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Unchallenged Power Leads McDaniels To Victory in Gauntlet Tag Team Match

Posted: May 29th 2011 By: CMBurnham

He's a manager. He's the SWCW commissioner. And now he's claiming to be a Hardcore Icon. L. J. McDaniels, leader of the Hardcore Connection, was the deciding factor in last Sunday's 8-man No DQ/Falls Count Anywhere/Gauntlet Tag Team match, even though he spent much of the match trying to evade physical interaction.

The whole issue began 2 weeks prior when John E. Stone and Outlaw faced each other to determine who the #1 contender to the SWCW Title was going to be. McDaniels decided to up the stakes by making SWCW Champion Kevin James Sanchez the special referee, but this backfired when Sanchez ejected McDaniels shortly after the match began. Outlaw then pressed an advantage by busting Stone open on the ringpost. The match turned into a de facto hardcore match. Eventually, with Sanchez occupied, McDaniels made his way back to the ring area and when Sanchez caught him, an arguement ensued which allowed McDaniels to toss a foreign object into the ring to Stone, who used to incapacitate Outlaw. Against all his instincts, Sanchez counted 3 and John E. Stone became the #1 contender to the SWCW Title. But that wasn't enough for the man from the East Coast as he and McDaniels commenced a post-match beatdown on Outlaw until David Kyzer & Crisstopher Crow came to the rescue. With the fan favourites in the ring and the Hardcore Connection assembled on the outside, Outlaw proposed an 8-man tag team match for the next show and Sanchez upped the ante by throwing in the idea that it be an "Anything Goes" match.

L. J. took Maniac Mike to a victory in a singles match against Drake Gallows on May 22nd and all of Team X- Rated came out to address the crowd and promise victory. But the talking ceased when it came time for the main event. The rules of the match were similar to those of an Impact Chamber match, except there would be no cage. Both teams entered one man at a time, in one minute intervals. Pinfalls or submissions could occur at any point and weapons were legal. When one team was completely eliminated, the match was over. The first two people were Crisstopher Crow and Maniac Mike. John E. Stone was out next, giving Team Hardcore a 2-on-1 advantage and he brought support in the form of a steel chair. Mike and Stone tried to execute a Con-chair-to on Crow, but Crow dodged it and the Hardcore teammates injured each others' hands. Things got even worse for Crow and L. J. McDaniels arrived next. Stone took a chair shot from Crow and began to bleed heavily. Then things began to even up as David Kyzer arrived. But as he entered the ring, he ran right into a charishot to the mid-section. Meanwhile, McDaniels decided it would be in his best interests to stay out of the action, so he scooted to the outside to try and hide. Crow inserted Stone's leg into a chair and stomped on it, providing some major pain. Then Kevin James Sanchez arrived. Crow finds some duct tape and all of Team X-Rated that was active in the match descend on McDaniels, with Crow taking the microphone and announcing to the crowd, "On behalf of everyone here, Shut the Hell Up, please!" before taping McDaniels' mouth closed. Maniac Mike then became the target of Crow's irritation as he was slingshotted into the corner post, while inside the ring, Kyzer put Stone into an ankle lock and Sanchez went wild with the chair. And things looked just a little more up as Outlaw arrived, putting X-Rated in the numbers advantage for the first time in the match. Stone cemented it a little further by pinning Maniac Mike. A bloodied Crow hoped to make Stone feel the same pain and ran a barbed wire baseball bat over Stone's face, but that didn't stop Stone and he hit a Tomikaze on Kevin Sanchez and pinned the Heavyweight champion. The final entrant, Kareem Sadat, then arrived and the match was even in numbers at 3-on-3.

The intensity in the match turned up as all of the remaining men on both sides hoped to wind the match up soon. Kyzer hit an elbow off the top rope on Stone and put him in an ankle lock, but there was no submission. Stone recovered and piledrove Kyzer, leading to both Stone and Sadat pinning him for an elimination. Almost immediately, Outlaw caught Sadat in a backslide and pinned him. Stone then hit both Crow & Outlaw with a chair and each time he did so, McDaniels would slither in and try to make a pin, but could not get the elimination, although he came VERY close on Crow. Crow got Stone out of the way after hitting a TKO on him, but McDaniels moved in and gave Crow a hard kick in the crotch (which was completely legal under these circumstances) and pinned him. This left it at Outlaw and McDaniels, a complete mismatch in terms of experience and ability if there ever was one. And McDaniels certainly seemed aware of this as he dove under the ring to try and hide from Outlaw. But Outlaw chased the manager, grabbing him by the leg and yanking him back out, only to shove him into the ring. Outlaw then executed a spear on McDaniels, but it seemed to do way more harm to the veteran than the SWCW commissioner and the reason was soon apparent as McDaniels revealed that in the brief time he had been under the ring, he had shoved a cookie sheet under his warm up jacket (which he wore the entire match) and the impact had knocked Outlaw out. McDaniels quickly pinned Outlaw and stood triumphant as the sole survivor of the match.

But that wasn't enough for him as McDaniels stripped off Outlaw's belt and began to whip him. Kareem Sadat and Maniac Mike joined him and dealt some whippings themselves. Sadat then went so far as to wrap the belt around Outlaw's throat and begin to choke him until David Kyzer arrived. Outlaw recovered and although he was winded, he still wasn't broken. He declared that John E. Stone might not make it to his title match.

But that's a long way in the future and with McDaniels in a position of near-unchallenged authourity, it seems like things may only get worse for anyone who crosses the Hardcore Connection. Some serious equalizing needs to take place. And that might happen at the 4th annual Scars and Stripes event on July 23rd. In the past, Scars and Stripes has been the showcase where major issues have been settled in large, team warfare events. Perhaps that battleground will be McDaniels' Waterloo. Or perhaps he will secure a final victory and drive everyone away who could possibly challenge him at that event.