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Tag: British wrestling

  • The Week In British Wrestling: ICW draws biggest crowd in 30 years

    Image: Insane Championship Wrestling

    By Alan Boon for WrestlingObserver.com

    British wrestling is on the up, with some of the bigger promotions drawing huge crowds, some of the smaller ones doing very interesting things with pro-wrestling, and some of our homegrown stars making waves outside their home territory. Here are five things you need to know about the scene this week:

    1) ICW drew the biggest British wrestling crowd in over thirty years on Sunday night, when they presented Fear & Loathing VIII at the SECC in Glasgow.

    The promotion, formed in Glasgow in 2006 by Mark Dallas, have had a banner year, with two national tours, two documentaries on BBC TV, and a series of sell-out shows in ever bigger halls in their hometown. For Sunday’s show, they booked an almost entirely British crew, with only Rhyno – who is involved in storylines as a regular import – and the Sumerian Death Squad from Holland, flying in. Mick Foley was brought in as host, but it’s clear that the huge majority of the four thousand tickets were sold on ICW’s reputation for a great show. Before the show started, they announced that Fear & Loathing IX would be held at the Hydro, a thirteen thousand capacity venue across the city. It may be a step too far but few would bet against Dallas and his crew making it.

    As for the show itself, Grado became the new ICW Heavyweight champion, defeating Drew Galloway after a typically-ICW series of run-ins and surprises, with the whole roster celebrating in the ring with him afterwards. Earlier in the show, Viper became the first ICW Women’s champion, and Davey Boy beat Stevie Boy in the battle of the Buckie Boys to win the ICW Zero G title. The show will be up on ICW On Demand by the time you read this, and is well worth a look.

    2) It’s WAR!

    Well, it’s not really, but there is a big clash coming up in January, when PROGRESS’ next ENDVR show goes head to head with Revolution Pro-Wrestling’s next TV taping, just three miles away. ENDVR is the middle of three tiers that PROGRESS operate at, and while it’s not the big shows that sell out the 750-seat Electric Ballroom every month, it does sell out the 300-seat Garage in Highbury Corner. RevPro’s tapings, at the perfect-for-TV-wrestling Cockpit theatre in Marylebone, are stacked with talent, and the promotion had advertised Zack Sabre Jr before he was booked by PWG, and have now booked Will Ospreay versus ACH. It will give the hardcore fans a tough choice, but with ENDVR tickets having been on sale a week before RevPro announced their date, PROGRESS have the upper hand. RevPro owner Andy Quildan has gone on record as saying he prefers to work with other promotions rather than against them and this seems to be a case of an unavoidable clash. But WAR makes for a better story…

    3) British talent continues to turn heads in the U.S.

    Will Ospreay, Marty Scurll, and Mark Andrews – who competed in PWG’s BOLA 2015 – are making a return trip to the Los Angeles promotion next month. While Andrews and Scurll might be known to some from their TNA connections, Ospreay is the real surprise package this year, and it’s been reported that AAA offered him a deal last month. Ospreay is only three years into his career, yet carries himself like a seasoned pro – there are few better babyfaces (“blue eyes” in old school British parlance) out there, with everything he does having meaning and impact. He’s just turned heel (or “villain”!) for IPW:UK and this reporter, for one, is interested to see how he pulls that off. American fans could do worse than get in on the ground floor – the Ospreay bandwagon starts here.

    4) As well as our guys going over there, the Americans came here last week, with WWE touring the UK and Ireland (and bits of Europe, too).

    While they were here they took a look at some of our talent, with try-outs being held before Raw in Manchester last Monday. Seen trying to impress WWE scouts were Scottish standout Nikki Storm, North East powerhouse Jason Prime, sometime luchadora Nina Samuels, Australian émigré Toni Storm, and the “Beast of Belfast” Big Damo. Damo’s had quite a year already, having faced Tomohiro Ishii, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Hiroshi Tanahashi for RevPro, and he’d certainly be comfortable in NXT.

    5) While most of the UK’s attention was understandably focused on the ICW show, there were still a dozen shows on Friday and Saturday, up and down the UK.

    Target Wrestling ran both Carlisle and Workington, and drew decent crowds with Grado and Rockstar Spud along for the ride, while NGW left their usual east coast base to run Lancashire’s west coast in Ormskirk, where Nathan Cruz defended his NGW Heavyweight title against CJ Banks. One of the more interesting shows took place in Northwich, where Great Bear Wrestling – sister promotion to RAWlternative standouts (and Chikara-Pro King of Trios entrants) Attack Pro-Wrestling – promoted Teach Me How To Dance With You, featuring teenage phenom Tyler Bate, and a Great Bear Heavyweight title match between Axel Dieter Jr and Jack Gallagher. Also on the card was Chris Brookes, continuing his brilliant heel run of defeating women, this time taking down Alexis Rose. Nixon Newell looms large in his future, I’m sure…

    After two fairly quiet weeks – if you count almost 4000 people flocking to an indy show a quiet week! – next weekend hots up, with a TON of shows on offer. Join me again next week for a rundown of the movers, shakers, and headline makers!

  • Zack Sabre Jr., Finn Balor selfies & 5 weekly things to know about British wrestling

    Submitted by Alan Boon

    A whole generation has grown up since wrestling was last on nationwide TV in the United Kingdom, and yet when people think of the term “British wrestling” they imagine the athletes of those glory years and the style of wrestling they purveyed.

    But, while the sport entered a lull for the first decade and a half after Greg Dyke decided to cancel the weekly showcase on ITV’s World Of Sport, it has been on the rise again for the last fifteen years, resulting in a current scene that can see a score of shows every weekend, some playing to four figure crowds. What’s more, Britain’s wrestlers have been able to parlay it into a full-time job, and made waves overseas, with British and Irish talent flooding into WWE, and becoming star attractions on America’s independent scene.

    So, with that in mind, here are 5 things you need to know about British wrestling this week:

    1) It’s been quiet, show-wise, in the UK this week, because WWE – and the huge, money-hoovering juggernaut – are in town.

    While the lack of Adam Rose’s Rosebuds didn’t give us the opportunity to see the likes of Dave Mastiff, Zack Gibson, and Nina Samuels dancing on the entrance ramp, those who attended WWE’s London house show may have seen PROGRESS co-owner Glen Joseph flash up on the screen in a selfie taken with Finn Balor. Balor had his last non-WWE match for PROGRESS – against Jimmy Havoc – and stays tight with the promotion.

    2) Speaking of PROGRESS, they announced the first match for their inaugural trip to Manchester next month – a mouth-watering contest between Zack Sabre Jr and Tommaso Ciampa.

    PROGRESS are a little over three years old, and have made enormous strides in that time, becoming one of the major promotions in a market stuffed with choices. They’ve previously only run in London (and will present their twenty-third “chapter” show there a week before Manchester) but this is their first foray into new territory and is, of course, sold out. Sabre Jr and Ciampa have almost traded places of late, with Zack basing himself in Japan for Pro-Wrestling NOAH and becoming a feature attraction for British promotions, and Ciampa making appearances all over the UK on regular tours. That this is possible is a marker for how far the British scene has, erm, PROGRESSed.

    3) Another promotion to have announced a Zack Sabre Jr match is New Generation Wrestling, based in Hull, who have booked him for their end-of-year blowout, Eternal Glory.

    Sabre Jr will face Zack Gibson, this year’s winner of NGW’s annual Davey Boy Smith Cup. NGW are the only promotion currently enjoying anything near national TV, with a monthly showcase on satellite and cable channel Challenge, and a weekly show syndicated to various lowly-viewed local cable channels across the UK. One of the men behind NGW is Alex Shane, the doyen of trying to get British wrestling back on TV, and he’s still working extremely hard towards that goal. How valuable it is now, with so many other options available – PROGRESS and ICW have well-subscribed on-demand channels, and Revolution-Pro makes great use of YouTube, is debatable, but the chase is still very much on.

    4) While WWE took most of the money and attention from British fans this weekend, there were some shows out there delivering the usual mix of local talent, British stars, and the odd import.

    Ultimo Dragon, enjoying an Indian summer in Europe of late, appeared for 4Front Wrestling in Bristol, a week after tearing the house down against Juventud Guerrera for the same promotion. 4FW have used John Morrison recently, and are also bringing in Pentagon Jr and Drago for a show early next year, giving a small part of the UK a taste of Lucha Underground. Guerrera also made a stop with IPW:UK at their Supershow in Rochester, although the big draws there were a three-way between Will Ospreay, Blackbelt Dawson, and Paul Robinson, and Jimmy Havoc putting his All-England title on the line against sometime TNA confuser Grado.

    5) Grado is also the big draw for the biggest UK show in quite some time next weekend, when Insane Championship Wrestling host their sold-out Fear & Loathing show at the SECC in Glasgow.

    Grado versus Drew Galloway, for the ICW Heavyweight title, is the main event on a show which has relied on consistent quality, local stars, and word-of-mouth to sell four thousand tickets, with only Rhyno – a regular import and involved in a storyline – flown in from the US. ICW have been featured in two documentary films on BBC3, a satellite and cable channel aimed at teenagers and twenty-somethings, and have reaped the reward, although their own efforts in building something quite spectacular – and certainly unique – have played as much a part as any televisual deus ex machina. Where they go next – and where British wrestling as a whole goes next – is a fascinating prospect worthy of its own documentary series.

    That ICW show will be the main discussion point of the British wrestling scene next week but there’s sure to be five more things you need to know, with announcements promised by Revolution Pro-Wrestling and PROGRESS, and much much more!