Hello my name is Iwan Mackenzie and I’ve been ill twice in the span of the last two weeks.
I’m back once again this time heading to Wolverhampton for Fight Club: Pro. I should say before I get into the main bulk of it, is that my colleague Cieran James normally reviews these shows but he wasn’t able to attend so I’m filling in for those looking for their FCP fix.
So previously at FCP, Schadenfreude have kicked WALTER out of their ranks and Mark Davis is cashing in his Infinity Trophy on Meiko Satomura for the Fight Club: Pro World Title, Charli Evans has turned on her friend Millie McKenzie and now is challenging for Millie’s Sendai Girls Junior Title, and Chris Brookes and Kyle Fletcher take on some Japanese legends themselves in CIMA and Daisuke Sekimoto respectively.
After leaving work early, I headed up to Euston in pretty quick fashion then grabbed the 16:43 train to Wolverhampton and got there at 18:37. Checked into the Britannia (my digs for the night) and then decided to walk it to the venue as its not that long of a walk, got there and Martin Zaki greeted me on the door which is a really nice touch and more of less got in straight away as I’m a Front Row Season Ticket Holder, not to brag or anything.
Got in and found that my mates Andy and Nick had saved me a seat in a perfect position, also greeted my mate Lawson who I hadn’t seen in so long and we hugged a lot. Went over to speak to Aussie Open as well as pick up the new Schadenfreude t-shirt (very stylish and comfortable by the way) as well as chatting to Gabriel Kidd and Sean Kustom who were just in attendance and not wrestling but are always really nice to speak to.
Our first match up is Chris Brookes accompanied by Kid Lykos (who’s arm is a sling, which had me concerned as his injury seemed to be healing) take on modern Japanese wrestling legend CIMA. A very good match to kick things off and one that had a good face/heel dynamic to it as well, CIMA had most of the control in the early stages of the match trying to tie Brookes in submissions, Brookes took control after he fainted an injury so referee Shay could take a look at him during that time Lykos rang in the ring and revealed that the injury was a fake and decided to take CIMA out with several moves including a springboard hurricanrana, how Shay didn’t hear any of this is quite ludicrous but I’ll go with it. Brookes took control but CIMA was able to fire up and comeback with some of his signature Japanese Strong Style offence but in the end with help from Kid Lykos it would be Brookes who would pick up the win by submission via the Calamari Catch Clutch. Perfect opening match with a great heel/face dynamic that got the crowd invested throughout.
Second up is Timothy Thatcher also accompanied by Kid Lykos take on the ever popular Dan Maloney who is beloved by the FCP faithful with several huge shouts of Dan for him but never to the point that it got annoying, I should mention that Thatcher stared straight into one of the roaming cameras at ringside and mouthed along to Human Fly which I found really funny as Thatcher is rarely like that during his matches. Onto the match itself though, I really enjoyed it as it was different from the first match as well, variety is key; as you’d imagine from Thatcher it was very technical throughout but Dan gave as good as he got, of course this match had some lethal strikes as well, some of them made me wince and also cheer because two lads beating the shit out of each other is fun, it’s a weird feeling. Dan looked to have the match won after trapping Thatcher in an ankle lock but Lykos got involved which led to infamous BritWres video editor G-Man coming out and taking Lykos out of the equation and was able to distract Thatcher for Dan to roll Thatcher through into a ankle lock where he grapevined the leg for extra pressure which led to Thatcher submitting to give Dan the win. Like I said a good match that I really enjoyed but I do have an issue with the booking of Thatcher who has now lost by tap out to both Chuck Mambo and Dan Maloney in the last few months and he’s one of the best technical wrestlers on the planet, especially after he was the one to turn on WALTER last time and end him essentially, I feel like a win could have done him good but Dan was the right man to win as he’s being built up as a top babyface of the promotion and maybe even a future #1 contender which seems to be the direction their heading in.
Next up is the Sendai Girls Junior Title match as champion Millie McKenzie faces the newly turned bad guy Charli Evans. Now the backstory of this match is that Charli attacked Millie unprovoked at the last FCP show after Millie’s victory over YUU, Charli attacked her using a turnbuckle hook, remember that because it’s important for later. This match started pretty frantically as you could see the frustration of both competitors as they immediately went to the outside and started pilling into each other, they got back in the ring but it wasn’t long until they were back out again, Charli caught Millie at one point and went to throw her into the barricade but didn’t get the full connection and the match briefly got interrupted by this moment of awkwardness but both Charli and Millie were able to get the match and crowd back in their favour. Charli just kept beating and beating Millie down and looked very viscous at doing it, this is the heel Charli that I like to see, just a remorseless killing machine, Millie played her role as the underdog babyface perfectly though and is the perfect role for her as well. At one point Charli went outside and grabbed the hook that she previously used and went to use on Millie but Millie blocked it and went into a barrage of finishers which did look awesome as she hit two straight German suplex’s followed up by a spear for the win and to retain the title. Post match Charli looked like she was going to attack Millie but Millie noticed but Charli instead shook her hand seemingly turning back face, at this point ring announcer Fraser Thomas announced that July 27th, Sendai Girls would head to the UK for the first time ever for a show in Manchester in association with Fight Club: Pro, you could tell this meant a lot to Millie and Charli outside of their ring characters and they hugged and it was a very nice moment to see. I spoke with Andy and Nick and they agreed with me that this was the best McKenzie vs Evans match that’s happened yet and in my personal experience it was better than their RevPro match last January. The only thing that I found pointless was Charli turning heel for just one show just to turn face again at the end, you still could of had this match even without the heel turn but you never know with the Sendai show in July whats next for Charli (Edit: at time of writing Charli Evans has just been announced for a Sendai Girls tour in Japan, very pleased for her as she’s one of my favourite wrestlers and people in general).
Our final match of the first half was the Hunter Brothers Open Challenge for the Fight Club: Pro Tag Team Championships. After a always nice sing song to The Heat is On by Glenn Frey, we would see who was going to answer the challenge and that team was…Grizzled Young Veterans! The NXT UK Tag Team Champions themselves were in a warehouse in Wolverhampton and they got an amazing pop until people realised there uber heels as evidence by Zack Gibson’s amazing pre-match promo, possibly even one of the best he’s ever cut. I’m going to share the tweet of a video of this promo because my words cannot do it justice, all you need to know that I was dying in the front row due to the savageness of it. https://twitter.com/Adam_Tew1991/status/1106699731433070592
So you think were going to get straight up GYV vs Hunter Bros but then we get another team in the form of Chief Deputy Dunne and Los Federales Santos Jr of the Anti-Fun Police! They also get an amazing pop and me, Andy, Nick saluted Chief which Chief saw and saluted back to us which was really cool.
So we were getting Hunter Bros vs GYV vs Anti-Fun Police, I was down for that but the the screen went blank and we heard Truly Madly Deeply by Savage Garden as The Besties in the World make their return to Fight Club: Pro and now are the fourth team in the match! Me, Andy and Nick jumped out of our seats and hugged each other, we nearly went over the barrier with excitement, reason being is that we have a close relationship with The Besties as we became big fans during their UK tour last year and haven’t seen them since the last International Tekkers in June. We had a YouTube show at the time and we included a storyline that we were missing the Besties, so much so that we recreated the dance moves of Truly Madly Deeply in the sea on a very sunny day in Brighton last July.
Anyways going back to the actual match, this started off with Gibson and Lee of the Hunters trading arm wrenches before tagging in their respective partners, then members of the AFP and Besties; at one point though both members of the Anti-Fun Police were both tagged in and forced to face each other which I felt was hilarious as it is technically feasible and I’ve never seen anybody do it before, Santos nearly beat Chief after a hug gone array as well. After that so many moves happened that its going to be hard to go for a blow by blow account so I’m just going to name my favourite spots: Chief hitting the 999 to Davey Vega’s knees which led to Vega fulling off the second rope and his heading hitting the turnbuckle, The Besties hit a double Pele kick which led to me shouting out “Back of the Net!”, Drake hit the Organ Crusher 45o splash for a very close nearfull, one of the Hunters hitting a big tope dive to the outside with Santos hitting a suicide dive a few moments later which always is a sight behold. The finish came when Davey Vega and Chief Deputy Dunne were alone in the ring as Mat Fitchett took everybody out with a corkscrew moonsault to the outside and Davey hits a cross legged driver move on to Chief to win the match and become the new FCP Tag Team Champs! What a surprise that was but a very welcome one, this is good momentum for the DTTI and makes it even more interesting now. A great match from the entrances and to the ending, I was having the time of my life throughout and on the whole this was my favourite match of the night.
We then went into the interval where I grabbed a picture with Millie McKenzie in her one of shirts and also complimented her on her match with Charli Evans; spoke to the Besties about them being back and did pick up a sick new tee from them, and finally after battling through a queue that came from three ways, I got to speak to GYV who recognised me from prior chats and grabbed a picture with them and Gibson put the NXT UK Tag Team Title on my shoulder which was so cool of him as it’s always been a dream of mine to hold a genuine WWE title so thank you Zack Gibson.
Back into it with our next match as Rey Horus faces El Phantasmo who was filling in for Jordan Devlin who wasn’t at the show due to travel issues, despite Devlin being one of my absolute favourites I was thrilled we had ELP as the replacement as he’s great as well. Me and the boys got the usual ELP football chant going and ELP was able to amplify it as well which was really cool. This match was fast and furious and never really let up, some really cool stuff including a ring post dive onto ELP which was insane and later on ELP hit a massive super hurricanrana onto Horus and went to follow it up the swanton splash but Rey moved away but that didnt affect ELP as he hits a massive splash that he travelled half way across the ring to connect with; honestly there was so much cool stuff in this match that I can’t name all of it so that’s why this paragraph is pretty short in comparison to the others. The finish of this match came when Rey hit the roll up powerbomb thing out of the corner to win the match. Great match from bell to bell and even better than Rey’s match against Kip Sabian at Southside in London.
Our penultimate match is Kyle Fletcher accompanied by both Chris Brookes and Kid Lykos (who both mugged me off because I was chanting for Sekimoto) taking on Big Japan legend Daisuke Sekimoto. Before the match, Chris got on the mic and said that this match didn’t need to happen as he says Sekimoto is a friend of theirs and remind them of their time in Germany the previous week where he lent him his international phone charger and went for German beers together. They said that they got rid of one big stupid idiot (WALTER) and they said they could do with another, a fantastic backwards compliment from Chris there which had me in stitches; they offered Sekimoto a role in Schadenfreude and gave me a comically small sized t-shirt and the Sekimoto took the shirt and got on the mic and responded with the classic two words “FUCK YOU!” and ripped the t-shirt, not fully but enough for a good visual.
After that Sekimoto jumped Fletcher and started to pummel him, despite Fletcher now being a heavyweight, he wasn’t a match for the super heavyweight that is Sekimoto who at one point tossed Fletcher into the barricades with just sheer force. Most of this match had Sekimoto dominating but Fletcher would get his offence back in and numerous times would go for the lawn dart into the corner but failed up until the third attempt where he was able to get Sekimoto up and thrown which looked very impressive; I should mention that Brookes and Lykos at ringside as the cheerleaders for Kyle was hilarious and they would try and get involved but in the end Sekimoto hit a bridging German suplex to win the match. This is a match that me and mates had a very mixed opinion on as Andy didn’t like it because he thought Sekimoto got to much offence in, Nick just enjoyed it whereas I really liked the match, I always enjoy watching Sekimoto wrestle and his style of matches are my kind of thing and I like how Kyle’s offence meant more when he got it in.
We then had a second interval before the main event which was a peculiar choice but hey meant I could grab a drink as I was getting a bit scratchy around this time anyway. I did use the interval to grab a picture with Rey Horus in his t-shirt that I picked up at Southside, he was very thankful of the support and even gave me a free sticker which I really appreciated.
After the interval we had our main event as Infinity Trophy Holder Mark Davis (who was accompanied by the rest of Schadenfreude but they left after his entrance as Davis was looking to do this alone) take on the defending Fight Club: Pro World Champion Meiko Satomura. This did feel like a big fight with the proper introductions and look and feel to it, big thumbs up from me.
Meiko got this match off to a hot start as she charged at Davis with forearm shots into the corner before running at him and Davis pressing his weight down to her in senton followed up a straight big boot, from there it was Davis’s playing field as he blasted her with chops and clotheslines which you don’t say many male wrestlers do upon female wrestlers with such force; Meiko did start to try to kick the leg out from underneath him but Davis just kept putting her down, he did start focusing on attacking the leg to neutralise her Scorpion Rising kick, Meiko did eventually get a comeback going and was able to hit the cartwheel knee drop which was able to take down Davis to her level and she hit the Scorpion Rising kick but her leg was two injured after the move that she couldn’t get the pin, Davis rolled out as well, this led to a big brawl leading up the ramp where Satomura hit Davis with a DDT and the Cartwheel Knee drop again which busted Davis wide open, so we now have blood which you don’t get often. At this point in the match you could see Davis was getting exhausted from blood loss so Meiko was able to control the match all though he did hit the Close Your Eyes for a very close nearfall. Things once again spilled to the outside and Meiko found a table and set it up, it looked like we were going to get a superplex to the outside but Davis blocks it with a punch a it looks like we’re getting a super piledriver but Meiko blocks that and we get a Death Valley Driver off the apron through the table to a massive crowd eruption. Satomura rolls Davis back into the ring and hits the cartwheel knee twice and then the Scorpion Rising Kick, she goes to hit it again but Davis falls over due to the blood loss and Joel Allen the ref tries to revive Davis and Satomura starts to show some frustration but as it looks like Davis is back to his feet, she goes for the Scorpion Rising Kick one more time but Davis was playing possum and lays her out with a knock out punch and then the Close Your Eyes to pick up the win and become the new Fight Club: Pro World Champion as members of Schadenfreude come out with cans of Carlsberg and toast to victory over Meiko’s limp body.
This was an epic title match in every way possible, anybody who says Intergender wrestling can’t be treated the same as men vs men should watch this match and talk to me, this was even better than their first match as well, honestly may be one of the best matches I’ve seen this year.
After they leave Meiko takes one last bow as a defeated champion, gets a standing ovation from the crowd as well the locker room emptying out for her to thank her, Trent Seven even makes a rare appearance to thank her at the top of the ramp. This was all quite emotional truth be told but I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Satomura in FCP.
I want to say here as well that Satomura’s reign is exactly how you book a Japanese import as champion, she used it to promote the brand and belt worldwide and helped FCP run a show in Japan which no British company had done before but the most import thing is that the audience cared about her and it went something when she lost; unlike RevPro by having interchangeable champions that the crowd can’t get behind, maybe they should watch some FCP.
Post-show, got my PWG EIGHT DVD signed by CIMA himself which I’m very appreciative of him doing, quick chat with ELP and Chris Brookes as well as grab a picture with Meiko Satomura. Went back to my hotel, the went Giffard for half hour, grabbed food and went to bed as I had been up for ages at that point.
So my overall thoughts on this show: I thought it was great from top to bottom, there wasn’t a single weak match in sight and despite some strange book decisions regarding Thatcher loosing and Charli turning face again so soon after her turn, I can ignore them because there part of a bigger story being told. My personal highlights were Millie vs Charli, the four-way tag team match, ELP vs Horus and Davis vs Satomura. I think my money has been well spent on a season ticket and we’re only two shows in!
If you want to follow Fight Club: Pro on social media then its @FightClubPro on Twitter and Instagram
If you want to follow me on Social Media then its @IwanMack on Twitter and Instagram
Thanks for Reading
Iwan Mackenzie
