By Liam Byrne @tvtimelimit
‘International Waters’ would be the last Riptide show before the Brighton Championship Tournament and the Pride weekend of shows. With Candy Floss, the members of Aussie Open, Chris Brookes (as it stood at this point), WALTER and Spike Trivet the only guaranteed entrants in the tournament considering Chuck Mambo had put his place on the line, there were still ten gaps to fill. By the end of the evening, only three would be left for wildcard entry purposes; the tournament had taken shape.
Unfortunately for the Brighton faithful, that would mean all three members of Money Versus Everybody making their way into the first round as Chris Ridgeway and Damon Moser fought off a spirited challenge by Bea Priestley and Toni Storm. Storm would initially show herself more than capable of mixing it on the mat with Ridgeway, before Priestley would hit three running kicks from the apron to Moser, Ridgeway and a delightfully attired Spike Trivet, decked out in his summer finest. This allowed Storm to land a suicide dive to all three men, though a big Ridgeway forearm after the match returned to the ring put the heels firmly in the driving seat as they began to cut the ring in half. Illegal teams and a snot rocket from Ridgeway aimed at Priestley didn’t exactly endear the fans to either of the men.
A suplex variation by Storm allowed her to tag to Priestley, who would blast Moser with the Cheeky Nandos kick before an illegal push off the top by Ridgeway once more handed control back to Money Versus Everybody. A half Boston crab by Ridgeway had Priestley screaming in pain, whilst a rear chinlock sought to wear her down even further. Each attempted comeback was halted by no-nonsense strikes from both men, though Priestley continued to beat the count. A sequence of reversals and a kick to Ridgeway’s head allowed for a second hot tag of the contest as Storm unleashed multiple corner hip attacks before a combination backstabber/double foot stomp on Ridgeway. The ref lost complete control by this point, leading to a sequence of strikes by all competitors ending with a Strong Zero by Storm on Ridgeway. Ultimately, a go behind into a rear naked choke, coupled with some forearm shots to the back of the head, left Storm knocked out and gave the victory to Ridgeway and Moser. To celebrate, they double Pillmanized the ladies like the wonderful gentlemen they are.
A match stemming from events at the Riptide Rumble, Charlie Morgan took on Flash Morgan Webster after the Mod had attacked her and stolen her place in the aforementioned Rumble. Webster would take his time to engage, and soon wished he hadn’t when Morgan unleashed strikes both in and out of the ring, punctuated by a suicide dive. Webster would even find himself in amongst the chairs at ringside as his attempts to hurt Morgan spectacularly failed. It took Webster pulling the referee into the way of a corner charge, followed by a headbutt, to stop what had been all Morgan up until this point. Chokes on the ropes, an implosion senton and a rear naked choke only added to the punishment.
A springboard twisting press met nothing but canvas as Webster’s aerial risks looked like they might come back to cost him. A corner leg lariat and a superkick combined to earn Morgan a nearfall, though a jumping kick to the back of the head saw Webster threaten to walk out rather than take the pinfall loss. A Morgan suplex on the stage probably wasn’t what Webster had hoped for from that plan, but he would subsequently utilise the referee as a means to crotch Morgan on the top rope. On a hot and sweaty night in Brighton, the ropes added an additional element of danger and Morgan was lucky not to get hurt on a superplex that never did quite get set correctly into position. As Webster jawed with the crowd, Morgan was able to slap on a small package for the flash pinfall victory and some measure of revenge.
The Aussie Open Invitational Challenge would be answer by not one, but two teams. The South Pacific Power Trip were the first arrivals on the scene, only to be interrupted by budget Freddie Mercury impersonator, Lord Gideon Grey, and Kurtis Chapman. Grey would run down the competition, eating a four way superkick for his trouble, whilst Chapman’s attempts to use his keyboard were met with chops by Mark Davis, Travis Banks and Kyle Fletcher, ending up with Chapman disappearing to the merchandise area to recuperate. This did at least leave it as a conventional tag match for the early exchanges after TK Cooper decided to punch Davis in the face. After some quick back and forth between the two teams, Davis would get his revenge with a punch of his own, though primarily one to ignore that the hot temperatures had made his one arm powerbomb on Travis Banks not quite work out. A keyboard shot by Chapman heralded the return of the heels, further cemented by a corner tope con giro by the Keyboard Warrior.
With Grey’s words in his ear, Shay Purser (the referee) decided to go for a dive of his own; Davis’ decision to punch him in the face instead saw an awful looking bump that had the referee bounce off the edge of the apron. A pile on on Grey once more then led to an inadvertent Chapman bicycle kick to his partner, one that came from over exuberance more than anything else, before Chapman also would face the wrath of the other four men. With the match finally returning to the ring, Aussie Open would almost score a pin with an assisted sitout spinebuster by Fletcher. However, it was Grey and Chapman who almost stole the win with an assisted Sega Megadriver on Cooper after another four way strike would see Grey duck out of the way. After a Fidget Spinner took out Banks, Chapman would be the man who was dropped with Close Your Eyes And Count To Fuck for a popular Aussie Open victory.
Looming over the Chuck Mambo versus Eddie Dennis match was the fear that the time away from the ring had caused Dennis to sour, just waiting for the time to unleash his frustrations on a man he calls his friend. However, there were no initial signs of that being the case as the two men grappled on the canvas, with Mambo coming out on top initially as Dennis struggled to shake off the ring rust. Mambo’s decision to use his feet to start the audience clapping in the midst of a Dennis’ headscissors earned him a slapped hand as he offered to help Dennis up, though it also sparked an insane succession of reversals, drop downs and blocks that ended with a wheelbarrow armdrag by Mambo. As the match went to ringside, Dennis would take control by dumping Mambo back first on the ring apron. A hipblock takedown and a stalling vertical suplex saw Dennis throw Mambo around with relative ease, though Mambo was no slouch as he was able to get Dennis up for a suplex of his own.
Three suicide dives by Mambo saw the third one caught, but Dennis’ attempts to use the ring apron once more only led to a plancha from Chuck instead. Dennis managed to kick out of Mambo’s springboard splash. A sequence of pinfall reversals barely let the referee get into position for any counts, they were so quick, before a Mambo superkick and a Dennis lariat had both men down on the canvas. Unfortunately for the fans who were enjoying the contest up to this point, Kurtis Chapman would saunter down to ringside and blast Mambo with his keyboard, ending the contest and giving Mambo the match by disqualification. Gideon Grey would also blast Dennis with a low blow, following up with a promo that was almost impossible to hear between the vitriol from the fans and the brief technical issues with the microphone. Effectively, Grey wanted more respect for both himself and Chapman, not stopping until they get it. Irrelevant of that, Mambo had retained his Brighton Championship Tournament berth, though not exactly in the way he’d have wanted.
An eight person elimination match with two slots in the Brighton Championship Tournament up for grabs followed, with Adam Brooks, Cara Noir, Jinny, Kid Lykos, LK Mezinger, Lucky Kid, Millie McKenzie and Veda Scott all competing for the opportunity. Scott would try to take initial advantage of the elimination nature of the match and grab a hotdog, only to then use it on Lucky Kid as a weapon. As could be expected from an eight person elimination match with no tags, the action came thick and fast with each wrestler able to get their chance to shine in the opening exchanges. It would be Lykos that Noir would initially fixate upon, though an attempt to use the same mind games on Lucky Kid didn’t quite work as he would end up scaring everyone into the corner with his own interesting mannerisms before Brooks would stop him with an unceremonious kick to the chest.
Time came for everyone to take to the sky as we saw dives from Jinny, Scott, Mezinger and McKenzie, though Kid would decide to sit down in the center of the ring rather than fly out of the ring. A Rainmaker-style Koppou kick by Jinny saw Scott pinned for the first elimination, whilst Mezinger would soon follow off of a Kid Dragon suplex. Brooks then took out Jinny with a schoolboy roll up and assistance from the ropes, and Kid then was dropped with a Lykos brainbuster for the fourth elimination. Suddenly, we were down to three as Brooks hit a modified Northern Lights Bomb across his knee on Lykos, leaving only Brooks, Noir and McKenzie in the running. After a sequence of events saw both Brooks and McKenzie end up in the tree of woe, it would be the Australian who ‘earned’ himself a lick from Noir. After Brooks helped McKenzie in a pop-up Canadian destroyer on Noir, McKenzie would subsequently end Brooks’ night with a spear. McKenzie and Noir would both qualify, though how much Noir knew about it at the time is up for debate. Noir would attack McKenzie post-match, even going as far as to a put a pink wig on her, only to raise the ire of Candy Floss who hit the ring to run him off.
With his ongoing troubles with Money Versus Everybody, it was sometimes easy to forget that Jack Sexsmith had not yet qualified for the Brighton Championship Tournament. He had a chance to right this wrong against Jordan Devlin, a casualty of the March weather who was making his Riptide debut. Unsurprisingly, the fans were in Sexsmith’s corner as the feeling out process commenced and Devlin soon earned the fans’ disapproval with a leg grapevine and several derisory stomps on Sexsmith’s back. A unique spot saw Sexsmith telegraph a floatover attempt by Devlin to turn it into a reverse atomic drop, but Devlin was soon back in control following a roll through and a double foot stomp. An attempt to fire back with several strikes failed as Devlin hit a picture perfect dropkick to the face, posing afterwards as if he had just knocked Sexsmith’s head out of the park.
A uranage suplex and standing moonsault earned Devlin a nearfall, yet it was Sexsmith who was close to winning moments later after a superkick and Sliced Bread #2 pulled him back into the contest. A Sexsmith knee and a Devlin headbutt had both men down and struggling to beat the count, before an exchange of slaps on their knees led to Sexsmith hitting the delayed DDT and a top rope foot stomp to drive Devlin into the canvas. A short delay on grabbing the pin – the repercussions of a kick to Sexsmith’s knee earlier causing him problems following the stomp – perhaps cost Sexsmith the three count as Devlin rolled the shoulder at two. Controversy soon followed. Devlin would lock Sexsmith in the sharpshooter, but as the pansexual phenomenon reached for the ropes … the referee would signal the match was over and Sexsmith had submitted. Having had a modicum of distance from each other in recent shows, the music of Spike Trivet hitting the PA system drove everything home. In the midst of a Money Versus Everybody beatdown, money would be handed to the referee; a small price to eliminate Sexsmith from Brighton Championship contention.
Trivet would make it clear to Sexsmith: no-one needs a hero, they want a hero to live vicariously through to forget their pathetic lives, something he has never needed. Having taken everything from Sexsmith, Trivet hoped he would realise that at the top, money talks. Trivet would even offer Sexsmith a free shot with the chair, but Sexsmith was too distraught to take advantage, and Trivet would walk away – the final damning note being that he didn’t even assault him with the chair as had been the usual modus operandi of Money Versus Everybody; the damage had been done.
When you build up someone as a monster, it means much more when they show weakness and a hint that they can be slain. This is what we saw in the match between WALTER and Mike Bailey, a war that probably qualifies as the best match I’ve seen live. In the opening moments, the dangers of Bailey to WALTER became immediately apparent as he buzzed around the much bigger man with kicks and avoided WALTER’s strikes. However, a caught dive at ringside and powerbomb onto the ring apron only served to highlight what was in store for Bailey when WALTER got his hands on him. The first chop of the contest made my eyes water, let alone what it did to Bailey, before a slam, vertical splash and gutwrench suplex had the crowd chanting WALTER’s name. Bailey’s kicks still offered a threat, even from the ground; each time WALTER stepped towards him, debilitating sweeps and kicks would look to chop away at the tree trunk legs of the Austrian.
Having whacked WALTER down to size, a running sky twister press earned Bailey a two count, whilst a trip had the bigger man fleeing to the outside. There was no safe haven, Bailey following him with a springboard moonsault and even hitting a moonsault kneedrop whilst in amongst the crowd! Though this didn’t earn Bailey the win via countout, he smelled blood in the water and pounced on WALTER the moment he returned to the ring with more strikes. WALTER was always dangerous though; a giant John Woo dropkick sent Bailey flying across the ring. Bailey was giving as good as he was getting in the strike exchanges, with both men eventually crumpling to the canvas. Bailey managed to escape a Gojira clutch, before two moonsault kneedrops, one from the second rope scored the closest fall yet on WALTER. Ridiculously, WALTER would then chop Bailey in the middle of a shooting star press (a move that left Bailey with a huge welt across the forehead). Bailey kicked out of the following lariat, but several clubbing forearm blows and a Gojira clutch finally gave WALTER the win. An insanely physical contest that showed signs that WALTER could be put in trouble … but could he be beaten?
Somewhat ironically, the main event on the evening was the only match that didn’t technically include a Brighton Championship Tournament qualifier, at least not when it ended. Chris Brookes would defeat Naoki Tanizaki, but would announce post-match that he was giving up his Brighton Championship Tournament spot due to double booking. Whilst many fans would have accepted the apology anyway, the makeweight choice of Jonah Rock as the replacement definitely smoothed over any problems.
So here we are now. With David Starr and Angelico making the field one of fifteen as it stands – one wildcard waiting for Spike Trivet on the opening night – the stage has been set for a new Brighton Champion. With a first round that includes matches such as Jonah Rock versus WALTER and Candy Floss versus Cara Noir, the promotion continues to offer spectacle alongside solid storyline booking. By the end of the Pride weekend, the promotion would have gone the way of PROGRESS, wXw and PWG in offering a tournament across three days that aims to showcase the best in independent wrestling; a monumental task and one that is testament to the aspirations of the promotion as a whole.
Whatever happens, whoever wins, it has been a wild first year.
