TCW - wipeout 2017 Church nightclub Leeds, February 19th
Pre show pint was Newcastle thunder vs hunslet hawks in the ipro challenge cup.
Because rugby league...
Hunslet player warming up with a resistance band or proving that bondage is never a one man pursuit. Another one is doing the shittest can can ever.
Fight sees one of hunslet sent off.
Thunder won by the way.
The venue - slightly bigger than the riverside, £4.80 for red stripe? Nope. Big ball of nope. Doing this one dry. The rugby ground have bottles of best bitter at £3.00 here it's brewdog pisswater for £4.80 or grapefruit pisswater for tenpence more. The Yorkshire in me is coming through
Gripes about prices aside, there's probably around the same amount of people here as were at NORTH - just not as many on the balcony and theres space around the ring, guardrails etc here.
Havoc is out. His collar bone is fucked. He's off the card.
The services's Dan Evans is out for the first match - their music is that familiar horror film loop, which would make sense as Dan James came out to that in Darlington. His opposition is provided by Ace Matthews.
He hates people chanting "Dan" apparently.
Nice work here from both of the lads, though seeing Ace as a face is kind of unfortunate - there's nothing there apart from the tennis references and wrestling clean against a member of a heel faction.
Ace went over after an enzeguri and back suplex.
Lana Austin (womens champion) out to defend next against Lizzie styles. Looks like Lana's working heel here.??
The family from Norfolk are here - nice to see them again!
Lizzie interrupts the schtick with the ref slapping Lana's arse then kicking her head and rolling her up.
Moonsault attempt by Styles thwarted with a powerbomb by Lana. Eat de-feet by Styles.
Lana with a DDT to win and retain the title. Lizzie moons the Norwich folk before leaving
CJ banks vs Joseph Conners next.
Starting off with a handshake - nice to see the sportsmanship here. Collar and elbow tie ups and jockeying for position third one followed by some great chain work - this is act one of an absolute epic wrestling match.
Act 1 - The feeling out process
Act 2 - The fight
Act 3 - The scramble for the win
Conners takes the win with the "DLD" - it looks better in person than it did on TV. The Service take to the stage to applaud Conners as he heads to the back.
TCW title on the line - Eddie Dennis vs Rampage Brown.
Eddie looking confused at the support being for the hometown hero Rampage, and not for him.
Eddie spends a while backing away from Rampage.
When they do lock up, Rampage starts overpowering him easily. Dennis acknowledges the fact that Rampage is massive.
The shoulder blocks off the ropes start, and after a failure from Dennis, a Lucha mask is produced and donned. The Pride of Wales starts uncorking the head scissors and suicide dives. Rampage acquires the mask and does a rolling senton over the ropes Guerrero style before despatching the mask and going back to the power moves
Rampage retains after reversing a super Plex into a small package. Fun match all in all. The ending didn't hurt anyone, but showed them on an almost equal footing.
Minor ring maintenance taking place during the interval.
Second half starts.
Dara Diablo out for the service. That horror film loop is both perfect and annoying in equal measure. Put to good use for the heel faction. Sean Only is out with him. As tempting as a "you're just a shit James Castle" chant is, he seems angry enough at this point.
White Tiger is the lamb to the Service's slaughter tonight
Armdrags to start - Diablo evaded for a bit, and tried to keep up his strength and power game against the luchador. White tiger is keeping on top though with the faster paced offence.
Only trips tiger from the outside on a dive attempt and is ejected.
A fair amount of back and forth here with no real advantage being taken.
Tiger goes for a double stamp, misses and is met with some kind of vicious looking lariat neckbreaker thing that looked like it almost decapitated him. Dara goes over with that.
Ligero comes out for his match with Sean Only, and is quickly attacked by Dara and Only. Double team wheelbarrow kerbstomp onto a chair basically kills Ligero. I really hope that mask has some protection under it. Faces and ring crew out to check on him.
Jumpin John Myers says he's done and the match is called off. Only tells Tidal that he'll sue if it doesn't go ahead.
One foot cover for an easy, quick win by only. El Ligero kicks out at two, but there's not much behind it.
For the duration of this one Only keeps kicking Ligero down, choking him and basically pasting him all over the place.
The referee is pulled in the path of a flying kick by Ligero. Interference and a whip reversal into a chair held by Dara Diablo lead to the Mexican wave splash and the comeback win for Ligero. The service are understandably surprised and upset.
Riots vs Nation - TCW tag titles on the line
Round 3... Fight!
Brawl all over the place to start this one. The Riots try to kneecap Primate using the cricket bat and chairs. The ref decides that he's throwing this one out.
Primate is helped to the back by the ring crew.
Henry's not having any of this and wants to take both of the Riots himself, Demanding that the ref restarts the match. And he does.
Brief flurry of offence by Henry, the Riots take over quickly though.
The Riots hit a nasty senton on Henry who was being draped over the second rope.
Henry keeps trying to fight them off as they take advantage of the numbers, until Primate hobbles back and makes the save. Shatter machine gives the Nation the win.
Looks like the rings broken at the edge - luckily the bloke who built it is in the next match...
Main event time
Ht Drake vs.... Amir Jordan? Drake's sceptical that Havoc picked Jordan.
Nice technical work here from both.
Amir wants a dance off and Drake obliges with a spineroonie before a waist lock take down on Amir. Drake locks in a surfboard submission, but Amir is in the ropes.
Amir is on fire here. Nice swanton bomb on to Drake. Battle around the outside after a couple of dives. Drake takes back over after reversing a whip into the ring post.
Drake looks about to take the win, the service surround the ring. Havoc comes out, seemingly to help, but wipes out Jordan and Drake. The New Nation come out to help but get laid out as well.
Havoc says he hired the service to fuck things up in Tidal since they weren't using him, And now they're taking over.
The show ends with Drake, the nation and Jordan recovering and raising their hands. Looks like the service has some opposition.
Unfortunately I didn't get to the following event - I do hope to get back to one in the near future though.
Saturday, 15 April 2017
(P, PD, BRS) House of Pain Lethal Lottery, St Ann's church hall Nottingham
House of pain - lethal lottery St Anns church Nottingham January 28th 2017
The venue here is a church hall - nice retro feel for myself in attending event at a venue like this, not since the old IWF shows in Gateshead have I been to one. It's looking like a decent crowd, a fair amount of youngsters - that's always a good thing when it's advertisement said it was 100% family friendly.
Now, I know this blog is called pints, piledrivers and bus replacement services, there's no alcohol at the venue - again, with it being a family friendly show, this could be a good thing - especially as a lot of folk have driven here. So, for the purposes of this event, I'm rebranding it coffee, codebreakerers and completely misunderstanding Google maps (walking around trying to find the place initially - hey, it's my first time in Nottingham, gimme a break) there's plenty of time for the pint/pub portion afterwards
The venue is about 3/4 the size of the innesfree back in Newcastle - I'll be honest that's about the best frame of reference I can come up with, my estimates of potential house sizes aren't the best (my career as an estate agent beckons), and it is pretty much full - save a few seats that were reserved and not used. Lighting wise 6 full yet filtered square ceiling lights. not filtered as in coloured, but softened to a nice mellow yet functional level. It works here because it suits the venue, it's pretty much full, and the ring is fairly large - there's not much chance of focus being lost.
The ring is a good 2ft extra along each side than the one the I'm used to seeing at home promotions. The ring posts appear to have a little bit of an inward lean on them, I'm not sure if that's intentional or not. Real ropes as opposed to cables, good to see that's a tradition being kept, even if they do tend to loosen over time.
The ring announcer and ref are out with the extremely popular Joey Cement (I might be wrong, but it seems like he's one of the young trainees who's on ring crew - one thing is for certain, he's well over) to give us an introduction to what is happening tonight, they know nothing. Anyone can be involved and anything can happen. The bell rings, and Joey Cement rolls up the announcer for the quick win!
Steven Harris comes out with Harley. They are not well liked here, and it looks like the feeling is mutual.
Sensational Saj Malik is his opponent for this singles match.
Steven is trying to use his technical skills and power against the sensational one, and keep the pace slow. That's not happening straight away, lots of head scissors and fast paced defence / reversals to start from Saj. Harley's keeping her presence felt on the outside with some well placed interference and vocal interaction with the audience.
Steven would eventually get the better of Saj, in a contest that made great use of all of the space in and around the ring. Great (formal) opener.
Six man tag action up next with Sam Spencer, a guy In a tux who's name sounded like Theodore DiamondAnd Harley (with Steven Harris) vs Danny Thomas, Karl Brown and one half of the House of Pain tag champs, BFD.
Harris is ejected at the start of this one. Harley and Harris aren't happy about this in the slightest.
Lots of good interaction with the crowd from the heels
Harley giving a great showing, the fact that she's the only woman in the match isn't phasing her at all
Eyerake on the rope by Diamond and a side suplex right out of Dino bravo 1989 playbook. Nice to see these still being executed so well.
Spencer is an absolute beast, I wouldn't be surprised to see him on more cards soon. So is BFD - who finished it for his team with a black hole slam
Next up: Princess Charlie Logan vs Vegan powered Nick Hendricks
The Vegan as a heel is a bit of an odd one that I've never quite got. The condescending preachy aspect isn't something I've ever encountered in real life situations I've not been able to just walk away from. That being said, this guy wears it well. The obnoxious smirk and dismissal of his opponent today is enough to reinforce his place in this match.
Fantastic big guy vs small woman match, story told really well. With Charlie going over with a roll up
Danny Chase and Sam Spencer are out for the next randomly drawn match - Disco Dan is the opponent
Disco is trying to get chase to dance, and it looks like it might happen
The heels bail and disco brings in Princess Logan and half the audience in to cha cha slide.
Then I don't know exactly what happened, but I might have slipped into an alternative universe where Chase and Spencer did the "time of my life" routine from Dirty Dancing. Full routine including the lift!
Danny Chase gets the win after retaliating to a sneak behind trip and roll up attempt from Disco Dan. Apparently "nobody puts Danny in the corner". The beating he gave the Disco Cat showed us why.
I really hope someone was taping that cause that was so god damned funny it was unreal
Interval - some nice merchandise here - no xls though, so I'm gonna have to go online..
Concrete, the announcer and referee come back to the ring for the second half.
Our second half opener is a tag team match set for one fall.
Syntax is out first - the masked man is massively popular here.
James Stewart is his partner, and does not garner the same reaction. It looks like we have a heel and face team brought together by the draw here
Opposition provided by the other half of the House of Pain tag champs Joseph Starr and Tommy Taylor
Great fundamentals from all 4. Both teams are not getting along.
Starr and Taylor the first to crack with Starr forarming Taylor in the face. Taylor would get revenge when Stewart tagged in, throw syntax out and Taylor took the opportunity to level Starr and dragged Stewart on top of him for the pin costing himself and star the match. Excellent reinforcement of Taylor's recent heel turn.
Nathan Nyx with the Supermodel Visage - or should I say against...
The banter between these two is awesome as they please not to have to fight each other. A double lay down/pin was their first attempt at getting out of it.
Multiple refusals to fight insue until the threat of a double head shave from Stixx' was put on the table.
A reluctant square up with a pinky promise of no face shots starts a pretty good match between these two. The promise held up until visage had his Japanese style paper fan broken amongst the antics.
Visage ends it with a sneaky kick after coming out of a make up hug. Visage is highly entertaining, and Nyx definitely held his own.
Our main event of the night is a 6 man scramble match for the House of Pain Title
The world warrior Juken
Ruthless Bjorn Jones,
House of Pain champion Kyle Kingsley
Timberwolf
The Righteous Joseph Conners
G-wiz Garrett Bond
Highlights - dives, great chain work, towers of doom, Conners going ape on timberwolf leaving him a back redder than the ring skirts after a chopping match with Ric Flair
Plenty more too - all of these guys have great futures ahead of them.
Jukin over with an insane looking cross calf hold German suplex.
All in all this was a great show - lots of very promising young talent here. Stixx and Juken are doing a fantastic job giving these guys the building blocks for great careers.
Back to the town centre
The post show pint at the lord Roberts. Kopek stout - dark and smoky enough to satisfy.
It was like nectar. The pub isn't badly priced, but artisan facial hair virus is rampant here and the bouncer looks like a cross between porkpie from Desmond's (fuck me I'm dating myself with that reference) and an American 1950s portrayal of a gangster
I like it here - but I'm not shaving while I can remember what the locals look like.
Supplemental- robbing bastards award goes to the Six Barrels, where a pint of snecklifter cost £4.10. I don't know when snecklifter became a craft brew!
Quick tip for anyone going from Nottingham to Lincoln - in the winter, the first train is mid afternoon. The line is closed half of the day for some reason.
The venue here is a church hall - nice retro feel for myself in attending event at a venue like this, not since the old IWF shows in Gateshead have I been to one. It's looking like a decent crowd, a fair amount of youngsters - that's always a good thing when it's advertisement said it was 100% family friendly.
Now, I know this blog is called pints, piledrivers and bus replacement services, there's no alcohol at the venue - again, with it being a family friendly show, this could be a good thing - especially as a lot of folk have driven here. So, for the purposes of this event, I'm rebranding it coffee, codebreakerers and completely misunderstanding Google maps (walking around trying to find the place initially - hey, it's my first time in Nottingham, gimme a break) there's plenty of time for the pint/pub portion afterwards
The venue is about 3/4 the size of the innesfree back in Newcastle - I'll be honest that's about the best frame of reference I can come up with, my estimates of potential house sizes aren't the best (my career as an estate agent beckons), and it is pretty much full - save a few seats that were reserved and not used. Lighting wise 6 full yet filtered square ceiling lights. not filtered as in coloured, but softened to a nice mellow yet functional level. It works here because it suits the venue, it's pretty much full, and the ring is fairly large - there's not much chance of focus being lost.
The ring is a good 2ft extra along each side than the one the I'm used to seeing at home promotions. The ring posts appear to have a little bit of an inward lean on them, I'm not sure if that's intentional or not. Real ropes as opposed to cables, good to see that's a tradition being kept, even if they do tend to loosen over time.
The ring announcer and ref are out with the extremely popular Joey Cement (I might be wrong, but it seems like he's one of the young trainees who's on ring crew - one thing is for certain, he's well over) to give us an introduction to what is happening tonight, they know nothing. Anyone can be involved and anything can happen. The bell rings, and Joey Cement rolls up the announcer for the quick win!
Steven Harris comes out with Harley. They are not well liked here, and it looks like the feeling is mutual.
Sensational Saj Malik is his opponent for this singles match.
Steven is trying to use his technical skills and power against the sensational one, and keep the pace slow. That's not happening straight away, lots of head scissors and fast paced defence / reversals to start from Saj. Harley's keeping her presence felt on the outside with some well placed interference and vocal interaction with the audience.
Steven would eventually get the better of Saj, in a contest that made great use of all of the space in and around the ring. Great (formal) opener.
Six man tag action up next with Sam Spencer, a guy In a tux who's name sounded like Theodore DiamondAnd Harley (with Steven Harris) vs Danny Thomas, Karl Brown and one half of the House of Pain tag champs, BFD.
Harris is ejected at the start of this one. Harley and Harris aren't happy about this in the slightest.
Lots of good interaction with the crowd from the heels
Harley giving a great showing, the fact that she's the only woman in the match isn't phasing her at all
Eyerake on the rope by Diamond and a side suplex right out of Dino bravo 1989 playbook. Nice to see these still being executed so well.
Spencer is an absolute beast, I wouldn't be surprised to see him on more cards soon. So is BFD - who finished it for his team with a black hole slam
Next up: Princess Charlie Logan vs Vegan powered Nick Hendricks
The Vegan as a heel is a bit of an odd one that I've never quite got. The condescending preachy aspect isn't something I've ever encountered in real life situations I've not been able to just walk away from. That being said, this guy wears it well. The obnoxious smirk and dismissal of his opponent today is enough to reinforce his place in this match.
Fantastic big guy vs small woman match, story told really well. With Charlie going over with a roll up
Danny Chase and Sam Spencer are out for the next randomly drawn match - Disco Dan is the opponent
Disco is trying to get chase to dance, and it looks like it might happen
The heels bail and disco brings in Princess Logan and half the audience in to cha cha slide.
Then I don't know exactly what happened, but I might have slipped into an alternative universe where Chase and Spencer did the "time of my life" routine from Dirty Dancing. Full routine including the lift!
Danny Chase gets the win after retaliating to a sneak behind trip and roll up attempt from Disco Dan. Apparently "nobody puts Danny in the corner". The beating he gave the Disco Cat showed us why.
I really hope someone was taping that cause that was so god damned funny it was unreal
Interval - some nice merchandise here - no xls though, so I'm gonna have to go online..
Concrete, the announcer and referee come back to the ring for the second half.
Our second half opener is a tag team match set for one fall.
Syntax is out first - the masked man is massively popular here.
James Stewart is his partner, and does not garner the same reaction. It looks like we have a heel and face team brought together by the draw here
Opposition provided by the other half of the House of Pain tag champs Joseph Starr and Tommy Taylor
Great fundamentals from all 4. Both teams are not getting along.
Starr and Taylor the first to crack with Starr forarming Taylor in the face. Taylor would get revenge when Stewart tagged in, throw syntax out and Taylor took the opportunity to level Starr and dragged Stewart on top of him for the pin costing himself and star the match. Excellent reinforcement of Taylor's recent heel turn.
Nathan Nyx with the Supermodel Visage - or should I say against...
The banter between these two is awesome as they please not to have to fight each other. A double lay down/pin was their first attempt at getting out of it.
Multiple refusals to fight insue until the threat of a double head shave from Stixx' was put on the table.
A reluctant square up with a pinky promise of no face shots starts a pretty good match between these two. The promise held up until visage had his Japanese style paper fan broken amongst the antics.
Visage ends it with a sneaky kick after coming out of a make up hug. Visage is highly entertaining, and Nyx definitely held his own.
Our main event of the night is a 6 man scramble match for the House of Pain Title
The world warrior Juken
Ruthless Bjorn Jones,
House of Pain champion Kyle Kingsley
Timberwolf
The Righteous Joseph Conners
G-wiz Garrett Bond
Highlights - dives, great chain work, towers of doom, Conners going ape on timberwolf leaving him a back redder than the ring skirts after a chopping match with Ric Flair
Plenty more too - all of these guys have great futures ahead of them.
Jukin over with an insane looking cross calf hold German suplex.
All in all this was a great show - lots of very promising young talent here. Stixx and Juken are doing a fantastic job giving these guys the building blocks for great careers.
Back to the town centre
The post show pint at the lord Roberts. Kopek stout - dark and smoky enough to satisfy.
It was like nectar. The pub isn't badly priced, but artisan facial hair virus is rampant here and the bouncer looks like a cross between porkpie from Desmond's (fuck me I'm dating myself with that reference) and an American 1950s portrayal of a gangster
I like it here - but I'm not shaving while I can remember what the locals look like.
Supplemental- robbing bastards award goes to the Six Barrels, where a pint of snecklifter cost £4.10. I don't know when snecklifter became a craft brew!
Quick tip for anyone going from Nottingham to Lincoln - in the winter, the first train is mid afternoon. The line is closed half of the day for some reason.
its been a while...
Ok folks,
I know it's been a while since I got round to posting anything up on here - I've got a couple of shows that I went to and enjoyed throroughly that I've not posted up for one reason or another, and I think its about time that I did.
For anyone that is/was following the blog previously and was wondering what the hell happened to the posts and with the getting to shows etc, here's the lowdown.
The cast is off my ankle and I can pretty much walk around again - standing for long periods of time is still a wee bit too painful, and this "boot" thing that makes walking bearable has the look, feel and practicality of a prop from a low budget knock off of robocop. It does stop the pain whereas the military boot I thought would be a good enough replacement for it doesn't.
Between this and the extra costs of taxi trips into and out of work instead of busses, I've really not gotten out as much as I should have, and that's just not good enough. So, there will be more blog updates, because concrete plans are in place for me to get to the following promotions.
MPW and FTW - these guys run shows all over Tyne and Wear (and County Durham) and I will get to see them soon.
EPW - I see they're running Ashington Leisure Centre shortly - I did night shift security at the end stages of its build/commissioning - Its a great venue I know I can get back to Newcastle from afterwards.
MEW - I was gutted that I missed their last show, especially after Planet of the Primate was so god damn good. "THEEEEEE CLASS APAAAAART" taking the title, however, they are back at the Innesfree social club in Longbenton soon with "4 Way War" - and I will be at that one.
W3L - Running Hexham on an afternoon that doesn't clash with another show elsewhere, and i can get back from on the train or bus? yup, I'll see you there.
ACW - Apollo Championship Wrestling. As much as I love going to wrestling shows, I will travel to see bands that I love as well. so when I see that one of my favorite bands, The Red Paintings (Check them out here) are due to play London on June 4th, the first thing I did was to look up Wrestling events happening on the night before in London. There were two results - BEW's international grand prix, which looks like its going to be epic, but its a two nighter and night two clashes with the gig. I remember getting a copy of wrestlemania 4 when I was a kid, and the second video was just filed up with random crap from TV as opposed to the second half of the event - ever since then I've vowed never to watch half a tournament again. (I'll be back to catch you in the future BEW!) The other one was ACW - their second event "Fear No Foe" takes place on June 3rd, and the talent advertised was enough for me to make my plans to go (Paul Robinson, The London Riots, Jack Sexmith, Damon Moser etc) - coupled with great reviews of their first show, it looks like this is going to be a corker.
NORTH - NCL5 Head Over Heels on July 1st - NORTH have been putting on consistantly fantastic shows recently - Andrew's doing a great job in running this one. honestly - if anyone is in the vicinity of Newcastle, I whole heartedly recommend paying this one a visit.
Later in the year, I'm hoping to get around a bit more to more places - the planning is getting a fair bit easier to do now, and I really want to visit more cities I've never been to.
On the personal side of things I'm fulfilling an ambition in a couple of days and going to have a pop as stand up comedy. I don't think I'll be incorporating wrestling into that, but if it goes well, and the confidence comes I might offer myself about as a ring announcer/VOD commentator - hey, it might be worth a go, and the old saying goes "shy bairns nee sweets" doesnt it? Yes. Yes it does. Where I live anyhow.
Right so without chuntering on further, I'll get to editing and posting the House of Pain show from Nottingham, the Tidal Championship Wrestling show from the second day of my weekend in Leeds,
and North NCL4: We're in this together
See you at Ringside, or at the bar, or on the bus.
I know it's been a while since I got round to posting anything up on here - I've got a couple of shows that I went to and enjoyed throroughly that I've not posted up for one reason or another, and I think its about time that I did.
For anyone that is/was following the blog previously and was wondering what the hell happened to the posts and with the getting to shows etc, here's the lowdown.
The cast is off my ankle and I can pretty much walk around again - standing for long periods of time is still a wee bit too painful, and this "boot" thing that makes walking bearable has the look, feel and practicality of a prop from a low budget knock off of robocop. It does stop the pain whereas the military boot I thought would be a good enough replacement for it doesn't.
Between this and the extra costs of taxi trips into and out of work instead of busses, I've really not gotten out as much as I should have, and that's just not good enough. So, there will be more blog updates, because concrete plans are in place for me to get to the following promotions.
MPW and FTW - these guys run shows all over Tyne and Wear (and County Durham) and I will get to see them soon.
EPW - I see they're running Ashington Leisure Centre shortly - I did night shift security at the end stages of its build/commissioning - Its a great venue I know I can get back to Newcastle from afterwards.
MEW - I was gutted that I missed their last show, especially after Planet of the Primate was so god damn good. "THEEEEEE CLASS APAAAAART" taking the title, however, they are back at the Innesfree social club in Longbenton soon with "4 Way War" - and I will be at that one.
W3L - Running Hexham on an afternoon that doesn't clash with another show elsewhere, and i can get back from on the train or bus? yup, I'll see you there.
ACW - Apollo Championship Wrestling. As much as I love going to wrestling shows, I will travel to see bands that I love as well. so when I see that one of my favorite bands, The Red Paintings (Check them out here) are due to play London on June 4th, the first thing I did was to look up Wrestling events happening on the night before in London. There were two results - BEW's international grand prix, which looks like its going to be epic, but its a two nighter and night two clashes with the gig. I remember getting a copy of wrestlemania 4 when I was a kid, and the second video was just filed up with random crap from TV as opposed to the second half of the event - ever since then I've vowed never to watch half a tournament again. (I'll be back to catch you in the future BEW!) The other one was ACW - their second event "Fear No Foe" takes place on June 3rd, and the talent advertised was enough for me to make my plans to go (Paul Robinson, The London Riots, Jack Sexmith, Damon Moser etc) - coupled with great reviews of their first show, it looks like this is going to be a corker.
NORTH - NCL5 Head Over Heels on July 1st - NORTH have been putting on consistantly fantastic shows recently - Andrew's doing a great job in running this one. honestly - if anyone is in the vicinity of Newcastle, I whole heartedly recommend paying this one a visit.
Later in the year, I'm hoping to get around a bit more to more places - the planning is getting a fair bit easier to do now, and I really want to visit more cities I've never been to.
On the personal side of things I'm fulfilling an ambition in a couple of days and going to have a pop as stand up comedy. I don't think I'll be incorporating wrestling into that, but if it goes well, and the confidence comes I might offer myself about as a ring announcer/VOD commentator - hey, it might be worth a go, and the old saying goes "shy bairns nee sweets" doesnt it? Yes. Yes it does. Where I live anyhow.
Right so without chuntering on further, I'll get to editing and posting the House of Pain show from Nottingham, the Tidal Championship Wrestling show from the second day of my weekend in Leeds,
and North NCL4: We're in this together
See you at Ringside, or at the bar, or on the bus.
Friday, 10 March 2017
What the hell did I just watch? 1 - ultimate death match
Ok - since I'm laid up with a broken ankle, I thought I'd make use of the unlimited data plan I've got from three (Cheers guys) to at least do something. So I looked up something pro wrestling related on a little website called filmon.tv - and boy was I surprised at the plethora of bargain basement guff on there. Since I ballsed up my first attempt at walking on crutches and almost did my good foot in during an impromptu breakdance attempt, it looks like I've got a day or two with sod all to do apart from change position every now and again and consume the culinary delights of cafe Royal Victoria Infirmary. So here goes with the first of a trilogy of a little curiosity that might just kill some time.
Ultimate death match
We're pretty much dropped straight into a backstage type meeting at a wrestling school/show/training school on about the dwindling audiences for wrestling on TV. Who's in the ring talking to folk on the outside? It's perennial stars to any weird shit they can shoehorn wrestling into films, Kevin Nash, and Shane Douglas. Oh boy, there's a seal of quality right there.
We get given the premises that the business is on its arse and it's time to innovate. Ok fair enough.
Random singular papparazo accosts a promoter, and we get the second lead-in story - a wrestler had a heart attack in the ring at an indy show and the athletic commission took the promoters license away. The reporter is politely told to depart and the promoter is shown in a bar. Two guys kick shit out (read badly implement heel wrestling spots on) of the promoter in the bar for him being responsible for the death of "Johnny".
The typewriter font credits finish
I'll be honest, at this point I'm developing an ear worm of "things can only get better" by D:ream because it looks like nothing is going to make this any more horrible.
How wrong am I? It's the hat trick, Al Snow is here. Apparently his name here is Frosty. I don't see a carrot anywhere, if I did, I'd cut it into slices and carefully layer the slices over my eyes to create a blindfold. A review is what I said I was going to do, and by God I'm going to stick to my guns on this one. Luckily I have another round of painkillers due in about half an hour so that should take the edge off.
Anyhow - Frosty is talking to "Jimmy" (who was with Nash and Douglas during the intro. They're arguing over still running a show after Johnny Pain died. "Jimmy" has an idea
A blonde woman who looks vaguely familiar appears - it looks like she's Frosty's partner. Frosty relays the idea of a pay per view tournament where someone "dies" in the main event, but it's all a work, nobody is actually getting killed and hey, the money's good . The blonde woman doesn't trust Jimmy at all and does a good job of being the pissed off wife, and tells out sub-zero friend to do what he wants, walking off as if he's just asked to go to the pub with his mates on their anniversary.
Quick cut to an office, and apparently the ATF and FBI have gotten wind of the idea.
Back to the school/gym and Jimmy is laying down the tournament to the prospective competitors.
Back to the FBI office, where street clothes guy passes off the web address for the pay per view and some card details. The FBI guy "Bognor" (no, it's not fake razor) is pissed off with the whole thing and wants to be out catching bank robbers.
Bognor, fuck off. You can either risk dying outside of a bank somewhere or watch a really shitty wrestling show. Honestly, I've never seen a show so bad it's made me want to go and start a fight with someone who might have a gun instead. Take the job and be happy with it you miserable sod.
Now that the back story is done with, it's pay per view time. Frosty James and double R are our announce team tonight. Dear god this is awful.
Frosty: yes, that's right tonight, in this ring someone will die.
Double R: yes frosty, death for a price, and we're excited about this new type of entertainment
Frosty: well R and R, it's not really a new type of entertainment, I mean the Roman gladiators have been doing it thousands of years ago
Opening banter aside, the premise is as follows:
8 competitors in a round robin tournament (single elimination surely). In the first round anything goes and KO or submission is the only way to win. The winners move on to the finals where there are no rules (I'm guessing pinfalls count after round 1 - is Vince Russo booking this?). In the championship match someone gets $3 million and the opponent goes home in a wooden overcoat.
Let's meet the contents:
Match 1 - The Beast vs Larkin
Frosty is on promo duty. The Beast (no idea) is here to kill someone, and the masked Larkin is too busy pissing himself laughing or having a series of small strokes (I couldn't tell because the acting is bloody awful) to care.
Frosty asks if he's the only sane one around here. That's pushing it a bit mate, your participation in this debacle already means your room is getting lined with rubber while you're out filming, and not because the blonde woman is getting kinky.
To the ring. The beast is mad over. The crowd shots we keep cutting to focus on a guy with a cigar wearing a black cowboy hat and a bunch of women with him.
Larkin is all over the Beast to start - the Beast comes back with a hand bite, a finger split and a kick up the arse. Kerb stomps by the Beast and a variety pack of headkicks.
A paving slab gets involved somehow. Beast is blatantly going for the KO with all these head attacks. Paving stone to the back of the head for the knockout. Beast wins. Apparently not by fatality, but pretty close.
Cut to a box room somewhere - the promoter is watching the analytics. His henchman is wearing an eye patch. Not enough evil bastards wear eye patches anymore.
They've just broke 10 million viewers. Perfect time for the promoter to ask the henchman if he lost his eye in a "masturbation accident". Harsh, and completely out of left field!
Wobbly screen flashback to him getting a syringe pushed and emptied into his eye. Wobbly screen return to present and the henchman replies in a sombre tone "I don't remember".
Promoter tells the Cyclops to get frosty to push the death angle. The Cyclops heads off to comply while giving possibly the least menacing menacing chuckle imaginable - and bearing in mind I've seen Prince of space, that's saying something.
Match 2 is Jimmy Flame VS Azul. Bloody hell.
Jimmy Flame cuts a 2003 era CZW style promo. All foul language and over the top threats from our slack jawed typically southern friend, who does look like he's been paid in either meth, or meths.
Azul is a luchador apparently. 3rd generation - and he looks like the distant cousin of a random villano. I don't know which one - if you've got a dice to hand roll it and write it in yourself. This should be interesting.
Flame has a chain with him as we cut to the ring. Flame has "dynamite" written on his tights. Azul is luchadoring his ass off and getting the upper hand on flame when we cut back to the FBI office.
Bognor is taking a call from his mother when his crony and a blatantly off her face on something female officer rock up in the background. The phone call ends and Bognor is reminded to watch and record the event because they think someone is going to die. He's still not having it.
Back to the match. Azul is still running rings around Flame. Flame comes back, much to the delight of our cowboy friend in the VIP booth.
Flame with a choke using the chain, and a top rope fist drop into azul's head on top of the chain.
Azul kicks flame in the back, and hits him with the balled up chain. "Blood" everywhere at this point (It's not a blade job, that looks sod all like actual blood)
Flame ejects the ref for no reason. Lots of back and forth with the chain between these two until Azul finally gets choked out with the chain. Flame advances
Match 3
Dash venture Vs Aaron bolo
Bolo cuts a bi-lingual promo. Dash just wants to win the money and be "notorious"
Dash has a pop at a fan and is levelled by bolo. The match gets underway and bolo (apparently south Korean) is no selling hard until he gets his balls caved in. Venture is properly heeling it up with the crowd while choking bolo out.
A jawbreaker reversal gives bolo the upper hand, venture exposes a turnbuckle, slams bolo's head into it and hits a DDT for the knockout.
The crowd half drown out the post match promo.
We cut to the Cyclops (Doc) and the promoter. Who reiterate that Dash really wants to win. Good job because we couldn't hear a bloody thing dash said after that match.
Match 4 - Pauli ventura Vs Russian python.
Python shouts something in Russian, Pauli is doing it for the money and to get his family back. Not sure how or where he lost them, but there you go.
Python attacks with a mop handle - that must be some mop because that handle is around 7 feet long. Pauli takes over and knocks out python with a knee to the head.
Doc Cyclops is stroking a gargoyle in the promoters office. Promoter sends Doc out to get him the Beast. Looks like the beast is getting the push here.
Beast accosts Pauli who is now bleeding for some reason - it didn't happen during the match. Doc separates them. I'm guessing he's more of an agent than a henchman.
Cut to the ring and a random match in progress. TKO vs Steve Rush. There's a crutch wrapped in barbed wire being used. TKO opens a bag of drawing pins. Both him and Rush end up in them. No finish shown. The commentary is hilarious on here.
Frosty briefly discussed the morality of the event with the promoter, not really getting any answers.
It is single elimination. The round 2 graphic proves it.
Dash vs the Beast. More awful promos. The Beast dominates this one and is apparently a heel now. Lots of throat and neck work here. Frosty can't tell the difference between a sidewalk slam and a spine buster. Dash reverses a piledriver, but the advantage is short lived as the Beast takes over again. A DDT gives the Beast the win.
Another DDT afterwards just for good measure. Harsh.
Pauli ventura vs Jimmy Flame
Flame is on top for a good portion of this one. Russian python is shown shaking hands with the promoter and saying "I'll do it". What "it" is, I dunno, but I'm sure it won't be long until we find out.
Pauli gets the upper hand back and knocks out flame for the victory.
Beast vs Pauli ventura is our final. The prize money increased to $5 million somewhere along the line.
Pauli is in the promoters office. The promoter gives him a heads up that the Beast isn't playing around.
The commentators tell us that there's 15 million viewers, so the prize money increases to $7 million.
Just as we're about to get started, we cut to the back and Doc has spiked a drink he's given to Pauli. What a dick.
Pauli is blatantly done for here. The Python and the Beast take liberties on Ventura. Drugged Pauli is rolled to the outside. The fans aren't happy. Presumably because nobody died. The promoter pits the Python and the Beast against each other in the final. Beast quickly attacks Python and beats him down. The eye gouges throughout this film have been bloody horrible looking.
That paving slab is back from before. For a quick shot or two. The Beast hits a piledriver to kill the Python, and take the money.
In the promoters office, they seem happy with the whole affair and the 27 million viewers. Doc goes to get the helicopter. The cowboy and his women leg it for a limo. Frosty rolls it up with a rant about how "we all had a part in this murder" and proceeds to have a meltdown over being implicated in this event - so he was ok with it up until now? - he's off to find promoter Jake, and double R completely no sells the whole thing wrapping up the broadcast in a calm, professional manner while Python is laying dead in the middle of the ring.
Cut to the FBI office, and Bognor is on the phone to a superior confirming the death. He can't believe they have a murder to solve.
The credits come up - here's a few nuggets from them:
Commentators: Frosty James and Brutus beefcake (that looked and sounded fuck all like Ed Leslie)
Cameraman: cornbread, ring rat, bung .T. chopper.
The gags go on throughout. These are blatantly the credits for the show within a show.
Frosty catches up with promoter Jake and confronts him about the death being a shoot. Jake tells him he can either take the money and do one or hang around for the coppers to turn up. Double R reappears with Frosty's kit and they bugger off.
We get some out-takes of the promos while the actual credits roll.
This was just over an hour of my life I'm never going to get back, but it was this or the lingerie fight club. I'm on a ward in a room with three other guys, im not watching that here.
Ultimate death match
We're pretty much dropped straight into a backstage type meeting at a wrestling school/show/training school on about the dwindling audiences for wrestling on TV. Who's in the ring talking to folk on the outside? It's perennial stars to any weird shit they can shoehorn wrestling into films, Kevin Nash, and Shane Douglas. Oh boy, there's a seal of quality right there.
We get given the premises that the business is on its arse and it's time to innovate. Ok fair enough.
Random singular papparazo accosts a promoter, and we get the second lead-in story - a wrestler had a heart attack in the ring at an indy show and the athletic commission took the promoters license away. The reporter is politely told to depart and the promoter is shown in a bar. Two guys kick shit out (read badly implement heel wrestling spots on) of the promoter in the bar for him being responsible for the death of "Johnny".
The typewriter font credits finish
I'll be honest, at this point I'm developing an ear worm of "things can only get better" by D:ream because it looks like nothing is going to make this any more horrible.
How wrong am I? It's the hat trick, Al Snow is here. Apparently his name here is Frosty. I don't see a carrot anywhere, if I did, I'd cut it into slices and carefully layer the slices over my eyes to create a blindfold. A review is what I said I was going to do, and by God I'm going to stick to my guns on this one. Luckily I have another round of painkillers due in about half an hour so that should take the edge off.
Anyhow - Frosty is talking to "Jimmy" (who was with Nash and Douglas during the intro. They're arguing over still running a show after Johnny Pain died. "Jimmy" has an idea
A blonde woman who looks vaguely familiar appears - it looks like she's Frosty's partner. Frosty relays the idea of a pay per view tournament where someone "dies" in the main event, but it's all a work, nobody is actually getting killed and hey, the money's good . The blonde woman doesn't trust Jimmy at all and does a good job of being the pissed off wife, and tells out sub-zero friend to do what he wants, walking off as if he's just asked to go to the pub with his mates on their anniversary.
Quick cut to an office, and apparently the ATF and FBI have gotten wind of the idea.
Back to the school/gym and Jimmy is laying down the tournament to the prospective competitors.
Back to the FBI office, where street clothes guy passes off the web address for the pay per view and some card details. The FBI guy "Bognor" (no, it's not fake razor) is pissed off with the whole thing and wants to be out catching bank robbers.
Bognor, fuck off. You can either risk dying outside of a bank somewhere or watch a really shitty wrestling show. Honestly, I've never seen a show so bad it's made me want to go and start a fight with someone who might have a gun instead. Take the job and be happy with it you miserable sod.
Now that the back story is done with, it's pay per view time. Frosty James and double R are our announce team tonight. Dear god this is awful.
Frosty: yes, that's right tonight, in this ring someone will die.
Double R: yes frosty, death for a price, and we're excited about this new type of entertainment
Frosty: well R and R, it's not really a new type of entertainment, I mean the Roman gladiators have been doing it thousands of years ago
Opening banter aside, the premise is as follows:
8 competitors in a round robin tournament (single elimination surely). In the first round anything goes and KO or submission is the only way to win. The winners move on to the finals where there are no rules (I'm guessing pinfalls count after round 1 - is Vince Russo booking this?). In the championship match someone gets $3 million and the opponent goes home in a wooden overcoat.
Let's meet the contents:
Match 1 - The Beast vs Larkin
Frosty is on promo duty. The Beast (no idea) is here to kill someone, and the masked Larkin is too busy pissing himself laughing or having a series of small strokes (I couldn't tell because the acting is bloody awful) to care.
Frosty asks if he's the only sane one around here. That's pushing it a bit mate, your participation in this debacle already means your room is getting lined with rubber while you're out filming, and not because the blonde woman is getting kinky.
To the ring. The beast is mad over. The crowd shots we keep cutting to focus on a guy with a cigar wearing a black cowboy hat and a bunch of women with him.
Larkin is all over the Beast to start - the Beast comes back with a hand bite, a finger split and a kick up the arse. Kerb stomps by the Beast and a variety pack of headkicks.
A paving slab gets involved somehow. Beast is blatantly going for the KO with all these head attacks. Paving stone to the back of the head for the knockout. Beast wins. Apparently not by fatality, but pretty close.
Cut to a box room somewhere - the promoter is watching the analytics. His henchman is wearing an eye patch. Not enough evil bastards wear eye patches anymore.
They've just broke 10 million viewers. Perfect time for the promoter to ask the henchman if he lost his eye in a "masturbation accident". Harsh, and completely out of left field!
Wobbly screen flashback to him getting a syringe pushed and emptied into his eye. Wobbly screen return to present and the henchman replies in a sombre tone "I don't remember".
Promoter tells the Cyclops to get frosty to push the death angle. The Cyclops heads off to comply while giving possibly the least menacing menacing chuckle imaginable - and bearing in mind I've seen Prince of space, that's saying something.
Match 2 is Jimmy Flame VS Azul. Bloody hell.
Jimmy Flame cuts a 2003 era CZW style promo. All foul language and over the top threats from our slack jawed typically southern friend, who does look like he's been paid in either meth, or meths.
Azul is a luchador apparently. 3rd generation - and he looks like the distant cousin of a random villano. I don't know which one - if you've got a dice to hand roll it and write it in yourself. This should be interesting.
Flame has a chain with him as we cut to the ring. Flame has "dynamite" written on his tights. Azul is luchadoring his ass off and getting the upper hand on flame when we cut back to the FBI office.
Bognor is taking a call from his mother when his crony and a blatantly off her face on something female officer rock up in the background. The phone call ends and Bognor is reminded to watch and record the event because they think someone is going to die. He's still not having it.
Back to the match. Azul is still running rings around Flame. Flame comes back, much to the delight of our cowboy friend in the VIP booth.
Flame with a choke using the chain, and a top rope fist drop into azul's head on top of the chain.
Azul kicks flame in the back, and hits him with the balled up chain. "Blood" everywhere at this point (It's not a blade job, that looks sod all like actual blood)
Flame ejects the ref for no reason. Lots of back and forth with the chain between these two until Azul finally gets choked out with the chain. Flame advances
Match 3
Dash venture Vs Aaron bolo
Bolo cuts a bi-lingual promo. Dash just wants to win the money and be "notorious"
Dash has a pop at a fan and is levelled by bolo. The match gets underway and bolo (apparently south Korean) is no selling hard until he gets his balls caved in. Venture is properly heeling it up with the crowd while choking bolo out.
A jawbreaker reversal gives bolo the upper hand, venture exposes a turnbuckle, slams bolo's head into it and hits a DDT for the knockout.
The crowd half drown out the post match promo.
We cut to the Cyclops (Doc) and the promoter. Who reiterate that Dash really wants to win. Good job because we couldn't hear a bloody thing dash said after that match.
Match 4 - Pauli ventura Vs Russian python.
Python shouts something in Russian, Pauli is doing it for the money and to get his family back. Not sure how or where he lost them, but there you go.
Python attacks with a mop handle - that must be some mop because that handle is around 7 feet long. Pauli takes over and knocks out python with a knee to the head.
Doc Cyclops is stroking a gargoyle in the promoters office. Promoter sends Doc out to get him the Beast. Looks like the beast is getting the push here.
Beast accosts Pauli who is now bleeding for some reason - it didn't happen during the match. Doc separates them. I'm guessing he's more of an agent than a henchman.
Cut to the ring and a random match in progress. TKO vs Steve Rush. There's a crutch wrapped in barbed wire being used. TKO opens a bag of drawing pins. Both him and Rush end up in them. No finish shown. The commentary is hilarious on here.
Frosty briefly discussed the morality of the event with the promoter, not really getting any answers.
It is single elimination. The round 2 graphic proves it.
Dash vs the Beast. More awful promos. The Beast dominates this one and is apparently a heel now. Lots of throat and neck work here. Frosty can't tell the difference between a sidewalk slam and a spine buster. Dash reverses a piledriver, but the advantage is short lived as the Beast takes over again. A DDT gives the Beast the win.
Another DDT afterwards just for good measure. Harsh.
Pauli ventura vs Jimmy Flame
Flame is on top for a good portion of this one. Russian python is shown shaking hands with the promoter and saying "I'll do it". What "it" is, I dunno, but I'm sure it won't be long until we find out.
Pauli gets the upper hand back and knocks out flame for the victory.
Beast vs Pauli ventura is our final. The prize money increased to $5 million somewhere along the line.
Pauli is in the promoters office. The promoter gives him a heads up that the Beast isn't playing around.
The commentators tell us that there's 15 million viewers, so the prize money increases to $7 million.
Just as we're about to get started, we cut to the back and Doc has spiked a drink he's given to Pauli. What a dick.
Pauli is blatantly done for here. The Python and the Beast take liberties on Ventura. Drugged Pauli is rolled to the outside. The fans aren't happy. Presumably because nobody died. The promoter pits the Python and the Beast against each other in the final. Beast quickly attacks Python and beats him down. The eye gouges throughout this film have been bloody horrible looking.
That paving slab is back from before. For a quick shot or two. The Beast hits a piledriver to kill the Python, and take the money.
In the promoters office, they seem happy with the whole affair and the 27 million viewers. Doc goes to get the helicopter. The cowboy and his women leg it for a limo. Frosty rolls it up with a rant about how "we all had a part in this murder" and proceeds to have a meltdown over being implicated in this event - so he was ok with it up until now? - he's off to find promoter Jake, and double R completely no sells the whole thing wrapping up the broadcast in a calm, professional manner while Python is laying dead in the middle of the ring.
Cut to the FBI office, and Bognor is on the phone to a superior confirming the death. He can't believe they have a murder to solve.
The credits come up - here's a few nuggets from them:
Commentators: Frosty James and Brutus beefcake (that looked and sounded fuck all like Ed Leslie)
Cameraman: cornbread, ring rat, bung .T. chopper.
The gags go on throughout. These are blatantly the credits for the show within a show.
Frosty catches up with promoter Jake and confronts him about the death being a shoot. Jake tells him he can either take the money and do one or hang around for the coppers to turn up. Double R reappears with Frosty's kit and they bugger off.
We get some out-takes of the promos while the actual credits roll.
This was just over an hour of my life I'm never going to get back, but it was this or the lingerie fight club. I'm on a ward in a room with three other guys, im not watching that here.
Broke his leg in Whitley dancing with a train...
And so it comes to pass that I've spent two weeks laid up with a pot on my leg. I missed freedoms road -which I was absolutely gutted about, and was sufficiently sick of so much going wrong that I gave up the opportunity of a free ticket to the WCPW exit wounds show the same night and watched that on YouTube instead. However, it's not all bad news, - during the stay in hospital I googled something I came across a while ago, and treated myself to a movie. The reviews (or burial as it turns out) is in the next post.
Tuesday, 21 February 2017
(P, PD, BRS) UKW British Bash 2017 - UKW gym Batley
UKW British bash - Alexandra mills Batley
Frenzied attempt at getting ready an hour before I thought I needed to after loading my ticket email and realising it was 0910 and not 1020 my bus was due to depart - I switched out my SD card for the music to listen to in the gym and forgot to reset my alarm songs - hence no alarm - I was going to hit the jacuzzi in the gym for a bit - loosen me up before the journey. That obviously didn't happen. But I have my hip flask of jaegermeister, a bottle or two of beer and a tightly rolled change of clothes, time to hit the road...
Megabus - I don't know when the passengers got sensible on these things but the last couple of journeys have been boring as hell. I kind of miss the old days - From driving through floods and having obnoxiously loud conversations about where the emergency oars and lifejackets were, observing a failed chat up attempt lead to a live baptism, to being kept out of London to avoid running over Bruce Forsyth and his entourage as they did a live dance in the streets, which I can only assume was some kind of immortality ritual, because he's still here. How, how in the blue hell has that happened. Want my take on it? Here we go with the first random tangent of this post.
Brucie's dance routines can be traced back to ancient tribes of massive chinned homo-playyourcardsrighticus on now unpopulated islands in the south pacific, where tribal mass dance rituals took place, and gave them eternal life. This came with a caveat that people performing these rites would be less and less likely to conceive as couples. Around the age of 327, the tribal elders were so bored of living that they all would just walk off cliffs or into the sea. By the time the last of the women had taken the plunge, evolution had taken hold elsewhere and that particular phase in the ascent of man was brought to a close. Forsyth learned of the practice at a miss world competition he was at in his younger days during an undocumented *ahem* interview with one of the contestants, and he's been practising this ever since.
Anyhow, basically, the bus ride down to Leeds was uninteresting.
The accommodation was a strange thing - in that it wasn't a b&b like I thought it was going to b(e). I arrived at the address and then was walked down to where I was staying. A shared house with a spare room in it. Hey, it's crash space I've been in worse.
The train to Batley had me overhear one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard an adult say to another adult - "we've got some of them in Selby, you don't need to go to Los Angeles for that" the only feasible thing I can imagine that being about would have been clouds.
You know those awkward moments when a child stares at you. That train journey also produced one of those. But thanks to an inquisitively purchased green tea latte (who thought that was a good idea), and a little spark of longing for self amusement, a solution was found:
a) calmly take a swig from the green tea latte with the lid off the cup.
b) part way through the swig, pull the crazy eyes and stare off into space.
c) slowly pull cup away from face revealing a slack jaw and green foamed milk from the latte around your mouth. Optional extra, slowly reposition head to acquire eye contact while still staring off into the distance.
d) enjoy the reaction. don't forget to stumble slowly off the train past them if you're getting off first.
Pre show pint at the cellar bar next to the train station. Rudgates Jerusalem (4%) - it's a pale, but so be it. It's going down quite nicely for a light one. Everards tiger next (4.2%) nice copper colour on this one, a little more malt but not much.
This is an actual wrestling gym, a bespoke customised one. - it looks good, the light is static, but it is just right. Black walls help with that. An ECW style brick print stage piece stands around the Union flag curtain at the entrance way and a well constructed commentary booth. There are a few empty seats, but I would say that could be down to the location, Tidal being tomorrow in Leeds, or people maybe not knowing about it. I can't wait until this goes to VOD, because the product looks absolutely fantastic.
Out of the three rings they have, set up on site, the one being used is the full sized show ring - there is a smaller one similar to the one used at a lot of events in Newcastle, and another which was not as high off the ground (like chikara's old ring, around half height).
The ring announcer is sporting an almost steampunk look, sans top hat.
Pre-show match Scar & Felicia vs James Thwaite and Rogue
To steal a bit from the OSW review podcast, Felicia is wearing a gold and purple ensemble, what barrrr is she? Definitely a crunchie, and a happy one at that! Felicia introduces us to Scar and gets the crowd warmed up.
Nice heel work by Rogue and Thwaite until Thwaite hits the ropes accidentally knocking her off the apron, and she storms off leaving Jamie on his Lonesome. That doesn't end well for him as Scar gets the win for his team. Great warm up to the show, and nice to see some of the academy with so much potential.
Officer Rogers vs Andrew Jepson (The man mountain) kicks us off.
Officer Rogers is asserting his "law and order of the ring" self-appointment very well here, and is quickly disliked by the audience.
Rogers could end up in trouble here - his attire is extremely close to actual police uniform. Is he going to arrest himself for impersonating an officer? There's a philosophical question for you. He starts by calling for a test of strength and starts to get an advantage. Jepson starts to reverse it and the officer grabs a headlock. The wrestling here is really slick and a pleasure to watch.
Two Shoulder blocks from Jepson, on the third one Rogers misses a front and reverse lariat, both ducked as Jepson is running the ropes before taking flight for it to knock him down.
,
A fair bit of rule breaking to get the advantage by the Officer. The temptation to start a police brutality chant was resisted.
A chokeslam attempt by Jepson was reversed into a German suplex by Rogers.
Jepson takes the straps down - business is about to pick up. Rogers reverses the move Jepsen was setting up for. While Jepson is down, Rogers loses focus, and has a pop at a kid reading a book in the audience. Once he's said his piece he turns round straight into a chokeslam from Jepson to end it.
Rogers has a right go at the child afterwards until a parent intervenes and he freaks out, making a hasty exit.
We have a Handicap match next Juvenile Delinquent Callum Moorhouse (with Lana) and Cayman Carlisle vs Alpha Predator Rex Savage.
Savage is overpowering the two smaller opponents early until a drop toe hold onto the middle buckle. Stuns him long enough to let Carlisle and Moorhouse in with some quick and fast paced offence.
Lots of double teaming, which would seem to be the best strategy against someone the size of Savage (it's getting harder not to type Rampage when im looking at this guy)
Lana slaps from outside while he's draped over the second rope. Moorhouse uses his full bodyweight to drop over Savage, and slides over him to the outside where he works the crowd after landing on his feet. Moorhouse and Carlisle continue double teaming, strikes and dives to get the best of every advantage Savage gets. They each take an arm and lock on a cross arm breaker. Savage lifts both simultaneously and slams them back down. Hard. Awesome strength right there. That does it for this one - top notch match.
Das Wildcard Tommy Dillon comes to draped in a German flag - I didn't know he was German! Nice throwback to Nikolai Volkoff here with the heel promo, wanting to sing the German national anthem (badly), but being boo'd into oblivion
LRB is the opponent here, and he's coming draped in the St George cross to a massive reaction.
Flag lifting by both to rile up the crowd. Obviously Dillon isn't pleased with the result. So, he decides to give us another rendition of Deutschlandleid, and he wants to be shown respect. That doesn't happen. So he extracts it physically from LRB.
Dillon with a flag choke, top notch old school heel work here from the German. nice to see the persistent working of the leg leading into a figure four. Dillon started singing the anthem at him while he had him in the hold! Awesome. The hold is reversed by LRB, but goes into the ropes for the break. I've got to say I'm massively impressed with the use of the ring space from these guys.
Dillon delivers a Luftwaffe elbow from the ropes - I don't know if that's what it's called, but I'm going with it in the spirit of the gimmick.
An iron claw! Dillon is awesome - he's definitely staying on my radar for the future. Reversing the claw led to LRB regaining an advantage.
Two cutters to Dillon but his arm is under the ropes when the cover is made.
Dillon cheats again to get the win and puts his feet on the ropes just to add insult to injury.
Eliza Roux vs Rosemary up next. Eliza has the FFW belt with her. It's not on the line, but Rosemary's TNA one is.
TNA theme plays for Rosemary (as opposed to "the nobodies" by Marilyn Manson - it's going on VOD, so I'm guessing that's why we're treated to the Dale Oliver one) who's dealing well with a quiet crowd very well, nice Zombie/Girl from the Ring (the movie) type entrance. Eliza looks well spooked.
Rosemary licks her hands and runs them down her face, Eliza backs off. Rosemary wipes her hands on the referee's shirt, and then they lock up.
Nice arm work from Eliza. Spun to the outside by Rosemary, who keeps on top of Roux with strikes both outside and inside the ring, and a face bite/roar (I couldn't quite see for the bottom rope.)
Eliza's fear of Rosemary plays into this one nicely, Rosemary stopping Eliza mid-run with a scream.
Rolling chancery from the outside in by rosemary - Roux makes it to the ropes.
Roux dodges a corner run, Rosemary's shoulder goes straight into the post.
Eliza goes back to the arm. Rosemary uses a strategic bite to get out of an armbar
Head scissors over the rope from Rosemary who falls to the floor. As we get back into the ring, Eliza goes back to the arm.
After escaping, a spear by rosemary gets a two. Roux locks a double arm breaker in on rosemary when Moorhouse, Carlisle and Lana interfere to cost eliza the title via DQ
Lana took the mist to the face. An authority figure comes out, calls Moorhouse, Carlisle and Lana a disgrace and asks his friends from Lincoln to remove them.
Tommy Rider, the Ragency and a few others from Fight Factory in the audience stand up and throw the delinquent and his entourage out of the fire door.
Short Interval notes
Rosemary is really sweet
The delinquent entourage had to jump the fence to get back into the premises.
I'm noticing something here - there are a lot of great athletes in Newcastle, but I'm seeing more psychology and thought going into match structure elsewhere. If anyone is looking to travel to different schools, this place, house of pain and Fight Factory are definitely worth a visit. It's not a knock on the scene back home, and it may just be because I've been watching wrestling for so long that I'm not necessarily into the prevalent style, but going in cold with little to no knowledge of anything leading into the shows, I've been invested in a lot more characters quicker than anywhere else
Part two:
Josh and Joel Redgrave out for the tag tournament semi finals. Elis and Jay Jay Barker are the other contenders. I know they're the faces here, but I really hate Limp Bizkit to the point of suspicion of anyone who makes me listen to them.
Lots of fast action in this one.
Headbutt exchange with the Redgrave lad mocking Jay Jay's "king of the headbutts" moniker. Soon finding out exactly where it came from. The Barkers get the advantage.
A misfire on a leapfrog by one of the Barkers results in him taking a Redgrave inverted atomic drop.
The teamwork, and use the ring space here is phenomenal to see from guys this young.
The Barkers go over and into the finals of the tournament after an awesome sequence ending in a forearm strike to the back of the head of a Redgrave which looked like it knocked him clean out.
There's a Marshall amp in the ring. They snuck that one in, quietly.
Edward Crowley and Allie the axewoman are out. There's a guitar. It's an electric, so I can't see it getting broken over anyone - I know that shouldn't be an expectation, but I made the mistake looking at the dirt sheets earlier and there's a lot of talk about Jarrett wanting to involve himself in the uk scene. After a failed attempt at a riff, the guitar is being tuned by the ref who looks suspiciously like the vocalist from Chameleons (ask your parents - then listen to the "script of the bridge" album) if you squint and close one eye.
That guitar isn't working for Crowley. Anything can happen with live entertainment folks
His opponent for tonight, Hades makes his way to the ring.
Hades is sporting a hood like Terry Gordy era executioner hood for his entrance. in body at least. Looking at him, I keep thinking in watching a more agile Warlord (body wise at least - dude is in good shape)
Hades asserts his power against Crowley for the best part of this one, finishing it by making Crowley pass out to a gogoplata/hell's gate submission.
Academy championship open challenge - the jester Jay-Row Sporting a blue, band white outfit and jester hat.
Billy O'keefe answers... and so does Joe Nelson.
O'Keefe is on the short end of some nice double teaming by Nelson and Jay-Row. The focus is definitely on incapacitating him at this point.
The alliance breaks down when Nelson goes for a cover and Jay-Row breaks it up. Jester reminds him that it's his title they are fighting for.
Jester retains, another fantastically structured match.
Our main event is up next.
Dutch (fight factory champion) vs Lewy"Ripper" Paradise (UKW champion)
Lewy is a tanned "body guy".
I'm sitting with the fight factory contingent, the Agency isn't here to watch his back, so I'm into this one with an open mind. Who the hell am I Kidding, I'm behind Dutch. Lots of nice heel work by Dutch here, though the fight factory lot were out-chanting the UKW fans.
Duelling Lincoln/Yorkshire chants - Lewis seems a bit thrown off by how much support Dutch has. Looks like the response Paradise wants to give would result in a fine...
Champion vs champion with neither title on the line - this one is all about pride.
Very nice heel work by Dutch, "he's got the hair" had the ref confused/fooled, I couldn't tell which. Dutch being bald and all that. Careful positioning to obscure the ref's view of the face grabs/fish-hooking, and distraction with his belt, having the ref confiscate it and while handing it to the ring announcer grabbing a chair to sandwich between the top two turnbuckles was a nice touch - even though the whip reversal by Paradise sent his Dutch into it head first.
Hades came out to chokeslam paradise, and Dutch went over. Hades is the number one contender - that's that one explained then. Dutch and Hades shake hands to close out the show.
All in all, in ring this show was spot on it was a bonus and a half them having fight factory involved, especially since I'd enjoyed them so much at the engine shed in Lincoln, and the main event was Fantastic. I'm looking forward to coming back on my travels in the future.
Frenzied attempt at getting ready an hour before I thought I needed to after loading my ticket email and realising it was 0910 and not 1020 my bus was due to depart - I switched out my SD card for the music to listen to in the gym and forgot to reset my alarm songs - hence no alarm - I was going to hit the jacuzzi in the gym for a bit - loosen me up before the journey. That obviously didn't happen. But I have my hip flask of jaegermeister, a bottle or two of beer and a tightly rolled change of clothes, time to hit the road...
Megabus - I don't know when the passengers got sensible on these things but the last couple of journeys have been boring as hell. I kind of miss the old days - From driving through floods and having obnoxiously loud conversations about where the emergency oars and lifejackets were, observing a failed chat up attempt lead to a live baptism, to being kept out of London to avoid running over Bruce Forsyth and his entourage as they did a live dance in the streets, which I can only assume was some kind of immortality ritual, because he's still here. How, how in the blue hell has that happened. Want my take on it? Here we go with the first random tangent of this post.
Brucie's dance routines can be traced back to ancient tribes of massive chinned homo-playyourcardsrighticus on now unpopulated islands in the south pacific, where tribal mass dance rituals took place, and gave them eternal life. This came with a caveat that people performing these rites would be less and less likely to conceive as couples. Around the age of 327, the tribal elders were so bored of living that they all would just walk off cliffs or into the sea. By the time the last of the women had taken the plunge, evolution had taken hold elsewhere and that particular phase in the ascent of man was brought to a close. Forsyth learned of the practice at a miss world competition he was at in his younger days during an undocumented *ahem* interview with one of the contestants, and he's been practising this ever since.
Anyhow, basically, the bus ride down to Leeds was uninteresting.
The accommodation was a strange thing - in that it wasn't a b&b like I thought it was going to b(e). I arrived at the address and then was walked down to where I was staying. A shared house with a spare room in it. Hey, it's crash space I've been in worse.
The train to Batley had me overhear one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard an adult say to another adult - "we've got some of them in Selby, you don't need to go to Los Angeles for that" the only feasible thing I can imagine that being about would have been clouds.
You know those awkward moments when a child stares at you. That train journey also produced one of those. But thanks to an inquisitively purchased green tea latte (who thought that was a good idea), and a little spark of longing for self amusement, a solution was found:
a) calmly take a swig from the green tea latte with the lid off the cup.
b) part way through the swig, pull the crazy eyes and stare off into space.
c) slowly pull cup away from face revealing a slack jaw and green foamed milk from the latte around your mouth. Optional extra, slowly reposition head to acquire eye contact while still staring off into the distance.
d) enjoy the reaction. don't forget to stumble slowly off the train past them if you're getting off first.
Pre show pint at the cellar bar next to the train station. Rudgates Jerusalem (4%) - it's a pale, but so be it. It's going down quite nicely for a light one. Everards tiger next (4.2%) nice copper colour on this one, a little more malt but not much.
This is an actual wrestling gym, a bespoke customised one. - it looks good, the light is static, but it is just right. Black walls help with that. An ECW style brick print stage piece stands around the Union flag curtain at the entrance way and a well constructed commentary booth. There are a few empty seats, but I would say that could be down to the location, Tidal being tomorrow in Leeds, or people maybe not knowing about it. I can't wait until this goes to VOD, because the product looks absolutely fantastic.
Out of the three rings they have, set up on site, the one being used is the full sized show ring - there is a smaller one similar to the one used at a lot of events in Newcastle, and another which was not as high off the ground (like chikara's old ring, around half height).
The ring announcer is sporting an almost steampunk look, sans top hat.
Pre-show match Scar & Felicia vs James Thwaite and Rogue
To steal a bit from the OSW review podcast, Felicia is wearing a gold and purple ensemble, what barrrr is she? Definitely a crunchie, and a happy one at that! Felicia introduces us to Scar and gets the crowd warmed up.
Nice heel work by Rogue and Thwaite until Thwaite hits the ropes accidentally knocking her off the apron, and she storms off leaving Jamie on his Lonesome. That doesn't end well for him as Scar gets the win for his team. Great warm up to the show, and nice to see some of the academy with so much potential.
Officer Rogers vs Andrew Jepson (The man mountain) kicks us off.
Officer Rogers is asserting his "law and order of the ring" self-appointment very well here, and is quickly disliked by the audience.
Rogers could end up in trouble here - his attire is extremely close to actual police uniform. Is he going to arrest himself for impersonating an officer? There's a philosophical question for you. He starts by calling for a test of strength and starts to get an advantage. Jepson starts to reverse it and the officer grabs a headlock. The wrestling here is really slick and a pleasure to watch.
Two Shoulder blocks from Jepson, on the third one Rogers misses a front and reverse lariat, both ducked as Jepson is running the ropes before taking flight for it to knock him down.
,
A fair bit of rule breaking to get the advantage by the Officer. The temptation to start a police brutality chant was resisted.
A chokeslam attempt by Jepson was reversed into a German suplex by Rogers.
Jepson takes the straps down - business is about to pick up. Rogers reverses the move Jepsen was setting up for. While Jepson is down, Rogers loses focus, and has a pop at a kid reading a book in the audience. Once he's said his piece he turns round straight into a chokeslam from Jepson to end it.
Rogers has a right go at the child afterwards until a parent intervenes and he freaks out, making a hasty exit.
We have a Handicap match next Juvenile Delinquent Callum Moorhouse (with Lana) and Cayman Carlisle vs Alpha Predator Rex Savage.
Savage is overpowering the two smaller opponents early until a drop toe hold onto the middle buckle. Stuns him long enough to let Carlisle and Moorhouse in with some quick and fast paced offence.
Lots of double teaming, which would seem to be the best strategy against someone the size of Savage (it's getting harder not to type Rampage when im looking at this guy)
Lana slaps from outside while he's draped over the second rope. Moorhouse uses his full bodyweight to drop over Savage, and slides over him to the outside where he works the crowd after landing on his feet. Moorhouse and Carlisle continue double teaming, strikes and dives to get the best of every advantage Savage gets. They each take an arm and lock on a cross arm breaker. Savage lifts both simultaneously and slams them back down. Hard. Awesome strength right there. That does it for this one - top notch match.
Das Wildcard Tommy Dillon comes to draped in a German flag - I didn't know he was German! Nice throwback to Nikolai Volkoff here with the heel promo, wanting to sing the German national anthem (badly), but being boo'd into oblivion
LRB is the opponent here, and he's coming draped in the St George cross to a massive reaction.
Flag lifting by both to rile up the crowd. Obviously Dillon isn't pleased with the result. So, he decides to give us another rendition of Deutschlandleid, and he wants to be shown respect. That doesn't happen. So he extracts it physically from LRB.
Dillon with a flag choke, top notch old school heel work here from the German. nice to see the persistent working of the leg leading into a figure four. Dillon started singing the anthem at him while he had him in the hold! Awesome. The hold is reversed by LRB, but goes into the ropes for the break. I've got to say I'm massively impressed with the use of the ring space from these guys.
Dillon delivers a Luftwaffe elbow from the ropes - I don't know if that's what it's called, but I'm going with it in the spirit of the gimmick.
An iron claw! Dillon is awesome - he's definitely staying on my radar for the future. Reversing the claw led to LRB regaining an advantage.
Two cutters to Dillon but his arm is under the ropes when the cover is made.
Dillon cheats again to get the win and puts his feet on the ropes just to add insult to injury.
Eliza Roux vs Rosemary up next. Eliza has the FFW belt with her. It's not on the line, but Rosemary's TNA one is.
TNA theme plays for Rosemary (as opposed to "the nobodies" by Marilyn Manson - it's going on VOD, so I'm guessing that's why we're treated to the Dale Oliver one) who's dealing well with a quiet crowd very well, nice Zombie/Girl from the Ring (the movie) type entrance. Eliza looks well spooked.
Rosemary licks her hands and runs them down her face, Eliza backs off. Rosemary wipes her hands on the referee's shirt, and then they lock up.
Nice arm work from Eliza. Spun to the outside by Rosemary, who keeps on top of Roux with strikes both outside and inside the ring, and a face bite/roar (I couldn't quite see for the bottom rope.)
Eliza's fear of Rosemary plays into this one nicely, Rosemary stopping Eliza mid-run with a scream.
Rolling chancery from the outside in by rosemary - Roux makes it to the ropes.
Roux dodges a corner run, Rosemary's shoulder goes straight into the post.
Eliza goes back to the arm. Rosemary uses a strategic bite to get out of an armbar
Head scissors over the rope from Rosemary who falls to the floor. As we get back into the ring, Eliza goes back to the arm.
After escaping, a spear by rosemary gets a two. Roux locks a double arm breaker in on rosemary when Moorhouse, Carlisle and Lana interfere to cost eliza the title via DQ
Lana took the mist to the face. An authority figure comes out, calls Moorhouse, Carlisle and Lana a disgrace and asks his friends from Lincoln to remove them.
Tommy Rider, the Ragency and a few others from Fight Factory in the audience stand up and throw the delinquent and his entourage out of the fire door.
Short Interval notes
Rosemary is really sweet
The delinquent entourage had to jump the fence to get back into the premises.
I'm noticing something here - there are a lot of great athletes in Newcastle, but I'm seeing more psychology and thought going into match structure elsewhere. If anyone is looking to travel to different schools, this place, house of pain and Fight Factory are definitely worth a visit. It's not a knock on the scene back home, and it may just be because I've been watching wrestling for so long that I'm not necessarily into the prevalent style, but going in cold with little to no knowledge of anything leading into the shows, I've been invested in a lot more characters quicker than anywhere else
Part two:
Josh and Joel Redgrave out for the tag tournament semi finals. Elis and Jay Jay Barker are the other contenders. I know they're the faces here, but I really hate Limp Bizkit to the point of suspicion of anyone who makes me listen to them.
Lots of fast action in this one.
Headbutt exchange with the Redgrave lad mocking Jay Jay's "king of the headbutts" moniker. Soon finding out exactly where it came from. The Barkers get the advantage.
A misfire on a leapfrog by one of the Barkers results in him taking a Redgrave inverted atomic drop.
The teamwork, and use the ring space here is phenomenal to see from guys this young.
The Barkers go over and into the finals of the tournament after an awesome sequence ending in a forearm strike to the back of the head of a Redgrave which looked like it knocked him clean out.
There's a Marshall amp in the ring. They snuck that one in, quietly.
Edward Crowley and Allie the axewoman are out. There's a guitar. It's an electric, so I can't see it getting broken over anyone - I know that shouldn't be an expectation, but I made the mistake looking at the dirt sheets earlier and there's a lot of talk about Jarrett wanting to involve himself in the uk scene. After a failed attempt at a riff, the guitar is being tuned by the ref who looks suspiciously like the vocalist from Chameleons (ask your parents - then listen to the "script of the bridge" album) if you squint and close one eye.
That guitar isn't working for Crowley. Anything can happen with live entertainment folks
His opponent for tonight, Hades makes his way to the ring.
Hades is sporting a hood like Terry Gordy era executioner hood for his entrance. in body at least. Looking at him, I keep thinking in watching a more agile Warlord (body wise at least - dude is in good shape)
Hades asserts his power against Crowley for the best part of this one, finishing it by making Crowley pass out to a gogoplata/hell's gate submission.
Academy championship open challenge - the jester Jay-Row Sporting a blue, band white outfit and jester hat.
Billy O'keefe answers... and so does Joe Nelson.
O'Keefe is on the short end of some nice double teaming by Nelson and Jay-Row. The focus is definitely on incapacitating him at this point.
The alliance breaks down when Nelson goes for a cover and Jay-Row breaks it up. Jester reminds him that it's his title they are fighting for.
Jester retains, another fantastically structured match.
Our main event is up next.
Dutch (fight factory champion) vs Lewy"Ripper" Paradise (UKW champion)
Lewy is a tanned "body guy".
I'm sitting with the fight factory contingent, the Agency isn't here to watch his back, so I'm into this one with an open mind. Who the hell am I Kidding, I'm behind Dutch. Lots of nice heel work by Dutch here, though the fight factory lot were out-chanting the UKW fans.
Duelling Lincoln/Yorkshire chants - Lewis seems a bit thrown off by how much support Dutch has. Looks like the response Paradise wants to give would result in a fine...
Champion vs champion with neither title on the line - this one is all about pride.
Very nice heel work by Dutch, "he's got the hair" had the ref confused/fooled, I couldn't tell which. Dutch being bald and all that. Careful positioning to obscure the ref's view of the face grabs/fish-hooking, and distraction with his belt, having the ref confiscate it and while handing it to the ring announcer grabbing a chair to sandwich between the top two turnbuckles was a nice touch - even though the whip reversal by Paradise sent his Dutch into it head first.
Hades came out to chokeslam paradise, and Dutch went over. Hades is the number one contender - that's that one explained then. Dutch and Hades shake hands to close out the show.
All in all, in ring this show was spot on it was a bonus and a half them having fight factory involved, especially since I'd enjoyed them so much at the engine shed in Lincoln, and the main event was Fantastic. I'm looking forward to coming back on my travels in the future.
Saturday, 18 February 2017
(P, PD, BRS) NORTH wrestling NCL3 - "were in this together"
NORTH ncl3 were in this together now,
Pre show pint - sorry, pizza at pizzastorm in the new Eldon square food court. Base dough freshly prepared, and pressed via the use of a massive clamp thing. Heavy machinery and pizza finally meet here. Is there anything more awesome than that? Big thumbs up on this one, loads of create your own pizza options, and still drinks on the refillable deal. Made of win. Definitely worth a visit.
To the venue, the main body of the riverside is very compact, dark, and getting full over half an hour before the show starts. A few more here than last time by the looks of it, which is always good. The presentation is fairly gritty, definitely feels like an underground fight club.
Ring announcer for tonight is Stevie Aaron though between the failing microphones (hey, technical difficulties happen to us all at times) and the annoying tool in front of me who decided to emit a low "booooooooooo" through everything he tried to say like a broken fridge wired up to an arse hole amplifier between the unfunny offensive chants. (that's the only time I'm mentioning you if you're reading this, you're not getting over on this blog for being a dick, and I did hear your name, but it's not gracing this page. And booing the rainbow flag? Fuck you) he had a hard night being heard.
Jumping John Myers is the ref for tonight.
The first contest takes some explanation: the Sons of Ulaìd have been screwing with Liam Slater and costing him matches. this was meant to be Slater and Dom Black vs the Sons of Ulaìd. Rory Coyle was suspended after laying out a fan called Lewis at the last show (hence the reference to the incident in the blog about the 3CW show. this left it as a handicap match (Dom Black and Liam Slater vs Bas Ban)
Dom Black was out to cut a promo about his love of wrestling and Newcastle. He gets round to introducing his tag partner, but instead gets Bas Ban. I was half expecting a hessian bag containing Slater, some corn syrup and red dye to be over his shoulder, alas no, Slater is nowhere to be seen.
So we have ourselves a singles match.
Mixed crowd support on this one, the Ulaìd boys have got themselves a bit of a following, but it does kind of seem like Dom is getting the "tag partner to the star" kind of reaction.
Part way through the match Martin Kirby appears to substitute for Slater and help out Black, doling out a series of excruciating head kicks, but gets thwarted by a mystery luchador who reveals himself as Rory Coyle. Coyle and Kirby brawl to the back while Bas Ban goes over with a vicious looking fall away slam.
We have a debut up next for Amir Jordan, who gives us an account of how he loves the area, but accidentally makes a John Prescott style cock-up referring to the famous Rupali curry house, which hasn't been there for a while now (Prescott - a labour MP made a reference in a tv interview to the Consett steelworks being the pride of the north east in the present tense, almost 10 years after it closed - there you go, obscure references ahoy, brought to you by pints, piledrivers and replacement bus services). It all goes a bit four lions when he gets his toy gun out. I think being called out on Rupali being closed down for ages put him off his stride a bit as he almost forgot he'd brought it. But hey, he recovered it well, and the ref and ring announcer selling it seemed to help.
Amir has his work cut out for him tonight, his opponent is Screwface.
An amusing chant of "works at B&Q" aimed at Screwface through this one, and a pretty decent match between the two. Jordan makes an impressive debut here.
Screwface would eventually get the win here, but Jordan definitely has a promising future.
Ht drake v Jimmy Havoc is our first half main event, and Havoc starts off by trying to intimidate Drake. It's not working.
The action spills out to the floor quickly and goes all over room.
Little bit of a slip on one of the dives Havoc went for, but he made up for it later on with an on target one. Havoc did seem more than a little focused on hitting the acid rainmaker through the match. Interference from the London Riots, a couple of cricket bat shots from Havoc, the New Nation come out to counteract and chase the Riots to the back. The Havoc goes over in this one, and the main event tag match is now no DQ.
David O'Docherty makes his way out to declare himself "king of the session, and proceeds to make an arse of himself by failing to down a tin of frosty jacks, elbow dropping his flat cap, then calling out "Queen of the session" Session moth Martina. O'Docherty has a surprise for Martina in the form of April Davids as opposition.
Session moth Martina is out and ready to fight both of them. She's not come alone as she's brought jack Sexsmith along for the ride.
The sheepskin coat wearing manager has another acquisition - body guy Roy Johnson. Roy tells O'Docherty that him and Jack trained together and are friends. But in this business, friendships don't matter. He proceeds to level Sexsmith, and cue an intergender match between the two teams.
Lots of nice back and forth here, April Davids is a machine and seemingly fearless. Here's hoping we see more of her.
Session moth Martina & Sexsmith go over with a middle rope codebreakerer.
O'Doherty kicks off at April and Roy for not getting the job done. They tell him where to go and walk off. Sexsmith and Martina celebrate, and humiliate him afterwards with "Mr cocko" (a mandible claw using a condom) and a bare back stinkface. Just to top it off, the del boy lookalike is treated to the session moth and Sexsmith dancing to the theme tune from only fools and horses while recovering.
Dunne vs Margera - hard core match.
Dunne is adamant that this isn't going to involve any weaponry. Margera has other ideas. Lots of plunder used here - highlights this one include Dunne pushing a cheese grater into the back of Margera, then smashing a chair over the cheese grater, Margera sending Dunne through a set of chairs and dustpan full of pins.
Dunne gets out the duplo, and takes a death valley driver onto the blocks, sealing his fate and Margera's vicrory
No DQ tag match - London Riots vs Nation
(Round 2 - Fight!)
Nation, being the faces here, get attacked for the quick start.
After incapacitating Primate, the Riots plant Henry with a spike tombstone on the stage. This sees Henry taken to the back and the Riots take control with a series of double team sequences on Primate including a cricket bat shot or two just for good measure.
Henry resurfaces upstairs, and dives into the Riots from the balcony. Nation dominate from here to get the win with a couple of awesome double team moves
In this rivalry, after the progress show in Sheffield, that leaves them at 1-1. Sunday the 19th in Leeds at Tidal's wipeout is the rubber match I guess.
The pint after was again in the hop & cleaver - Spectre Welsh stout - dark and smooth, just what I needed to be honest - though if i'd seen the coffee porter first I would have probably went for that. Anyhow, that's yer lot for this blog - if I can make it back to the next one I will. Haskins is booked for that one too.
Pre show pint - sorry, pizza at pizzastorm in the new Eldon square food court. Base dough freshly prepared, and pressed via the use of a massive clamp thing. Heavy machinery and pizza finally meet here. Is there anything more awesome than that? Big thumbs up on this one, loads of create your own pizza options, and still drinks on the refillable deal. Made of win. Definitely worth a visit.
To the venue, the main body of the riverside is very compact, dark, and getting full over half an hour before the show starts. A few more here than last time by the looks of it, which is always good. The presentation is fairly gritty, definitely feels like an underground fight club.
Ring announcer for tonight is Stevie Aaron though between the failing microphones (hey, technical difficulties happen to us all at times) and the annoying tool in front of me who decided to emit a low "booooooooooo" through everything he tried to say like a broken fridge wired up to an arse hole amplifier between the unfunny offensive chants. (that's the only time I'm mentioning you if you're reading this, you're not getting over on this blog for being a dick, and I did hear your name, but it's not gracing this page. And booing the rainbow flag? Fuck you) he had a hard night being heard.
Jumping John Myers is the ref for tonight.
The first contest takes some explanation: the Sons of Ulaìd have been screwing with Liam Slater and costing him matches. this was meant to be Slater and Dom Black vs the Sons of Ulaìd. Rory Coyle was suspended after laying out a fan called Lewis at the last show (hence the reference to the incident in the blog about the 3CW show. this left it as a handicap match (Dom Black and Liam Slater vs Bas Ban)
Dom Black was out to cut a promo about his love of wrestling and Newcastle. He gets round to introducing his tag partner, but instead gets Bas Ban. I was half expecting a hessian bag containing Slater, some corn syrup and red dye to be over his shoulder, alas no, Slater is nowhere to be seen.
So we have ourselves a singles match.
Mixed crowd support on this one, the Ulaìd boys have got themselves a bit of a following, but it does kind of seem like Dom is getting the "tag partner to the star" kind of reaction.
Part way through the match Martin Kirby appears to substitute for Slater and help out Black, doling out a series of excruciating head kicks, but gets thwarted by a mystery luchador who reveals himself as Rory Coyle. Coyle and Kirby brawl to the back while Bas Ban goes over with a vicious looking fall away slam.
We have a debut up next for Amir Jordan, who gives us an account of how he loves the area, but accidentally makes a John Prescott style cock-up referring to the famous Rupali curry house, which hasn't been there for a while now (Prescott - a labour MP made a reference in a tv interview to the Consett steelworks being the pride of the north east in the present tense, almost 10 years after it closed - there you go, obscure references ahoy, brought to you by pints, piledrivers and replacement bus services). It all goes a bit four lions when he gets his toy gun out. I think being called out on Rupali being closed down for ages put him off his stride a bit as he almost forgot he'd brought it. But hey, he recovered it well, and the ref and ring announcer selling it seemed to help.
Amir has his work cut out for him tonight, his opponent is Screwface.
An amusing chant of "works at B&Q" aimed at Screwface through this one, and a pretty decent match between the two. Jordan makes an impressive debut here.
Screwface would eventually get the win here, but Jordan definitely has a promising future.
Ht drake v Jimmy Havoc is our first half main event, and Havoc starts off by trying to intimidate Drake. It's not working.
The action spills out to the floor quickly and goes all over room.
Little bit of a slip on one of the dives Havoc went for, but he made up for it later on with an on target one. Havoc did seem more than a little focused on hitting the acid rainmaker through the match. Interference from the London Riots, a couple of cricket bat shots from Havoc, the New Nation come out to counteract and chase the Riots to the back. The Havoc goes over in this one, and the main event tag match is now no DQ.
David O'Docherty makes his way out to declare himself "king of the session, and proceeds to make an arse of himself by failing to down a tin of frosty jacks, elbow dropping his flat cap, then calling out "Queen of the session" Session moth Martina. O'Docherty has a surprise for Martina in the form of April Davids as opposition.
Session moth Martina is out and ready to fight both of them. She's not come alone as she's brought jack Sexsmith along for the ride.
The sheepskin coat wearing manager has another acquisition - body guy Roy Johnson. Roy tells O'Docherty that him and Jack trained together and are friends. But in this business, friendships don't matter. He proceeds to level Sexsmith, and cue an intergender match between the two teams.
Lots of nice back and forth here, April Davids is a machine and seemingly fearless. Here's hoping we see more of her.
Session moth Martina & Sexsmith go over with a middle rope codebreakerer.
O'Doherty kicks off at April and Roy for not getting the job done. They tell him where to go and walk off. Sexsmith and Martina celebrate, and humiliate him afterwards with "Mr cocko" (a mandible claw using a condom) and a bare back stinkface. Just to top it off, the del boy lookalike is treated to the session moth and Sexsmith dancing to the theme tune from only fools and horses while recovering.
Dunne vs Margera - hard core match.
Dunne is adamant that this isn't going to involve any weaponry. Margera has other ideas. Lots of plunder used here - highlights this one include Dunne pushing a cheese grater into the back of Margera, then smashing a chair over the cheese grater, Margera sending Dunne through a set of chairs and dustpan full of pins.
Dunne gets out the duplo, and takes a death valley driver onto the blocks, sealing his fate and Margera's vicrory
No DQ tag match - London Riots vs Nation
(Round 2 - Fight!)
Nation, being the faces here, get attacked for the quick start.
After incapacitating Primate, the Riots plant Henry with a spike tombstone on the stage. This sees Henry taken to the back and the Riots take control with a series of double team sequences on Primate including a cricket bat shot or two just for good measure.
Henry resurfaces upstairs, and dives into the Riots from the balcony. Nation dominate from here to get the win with a couple of awesome double team moves
In this rivalry, after the progress show in Sheffield, that leaves them at 1-1. Sunday the 19th in Leeds at Tidal's wipeout is the rubber match I guess.
The pint after was again in the hop & cleaver - Spectre Welsh stout - dark and smooth, just what I needed to be honest - though if i'd seen the coffee porter first I would have probably went for that. Anyhow, that's yer lot for this blog - if I can make it back to the next one I will. Haskins is booked for that one too.
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