Hello my name is Iwan Mackenzie and I thought I was the tallest dude in a crowd until I hung round with the Ogdens.
I’m back with another review this time it involves me heading to New Cross for Tidal’s first London show since 2013, I was at that show as well, I still remember it being a really cold December night and I went so I could meet Chuck Taylor and Adam Cole as they were on the show, Cole along with Mark Haskins wasn’t able to make the show due to missing their flights from Germany so the card was shuffled around, I remember Nathan Cruz played the babyface against Rampage Brown which just feels weird even 6 years on from the fact, I remember the show pulling in quite a low crowd and this was held in the Coronet Theatre as well, Chuck Taylor and Colt Cabana had a really fun match and I did meet Taylor at least.
So yeah this was my first Tidal show since that night in 2013, what interested me about this show was the fact that Tidal have become one of the hidden gems in BritWres due to their cult like following in the Temple of Boom in Leeds which many of my northern friends have told me how great it is,and also because of how local it was to me as I live in Grove Park and this only took me 30 mins to get to (would have been less but its a Sunday service). Going into this show, the top match is Sugar Dunkerton defending his Tidal Heavyweight championship against TK Cooper as well as appearances from Chuck Mambo, HT Drake, Roxxy amongst others.
Departing from Grove Park at 14:01pm with my Stepdad in tow, we got into Lewisham before having to wait for the next train to get into New Cross which we eventually got around 14:30pm we headed to the pub across the venue first before heading into the venue (The New Cross Inn) just after doors at 15:00pm. Once inside, I had quite a nice chat with Dann Read before parking myself up next to my mates Martin and Tom as we were all standing with the travelling northern section of fans (Ben, Andy, Geoff and Andrew) as they create the best atmosphere and I felt like my Southern style would mix well with their Northern Soul.
Our first match was Sean Only facing off against the Mad Russian Boris Koslov (The former JC Thunder), the opening chant for Sean was “Sean Only, woaahhh, Sean Only, woaahhh. He comes from Liverpool, we think he’s really cool!” Great stuff. This was a good opening match with the story of the match being Boris trying to wrestle Sean whilst Sean tried to take Boris down with his MMA style kicks, it worked very well and was a very good way to start the show. Sean picked up the pinfall after the Blackout Stomp.
In our second match it was, a Tsunami Tag Team Match (basically a tornado tag team match but Tidal init?) as Joe Nelson and Natalie Skyes known as The Breakfast Club (they unfortunately didn’t come out to Don’t you forget about Me) against Jack Bandicoot and The Pop Punk Kid Jake Silver who are known as Crashboat. This just went about 6 minutes but it was quite the sprint for the time it had. Lot of fighting on the outside where Natalie hit some nice kicks onto Silver, they then headed back into the ring and hit a lot of fast paced moves before Silver hit a second rope moonsault to pick up the win. Very nice work between all four wrestlers here.
Next up we had London’s own Sadie Gibbs challenging Tidal Open Champion (a title that can be defended against either men or women) Roxxy for the title. This match much like the tag team match was pretty short but they were able to work well together with the time they had. Sadie’s athleticism was on point for this match as she at one point hit a double handspring back elbow to the corner onto Roxxy and later on hoisted Roxxy above her head in a gorilla press slam and followed it up with a moonsault for a two count. Roxxy’s counter action to this was to wear Sadie down with submissions and a lovely looking sunset flip powerbomb into the corner. The finishes comes when Roxxy locks in the Last Chancery to secure the submission win over Sadie and to retain her Open Championship, lovely stuff all round.
In our first half main event, we see Brady Phillips (who was wearing his best Rupert the Bear trousers, a fact that the crowd picked up on) take on Will Kroos. Apparently both men are heels in Tidal but because Brady is pretty much an arrogant dickhead character, the crowd got behind Kroos instead. Before and even after the bell had rung, the crowd was taking the utter piss out of Brady and decided to start singing songs with the word Baby or Lady in the title, such hits included “Hit me Brady one more time” “Ice Ice Brady” “I was made for loving you Brady” “With my Brady Tonight” and Justin’s Beiber’s Baby but changed to Brady, I was proud of my contribution of “Dude looks like a Brady”, Brady even had to walk out through the curtain maybe so he didn’t corpse entirely, I know that my stepdad said he was laughing his tits off at the bar. But with the shenanigans out of the way, this match was a real surprise to me, they just went all out in this little pub in South East London and the crowd lapped it up. Highlights included Brady and Kroos going for the suicideplex, a spot that is always scary to watch but always a sight to behold as well; Brady hit a suicide dive and then Kroos followed it up with a somersault plancha that made me chant for Tidal as this was a hell of a match; back in the ring and Kroos went for . The finish came when Kroos went up the second rope but Brady kicked his knees from out of him and hit the rope hung DDT for the win via pinfall. This on the whole was the best match of the night, first time seeing Kroos wrestle and I think he’s great and after seeing him on Saturday as well as Sunday, I’m high on Brady Phillips as he’s a great talent.
Interval now and I brought myself a drink to recover from the Brady chants and me, my friends and my stepdad were all just having a really nice chat which is what the beauty of a live wrestling event is. I remember David Starr saying in an interview before that in Britain, that wrestling is more of a social event, and I can certainly a test to that.
Back from our interval, and our next match is Gabriel Kidd (who is not liked at all by the crowd here) take on Tidal mainstay HT Drake. Before the match Kidd complained about the travel down from the north only to be booed when he came out threw the curtain, he said he’s the best thing to ever happen to Tidal and he can’t wait to smack Drake around; Drake grabs the mic and he says that he’s more northern he is due to being from Newcastle, he also said if he was any further up north he’d be Scottish, he re-firmed his position as a Tidal mainstay and then but the mic down but Kidd attacked him, and the match was on. Lot of brawling around the crowd to start off including Drake hitting a nice looking springboard crossbody to the outside, back in the ring and Kidd was able to take control as the crowd booed the holy hell out of him, even mocking his stint on World of Sport. The finish came when Drake was able to fight back and hit a springboard lungblower to pick up the win to a big ovation from the crowd whilst Kidd had to suffer the AAAAAAHHHHHH! Point of shame. After the match Kidd quit Tidal! which got a big reaction from our section. I really enjoyed this match and the crowd helped make it better.
Next up we had the Tidal Tag Team Championships be defended as London’s Never Say Die, the combination of Dillon D’Angelo and Alex Cupid face the makeshift team of Man Like Deriess and The Ugandan Warrior Nsereko who was accompanied by Sebb Strife who was out injured so that’s why Deriess was drafted in. This was a very good match between the ropes; I’m very high on Deriess as a talent anyway as he just has a natural ability about him, its my first time seeing Nsereko but I though he was really good as a talent and I’d like to see more of him soon. As far as the champions themselves, this was one of the best Never Say Die matches I’ve seen in ages, and this is coming from somebody who isn’t really that big of a fan of NSD, as personally I’ve never been able to click with them as much as other young teams such as M&M and NIC. That clicking thing is what many of my friends mentioned to me as they said this was the weakest match on the night, and that’s not because of the ring work but rather not being able to connect with the competitors personalities and I can agree with that for the most part. Never Say Die picked up the pinfall win to retain the titles but surprisingly the London crowd didn’t really care for their boys winning it seemed like judging by the reaction.
In our penultimate match, we had Terry Isit (a late replacement for Joseph Connors, who was out with illness) take on another London favourite in Chuck Mambo. This felt very heated as Terry clearly took the abuse from the fans, mocking his top not and referencing to a “Sh*t Mark Andrews/Josh Bodom/Dolph Ziggler” and decided to inflict it onto crowd favourite, I will say now that Isit impressed me a lot on this night more so than his face work against Spike Trivet at IWL last July. Mambo was his usual excellent self and was more than perfect as the babyface in peril which he played for most of this match but was able to make a great comeback, at one point he jumped off the ring and then jumped off the bar onto the top rope and hit a Reefbrake for a two count, it was very impressive indeed. It was Mambo who picked up the win after a springboard frog splash onto Isit to win a very good match.
It was then main event time as Tidal World Champion Sugar Dunkerton defends the title against a regular of the London scene TK Cooper. Sugar got an amazing reaction from the fans mostly due to the northern fans who serenaded him with the chants of the song “Sugar Sugar” for Dunketon, we and them must of done it at least 10 times over, truth be told I started to get a really sore throat on the fourth go. This match started off with Sugar’s trademark comedic antics and involved him going outside with TK, sitting him on a stool and asking questions before proceeding to strike him, TK responded with answers and strikes of his own. TK was able to take control back and get Sugar back into the ring, including hitting a wonderful springboard flipping leg drop known as the Omulette de’ Fromarge. Sugar did mount a comeback onto TK and managed to catch him in a very complicated looking pinfall to pick up the win and retain the championship in a really good main event. Post-Match, Sugar thanked the fans for coming out considering they had a lot of options available to them (RevPro was running London the same day as well) and he and the rest of the roster appreciated it.
Post show, I got to grab a picture and say hell0 for the first time to Brady Phillips and HT Drake as well as speak to the champ himself Sugar Dunkerton, who I found out is a big Only Fools and Horses fan, who would have known?
So my overall thought on this show are very positive indeed, it was great that Tidal used there regular roster rather than pander it to the London crowd by using the regular talent we always see. As far as London talents, they only used Mambo, TK, Gibbs and NSD and that was it apart from that you got a load of talents you rarely if ever see down here like Koslov, Only, Crashboat, Breakfast Club, Phillips, Kroos, Nsereko, Isit and even Sugar Dunkerton. My highlights of the night from a in-ring standpoint was probably Kroos vs Phillips and I really enjoyed everything else equally as well, from an in-ring standpoint there wasn’t a single duff match the whole night. If you are in the London area, then please try and check out Tidal’s next show in New Cross Inn on June 23rd as I will be there and its going to be a load of fun.
If you want to follow Tidal wrestling on Social Media then they are @TIDALWRESTLING on both Twitter and Instagram
If you want to follow me on Social Media then I am @IwanMack on both Twitter and Instagram
Thank you for Reading
Iwan Mackenzie
