I'd like to thank
NBWA for giving me so much material to work with at the last show
that got some of the best (and most defensive) feedback that I've
received so far on Jimmo's Angle. It was nice to see so much support
for what I had written, showing me that when I get annoyed with a
show and write from the heart there are those that understand and
know that this type of review is needed. As I also said, there were
some defensive comments, too, and I fully expected this. For the
record, none of what I write is personal, it's just my view as a
paying customer; and YES, I know that I don't have to pay and see a
show that I think is garbage, but it needs to be someone's duty to
write about the BAD in British wrestling as well as the good
sometimes.
This Saturday just
gone I travelled up to Banbury by myself due to my usual companions
not being able to make the trip up and also not wanting to put
themselves through another show. Luckily, I met up with Matt Lomax
(wrestler and good guy), who I wasn't sure would recognise me from
the (one?) time that I met him before. I was going to make this a
'positive' but I'll get it out of the way now; it was great to talk
with Matt throughout the show and to confirm some of my thoughts on
the show as it went on. The highlight of this was our 'similtaneous
sigh' when Marshall X and Samson decided to have a hug instead of one
of them being thrown into the ropes!
Positive: Optimism
Going into this
show, I was optimistic about some of the matches. James Mason and JD
Knight was easily going to be the match of the night. The
Cruiserweight title, triple threat had potential as it was using the
two TAW (Milton Keynes) guys that stood out from the last show with
one of NBWA's better wrestlers, Mr E. I had high hopes that Tukay and
Sancho would lead their respective trainees through a passable match,
too.
 |
| MC Hank McCoy was on hand to give a great presentation as always |
Negative: A Pre-Show
Match
Somebody tell me the
point of a pre-show match? What are you hoping to gain by having a
free match (which, if you saw, you had to pay to get in to see it??!)
before the actual show started. This isn't going to get more people
in the door; those that are there were coming anyway – there aren't
any random people walking past the Spiceball Leisure Centre as it's a
little bit out of the town centre, so there is probably zero chance
of getting anyone extra in. All it did was put Kay Jutler (probably
the best that NBWA has to offer) in a match with a guy that should
not be on shows. This is probably why he wasn't technically on the
show and on the 'pre-show'. What is this – a WWE pay-per-view??
Negative: The
Opening Match
Where do I begin
here? The opening match saw a tag team match to determine the number
one contender to the cruiserweight title. Basically, whoever scored
the pinfall would have the shot against whoever would be the
cruiserweight champion on a future show. Therefore you would expect a
little dissention between the partners, right? Wrong. There was no
problems between any of the four guys. Each one would go for a pin
and their partner wouldn't care. Surely if there is a championship
opportunity you would make sure that YOU and you alone had that
chance. The ending saw Tukay get the pin on the child in the blue
bodysuit as his tag team (and Stable) partner, Dan 'The Man' Tucker,
just stood there and allowed it. THEN Dan (The Man) complained
(mildly) that Tukay had gotten the pin; the pin that he could've
broke up if he really wanted to.
Basically, this was
a very overbooked, complicated opener to a show. I would expect a
simple, one-on-one match to open a show, where it WOKE the audience
up. This didn't happen.
Supplimental
Negative for putting a child in a match that I had to pay for. I know
a tag team match might seem to cover for this as there were two guys
that can wrestle (Tukay and Sancho) and one that is at least trying
(Dan 'The Man') but that does not mean it excuses you to put a kid in
a match. Sugar-coat it all you want with putting him in a mask, full
bodysuit, and calling him 'midget warrior' (or whatever) in Spanish,
it still doesn't get away from the fact that it's a kid that should
not be on shows.
Positive: Out Of The
Mess We Have A Contender
Despite this crappy
opener, we now have a number one contender; Tukay. I like Tukay and
haven't seen him wrestler for a while now. It's good to see that in
the future we will have Tukay vs Mr E; two guys that don't have me
tearing my hair out at how offended I am before it starts!
Negative: 'Wooden
Man' Samson
That's his moniker,
right? As the weeks went by, I looked at this show's card and saw
that Matt Walker and Taylor Made (TAW's better options) were in the
triple threat match. I didn't see Samson's name and this pleased me.
He was dire at the last show. Wooden is probably an understatement.
That show he was a heel, complete with half-arsing a 'tap out!'
request to a girl on that show. This show he magically transformed
into our hero for the night versus Marshall X. In the NBWA Universe
(please don't let that be a thing), continuity seems to be a very
important thing so having a heel from the last show be a babyface
this show (and a shit one at that) goes against that grain. Added to
that was that he entered through the curtain and just stood there:
expecting the adulation from a group of fans where not a f*ck was
given. I suppose that when you get a car load of guys from Milton
Keynes this type of shite is going to be on offer.
 |
| Mr E (photo credit: Superkick.co.uk) |
Negatives: Last Man
Standing / This Feud
Where do I begin?
(And yes, I know I've started a paragraph with that already, but it
REALLY needs using again). First of all, let me start with the Last
Man Standing (LMS) match type. I'm not a fan of this type of match,
but that's beside the point. A LMS match, I would guess, is a tricky
one to pull off. It wouldn't be a type of match that I would think
that everyone and anyone could do, or do successfully or believably.
Unfortunately, the two guys in this match could not pull it off;
neither should they be attempting to. Is it really thought that the
Banbury audience knows what all of these types of matches are and how
they work? Why has this stuff got to be SO complicated when it could
be so simple and have a much better response?
Now let me address
the feud/match. If I had a twenty-month feud and been beaten in the
(feud-ending) Street Fight the show before, when my music hit I
wouldn't walk to the ring, slap hands with my tens and tens of fans,
get in the ring and wait for the bell. I would run to the ring and
put a beating to the guy that has been stinking up my wrestling
career for the last TWENTY-MONTHS! But no, here we got Frankie and
Langley (there's a double-act name for you) competing for 'yays!'
from the audience before starting things out with a test of strength.
TWENTY-F*CKING-MONTHS, guys??!! Tear each other apart for f*cks
sake?!
Next up on my list
was the dangerous table spot that they set up at the start of the
match. A suplex was teased after the initial setting up of said
table, but of course, something bigger and more dangerous was
destined for that table (that I'd hoped to do a spot of decorating on
at a later date). The biggest worry for us during this whole thing
was that the table had been set-up by an old lady sat at ringside;
this wasn't going to end well. When Frankie eventually went through
the table, it appeared that the table legs on her side did indeed
connect with her. Now, whether it was a hard connection or not, what
a stupid spot to do with that particular spectator there? At least
move the table to a position where you haven't got the possibility of
hurting someone. Or if in doubt (which there probably was NONE) DON'T
DO THE SPOT.
Lastly, I'd like to
applaud Frankie for selling the leg injury that Langley had given
him, but COMPLETELY NO-SELLING punching a chair into Langley for the
win. What the actual f*ck. I don't care how 'iron' your fist is; if
you punch a chair into someone – and it gains you a ten-count in a
LMS match – then you should be selling that fist for days to come.
Instead he slapped hands with everyone on leaving the ring and
ringside... and into the interval, where he, again, sold the leg but
not that IRON FIST.
Positive: Because
One Needs To Be Here
Yes, I'm aware that
there haven't been too many 'positives' in this post so far. That's
partly because the first half was the shits, in all honesty. It had
kids 'playing wrestler', wooden men and the best in 'no-selling' in
one of the hardest matches to pull off. The positive was in the
interval. No, not the interval itself, but it was a nice touch to
have the birthday kid be the centre of attention and have his
favourite wrestler, Frankie Fellasarno, present him with a birthday
cake. Fair play to the NBWA for that. I can't wait for that kid to
grow up a little more and realise that he'd rather cheer for the
heels over the babyfaces.
POSITIVE: The Best
Match Of The Show: No Gimmicks Needed
Predictably, and
obviously, the match of the night was James Mason versus JD Knight.
Complete with sparkly ring jacket and 'go faster' lightening strikes
on his (new?) ring singlet, Mason would have a simple, but
more-effective-than-anything-on-this-show match with Knight that
should have been watched by all and, in turn, notes taken and stuff
LEARNT from it. As it always is, this was a pleasure to watch;
everything flowed, made sense and MEANT SOMETHING. It was a
straight-up singles match that needed no gimmicks. Look at the rest
of the show: Match one was a Tag Team Number One Contenders match;
match two was an Open Challenge; match three was a Last Man Standing
match; match five was a Triple Threat Cruiserweight title match;
Match six was a Elimination Rumble match (I capitalised all of them
to make them seem important). This was a singles match that had two
guys that know what they're doing, and it was the best match of the
night by a million miles – surely it shouldn't be THAT good in
comparison to the rest of the show? Surely that says something about
the rest of your show if that is the gulf in standard?
 |
| Shiny jacket... Go Faster Lightening Strikes: James Mason has it all! |
Positive/Negative:
The Rumble Match That Nearly Turned Into A Trainee Battle Royal That
Was Saved By The Finish
The main event of
the show was a Royal Rumble elimination match that would determine a
new NBWA Champion, due to Stu Oddyssey vacating it after the last
show. I had my worries that there would be 30 guys in this thing as
the last rumble in NBWA, that I'd seen, did. Thankfully it was just
the guys that had been on the show that night (as well as someone's
dad). Phew! The match started off nicely with wrestler-looking
wrestlers Mr E, Kay Jutler and JD Knight kicking things off. It was
always going to go downhill as these guys were eliminated, but my
heart started to pound with fear as, at one point, it was just NBWA
trainees filling the ring. Were they going to make one of them the
next champion? No, they wouldn't... would they?
Luckily, by the end,
someone that I could stomach had apparently won the match – Sancho.
Only, I'd noticed that it wasn't the Sancho that I know... the Sancho
I know was sat watching the match. So who was this imposter? For a
while I couldn't work it out, then at the end he unmasked to reveal
that it was the former champion Kay Jutler, cheating his way in to
win another one.
Positive/Negative:
Nice, But Back To The Status Quo
This was a very good
end to the show, but kind of goes against the 'sending the audience
home happy' mentality that you would expect from your typical, local
wrestling show. On one hand it makes complete sense to have Jutler as
the champion. There is no one else on the NBWA roster that should be
in that position. Future matches could include number one contender
James Mason (he's still got that, right?), one against Sancho who
would feel aggrieved that his attire was stolen, and, of course,
there's the former champion Stu Oddyssey, too. On the other hand, it
shows just how thin the NBWA are for guys that could main event for
them.
Negative: The NWA
Affiliation
Seeing that Jutler
mentioned it, I thought I would address it. The NWA (National
Wrestling Alliance) puts it's name to the NBWA. I'm not sure of the
ins and outs of this, but I would assume that the NWA would benefit
more from this, monetarily, than NBWA ever will. This is because,
like it or not, the NWA is a name that is not known in this country.
Maybe smarter fans do, but Average Joe wrestling fan does not know
who or what the NWA is. This is probably because it hasn't meant
anything in America for a long time, either, and when it comes to
American wrestling in this country, if it's not WWE or TNA then the
typical family-attending-wrestling-shows doesn't know it. It might
seem really cool to be the only show in the UK to boast this
affiliation, but it means absolutely nothing.
Results
- Pre-Show match: 'The Male Model' Kay Jutler defeated 'Shining' Johnny Searle
- Tag Team, Number One Contendership (Cruiserweight): Tukay (No 1 Contender) & Dan 'The Man' Tucker (w/ Lady Lucy Becksworth) defeated Sancho Cortez & El Pequeno Gurrero
- Open Challenge: Marshall X defeated 'Wooden Man' Samson
- Last Man Standing: Frankie Fellasarno defeated Kirk Langley
- James Mason defeated JD Knight
- Cruiserweight Championship – Triple Threat: Mr E (c) defeated Matt Walker and Taylor Made
- NBWA Championship Rumble winner: 'The Male Model' Kay Jutler
So there you go,
another show, another review. It sometimes amazes me how much I can
write for one of these things, but then it REALLY doesn't at times.
Keep going to
shows...
Support British
Wrestling
@jimmosangle
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