ARTICLE: From Behind The Announce Desk #5
Posted by Andy Quildan
IPW:UK commentator Dave “Stats” Bradshaw reflects on an unforgettable month in the company’s history…
»If you are a wrestling promoter preparing for a major show, it is the stuff that nightmares are made of: having already had to replace one half of your much-hyped marquee match with only days to go, you reach the day of the event and find that a featured tag team has now also had to pull out. This was the scenario facing IPW:UK as it prepared to present the Sittingbourne Spectacular but, fortunately for us, some occasions are destined for greatness regardless of the obstacles fate might throw at them. Sunday 3rd May 2009 at Wyvern Hall was to be one such night.
With Alex Shane’s unlikely championship victory still fresh in everyone’s minds (more on that in a moment), it felt backstage as though the balance of power was shifting. Several wrestlers saw Sittingbourne as a real chance to climb the ladder by making an impact in front of a sell-out crowd, and this made for an unusually tense atmosphere as each competitor in the locker room sat quietly planning how they would attempt to steal the show.
Another lesson from the Showstealer’s path to winning the title is that fortune favours those who can spot windows of opportunity when they open – and it quickly became clear as things got underway at the Spectacular that two young men had taken that message to heart. As many of you will remember, the Leaders of the New School beat the Thrillers in a scintillating non-title match at Aston University in February and therefore earned themselves a shot at the tag team belts when we next returned to the Birmingham area. Unfortunately, IPW management struggled to secure a venue in the West Midlands over the weeks that followed and there was some doubt as to whether the rematch would ever happen. But as the Thrillers stood in the ring at Sittingbourne complimenting each other on another tainted victory, that doubt was about to be cast aside.
I don’t know whether Marty Scurll and Zack Sabre Jnr planned in advance to ambush the champions or whether it was a spur of the moment thing, but it really doesn’t matter – however it happened, it was the most inspired move of this young team’s career. With their scheduled opponents Hubba Bubba Lucha sidelined, the Leaders took the initiative and demanded a title shot against the Thrillers instead. It was a perfectly timed challenge - Gilligan Gordon and his protégés had just spent several minutes describing themselves as unbeatable, and in doing so had boasted their way into a corner. There was no way they could now turn down this invitation without making themselves look ridiculously weak – a fact that clearly wasn’t lost on Gordon as he turned red with anger while accepting the match.
By now it is well documented that the Leaders are not exactly on my Christmas card list, but even I found myself rooting for them on this night. The arena was literally a few streets away from the ramshackle old gym where Zack Sabre Jnr started learning to wrestle as a 14-year-old boy, making him a local favourite, and in the face of the Thrillers’ unbearable self-satisfaction Marty Scurll became an instant folk hero by calling their bluff. There was an audible gasp of anticipation in the hall when ring announcer John Atkins announced the start of the match – everyone in the building thought this had the potential to be something special, and everyone wanted to see the Leaders make history.
The match did not disappoint. I have rarely seen a crowd so absorbed by a match – as the action slowly built on itself, people were on their feet for every near-fall, every shift in momentum and every high impact manoeuvre. Mark Haskins and Joel Redman were undaunted by being the most hated men in the building, dominating much of the battle and producing some of the finest tandem offence I have ever seen. 300 people collectively held their breath after Redman hit an astonishing falcon arrow from the top rope and came within a split second of retaining the gold. And then finally, the crowd came unglued as a dramatic tap-out win signalled the climax of the Leaders’ journey to the summit of the British tag team mountain. Sabre Jnr jumped into the crowd to celebrate with his hometown fans; Scurll knelt in the ring and chugged a beer from the bottle – these were the type of goosebump-inducing moments that you live for as a wrestling fan. Sittingbourne had just witnessed a classic.
Actually, they had just witnessed two classics. I can think of no higher compliment for the Sittingbourne Spectacular than to say that on a night with a 5-star match like the Leaders versus the Thrillers, there is considerable debate about which contest stole the show. Prior to that momentous tag title change, Bryan Danielson and Pac put on a wrestling clinic that will not soon be forgotten. Again, this match was not as originally advertised – former WWE star Paul London was Danielson’s original opponent but pulled out with “health problems” a week before the show. Having been drafted in as a last-minute substitute the pressure on Pac must have been enormous – London and Danielson had really shone the last time they wrestled, so the fans were expecting a match that was something out of the ordinary. Luckily, Pac was more than up to the challenge, putting in a high-flying and technically crisp performance that was as good as anything I would expect to see from Paul London. When you watch the Geordie native wrestle nowadays it really does feel as though you are watching a top American import – he has clearly learned a huge amount from his time overseas and the results are clear to see. The man will be a revelation for whichever major promotion picks him up in the months ahead.
There are two things that I find baffling about Bryan Danielson. The first, like most other wrestling fans, is how on Earth he manages to be THAT good. The second is how he manages to stay so grounded when everyone keeps telling him he is the “best in the world”. I have had the pleasure of meeting the American Dragon on a couple of occasions now, and I can honestly say he is one of the most humble, easy-going guys you are likely to meet in a wrestling locker room. On this night in Sittingbourne, he would once again leave me running short of superlatives on commentary as he stretched Pac in ways that no human body should be able to twist. Danielson’s mastery of mat wrestling is something I think you have to see live to truly appreciate – the man really does know thousands of ways into thousands of holds. There were pinning predicaments and submission holds that I had never seen before – it felt like watching a master craftsman at work. By the time Pac submitted to the Cattle Mutilation, everyone was standing and could have happily watched these two do battle for the rest of the night. It was an exquisite match that was surely one of the best this country has seen for a long while.
Still, as great as both of those matches were, the most significant moment of the past few weeks belongs to neither. That accolade goes to Alex Shane, who not only became the sixth man to wear the IPW:UK title but in the process was able to “right the wrong” he felt he had caused by indirectly helping the arrogant Iestyn Rees to become champion last September. The Showstealer admitted before his big match at Iron Fist in Swanley that he needed to prove he was still able to compete and be relevant in 2009, having not wrestled regularly for over two years. To my mind he blew that question out of the water with his performance against Rees – it looked as though Shane had never missed a day of ring time as he and the champion engaged in an epic war that told a hell of a story.
Shane’s pre-match comments must have played on the mind of Rees in the days before the match, as the challenger openly voiced the questions that some fans had been murmuring throughout his opponent’s reign – was he the finished article? Did he deserve to be the top man in British wrestling? Could he hold his own in a main event match that was expected to run for close to half an hour? Those questions were also resoundingly answered – the “Irresistible” one more than held his end of the bargain, controlling much of the encounter and leading by 4 falls to 2 by the time of the controversial ending to the match. After a super powerbomb by Shane, it looked as though both men would narrowly manage to answer the referee’s 10 count. But as Shane stumbled to his feet, Rees appeared to lose his grip on the rope he was using to pull himself up, causing him to fall to the floor and lose the belt via a technical knockout. I have looked back at the footage at least a dozen times now, and each time I am more convinced that Rees slipped because the rope was wet after a failed attempt to spray water in Shane’s face a few moments earlier.
Given the controversial nature of his defeat and the way he dominated so much of the fight, you would think Iestyn Rees would be falling over himself to cash in his rematch clause. But bizarrely, the former champion has not been seen or heard from since that night in Swanley – even Gilligan Gordon looked embarrassingly uneasy when I caught up with him a couple of weeks later and asked him about Rees’s whereabouts. Wherever he is sulking, Iestyn needs to pull himself together quickly because there are plenty of rivals threatening to leapfrog him in the race to be Shane’s first opponent. Aside from the two matches I have already mentioned, the Sittingbourne show was newsworthy for a pair of fascinating semi finals of a tournament to determine the new number one contender. Leroy Kincaide narrowly defeated Dave Moralez in a ground-shaking clash between the two most in-form big men in British wrestling. And Terry Frazier picked up a victory that was perhaps even bigger than his British National Championship win last autumn by beating his friend Martin Stone. The implications of this win for Frazier could be massive if he can follow it up with victory over Kincaide when we return to Sittingbourne in June – I’ll have much more to say about this next month.
Unfortunately I am almost out of space so there are several questions I will have to leave unanswered for now: how on Earth did Jimmy Havoc and Zack Sabre Jnr survive the truly brutal hardcore match that headlined our return to Chatham at the end of April? Where do the Thrillers go from here, having lost almost all of their championship gold in the space of two weeks? What on Earth was RJ Singh’s entrance at Sittingbourne all about?! And will my broadcast partner ever put his “showbiz” commitments to one side and show up on time for an assignment? If you want to talk about an expenses scandal, look no further than the amount Billi Lightning takes from your ticket money to pay for hair products.
Looking forward to big shows in Alton and Bognor at the end of this week – will hopefully see you there. But in the mean time, that’s all for another month…
»If you are a wrestling promoter preparing for a major show, it is the stuff that nightmares are made of: having already had to replace one half of your much-hyped marquee match with only days to go, you reach the day of the event and find that a featured tag team has now also had to pull out. This was the scenario facing IPW:UK as it prepared to present the Sittingbourne Spectacular but, fortunately for us, some occasions are destined for greatness regardless of the obstacles fate might throw at them. Sunday 3rd May 2009 at Wyvern Hall was to be one such night.
With Alex Shane’s unlikely championship victory still fresh in everyone’s minds (more on that in a moment), it felt backstage as though the balance of power was shifting. Several wrestlers saw Sittingbourne as a real chance to climb the ladder by making an impact in front of a sell-out crowd, and this made for an unusually tense atmosphere as each competitor in the locker room sat quietly planning how they would attempt to steal the show.
Another lesson from the Showstealer’s path to winning the title is that fortune favours those who can spot windows of opportunity when they open – and it quickly became clear as things got underway at the Spectacular that two young men had taken that message to heart. As many of you will remember, the Leaders of the New School beat the Thrillers in a scintillating non-title match at Aston University in February and therefore earned themselves a shot at the tag team belts when we next returned to the Birmingham area. Unfortunately, IPW management struggled to secure a venue in the West Midlands over the weeks that followed and there was some doubt as to whether the rematch would ever happen. But as the Thrillers stood in the ring at Sittingbourne complimenting each other on another tainted victory, that doubt was about to be cast aside.
I don’t know whether Marty Scurll and Zack Sabre Jnr planned in advance to ambush the champions or whether it was a spur of the moment thing, but it really doesn’t matter – however it happened, it was the most inspired move of this young team’s career. With their scheduled opponents Hubba Bubba Lucha sidelined, the Leaders took the initiative and demanded a title shot against the Thrillers instead. It was a perfectly timed challenge - Gilligan Gordon and his protégés had just spent several minutes describing themselves as unbeatable, and in doing so had boasted their way into a corner. There was no way they could now turn down this invitation without making themselves look ridiculously weak – a fact that clearly wasn’t lost on Gordon as he turned red with anger while accepting the match.
By now it is well documented that the Leaders are not exactly on my Christmas card list, but even I found myself rooting for them on this night. The arena was literally a few streets away from the ramshackle old gym where Zack Sabre Jnr started learning to wrestle as a 14-year-old boy, making him a local favourite, and in the face of the Thrillers’ unbearable self-satisfaction Marty Scurll became an instant folk hero by calling their bluff. There was an audible gasp of anticipation in the hall when ring announcer John Atkins announced the start of the match – everyone in the building thought this had the potential to be something special, and everyone wanted to see the Leaders make history.
The match did not disappoint. I have rarely seen a crowd so absorbed by a match – as the action slowly built on itself, people were on their feet for every near-fall, every shift in momentum and every high impact manoeuvre. Mark Haskins and Joel Redman were undaunted by being the most hated men in the building, dominating much of the battle and producing some of the finest tandem offence I have ever seen. 300 people collectively held their breath after Redman hit an astonishing falcon arrow from the top rope and came within a split second of retaining the gold. And then finally, the crowd came unglued as a dramatic tap-out win signalled the climax of the Leaders’ journey to the summit of the British tag team mountain. Sabre Jnr jumped into the crowd to celebrate with his hometown fans; Scurll knelt in the ring and chugged a beer from the bottle – these were the type of goosebump-inducing moments that you live for as a wrestling fan. Sittingbourne had just witnessed a classic.
Actually, they had just witnessed two classics. I can think of no higher compliment for the Sittingbourne Spectacular than to say that on a night with a 5-star match like the Leaders versus the Thrillers, there is considerable debate about which contest stole the show. Prior to that momentous tag title change, Bryan Danielson and Pac put on a wrestling clinic that will not soon be forgotten. Again, this match was not as originally advertised – former WWE star Paul London was Danielson’s original opponent but pulled out with “health problems” a week before the show. Having been drafted in as a last-minute substitute the pressure on Pac must have been enormous – London and Danielson had really shone the last time they wrestled, so the fans were expecting a match that was something out of the ordinary. Luckily, Pac was more than up to the challenge, putting in a high-flying and technically crisp performance that was as good as anything I would expect to see from Paul London. When you watch the Geordie native wrestle nowadays it really does feel as though you are watching a top American import – he has clearly learned a huge amount from his time overseas and the results are clear to see. The man will be a revelation for whichever major promotion picks him up in the months ahead.
There are two things that I find baffling about Bryan Danielson. The first, like most other wrestling fans, is how on Earth he manages to be THAT good. The second is how he manages to stay so grounded when everyone keeps telling him he is the “best in the world”. I have had the pleasure of meeting the American Dragon on a couple of occasions now, and I can honestly say he is one of the most humble, easy-going guys you are likely to meet in a wrestling locker room. On this night in Sittingbourne, he would once again leave me running short of superlatives on commentary as he stretched Pac in ways that no human body should be able to twist. Danielson’s mastery of mat wrestling is something I think you have to see live to truly appreciate – the man really does know thousands of ways into thousands of holds. There were pinning predicaments and submission holds that I had never seen before – it felt like watching a master craftsman at work. By the time Pac submitted to the Cattle Mutilation, everyone was standing and could have happily watched these two do battle for the rest of the night. It was an exquisite match that was surely one of the best this country has seen for a long while.
Still, as great as both of those matches were, the most significant moment of the past few weeks belongs to neither. That accolade goes to Alex Shane, who not only became the sixth man to wear the IPW:UK title but in the process was able to “right the wrong” he felt he had caused by indirectly helping the arrogant Iestyn Rees to become champion last September. The Showstealer admitted before his big match at Iron Fist in Swanley that he needed to prove he was still able to compete and be relevant in 2009, having not wrestled regularly for over two years. To my mind he blew that question out of the water with his performance against Rees – it looked as though Shane had never missed a day of ring time as he and the champion engaged in an epic war that told a hell of a story.
Shane’s pre-match comments must have played on the mind of Rees in the days before the match, as the challenger openly voiced the questions that some fans had been murmuring throughout his opponent’s reign – was he the finished article? Did he deserve to be the top man in British wrestling? Could he hold his own in a main event match that was expected to run for close to half an hour? Those questions were also resoundingly answered – the “Irresistible” one more than held his end of the bargain, controlling much of the encounter and leading by 4 falls to 2 by the time of the controversial ending to the match. After a super powerbomb by Shane, it looked as though both men would narrowly manage to answer the referee’s 10 count. But as Shane stumbled to his feet, Rees appeared to lose his grip on the rope he was using to pull himself up, causing him to fall to the floor and lose the belt via a technical knockout. I have looked back at the footage at least a dozen times now, and each time I am more convinced that Rees slipped because the rope was wet after a failed attempt to spray water in Shane’s face a few moments earlier.
Given the controversial nature of his defeat and the way he dominated so much of the fight, you would think Iestyn Rees would be falling over himself to cash in his rematch clause. But bizarrely, the former champion has not been seen or heard from since that night in Swanley – even Gilligan Gordon looked embarrassingly uneasy when I caught up with him a couple of weeks later and asked him about Rees’s whereabouts. Wherever he is sulking, Iestyn needs to pull himself together quickly because there are plenty of rivals threatening to leapfrog him in the race to be Shane’s first opponent. Aside from the two matches I have already mentioned, the Sittingbourne show was newsworthy for a pair of fascinating semi finals of a tournament to determine the new number one contender. Leroy Kincaide narrowly defeated Dave Moralez in a ground-shaking clash between the two most in-form big men in British wrestling. And Terry Frazier picked up a victory that was perhaps even bigger than his British National Championship win last autumn by beating his friend Martin Stone. The implications of this win for Frazier could be massive if he can follow it up with victory over Kincaide when we return to Sittingbourne in June – I’ll have much more to say about this next month.
Unfortunately I am almost out of space so there are several questions I will have to leave unanswered for now: how on Earth did Jimmy Havoc and Zack Sabre Jnr survive the truly brutal hardcore match that headlined our return to Chatham at the end of April? Where do the Thrillers go from here, having lost almost all of their championship gold in the space of two weeks? What on Earth was RJ Singh’s entrance at Sittingbourne all about?! And will my broadcast partner ever put his “showbiz” commitments to one side and show up on time for an assignment? If you want to talk about an expenses scandal, look no further than the amount Billi Lightning takes from your ticket money to pay for hair products.
Looking forward to big shows in Alton and Bognor at the end of this week – will hopefully see you there. But in the mean time, that’s all for another month…