Hello my name is Iwan Mackenzie and you may know me as wrestling shows as “The Dude with the Hair”
I’m back again this time delving into the weird and wonderful world of ATTACK! Pro with their third offering at the Dome. This is my first ATTACK! show since their first dome show last September as I missed out on going to the December ATTACK! show there, so I was pretty excited about going. ATTACK! has been one of my favorite promotions for years now since I started to watch their preview videos on YouTube around 2012 and even more so when I finally got to go to a live ATTACK! show last April in the Walkabout in Cardiff.
Going into this show, we knew that Chief Deputy Dunne would be defending the ATTACK! Pro championship against #1 Contender Chris Brookes, Los Federales Santos Jr and Timothy Thatcher would finally come head to head in a grudge match, both members of Aussie Open would have pretty big singles challenges and Cara Noir’s newly won 24/7 Title would be on the line.
Departing from Grove Park around 17:30 PM, I ended up getting to The Dome in Tufnell Park around 18:20 after surviving the 20-minute journey on the Tube line that takes no prisoners: the Northern Line! Doors were late opening but fortunately my mate Liam was on the case on the inside as he saved me a ringside seat which I’m always very thankful of. I love sitting front row at the Dome as you get the chantiest row of fans you could imagine plus my mate Gavyn behind me who is a one man chanting army, on this occasion you had me, Cass, Simon, Martin, Dave, Liam, Paul, Nick and Andy. My mate Martin was able to make it on time after coming back from Dublin that day after going to see the OTT show that past Sunday and was able to get to the Dome with time to spare.
We opened ATTACK! as usual with ring announcer Jim Lee coming out and getting the crowd hyped for the show. Before I get on with the matches, I do actually want to take this time to speak about how much I love Jim Lee’s ring announcing style, it gets me excited for the show and he feels really interactive compared to most MC’s; I do think he’s one of the best ring announcers anywhere in the UK. He announced that due to a family emergency that Jody Fleisch (who was originally stated to face Kyle Fletcher) wouldn’t be appearing and the card would be changed slightly, the first of those card changes were evident in our opening contest.
So our new opener was now 24/7 Champion Cara Noir facing one half of the tag team champions Kyle Fletcher for the 24/7 Championship. This started out quite methodically but then both men started to throw kicks at each other, the crowd started to get invested at this point. The strikes really were on point during this match, both with kicks and chops as both men were physically beaten up after the match ended but back into the match itself, Cara went for several mind games tactics as he put his pinkie into Kyle’s nose before licking it and then finally getting to lick Kyle in the corner after a previous two attempts, there was a really cool spot where Kyle super(duper)plexed Cara and rolled it through into a Liger bomb for an electric near fall. Both men threw big moves at each other but in the end it was a Package Piledriver than secured the win for Cara Noir meaning he kept a hold of the 24/7 championship, well at least for now. So this pretty much the match you’d expect from two excellent performers such as Kyle and Cara, you know when the opening match gets a standing ovation that the rest of the show is going to be great; go out of your way to check this match.
Our second contest is a double debut as YUU in her last UK date faces Bea Priestley who was a replacement for Millie McKenzie who had sustained an injury a couple of days before the show. Now to be honest, I’m not the biggest Bea Priestley fan, I’ve watched her work over the last four years or so and she’s not really my cup of tea as far as her wrestling skill goes, so when she was announced as replacing Millie (who is one of my favorite wrestlers in the UK) my hopes for this match went down. It was a solid enough contest but after such a great opening match, the crowd were burnt out and as a result this suffered. My mate Liam and a few others tried to sing YUU into a lot of songs but unfortunately despite a golden opportunity, nobody has been able to sing a successful YUU song with it not being bad on this tour, speaking of YUU on this tour, I know she’s had a few mixed reviews but I have enjoyed her work and hopefully she comes back soon. Anyways, Bea beat YUU via pinfall in my least favourite match of the night personally.
Moving onto our last contest before interval as the big lads were out to play with the other half of the tag team champions Mark Davis (who gave me a big old high five which really stung for a couple of minutes) facing touring Japanese star Shigehiro Irie (if anybody could send me his banger of a entrance theme, that would be great). This was an amazing match, if you like when two big blokes smashing into each other then this is defiantly the match for you. It started off pretty standard with collar and elbow tie-ups but the they had a contest between who could sit on each other the hardest, needless to say but Irie was the victor after taking the life out of Davis. Both men traded suicide dives before Irie rolled Davis back into the ring and hit a massive splash from the top rope, a little latter on Irie also hit a diving elbow drop to a bent over Davis but Davis was still able to kick out. In a very rare moment, Davis hit the top rope and went for a Moonsault but Irie moved out of the way and hit a signature cannonball into the corner but Davis was able to survive it. Eventually after many chops from Davis, he was able to put Irie down with a Piledriver to secure the win with the crowd giving this match a standing ovation. As I stated above, this match was amazing and another one to check out when it hits VOD. Davis told me that this is one of his favourite singles matches he’s had and from what I’ve seen of him, its hard to argue that. As for Irie, he started off a little shaky with a match against WALTER in Sheffield which was largely one sided in favour of the Austrian but I’ve become a big fan of Irie as I’ve watched him more on his UK tour and this was probably my favourite match of his on this tour.
We then went to a much needed interval where I complimented both Kyle and Cara on their wonderful match and got to talk to Mark Davis about the war he had just been through before grabbing a picture with him because I had his t-shirt on and we’ve never had a solo picture before. Back from our interval and we had the signature raffle which was only £1 a strip and was been sold by Candyfloss and Kanji (who were a lot better than OJMO was at the last Live at the Dome show where even I had to get involved to fold the tickets). Unfortunately I lost the raffle in all three attempts, what made it worse was the top prize was won by Daniel Ellis who is one of the more infamous fans in BritWres but I won’t get into that.
Our first match back was a scramble match that Jim Lee described as a ‘Big Flippy BatterFest’ which is a pretty apt name. In this match you had, Jay Joshua (coming out to the delighful tones of Biggie Smalls “Hypnotize” vs El Phantasmo vs Chuck Mambo vs Shay-Fu Purser (Who’s entrance to Creed’s “My Sacrifice” is a sight to behold) vs Connor Mills (A name brought onto the show due to the card reshuffle, not a bad thing as I love Mills) vs Dan Moloney vs Dan’s mate Man Like Deriess. DND (Dan and Deriess) seemed to be really bothered about being in London so Shay decided to take in some meditation and was able to coax all the baby faces into it but DND had other ideas and superkicked them getting the match off to a hot start. This match featured a lot of cool moves and moments so let me try and cover all the major ones: ELP rope walked then was able to walk across JJ and Deriess shoulders to hit a big crossbody onto Dan, Mills hit an incredible top rope corkscrew asai Moonsualt to the outside which left me opened mouth, Shay hit a trust fall dive onto everybody which was both impressive on a dive level and comically because of Shay’s facial reactions and keeping his body incredibly stiff, and to finish off the dives Mambo hit a double jump springboard somersault to the outside. The finish came when DND hit Shay with both a Powerbomb/Blockbuster combo and then a Spike Psycho driver to finish the job and become joint winners. A load of fun to watch was this match, couple of notes: ELP/Mambo/Mills were all on top form and continued to be three of my top favorites to watch, JJ looked real good in his performance, the guy’s got a lot of upside to him. Shay Purser as Shay-Fu is money and one of the best gimmicks in BritWres right now and finally to say but DND are a really entertaining pairing and I’d like to see more of them. Post-Match ELP (who’s character in ATTACK! is one of a Conspiracy Theorist) claimed that the Illuminati is real, well considering he proved that BigFoot was real, I’d say that we should maybe see where he’s going with this.
In our penultimate match, we had a grudge the size of Wales come to fruition as Timothy Thatcher (who was sporting new Blue tights and jacket with his name on as opposed to his usual RingKampf get up despite coming out to RingKampf’s music. I wasn’t a big fan of the gear myself, the words were all jumbled up and a bit cartoonist for some-like Thatcher) facing Los Federales Santos Jr of the Anti-Fun Police. This match had some history with Thatcher beating up Santos during the raffle of the last Dome show and even dating back outside of ATTACK!’s timeline to a PROGRESS show in Germany where Thatcher apparently murdered Santos, well at least for the interval. Now on the paper, this seemed to be a joke match that was just there to make people laugh even at the though of a serious character like Thatcher facing a comedy character like Thatcher but this was a lot better than it had any right to be. Thatcher was the aggressor for most of his contest but Santos had a fire lit underneath him and just wouldn’t stay down, Santos wiped Thatcher out with a massive dive to the outside before rolling Thatcher in looking for a a diving move of some sort but Thatcher kept on trying to cut Santos down. In the end Thatcher’s arrogance about being the superior competitor cost him as Santos was able to knock Thatcher off the ropes and hit a big old splash to pick up the win! to a massive ovation from the crowd, I jumped out of my seat for this result. Like I said, this match had a lot better than it had any right to be, it very easily could have been a one note joke but instead it was full of storytelling and a full emotional connection to Santos as a character; this was my favorite Santos singles match and proved he’s more than the comedic relief match. Thatcher might actually be one of the most versatile wrestlers on the planet considering he can have a strong style epics, technical classics or in this case a very story driven match, he can do it all.
We finally arrive at our main event as Chief Deputy Dunne accompanied by a very beaten up Santos, puts the ATTACK! Pro Championship on the line as he faces off against #1 Contender Chris Brookes accompanied by unbiased general manager Kid Lykos in a match that as I stated on Twitter before the fact that I’d be an emotional mess due to both men being two of my absolute favorites in wrestling right now and I wasn’t sure who I’d be cheering, a fact that became a little more easier when Brookes entered to his Schadenfreude music and was clearly positioned as the heel of the match despite still some support for him at the Dome. This started off fast furious with Dunne missile drop-kicking Brookes off the top rope before heading to the outside, Dunne threw Brookes into chairs and then went to go for a running move onto Brookes but Brookes dodged out of the way and Dunne accidentally hit a spear onto Santos which prompted me to shout “OFFICER DOWN!”. Brookes took control and went to throw Dunne threw the chairs but not all the crowd moved and there was one guy left who was told to move, Brookes responded by shouting “Piss off last man!” which drew a hearty chuckle from me and Brookes there Dunne threw chairs, after that Brookes threw Dunne through another set of chairs knees first, at this point it should be noted that my section of chairs hadn’t been touched all night, wonder how long that will be kept up for… Back into the match and the focus of the match was going to be Dunne’s knee with Brookes working over it through the match, the only thing that I didn’t like about this was Dunne kept forgetting which knee to sell so he sold both, a rare misfire from Dunne there; Despite the pain in his knee Dunne still kept on going moves including when Brookes fell towards me and shoved me out the way and that’s when Dunne flew with a cross-body to the outside onto Brookes, well my chair lasted till the main event, nice whilst it lasted…This was pretty much the match you’d expect from Dunne and Brookes who can fart a good match out due to their natural chemistry with one another; it certainly was better than the last ATTACK! Pro title match at the Dome between Flash Morgan Webster and Wild Boar. As I stated, this was a really good match but the match got eclipsed by what happened towards the finish, allow me to explain.
So Brookes and Dunne doubled down which left both men laying when ELP came out drenched in blood shouting that the Illuminati was here. Eddie Dennis and his commentary partner as well as referee Hew helped take ELP to the back before the lights went red and the sounds of Ghost’s “Year Zero” hit the PA systems and a load of men all dressed up in shirts and masks filed out single file around the ring led by a guy with a black shirt with a flag with the Illuminati logo on it, before three other men, two with goats masks and religious gowns along with another guy in a satanic Mickey Mouse looking mask dressed in all black shirt and trousers came out to attack Chief and Brookes who decided to team up to take these three men out but to no avail. They all held Brookes hostage and called for their leader who was dressed as a Pope with a black goats mask came out to almost christen before taking him out with a curb stomp. He then directed the three servants to grab a table and then to take Dunne out with a crucifix looking backbody drop, they then walked up the ramp and posed to end the show on a cliffhanger of sorts with chants of “What the F**k” and “What the F**king hell is going on?”.
So that was a different ending for sure but it does set up this year’s story for ATTACK! and ups the stakes from previous year’s more grounded story-lines for ATTACK! as it looks like the whole roster will be needed to face the Illuminati. I got some PROGRESS Freedom’s Roads flashbacks with this but this angle was done better than that. Post-Show got to finally speak to Man Like Deriess and Jay Joshua for the first time, both complementing them on their in-ring skill and how good of young talents they were as well as say hi to Dan Moloney and get another picture with him, quickly say hi to Chuck Mambo before departing and sharing a tube with Andy, Nick and Cass before getting in about 23:30pm which is still a pretty reasonable time for a mid-week show.
So what were my thoughts on this show? Well I though it was sheds of fun (sorry Chief and Santos), they were still able to bring in a great sized crowd (who were very good all night) despite it being a mid-week show and the fact that they would have no NXT UK stars being involved unlike the last two ATTACK! London shows due to the Coventry NXT UK shows being this weekend but the ATTACK! roster is so deep that it wasn’t an issue at all. There was a lot to like on this show, I though both of Aussie Open’s singles matches were great and both of them were different from each other as well, the scramble match did it exactly what it says on the tin and was very good, Santos vs Thatcher was a great story and the main event and angle that followed it was all really well done. The only thing that I didn’t enjoy about the show was the YUU/Priestley match, well that and losing the raffle. I really wanted that Goosebumps VI t-shirt as well…
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Thank You for Reading Iwan Mackenzie
