It took a while to confirm, but IWA’s annual big show of the year, ‘Golpe De Estado’ (Spanish for ‘Coup D’Etat’), is coming to iPay-Per-View this Saturday, October 16, in a card that will showcase the current state of wrestling. The level of interest fans have, how a company can showcase it’s best card in the midst of adapting to a post-COVID-19 world as well as how wrestling bookers can handle all of these circumstances.
Chicano vs Jacob Fatu.
Billed as the main event of the evening, this match does face several obstacles as the recently dethroned, longest-reigning MLW World Champion goes head to head with one of the most decorated and talented wrestlers on the island. There is no real storyline involved with the two, as this is billed as a dream match and an extension of the MLW/IWA working relationship. One of the issues is that while MLW is a very successful company that does feature IWA legends Savio Vega & King Muertes/Ricky Banderas, the company has very little exposure on the island. Most IWA viewers know IWA has a relationship with “this MLW company”, but they would likely not know how truly big Jacob Fatu is to the promotion. Despite that, Chicano is one of the most popular wrestlers on the island and one of the most talented with a very extensive knowledge of wrestling styles that he can work. In short, if allowed, it can be the best match on the card and even of the whole year.
Savio Vega vs Mighty Ursus
This match feels like a classic case of the booker at the top of the card. It’s up to you to determine if that’s good or bad though. Savio continues his eternal struggle to keep a level of ownership of the IWA against former associate Fernando Tonos who sicced this former multi-time WWC Universal Champion against him. That’s the basic hook of this match as the local legend goes head to head with the giant former Champion.
IWA World Championship: Richard Holliday (c) vs Mr. Big.
Billed in some of the event’s promotion as third from the top despite the World title involved. We have another classic story here as the outsider Holliday won the title at ‘La Gran Amenaza’ in a multi-person match that had the caveat that any World Champion (retconned mid-match to mean ANY Champion) could enter the match. This is billed as a rematch though the two have not met one-on-one yet. Mr. Big was a dominant and imposing World Champion whose one lone reign surpassed in total days all other World Champions in the company’s history (add the near year hiatus due to the pandemic as an asterisk) while Holliday really hasn’t had much of a chance to develop as a Champion. The match seems to be en route to be the absolutely dominant challenger vs the cowardly heel so it will very likely feature a lot of crowd-brawling and tons of interference as Holliday is loosely associated with the main heel stable of IWE.
IWA Intercontinental Championship with Referee Juan Manuel Ortega: Manny Ferno (c) vs Lightning
Another weird match on this card as this feud has been going for a while, but its focus isn’t really on the matches. It’s on Ferno’s schemes alongside IWA co-owner Fernando Tonos about how they want to change IWA’s name to IWE and, I kid you not, using the fact that they are holding the company’s tape library hostage for heat. The idea of NOT monetizing 22 years of history, used for heel heat. Lightning’s involvement in all this is losing his long-time tag team partner Thunder to attacks orchestrated by Ferno and constantly being attacked. This will likely be another crowd-brawl with tons of interference.
IWA World Tag Team Championships: Owners Of Time (Leinord White & Nick Mercer) (c) vs Niche & ???
This is sort of an odd one too as the promotion jumps between the idea of a mystery partner or the Owners Of Time vs Los Fugitivos even though Niche’s partner Lynx isn’t going to be a part of the event. It might mean that the mystery partner is one of Niche’s associates from the past as the duo is an off-shoot of a short-lived but very popular stable in WWC known as “La Rabia” that was active in WWC back in 2007. It opens the door for some possible returns from long in the past if that is the case. But this would be the third match of this feud as the Owners won the titles in the debut at ‘La Gran Amenaza’, won the rematch at ‘Summer Attitude’ and now we’re here.
Street Fight: Khriz Diaz vs Aiden Grimm
This has been a pretty fun and simple feud in the mid-card as while Aiden Grimm may feel a bit stunted in his growth after a big win 2 PPV’s ago in the Chicky Starr Cup, it’s also helped bring up a talented Khriz Diaz who had sadly been very lost in the shuffle the past 2 years despite his great talent. There’s a level of personal bias as I know both of them and both are from the southwest of the island. I just hope after this, both move on to better things as they are both capable of being great young blood for the promotion.
Manú, Edrax & Adam Riggs vs La Supremacia Del Pancrasio (John, Jax & Jay-Cobs)
A simple trios match that pits members of the Espiritu Dojo against the growing heel stable of the company. It can be a pretty fun match that helps grow many newer faces at once.
Pupe Jackson vs ???
This is billed as “Ordered by Fernando Tonos” and the surprise opponent is chasing a reward. PR wrestling has this bizarre tendency of billing some matches as “chasing a reward”, which sadly implies that these matches don’t actually pay. Sadly, it’s more real than one cares to think. It’s free game to guess who’s the surprise entrant as it can very well be a debuting star, someone returning, or an outside name. Maybe someone else from MLW. I’ve heard King Muertes as a suggestion but it is extremely unlikely we see someone who is seen as a legend accepting a spot on the lower card against a comedy wrestler.
Also promoted for the show is ‘Chicky Starr’s Sports Shop’. A ‘Piper’s Pit’ style segment that also grew in popularity in the ’80s.
Start time is Saturday October 16 at 8pm, hopefully, as the island also has the notoriety of starting events late. Emanating from the historic Mario “Quijote” Morales Arena. A locale that has been used in wrestling for decades, previously named the “Mets Pavillion”. It saw last year’s edition of Golpe De Estado as well as a very long list of other PR wrestling events.
The event can be watched live, though expect livestream issues, via PRticket.online for $20. Be sure to buy the tickets for the VIRTUAL version to watch it via iPPV. Should there be any livestream issues, the company does address them directly, offer refunds if necessary, and later makes the events available for temporary VOD’s at around the same price.
