So as people will know by now Charlie Morgan announced her retirement at WrestleQueendom II this past Sunday in a shocking turn of events, as people who follow me on Social Media will know, this really got to me as Charlie one of my favourite people to chat too as well as my favourite wrestler anywhere in the world. Its taken me a bit of time to compile my feelings but I wanted to write about my experiences with Charlie Morgan over the last two years and why she is so important to me as a person.
So I first heard of Charlie Morgan when her promo came out from EVE where she publicly came out as gay in front of the crowd, I remember watching it and thinking wow that was so brave for someone to do that in a public forum, I later found that she had in fact broken her collarbone in her match against Kasey Owens after the promo, she was going to be out for some time but all I knew is that I wanted to meet her and that I wanted to go to EVE for the first time; you see at the time, EVE was just running the double shows with no single shows so as soon as they announced a show for August 2017 I was there immediately. I remember seeing Charlie at that show as well as the September show I went to as well and wanting to meet her but I felt really nervous to say anything, it was round that time that I wasn’t a massive speaker to wrestlers as more often or not I got starstruck by people.
I finally got to see her wrestle in October for PROGRESS (not EVE) at their first and only to date Revelations of Divine Love tournament where she went out in the first round losing to Charli Evans, the match was a great one and Charlie instantly impressed me with her technical ability, I unfortunately was not able to meet her that night but only four days later, I saw her wrestle for the first time in EVE against (ironically) Charli Evans and Kasey Owens; it was that night that I finally got to meet her for the first time that night, I was nervous but I said hello, grabbed a t-shirt off her and finally got a picture with her, I was ready to just move on but then Charlie asked me if I enjoyed the show, not a lot of wrestlers did that with me, she was actually interested in my opinion, we had a nice little chat after that; now at the time I wasn’t going to do the SHE-1 2017 because in my job at the time getting two days off in a row let alone Saturday and Sunday was hard but because Charlie was in it and we’d had that lovely chat, I went into my manager and asked her for the time off, I was so thankful that I got them off.
What a weekend the inaugural SHE-1 was, there was great matches from Meiko Satomura, Emi Sakara, Viper but Charlie’s tournament story was the main narrative driving through the plot of her story; she beat Nicole Mathews in a strong contest to earn her first two points, she then faced Kay Lee Ray in one of my 2017 Matches of the Year, it was a wild and frantic brawl that went all round the Resistance Gallery before finally going into the ring where both women through suplex’s and superkicks in a effort to win before Nina Samuels caused a no contest to give her a point advantage, the next day was finally the grudge match between Charlie and Nina that had started when Charlie came out all those months ago, this was a classic valiant face against a nasty viscous heel story with nobody wanting Nina to win as Charlie was the chosen one in the EVE Faithful. Charlie thankfully picked up the win to head to the final.
So the final was set: Charlie Morgan vs Meiko Satomura vs Sammii Jayne who was the current EVE champion at the time, Sammii knew that Charlie had the momentum so she attacked her before the bell and put her through a table thus taking out Charlie from the match, so it looked like it was just going to be Satomura vs Jayne but sometime later Charlie made her way back into the match batter and bruised still from the table break earlier, the most insane moment having to be Charlie’s dive from the balcony in the ResGal onto Sammii and an assortment of trainees, a short time later she hit the elevated DDT and the win on Sammii to become the first ever SHE-1 winner and thus the ACE of EVE.
From there on we had a five month build towards the main event of Pro Wrestling: EVE’s first ever York Hall show Charlie Morgan vs Sammii Jayne for the Championship. Lots of twists and turns along the way with Sammii more often then not getting the last laugh on Charlie, a main plot thread of this story was Charlie’s hesitation to do the dive from the ropes that originally injured her back in July with Sammii and her cronies taunting her about it as well as challenge her nickname of “Fearless”. Eventually after all the taunting and put downs Charlie finally hit hit on Sammii at “Badass Bitches from Mars” in April 2018 on the last show before Queendom before saying that “I’m Charlie Morgan and I am fucking Fearless!” everybody was behind her like never before.
We get to May 5th 2019 and York Hall in Bethnal Green where a few of us had got a coach down from Alexander Palace where a PROGRESS show had happened that same day, despite a late start, we were treated to an awesome show with Kay Lee Ray vs Meiko Satomura in a MOTY candidate and seeing the legendary Aja Kong wrestle for the first time live but we were about to get the cherry on top of a perfect cake with the main event.It started of frantically as you’d expect as both women hated each other so this was just a fucking brawl around the stage before spilling into the crowd, Sammii got the upper-hand and started to climb a ladder that was left there earlier during the Wildcard match but Charlie powerbombed Sammii off the ladder onto a scene of trainees before like a Fearless magician revealing her next trip which involved climbing the ladder and going to York Hall’s balcony and just diving off with a massive front flip so casually, I lost my mind at this, I’d never seen something so spectacular before but there was more.
Sammii’s torture of Charlie’s previous injury was a pain to watch and Charlie sold the pain wonderfully, let me explain the ending stretch of the match though as Charlie dumped Sammii off the top rope through a table (in a nice bit of payback from SHE-1) that had got set up in the madness beforehand before bringing a ladder in and hitting an avalanche version of her DDT to pick up the win and win the Pro Wrestling: EVE Championship before the rest of the locker room and her family joined her in the ring to celebrate.This match was my 2018 Match of the Year from any promotion anywhere in the world, I had all the emotion, moves and big spots of a big time main event, I’d go far as to say this the best match I’ve ever seen live, I can vividly remember everything about it in exact detail.
What followed was a great title reign for Charlie were she feuded with the likes of a turncoat in Kasey (Owens), Rhia O’Reilly and a returning Sammii Jayne as well as a XWA exhibition match against Chiakara star Ophidian that was absolutely amazing, defaintley one to check out On-Demand; by this time she was a regular for PROGRESS as well as a part of the House of Couture, a role that never really fitted the star that Charlie was although she did get to appear on the main card at Wembley Arena. A big moment for both of her and us was her WWE debut in the Royal Albert Hall in London on the second night of the takings for the UK Championship Tournament, it was a total surprise but we jumped out of seats in joy as we were so happy to see her reach her dream.
But much like every great chapter of a story this one had to come to an end, it was the 2018 SHE-1 Finale and the main event was Charlie defending the title against perennial rival Kay Lee Ray after Kay Lee challenged Charlie back in September; what followed was a fantastic main event that felt completely different from their encounter the year before but one thing was the constant between the two matches: Nina Samuels was there to ruin it as they chased in her Wildcard contract to turn the match into a triple threat match and steal the title from Charlie, when she won you could have heard a pin drop because of how silent it was, thus showing you how powerful of a face that she was; I remember feeling devastated that she hadn’t retained, I did however though get a picture with her after that may well be my favourite picture with any wrestler ever.
She did try to wrestle back the title from Nina’s grasp in a great match at EVE’s “SHEvivor” but was unfortunately usefulness in her attempt, because if this she could no longer wrestle for the title whilst Nina was champ. This lead to Charlie trying to sway Kay Lee Ray into giving her a title shot if she became champ and potentially setting up the main event for Queendom II but unfortunately that was never to be. In the last match that I got to saw of her’s live she came to the aid of Martina against the debuting Su Yung, what followed was a signature EVE chaotic brawl that also had plenty of character moments as well, Su picked up the win following a red mist spray and her twisting finisher.
Charlie was advertised for matches up to April but because her injury that had been caused in a match at SHIMMER in the states, she had to take time out to heal it, all of us were hoping for a comeback real soon but that brings us up to speed for what happened on Sunday night. Charlie at one point in the ring turned over to us and mouth that “Love You Guys” to me, she hugged me especially on her way out as she always appreciated our support that we’ve given over the years, this broke me, I cried quite openly because I was sad that somebody that I feel I have a great connection with was forced to stop the thing that they loved at such a young age as well.
Much like Elton John once sung “Is there life beyond the Yellow Brick Road?” and in the case of Charlie Morgan there absolutely is, she is going to have a great life full of happy memories, what she did in the last two years is more then most people do in ten, she should be proud of that.
So yeah there are my thoughts on Charlie Morgan the person and the wrestler. Charlie if you read this, thank you for all the memories and everything you’ve ever done for me and my friends over the years, you are forever my Ace.
Iwan Mackenzie
