Credit:PWInsider.com/Gregory Davis
Here is my live report of the Smashing Pumpkins "Owata" music video taping at the Eagles Club in Berwyn, IL
First, here are the quick match results:
Knight Wagner defeated Gringo Loco.
Shane Hollister w/ Miss Scarlett defeated Jordan McIntryre w/ Eryn.
Dan Lawrence defeated AAW Heritage Champion Mason Beck to retain the AAW Heavyweight Championship.
Alissa Flash defeated Shelley Martinez with Raven.
I'd say there were only about 100 people fans there, with a good majority of them Smashing Pumpkins fans, and not wrestling fans. But relax; there was no war between the two sides. That said, I'd be surprised if half of them returned for AAW's June event, which is what they technically bought a ticket for.
The crew was filming B-roll footage while we were waiting in line and while we went inside.
The setup was pretty much the same that AAW and SHIMMER uses, with the entryway, guardrails, and ring. The big change was that they used a lot more lighting. They even used a spotlight for entrances.
A variety of cameras were used. One of them was, I believe, a "Red Epic" camera, which is something that's been used for some of the bigger Hollywood releases. There was also a traditional film role camera that was used in short spurts, and a DSLR camera that's similar to the ones used by TNA for backstage segments.
AAW C.O.O. Kevin Harvey welcomed us to the show. He said that this wouldn't be a regular wrestling show. Since this is a big time production, we may see parts of matches repeated in order to get the perfect shot. Other than that, he said to simply be loud and enthusiastic during all the matches.
The actual matches weren't anything to write home about. They were a bit slower than we're used to, as it appeared that they wanted to make sure each spot was hit successfully. Plus, the wrestlers spent a lot more time engaging the crowd than they normally would.
There were a lot of delays between the matches, as they reviewed the footage to see if any retakes were necessary, to make sure everything was set for the following match, and to even give our voices a little rest. This resulted in a lot of "stalling for time theatre", most of which was quite entertaining. Kevin's "Ian Rotten impression" was brutally honest, yet hilarious.
Flash vs. Martinez is going to be the primary focus of the music video, so obviously it got the most attention. First we had a guest ring announcer. Formally from G.L.O.W., Little Egypt. She looked fine, but was terrible with her announcements. Oh well. Shelley came out first with Raven. She was dressed in a revealing school girl dress and black top, and played up the sexuality throughout the match(es). Alissa came out with a SHIMMER Tag Team Championship belt. They would have used a SHIMMER Championship, but champion Madison Eagles had the belt in Philadelphia. This tag belt was Tomoka Nakagawa's, as she didn't take it with her to Japan. She was announced as a generic "women's world champion."
Alissa dominated to start, until Raven got involved, and threw her into the guardrail. Following a ton of offense from Shelley, Alissa eventually made a comeback. Raven attempted to interfere again, and Shelley ended up dropkicking him. Alissa would win the match with an Air Raid Crash. After the match (this might not have happened with all takes), Raven took Alissa's belt away, but ended up eating a low-blow.
After that, we ended up seeing the same match again, complete with entrances. The director wanted the match filmed from the opposite side of the ring. In addition, the crowd was cheering for both women, so this time, they told us that Shelly is an evil bitch, and Alissa is awesome. So with a better crowd atmosphere, plus a better match flow, the second take was much, much better.
Then, we got a third take. This time, they wanted to film the match from inside the ring. They skipped the entrances and just casually walked out to the ring, and redid much of the match. Some of the fans did leave during it, so the AAW crew, including some of the wrestlers, came out to fill out the crowd. Finally, they redid the ending one more time.
The crowd was great during this, as they would save their energy until we got our cue, and then we would cheer and boo as if it were a 5-star main event.
Obviously, it is nothing close to a SHIMMER standard. Chopped up into pieces for the music video, it'll look great.
Billy Corgan was watching most, if not the entire show from the seats with the fans.
Prior to filming one more segment, we had more stalling-for-time theatre, as the AAW crew began either dancing, or doing imitations of various wrestlers, while various WWF themes played.
In a planned B-roll shoot, Raven came out to ringside to sign for a dozen fans.
And that was it. I believe it went close to four hours, and it was a bit exhausting, but it was cool to be part of something like this. Raven, Melissa, and Shelley filmed a lot of footage yesterday, so I'm very intrigued to see how this comes out.
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