GCLW Presents Blizzard Brawl 2022 | Review & Recap

Blizzard Brawl 2022 is in the books, and I’m already wondering what David Herro has in store for Blizzard Brawl 2023.  I can assure you that after two years in the second row, you bet I’m going to try to get the first row in 2023. 

I started off the night firing off tweets, uploading entrances to TikTok, and putting notes in a document, but then I realized, what the hell am I doing?  I’m not enjoying the show at all. 

I was too busy keeping track of social media to pay attention to the show.  So, the tweets died off, and the photos stopped, mainly because my phone was like that Office gif of Micheal screaming “NO, PLEASE GOD, NO!” as the battery kept dying, and I kept reviving it with a battery backup ($50, best buy, fully charged my phone 3 times and STILL had juice left!). 

So what follows is a semi-brief writeup of Blizzard Brawl 2022, because it’ll be broadcast soon on streaming services, and I HIGHLY recommend getting it.  Especially 2021, because it was THEE most PEC-TACULAR show.  I’ll have an interview with the man behind the streaming service in a week or so.

You can find more content from the show on YouTube, Twitter and TikTok.

GCLW Blizzard Brawl 2022: Before The Show

We started out on a cold typical Waukesha day, talking to fans, remembering last year, the tragedy that occurred just days before the show.  

Talk eventually moved, as it does, to wrestling, and this year’s show.  We discussed things like how Manders makes a mess of any arena he goes to, the injustice of Koda Jacobs last year, and how this year was somehow even bigger than last year.  Though it lacked being as PEC-Tacular if you get my hint.  However, soon the line started moving and moving fast. 

It was much more streamlined this year.  Instead of going to the box office and checking in, then going in, we checked in beforehand and walked right in.  It was a much more pleasant process than last year, and soon we were inside the warmth of the Blizzard Brawl Arena, the Waukesha County Expo Center.  We grabbed our seats, first come first served, then hopped in line to see Dustin Rhodes.

The line went fairly quickly, surprisingly.  We got in to see Dustin, and I really wish I had more time to talk to him.  He’s a fantastic guy.  He was recently on Talk is Jericho, and I highly recommend you go listen to that podcast.  He talks about his belief in aliens, reptilians, UFOs, and how he saw a chupacabra.  I was able to talk to him for a moment about this, and even though I had a million other questions, this was the topic of interest. 

He said it was about five feet tall and had fangs that looked like a vampire.  He said it hissed at him and made a sound right out of Jurassic Park.  Being that it was a kid’s event he was at, he wasn’t armed at the time, so he had to run from it.  I really wish we could have talked more about this, because it fascinated me, but I was quickly ushered out of the room and moved on to my next target.  Autographs.

I posted my collection on Twitter already, so I won’t post them all here, but I’ll post the three best:

Iron Mike here, Milwaukee’s own LEGEND, donated all his proceeds and all money from merch, autographs, etc, to charity, raising nearly $600.  That might not sound like a lot, but it really wasn’t announced at the venue, so a lot of us had no idea he was doing it.  So that was really cool.  I made my rounds and talked to pretty much everyone, except the Nasty Boys, because the line was so long, and Moose.  Because Moose is a huge man, he terrifies me.  Plus he had a lot of people every time I walked by.  Seems like a fantastic guy out of character, and television does NO justice to just how massive this man is.

Eventually, after wandering, overpaying for a brat and water (But it was for a local organization, so I was more than happy to overpay as well as give some extra), we finally sat down to relax a bit before bell time.  You get in at 4:30 PM, and bell time is 7, so you have plenty of time to walk around and chat, and it was really nice to talk to Redbeard for a moment about Brodie.  I was able to chat with Al Snow about his upcoming book with Jessie Godderz as well.  Chatted with Tony Gunn, who said Mr. Pec-Tacular betrayed him.  Not sure about that one Tony, but it was a nice chat regardless!

After a brief announcement, there was a dark match between Manny Domingo and J Cash.  I had never heard of these men before, but they put on a great performance.  A bigger man took on a smaller one, and it was nonstop bell to bell.  I could have easily watched them go another ten minutes, but it was over too soon, which is understandable because it was a big card.  I apologize for the photos in advance,  I was in the second row, and the managers liked to stand right in my camera sight.

GCLW Blizzard Brawl 2022 Officially Starts

Next up, is the official bell time.  After the usual pleasantries and the Star Spangled Banner, an announcement was made about Blizzard Brawl being streamed.  I will have an interview soon as I said earlier with more information.  But moving on with the show.

First up was the Juggalo Championship.  I half expected to hear “THIS IS Super Humman TV show…” (If you know you know), but he never came out.  WCW Legend Vampiro took on OVW badass Tony Gunn.  It was a pretty hard-hitting match, with some fantastic spots in it.

Gotta say, when Tony puts on a headlock, it looks quite painful.  After some back and forth, this match was also over too soon.  But again, stacked show, no complaints here.  Tony eventually lost and went home without a shiny belt to shove in Mr Pec-Tacular’s face before their cage match in OVW later this month.

Coming off the high of that amazing match, was one I looked forward to.  Local Legend, CBS 58’s own Mike was taking on a childhood hero of mine, Mordecai.  Before the show, I told Mike that his opponent was one of my favorites as a kid, and he gave me an “Uh oh” look.  But I explained, he was a local guy, and I always root for the local guys!  Mike did a FANTASTIC job, considering his in-ring debut was last year at Blizzard Brawl 2021. 

The guy was all over the place and took bumps like a pro.  At one point Iron Mike even was up on the top turnbuckle to take flight, but oh dear.  As you can see, it didn’t end well for Iron Mike.  In the end, he picked up the three count, however.  Considering he was in the ring with a long-time vet, you could tell the two had great chemistry.  Our local Legend won the match, but the druids jumped in the ring and started beating up our local hero!  Who could save him???

Well, the music hit, and while it wasn’t “I’m an ass man!”, Daddy Ass did run to the ring to save the local Legend from the evil Druids and threw them out of the ring.  I then tweeted two things in one sentence I never thought I ever would so long as I lived.  “Daddy Ass” and “Scissor Me Daddy”.  What has this world come to?

Erik Redbeard Vs Moose

Redbeard and Moose was everything it promised to be.  Extremely hard-hitting, non-stop hit after hit after hit.  Redbeard and Moose could have broken the ring at several points during the match, and I think at one point, when Redbeard slammed Moose into the corner, it looked like Moose his more in the middle than all three turnbuckles, and it looked a bit bent down after the hit. 

The action spilled to the outside at one point as well, with Redbeard just slamming Moose into the barricade in front of us pretty hard.  Check out the wind-up on this chop:

Overall it was a fantastic back-and-forth matchup, with Redbeard picking up the dub on this one. 

GLCW Women’s Championship Match | Leila Grey Vs Tiffany Nieves

The action didn’t stop, as up next was hands down the match of the night.  It was supposed to be Chelsea Green against Leila Grey, but for whatever reason Chelsea couldn’t be there.  She was replaced by Tiffany Nieves, a woman I had not heard of before.  These women put on an absolute five-star clinic in there.

Spears, chops, top rope moves, these women put it ALL on the line for the vacant GLCW Women’s Title. 

This I believe was the longest match of the night, and boy did it ever deliver.  Tiffany and Leila went at it like two long-time vets in the ring.  I could have watched these two fight all night long.  They put on one hell of a match.  

This is something I definitely want a rematch of, because these two absolutely tore the house down on this match, and this was hands down the match of the night.  The only thing that came close was seeing Koda Jacobs in the ring. 

The move of the night was Tiffany pulling out an absolutely insane deadlift powerbomb.  Now, I’ve seen deadlift moves before, and usually, the opponent pushes off the mat to give a little bit of assistance.  But as you can see, Tiffany had Leila’s hands tied up, it was a 100% deadlift, no assistance, pure raw power on behalf of both women.  

Eventually, though Leila picked up the win, and the title, however, not before special guest referee ODB did what she does best, and spat her drink right in Leila’s face.

Fatal Four-Way Match? No, Let’s Add Koda Jacobs

The next was a fatal four-way with TW3, Jordan Cross, Drew Hernandez, and Cash Flow, who I incorrectly identified as the GLCW champion on Twitter.  Pretty sure I spelt his name wrong a dozen times too, I was pretty tired by this point and this was the put the phone down and enjoy the show time. 

I settled in for what promised to be a good Four-man match when I heard it.  It was like the heavens opened up.  It was like an angelic choir singing, and the light of the world suddenly shone on one man walking down the aisle.  Ladies and…no.  Better yet.  Citizens.  Koda Jacobs, the man who wants a brighter future in professional wrestling, was here.  Koda Jacobs informed us that he was now in the match, and it was like a dream come true.  The man of the hour, the man who wants to save us all and bring us a brighter future in wrestling, had arrived.

Koda Jacobs was….getting beat up by literally everyone in the ring and thrown out.  The match was absolutely fantastic until Cash Flow took Koda’s sign, and in an act of outright disrespect, in which Koda could press charges for Destruction of Property if he wasn’t such a nice guy, Cash Flo took his sign, punched Koda through the sign

Then BROKE the sign over his knee!

ABSOLUTE DISRESPECT!

TW3 would eventually pick up the win in what otherwise was a fantastic match.

Check out this awesome spot:

More Great Matches At GCLW Blizzard Brawl 2022

There was a fantastic singles match between Rasche Brown and Jarrod Jaxx.  However I had an emergency call and I missed almost this entire match, but from what I heard from the crowd reaction, it was really good.

Next was a blast from the past.  Gangrel challenged Backwoods Brown for the GLCW Championship match.  Hearing that music really took me back to the days of the Brood.  He even did the Brood cup blood thing!  The match itself was really good, but sadly our Vampire overlord Gangrel lost the match.  Quite unfortunate, I would have loved to see him walk away with the win!

The show ended with a 10-man tag team match, with Team Fanny Pack Party, consisting of Kal Herro, AL Snow, D’Lo Brown, Dusting Jackson, and Doug Basham vs Team EC3, consisting of EC3, Jacob Fatu, Mahabali Sheri, Luke Kurtic, and Psycho Boy Fodder.  The match was really good, so much better than last year’s main event.  Seeing the “whiny kitten” as Godderz calls him (Shera) in action, along with Fatu, D’Lo and Al Snow was a nice treat. 

The others, minus EC3 obviously, were new to me.  Which is why I love this show.  A lot of people I’ve not seen nor heard of, and I can see them in action, then go out and hunt down their matches and find them and watch and learn.  I love it! 

Eventually, Mr. Eccentric Ego Eediot (yeah I know, I had to make three E’s somehow ok?), did what he does best, and got cocky.  He made a big mistake, getting in Fatu’s face, and even slapping him at one point.  This did not set well with Fatu, who superkicked him for his trouble, and watched in amusement as EC3 got pinned, 1, 2, 3.  Team Fanny Pack Party won this match.

And yes, that’s Angelina Love you see.

Overall, it was absolutely fantastic.  The matches were one after another with almost no downtime.  This was the first live show I’ve been to since early Summer, and it was worth every penny, and worth front row next year for sure.  Stay tuned to this site for the exclusive interview I’ll have soon with Josh Shernoff, who is the VP of Programming and Creative Development at the new upcoming Premier will be hosting all of GLCW Blizzard Brawls soon!