My name is Iwan Mackenzie and I really hope this is as good a sequel as Terminator 2 and not Zoolander 2.
Hello once again to another edition of Talking Mack, the article where I tell you which wrestling shows I’ve been to over the course of the month and tell you some of the best matches I’ve seen over that month and any funny antidotes over the month, let’s go!
WEEK ONE – RevPro at the Cockpit
So after having a mega weekend at the end of July, I originally intended on not doing anything this weekend but RevPro announced they were doing The Rascalz vs Aussie Open and that’s kind of a dream match for me so I just had to go, the rest of the card was really strong as well so it was a seller for me. Got to Baker Street early so we could grab some food but the Spoons was rammed with football fans so we decided to head to Nandos instead for a very banter filled lunch before walking to the Cockpit.It was a very hot day this day and at times it was a struggle to sit through this show but I kept myself plenty hydrated throughout and was treated to one of the best Cockpit shows in a dogs age.
This felt more like the RevPro shows from 2017 when they were really hitting their stride. Highlights of this show included a really fun opener between the returning Chris Brookes and Rickey Shane Page who was on his last day of his UK Tour, Rob Lias knocking out TK Cooper with a fucking brick! before running him down and his past relationships including some comments that felt a bit out of line for this style of promo, and the start of the Royal Quest Tournament which would result in the winners getting a shot at the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Titles at Royal Quest.
Aussie Open vs The Rascalz was a part of this tournament and main evented the first half. Absolutley phonmenal match between these four, they rareley put a foot wrong in this and the crowd lapped it up leading to a post match standing ovation; seek this match out to watch especially in preparation for the rematch happening over PWG BOLA weekend. So yeah this dream match absolutley lived up the dream and also surpassed it. Dan Moloney and MK McKinnan defeated Team WhiteWolf in an instense string style encounter to advance to the next round in a sleeper hit of the nigh which was followed up by a shocking turn of A-Kid onto Carlos Romo, if only the feud wasn’t ended outside of London…
And in the main event, Micheal Oku (better known as the OJMO) got his first RevPro win in a suprise win over Crusierweight champ El Phantasmo after a roll up to a fantastic ovation from the crowd, great match to follow up Oku’s performance against PAC back in June and set him up as ELP’s next title challenger, more on that later.
WEEK TWO – Junior, Battle Pro and EVE
I started this week with something that wasn’t a wrestling show but has a strong wrestling connection as me and my friend Trish went to the Junior gig in London, Junior for those who don’t know is Mark Andrews band, they’ve been used at Andrews theme and their also the official theme for NXT UK Takeover: Cardiff. They were bloody brilliant from start to finish, if you want a great gig then check them out when there on tour, I also got to speak to Mark Andrews again and it always shocks me that me knows who I am, we had a lovely chat and overall a really good night.
So the wrestling shows offically begun with me heading to my local promotion Battle Pro based in Sydenham, South London which is only a 10 minute or so drive from me. They had a stacked line up top to bottom including another dream match for me in Connor Mills vs Chris Ridgeway fresh from his tour of NOAH in Japan. This was another match that absolutkley lived up to the dream and surpassed it, they went for kicks straight away which was surprising considering both mens great technical background but eh, I love kicks so I wasnt gonna complain. This was a hard match to watch in the amount of punishment both men were giving each other but also facinasting to see who would hit what next, almost the same feeling I had watching the Shibata/Ishii matches years ago; I tell you what as well, Ridgeway’s kicks have become harder since Japan, is that even possible?
Other highlights of the card incuded a united team of ETM comprised of TK Cooper and Chuck Mambo (who had returned from the USA via Finland that very day) defeating Jonny Storm and Josef Kafka in a lively opener, the starts of a David Francisco face turn as he defeated JJ Lynch only for JJ to get through to him after the match and told him to embrace the fans, Clementine had a great debut in a losing effort to Women’s Champion Talia Martins; Roy Johnson became the next challenger to the title defeating Billy Haze, Danny Black, Solomon Lamb, Alexander Roth and Simon Miller in a fun scramble match and Destination: Everywhere comprised of The OJMO and The NIC finally aligned in Battle Pro in the main event as The OJMO kept ahold of his title defeating Josh Bodom.
The next day was EVE day as I headed to my first show of EVE’s “New Era”. I was intrested in seeing what the product would be like now some of the top stars of the promotion had left; my qurries were put to rest as they devlived a top notch show. One thing I did like is because there were less matches than usual, they all got more time to grow which in the case of Sammi Jayne vs Charli Evans worked as it became an absolute banger and sometimes didnt work so well in the case of Diamond Vogue Collective vs Stonewall Rebelion as the match I felt personally should have had a few minutes shaved off it but it was still a really good opening match and it was great to see Skye Smiston make her debut, she’s one of London’s most underatted wrestlers in my humble opinion.
Laura Di Matteo looks to be EVE’s next big babyface as she stood up to Rhia O’Reilly and her cronies only for them to beat her down afterwards, she still wanted to continue in her SHE-1 Qualfiyer against Nina Samuels and was able to defeat Nina, this wasn’t some sort of Super Cena level performance, Laura really had to fight for this victory and it was very convincing. Laura is my pick to win the SHE-1 this year, she has the best charactisation and full rowd support, I have no doubt that she’ll main event Queendom III.
We then got one of the funniest matches of the year as the Woke Queens of Debbie Keitel and Valkryie made their EVE return entering to ABBA’s Voulez Vous and having this extravagant entrance took on the temporary team of Jetta and Session Moth Martina, known as WrestleFriends with Benefits, yep. The hillarity started with finding out that Debbie got Valkryie’s extra espresso shot in her coffee so Debbie was on a caffine overdose which led to me shouting that “Debbie is off her nut!”, Debbie ran the ropes manically whilst Martina who was on her usual beverage of a can casually walked the ropes before spraying Debbie in the face, did it again when Valkryie trying to protect Debbie ducked and finally both of them got sprayed.
Jetta and Martina disposed of them out of the ring leading me to serendade them with the chant “Friends with Benefits, say Friends with Benefits!” whilst they conversed that they were gonna get on as a team, we then hear Valkryie shout out “You Stupid Melts!” and diving off the top with a crossbody but Jetta and Martina move and Valkryie falls flat on her a face in a genius bit of slapstitck comedy; Debbie than claims that helps on the way only for her to get kciked in the ropes and in the unmentionables before Martina and Jetta start to row their legs and lead the crowd in singing, Row Row Your Boat; I should mention at this point that I nearly colapsed with laughter, its that funny.Woke Queens then claim that “Vengance will be mine” but go for kicks only to be caught by WrestleFriends with Benefits between their legs they then break the feet ala Pete Dunne and devliver simitantious Bronco Busters which Martina enjoys too much. Woke Queens come back and isolate Martina, they do the classic All-Star spot where Valrkyie ives Debbie Martina’s arm so she can crank on that whilst Valkryie distracts Jetta which in turn distracts the ref, they do this two times but on the third time, Martina swaps it round and Debbie ends up arm cranking her own partner which she dosent realise till Martina confronts her.
Woke Queens win the match in a suprising result in a short time later to end which I said at the time and I’ll say it now, the funniest match in EVE history, I was in fits of laughter for most of it like everybody else was, absolute comedy gold done right, seek this match out.
In our main event we had Roxxy overcome Millie McKenzie to win the Number One Contender Tournament to ounch her ticket to a title shot against Rhia O’Reilly on September 14th. This was a great main event and really a great showcase for how much both these compeitors have come on in the last year, Roxxy now is a beloved babyface and someone who is quite skilled at technical, submission based wrestling and as for Millie, her tours of Sendai has done her the world of good and really made her into the wrestler that many fans had seen back when she was 17, even still at 19 years old, the world is at her feet.
We also got a surpise Jayla Dark apparence, a mere month before her retirement match to defeat Nightshade and set a match up against Rhia O’Reilly somewhere down the line before her retirement.
WEEK THREE – FAMILY HOLIDAY
Yeah I did no shows this week as I was on holiday in North Wales, really nice trip with my cousin Janet’s buffet being a highlight.
Rating – *****
WEEK FOUR – Fight Club: Pro, Kamikaze Pro, and PROGRESS
So after the aforementioned holiday, it was time to get back on the Grapple wagon the week after with a weekender of five shows in four days, god help my body. So the first show up was Fight Club: Pro’s “Rise Against” in Wolverhampton on the Friday; I finally arrived in Wolves about 10 minutes late after a journey from hell that I’d not to take again, but I met up with my friend Tobi who was on his travels to England for two weeks and another friend of mine Hayley who lives up that way. We had some dinner a drink and then headed to the Hangar for another night of FCP.
We started off with a banger as well as the opening match was “Speedball” Mike Bailey vs Jordan Devlin in an excellent match as you’d expect from these two, it was funny to start off with but then became the highlight spectacle that you’d imagine, as I said excellent match, well worth checking out. We got the Match of the Night a little later on in More Than Hype against The Rascalz; I was really (no pun intended) hyped to see MTH because I’m a big fan of their work from OTT so to see them live was amazing. This was exactly what you’d expect from these two teams, amazing high flying throughout and crazy double and trio moves, check it out if you can.
Now there was a continuous theme throughout the night as The Anti-Fun Police had placed a warrant of arrest on Session Moth Martina and had employed the services of Detective Dan Barry (Pop from me) to find her, they chased her when they found her at half time at the merch table and before the main event we found out that AFP had her in custody, Dan Barry brought her out and asked for his money, Chief then informed him that there was no reward, Dan replied back with “How am I suppose to get drunk?”, Chief replied back with that Drinking is to much fun so Dan turned on them and led to a fun if short tag match were Dan teamed up with Martina to defeat the AFP.
In the main event, we saw WALTER finally get his hands on Chris Brookes and Schadenfreude at large after being kicked out of the group back in February; Brookes tried to reason with WALTER at first before turning his words on him again by calling him “A Dominic Mysterio looking motherfucker!” which in turn led to WALTER hitting a Big Booot and the to the supirse of the whole audience, a 619! The place erupted for this and rightly so it was incredible. This match went all over the Hangar where WALTER through Brookes all through chairs and such but Brookes got his punches in and actually took control of WALTER at a lot of times; This was a proper main event and had such a feel, it was really heated and intense between these two which is what I love to see.
The match ended a smoz after Chris Roberts the ref got taken out so Brookes cheated and waited for Shay to come in as replacement ref, Shay got in counted two and then got up and walloped Brookes with a right, Joel Allen came down and eventually started to fight off Schadenfreude, Roberts came to and called the match off; you had FCP members of ring crew, Fraser Thomas the MC, G-Man and Martin Zaki all come down to fight off Schadenfreude, eventually Clint Margeera came down with a cart full weapons but was taken out, Dan Moloney ran down to get involved as well. After that we had everyone brawl on the outside including WALTER hitting a Crucifix bomb onto Shay Purser onto everyone on the outside, short following that trainee Jack Ball hit a Phoenix Splash to the outside onto everybody in an insane moment. It looked like Zaki and WALTER was gonna hit the Doomsday Device on Kyle Fletcher but Brookes took out WALTER by hitting him in the knee with a hammer, at that point Schadenfreude had subdued Dan and Zaki and Brookes produced a pair of scissors looking to cut Zaki but we heard the start of a familiar theme play and we got Trent Seven, Tyler Bate and Pete Dunne all make their FCP returns as British Strong Style ran Schadenfreude off and Trent declared that he will lead the FCP team into the Deathhouse against Scahdenfreude at Project Mayhem weekend.
What a moment to end the show, there was genuinely people in tears due to how happy they were, it was a really exciting angle to lead to Project Mayhem which I unfortunately can not attend but I look forward to seeing the results. After the show I finally got to meet More Than Hype for the first time and tell them how much I loved their OTT work, it was a super cool moment but maybe in an even cooler moment later on that evening, I started to make my way out the Giffard pub to head back to the hotel and I saw Eddie Kingston outside and was finally able to meet him, he’s a bloody lovely bloke I tell you, such an honour to meet a Indy legend.
Next day, I had to leave my hotel at 11am because it was an early checkout so me and Tobi parked ourselves up in the Spoons over the road for some breakfast before being joined Kyle and Chris and then eventually we all headed off around 1pm as Kyle drove us all to Coventry for Kamikaze Pro. We met up with Dave in the Spoons there where we did a quick podcast about FCP the previous night and had some food before heading down the venue. Very good Kamikaze show overall, maybe not up to their usual standards but good none the less, something that was an issue for me was the lighting of the show looked like a Sin Cara match back from 2011, it was hard to see matches at points, wish they could of had their usual lighting for this venue.
Highlights of this show included NIWA defeating former tag team partner Gabriel Kidd in the latter’s farewell match to the promotion as he moving to LA to train with Shibata in the LA Dojo, Gabe gave a great speech after and thanked the fans, him and NIWA embraced but seconds later NIWA decked Gabe with a low blow and turned heel on the fans, really good match this, the storytelling is great throughout, worth seeking out.
I’ll tell you who was a highlight of the merch table, Heidi Katrina who is continously funny and could literally talk for England, me and my mates were having so much fun with her at that show and we even got group pictures with her at said show.
My match of the show though was actually the main event as Sean Kustom successfully defended his Kamikaze Pro championship against David Starr in an excellent main event thad had a lot of heat and awesome wrestling. The story was that Starr had beaten Kustom twice in the past but this was a different Kustom than what Starr had encountered before, Kustom was trying to prove his worth by beating someone he hasn’t beaten before and Starr had a hidden cockiness surround the fact that he two victories over Kustom already. Kustom finally vanished the demon of Starr in about twenty of minutes of great wrestling, worth checking this match out, it is one of my matches of the year.
I returned to London late that night with Chris with me as he was staying with me the night as we both had PROGRESS the day after. We got up at a reasonable time before having some breakfast and heading up to Camden with Leighton in turn. Got up there recorded a podcast about Kamikaze and got in in fairly quick fashion. Now something to note was the notably low attendance of the show compared to usual, they still must have had 500 or so fans but nowhere near to the 700+ fans that were rammed in over the last five years, bit of a sad sight to be honest, I was on the balcony the whole time for this show, a show that felt quite underwhelming to be honest.
We had a four person tournament for the PROGRESS Women’s championship which had little to no doubt to who was winning as Jordynne Grace defeated Dani Luna and Nina Samuels respectively to advance to face Meiko Satomura at Alexandra Palace, it was an underwhelming end to the show as there was no real build to PROGRESS supposed biggest show of the year and that was a real problem of the show was there was no build to any matches on the show outside of the Proteus rumble match as a newly babyface Paul Robinson was handed defeat in a 1 to 30 match to Present William Eaver due to DnR interference, as a result Robbo has to enter the rumble first.
In actual highlights of the show though, The South Pacific Power Trip’s TK Cooper and NIWA defeated a returning Anti-Fun Police’s Chief Deputy Dunne and Los Federales Santos Jr in a great fast paced tag match that showed that the PROGRESS tag division is still one their strengths, and in the other great match of this card, Eddie Kingston defeated Chris Brookes via countout but not before several minutes of brawling around the Electric Ballroom where I started a chant that has caught on ever since “We’re Safe on the Balcony” as on lookers gave us angry faces. But yeah this match was a great brawl and a great plot of device for the upcoming CCK vs LAX match where it will now be a Streetfight as per the stipulation that Eddie Kingston chose in his post match promo which was a proper classic Eddie Kingston.
So yeah unfortunately I was left deflated by a large portion of this weekend on the show front but the next day of wrestling would bring my mood right up…
WEEK FIVE – RIPTIDE, IPW:UK, RevPro, and Resurgence
So the next day following PROGRESS, I got up super early as I had to get a rain replacement bus from Grove Park to Hither Green then a train to London Bridge as I was heading down to Brighton for the RIPTIDE open air show double header on a baking hot day so much that I employed a vest and shorts for this day.
Got down there early so decided to grab some breakfast and our food in the local Spoons took nearly an hour to arrive so we had to quickly down our food and start the walk up the hill to head to the Brighton Open Air Theatre, which is an absolutely stunning venue and quite honestly might be my favourite place that I’ve ever seen Wrestling live at. So the first show starts pretty promptly and something to note that as well as the normal ringside cameras they also had a drone camera flying about getting air shots which looks awesome on the On-Demand footage that they’ve released thus far.
So the big focus on these shows was the Pride of Brighton Tournament with the winner becoming the 1st Pride of Brighton champion, the new secondary belt of RIPTIDE that was geared to wrestlers who are either under the age of 25 or under 205 pounds in weight. Candyfloss was supposed to be apart of the semi-finals but she was out due to illness (she was pulled from PROGRESS the day before for the same reason) so after being handed defeated by Mike Bird, Cassius was re-entered into the tournament by Candyfloss which meant Cassius had another match later on in the show which he won by getting revenge over Chakara for a previous defeat in said tournament; his opponent for the final ended up being Kurtis Chapman after he used his keyboard to smash Jordon Breaks over the head behind the referee’s back to get a tainted victory; the two would meet in the main event of Show Two later that evening.
In other highlights of Show One, the first half main event saw the three regular showstealers of RIPTIDE finally come face to face as TK Cooper faced off against “Speedball” Mike Bailey and Cara Noir in a triple threat match; as you’d expect with these three, it was a epic match with a lot of great character moments and comedic antics but became a really fast paced match with tons of innovation from all three, go out of your way to watch this match if you can. We got another great later on as Kyle Fletcher and Chris Brookes representing Schadenfreude defeated The Medusa Complex combo of Charli Evans and Millie McKenzie in an excellent structured tag team match that made both teams look as strong as each other, one of the best tag matches I’ve seen all year.
In the main event Chuck Mambo finally had his last dream match against Rampage Brown in a Brighton championship match, this was another really good match with both men being two of the best talents we have on these shores; after a hard fought battle Mambo downed Rampage with a Frog Splash to retain the title and afterwards was attacked by Money-vs-Everybody but then saved by rival/friend TK Cooper to set up a tag team match for the evening show.
After this, I went to the local Subway for my dinner and the Co-Op to stock up on drinks, during this time I decided to change my t-shirt in doing so I revealed to myself that I hadn’t put as much sun lotion on as I should have and saw that I had really bad sunburn that has formed around my vest, thankfully the t-shirt covered most of the damage. Got back in took the same position and waited for the second show to start which it did pretty promptly, this show as even more packed than the afternoon show with many casual fans coming along which was great to see.
The evening show kicked off with Jordynne Grace getting to show her more comedic side in handing a defeat to Rob Lias, when I mean comedic I mean slamming David Starr onto Lias as well as the referee, it was all very light heated stuff; Ashmore won a fast paced four way match after this by downing The OJMO, Connor Mills and Paul Robinson, great pace kept throughout with it going down really well with the live audience.
Next up we had one of the featured matches on the card as The Anti-Fun Police faced off against Session Moth Martina and Rocky Mac (Who pulled me out from the crowd because I was wearing one his t-shirts) who had TV legend Dave Benson Phillips in their corner serving as a continuation to the AFP vs Martina/Phillips match from last year. This was a brilliant funny match but also a great wrestling match as well, plenty of hi-jinks in this one including Rocky Mac and Santos facing off in a “Gun” fight which led to Santos finding retreat in the pit area of the B.O.A.T, Dunne asked him why he was there and Santos replied back with “In the trenches, this is war El Capitan!” brilliant! Dunne and Martina also got embroiled in a chase around the park which was really funny to watch. The ending of this match came when the ref was distracted with Santos and Rocky leading to DBP hitting a stunner on Dunne to help Martina and Mac get the win to end a brilliant match on all fronts.
After the break you had Lord Gideon Grey defeated David Starr in a shock result to retain his lovely shirt, yep you read that right; in the penultimate match of the night you had the tag match that was set up earlier as TK Cooper and Chuck Mambo collectedly known as ETM faced off against Spike Trivet and Damon Moser of M-v-E, this match had great psychology and storytelling which didn’t get lost on the family audience, everything about this as excellent. The basic story was TK trying to out do Mambo in every way but Mambo just wanting to get the win, Trivet exploited this and had Moser try to break them apart, another thing to not was that Mambo and TK never had a formal tag throughout and regularly tagged themselves in; in the end TK went to hit a frog plash but in taunting Mambo mid air, he missed it and was rolled up by Moser to get win for his team, more tension was caused as a result of this as the presence of the new member of M-v-E looms.
In the main event, we had Cassius face off against Kurtis Chapman to crown the first ever Pride of Brighton. This was an excellent match and a great choice to main event the show, it was a really well put together structured match that told a great story and painted both in the way they were supposed to be portrayed, in the end we had Lord Gideon Grey try to help his mate Chapman out by got taken out in a collision with Chapman which allowed Cassius to hit the DDTwerk to pick up the win and become the first Pride of Brighton champion, babies were in the air at this result, the roof was blown off the Open Air theatre, even I popped out my seat at this.
I’ve been critical of both talents in the past but Im happy to say that they both proved me wrong on this night and made fans out of me. Cassius’s story throughout the day of having these three tough opponents but winning in conceivable fashion each time was great and his character work was spot on, it was heartwarming to see how much of a hero Cassius was to the children in attendance, that was a special moment; as for Chapman, I really feel he’s found his feet as a character and wrestler, don’t be put off by his RevPro white meat babyface run, his work in RIPTIDE as the Keyboard Warrior has been excellent and his new ultra aggressive technical work has been a highlight of his matches. So yeah excellent main event and sent me home in a great mood.
Just two days later, I took a last minute trip down to Canterbury for an IPW:UK show which was my first show under IPW’s new management of Mark Young of WL fame; reason I went to this show is because Tobi wanted to meet Simon Miller so me Tobi, Leighton and our mate Paul drove down there after I finshed work at 17:00pm and got there for about 18:15 during which time I took a well needed nap in the car.
We got in and took our seats which were upgraded to front row as the crowd was a little lower than usual, Tobi got to meet Simon and tell him how much he meant to him which is awesome to see them kind of things, thats whats special folks, always build each other up never knock each other down. I grabbed a picture with Simon myself before chatting to Rob Lynch at the merch table for 15-20 minutes about this, that and everything else in between, was nice to catch up I’ve always had a lot of time for Rob.
But yeah onto the show and this show had two really clear highlights for me as in the second match Cara Noir defeated Corey McRae via choke hold to end an excellent match and a real hidden gem of a match that I’ve seen this year, the mat work was superb and when the kicks came in they landed hard; this was another excellent match from Noir who I will sing the praises of for a long time now, he is the best wrestler in the UK for my money but don’t discount McRae who given enough exposure could be a potential breakout star for 2020 on the UK scene, his ring work and character presentation is fantastic and one of my favourite new discoveries of wrestling this year.
The other highlight of this show was Mike Bailey (why hello again) defeating Joe Nelson in a barn stormer of a match, story here was Bailey outsmarting Nelson and using his size difference and brutal strikes to keep the young high flyer down but Nelson had fight in him like his life deepened on it, the best two moments in this match was Bailey going for the moonsault knee strike on the ring apron, Nelson moving out the way and Bailey landing on his feet on the floor where he was greeted by a moonsault by Neson who immediately threw Bailey in and hit a slingshot code red only to pick up a nearfall; latter on Bailey had Nelson in a bodyslam position and started to climb the ropes where he hoisted Nelson up only for Nelson to hit a Reverse rana from the top rope and followed it up the Sliced Bread #2 only to get a nearfall again, the audience was going insane after this. This was a truly excellent match that’s another great Bailey match and my personal favourite Nelson match to date, seek this match out!
We even had a surprisingly really entertaining main event with IPW:UK World champion Rob Lynch defeating Simon Miller, you could tell that Rob was very much the ring general here against Miller and he structured the match to play to Miller’s strengths and it really worked as a main event match, Rob even cut an impassioned speech about BritWres and his career in general which was a highlight of an unexpectedly fun evening of pro wrestling. Also worth mentioning here was it was Leighton’s first time seeing Mike Bailey live and he finally got to meet him, couple of really sweet moments on the fan side of things, lovely stuff.
After a another day off, Friday rolled around and it was time to take myself back to Bethnal Green to York Hall this time for RevPro’s Summer Sizzler 2019 which was taking place on the eve of NJPW’s Royal Quest show so this show was set to feature a lot of NJPW names. I should quickly talk about my wrestler meets (#GrapsMeets) for this show as first of all grabbed a picture with Will Ospreay who I had a lovely catch up with, he still remembers me from years ago with me being one of biggest fans back in the day, that was a really cool moment and the other meet was Katsuyori Shibata! that’s right actual Shibata, what a moment it was to meet him, I was able to tell him how much I loved his matches against Ishii, it meant the world to meet him.
After a few duff matches, things finally got going as we had a mystery scramble match of Senza Volto vs Hikuleo vs Rocky Romero vs Mike Bailey (his fifth appearance on this article) vs Robbie Eagles (which me and my mate Ben popped massive for a was seen hugging each other) vs SANADA! This was a really fun fast paced encounter with draw of seeing these NJPW names in a match type that’s not used in NJPW, SANADA picked up the win after locking in the Skull End on Volto.
In my personal MOTN, El Phantasmo kept a hold of his British Cruiserweight championship by defeating Micheal Oku in a match that out did their Cockpit bout by a distance, the character work of both was on point throughout and some of the highspots performed by both men was incredible viewing, ELP eventually hit the CR2 to secure his victory but Oku once again had another star making performance and brought the York Hall crowd to its feet, great match all round. Following that we had the NJPW mega tag match of Kazuchika Okada and Hiroshi Tanahashi battling Zack Sabre Jr and Minoru Suzuki in a prelude to the two big singles matches of Royal Quest the next day, this was what you’d expect it to be a great singles match with four of the biggest wrestling stars of the last 10 years at once, the atmosphere was incredible for this match so much that they didn’t even have to do anything mega spectacular and the crowd would eat it up; ZSJ picked up the win with a European clutch on Tanahashi and cut a classic ZSJ promo afterwards where he called himself the “Future Prime Minister of the UK”, wonderful stuff.
In the main event it was company vs career as a returning Will Ospreay vs David Starr as he battled for the right to own RevPro as if he lost his career in RevPro would be over. The first 25 minutes of this match were absolutely spot on, genuinely world class wrestling between two of the best wrestlers in the world but unfortunately the match as a whole was left tainted by two things, the first being the ref getting taken out only for Shay Purser to come in only for him to get pulled out by RevPro owner Andy Quildan who was trying to save his company and prevent Starr from doing so, in doing so he squared up to Starr like a bloke who’s a bit ten sheets to the wind in the local boozer, it was hilarious but this isn’t what this match needed at all; the second problem was that the show was overrunning and many people were very hot and tired, I know a few people left before hand to get their last trains home, this led to this match frustrating a lot of fans. Ospreay picked up the win over Starr thus ending Starr’s RevPro career to end a match that polarised a lot of fans, I personally though it was great and for the large portion of this match it was proper MOTY candidate stuff but the interference and unintentional comedy of Quiland took away for this match for me, still great but not as great as it could have been.
Onto the last show of the month now as whilst most people travelled to Stratford for Royal Quest I decided instead to head up to Leicester for the first time ever to check out Wrestling Resurgence, a company that I’ve only heard good things about so I was so happy to finally able make it up for a show; the real draw for me was the main event was going to be the third part of the Kanji vs Charli Evans series and it was set to be fought under Iron Woman rules over a thirty minute time limit. I had to see this match so with that in mind me and my mate Liam grabbed the MegaBus to Leicester and checked in our Air BnB, first time I’ve ever used Air BnB before but I would use it again, I’m not fussy as long as I can get my head down for the night.
Got to the venue around 18:15 and finally met Jake Clarke of this very page who had kindly saved two seats me and Liam, really cool dude and great writer make sure to read his articles, but yeah before the show officially started we had Charles Crowley make his way into the ring after stalking out the venue since doors opening and attacked a member of ring crew begging for someone to notice him, this brought Roy Johnson out who promptly hit a headbutt on Crowley and the Last Set onto’s Crowley’s assistant before promoting his event on October 12th in honour of Black History Month.
We still had another ten minutes or so before the show started when I noticed somebody heading out to the lobby area wearing a SHIMMER jacket and long hair, I noticed that it was Charlie Morgan, I went out anyways so I could buy a drink and I ended up speaking to her again and catching up to see how each other were, it was so unexpected to see her again but a really nice surprise as well.
But into the main show and things started in a wild way as we had a four-way match in the Kafka Kup as Josef Kafka battled Jetta, Big T Justice and Rhia O’Reilly as the main prize was revealed to be a ticket to the grand final of the Kafka Kup, high stakes here folks. After much hilarity Jetta was the one who took Big T off his feet with an amazing kick to the Ding Dings which made me crease up with laughter due to the sound of it, Rhia hit a Rhia-adjustment DDT on Jetta and the Kafka rolled her up to win the Grand Final ticket to his own tournament, brilliant.
Things continued strong with Connor Mills facing off against Chakara (who was in for Candyfloss), now this match had a very weird dynamic to it as Mills was the heel here against a face Chakara, I thought I was in Canada for a minute but being serious for a minute this was a really good match, proper hard hitting, the sleeper hit match of the night for my money. Talking bout different dynamics next up I finally got to see the Mac x Moser team comprised of Rocky Mac and Damon Moser who can be best described as a make-shift team who are trying to make things work but are also two idiots in a comedic way they were facing the Henchmen in a match that was really funny but actually had some great teamwork on the part of Mac x Moser.
The next match though was an absolute banger as Gene Munny successfully defeated Chris Brookes in a barnstormer, it started of quite banterously but Brookes took thing serious by registering a number of chops on Munny’s chest in full WALTER mode, he also hit the big senton of the apron and threw Munny outside in hopes of exhausting Munny but Munny kept coming back not wanting to let go of his title just yet and used his unorthodox styling to counteract this, later on in the match the referee goes down after a knee strike gone wrong so Brookes tries to use the belt as a weapon but Gene stops him and goes to use the belt himself but Brookes talks him out of it only for Brookes to use Lykos’s baking tray on Gene and hit the PMB on him as the ref comes up only to get a two count, Lykos tries to get involved but Gene thaws him and Gene is able to hit a short armed version of the Ainsley Lariat and a moonsault only to get a two so gets Brookes up hits the Ainsley Lariat at full power to get the win. This was the best match I’ve ever seen Gene Munny have here, for people who think he’s just a comedy wrestler need to watch this match to be proven otherwise and another great match from Brookes who’s been on a roll since his DDT tour during the summer.
After our break we had Spike Trivet defeating Hari Singh and Jayde defeating Man Like Deriess in two very different but never the less entertaining matches, only reason why Im glossing over them though is because this article has already gone longer than Starr vs Ospreay and I really want to talk about the main event.
So after we heard the tune of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” it was time for our main event as Charli Evans and Kanji go third with the thirty minute Iron Woman match, immediately you could tell how big this match was, both wrestlers had new gear on, the presentation of the main event made it all feel very important. For the first 25 minutes of thgis match there was no falls at all but just a lot of technical wrestling with both women trying to weaken the other down, a lot of chops were used as well on the part of Evans with Kanji more using her speed advantage; the first fall didn’t happen until the 25 minute mark where Evans hit the Swipe Left on Kanji on the ramp and got back in the ring to take the countout fall, Evans immediately got her back in for a pinfall but Kanji kicked out and after 2-3 minutes of back and forth, Kanji hit a springboard top rope stunner out of the corner to even the scores up with a minute and half left on the clock, Charli was able clamp on the Fujiama Armbar to submit Kanji with only 5 seconds left thus making Charli Evans the Ironwoman. The crowd came to its feet for this match and a received a full standing ovation, something that visibly moved both women to tears but they deserved it for delivering such an excellent match. This match is already in my Top 10 of the Year so far this year its that good, its up there with Storm vs Satomura and Bolshoi vs Leon for my favourite womens match of the year let alone just match regardless of gender, go out of your way to watch this match.
With that, that wraps up my August in wrestling, a bit of a slow start but really boosted by two busy weekends of graps on the latter half of the month. Thanks for reading all this, your the real heroes here.
IWAN’s RECOMMENDED MATCHES OF THE MONTH:
- Kanji vs Charli Evans
- Connor Mills vs Chris Ridgeway
- Joe Nelson vs Mike Bailey
- Cassius vs Kurtis Chapman
- Aussie Open vs The Rascalz
If you want to follow me on Social Media, @IwanMack is the handle for both Twitter and Instagram
Thank you for Reading
Iwan Mackenzie
