Professional wrestling is a contest of strength, yes, but also of intent. It is theater performed under consequence, competition filtered through ego, and ambition exposed beneath bright lights and poor decision making.Most commentary concerns itself with winners and losers. This publication concerns itself with whether the victory deserved to occur in the first place.Here you will find examinations of conduct, adjudication, promotional responsibility, and the occasional collapse of common sense inside a squared circle. Performances are evaluated not by popularity, but by coherence. Spectacle is welcomed. Excuses are not.If you are searching for cheerleading, you have taken a wrong turn.If you are searching for accountability, you may proceed.

PVP: The Matter of Round One

What transpired under the gaudy canopy of Pesty’s Vanity Project was very much a wrestling show, but it was also a film study in modern spectacle on a shoestring budget. It was equal parts ambition, chaos, theatrics, and malpractice, stitched together with a crown and a microphone which did not initially function. If you ask me, which you have by summoning me from the rhetorical green room, the evening presented itself as a showcase for the very vanity it lays claim to by name. It was punctuated by moments of genuine ringcraft, yet marred by production hubris, cowardice, and a somewhat jejune masked figure with a love for bats and violence against the empty headed.I will now be pleased to parse the corpse of the event that called itself Pesty’s Vanity Project.First we must focus on the premise itself: a double elimination tournament paired with a pageant themed around vanity. The former is won in the ring and the latter decided by a jury consisting of Pesty herself, the rather eccentric Boon Williams, Lyza Reyes, and Lana Cuppola. This contest of vanity is, on paper, a deliciously reflexive conceit. Wrestling has always had a penchant for mirrors, performers who compete for the audience but also for themselves. To formalize narcissism as a prize, to declare self obsession a merit based accomplishment, is, I will concede, wickedly clever. It offers competitors a lens through which to act, posture, and justify cruelty as “brand building.” But it invites the predicament the first show so resoundingly exposed: when form outruns function, the mirror reflects nothing at all.The opening segment acted as metaphor for the event to come. Pesty in gold and wearing a crown, the baby oiled and flexing Boon Williams, a stoic and seemingly unwilling Lyza Reyes, and finally a microphone that failed. The audience chanted “We can’t hear you.” The show wished to be heard as an elegant carnival and instead sounded like a rehearsal for a gala that never opened its doors. Pesty sold the concept of “Most Vain Player” quite well, but the production failed to match the grandeur of her rhetoric. Yes, it is possible to be both opulent and competent, but Round One proved that one without the other is merely a crown held together by bobby pins.Now to the in ring performances, and I must say they were the very thing holding this rickety ship together. Waverly Winters’ victory over Grant Equity was precisely the storytelling the audience craves. It was a focused underdog arc that generated heat and earned closure. Grant, the archetypal preening heel, contrasted well with Waverly’s maturation from patient striker to relentless force. The match was wrestling as a kinetic essay, short, clear, and meaningful. Give Waverly another night and another opportunity and she may well prove to be a star in the making.Mark Lewis’ match against Brian Burnside, by contrast, played like tragedy without a true protagonist. Burnside, a theatrical menace with his bat, muttering, and performance art, had his entire soliloquy interrupted by a masked vigilante and found himself bloodied to a pulp and later attacked again in the infirmary. But all of this produced a glaring need for correction during the match itself. The referee allowed Mark Lewis to pin a man who had been attacked by non sanctioned agents. This paired with Lewis’ apparent indifference undermined the tournament’s competitive integrity.The following two matches continued this tonal oscillation. Boston Bennette’s brute force win over Ione was followed by WYM Greco’s sly victory over Kaia Storm. One earnest and punishing, the other opportunistic and clever. Yes, Greco’s win required cunning, but when victories of this nature accumulate they depreciate the audience’s currency of trust. Then came Genevie’s win over Oceiros, hinging upon raked eyes and an exposed knee. What felt satisfying in the moment becomes suspect in adjudication. Are these victories truly earned or merely the residue of a roster chasing a “Most Vain Player” rather than a champion? Victories must mean something.And then the spectacle of improvisation. While Rickie Flare suffered delusions, the promoter, Pesty, was forced to dig deep into the trash heap of neverweres and exhume Deathmachine. This is the sort of deus ex machina that either elevates a show or kills it, and this achieved the latter. Bia, unsurprisingly, obliterated Deathmachine. She adapted, imposed her will, and reminded the audience why she belongs in the spotlight. But let us be frank, the integrity of the main event was obliterated alongside Deathmachine himself. When a tournament’s climactic match hinges on whether a limousine reaches the correct address in Santa Monica on schedule, you are no longer presenting sport. You are presenting reality television.And this masked attacker is not a curiosity, it is a security failure. An individual entered the ringside area, seized a weapon, assaulted a participant, escaped, and later gained access to the victim again. This represents liability. Any promotion presenting itself as legitimate must ensure competitor safety and avoid outside interference. Count the Rickie Flare blunder and this becomes the second strike against Bodie “Pesty” Clemmens and her vanity project.Now to the judging panel. Pesty, Boon Williams, Lyza Reyes, and Lana Cuppola have been anointed arbiters of vanity, yet no standard has been communicated to participants. Are competitors evaluated on presentation, conduct, composure, or arrogance? Without criteria this becomes favoritism rather than evaluation. In a tournament structure perception of fairness is as important as fairness itself. If participants believe expectations shift constantly, they will perform for judges instead of actually competing.Regarding production and operation, the event revealed a divide between ambition and preparation. Audio failures, equipment issues, and an audience medical emergency revealed insufficient contingency planning. A double elimination tournament requires procedural clarity. Instead results were repeatedly influenced by circumstance rather than consistent and decisive athletic excellence. A bracket is meant to narrow merit. Here it narrowed whoever survived confusion.This leads to a broader principle. Combat sports function on trust. Competitors trust officiating. Fans trust results. Promoters trust preparation. When interference determines finishes, substitutions occur without protocol, and injuries occur under unsecured conditions, that trust collapses. The matches that succeeded, Winters, Bia, Bennette, and Driftwood, succeeded because they were resolved through decisive superiority. Those moments demonstrated what the event can be when discipline prevails.Corrective steps are simple.First, enforce officiating standards. Competitors do not become incapacitated without cause. Referees must recognize circumstances and halt contests when necessary.Second, implement robust security protocols. Separate audience and competitors and secure medical areas. Athlete safety cannot be optional.Third, define judging metrics publicly. If vanity is a category, specify how it is earned and how it affects advancement.I will not completely bury this show. Audience engagement matters and they remained invested despite irregularities. This is not approval of disorder but willingness to care if structure appears. There is a foundation for a stronger product, but it must be reinforced before expanded upon.Vanity can be compelling when governed by rules. Without rules it becomes noise. The first round showed potential. The promotion must decide whether it wants chaos or coherence.I will ponder further after Round Two.

- Johnny

About Johnny Liaison

Johnny Liaison is not a fan, nor a critic, nor even particularly a participant in the usual sense. He is an observer, a reluctant custodian of standards in a field that routinely misplaces them.Educated in rhetoric and seasoned by long exposure to human behavior under competitive pressure, Liaison approaches professional wrestling as one would approach any serious public institution, with scrutiny, expectation, and a refusal to indulge intellectual laziness. Where others see spectacle, he sees intent. Where others see chaos, he asks who benefits from it. And where others see victory, he determines whether it was earned.His commentary concerns itself not merely with who won, but whether the conditions of winning were worthy of recognition. He believes competition demands coherence, that character requires consistency, and that audiences deserve something better than convenient outcomes masquerading as achievement.He has no interest in ruining enjoyment, only in ensuring that what is enjoyed withstands examination.Johnny Liaison hosts On the Matter of Wrestling, a continuing review of athletic conduct, promotional responsibility, and the occasional collapse of reason inside a squared circle.He is frequently accused of taking things too seriously.He considers that accusation a compliment.

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PVP: The Matter of Round Two

Night One of Pesty’s self-titled Vanity Project was a pageant of instability trying very hard to pass itself off as a wrestling tournament. Night Two did not correct that. It expanded on it. When you open a tournament with absurdity, negligence, and opportunistic nonsense, then do nothing meaningful to address any of it, you should not be surprised when the same problems return with more confidence and better timing. The production remained precarious. The officiating remained poor. Security was practically nonexistent. And yet the show continued, the matches ended one way or another, and the evening closed in even more deranged fashion than the first, this time with the full force of the Tijuana police entering the equation.And that is what makes PVP so fascinating. Beneath all this chaos, there is real competition. Real talent. Real effort. More than once on Night Two, the wrestling rose above the circus around it and demanded to be taken seriously.The evening began, improbably enough, with solemnity. Pesty, abandoning the tacky golden queen routine for once, opened with a memorial to the late Karl Havok, the unfortunate fan whose final earthly act was to perish in combat with a footlong Boon Dog. It was, by all appearances, a surprisingly sincere gesture. A prayer, a moment of silence, an image on the screen, and finally applause from the crowd. For a fleeting moment, the promotion behaved as if it thoroughly understood the gravity of what had happened.And then Boon Williams erupted onto the stage dressed like a neon livestock hallucination, flexing as though mourning itself were merely another opportunity for deltoid appreciation.There, in miniature, you have Pesty’s Vanity Project. Sincerity undercut by spectacle. Reflection devoured by impulse. Even in mourning, the show could not resist becoming itself.The opening match between Brian Burnside and Ione was less a wrestling contest than an anxiety attack set to a referee’s count. Burnside, still clearly affected by the assaults of the previous week, wrestled as though he expected death to emerge from behind the turnbuckle at any moment. Ione, to her credit, approached the match with composure and discipline and, for long stretches, appeared to be the better competitor. But Burnside’s panic produced its own kind of utility. He made the match ugly, unstable, and difficult to control. In a better promotion, one might say he lacked composure. In this one, that may qualify as tactical adaptation. His scramble to the pin was not pretty, nor particularly noble, but it was effective. Burnside survives, which increasingly appears to be his entire ethos.Then came the second bat attack, this time against Oceiros. At this point, we must dispense with any remaining theatrical tolerance and state plainly that this is no longer an unusual quirk of the tournament. It is a catastrophic security failure. A masked assailant once again entered a protected area, struck a competitor with a weapon, and escaped. Not only is this intolerable, it is now a pattern. And in combat sports, patterns are what turn embarrassment into liability.That the clue left behind was a GAP receipt only deepens the indignity. One almost admires the contempt. It is the kind of evidence that suggests either a diabolical mind or an idiot with a flair for irony. Under these circumstances, I am unwilling to rule out either.Levi Rutledge’s victory over Mad Max was one of the cleaner pleasures of the night. Levi continues to be one of the promotion’s more complete performers, a man whose theatrical vanity actually enhances rather than diminishes his ring work. He does not merely preen. He performs with precision. Against Mad Max, he dictated pace, restored order whenever things threatened to become strange, and reminded the audience that pageantry is most effective when it is backed by competence. There was wit in the match, but also control. Levi did not survive absurdity. He domesticated it.Then, because this promotion refuses to allow one reality to exist uncontested by another, we were treated to the sight of multiple Mad Max variants annihilating one another in a corridor like a science fiction nervous breakdown. One hesitates to linger over it because there is no satisfying way to do so. Either one accepts that this tournament now includes mechanical doubles vaporizing each other backstage, or one goes home. I remain, against my better judgment, seated.Kaia Storm’s win over La Máquina de Muerte was another strong corrective. Once again, a replacement appeared in place of Rickie Flare, who remains less an active competitor than an amorphous inconvenience drifting from one booking disaster to another. Storm, unlike certain others on this card, did not waste the opportunity by playing down to the absurdity of the circumstance. She wrestled with urgency, clarity, and speed. After escaping the early bearhug, she took command and never relinquished it. If Night One left her stunned by Greco’s opportunism, Night Two presented a more focused version of Kaia Storm. She looked like a woman who had learned from the insult of losing. Such competitors tend to become dangerous.Oceiros versus Grant Equity was one of the more revealing contests of the night because it showed, with cruel efficiency, the difference between power and opportunism. Oceiros entered compromised, wounded but unwilling to concede. Grant entered polished, calm, and entirely willing to benefit from circumstance. Equity did not overpower Oceiros so much as he waited for the match to bend toward corruption and then stepped neatly through the opening. The exposed turnbuckle, the rope-assisted pin, the carefully maintained expression of composure afterward. This is not the behavior of a man who believes in fairness. It is the behavior of a man who believes outcomes are all that history remembers. He may, infuriatingly, be correct.Waverly Winters continued her ascent with a decisive win over Mark Lewis, who remains perhaps the most psychologically disinterested participant in a tournament built on ego. Lewis wrestles like a man forced into employment as if by indentured servitude. Waverly, by contrast, is all purpose. She does not waste movement, expression, or energy. She simply imposes herself and lets the work speak. Against Lewis, she looked increasingly like one of the few people in this field whose momentum is being built on substance rather than circumstance. If the tournament is searching for competitive legitimacy, it would do well to follow Waverly’s path.Bia versus Silas Romero may well have been the best pure contest of the evening. Both came equipped to answer the other. Silas brought timing, combinations, and composure. Bia brought force, will, and a kind of physical insistence that made every exchange feel heavier than it should. Neither could coast. Neither could bluff. In the end Bia advanced by catching Silas in a tight exchange and stealing the final leverage needed for the count. It was not theft in the moral sense, only in the competitive one. A sudden win, a narrow win, but a real one. More importantly, it answered the lingering murmurs surrounding her first victory. Whatever one thought of the Deathmachine substitution in Round One, no such caveat exists here. Bia beat someone real, dangerous, and prepared. That matters.Boston Bennette’s win over Genevie, however, returned us to the tournament’s favorite poison, interference. Genevie had every reason to be furious after Gwenevere inserted herself into the match and tilted the result. One can understand Gwenevere’s rage after what happened to Oceiros. One can even sympathize with her suspicion. But understanding an action is not the same as excusing it. Bennette will take the result, as well he should. Yet the match does not live cleanly in the mind. Once again, a finish was made smaller by outside influence. This promotion keeps producing outcomes and then finding ways to stain them.Then came the main event, and with it the clearest encapsulation of everything Pesty’s Vanity Project is and is not.JD Driftwood and WYM Greco entered carrying two different kinds of arrogance. Greco’s is performative, camera-ready, delighted with itself. Driftwood’s is much older and far more dangerous. He carries himself like a man who does not care if the room survives his presence. For a while, Greco’s athleticism and swagger made the contest competitive. He found angles, moved well, and forced Driftwood to work. But once Driftwood fully imposed himself, the match turned. The violence became heavier. The margin for Greco narrowed. Driftwood hit the decisive blow. He had won the match in every way that mattered physically.And then the police arrived.No serious analyst wishes to write the sentence, “The main event was decided by count-out because the winner fled the arena to avoid arrest,” but here we are. Greco receives the official victory because Driftwood, apparently operating under legal disadvantages external to wrestling, chose not to remain for bureaucratic closure. The result is technically valid and spiritually absurd. Greco advances. Driftwood escapes. The police nearly arrest the promoter. Lyza Reyes, perhaps the only person in the entire enterprise with both feet on the ground, talks Pesty out of handcuffs by reportedly framing her as a drunken idiot. That it worked may say more about the circumstances than the defense.And so we arrive, again, at the central contradiction. This tournament is plagued by no-shows, substitutions, backstage assaults, police intervention, vague judging criteria, and a promoter who increasingly looks like she is holding the whole thing together with debt and bad decisions. Yet despite all of that, the competition continues to produce compelling figures. Waverly Winters continues to rise. Bia continues to validate herself. Levi Rutledge continues to merge theater with technical superiority. Kaia Storm has found renewed purpose. Grant Equity continues to prove that polished villainy remains one of wrestling’s most enduring currencies. Even Burnside, frantic little wreck that he is, survives.What corrective measures remain? The same ones I proposed after Night One, now with greater urgency.Secure the building. Define the judging criteria. Protect the competitors. Stop pretending improvisation is the same thing as adaptability. And if Rickie Flare cannot physically attend the tournament, then eliminate her and let the bracket breathe again like a civilized document.I will not bury the show, because the show stubbornly refuses burial. It survives itself. It may even be becoming something in the process, though whether that something is excellence or merely legend remains to be seen. What is clear is that Round Two did not restore order. It simply proved that the tournament is capable of functioning while order burns around it.That is either resilience or delusion.Perhaps in Round Three we shall learn which.

- Johnny