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Tag: British wrestling

  • The Week In British Wrestling: Scurll vs Ospreay, part 2; Grado loses title

    We’ve got some of the best grapplers in the world doing great things on a weekly basis! Here’s 5 things you need to know about British wrestling this week:

    1) Scurll & Ospreay do it again…

    On January 16th, at the York Hall in Bethnal Green, Will Ospreay and Marty Scurll put on a masterclass of modern wrestling at Revolution Pro-Wrestling’s High Stakes event. Just 8 days later, at PROGRESS’s Chat Sh*t, Get Banged, across London at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, they did it again. The two matches, although they were both around 30 minutes long, could not have been more different. The first was all about showing how to link a series of moves into a flawless contest, the second – also virtually flawless – was about emotion and feeling and two men who hate one another.

    Ospreay is being talked about in hushed tones, and watching him you do get the feeling that every time might be the last time, that before your ticket for his next appearance can be validated, he’ll be off to Orlando or Japan. Scurll had a glimpse of glory, runner-up in the first TNA Bootcamp, and you sometimes could be forgiven for thinking his time has passed. This past week – and a year of solid work as The Villain before that – shows that to be nonsense, and both men would enhance the roster of any company in the world. For now, though, they’re ours. Enjoy it while it lasts.

    2) PROGRESS banged it…

    As well as the superb main event detailed above, Chat Sh*t, Get Banged, named after a tweet from Leicester City (PROGRESS owner Jim Smallman’s team) footballer Jamie Vardy, delivered everything it promised. Mark Haskins – bearing the marks of a pounding by Kenny Omega in Swindon the night before – beat Zack Gibson to become the number one contender, and will face new PROGRESS champion Marty Scurll in Manchester on February 14th. Opening the card, The Origin beat FSU to retain the tag-team titles, and their next challengers will likely come from whoever wins the feud between the London Riots and the Sumerian Death Squad. They kicked off a three-match series on Sunday with a Michael Dante versus Rob Lynch encounter that was every bit as hard-hitting as a New Japan NEVER title match.

    Coming dangerously near to stealing a show with so much talent having so many great matches, however, were the women, who turned a four-way into an intense twenty minute encounter, with even the most skeptical about the distaff athletes converted and delivering a standing ovation by the end. Dastardly Sloan ranger Jinny triumphed, and will face Leva Bates at the next ENDVR show in March, but there are so many threads still dangling between the four – Pollyanna, Dahlia Black, and Toni Storm made up the quartet – that this will run for the whole year. And that year will be a year in which PROGRESS promotes at least 22 shows, each one more anticipated than the last. It’s a great time to be a fan of British wrestling.

    3) ICW turned a different corner…

    The build-up to Square Go, Insane Championship Wrestling’s version of the Royal Rumble, was all about the feud between ICW Heavyweight champion Grado and his challenger, Chris Renfrew. Renfrew, the leader of the New Age Kliq, framed his challenge as defending the honour of ICW, although few outside NAK loyalists went along with that. But, after the dust had settled on Sunday’s show, it was Renfrew who came away with the title, leaving Grado – who debuted a new look, with new music – wondering where to go next.

    Renfrew’s first challenge could come from his fellow NAKer, Wolfgang, who walked out of the Square Go match with a heavyweight title shot, after besting 29 other men to win a 12-month window to cash in his opportunity. The rules of Square Go allow for 5 wrestlers to bring weapons to the ring, and the lucky recipients were Noam Dar (steel chair), Timm Wylie (lead pipe), Red Lighting (kendo stick), Jack Jester (sex toy), and Sebastian, who brought his GZR tag-team partner Tom Irvin as his weapon. Also in the match were Dave Mastiff, Jimmy Havoc, Doug Williams, ICW owner Mark Dallas, and all the ICW regulars. Next up for ICW is their spring tour, visiting England, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland, and it’s all building towards November’s massive Fear & Loathing IX.

    4) Alpha Omega kicked off their 2016 season…

    While British wrestling has its areas of concentration, the north Lancashire coast is not exactly a hotbed of grappling action, despite the part the area played in the tradition and history of the sport in the UK. Preston City Wrestling operates 30 miles inland but the seaside is dominated by Alpha-Omega Wrestling, based in Morecambe, and presenting a series of well-attended, sensibly-booked shows that have kept fans in the area – and the adventurous traveller – entertained since they emerged in 2007 as the XWA. Initially owned by former FWA promoter (and on-screen personality) Greg Lambert, the promotion has passed through several hands but is still booked by Lambert, alongside current owner Charles Nelson Riley. The promotion tries to harken back to a time when wrestling was real, and while the success (or otherwise) might speak more about the people of the town than anything else, it’s a refreshing change in an era of kayfabe-breaking, social media-embracing meta wrestling, and more power to them.

    Saturday’s Outbreak event, at Alpha-Omega’s regular Morecambe Winter Gardens home, attracted a healthy crowd to see heavyweight champion Stixx down Joe Hendry, the latest contender to try and break an 8-year undefeated streak. Also on the show, The Referendum (the top heel stable, all Scots and playing on the 2014 Scottish divorce from the UK which never quite happened), represented by Liam Thomson & Bobby Roberts, won the tag-team titles, Craig Kollins beat Chris Silvio, and Lana Austin & Alexis Rose defeated Nikki Storm & Carmel Jacob. With a roster that also includes Chris Ridgeway, Cyanide, and many of the northern standouts, Alpha-Omega are one of the UK’s best kept secrets, and might just be worth a trip to the seaside…

    5) The shows keep coming…

    As well as spending much of the year promoting spot shows around their south west territory, 4 Front Wrestling promotes several big shows a year, and this weekend presented New Year’s Wrestleultion, at the MECA in Swindon. The show was supposed to have been main-evented by a 4FW Heavyweight title match between Tiger Ali and Doug Williams, but a series of events led to Williams putting his title shot on the line against local favourite Samie Sahin and losing, before helping Sahin beat Ali to win the title which sent the hall crazy. Also on the show, Kenny Omega beat Mark Haskins to win the vacant 4FW Cruiserweight title, and then immediately vacated it because he’s a heavyweight now, Drago beat Pentagon Jr in a Lucha Underground showcase match, and Japanese women’s star Hikaru Shida beat Shanna. The women were also in action down the road in High Wycombe (Nadia Sapphire actually worked both shows), where Empress Pro-Wrestling presented Never Say Never Again at the Arts4Every1 Centre. Three of the four women from the PROGRESS match were in action, with Jinny losing to Kira Fox, Toni Storm beaten by Courtney, and Pollyanna teaming with Katie Harvey to defeat Rhia O’Reilly & Addy Starr. Robbie Brookside’s daughter, Xia, also worked the show.

    With an eye on the next generation, IPW:UK staged Future 15 on Saturday, at the Community Centre in Selsdon. As well as a multi-man “scrum” match (won by ProJo head trainer Darrell Allen, and also featuring London Riot James Davis, Lord Jonathan Windsor, and the return of scene veteran Muscles Mansfield), women’s champion Tennessee Honey successfully defended her title against Elizabeth, tag-team champions DnD saw off Sammy Smooth & Maverick Mayhew, and Donovan Dijak collided with Rampage Jackson in a super heavyweight bout. Across the Thames Estuary, in Essex, Reloaded Championship Wrestling Alliance – a promotion part-owned by Will Ospreay – presented Fall Out at the Rainham Methodist Church. Ospreay worked the opener, defeating 2016 rookie of the year contender Malik, while his Swords of Essex tag-team partner Paul Robinson beat Ash Draven & Sean Wilson in a handicap match, by disqualification. Also on the show, which our spy highly recommended, were “Blackbelt” Tom Dawkins, and TNA Bootcamp nearlymen Chuck Cyrus and Priscilla.

  • The Week In British Wrestling: AJ Styles says goodbye; ATTACK! turns the clock back

    1) AJ Styles said goodbye but had the show stolen from under him.

    Making good use of his freelance status, AJ Styles has been a frequent visitor to the UK in recent times, and was enough of a (big show) regular for Revolution Pro-Wrestling that it didn’t seem weird when he won their Undisputed British Heavyweight championship last summer. With his impending signing for WWE, this weekend’s High Stakes had something of an air of a farewell, and what better way to do it than pass the torch to Zack Sabre Jr, who became the new champion in a great main event.

    While many of the tickets were sold on that main event, the show was stolen, however, by Will Ospreay and Marty Scurll, who closed the first half of the show with an almost thirty-minute classic, underlining their growing statuses and continuing the theme of 2015 – that British wrestlers are outshining the imports. Mike “Speedball” Bailey made his UK debut on the show, going down to Big Damo after dominating much of the match, and Pete Dunne retained the Undisputed British Cruiserweight title he won two weeks ago, again against “Flash” Morgan Webster. RevPro announced a return to York Hall in the summer, and another shot in Reading in April. The year is only two weeks old and RevPro have already set the standard!

    2) It Was Acceptable In The 80s.

    ATTACK! Pro-Wrestling had a pretty good 2015, which included teaming with Chikara-Pro on the latter’s UK tour, and sending a team over to the King of Trios tournament as well as promoting a series of super-fun, sold-out shows. They started 2016 in the same fashion with It Was Acceptable In The 80s at the Catheys Centre in Cardiff where the gimmick of furthering their storylines and dressing up for the night’s theme continued. Not everyone dressed up, although noted killjoys the Anti-Fun Police did team with a homemade RoboCop, but Mark Andrews (Marty McFly), Martin Kirby (Skeletor), Eddie Dennis (Terminator), Robbie X (a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle) and others all made the effort.

    The main event saw Dennis successfully defend his ATTACK! 24/7 title against Wild Boar before Pete Dunne took advantage of the title’s constant availability by challenging and beating Dennis afterwards. The undercard featured Andrews downing Travis Banks, Mike Bird winning a four-way over Kirby, X, and “Flash” Morgan” Webster, and appearances from Nixon Newell, Chris Brookes, Sebastian Radclaw, and Love Making Demon. ATTACK! is not for everyone – as one fella in the crowd loudly made known – but it is the most fun you can have on a Sunday night in Wales, a fact probably enshrined in law.

    3) Grado proved he’s more than a comedy turn (again).

    On a recent TNA PPV, Grado was challenged by The Pope to prove he’s more than just a comedy wrestler, and did so by engaging Abyss in a Monster’s Ball match, whatever one of those is. For those of us on these shores, however, he has NOTHING to prove. That was evident again this week when he responded to a promo cut by Chris Renshaw at Insane Championship Wrestling’s Friday Night Fight Club tapings last week with a stunning direct-to-camera promo of his own.

    Renshaw, quoting the cover of Fighting Spirit Monthly (which listed Grado as a “TNA star” and claimed he “led ICW to record breaking heights”), claimed ICW wasn’t about one man, it was about everyone there, and that they deserved the plaudits coming Grado’s way. Grado, although he could have rightly pointed out that he did have a huge part in selling out the SECC for Fear & Loathing, went on the attack, pointing out that, yes, he did work around the world and not just in ICW, but he did that for ICW. Renshaw laid the foundations but Grado knocked it out of the park. The exchange can be seen on ICW’s YouTube page.

    4) Promoting wrestling shows isn’t easy.

    With British wrestling very much entering a boom period, there are going to be those who seek to take advantage of that for their own ends. As an independent games developer, the people behind 5* Wrestling decided to promote a three-date tour to publicise their upcoming game, and secured the rights of Rey Mysterio Jr to not only be in the game (their previous games featured thinly-veiled parody characters) but also to lead the tour. They also booked AJ Styles, ROH champion Jay Lethal, former WWE stars John Morrison and Carlito, and a host of the top British stars.

    Unfortunately, they either overestimated the drawing power of such an ensemble or underpromoted the shows, and were rewarded with sub-1000 crowds in halls set up for four times that. While that would be a very good turnout for most British promotions, they can only have lost a ton of money which you’d hope they’ll at least make back on the game when it is released. The shows themselves ran late and were strangely booked, but at least showcased some of our top guys to audiences who may have been unfamiliar with them.

    5) There were some pretty fun shows.

    IPW:UK and WrestleForce teamed up to stage Harlow Invasion in, erm, Harlow, headlined by a TLC match between IPW tag team champions DnD and the London Riots which turned into a wild brawl, including an imploding ladder, an unbreakable table, and Riot Rob Lynch smacking a drink out of the hand of an unruly punter. The rest of the show included an All-England title defense from Sammy Smooth (beating an understandably masked Exodus), a Women’s championship match (of sorts) between champion Tennessee Honey and challenger Nightshade, the Swords of Essex, and the UK debut of Donovan Dijak, who beat Big Damo. Launching a new era for Shropshire wrestling, VII-Pro presented the first of the Underground shows in Shrewsbury on Friday, headlined by “Flash” Morgan Webster versus Nixon Newell (who wrestles men more than she does women, and rightly so), which turned into a tag match when Webster challenged her to find a partner because he’d brought Australian doughnut-lover (not a euphemism!) Toni Storm with him. Newell was joined by Mark Andrews, and it was ON. Also on the show were the Dunne brothers, Tyler Bate, Wild Boar, and Mike Bird, and they return in February with Chuck Taylor.

    Down in London, in the very weird world of the RetroFutureVerse, Freddie Mercurio became a two-time Lucha Britannia champion, downing Cassius in the main event of a show which also featured Marduk Malik continuing his unbeaten streak against Pure Britannico, Diablesa Rosa turning away the challenge of Zombie Janey, and unfrozen Viking Nordico Fuego becoming King Of Lucha Chaos. They’re back on January 29th at the Resistance Gallery once more. Finally for a weekend short on quantity (if not quality), Futureshock opened their doors for the first time in 2016 for Uproar 86, a stacked show which saw The Models reunite to take down The Fallen. Joey Hayes & Danny Hope haven’t teamed for some time so the fans in attendance were quite surprised. Another surprise was the return of Cyanide, who stormed the ring to help Damon Leigh beat down Sonar Dursen after the latter had won their match. Also on the card were Zack Gibson, T-Bone, Mikey Whiplash, Ashton Smith, and Xander Cooper, and 2016 looks like being another solid year for Futureshock.

    (Thanks to Garry Vanderhorne for his help with this week’s column).

  • The Week In British Wrestling: AJ Styles vs. Zack Sabre Jr., Brits all over TNA TV

    1) We’re gearing up for High Stakes.

    After a successful TV taping the other Sunday – at which they bizarrely announced they would be producing action figures! – Revolution Pro-Wrestling is gear up for their first big show of the year, next Saturday’s High Stakes at the York Hall in Bethnal Green. Main eventing the show is what will likely to turn out to be the final non-WWE appearance in the UK by AJ Styles, who is defending his Undisputed British Heavyweight title against Zack Sabre Jr, who seems to be upping the amount of dates he’s doing in the UK of late.

    RevPro run the York Hall three times a year, and last year’s final show – Uprising – featured eleven New Japan stars as part of a formal agreement between the two promotions which should hopefully see some of the UK’s top wrestlers get a chance to go over to New Japan. Also on the High Stakes card is a rematch from the TV taping’s Undisputed British Cruiserweight tournament final, as champion Pete Dunne takes on “Flash” Morgan Webster, a Will Ospreay versus Marty Scurll warm-up before their PROGRESS title match a week later, and the UK debut of “Speedball” Mike Bailey. As one of the UK’s “big three”, RevPro’s shows are always worth looking out for, and the results of this one will be eagerly awaited.

    2) If you liked “one fall!”, how about “one show”?

    Yes, for some odd reason, in the middle of blockbuster January – the last weekend in the month alone has over 25 shows scheduled – there was only one show this week – another of Insane Championship Wrestling’s Friday Night Fight Club TV tapings at the Garage nightclub in Glasgow, Scotland. The exclusive content taped for their ICW On Demand service – which, I’m reliably informed is actually unexclusively free to non-subscribers for the first 24 hours – has been a shining light in the winter gloom these past few weeks, and this week’s show was no different.

    The latest taping was dominated by heel stable The 55 (who, for the uninitiated, play on the percentage of Scots who rejected independence in 2014’s referendum), with tag-team champions Sha Samuels & Kid Fite retaining their titles against Mikey Whiplash & Tommy End, and the whole group attacking not only babyface hero Joe Coffey after the main event, but also ICW owner Mark Dallas. With Grado & Galloway over in Pennsylvania, the rest of the roster got the chance to step up and shine, and by the sounds of the slobberknocker between Jimmy Havoc and Big Damo, they did just that.

    3) The Brits returned on TNA.

    Although we’re very much focussed on what goes on over here in the UK, we also like to keep an eye out for what our talent is up to overseas. This past week’s TNA tapings heavily featured Drew Galloway, who formed an alliance with the soon-to-depart Kurt Angle, as well as the usual antics from Bram, Rockstar Spud, Mark Andrews (who did a must-see spot with a skateboard that will make you forget the Dynamic Dudes ever existed), and Grado in a Monster’s Ball match with Abyss, which included barbed-wire and thumb tacks (or “drawing pins” as we call them in the UK).

    While all but Galloway (and, to a lesser extent, Bram) are used in a way that disappoints most British fans of their work, the exposure they receive benefits both them and the promotions they work for in the UK, and so we swallow it down like bad medicine (cue Dr Wagner Jr earworm). In the case of Andrews, and after a year in which he based himself in Nashville and did few UK shots, he’s upping his UK dates this year, appearing regularly for the ATTACK!-Pro promotion he helped to create and getting a shot at the PROGRESS tag-team titles at the upcoming Chapter 25: Chat Sh*t, Get Banged.

    4) I get things wrong.

    I told you last week about the ultra-ambitious (in a good way!) upcoming show from Pro-Wrestling Chaos, running a 3000-seater hall in Bristol for an exclusive English date by The Young Bucks. Well, in amongst all that, I got the date wrong. The show is on April 9th, not April 8th as I wrote last week. Apologies for that, Chaos lads. They have another show coming up next month, with Grado, Trevor Lee, and UK legend Johnny Kidd joining all the usual regulars, and you should check their website for details.

    5) Robbie Brookside gave a history lesson.

    Chris Jericho’s podcasts are an acquired taste for some, but when he gets a good guest with lots to say, they’re essential listening. This week he had British wrestling legend and NXT trainer Robbie Brookside on the show, and gave his guest the room to speak at length about his career. It must have been an eye-opener for US fans of the show to hear tales of Terry Rudge and Scrubber Daly, as well as a spot-on impression of All-Star promoter Brian Dixon, but long-time UK fans will have emerged from it basking in the warm glow of nostalgia. One day someone will write a proper book on all this, and I hope they go to Brookside for first-hand material.

  • The Week In British Wrestling: RevPro & ICW Tape TV; PROGRESS go large

    1) The Revolution will be televised!

    With access to traditional television shows thin on the ground for UK promotions, they’ve had to think outside the box for solutions. In last week’s column, I gave a rundown of the different options available if you want to watch British wrestling (apart from the always-preferable live option), and this week Revolution-Pro held another of their popular “TV” tapings at the Cockpit Theatre in Marylebone, London. The Cockpit is more used to hosting fringe theatre but is a perfect venue for a television taping, harking back to the studio shows of old with its tight seating arrangement perfectly fitting around the squared circle in the centre. RevPro held three tapings at the Cockpit last year, for their YouTube TV show, and on Sunday they came back with a stacked card for a new run of shows for 2016.

    Despite ENDVR taking place at the same time just 3 miles across London (more of which later), the show still attracted a good crowd, and they were treated to a mini-tournament for the Undisputed British Cruiserweight title, with Pete Dunne overcoming “Flash” Morgan Webster in the final – el Ligero & Josh Bodom being eliminated in the semi-finals. Jimmy Havoc continued his feud with the Revolutionists, bringing a mystery partner to face the Undisputed British Tag-Team champions, Sha Samuels & James Castle, and it turned out to be T-Bone.

    Thanks to shenanigans, the champions kept their titles but Havoc has promised to bring back T-Bone and a third man to take on the tag champs and Bodom at High Stakes on January 16th. Main-eventing a card that also featured Big Damo, Mark Haskins, Marty Scurll, and Martin Kirby, was a bout between Will Ospreay and ACH, who made his return to RevPro after October’s Uprising. The two tore the house down and the match will be available to watch – for free – on RevPro’s YouTube channel very soon.

    2) PROGRESS take their big guns to Brixton.

    In last week’s column I trailed HUGE news from PROGRESS, and speculated what it could be. Well, speculate no more, because on January 1st they announced that September’s show – chapter 36 – will be held at the legendary Brixton Academy, in south London. It won’t be the company’s first trip south of the river – their ProJo wrestling school is situated round the corner from the Academy, and they’ve held trainee shows at the Bedford, in nearby Balham, before – but it will be the first time they’ve played a hall bigger than their usual 700 seats at the Electric Ballroom. The Academy will be set up for 2000 seats, and while that is dwarfed by ICW’s planned show at the Hydro in Glasgow, it will be the biggest crowd to see a British wrestling show in London for a good thirty years.

    PROGRESS have always resisted temptation to move to a bigger building before, simply stating that the Electric Ballroom treat them very well and they would be afraid to lose that special atmosphere created at the sold-out shows, so this is a step into the unknown for the company. However, they’re doing it in conjunction with LiveNation, the company that handled NXT’s UK tour, and the logistics shouldn’t be too high a hurdle. Whether they can sell almost 3 times the amount of tickets they usually do in London is another thing, but UK wrestling is VERY hot right now, and with a 9-month lead they have every chance. Progress indeed!

    3) A Sex Pest won a rap battle.

    It’s impossible to sum up an entire show, especially one featuring so many different characters as an ENDVR show, in one pithy line, but – yes – a sex pest did win a rap battle at ENDVR’s first show of the year on Sunday. Anyone who follows ENDVR (and the PROGRESS shows as of the last London chapter) will know that the sex pest is Jack Sexsmith, and the rap battle was a precursor to his showdown with “Body Guy” Roy Johnson on Sunday’s show at the Garage in Islington. You’ll be reassured to know that “Mr Cocko” made his customary appearance, and those of you who don’t know anything about Jack Sexsmith will no doubt be very confused by now.

    Also on the show, Pollyanna and Livvi won women’s matches, Damon Moser (a favourite for this year’s Natural Progression tournament) won a four-way over Pastor Bill Eaver, Earl Black Jr, and TK Cooper, and ProJo head trainer Darrell Allen beat Chuck Mambo in a “traditional British rules” match (which, unusually for such contests, didn’t suck). Some of the more established PROGRESS stars made an appearance (and a whole load of them were across London at the RevPro TV taping!), with Wild Boar teaming with PROGRESS-debutant Mike Bird (a mainstay of the south-west scene, and Mark Andrews’s trainer) taking a DQ win over Paul Robinson & trainee Shen Woo, and Eddie Dennis and Dave Mastiff colliding in a hard-hitting main event. The consequences of that fight will be felt long after the conclusion of Sunday’s show, with Dennis earning a tag-team title shot for himself and Mark Andrews, and Mastiff earning the ire of PROGRESS management with a sustained beating on a prone Dennis after the match.

    4) Big shows aren’t just channel changers on the USA Network.

    As well as PROGRESS planning their big outing to Brixton in September, several other promotions have already announced big shows of their own for 2016. New Generation Wrestling have already announced their mid-year spectacular, Ultimate Showdown, in Hull in late May, Southside have their annual Speed King tournament inked in for April, and – of course – everything that Insane Championship Wrestling does this year is leading up to their bigger-than-big-it’s-huge show at the 11,000-capacity Hydro in October.

    But even bigger than that show, in relative terms, is Pro-Wrestling Chaos’s April 8th show in Bristol, with The Young Bucks flown in as a special attraction. Why is that so big? Because Chaos, a Bristol-based promotion formed in 2013 for former grappler Dave Mercy, usually run a 200-seater hall and they’ve booked a 3000-seater for this show, which they’ve promised to stack. As gambles go it’s a pretty big one, but with the Bucks only doing one other UK show (in faraway Edinburgh) it’s a risk that could pay off.

    5) Friday Night’s Alright For Fight Club

    In order to bring fresh and exclusive footage to their ICW OnDemand service, the promotion held another Friday Night Fight Club taping at the Garage nightclub, in Glasgow, last weekend. Like RevPro’s taping, they stacked the card with all their usual regulars, plus semi-regular import Tommy End, for a show which saw a title change, an ICW Heavyweight title defence, and a huge 8-man main event, featuring Grado, Davey Blaze, Noam Dar, and Kenny Williams against the New Age Kliq. They have another taping scheduled for this coming Sunday – the only show anywhere in the UK, as far as I can work out – with everything leading up to their big Square Go! show on January 24th.

    Other than a few holiday camp shows (including one where the ATTACK! boys played to over 1000 people), the only other show over the last week was WrestleForce’s return to Rayleigh, in Essex, which featured their usual cast of characters.

  • The Week In British Wrestling: Joey Ryan does it again; possible big announcements coming

    By Alan Boon fof F4WOnline.com

    A lot of promotions enjoyed a Christmas break this week, but while things don’t really wake up until the middle of January, there were still things going on in the UK. Here are five things you need to know about British wrestling this week:

    1) The time for talk is over.

    For the last few years, British wrestling fans – although not necessarily fans of British wrestling – have had their own TV show on Challenge TV every Sunday night. WrestleTalk TV, which follows TNA on the mostly-retro quiz channel, is a discussion show, mostly concerned with the mainstream promotions, and TNA. Most of the interviews, given WWE’s embargo on all but the most valuable (to them) outlets, are with former-WWE stars or current TNA wrestlers, and for fans of that kind of thing it’s been a weekly staple of varying interest. This week, however, Challenge TV announced that the show was cancelled, although producer Alex Shane was quick to claim it would appear on another channel soon. In it’s place – although the exact time slot is yet to be determined – will be another Shane-produced wrestling show, but this time a quiz show more in fitting with the rest of the channel’s output.

    As well as the main show, there was a monthly British Wrestling Round-Up show, which followed late into the evening, but mostly featured footage from just the one promotion, New Generation Wrestling from Hull. Nothing has been announced as to the future of this show. While it wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea, the show did at least maintain a visibility for something other than WWE & TNA on British TV, and for that alone it’s loss should be noted with some disappointment.

    2) Even on a quiet Christmas Day, you can still watch British wrestling.

    For many years TV was seen as the be all and end all for British wrestling companies, and more than one promotion killed itself trying to make that happen. The last few years, however, have seen an explosion in online on-demand channels, made possible by advancements in broadband speeds and editing software available to even the tiniest promotion. The upshot of all this is that there is plenty of quality British wrestling to watch, whenever you want to watch it. The main leaders in the field are Insane Championship Wrestling and PROGRESS, who have mobilised their hefty fanbases into subscribing to on-demand channels. As well as recordings of live shows, both promotions offer exclusive footage only available to subscribers, such as ICW’s Friday Night Fight Club and the excellent Jimmy Havoc Q&A on Demand PROGRESS. Both channels utilise Pivotshare software, and are available through all the usual platforms.

    Many other promotions – and I’ll try to list them later – offer a different model, whereby you pay for access to one or more of their shows to stream or download. Some host their own shows, while others are available through third party sites like Your Fight Site and Wrestling Store, and use a variety of different platforms, although Vimeo is popular. Among the major promotions to use this model are Revolution Pro-Wrestling, Preston City Wrestling, Southside Wrestling Entertainment, and IPW:UK, but there are also shows from Grand-Pro, Pro-Wrestling Chaos, LDN, NGW, FutureShock, and many more out there. In addition, RevPro offer a weekly show on their YouTube channel, the first 2016 taping for which is this coming Sunday and it is a stacked card.

    All this means that, if it happens in the UK, you can pretty much see it within days on one platform or another, and makes it very easy – and enjoyable – to be a fan of British wrestling . Nothing comes close to the live show experience (and there are still a couple of promotions who offer nothing but that experience) but having it beamed live to your living room is the next best thing.

    3) Joey Ryan’s penis is stronger than we thought.

    So how was your Christmas? Yeah, mine too. Oh, did you get to see Joey Ryan replicate his famous spot with Danshoku Dino, only in a sleepy Cambridgeshire market town instead of Tokyo, and with five other men instead of a Japanese sex pest? You didn’t? Oh, man. So, yeah, Joey Ryan came to the UK last week, and of course he played up on that spot. At Southside last Sunday, at the sold out Season’s Beatings in St Neots, he competed in a six-man Giant Lollipop On A Pole match, which also featured Rockstar Spud and Martin Kirby, and a ton of brilliant comedy spots that had me crying with laughter. Spud won the match – does it matter? – but all six men (and referee Joel Allen, who played his part, too) deserved a standing ovation.

    Southside are one of the UK’s second-tier promotions, never grabbing the big headlines but putting on solid shows with a good roster and a sprinkling of the more interesting imports. Already for 2016, they’ve announced Sami Callihan, Angelico, Timothy Thatcher, and Leva Bates, but the main focus is placed on their British stars, which include Will Ospreay, Jimmy Havoc, and el Ligero. Ligero main-evented Sunday’s show, in a Loser Leaves Southside match against Kay Lee Ray, and even though the result was slightly spoiled by Ligero appearing on the poster for February’s show, the match was well-worked, hard-fought, and painful-looking (if a little overbooked).

    Also on the show, Stixx continued his battle against Joseph Conners’s Righteous Army, and Nixon Newell defended her Queen Of Southside title. While the likes of ICW, PROGRESS, PCW, and RevPro get the major headlines – and rightly so for the most part – Southside (and promotions like them) are really worth checking out if you get the chance. They’re not “my” brand but I’m never disappointed by their shows.

    4) PROGRESS are HUGE teases.

    With all their shows for 2016 seemingly announced and a stunning amount of season tickets already sold for the London shows, you might be forgiven for thinking that PROGRESS can sit back and just roll out whatever they’ve got planned for the year as it comes. On Tuesday, however, they tweeted that they would be announcing HUGE news on New Year’s Day, and their fanbase exploded into speculation. The big guess was some kind of TV deal, what with a test being filmed at their last London show, but that was quickly shot down by management with promoter Jim Smallman repeating his opinion that TV wasn’t necessary for a promotion to be a success in 2016. Other guesses have included a tour (ICW run two successful tours a year in the UK), a live webcast of a show, and a big show at a bigger venue than the 700-seaters they traditionally run. Like a lot of “announcements” in this most carny of industries, it could turn out to be a damp squib but I’d lay money on it being something really, really interesting. Check your Twitter feed on Friday at midday to find out.

    5) Shows still happened.

    Although live action was thin on the ground over Christmas week, it wasn’t entirely absent. As well as the Southside show reported above, and a few shows at holiday camps open to seasonal vacationers, New Generation Wrestling ran Hull, and WrestleForce promoted Witham Town Hall. At NGW’s Eternal Glory At Christmas show, NGW champion Nathan Cruz defeated Matt Myers to keep hold of the title he’s worn since July, although Zack Gibson – who added Zack Sabre Jr on this show to his list of recent conquests – will be gunning for him in the new year. Also on the show were Mark Andrews, Bubblegum, Rampage Brown, and el Ligero, as well as a host of other NGW regulars.

    The promotion have already announced their big show for next year, May’s Ultimate Showdown, and will be hoping to capitalise on a nationwide tour in the spring. WrestleForce’s Festive Fury, held in the Essex town of Witham, featured all their usual characters, some of whom may or may not also be regulars in the RetroFutureVerse of Lucha Britannia. Former WWE developmental prospect The Zulu Warrior retained his International Championship, seeing off the challenge of Joey Ozbourne, while the team of Peace & Brad O’Brien sent the fans home happy with a victory in the main event over the evil Voodoo & Damien. Also on the show were Richard Parliament, “Blackbelt” Tom Dawkins, and a good shout for rookie of the year 2016, the Punjabi Prince (Malik Waseem), and – as always at WrestleForce’s slightly surreal outings – a fun time was had by all.

    Next weekend sees us rocket into 2016 with shows from three of the big names of British wrestling.

  • The Week In British Wrestling: IPW UK survives Vince Russo, ATTACK!, ICW

    By Alan Boon for WrestlingObserver.com

    1) We’re under ATTACK!

    Of all the promotions in the UK, the ones that pique my interest the most are those that carve out their own little niche, do something different, and offer something you won’t find anywhere else. With ongoing storylines enhanced — rather than interrupted — by the combatants appearing as video game, Halloween, super hero and other characters, ATTACK! Pro-Wrestling are certainly a different beast in that regard. Formed in 2011 by the Dunne brothers in Birmingham, the company now runs Cardiff and Bristol with a solid roster that includes many of the UK’s top talents. The fact that these talents were part of ATTACK!’s roster before they broke out onto the wider scene is a testament to their position as more than just a comedy promotion.

    To close out a 2015 that began with one of their principals (Mark Andrews) leaving for TNA and included hosting Chikara-Pro on their UK tour, ATTACK! promoted the Under The Misteltour double-shot this weekend with two sold-out shows in Bristol and Cardiff. They brought in Zack Sabre Jr for the first show as a mystery partner for Nixon Newell against her former tag team partner Chris Brookes (who tagged with the underrated Martin Kirby), featured two title changes for their main title (the ATTACK! 24/7 title, which is now back to being defended 24/7 after the villainous Pete Dunne suspended that particularly quirk), and had their main heels – the Anti-Fun Police – do the most heelish thing ever and give away spoilers to the new Star Wars film. They’ve already announced their February dates (which already have sold out) but they’ll be back on Wrestlemania weekend with another double-shot. You could do much, much worse than head west, like the elves to the Undying Lands, and check out a little slice of unique.

    2) It is possible to survive Vince Russo.

    Not many companies survive having Vince Russo as a booker, but for IPW:UK, it was just another bump in the road. Okay, so it was a storyline appointment, and he only appeared on a couple of shows so his wrecks-appeal was limited. His stench lives on, though, with his aide The Puppet (played by scene veteran Sam Gardiner) still trying to exert influence despite Russo losing a multi-man contest against IPW:UK owner Dan Edler two months ago. On the second part of a double-shot (very much en vogue this weekend, it seems), The Puppet tried to ruin Christmas by appearing as Santa Claus but was put down in a very violent match by Jimmy Havoc, and thus the man usually most greeted with the most horrible of swear words saved Christmas. It was all part of a wider angle that saw the return of heel referee Artemis on a very storyline-heavy card, and the show set up many of the plots that will take IPW:UK into 2016.

    Earlier in the show, Tennessee Honey became the first IPW:UK women’s champion in a match which saw the return of Jetta (as special referee), the reunited Swords of Essex (Paul Robinson and Will Ospreay, who is uniquely playing heel here) beat the team of “Blackbelt” Tom Dawkins and Scott Starr, and Sammy Smooth defended his IPW:UK All-England title against Jon Ryan. That title can trace its lineage back to 2000 and the FWA, and was actually named by this writer! The main event was a wrestling clinic between Sabre Jr and respected veteran Johnny Kidd, held over traditional British rules, and with Steve Grey as special referee. Kidd came out on top, beating his younger opponent by two falls to one.

    The night before at their adults-only Hardcore Lottery show, Sabre Jr had competed in the titular tournament, overcoming London Riot James Davis in a “Submission Match” to meet Jimmy Havoc (who’d beaten Clint Margera in a “No F’n Rules Match”) and Jon Ryan (who’d downed Snare in a “Dual Chairs Match”) in the three-way main event. Again held under “No F’n Rules”, the veteran Ryan surprisingly overcame the king of British hardcore and the submission specialist to take the honours. 2016 will see the promotion venture outside their Kent base for the first time in an age and, while IPW:UK don’t make the headlines that PROGRESS or ICW do, it’s worth keeping an eye on what’s going on in the Garden of England.

    3) The first rule of Friday Night Fight Club is…

    Talking of Insane Championship Wrestling, they held their final show of 2015 on Friday night, a “TV taping” for their weekly on-demand show, Friday Night Fight Club. While ICW’s core business is their well-attended live shows, the ICW On-Demand service brings in a chunk of their income and – more importantly – new fans outside their Glasgow base. While some promotions are content (and perhaps only able) to merely upload recordings of their live shows on their on-demand channels, ICW offers a little bit more for your money which sees few complaints about the monthly fee of just $6.99 (£4.69). Chief amongst these is FNFC nd the upcoming episodes will see the biggest stars of ICW – and the GZRS – up on your big/little screen.

    This week’s tapings, on the heels of the last set two weeks ago, saw all four ICW titles on the line with ICW Heavyweight champion Grado taking on “The Bastard” Dave Mastiff and “The Scouser” Zack Gibson in a three-way defence. New women’s champion Viper defended against Kay Lee Ray, Zero-G champion Davey “Boy” Blaze fought Liam Thomson, and the tag-team champions The Polo Club took on The 55’s Sha Samuels & Kid Fite in a re-match from their cracker at the massive Fear & Loathing show. Also appearing at the tapings were Big Damo, Jack Jester, Mikey Whiplash, and Joe Coffey. The episodes will go live over the Christmas weekend.

    4) The people of Nottingham are confused.

    Nottingham, a city in the East Midlands with a 300,000 people and a huge student population, is an ideal place for a wrestling promotion. So it’s no surprise that it has at least three with ICW also making regular stops at the Rock City venue in the city centre. While Southside Wrestling Entertainment is developing its own brand, the other two promotions must cause a little confusion. House Of Pain (HOP) wrestling are an extension of the wrestling school run by scene veteran Stixx, and functions largely as a place for his students to develop their talents. They did a triple shot over the weekend at venues across the city, while at the same time, House Of Pain: Evolution (or HOP:E) also ran a show there. HOP:E were the original extension of the wrestling school but a falling out between promoter Harvey Dale and Stixx resulted in the current situation. While HOP are content to run local shows for their trainees, HOP:E have bigger plans, and also run nearby Mansfield and Derby, as well as a show in Milton Keynes last month. The history of professional wrestling is a story of splits and schisms and it’s somehow reassuring to know it’s still happening, somewhere.

    5) You can’t stop the shows!

    Down in That London, the Resistance Gallery opened its doors to Lucha Britannia once again for a Christmas-themed show and burlesque spectacular. Alongside turns from Lilly Snatch-Dragon (a striptease dressed as an Ewok), the Virgin Xtravaganzah! (a sacreligious rap), and Snake Fervour (sultry sword-swallowing), there was some actual wrestling, main evented by champion Fug being dethroned by a newly-rudo Cassius. Also on the show was an amazing bout between Neo Britannico and Pure Britannico, who may or may not resemble Will Ospreay and Blackbelt Dawkins when they’re not in the RetroFutureVerse. Up in the Midlands, Alternative Wrestling World ran the Brierley Hill Civic Hall, and featured former FWA stars Kevin O’Neill and Brandon Thomas, as well as the products of its academy.

    Given O’Neill is at least partially responsible for Rockstar Spud and Dave Mastiff, it’s safe to say that there should be some good stuff coming out that school and onto those shows. Out east, Falling Starr Wrestling ran in King’s Lynn (scene of a recent Global Force Wrestling show), and headlined with a main event won by “Santa” Bulk (formerly of the UK Pitbulls), a man who definitely doesn’t need to stuff his costume to play the fat man of the North Pole. Finally, in Liverpool, TNT Wrestling presented Cold Day In Hell, which saw Bubblegum pick up the TNT Heavyweight championship in a triple-threat match against Mark Haskins & Rampage Brown. The show also featured Sweet Saraya, Viper, the UK Hooligans, Dave Mastiff & Big Damo.

    It’s Christmas this weekend, but the shows don’t stop — they just slow down. I’ll be at a Southside show Sunday featuring Joey Ryan’s penis, and there’ll be other shows to report on, so join me again next week!

    (Thanks to John Lister for help with this week’s column!)

  • The Week In British Wrestling: NXT invades the UK, Tidal’s rise in Yorkshire

    By Alan Boon for WrestlingObserver.com

    We’ve all got our decorations up here in the UK, but that doesn’t mean things have shut down for Christmas! Here’s 5 things you need to know about British wrestling this week.

    1) William Regal came home.

    When Darren Matthews decided he wanted to become a professional wrestler in 1983, his path into the business was learning his craft in a “shooter’s” booth on Blackpool Pleasure Beach where he’d take on all-comers in one of the last remaining remnants of the earliest days of the worked game. This weekend, he got to come home and show off his baby when he brought NXT to the town for a sold-out show at the Winter Gardens Ballroom.

    Also in tow was Robbie Brookside, working for NXT as a coach, and the two met up with Frankie Sloan, a fellow veteran who broke in with Brookside in Liverpool. While the Pleasure Beach is now home to Nickelodeon Land, the three posed for photos in front of “where it all started”. Aside from John Freemantle’s Premier Promotions holding on in Worthing, British wrestling is all but unrecognisable from those heady days – mostly for the better – but it’s nice to be able to recognise that history when the time comes around.

    2) WWE got a taste of the UK indy scene.

    When WWE comes over for their twice-yearly tours, condescending to us with their telephone boxes and London taxis, there are always a few of the hardcore British fans that pop along, especially to Raw. But I’ve not seen such an enthusiasm for an imported tour as there was for NXT this week with barely a PROGRESS, ICW or PCW fan not hitting up at least one show, and most more than one. The fans took their usual chants to the shows, shocking the wrestlers and organisers with their passion, sheer loudness, and wacky chants. To the talent, these fans would have seemed like old friends, because a healthy proportion of the NXT roster spent some of their formative years on the UK indy scene, and the fans reacted to them accordingly.

    Take Sami Zayn, who reminisced about his past visits (as el Generico, obviously) to the UK on Twitter, and Apollo Crews, who was PCW champion earlier this year as Uhaa Nation (and got the chants at the NXT shows to prove it). Finn Balor, of course, grew up on the UK scene, and Samoa Joe was no stranger to our shores as both men appeared for PROGRESS in the last couple of years in show-stealing matches. Further down the card, Scott Dawson tweeted a reminder that he’d toured the holiday camps earlier in his career, and at the Performance Center, the likes of Biff Busick, Rich Swann, Axel Tischer, and more have all done time in the clubs and halls of the UK. It just goes to show that you never know when that guy who locked up with your favourite Brit at your local show will make it to the big time…and it’s a fun ride following them.

    3) The US indy scene got a taste of the UK.

    The first Wrestling Road Diaries followed Colt Cabana – along with Bryan Danielson and Sal Rinauro – as he travelled around on the US indy scene, giving fans a glimpse of life on the road outside the big leagues. The second instalment – Wrestling Road Diaries Too – again trailed Cabana, but this time with Cliff Compton and Luke Gallows. For the third in the series, Cabana picked up Japanese indy star Kikutaro and somehow made the decision that having Grado along would be fun. Anyone who watched the second Insane Fight Club documentary, in which Grado and the other ICW stars toured the cities of the UK, promoting their upcoming tour, will already know that this isn’t the smartest of decisions, but it will make for great footage.

    It’s been a banner year for Grado, with TNA’s British Bootcamp II elevating him to much-deserved stardom on both sides of the Atlantic, even if he is primarily known in the US as a TNA prelim guy (much like his fellow Bootcamp alumni, the criminally-underrated Mark Andrews). He ended 2015 as ICW champion, and has had crowds on their feet at PROGRESS, Rev-Pro, IPW:UK, and all over the UK. But he still divides opinion, and that’s fine, because if we all liked the same people, it would be dull, right? Well, we all like Will Ospreay (except that one guy), but you know what I mean. Speaking of Ospreay, he, Andrews, and Marty Scurll returned to Pro Wrestling Guerrilla this past weekend, and once again impressed. With on-demand services giving access to our shows for overseas fans, US indies are wising up to the talent – and drawing power – of our top guys. 2016 will be very interesting for some of the big UK names.

    4) Tidal ends the year as Yorkshire’s number one promotion.

    PROGRESS always make a point that they were told it was impossible to run professional wrestling in central London. While that may not have been strictly true (although doing it and making a profit, as they no doubt do, is another matter), it’s perfectly understandable why a London-based concert promoter might have looked elsewhere to start promoting wrestling shows. Just over two years ago, that’s what Tidal Concerts did, focusing on the north and north-east of England – with home bases in Leeds and Darlington – and they’ve built a tidy little operation since. A year ago, they were fighting over Leeds with True Grit Wrestling, although it was a friendly fight and they used much of the same talent, but the disappearance of TGW has left England’s fourth city wide open for Tidal, and they’ve cemented their place as the White Rose’s top operation.

    Last weekend, they held their year-end spectacular at Leeds University’s Student Union, and brought in Tommy End to butt heads with Rampage Brown in a hard-hitting, show-stealing bout. At the top end of the card, Dara Diablo defended his TCW title in a three-way against Mexican Yorkshireman el Ligero and Liam Lazarus. Ligero came out with the gold, adding it to the PROGRESS tag team titles he won last month. With two Leeds show already scheduled for the first six weeks of the New Year, and a sensible booking policy based around a handy band of local regulars, Tidal should continue their growth, from a hidden gem to a solid player in an increasingly healthy scene.

    5) Shows, shows, we got shows.

    While Mark Dallas and the ICW top boys were enjoying the hospitality of NXT at the Hydro in Glasgow, Scottish wrestling continued to take the grappling to the masses with big shows in Inverness and Ayr, and a double shot from Scottish Wrestling Entertainment in Dundee. In Inverness, Grado headlined Rock N Wrestle’s Winterslam at the Ironworks, beating Liam Thomson in the main event of a card that also featured James Storm, Drew Galloway, and Davey (Boy) Blaze. Galloway also turned out for Pro-Wrestling Elite, at their Jingle All The Galloway show in his hometown of Ayr. Well, with a show called that you’d hope so! He took on Dave Mastiff – and lost – in the standout match on a card that also had Storm, Grado, Big Damo, Noam Dar, and just about everyone who is anyone in Scottish wrestling.

    In the Midlands, AMP ran their monthly show at the Alan Higgs Centre in Coventry, while Leicester Championship Wrestling presented Christmas Cracker in, erm, Leicester, which was headlined by a title change as Joseph Conners – stablemate of Jimmy Havoc in Southside – downed Alex Gracie, on a show that also featured The Hunter Brothers, Xander Cooper, and the veteran Stixx, who trained both men in the title match. In the wrestling hotspot that is Bristol, Pro-Evolution promoted their Xmas show on Friday (and followed it with another in Worcester the next day), bringing in the tattooed brawler T-Bone to face Ricky Diamond. Pro-Evo have one of the hottest tips for 2016 in Justin Sysum, and he worked both shows, beating out Tiger Ali (not Singh) in Bristol, and downing T-Bone in Worcester.

    And that’s all you need to know about this week’s BritWres. Next weekend sees shows by Attack-Pro, Lucha Britannia, IPW:UK, ICW, and HOP & HOP:E going head-to-head in Nottingham! Join me then for the down low!

  • The Week In British Wrestling: Weird promotions & the women have their day

    By Alan Boon for WrestlingObserver.com

    Here’s five things you should know about the week in British pro wrestling.

    1) PROGRESS hits the north.

    After three and a half years of sold out shows in London, PROGRESS promoted their first card outside the capital on Sunday, making the two-hundred mile journey to England’s third city, Manchester, for Hit The North. Headlined by a successful title defence by PROGRESS champion Will Ospreay (over Origin scoundrel Zack Gibson and 2015 Natural Progression Series winner Flash Morgan Webster), the show at the 650-capacity Ritz also featured a match of the year candidate between Zack Sabre Jr and Tomasso Ciampa, who has become a regular visitor to the UK this year. The show sold out, and the promotion has already announced a further half-dozen shows for 2016 at the same venue. England’s north west is one of the most hotly-concentrated areas of the country for wrestling action but PROGRESS just proved there’s always room for more if there’s a great show in the offing.

    2) There’s always something different going on.

    Also in the north west, a little further north and west in Hindley, on the outskirts of Wigan, is Grand Pro-Wrestling. Starting out in 2003, as Garage Pro-Wrestling, at the grandly-titled Monaco Ballroom in Wigan, the promotion evolved into Grand-Pro by 2010 and has presented its own brand of weirdness ever since, with their latest show – Double Jeopardy – taking place last Friday. Amongst the storylines spinning out of Hindley this year have been the purchase of the promotion by a wealthy Arab Sheikh, and a unique spin on a loser-leaves-town match between Martin Kirby and Ashton Smith, where Kirby had to sell his house if he lost, and Smith would be banned from his local supermarket if Kirby won (Smith got the win and a homeless Kirby was found living under the ring at the next show).

    Last week’s show – one of their regular outings at the Rose Club – was headlined by a four-man, double-championship match, with Bubblegum winning the GPW British title from T-Bone in the first fall, and T-Bone returning the favour in the second to win the GPW Heavyweight title. Also on the show, the wealthy Arab Sheikh teamed with Martin Kirby against the Midnight Bin Collection, a tag-team of a garbage man and a party animal, and suspiciously-Caucasian Pacific Islander Tabu was reunited with his estranged brother, and former tag-team partner, Rio. The UK is dotted with promotions that occupy their own little worlds, and is all the stranger (and better) for it.

    3) Girls wanted to have fun, and did.

    Women’s wrestling can often be little more than an add-on, a titillating sideshow whose competitors are seldom booked for their athletic ability. Thankfully, though, the UK has a strong women’s wrestling scene, with the distaff sections of PROGRESS and Lucha Britannia – to name just two of the promotions who take it very seriously – putting on matches the equal of anything presented by their penis-endowed colleagues. In addition to the matches on male-dominated cards, the UK also has two female-only promotions – Empress Pro-Wrestling and Bellatrix, and the latter ran their latest show last weekend.

    An offshoot of WAW, which has been run by WWE-star Paige’s dad, Ricky Knight, since the late 1990s, Bellatrix is obviously centered around Paige’s mum, Saraya, but has built a roster of British girls and European and American imports, with a talent exchange arrangement with both Shimmer and Shine. On their latest show, Bellatrix 16, champion Sammi Baynz was unable to defend her title through injury and Saraya installed Lady Lory in her place, making the main event against Destiny (a thirteen-year veteran trained by Saraya, as was Baynz) a non-title match. Earlier in the show, Saraya lost to Liberty, and Queen Maya retained her RQW European title over Erin Angel.

    4) A good hand hung up his boots….somewhat.

    Greg Burridge – also known as Darren Burridge and Baxter Burridge – had his last match on Saturday. Kind of. At Future Pro-Wrestling’s Jingle Bell Brawl, in Sutton, south London, Burridge faced Rob Cage in his farewell match, and won. Two hours later, however, at Lucha Britannia’s Season’s Greetings, Season’s Beatings (part 1), Metallico (who very much resembles Burridge) took on Steakley Bakewell (who has never been seen in the same room as Rob Cage), as part of a lucha three-way with Marduk Malik, and thus proved that Terry Funk doesn’t have the monopoly on odd retirements. The RetroFutureVerse aside, though, Burridge is very much retired, and can look back on a career blemished by injuries and poor timing.

    With good genetics, height, and great natural ability, if he’d stayed fit – and started five years earlier, or five years later – he’d have had the opportunities that the likes of Sheamus O’Shaugnessy, Drew Galloway, and Stu Sanders got but sometimes things don’t go your way. As it is, Burridge was a big part of 1PW, and has appeared for just about every UK company worth noting in the last decade and a half. With an acting career, which also included stunts for the Harry Potter movies, taking off, and still being very much involved in the London School of Lucha Libre and the Lucha Britannia promotion, he’ll not be short of things to occupy his time.

    5) There’s still so much going on!

    If Burridge and Cage did make it through to the weird alternate universe occupied by Lucha Britannia, they might have been dragged there by Lucha Britannia champion Fug, who definitely did do double-duty on Saturday night, defending his title against Lagarto de Plata at the Resistance Gallery just hours after competing as part of Team Windsor for Future-Pro in Sutton. Also on that show were PROGRESS regulars Paul Robinson and Pastor William Eaver. North of the border, ICW held a TV taping for their OnDemand channel and British Championship Wrestling pulled a double shot, in Kilmarnock and East Kilbride, and brought in Carlito & MVP, but the real attractions were Will Ospreay and Marty Scurll, making rare visits to Scotland. Scurll put over local guys both nights, while Ospreay beat BT Gunn but lost in a mouth-watering three-way against Noam Dar and BCW Openweight champion Kenny Williams.

    Chikara-Pro affiliate, Fight Club: Pro staged their Infinity 2015 tournament, which featured Zack Sabre Jr alongside the regulars. Pete Dunne, who competed in this year’s King of Trios tournament, emerged victorious from a field which also included Tyler Bate and Trent Seven. Dave Mastiff successfully defended his FCP title against MK McKinnan on the same show. As well served as the north west, Scotland, and London are for professional wrestling, so too is Bristol, the UK’s tenth largest city. At least four promotions regularly run shows there, and one of those, Chaos Pro-Wrestling, drew almost 500 to Yate Leisure Centre for Rhynos, Boars, Birds & Beards. Alongside Rhyno, Wild Boar, Mike Bird, and the bearded Big Grizzly were Mark Andrews, Flash Morgan Webster, Mikey Whiplash, and Martin Kirby pretending to be a woman. Well, it is pantomime season.

    The long-awaited NXT tour rolls into the UK next week, and most of the bigger promotions are (understandably) laying quiet, but there’s still lots going on. Join me next week for all the happenings!

  • The Week In British Wrestling: Will Ospreay vs. Mark Andrews do it again

    By Alan Boon for WrestlingObserver.com

    It may be late November, and the weather may have taken a turn for the cold and wet, but things are still heating up on the UK wrestling scene. Here are five things you need to know about British wrestling this week.

    1) Will Ospreay and Mark Andrews proved lightning can strike twice.

    When Will Ospreay and Mark Andrews stepped through the ropes at Pro-Wrestling Guerilla’s yearly BOLA extravaganza in August, few thought they’d be two of the standout stars on a card full of the biggest names in independent wrestling (and a sprinkling of lucha, to boot). Once they’d finished their first round bout, few were in doubt of that status. Ospreay, only in his fourth year as a pro, and Andrews, criminally underused in TNA after winning last year’s British Bootcamp competition, put themselves on the worldwide map but only cemented what British fans already knew.

    On Sunday, at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, London, they met again, and put their summer contest firmly in the shade with a jaw-dropping display of head-dropping and acrobatics that had the sellout crowd on their feet and wowed. For Ospreay, it was just the latest in a series of 2015 contests that have seen him rocket up everyone’s top 20 lists, while for Andrews, it was a reminder that he’s back in the main event mix on this side of the Atlantic. We’re happy to see him again.

    2) You can’t halt the march of PROGRESS.

    As 750 people crammed into the Electric Ballroom for the final time in 2015, I’m sure the thoughts of more than a few PROGRESS “ultras” turned to the year-to-date, which saw the culmination of the Jimmy Havoc storyline, the first Super Strong Style 16 Tournament, and a string of sellout shows. By the end of the show – Chapter 23: What A Time To Be Alive! – those other shows and that other stuff, was distant history. Aside from the main event, the aforementioned masterpiece theatre for the PROGRESS title, the rest of the show (six matches, plus two pre-show bouts) reached highs in terms of hard-hitting – Rampage Brown and Austria’s Big Daddy Walter just about broke the ring in the opening bout – and lows in terms of pesky shenanigans – heel stable The Origin finagled their way to the tag-team titles AND a shot at the title at next week’s debut show in Manchester – and had just about everything in between.

    While the absence of Jimmy Havoc leaves a big hole in the shows, such was his influence in a two-year reign of terror, things look very promising for 2016, with monthly London shows and bi-monthly forays up North. That begins early with Chapter 24: Hit The North on Sunday (another sellout), this time in England’s third city. Ospreay defends his title against Zack Gibson, with Zack Sabre Jr. and Tomasso Ciampa joining the regular crew. News on that next week…

    3) Preston isn’t just the home of Wade Barrett; it’s also Ring of Honor’s British base.

    Back in the days of Big Daddy & Giant Haystacks, it used to be that the heavyweights sold tickets but the lighter weights brought the entertainment. That still holds true but the heavyweights have been replaced in recent years by former WWE and TNA imports, and the lighter weights by younger, local talent. Nowhere has that formula been more successful than at Preston City Wrestling, whose promoter Steven Fludder has brought a parade of “name” stars (often in conjunction with memorabilia fairs) to the North West for autograph signings, special appearances, and the odd match, and kept the fans wowed with some of the UK’s top talent.

    This past weekend, though, and for the second year in a row, PCW brought over a ton of ROH stars, including current ROH champion Jay Lethal, alongside Dalton Castle, Adam Cole, reDRagon, Cedric Alexander, and War Machine for the Supershow Of Honor. Although no local star was able to top Lethal, over 2000 fans attended the weekend shows to witness the ROH and UK talent trade wins across four shows. PCW heavyweight champion Dave Mastiff also fought off all-comers, but Adam Cole was able to steal away the Cruiserweight belt from el Ligero, promising to keep hold for a long time.

    4) Rebellious Scots won’t be crushed.

    Two weeks on from their MASSIVE Fear & Loathing supershow at Glasgow’s SECC, Insane Championship Wrestling picked up their storylines at the puntastic Fear & Lothian show, held at in the heart of Lothian at Edinburgh’s City nightclub. The success of ICW has been built on a foundation of love for WWF’s Attitude Era and classic ECW, and the swerve was in early as former general manager Red Lightning revealed he was, in fact, majority owner of the company and would do everything he could to rid ICW of its incredi-popular champion, Grado.

    Luckily for ICW’s fans, Red Lightning’s chosen man, Lionheart (fresh from being HATED at PCW’s Supershow Of Honor weekend), came up short, but New Age Kliq main man Chris Renfrew announced he would cash in his title shot at the company’s next big show, Square Go in Glasgow on January 24th. Noam Dar also earned a title shot at Square Go by winning a number one contenders’ match for Davey Blaze’s Zero-G championship – that’s if Blaze makes it through the next couple of TV tapings without Stevie Boy and the NAK taking him out.

    5) There’s so much going on!

    Elsewhere, the Scottish Wrestling Alliance held a big show at the Lagoon Centre, in Paisley, which saw Mark Coffey pin Drew Galloway to become the new SWA champion and appearances from Will Ospreay, Grado, Jack Gallagher, Kenny Williams, and Viper. Ahead of bringing in Pentagon Jr and Drago (and, erm, Tatanka) in January, 4 Front Wrestling opened their doors in Emerson Green in Bristol on Saturday night, and drew a healthy crowd for a show headlined by an eight-man elimination match, featuring the Hunter Brothers and Saul Adams.

    Earlier in the week, PROGRESS held the third of their PTNTL trainee shows at a new venue, Nambucca, in north London. The show featured ProJo trainees of all levels of development, and was main-evented by a six-man featuring the promotion’s most senior rookies which saw the team of Sweet Bearded Jesus – California hippy surfer Chuck Mambo, full-bearded Kyle Ashmore & Pastor William Eaver defeat Hong Kong’s Shen Woo, the bruiser Damon Moser & the outrageous Jack Sexsmith by pinfall. Also of note was Kamikaze-Pro’s latest show in the chocolate town of Bournville, Birmingham, starring Rhyno, Juventud Guerrera, Jody Fleisch, Jonny Storm, the Dunne Brothers, and Tyler Bate.

    Next weekend sees PROGRESS make their way to Manchester for the first time, Lucha Britannia run a rare Saturday, Pro-Wrestling CHAOS end their year in Bristol, and WAW & Bellatrix promoting a double-shot in Norwich, featuring the top UK women’s talent, as well as WWE star Paige’s father, mother, and brothers! Join me then for all the news that’s fit to print!

    (Special thanks to Ben Corrigan for contributing to this report!)

  • The Week In British Wrestling: Lucha Britannia, PROGRESS season tickets, more

    By Alan Boon for WrestlingObserver.com

    1) The big news this week is tickets!

    PROGRESS put their 2016 season tickets on sale: valid for every one of the eleven events held at Camden’s Electric Ballroom next year. They sold over TWO HUNDRED of them with the front row (priced at £264, roughly $400) and the gold (second and third rows, £242/$360) selling out in under a minute. The promotion has always had a great record of selling out shows without announcing a single match, but this is a leap of faith that demonstrates just how essential their shows have become to UK fans. Later in the week on the heels of their triumphant Fear & Loathing VIII show at Glasgow’s SECC, Insane Championship Wrestling put tickets on sale for Fear & Loathing IX at the Hydro, a building set up for 11,000 seats. On the first day alone they sold FIFTEEN HUNDRED tickets, which is more than TNA sold the last time they ran the Hydro in January of this year. All that for a promotion with no TV and a niche product which owes more to classic ECW than a mainstream pro-wrestling product.

    2) One of the UK’s best kept secrets is Lucha Britannia, presenting chaotic and innovative showcases in a disused railway arch in London’s East End.

    The promotion started way back in 2006 out of the ashes of RAMWA – Rock And Metal Wrestling Alternative. Showing no sign of – nor desire to – moving out of the two-hundred-capacity Resistance Gallery (which they own), their monthly shows sell out to a crowd made up of wrestling fans, hipsters, and curious onlookers. As well as products of their training school, the London School of Lucha Libre, their shows are populated by a who’s who of the UK’s brightest with Will Ospreay, Paul Robinson, RJ Singh, and even WWE World Heavyweight champion Sheamus having walked through the tightly-packed crowd to the ring. The school, by the way, has regular guest training spots by lucha legends Juventud Guerrera and Cassandro who are the only people from “our” dimension to have entered the “RetroFutureVerse” unchanged.

    Last Friday’s show saw Jimmy Havoc return to the promotion, resurrecting his exótico alter-ego Glamsexico to face Juventud Guerrera, as well as the debut of “Anunaki Pharaoh” Marduk Malik, a “Sumerian god” who hit an EIGHT-FOOT dropkick on his way to winning the opening Lucha Chaos match, which also featured Freddie Mercurio, the resurrected rock star.

    3) Another bold diversion from the traditional pro wrestling route trodden by most UK promotions is Tetsujin, who held their first show on Friday night in Liverpool.

    Aiming to present a shoot-style spectacle, along the lines of classic UWFI and Battlarts, and with bouts decided only by submission or knockout, they engaged a ton of the UK’s top names for a one-night only tournament, as well as two of Europe’s finest in Tommy End and Big Daddy Walter for a non-tournament slugfest. Fittingly, Jack Gallagher – a northern-based pure grappler who works a traditional British style of holds and reversals – came out on top, overcoming Zack Gibson, Dave Mastiff, and Chris Brookes on his way to the title. The show, held at the Black-E nightclub, did not draw fantastically well, but it’s a sign of the breadth of the UK scene that this promotion can exist and run on the same night as a lucha show.

    4) Zack Sabre Jr. made his final appearance for Pro Wrestling NOAH.

    Although he spends most of his time outside the UK, we still claim Sabre Jr. as our own and he made his final NOAH appearance with his future endeavours somewhat shrouded in mystery at this point. The smart money has him moving to California, where presumably he will continue to be a regular for Pro-Wrestling Guerilla, as well as EVOLVE and other US indies. The California aspect raises questions of whether Lucha Underground is in his future, but him being featured in a WWE.com article on EVOLVE’s best talent – along with the aggressive acquisition policy of NXT lately – can’t rule out a run in Orlando. Like Neville, who worked all over the UK for the best part of a decade as Pac, Sabre Jr. is held in high-regard by British indy fans, and his any further success will shine brightly on the scene that birthed him.

    5) After two quiet weeks show-wise, things woke up with a score of shows last weekend from the southwest of England to Scotland’s capital.

    Discovery Wrestling presented Live In Edinburgh, and brought TNA bootcamp stars Mark Andrews, Grado, and Rampage Brown in, alongside ICW’s Joe Coffey & Joe Hendry, Nikki Storm, and the “Beast of Belfast” Big Damo. Across Scotland, in Glasgow, Pride Wrestling also brought in Big Damo, Joe Coffey, and Nikki Storm, while further south in Manchester, Futureshock Wrestling held a tournament won by Zack Gibson. HOP:E did a quick two-day shot, in Mansfield and Milton Keynes, with el Ligero, Jack Jester, Doug Williams, the GZRS, and Martin Kirby featuring, and Mark Andrews and former-NXT prospect Joel Redman pulled on their boots for Pro-Wrestling Evolution in Trowbridge.

    The biggest show of the weekend, though, was Tidal Championship Wrestling’s 2nd Anniversary show at the University of Leeds, which drew a decent crowd to witness Dara Diablo retain his TCW title over el Ligero, on a show which also featured Rampage Brown, Tyler Bate, and Addy Starr, a former Inter-Species Wrestling (Quebec) competitor.

    *****

    Next weekend is a HUGE one for the UK scene, with PROGRESS opening their doors for their latest chapter and Preston City Wrestling presenting their Supershow Of Honor weekend, with Ring of Honor sending over reDRagon, Roderick Strong, Dalton Castle, and ROH champion Jay Lethal to mix it with the UK’s best.