HPW takes a look at HyruleMania’s Twilight Princess Double Header!

Before Midna defends both the HPW Death Mountain and Goddess Championships, we hear from her and all her challengers!

Death Mountain looms in the distance.

A natural wonder of Eldin, a national landmark of Hyrule, and the symbol of Death Mountain Wrestling, immortalized in HPW’s pantheon of championships. The HyruleMania tradition continues, with the Death Mountain Championship Ladder match set to open the Celebration of Greatness.

Yunobo stands at the foot of Death Mountain and looks up. “Well, this should be easy then, right? Who knows more about climbing mountains than Gorons?” Yunobo hikes up with a big smile on his face. He and the camera crew goes up as far as they can before encountering some lava. “See? If Gorons can withstand the heat, I think I can stand on a ladder.” Plus, Yunobo is a third-generation Goro pro-wrestler. He has the same championship blood as his father and grandfather. They and his entire family will be watching, so Yunobo will stop at nothing to make them proud.

But then Dinolfos shows, as a reptilian, he can also withstand the heat. He jogs by Darb Pond, then lifts heavy rocks as he goes past Medingo Pool. Dinolfos chucks the rocks into the lava pool, getting great distances. Dinolfos says he can’t wait to chuck everyone in the match just like that. Even Dinolfos admits there isn’t much to him. He’s the first in his family to get into pro-wrestling, and his family wasn’t so sure he was going to make it. But whether it’s because he wanted to make them proud, or to throw it in their faces, he worked his tail off to make it this far. He got recognized by HPW, was named a Dark Horse, and now has this opportunity.

Meanwhile on Hebra Peak, Thunderbird flies on the chilling gusts. And thanks to that, he reaches the top. “Gorons climb because they can’t fly. Though, perhaps Rito fly because we can’t climb.” Thunderbird then takes off to glide all the way down the mountain. Thunderbird flips and spins before landing on a branch in a tall tree. Then from there, he jumps branch to branch as he heads down to the ground. “But just so you know,” he says, “heat helps Rito rise. Just saying.”

Grim Creeper is in the gym with Ted Beedle Ossi coaching him. Grim goes through unique “ladder match” drills. He slides in and out of the ring as fast as he can, as well as climbs up and down ladders as fast as he can. And because Beedle bought these ladders, these are high quality ladders. Grim feels good about his training, he’s ready to bring more gold to the UWO. Sharky Shipwreck, meanwhile, practices the other part of a ladder match, and that is using the ladder as a weapon. He carries the ladder, swings the ladder, thrusts the ladder, drops the ladder then picks it up again. He also studies different ways to set up the ladder within the ring.

Sharky has experience in No Disqualification matches from being in TCW, but ladder matches were rare. Plus, he’s the oldest person entering that match, he hopes he can keep up with this current generation. Speaking of, Zelda is also preparing for this match. She was the inaugural Eventide Challenge winner, she’s fought for the Triforce Championship a couple times, and was the TWO-YEAR Goddess Champion, but she’s never been in a ladder match. It’s a new experience for her, but so were those other matches. Zelda also practices climbing a ladder, also practices setting ladders up around the ring, and still sticks to her usual training.

But where is the champion? What is The Twilight Princess doing to prepare for her Double Header?

Midna is streaming on Twinge! Wait, what?

“Hey, guys~! Did you miss me? Of course you did. Now this is going to be a special treat, because I’m gonna be reacting to… Princess Ruto’s career~! After all, you gotta study film of your opponents, right? So here goes!” Midna starts up the Princess Ruto compilation and it’s picture in picture with her face cam.

“O-Oh,” Midna says. “These are… Wow, I didn’t know the cameras zoomed in on Ruto’s… assets so much back in the day. And a lot of photoshoots, too. When was this? Maybe I went with the wrong compilation… Please don’t ban me, Twinge!” Midna stops that video and goes back to searching. “Okay, okay, here we go. Best of her matches.” Midna starts this video and goes back to picture in picture. “Oh, Nabooru hitting her with a moonsault, ow. And then stripping her? That’s not appropriate. Oh, wait, another moonsault! Oh, but then winning by cheating! Belt shot! Someone else helping her! Oh, right, she and Nabooru were rivals, there’s a lot of them fighting.

“Oh, Ruto getting thrown around a lot. Her teaming with fellow Zora wrestlers to retain. Wow, intergender action? Oof, that neckbreaker. Whoa, a powerbomb by Urbosa! Damn. More Nabooru moonsaults. Ruto lost a lot to Nabooru, huh? HAH! She’s getting spanked by uh, what’s her name. Oooh, gotta watch out for that springboard move. She’s also pretty technical. Wait, mudwrestling? And more stripping? Oof, that was a rough era for women’s wrestling, wasn’t it? Ooh, but still some legit stuff, too. There’s Nabooru again. And more mudwrestling. But wow, a chairshot! Ouch! And back to stripping…”

Midna is a bit confused by the back and forth between good content and raunchy, lewd stuff. Who was even running these companies at the time? Falls Count Anywhere was good, though. So if you do the math, Ruto’s career was equal parts about being a great in-ring talent, and eye candy. Midna sure hopes the Ruto that shows up at HyruleMania is the former, because if it’s the latter, then Ruto would have better luck climbing a ladder with the rest of them in the Death Mountain Championship match.

Seven people are aiming at The Twilight Princess.

The Death Mountain Championship Ladder Match ups the ante as six challengers go after the champion, and even if Midna wins that, she’ll have to turn right around to face one more. Will this be the most epic Double Header yet? Will it be the last Double Header?

My Thoughts:

I can just feel that this wasn’t as intense and detailed as last year’s. I lost a lot of time working on HPW because ROH & AEW had to take Thursdays and Saturdays away from me. I’m really thinking of greatly reducing what I do with ROH so it doesn’t get in my way. But there was also an entire week where WordPress ruined our website and I couldn’t work on this stuff. I’m cramming even as I write this to get HyruleMania done, so I hope at least that turns out well.