Welcome to a shorter edition of the UK Scene this week. Saracen isn’t with us this week but I am currently preparing for the Reading Festival (nothing on Download Festival by the looks and sounds) so this is a rushed edition. Still, make of it what you will, as there is still enough news and views to keep you occupied for a good five minutes, six tops.
The juggernaut that is OPWO have kept the announcements coming all week long. Whilst the website is down (not necessarily a bad thing – it wasn’t the most eye-pleasing site ever), the organisation have set up a discussion forum here in the meantime. Also announced was a training seminar for October 4th (yes, that would be a Tuesday), with Alex Shelley and Frankie Kazarian. On top of that, the Origin8 Tournament is receiving a ton of fanfare from fans the world over… just kidding. But seriously, already announced are the following first round matches… “The Flawless One” Jay Phoenix vs. Frankie “The Future” Kazarian – “The Angel Of Pain” JKA or “Scorpion” Bill Duffy vs. Psycho – D’Lo Brown vs. Mooga – Alex Shelley vs. An Opponent To Be Announced! As stated, check out the forum for more details. It’ll be interesting to see the developments as they happen for this one.
Big news for 1PW this week. Not only has Low-ki accepted the challenge of Iceman for a match, but Chris Sabin will be teaming up with Jerry Lynn to take on Jonny Storm and Jodie Fleisch, two men who have fought on more occassions around the world than anyone else I could even possibly try to name. This should be a cracking aerial contest and I expect nothing but excellence from this one. The website is 1p-w.com and includes the latest news as well as a number of videos building up the card.
Crossing over to the Universal Uproar supershow, the first two matches have been signed. The UK’s own Doug Williams will team up with Jun Akiyama to face Kenta Kobashi and Go Shiozaki in a match that I imagine many of the Internet fans will be running out on shortage of kleenex for. Expect a hard-hitting encounter from the Pro Wrestling NOAH faithful. Not only that, but Colt Cabana and Nigel McGuinness will meet up in a “Next Generation World Of Sport” match. Both men are well-known for their exploits in RoH and should have a solid old-school contest with the tempo turned up just a little bit (and rightfully so – the last WoS match didn’t go down too well for the most part, not because it was a bad match, just not befitting of such a high-impact hard-hitting supershow). As always, UniversalUproar.com is your URL for the latest.
Make sure you keep an eye on the ever-updating newsboard here at Wrestling101. Devilish Angel is doing a fine job of keeping the place updated with results and news from around the country. If you wish for your news to receive preference in being posted here and on the newsboard drop the UK team an e-mail. To contact us, simply add [Saracen@wrestling101.com] or [Mitchell@wrestling101.com] to your mailing list or drop us a line, and we’ll make sure to get your news printed on the site. We’re here to help the UK scene as much as possible, and only ask for a little in return to help us do so.
As I speak, FWA have just finished a show in Morecombe as part of The Northern Exposure Tour. From what I can gather, before a crowd of around 250, the show went down to positive reactions, and the Blackpool show is next up, most likely to be underway or have finished by the time you read this. It’s always a positive to see the FWA still around after much talk of the good and the bad of the promotion and whether they’re on life support or just tuning up the band. Let’s hope that they can keep it up.
MEW finally have a website up and running. It was actually launched a few weeks ago apparently, but trust me not to notice these things. The address you want is MainEventWrestling.co.uk/ if you live up North and wish to check out this upstart promotion. The card certainly looks appealing, even if I cannot fathom why Doug Williams and Johnny Moss are fighting for the British championship already.
A word about this if I may…
For some really strange reason, a lot of promotions make championships and get them out in the open as quickly as possible. Why? For most of the casual fans who will watch MEW, no one will have a clue as to what these two guys have that is better than anyone else on the card going into it. In fact, even I don’t know why these two are being placed over guys like D’lo Brown who you could argue is more traveled and obviously the most successful in terms of being in the big league of the WWE for a number of years. Am I saying he should be in the title picture? Not at all, but no one is explaining what these two have done to earn this privilege of a title shot for a championship that should by all rights be the pinnacle prize of the company.
Look at IPW:UK. For a number of shows, Daniel Elder build up a series of guys in a slight variation to the tried-and-tested tournament final and had them face off for the title. It made sense, it made the championship seem important, and it put the winner over as a guy who IS the best and worthy of the title. In FCW, at least a full year went by before a champion was crowned, because they used their regular monthly venue to build up the characters of their stars and develop a fanbase that understood and cared about such a title finally being brought in and allowing them to salivate over certain tournament finals that could occur. I’m really not a fan of just throwing a title out there and hoping it brings credibility to the champion, challenger and company. Logical booking and entertaining action inside the ring makes that happen.
Ok, rant over.
Speaking of IPW:UK, their 1-year Anniversary show takes place on September 25th in Kent with Jodie Fleisch as well as the singles and tag-team titles on the line. The latter will be AK47 facing Kartel, The Chav Army and Ashley Reed & Tony Sefton in a TLC match. The former will be Martin Stone defending against an opponent to be named. We do know though that Andy Boy Simmonz and James Tighe will battle it out in a Contenders match (not necessarily #1 contendership). If ever there was a promotion to rave about, it seems to be this one, and to think that Edler wasn’t even a wrestler or a guy I’d consider to be “in the business” beforehand (although moreso than me, granted). The sky is the limits.
And now for a quick results rundown…
FWA – The Dome, Morecambe – Saturday, August 27th, 2005
- Dave Rayne, Simon Valour & Chris Egan beat Dom Travis, Jack Domino & Luke Greenwald.
- James Tighe beat Stevie Lynn
- The Young Doctors beat The Manchester Massive
- Johnny Angel beat Aviv Mayaan
- Iceman vs. Jack Xavier – Double DQ
- Stixx & Martin Stone beat El Ligero & Bubblegum
- Alex Shane beat Andy Boy Simmons to retain the FWA Heavyweight title.
IWF – St. Joseph’s Hall, Gateshead – Friday, August 26th, 2005
- Jordan Wright beat Max Heat
- Kid Ritchie beat Liam “The Player” Atkinson
- The ASBOs (Cabbie Kraze, VJ Simpson, Billy Morrison, Robbie Ryder and Damien Rose) beat Lee Kyle, Nick Damocles and Special Edition (R.D. Wood & Johnny Hogarth)
- Bobby Jackson beat Assassin
- Pac and Harry Pain won a 4-way IWF Tag Team Titles decider
- D-UNIT Collides: Youngsta Avery beat “BadBoy” Jed Masters
- Shaun Avery beat American Dragon Bryan Danielson
Summit Wrestling – Lynnsport Leisure Centre, Kings Lynn – Friday, August 26th, 2005
- Marty Scurll beat Chris Richardson
- Mike Mendoza beat Hugh Mungus
- Dave Steele beat Danny Dexter
- Yorghos Christopoulos beat Amit Rambojan
- ‘Nortorious’ John Ritchie & Danny Beckwith with Dan Bateman beat Nick Aldis & Jimmy Starr
Ok that’ll do it for this week. I’ll be back in two weeks, as Saracen should be back next week to clue you in on the latest news, views, results, cards, website updates, and more… more than likely in the first paragraph. So you can only imagine what the full column will look like. In fact, don’t. Just read it, same time next week.
Until then, ciao.
Mitchell Jones