antonio during night one of the Tri States Wrestling Rumble for the Rescue Dogs in the Rumble itself. Here I was half-way expecting that I wouldn’t know any of the wrestlers at this show and would be frantically writing down misheard names on my tablet, but stuff like this eased my tension. Both Atlas Armstrong and Antonio brought their A-game to the show, delivering a solid match-up between two wildly different styles. Antonio is a very imposing man, perhaps only dwarfed in size by Bert Candy, and Armstrong is the polar opposite with Spindly legs and a quick high-flying moveset. While Antonio put Armstrong through the paces, the high-flyer was able to pull a big win off and best the big man.

This match between “The Realist” Calvin Aldridge and El Diablo was perhaps my most-anticipated match of the night going into the show, and boy did it deliver! El Diablo recently won the KCXW Metro Championship, putting a target on his back for a large portion of the roster. Perhaps it’s his relative smaller size making folks think they can get a quick payday as his expense, but folks should learn not to underestimate “The Aztec Demon from the year 3000”. With Aldridge being a former champion himself, he was no pushover, and at a number of points in the match it did seem like we were about to get a new champion.

Most of El Diablo’s top rope moves were either blocked or neutralized and Aldridge was not against skewing the rules ever so slightly to get some cheap hits in. Finally, El Diablo hit his Swanton on Aldridge retaining his championship. Unfortunately, that was also the invitation for every single member of The Main Attractions (Blaire Dior and James Moore) to run in and beat El Diablo down for his trouble. Another wrestler, named Merci I believe (my apologies if this is incorrect) ran in for the save, shielding El Diablo from his attackers. El Diablo seemed to not quite understand human compassion and left the ring seemingly confused, so it will be interesting if this relationship continues. Overall, a solid match and I know my son went absolutely insane during it.

The Main Attractions are usually Blaire Dior and James Moore (W/ Calvin Aldridge), but James Moore was ejected from the building before the match even started by a KCXW official. I need to likely go back to a YouTube episode to see what that’s all about, but all I know is that the guy seemed furious Moore was there. It was suggested that they held a recruitment drive right then and there, and Antonio, who we saw earlier in the show, subbed in. Normally I would suggest that tag teams like this generally don’t work well together due to them not “gelling” like seasoned ones, but it really had no advantage over their opponents as Clay Huna and The Marksman were in the same boat. In fact, there seemed to be a bit of a language barrier with Clay Huna on top of everything else, unless that was just a mind game he was playing with his foes.

Clay Huna and The Marksman were able to pull together and secure a pretty solid win, thus continuing a night of good news for The Polish grappler. Blaire Dior and Antonio just seemed a bit off-step at times and Clay Huna and The Marksman were able to capitalize. With any luck, James Moore will be back soon and allow for The Main Attractions to get back on track. I’ve heard that they have been pretty intense since Calvin Aldridge came into the picture, and considering what they did to El Diablo, it sounds very plausible.

This was a Season of Xcellence Tournament qualifying match, with the previous year’s winner being Clay Huna, who got a Season of Xcellence title. This match between All Slay” Angel Shay and C. K. Cosmic, and the appearance of Lady Pride earlier in the show, go to show one of the many ways KCXW is different to other companies around here. While intergender matches are nothing new in terms of the history of professional wrestling, there’s still a bit of a stigma around them, so when it happens it’s definitely somewhat of a special occurrence. I for one say, hell yeah – if the ladies can get in there and be on the same footing with the guys, do it!

With that said, this match was good and the crowd really got into it towards the end, especially when Shay started hitting her big comeback that resulted in a big moonsault and the win. C.K. Cosmic was equally pretty good, but just didn’t have the extra willpower to overcome Shay’s barrage of attacks at the end. For a match with two people I had never seen perform before, it was fun and I’m interested to see what both do in future bouts.

Here it is, the main event for the evening – a hard-hitting match between “Hard Luck” Hal Rogers and veteran grappler The Bigg Dogg. The Bigg Dogg started the show by talking about the fact that he had been wrestling for twenty years, almost to the day, and that he was tired of guys like Rogers coming in and acting like they are going to take everything over and cheating constantly to get a leg up. On an episode of one of KCXW’s YouTube shows, Rogers attacked Bigg Dogg with a tire iron, which apparently did nothing more than to piss off the veteran grappler.

The match initially went back and forth in a pretty even manner, “Hard Luck” even seemed like he potentially handed a win to Bigg Dogg after “whiffing” on a monstrous top rope leg drop. It was at that moment that Rogers went back into his bag of tricks and attacked the referee yet again, first by pulling him in front of Bigg Dogg, then by overtly attacking him later on. Had the referee been up, Bigg Dogg would have easily won as he made Hal tap out with a Camel Clutch at one point. “Hard Luck” dragged the injured referee over and went for a pin after a low-blow and nabbed a dirty win even though Bigg Dogg’s foot was on the rope. As you can imagine, this enraged the crowd as chants of “BULLSHIT!” filled the arena.

According to his Facebook, Hal Rogers is not worried about the questionable ways in which he won the belt, posting the following:

“The only man to hold 2 KCXW championships at the same time
The only man to win both the team and single Season of Xcellence championships
Came back from injury to win the KCXW Metro championship and ended The Infinite
And now your NEW Kansas City Xtreme Wrestling KC CHAMPION!”

After the match, The Marksman came out and informed Hal of an upcoming bout since he had just been awarded the number one contendership. That ought to be a solid match, and The Marksman has really impressed me during the handful of times I’ve seen him so far. I can’t help but wonder if Bigg Dogg will be in the mix as well considering any sort of rematch clauses that may be in effect. Either way, I can’t wait to see what happens in April, that is assuming I can make it out there to see their next show!

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Conclusion:

Aside from the matches, there were a couple of segments in the show including a showcase of some of the kids that attended a youth camp earlier in the day, and one with Richard Goldman, the most insufferable manager/wrestler in the area. “The One Percenter” was set to present Tobias Storm with a hideous blazer that was purportedly “hand-made in Paris”, although the crowd chanting “THRIFT STORE!” begged to differ. Tobias was not there, and since Bert and Shylynn had walked out Angel Shay for her match, Bert Candy comically tried to wear the blazer and ripped the seams. It was very reminiscent of the Chris Farley “fat guy in a little coat shtick.

The only real issue I had with the show (aside from off-color hecklers which isn’t KCXW’s fault) was some technical issues that I’m sure go hand-in-hand with running a new venue. There were some missed music cues and other small hiccups that didn’t necessarily mess the show up, they were just unfortunate. Otherwise, this was a solid good first impression for me, and hopefully the first of many of these I will attend. I’ve stated before that I can’t go to every show in the area, and I have come across a handful that I frequent. With that said, KCXW might just be entering the fold as another company I keep up with assuming I can make it to more of their shows.

The cool thing about professional wrestling is that no matter where you go each company does things a bit different. So in my case, a Trailblazer show feels like a Trailblazer show, a Tri States show feels like a Tri States show, and in this case KCXW has their own style and way of doing things that I appreciate.

Here is their next show:

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