IT'S ABOUT MORE THAN WRESTLING

Academy Women’s Champion Katherine Sakamoto is the first to the ring on tonight’s episode, the first time we’ve seen her in a match since she was upset by Ballesca Pierce on her first night as champion. The champ showed up to face Suzuki but she was met by a familiar face: Ballesca Pierce came down to ringside to watch the match. While Pierce was a clear distraction early on, Sakamoto was able to recover after a couple minutes. The champ hit Stare at the Lights to win. After the match, Ballesca Pierce got on headset for an interview. During the interview, Commissioner Jason Parker announced the Pierce-Sakamoto title match will go down at America the Beautiful 2 in July. Ballesca promised to slap up another rookie and set things right in GAW.

Backstage, Jackel whined about how he wanted to take a vacation but he saw La Tortuga Roja in matches and talking about him. Jackel promised he will make sure this is the last time Roja will say his name.

Flyboy and Mexican Shia team up for the first time in several months, revisiting the briefly-formed team they had before Flyboy took a leave of absence. The Titans stood on the other side of the ring; dangerous at the best of times, the Titans were helped by a cowardly Flyboy. The Australian left the match halfway through right as Shia was going for a tag, leaving Shia alone with the tag champs. Lieter then informed us the Titan’s Rules clearly state they could not be disqualified for being in the ring at the same time. What followed was a two-on-one assault of Mexican Shia ending with a Lieter Call From Olympus and a win.

Ramon Gutierrez makes his Stormchaser debut against Xavier Cross. In this match, we got a cross section of the future of GAW as the vicious brawler Cross clashed with the luchador Gutierrez. Ramon came out on top when he hit the Derota; this probably won’t be the last time we see these two in the ring together.

Backstage, Academy Champion Kurt Andrews talks to Jason Parker. Andrews makes a case for how bad Flyboy would be for the company if he were to become champion after what we saw earlier. Parker agrees but said there’s nothing he can do, Flyboy has as much a right as anyone to try to win the title. Later on, Parker would announce Flyboy vs. Vick Cassidy in the main event next Monday.

Our main event match was an absolute barn-burner: Santanico vs Derrick Cole. Before the match, Santanico (in German) claimed no one gave him any credit for everything he’s been through in his career and now he will beat some respect into everyone else. He would begin with Derrick Cole. The two are almost evenly matched. Santanico withstood multiple Cole Cuts and even a Heisman Kick. Cole kicked out of a Crimson Coronation. The match is well worth your time to watch. It finally ended when Santanico dodged a Heisman Kick and hit a second Crimson Coronation for the win.

The real story of the show came after the match as Yun-Son Park and Omega Woods came down to the ring for a sit down interview. Woods reiterated he targeted Park to get to the top of the Academy totem pole but that wasn’t good enough for Park this time, he demanded a better explanation. Woods clarified, saying Park is the reason Stormchaser really exists and while everyone in this deep talent pool has a strategy to get to the top, taking out Park is his, it’s not personal. Park took exception to that last part. He snapped on Omega Woods, calling out his “bullshit” and saying Woods knows as well as Park does they put their lives on the line every fight so of course their clash will be personal. Woods went to a darker place, telling Park if it were personal, Park may not wake up the next morning. Park retorted, saying there’s no way Omega Woods could dig as deep as he could. The interview ended with the two men standing nose to nose, a vision of the Academy’s greatest star meeting one of its most dangerous fighters.