Two Nanaimo wrestlers went inside the chamber and came out as champions.
B.J. Laredo and Scott Steel won the Vancouver Island Pro Wrestling tag-team titles on Saturday at the Departure Bay Activity Centre, defeating Tony Baroni and Billy Suede inside a ‘chamber of extreme’ steel cage.
Baroni and Suede, known as the Wisemen, had survived several challenges from Laredo and Steel in the past.
“They always ripped us off [from winning] the belts. They’ve screwed us so many times…” said Steel. “In a chamber match, you can’t get out, no matter how hard you try. They can’t get out, that’s the more important part.”
The chamber was topped with barbed wire and there were numerous vicious weapons up for grabs inside.
“Barbed wire hurts. I got hit with that barbed-wire chair and I bled like a stuck pig,” said Laredo. “You know you’re fighting for your life at that point and you’ve got to dig down and fight back.”
Some of the highlights of the match included Steel jumping off the top of the cage onto both opponents, Laredo tackling Suede through a piece of plywood and Baroni powerbombing Laredo through plywood covered in barbed wire. The ending came when Steel and Laredo both went coast-to-coast off separate turnbuckles at the same time, dropkicking steel chairs into opponents’ faces.
“To hold these belts together means a lot,” Laredo said. “I’ve been training with Scott for 14 years. We’ve tried in other companies; we’ve fell just short. We were on our way, I broke my back. We were on our way, he broke his shoulder. There was a few different setbacks, but we finally did it.”
The Nanaimo wrestlers know that defending the belts will be every bit as difficult as winning them, but they’re up for the challenge.
“You’ll have to pry them out o
f our cold, dead hands,” Steel said. “We’re not giving them up without a fight.”
The semi-main event, the women’s title match between champion Riea Von Slasher and challenger Nicole Matthews, ended up being a no contest as the referee lost control and called for a double-disqualification.
Soon afterward, Matthews requested a rematch and Von Slasher accepted the challenge.
VIPW champ Eddie Osbourne was successful in defending his title against challenger Mike Everest. Other action included a win for Cremator and Lak Siddartha against Krofton and Nolan James.
VIPW will return to Nanaimo on July 23, during Bathtub weekend. Look for more in a future issue of the News Bulletin.
sports@nanaimobulletin.com