Eastern Wrestling Alliance, 10/1/04
NEI Tournament - Alex Arion vs John Walters

Now, the final match of round one. "Hurricane" John Walters vs. "The Golden Greek" Alex Arion. Now, this match elicited a lot of eyebrow raising when some of the fans saw the brackets. Personal feelings aside, I was prepared to be fair in assessing the MATCH itself.

First off, the crowd heat was turned up to a fever pitch here, with the pro- and anti- Alex contingent going wild, plus most of the anti- Arion people loved Walters. Well, this part of the match was a great success, getting the fans really into the show. It was deafening almost at times. Arion didn't seem to want to match wrestling holds with Walters early, which didn't surprise me, as Alex is known more for brawling. Forerms by both men lead to a suplex, and two vicious uppercuts by Walters. Arion stayed with Walters well, despite an obvious leg injury he took to the show with him. Alex attempted a comeback and did for a bit, but Walters used deep armdrags and a nasty twisting leg whip. After the men exchanged forearms on the floor, Alex used a nice top rope legdrop for a near fall. Walters reversed a rear chinlock into a back suplex and a nice chain of moves, including a series of chops, a suplex, back body drop and dropkick. Arion kicked out again. More near falls left the crowd nearly passed out, both from the match and screaming at each other. Hehe. Arion used a superkick and suplex, and Walters a pair of backbreakers. Again, no pinfalls however. But, much to my shock, and to a lot of peoples shock and maybe disdain, Arion came out of nowhere to roll up Walters.

Your winner, ALEX ARION. Alex got the win with minimal wrestling, but regardless, the match was the best of the first round and the crowd heat was awesome.

Credit: The New England Independent