Tuesday night’s IWA show, “Psychopathic Tendencies,” could easily have been a disaster. At the last minute, their star attraction, the Insane Clown Posse, had to cancel. Late Monday afternoon, Violent J of the ICP called and explained that he had suffered a broken eardrum (doing something violent, no doubt) and IWA was left without a main event. Neither member of the ICP, nor Rude Boy, would be making the trip to South Charleston. However, something amazing happened. Even without the Insane Clown Posse, IWA East Coast managed to put on their most memorable show ever, in front of their largest crowd ever.

The show got off to a classy start. Mad Man Pondo announced that anyone who had come to see the ICP could get a full refund. This is very unusual for indy wrestling federations, who often use the “card subject to change” fine print as a way of getting out of giving refunds when the advertised stars don’t show. I didn’t see anyone leave. The fans started an “IWA, IWA” chant. The show was on. Then hardcore legend Ian Rotten spoke about Eddie Guerrero, the WWE Superstar who died unexpectedly on Sunday. Guerrero had worked with Ian in ECW and held the heavyweight belt in Rotten’s IWA Mid-South promotion. The entire roster came to the ring for the traditional 10-bell salute to the much loved Guerrero.

After that somber note, the surprises began. We’re talking Midget Wrestling, folks. Four-foot-four-inch Puppet, took on four-foot-four-and-one-half-inch Little Justice in a hardcore midget match. If you want a surreal experience, you can’t beat watching midgets staple dollar bills to each other’s heads. The winner was Puppet.

Ruckus then retained his CZW Heavyweight title against Old-school heel Tracy Smothers. Ashland’s The Juggulator (with Woody Numbers and a wheelchair-bound Crowza) lost in a shocker to Homeless Jimmy. All the matches were fast-paced and exciting, with memorable spots that the crowd of 400 was loving.

During the intermission, Charleston’s own Brain Trauma entertained with their theme song for IWA East Coast. I’m not big on rap music, but these guys sounded pretty good and really worked the crowd.

After the intermission we were treated to a women’s match, as Mickie Knuckles took on Portia Perez. Mickie is probably already the best female wrestler in North America, and is still gaining confidence as a performer and getting better with each show. Portia Perez looked like she was about 12 years old, but turned in a surprisingly strong match before being pinned. After the match, Perez ambushed Mickie and pinned her neck with with a steel chair. She then tore into the crowd, challenging any woman in the audience to take her on. This set up the next surprise of the evening, as Putnam County’s own Skytriss appeared and walked up behind the oblivious Perez.

Rusty Marks wrote a great profile on Skytriss in the Gazz a few months ago, but until you see her in person, you don’t realize just how enormous this woman is. Seeing her stride to the ring was like watching the Tall Ships come into Boston Harbor. Needless to say, the crowd loved it as Skytriss dwarfed Perez, who quickly made herself scarce. Then Skytriss carried a grateful Mickie to the back.

Following this match, Ironton’s Trik Nasty managed to defeat the monster Warpig and his keeper, Dr. Max Graves, by handcuffing Warpig to the ropes while he pinned the mad doctor. However, Dr. Graves swore some sort of evil retaliation, so this story is not yet done.

IWA East Coast Champion Chris Hero retained his title against what appeared to be an even more inebriated than usual El Drunko. Despite help from Woody Numbers, Crowza (still wheelchair-bound) and The Juggulator, El Drunko couldn’t pull off a win against IWA’s resident super-hero.

Then we got to the main event. Mad Man Pondo and Ian Rotten taking on “Mr. Insanity” Toby Klein, and The Necrobutcher in a bloody brawl that went all over the arena and wound up with Necrobutcher and Klein pinned beneath 40 or 50 steel chairs in the middle of the ring. When Pondo called for the fans to throw their chairs in the ring, it looked like some giant demented popcorn-popper, only with steel chairs instead of popcorn. When the DVD comes out, you’ll want to see this again and again. This was some first-class mayhem!

It was a wild night, even without the Insane Clown Posse. IWA East Coast’s shows just keep getting stronger and stronger, and when they return to the South Charleston Community Center in February, you can be sure I’ll be there.