Submitted by Stephen Lyon from Manchester, UK’s Manchester Arena
– Cesaro beat Stardust
Cesaro won, following 10 giant swings & making him submit in the sharpshooter. Fun 10 minute opener.
– Zack Ryder & Darren Young beat Heath Slater & Bo Dallas
Finish saw Ryder pin Dallas with the Rough Ryder. Exactly what you’d think it would be.
– Rusev beat Jack Swagger
Swagger came out with the Union Jack flag. Rusev won with the Accolade submission win. Average match.
– WWE Tag Team Champions The New Day beat Usos & Dudleys
Fun match, one of the best on the show. Dudleys came out with a Liverpool FC flag in Manchester to get heat (soccer rivals, plus Bubba is a Liverpool fan). New Day’s house show act is great. All sorts of wackiness from the trio, mostly weird dance moves.
– Sin Cara beat Tyler Breeze
SC won after hitting the swanton bomb. Average match.
– Divas Champion Charlotte beat Sasha Banks & Becky Lynch
Ric Flair was in Charlotte’s corner. Fun match. Charlotte pinned Becky with both feet on the ropes.
– WWE Champion Roman Reigns beat Sheamus
Sheamus came out and did a promo based on the Liverpool/Manchester soccer rivalry, and even sang the Liverpool FC club anthem (“You’ll Never Walk Alone”) to major heat. Reigns still came out to boos, I’d say 60/40 cheers in his favour. Standard match, Reigns won after a spear.
Notes:
It was a by the numbers house show with nothing spectacular. Obviously, there were less stars than usual due to the Smackdown tapings going on at the same time in London. But still, we got the World, Tag & Women’s champions so it wasn’t that bad. Lots of kids in attendance. Reigns got 60-40 cheers. Booing him is definitely becoming the cool thing to do, even for the kids/families that Reigns claimed he was being targeted to.
In other news, the U.K. dates for the November 2016 tour have been announced:
4th November – London (Wembley Arena)
5th November – Manchester
6th November – Newcastle & Leeds
7th November – Glasgow – Raw TV
8th November – Glasgow – Smackdown TV
9th November – Birmingham
10th November – Cardiff
Tickets are on sale starting Friday, May 6.
The notable things here are that they are doing TV from Glasgow, Scotland for the first time ever, at the Hydro Arena. This is really interesting because they’re running the Hydro Arena building less than 2 weeks before ICW is running the biggest show in their history at the same arena, which simply can’t be a coincidence.
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!)
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.
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!
