Indy Wrestling Express

Thanks to Josian Omed Vazquez Diaz for sending in these results of the Puerto Rico Wrestling Association’s show “Levantando La Dignitad 2012” (“Raising Dignity 2012”) which took place on Saturday at the Lajas Coliseum in Puerto Rico.

Here are the results from the first ever Infinite Promotions show in Liverpool on Saturday, which included the opening fixtures of the British Wrestling Premier League:

Cyanide defeated Babyfaced Pitbull

British Wrestling Premier League: Zack Gibson (Liverpool) defeated Marc Morgan (Stoke) 2 falls to 0

Zero Gravity 4-Way: Dean McManus defeated LA Austin, Sean Daniels and Josh Bodom

El Ligero defeated Sam Bailey

Project Ego defeated The Models

British Wrestling Premier League: Jack Gallagher (Wigan) defeated Rampage Brown (London, temporarily replacing James Mason) 2 falls to 1

Infinite Promotions Heavyweight Title: CJ Banks defeated Bubblegum for the title

Shaun “The Hammer” Davis was sent home due to elevated liver enzymes, and James Mason could not make it due to unforeseen circumstances.

Thoughts: Sounds like a great show, although I’ve heard it started late and several people had to leave during the main event lest they miss their trains home. Let’s hope these shows continue, Liverpool could do with a top monthly wrestling event like the rest of the Northwest.

-Adrian

Thanks to Chad Simplicio for another excellent PWG review! He attended Death To All But Metal last night (May 25th).

Here it is:

5/25/12 PWG “Death to All But Metal” @ American Legion Post #308, Reseda, CA, USA

By Chad Simplicio

A large crowd was on hand for this Friday Night show to kick off Memorial Day Weekend, and everyone had to brave the Friday Rush Hour traffic to get there. The trip was worth it, as there were some big matches that got the crowd buzzing. Before the show, as Excalibur did his introductory stuff on the mic, him tossing the PWG World Tag Team titles into the ring was an indicator that Kevin Steen & Super Dragon had to vacate the titles, since Super Dragon’s injury suffered prior to the 3/17 “World’s Finest” show was reportedly more severe than first thought. Therefore, the advertised Young Bucks v. Super Smash Bros. match turned into a No-DQ match for the vacated tag team titles. Concussion or not, Kevin Steen (who reportedly suffered a concussion recently) did defend his PWG World Heavyweight title.

7 matches, approx. 3 hours

Referees: Rick Knox & Justin Borden

Excalibur’s Commentary Guests: Kevin Steen, Rick Knox, & Joey Ryan

1 - B-Boy p. Famous B w/ what looked like an Island Driver. Strong opener that saw both men do some modified combination moves.

2 - T.J. Perkins p. Ryan Taylor w/ a countering facebreaker from the top rope, then followed it w/ the 450 Splash. Very solid match from the two that have quite the history w/ each other.

3 - Kevin Steen successfully defended the PWG World Heavyweight Championship, pinning Brian Cage-Taylor w/ a countering Crucifix after eating the big Lariat/Clothesline. Both men really went at it in what was one of the top matches on the card, and as it was, Brian Cage-Taylor was really put over, as he was really “A F’n Machine!”.

4 - No-DQ match for the vacant PWG World Tag Team Championship. Total brawlfest between The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) and this year’s DDT4 Winners, The Super Smash Bros. (Player Uno & Stupefied) that saw plenty of high spots. Plenty of chairs and one table was used in this match, and it was no surprise that Matt Jackson stopped a 3-count from Referee Rick Knox, then superkicked him. Referee Justin Borden went in to do the 3-count after The Bucks hit More Bang For Your Buck, but Rick Knox recovered to stop that one. Given his history w/ the Bucks, it was no surprise, that Rick Knox got some payback, and that opened the door for the SSB to hit their Fatality on Nick Jackson, w/ Stupefied scoring the pin to cap the match of the night. NEW TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS: THE SUPER SMASH BROS.

5 - After intermission, Candice LeRae & The RockNES Monsters (Johnny Yuma & Johnny Goodtime) def. Joey Ryan, Ray (Rrrrrrrrrrr)Rosas, & Peter Avalon when Johnny Yuma p. Ray Rosas w/ a RockNES Monsters team move. Plenty of comedy in this one, and Joey Ryan had cut a promo about his appearance for TNA Gut Check, as everyone who watched Impact Wrestling the previous night saw. Not surprisingly, the crowd was still recovering from the previous match, so they didn’t quite have the energy.

SM - Willie Mack p. Michael Elgin w/ the piledriver. Great action between the two big men, complete w/ both men executing some great counters, especially Michael Elgin executing a Schoolboy Cover into a powerlift for a sit-down powerbomb. Maybe Willie Mack is ROH material after this huge win. We’ll see.

M - Grudge match. El Generico p. Ricochet w/ the Top Turnbuckle Brainbuster. Another great match that went back-and-forth throughout. In the end, it seemed as if the duo settled their differences that rifted from last year, as the two of them shook hands to cap off the show.

Tomorrow evening sees newly-formed UK wrestling company Infinite Promotions present their first-ever show, “51st State of Emergency”, at the Grand Central Hall in Liverpool. The show features a stacked card of many of the top wrestlers on the UK scene, and also includes the inaugural fixtures of the newly-conceived British Wrestling Premier League.

The Premier League will consist of eight teams of three, representing eight towns and cities in the United Kingdom. Representatives from the teams will face off against each other in singles action over the coming months, under a variation of the World of Sport (or Mountevan’s) rules: Five 4-minute rounds, with two pinfalls or submissions or one knockout to decide the winner. At the end of the season the two teams with the most points will choose a member of their team to wrestle in the final, with the winner’s team being named Premier League Champions for that season. Here are the teams:

Team London: James Mason (captain), Marty Scurll, Zack Sabre Jr - Manager: Melanie Price

Team Leeds: Martin Kirby (captain), Robbie Bell, Kris Travis - Manager: Des Robinson

Team Wigan: Jack Gallagher (captain), Danny Hope, Joey Hayes - Manager: Ciaran McDonnell

Team Liverpool: CJ Banks (captain), Zack Gibson, Dan Evans - Manager: Christopher Egan

Team Manchester: RJ Singh (captain), Xander Cooper, Sam Bailey - Manager: Michael Fitzgerald

Team Stoke: Dean Allmark (captain), Robbie Dynamite, Marc Morgan - Manager: Phillip Woodvine

Team Cardiff: Bubblegum (captain), Mark Andrews, Mike Hitchman - Manager: Steve Saxon

Team Glasgow: Mikey Whiplash (captain), Noam Dar, Kid Fite - Manager: Charles Boddington

For more information check out the introductory videos here and here.

Thoughts: This is a brilliant idea, and the fact that it’s under traditional rules makes me very excited. The teams look excellent (save for the lack of a Northeast team), and I can’t wait to see how it pans out.

The first two fixtures of the league will take place at tomorrow’s show in Liverpool, as well as the rest of the titanic card, which is as follows:

Project Ego (Kris Travis and Martin Kirby) vs The Models (Joey Hayes and Danny Hope)

El Ligero vs Sam Bailey

Pitbull vs Cyanide

Zero Gravity Cruiserweight Challenge: Josh Bodom vs LA Austin vs Sean Daniels

Open Challenge: Shaun ‘The Hammer’ Davis vs ???

British Wrestling Premier League: Zack Gibson (Team Liverpool) vs Marc Morgan (Team Stoke)

British Wrestling Premier League: Jack Gallagher (Team Wigan) vs James Mason (Team London)

Infinite Promotions Heavyweight Title: CJ Banks vs Bubblegum

Thoughts: An incredible card for a debut show. There are clearly big plans ahead for Infinite Promotions, and I can’t wait to see how this fares.

-Adrian

Adrian here! Summer is on its way, and the wrestling season is entering full swing here in the UK. Plenty of news to report this week, and if like me you’re in the middle of exams, good luck!

Read More

Hello indy wrestling fans! I’d like to say thanks to the hundreds of people who have visited Indy Wrestling Express in the past week, and I would like to apologise for the lack of new content. I’m in my final weeks of university so I’ve been too busy to update the site, but everything will be back on track in the very near future. I’ll try and get the results and other news that I’ve missed up in the next couple of days, and the site will be running properly again after next week, when I’m a free man with a degree. Thanks for all the support, and keep checking out IWE!

Lee

Saturday May 19th, 2012

The Palmer Center

4100 Green Pond Road in Easton, PA

Belltime = 7:00 PM : : Doors = 6:30 PM

*All Children 12 & Under Admitted FREE to this Event with a Paying Adult*

Read More

XWA were at The Hexagon in Morecambe on the 12th for “War on the Shore VIII”. With a sell-out crowd in attendance, here’s what happened:

Hexagon Six-Way Number One Contender’s Match: Joey Hayes defeated Rockstar Spud, Nathan Cruz, El Ligero, Jynx and Dave Rayne to become the new number one contender to the XWA British Heavyweight Championship.

Tables Match: Sam Slam defeated Colossus

Craig Kollins defeated Jack Gallagher

XWA promoter Greg Lambert and GPW promoter Johnnie Brannigan came to the ring and appeared to reconcile their differences (XWA and GPW are currently in an interpromotional feud). However, they soon started arguing again, and Lambert challenged Brannigan to a series of XWA vs GPW matches at their forthcoming July 28th show. Brannigan responded by low-blowing Lambert and pouring shrimps over him.

The Blackpool Blonds defeated 2Dimenson, who were making their XWA debuts. Post-match, The Creeper and Martin Shenton came to the ring and took out the Blonds.

Declan O’Connor defeated Dave Breaks

XWA British Heavyweight Championship: Johnny Phere (c) and Stixx wrestled to a no-contest after ring announcer Richard Parker called for the bell, feeling that the two could no longer continue. Referee Mike Bishop, who disputed this and called for the match to restart, was then hit in the head with the title belt by Parker, who revealed his allegiance to GPW. Brannigan then returned, along with a horde of GPW wrestlers, who proceeded to attack both Stixx and Phere. The show ended with Brannigan accepting Greg Lambert’s challenge, and he and his GPW cohorts being forced out of the building.

Thoughts: Sounds like tons of fun. This XWA/GPW feud has been brilliant. It’s going to be interesting to see who comes out on top in this. Check out the fallout on the XWA Twitter page, it’s fantastic!

Alternative Wrestling World (AWW) were at the Hadley Stadium Leisure Centre in Smethwick, Birmingham on the 13th for “Collision Course”. Here are the results:

T-Bone defeated Scotty Riot

AWW British Tag Team Championship: The Dunne Brothers defeated Team H8 and The Hunter Brothers to win the vacant titles

Jonny Storm defeated Joey Starr

‘Assassin’ Dave Williams defeated ‘Messiah’ Brandon Thomas

Kevin O’Neil defeated Matt Lightning and Tukay

AWW British Championship: Carnage (w/Violet Vendetta) defeated Rockstar Spud to retain the title

Fight Club Pro are at Planet Night Club in Wolverhampton tonight (the 18th), for a show which features several CZW stars:

Unsanctioned Deathmatch: Clint Margera vs Masada

MK McKinnon vs Chuck Taylor

DJ Hyde vs Dave Mastiff

Trent Seven vs Sami Callihan

Plus more to be announced.

Thoughts: I’m assuming this is a stopover for the CZW guys before going off to the continent for WxW. This should be great.

Wrestlezone are at Banchory Town Hall, Aberdeenshire tomorrow (the 19th) for a big show featuring two title matches:

Wrestlezone Undisputed Title Match: Johnny Lions (c) vs Noam Dar

Wrestlezone Tag Team Title Match: Sterling Oil (c) vs Shawn Johnson and Bryan Tucker

Damien vs BT Gunn

Cysto vs Aspen Faith

The Holyrood Blonds vs Scotty Swift and Blue Thunder

Zach Dynamite vs Crusher Craib

Hot on the heels of their show tonight (which I featured in last week’s edition of Best of British), The World Wide Wrestling League (W3L) are in Musselburgh tomorrow for another stacked show:

Martin Kirby vs Mike Musso

Number One Contender’s Match for the W3L/SWA Unified Tag Team Titles: Fight Club (Kid Fite and King Liam w/Queen Carmel) vs Taylor Bryden and Nathan Reynolds

Allan Grogan vs El Technico

Also scheduled to appear are Johnny Kidd and Damian O’Connor.

Thoughts: Their show tonight should be amazing, and this card looks like it should be just as good. Top stuff.

Great Bear Promotions are at the Lounge Bar in Holmes Chapel, Cheshire on the 20th for their second ever show, “Exciting Battle in Cheshire”:

Jack Gallagher vs Chuck Taylor

Pete Dunne vs Chris Brookes

Damon Leigh vs Sam Bailey

Evan Sarven vs Cyanide

Pitbull vs Damien Dunne

Corey Edwardson vs Flash Morgan

Thoughts: The undercard is solid, but to be perfectly honest, all I care about in this show is Gallagher vs Taylor, which is frankly going to be incredible. Hopefully I’ll be able to attend this. 

The North East Wrestling Society (NEWS) are at Peterlee Leisure Centre on the 25th for the NEWS 2nd Anniversary Show:

NEWS British Championship: El Ligero (c) vs Lowthian

NEWS Tag Team Championship Handicap Match: AJ Anderson (c) vs Full Pack (Micky Long and Iain Robinson) - Anderson’s partner Max Heat had to pull out due to a knee injury, thus the match stipulation was changed.

Doug Williams vs Rampage Brown

Tony Spitfire vs Nathan Cruz

Martin Kirby and Cameron Kraze vs the Dragon Ryders

Thoughts: Should be a good show. The two (well, one and a half) tag team matches should be solid, and Doug Williams should be reliable as always. 

Sources:

http://ukff.com

http://newrestling.co.uk

http://wrestlezonescotland.co.uk

That’s all for this week. As always, if you have any news, reviews or reports from the world of British wrestling, send them in at lonelybitterman@gmail.com. 

-Adrian

The title says it all. 

- Lee

This took place on Saturday, the 12th of May in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want to know any spoilers, look away now.

THE GOOD

Kevin Steen vs Davey Richards (ROH World Title)

Like most people, I was desperate to see Steen walk out of Border Wars with the ROH title. With the face/heel roles overwhelmingly reversed, both wrestlers played to the crowd perfectly, creating for all the drama and emotion that was necessary in a match of this importance. The hard-hitting brawling that was expected in this bout was interspersed by some fantastic submission sequences, as well as some brilliant high spots from both guys. And quite frankly, the right man won. Steen is just the person that ROH needs to inject some life into their technically wonderful but creatively and charismatically stale product.

Young Bucks and Mike Mondo vs ANX and TJ Perkins

While Steen and Richards had the match of the night as far as telling a story goes, the showstealer on the undercard was this six-man tag bout. An action-packed, high-octane rollercoaster ride of a match featuring six young, up-and-coming stars that have extremely bright futures in this business. It’s just a shame nobody got to see it, but we’ll get to that later.

Finlay vs Roderick Strong (ROH TV Title)

Another great match, with Finlay really getting the opportunity to show what he can do outside of the confines of ‘sports entertainment’, and Strong putting in another stellar performance. Finlay did the right thing in doing the job, and recieved a standing ovation from the crowd post-match for his efforts. There’s always something special about seeing living legends ‘passing on the torch’, so to speak, to younger guys.

Adam Cole vs Michael Elgin

A superb match between the two fastest-rising stars in ROH right now, which saw Elgin continue to gain momentum following his five-star performance against Davey Richards at Showdown in the Sun. Seeds of a possible face turn were planted when Elgin reluctantly carried an unconscious Truth Martini to the back, so this is sure to get interesting in the coming weeks and months.

Undercard depth

Every match on the card was excellent. Eddie Edwards and Rhino had an excellent opening match, and Rhino showed no signs of slowing down at his age, Jay Lethal and Tomasso Ciampa wrestled a corker which saw Ciampa’s streak finally end after ten consecutive backbreakers into a Lethal Injection, and Lance Storm proved that he still has plenty left in the tank against Mike Bennett (who, for the record, love him or hate him, is big time. Watch him get signed to WWE in the next year or so, mark my words).

THE BAD

The stream being down for half the show

Considering how good the event was, it’s truly sad that it was marred by such awful technical difficulties. The majority of viewers were unable to even access the ROH homepage for the first hour and a half of the show, let alone log in and watch the PPV. People can say all they like about GoFightLive and its problems, but at least I could see the damn thing. To make matters worse, ROH waited until about an hour in before even acknowledging that there was a problem, and the half-baked apology did little to quell the anger of the paying viewers, many of whom (myself included) resorted to finding illegal streams, or even jumping ship and ordering the EVOLVE show that was on at the same time. All paying customers have been offered a full refund or the next PPV, ‘Best in the World’ for free, but that may be too little too late for a lot of fans. This was a PR disaster for ROH, not to mention extremely disappointing for young wrestlers like Mike Mondo who I’m sure were looking forward to a rare appearance on PPV. They seriously need to get their act together in time for the next show, else the trust from the fans that is already dwindling will be irreconcilably gone.

Maria’s absence

Nuff said.

THE QUESTIONABLE

The finish to Briscoes vs Haas and Benjamin (ROH Tag Team Titles)

The match itself was brilliant. Haas and Benjamin have been given a second wind since their heel turn, and the Briscoes are two of the most watchable people in all of wrestling. The finish, however, raised a lot of eyebrows. Haas sprayed something (believed to be ether or hairspray) onto a rag and shoved it into Mark Briscoe’s face, knocking him out. As it was an unsanctioned match, it counted despite the hysteria from the officials, and thus WGTT are tag champs again. While I like the curveball, and I like the shock value and the monstrously heelish nature of the finish, having the titles switch hands in such controversial fashion only devalues the belts. Not to mention that this means the WGTT/Briscoes feud, which has been rinsed to death and back again, is going to continue, despite everyone believing that this match would be the one that put it to rest.

All in all, disregarding the technical issues, the show was excellent, and I highly recommend ordering the replay if you haven’t seen it. Unfortunately, the gravity of the technical issues is such that it’s impossible to disregard, and if ROH fail to deliver at their next attempt, I worry for their credibility as North America’s third biggest wrestling promotion. If they want to be able to grow and eventually compete against the likes of WWE and TNA, they need to sort this out and accept some responsibility.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Feel free to email in your thoughts to indywrestling@hotmail.co.uk.

-Adrian