Paypress testing

Tag: ICW

  • 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: 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!

  • ICW Fear and Loathing VIII Results: Grado vs. Drew Galloway

    Submitted By Tony Cottam

    Results and notes from the ICW Fear And Loathing VIII show.

    Results:

    — ICW Zero G Championship
    Davey Boy (w/ The Wee Man) defeated Stevie Boy (c)

    — 6 man Tag 
    Joe Hendry, Noam Dar & Kenny Williams defeated Liam Thomson, Lionheart & Doug Williams (Jimmy Havoc run in attack on the Thomson, Lionheart & Doug Williams team; after the match Carmel challenged Liam Thomson to a match at the next show, Square Go)

    — Tournament final for the new ICW Women’s Championship
    Mick Foley banned any ringside interference and added Viper to the match, making it a Three Way Dance
    Viper defeated Nikki Storm and Kay Lee Ray to become the first ICW Women’s Champion

    — Joe Coffey defeated Rhyno

    — ICW Tag Team Championship
    Polo Promotions (c) – Jackie Polo & Mark Coffey (w. Coach Trip & DCT) defeated The 55 – Kid Fite and Sha Samuels (w/ James R Kennedy and Timm Wylie to retan their titles

    — 6 Man Steel Cage Tag
    Teams win by all three members escaping.
    The New Age Kliq – Chris Renfrew, Wolfgang & BT Gunn eventually defeated The Legion – Tommy End, Dante & Mikey Whiplash. Order of Elimination: Wolfgang, Dante & Tommy End, Chris Renfrew and then Gunn & Whiplash crashed through tables at ringside at the same to make it a draw; Whiplash demanded that Gunn face him one on one and the match restarted as sudden death, with a pinfall to finish – Gunn pinned Whiplash for the victory.

    — Big Damo defeated Jack Jester

    — ICW World Heavyweight Championship
    Grado defeated Drew Galloway (c)
    Suspended GM Red Lightning tried to get involved, but was stopped by Mick Foley; ICW owner Mark Dallas counted the pinfall after a ref bump.

    Notes:

    — Legitimate sold out and packed 4000 crowd in Hall 3 of the SECC (Scottish Exhibition & Conference Centre) the second biggest venue in Scotland.
    — Mick Foley as guest GM for the night, the only other import was Rhyno, who has a history of working ICW shows – no one shot big names to help pad the card.
    — Owner Mark Dallas announced next year’s Fear And Loathing would be in the larger SSE Hydro – on paper, the second busiest venue in the world after the O2 Arena in London. This is absolutely HUGE for ICW, the same arena that TNA ran their televised shows from and that the WWE run on their tours now.
    — Show started on time at 7pm, no mean feat with the size of the queues outside when the doors opened at 6.30pm
    — Stars of Scottish TV police sitcom “Scot Squad” appeared after the first 6 man tag match and “arrested” Lionheart to a big reaction.
    — The Grado vs. Galloway match had a legitimate “big match feel” to it – there was an atmosphere like nothing else I’ve ever experienced at any wresting show I’ve been too.
    — Mick Foley’s involvement was minimal, but he was well used.
    — Excellent show, well worth checking out on the ICW On Demand service.