TonyPulis'Cap

This match stems from the last show Vendetta, where they were tag team partners against Burchill in a handicap match. Both blamed the other for the defeat so here we are. Simmons, the wrestling butler to the Duke of Danger is starting his run as the true cult favourite of the FWA, getting more and more over to where the chants for him during his entrance and his matches is getting pretty deafening. The match itself is pretty inoffensive, but with not much of interest going on. Sloan as the more experienced of the two, and trainer of the FWA Academy controls most of the match with Simmons’ hope spots keeping the crowd invested. Sloan was always solid in the ring, but at times felt like he was going through the motions, and just going move to move without a lot of emotion. It’s a criticism that could also be levelled at some of the trainees that came through the academy. Simmons ends up winning with his Butler Buster (Block Buster) which was the right call considering the reactions he was getting. (**) As I mentioned in the match thread for the opener of this show, this event has a lot more angles to it as the company was looking at building up British Uprising II the next month. As such I’ll touch on a segment from later on in the night where the Duke of Danger – a stereotypical British aristocrat heel character – has a public workout. This is actually a pretty funny segment with him hitting some moves on trainees whilst Simmons gives them moves such as the ‘Swine Buster’ and the ‘Peasant Smasher’. This was entertaining, but designed to build up the Duke’s return to the ring and upcoming match with Burchill which is something he had been dodging for a year. It predictably ends with Burchill coming out and destroying the trainees while the Duke legs it, but I thought this was fun and served its purpose.

This is to determine the No. 1 contender to the FWA Title at British Uprising II to face Doug Williams. Each won a match at Vendetta in June to qualify for this match; Tighe beat Jody Fleisch while Barker knocked off Jack Xavier. This is being presented as the future of the FWA in Tighe versus the veteran Barker, and it makes for a nice dynamic. I also liked the announcers playing up Barker’s desire to return to British Uprising one year on from losing his title at the same event. These two match up well stylistically – Tighe was excellent as a mat wrestler, combining that with the hybrid style being popularised by ROH at the time. Barker during his heel British Title runs was much more of a brawler, but since turning face at the beginning of the year now wrestles in a more MMA inspired way. The mat exchanges between the two at the beginning are smooth, with each trying to find an opening without rushing in. Whereas a lot of the other young UK wrestlers at the time were looking to do everything at pace, Tighe stands out from the pack by working much smarter and taking his time. I enjoyed Tighe consistently working the headlock and using that as a tool to keep on top of the bigger and stronger Barker and using that as a way of trying to prevent him using his strikes. The match has a really nice logical flow to it, with each changing their game plan to suit their strengths as things progress. Early on it’s a technical bout which favours Tighe, so Barker goes with strikes and kicks rather than trying to trade holds. Tighe realising he his overmatched when it comes to striking then takes things to the air with a springboard crossbody and split legged moonsault. In the end he is able to counter Barker’s attempt at his Flash in the Pan (roll the dice) finisher for the three count and No. 1 contender spot. This is a smartly wrestled match that largely keep things simple with a logical escalation as it goes on. Thumbs up. (***) While the winner of the match was to be the No. 1 contender to the FWA Title, the loser was given an All England Title shot the same night, which seems strange for losing a match, but that means we are set for Barker to take on the perennial All England Champion Zebra Kid. Zebra was champ at Vendetta but since then there had been title switches involving Chris Hamrick and Jonny Storm, before coming back to him. I won’t post this match in its own thread as just as it starts we get interference from Hade Vansen who had done the same thing at Vendetta, and the match is thrown out. After the last incident Vansen was fired/suspended in storyline, but once again he tries to hijack the show triggering a big brawl between the three guys and lots of security. We see the camera following security throwing him out the building, while the commentators try to play it off as a shoot. People maybe rolling their eyes at the whole worked shoot stuff, but as Greg Lambert outlines in his book on the period, that sort of angle had never really been done in British wrestling before. In an interesting note from Lambert’s book he notes that Alex Shane concocted an angle that only him and Vansen were in on whereby they had a confrontation at a fan convention to again sell the ‘realness’ of what was going on.

As ever before the opener of the show, a little intro on where the FWA was at this point; this is the final stop before the company’s biggest event of the year - British Uprising II the next month. As such, this show is used as a set up with a much heavier use of angles, promos and non wrestling segments than previous FWA cards. With no TV in place at this stage, and being in the pre YouTube era, it makes some sense to try to build up the big upcoming show, but as you’ll see in the individual match threads I’ll post, the matches suffer as a result, and after a strong run of shows from British Uprising I the previous October, this was a clear step back in quality. As with Vendetta the previous month, we are in the Broxbourne Civic Hall, however attendance does look from the eye to be slightly down. As we’ll come onto, that’s perhaps because of the absence of Doug Williams and Jody Fleisch, and maybe the lack of an overseas import with a significant buzz or big name. One of those imports, EZ Money, is in our opener. He’s facing Jack Xavier, who in 2003 was being pushed up the card by being put against a lot of the US imports coming over. Xavier had already faced off with Juventud Guerrera and Chris Hamrick, and at Frontiers of Honor he defeated Mikey Whipwreck. This is all being done to build him up to facing Homicide at British Uprising, and the fact he wins here is the best part of the match. The rest is very disappointing however. The match has a lot of the worst habits of indie wrestling: lack of transitions, selling ranging from spotty to non-existent and no particular storyline to thread the match together. The spots themselves are also awkward with the two guys not exhibiting much in the way of chemistry. Xavier throughout his time played a great underdog for the crowd to rally behind but EZ Money never really takes control of the match and so there is little opportunity for any heat to build. I quite liked EZ Money in his late ECW run and also thought he was fun in his couple of months in the dying days of WCW as Jason Jett, but as the guys on the ThROH The Years podcast pointed out in their review of Expect the Unexpected http://placetobenation.com/throh-the-years-episode-15-expect-the-unexpected/ while he’s a guy that can look good in a multi man match or a tag team where he can come in and hit some impressive spots, when put in with someone where he was expected to lead more of the match, he doesn’t have that ability. There are one or two fun spots in this match – both guys are good at that – and both have some fairly unique moves in their arsenal, but overall this does not hang together well at all, and I was really disappointed. (* ½)

I’m guessing it won’t because of Bate/Seven being in it. This is probably the case, which from someone who was there live in the building, is a massive shame if you are trying to catch it as I thought it was a tremendous match. The interactions between all four guys was great and in particular Suzuki looked to be having the time of his life. I really enjoy the relationship he has with ZSJ, where he's like his bad influence uncle taking him under his wing and egging him on to be a dick. Prick heel ZSJ is awesome.

A slight drop off in quality from ROH TV last week, but still decent, and overall the show seems to have better energy at the moment than a year or so ago. The main event was fun, if fairly throwaway, but to me the most interesting point is that after trying for so long to push against the wishes of most of the crowd by presenting Bullet Club as heels, when most people are cheering them, they look to be putting Cody up against Matt Taven and The Kingdom and then the Bucks/Adam Page up against The Addiction/Scorpio Sky. The Kingdom/The Addiction are heel acts that the crowd actually dislikes, so should make for a less jarring experience than trying to get fans that are eating up what Bullet Club are doing with a spoon as bad guys.

Definitely - thought Trish was fantastic - especially the interactions with Sasha. Would be really excited to see a match between them at some point down the line. I'm sure there was talk at some point of a match between the Bellas and Trish & Lita, but given their chemistry, seeing Trish & Mickie as a team would also be great.

That is the best post I have ever read on this site.

No worries at all, been referencing you guys in some of the match reviews, as there's a fair bit of cross over between the FWA and ROH in the early part of 2003 so thought it would add a little extra context. Well, from an ROH perspective you're not missing much on the Frontiers of Honor show, as the matches aren't up to the standard that you would get on a typical ROH show, so you are probably making the right call! So I guess I would just direct anybody wanting to know what happens on that show to my reviews of most of the matches in the May 2003 section of the Match Discussion Archive http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/forum/740-may/

Really excited to see that a new episode of the podcast has dropped guys, I finished listening to the Expect the Unexpected review this week so nicely caught up. 2003 is the first year I start to have some DVDs from ROH in my collection somewhere in random boxes so looking forward to digging those out and being able to follow along more closely. The Night of Champions show has an FWA Title match on, which is interesting to me as I'm currently going through a rewatch of the FWA and posting in the match threads here on PWO. For a couple of companion matches to the match on this show between Doug Williams and Christopher Daniels, here's a link to my review of a match they had over the same title from almost a year previously: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/40576-fwa-british-heavyweight-title-doug-williams-vs-christopher-daniels-fwa-crunch-02012002/ And then here's a link to my review of the match where Daniels won the title: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/40039-fwa-british-heavyweight-title-jody-fleisch-vs-doug-williams-vs-christopher-daniels-fwa-london-calling-10252002/ The guys are also not too far away from the ROH/FWA Frontiers of Honor show of which you can find reviews of the matches in the threads as well. Keep up the good work!

Another pretty fun ROH TV last week. The Jay Lethal vs Will Ospreay match was very good, but even more infuriating in a way, given how much ROH barely used Ospreay in 2017 and now I think he's done with the company. I know he had Japan commitments, and I'm glad on a personal level that he's still over here in the UK somewhat regularly, but talk about dropping the ball. The main event was fun as well, and so far - and I know it's only a couple of weeks into his run - but Dalton Castle on top feels really fresh and intriguing. The one thing I didn't enjoy was the Joe Koff segment. Not only does he have terrible delivery, and the promo with him and The Addiction involved not-so-subtle name checks of WWE and Impact, one of the things that's genuinely refreshing about ROH is not having on screen authority figures getting constantly involved. I hope this is not the start of things to come.

They've done so many insane angles with him that haven't closed the show and where the other wrestlers are still existing in their own universes doing their choreographed entrances unaware anyone else exists, and yes, that does have a diminishing effect. This is spot on, although not just something effecting Braun and his segments. It's my biggest issue with WWE, nothing has any sustained impact or lasting consequences.

This is interesting in that it’s an intersecting of two of the characters in the FWA that were getting most over. On the one hand you have Paul ‘not yet a pirate’ Burchill, who was getting the Goldberg push. Because of the general lack of really big guys on the FWA roster, Burchill was able to get over as a big powerhouse, given he could also do amazing high flying moves like moonsaults and standing shooting star presses. Think the things that Keith Lee and Jeff Cobb are now doing. He was basically ploughing through undercard guys, often in handicap matches and also getting over through his manager Dean Ayass and the disclaimer they would read before matches. Simmonz was the ultimate underdog who would get over to an unbelievable degree to where he would become for a time the most over act in the company. Starting as the downtrodden butler to the at that time heel Duke of Danger, he was someone the crowd was rallying behind, which, rather than going down the route of a Ted Di Biase/Virgil storyline would end up turning the Duke of Danger face as well. In this match the crowd are really behind him, but the company was not quite utilising him yet. Mark Sloan was actually the original founder of the FWA, and head of the FWA Academy. In this match though he is just a body to be sacrificed. This is a complete squash where Burchill gets the opportunity to show off all his power and high flying. He wins by a double knockout with both his opponents failing to meet the 10 count. (N/R)

This is the second qualifier for a No. 1 contenders match, with the winner to meet James Tighe at a future show to determine who would get an FWA title shot. Both guys are coming in with momentum from Frontiers of Honor; Xavier from beating Mikey Whipwreck and Flash from holding Low Ki to a time limit draw, which would’ve earned serious credibility points. In terms of FWA hierarchy, Flash is much higher though as a two time British Champion and in this match it shows. It’s largely one sided, with Barker dominating, and you never feel like Jack has a chance. In the opening moments they exchange kicks, and while Xavier is someone that can absorb a lot of punishment he doesn’t have the weapons to live with Flash, who is able to win all the strike exchanges. Xavier was starting to really get over with the crowd as an underdog babyface and this match does allow him to showcase his excellent selling and building sympathy, but aside from a couple of brief flurries, it’s no surprise that Flash wins in fairly decisive fashion with his Flash in the Pan (Roll of the Dice) finisher. (** ¼)

This is the first of two qualifying matches for a No. 1 contenders match, with the winner of this match meeting the winner of Flash Barker vs Jack Xavier on a future show to determine who would get an FWA title shot at Doug Williams. Jody is of course, the biggest star in the company at this point, while Tighe had been putting on a series of excellent performances and is coming off a big win against Paul London at Frontiers of Honor. There is a contrast in that coming into this show, Jody’s burgeoning feud with his former best friend Jonny Storm has been costing him his focus and costing him matches. These two mesh together really well and this is an excellent match. While you could make the case that the opening sequences and reversals are too choreographed, the speed and precision with which they are worked is fantastic, and it helps to establish right from the beginning that Tighe is not out of his depth and can hang with someone of Jody’s calibre. Tighe is so smooth with his matwork, and watching him in 2003-04 makes me really wistful that his career tailed off at the time the UK scene was in the doldrums. The match also enables Jody to show off some of his technical skills, which he didn’t often show, and I thought he looked very competent on the mat. I particularly enjoyed his switching from an arm bar into an STF to try and prevent Tighe from getting to the ropes. The action is fairly fast paced throughout, and while it’s a common complaint of a lot of matches from the 2000s to this day, you just feel that if they had slowed down at times and let some of the sequences breathe then we could have had one of the best matches from the company all year. The mat wrestler vs the flyer is always a match up I enjoy, and Tighe also brings a lot of suplexes and high impact moves to the table. I loved his double chicken wing into a release German suplex. The second of the evenings Chekhov's Gun’s comes midway through the match, with the mention by the commentators of the popularity of Jody which can best be summed up by an enthusiastic fan in the crowd wearing a Dakko Chan mask, which was Jody’s masked character from when he wrestled in Michinoku Pro. This comes into play later in the match, when following a mid air collision and both men falling to the outside the ‘fan’ in the mask leaps the barrier and holds onto Fleisch’s leg making him lose by count out. The fan is revealed of course to be Jonny Storm. Following the reveal, Tighe gets on the mic to say he doesn’t want to win that way and they both ask the ref to restart the match. As was the case at Frontiers of Honor when there was a time limit draw between Low Ki and Flash Barker, we once again have FWA head official Steve Lynskey playing up his heel ref character by refusing the request and confirming that Tighe moves on. This is a really fun match, with some great sequences and exchanges. The count out interference ending is a shame, but it was all being designed to build the heat on the big Jody Fleisch/Jonny Storm showdown being planned for British Uprising II. Sadly, as I’ll document, we don’t get to that match. (*** ½)

This is the latest chapter in what was arguably the most violent feud the UK scene had seen at this point. Following on from them defeating Shane and Herman (affectionately known as the Showswearers) for the tag titles, different combinations of The Family (there were five in-ring members at this stage) had been trying to fight off the challenge of the former champs in matches around the country where the violence would continue to escalate. These matches place on the card was very much to cater to the audience brought up on ECW and Attitude era brawling. The month before at Frontiers of Honor these teams had been part of a No DQ 6 Person Tag Match that I didn’t like very much at all. It was too long and too much of a mess with lots of sloppy moments. This though is much better – more tight and compact, and with a clearer storyline running through the match. This is First Blood rules meaning that both members of a team have to be bleeding for their opponents to win. The Family is represented by Paul Travell and Scott Parker who were probably the best in-ring members of the stable at this stage. As you can imagine, there are a lot of weapons shots in this and general chaos, and while at times it drifts off into WWF Hardcore division stuff, the intensity of the match keeps it from descending into your basic plunder brawl. For a lot of the match there are effectively two separate singles matches going on; Ulf brutalising Parker in the ring in a New Jackesque manner featuring various items including bizarrely a garden gnome, while more interestingly Shane and Travell brawl around the building. Shane in particular really puts over Travell’s offence taking a swinging neckbreaker on the stage, a rana off the stage and a Russian Legsweep into a brick wall. Parker is the first to bleed, followed by Shane who gets busted open via the ever popular cheese grater, meaning that really, both teams should’ve been trying to isolate the man on the opposing team not bleeding. Shane is taken out of the match by a crazy looking tornado DDT off the ring apron through a wooden board but with Parker basically dead on the outside, it comes down to Ulf and Travell. In the chaos the referee ends up being taken out by an errant Herman chair shot, meaning that as is the way in these matches, there is no ref to see Travell when he starts bleeding. We then get a second ref, but one of the other family members Ian DaSciple, coming into the ring to switch places with Travell. All of this isn’t executed as smoothly as it could be – there is a long period of the second ref having to look the wrong way – but there is a satisfying intertwining of different stories in the finish. Earlier in the night, we would see the first of two Chekhov's Gun’s, the rather random awarding of a glass decanter by the Broxbourne Hall management to the FWA for their series of sold out shows there. All very odd, but it comes into play when Lambert brings it into the ring to use, only for it to be taken away by Raj Ghosh. If you’ve watched wrestling before you’ll know that Ghosh then turns and joins the Family by smashing the glass into Herman, making him bleed and giving the win to the Tag Team Champions. While some may find a lot of the brawling clichéd, and while some of the execution was a little off at times – the sequence where the second ref is just standing watching the crowd for no reason while the finish is happening is very jarring – I enjoyed this match, for mixing violent and chaotic action, with an interweaving of different wrestlers character arcs and motivations. Long term, too many screw job finishes start to drive some fans away, and while we will chart that, at this point, this felt like it worked and helped to introduce a new member to the lead heel stable. I think they should also get points for actually going to the trouble earlier in the night of setting up why a glass decanter would be at ringside. Perhaps a half star is for continuity. (***)

Ah, the XPW European Title, where do we start with this one… As part of their growth and the desire to pull more international eyeballs onto the promotion, the FWA was continuing to look at where it could partner up with companies overseas. The partnership with ROH that had led to the joint Frontiers of Honor show the previous month was a logical and obvious move, the decision to work with XPW, perhaps less so. I won’t go into too much detail on XPW, other than to say they were a Pound Land ECW, owned by a Porn producer, with all the violence, but none of the nuance. I’m not sure exactly how the relationship between the two companies was first established, but from the ever reliable Wikipedia: “The championship was created in 2003 through a working relationship between XPW and the FWA. This was to be the flagship of the working relationship as the title would be defended throughout Europe and would appear on both promotions respective television programmes, however the title's primary home was to be the FWA.” As we’ll document, and as ever in wrestling, things didn’t really turn out like that. Shortly after this XPW folded, but the title itself did continue to be defended in the FWA. In a somewhat comical note, an actual title belt never existed, which led to the brilliant visual of Jonny Storm, the inaugural champion, supposedly carrying the title in a briefcase he carried with him to the ring. Storm was the winner of a tournament which had a British and US bracket. Some decent names were featured, so for interest (if there are actually odd people out there like me interested in the prestigious lineage of the XPW European Title), I’ve included the brackets below: Round One Zebra Kid vs Robbie Brookside Jonny Storm vs Juventud Guerrera Psicosis vs Simon Diamond Jerry Lynn vs Chris Hamrick Round Two Jonny Storm received a bye Jerry Lynn vs Psicosis Final (held at FWA Crunch 2003) Jonny Storm vs Jerry Lynn Perhaps this is where the WWE got the idea for the UK Title… So that’s the rather lengthy backstory, onto the actual match. Jonny is coming in full blown heel now, and pleasingly gets a lot of boos from the crowd. As we’ll see after another match that night, the company was going all in on trying to make him the top heel in the promotion. Super Crazy, with the obligatory ECW chants, was I believe with XPW at the time so it makes sense for him to be the first challenger. This is wrestled very much like an ECW match from 1999/2000, with lots of back and forth, and at times, some pretty non existent selling. At the beginning of the match they announce the contest as under ‘XPW’ rules, which means that a chair comes into play at one stage, but mostly the match is wrestled cleanly. For most of the match Storm shows he can hang with Crazy – including hitting a perfect moonsault from the top turnbuckle back into the entrance area - although when he tries some of the lucha sequences and the arm drags, you can tell he’s not as polished. Crazy is the one that actually slows things down at times, and I really enjoyed his transition out of a rana and a sunset flip into an STF. You can tell in general, that Storm was getting more comfortable at being a heel, taking more time to antagonise the crowd, rather than just going from spot to spot. Crazy for his part still looks good and consistent with the standard of performance he was putting in towards the end of ECW. A criticism of some of the FWA matches at this time, which I can readily see, is how many of them seemed to copy the tropes from ECW, and matches going on at the time in TNA/ROH, with the overuse of the choreographed stand offs and series of two counts and pinning combinations. I’m looking at these matches with 2018 eyes, and they always got a good reaction in 2003, but I’m very happy that the UK scene now has much more of an original style to it, and includes many more nods back to the WOS days, than was the case in the early 2000s. From the pin reversals you get a nice escalation into the exchange of some big bombs, including a massive sit down power bomb from Crazy where he catches Jonny springboarding in, but unfortunately the match ends on a flat note by going pretty much straight from there into Storm hitting a powerbomb of his own with his feet on the ropes. I can understand why it was done – it gives Crazy an out for losing and helps to put further heat on Storm, but just feels a bit underwhelming and that it could’ve been built to better. Still, this is a fun match, and a nice rebound for Jonny after a disappointing showing against AJ Styles the month before. (*** ¼)

Zebra Kid, fresh off unsuccessfully challenging Samoa Joe for the ROH Title the month before, is also sadly coming in here sans his somewhat legendary mullet, which he must’ve disappointingly chopped off in the time between that match and here. Mark ‘Five Star’ Belton was a newcomer to the FWA having appeared on the British Breakout Tour the company had been on earlier in the year. As Greg Lambert notes in his Holy Grail book, Belton was interestingly one of only a few ‘outsiders’ who came into the promotion at this stage, with the FWA very much sticking largely to a tight, home grown roster. Considering the huge numbers of high quality UK talent today, there really wasn’t that strength in depth at that time, however it did feel like the FWA should’ve been more open to refreshing their roster. As Lambert also notes, Belton had to overcome an initially hostile locker room after some comments he’d made on another show, but he does well enough here to earn a regular spot for the next couple of years and becomes a strong addition. Belton was a really good athlete who meshes well here with Zebra Kid and this is a fun, just under 10 minute sprint where they go balls to the wall. This is not a match with a ton of nuance, it’s two guys just hitting each other hard, and some of the strikes and kicks they exchange in the match are particularly brutal looking. Zebra Kid especially doles out some real punishment, and brings his usual intensity and frantic pace which made all his matches a spectacle. As the commentators themselves highlight when he hits a dive to the outside – Zebra was not a guy that was always technically refined, but he was effective nonetheless. Belton for his part wins over the crowd by taking the hits and connecting with some big moves of his own. One interesting note is that this is the first of two matches in the night where we see the card system that the FWA brought in, aping football (soccer) where the yellow card served as a warning, and a red card resulted in a DQ. I’ve always been torn on it – on the one hand it’s a bit corny, but on the other I liked that it was different and played into our own sporting culture. It could also be used to help the story of a match. The yellow card in this match was brandished to Zebra for hitting a piledriver, banned under FWA rules. The biggest disappointment though, is that what could have lead to an interesting story to weave into the match – Zebra Kid taking a yellow card and risking a DQ to cause damage – is immediately flushed away with Belton going right back on offence straight away. Zebra Kid retains his title with a nasty looking top rope DDT, followed by his Zebra Crossing (top rope) elbow drop, but Belton’s decent showing clearly contributed to him becoming a company regular. Post match, after both guys have left the ring we get an ‘impromptu’ appearance from Hade Vansen, who is clearly being transitioned into a heel role. The gist of his promo is that he’s sick of being overlooked (he wasn’t booked on this card), complete with some obligatory early 2000s “I’m shooting” stuff, but it works well enough, and I liked the angle where he took out a security guard when being escorted out, which was made to look pretty realistic. (** ½)

We are back at the Broxbourne Civic Hall for Vendetta, and there’s a really hot crowd for this show. This is a fairly basic opener, but the work between two wrestlers, both still young and relatively inexperienced (Ghosh was just 18) is solid throughout. For the past several months Nikita (the future Katie Lea Burchill) had been part of The Family vs Alex Shane/Ulf Herman feud over the tag titles, while Ghosh had largely been on a losing streak. There’s not too much meat to the match to get into, most of the attention is on the post match, but what we do get is decent enough, with Nikita showing a lot of polish in her arm drags, headscissors and take downs, while Ghosh acts as a solid base. As with many of the guys coming out of the FWA Academy, Ghosh was athletic, but quite mechanical and hadn’t shown much by way of charisma or character. At this point he looked like a guy with potential though, considering his age and the fact he already had a lot of the fundamentals down. In 2003 there were not many options for her to wrestle other women, so Nikita was most often placed in these intergender matches and it’s to her credit that she rarely feels overmatched, or that it’s unbelievable that she’s picking up wins over male competitors. She does again here, which leads on nicely to the post match arrival of The Family. Greg Lambert, their manager, cuts a good promo on Ghosh after the match, basically making the point that he was well praised for his British Uprising match but that since then he’s lost a lot of matches and that FWA management and Alex Shane don’t rate him, so why doesn’t he join The Family, which as a group was giving guys on losing streaks a career revival. Ghosh turns down the offer leading to a Family beat down, and a save from Shane and Herman, but this all plays into the Tag Title match later in the night. (**)

Look how long it took RVD to win the belt there when he should have won it during his feud with Hunter. He arguably should've won it in September/October 2001 if they were ever going to go with him - guy was unbelievably hot and over when he first came in. Most of his best WWE matches came during those initial months as well.

This match was a great example of the critical dilemma - can it be a good match if the crowd isn't reacting at all? I guess you could say that for every 205 Live match, but this was a really jarring example of the disconnect between what two people are doing in the ring and what the crowd are investing in (or not investing in with this case). As a match I really liked it - I know there's a lot of people don't like TJ Perkins, but I always enjoy him in the ring, he has such a different style that blends a lot of the different aspects of wrestling together. I thought his targeting and work on the arm was good as well as his characteristics and mannerisms. Tozawa always works well as a good babyface. In terms of the work in the match, I'd happily go *** or so, but it feels so hard to judge when so much of the crowd - for a number of reasons probably outside of the two competitors control - are making no emotional connection with it whatsoever.

I thought it was a fun episode of ROH TV this week, with Dalton as champion feeling nicely different. I thought the opening segment was pretty entertaining, but without the comedy being too forced and over the top, and with a nice balance between funny and serious. Already setting up Lethal and Punishment Martinez as contenders is nice, rather than going straight for the Cody rematch immediately. I like Silas Young, but agree with all the points above - there is that disconnect with his character - who should be a bar brawler, and then throwing in moonsaults and convoluted ways of hitting knee strikes, which feels like what a guy like him should rail against. The Briscoes are fantastic in everything they do, and remain one of the acts that fell most 'real' in wrestling, Them against the Guns should be fun, and it actually feels like a long time since they've had the ROH tag titles, unless there's a run I'm forgetting. The main event was an exciting match, and when you get Marty away from the Bucks, who bring out his worst tendencies. Since he's been in ROH his TV singles matches have been pretty strong.

Really glad to see this one get the high praise - this is a match that I love. Back in 2000 when I first saw it, I was still at school and as you are at that age more into high spots and hardcore matches, but this was the first match that opened my eyes to deeper storytelling and psychology in a match. Triple H is truly excellent in this match, and I love his work on the leg at the beginning. Benoit had been the aggressor in so many of his matches since coming into the WWF and dominating in them, but here he gets completely taken apart and it's great watching him having to survive and then recalculate his game plan as the match goes on. As Soup highlights, as soon as he gets an opening on the arm, it's bang! he's straight on it and working it over in so many nasty ways. I loved the finishing sequence of them both having to adapt their moves because of the work that the other had done and even the ending with Steph coming out, plays well into the wider storylines going on and it doesn't effect the quality of the match. Triple H's overness with the crowd as a face in the match and the genuine sympathy that he was getting shows a real missed opportunity, given what happens the next month and the return to being a full on heel. Twice in Triple H's career you feel there's a big 'what if' from turning full on face - here and the night after Wrestlemania XVII. I'm right with you at a **** 1/4 - **** 1/2 rating.

This really sucks. After everything that has gone on the past year or so, I think she's looked really good since her return and has been a shot in the arm for the Women's division on RAW. Let's hope that it's not a long term issue and she will be back soon, but you have to fear with serious neck injuries that they never fully heal up. Really feel for her.

Going into the main event, things are tied between the FWA and ROH at 2 wins, 2 losses and 1 draw each. Daniels makes it known beforehand that he is not representing ROH, but the Prophecy. In fact, he’d actually been FWA British Heavyweight Champion just two months before this, having defeated Fleisch in October 2002. He lost the belt to Doug Williams at ROH’s Night of Champions in a match that I’d heartily recommend. Williams is actually an interesting absence from the card tonight, given his prominence in both companies, but I'm pretty sure that was because of commitments in Japan where he was part of NOAH. Fleisch was also someone appearing somewhat regularly for ROH at this time, but he’s not in his Special K guise tonight, rather as lead babyface for the FWA. Early on we get plenty of stalling from Daniels, with him threatening to walk and arguing with members of the crowd on the balcony. When Daniels finally gets in the ring, Jody’s signature gymnastics and high flying quickly sends him running for the outside again and more crowd arguing. Once the match settles down, Jody is actually the one that tries to take a more mat based approach and I enjoyed his working of the headlock to stay on top. The result is Daniels trying to up the pace which proves a mistake and Jody headscissors him and hits a quebrada. As in the AJ Styles/Jonny Storm match earlier in the night, they fight up to the ramp where Jody gives Daniels a snap suplex on the entrance platform and then disappears and returns with a chair, which he springboards off into a rana on Daniels. The spot is fun, but the fact he had to go back stage to grab a chair to then do a rana off felt very unorganic and takes you out of the moment. This was a criticism I had of some of the spots in his ladder match at British Uprising. When they return to the ring, Daniels is finally able to get some control, where he proceeds to work over the back and neck. The work is pretty consistent and I enjoyed The Best Moonsault Ever onto the back which then sets up a cross face. Fleisch gets a late flurry including a springboard Shooting Star Press, but Jonny Storm, cementing his heel turn, hits Jody with a chair as he tries a second one and Daniels picks up the win, and completes a come from behind 3-2 victory for ROH. At just under 25 mins, the match is probably too long, with lots of stalling from Daniels early on. I appreciate him trying to build heat, but you feel that comes at the expense of the match in the beginning. I actually liked Jody adopting a more methodical pace and working in some chain wrestling at times, showing versatility. There are lots of nice sequences, but a tighter match would make it feel more coherent. Even though the ending features interference I liked the story of Jonny allowing his personal jealously of Jody to get in the way of company unity, and it further escalates the issues between them which the company was looking at as one of the key storylines for the year. Further heat is added in the post match where Storm and Daniels try to piledrive Fleisch on a chair, until both locker rooms chase them off, however, Storm and Daniels take out the FWA’s acting Commissioner at that point – Dino Scarlo - with an absolutely brutal and hard-to-watch-with-2018-eyes chair shot. (*** ¼)

Going back in time, having Low Ki on the card was one of the strong selling points. In 2002 he’d been ‘the guy’ in ROH, being the first champion and having a great series of matches against all comers. He was also a guy with a real badass aura to him, which to a large extent, he still has when he appears on a show today. Interestingly though, this was at a time when his standing with ROH really had been slipping, and after this he only appeared for them very sporadically for the rest of the year. At this stage though, he arguably gets the biggest reaction of the night. He’s up against Flash Barker here, who the previous year had been the British Heavyweight Champion and the centre piece of the Old School stable. Following the ending of that storyline, Barker would turn face as the respected veteran of the locker room, with a strong-style MMA inspired persona, which is why I would imagine he’s been matched up with Low Ki here. This match is wrestled at much different pace to ones earlier on the card, and it feels more like a match that could’ve been on one of the early ROH shows. There’s lots to enjoy in the early mat exchanges with the two trading strikes and holds, but cautiously rather than unloading everything they have. Low Ki decides early to fight off his back during the initial feeling out process. They exchange some brutal looking kicks until Low Ki hits a Dragon Screw to take over. From there Low Ki starts to dominate, and there are fewer better wrestlers who it just feels right when they are in control. Some might think he can take ‘too much’ of a match, but in an age where too many matches are heavily back and forth, it’s enjoyable to watch him just brutalise opponents. Barker is great at taking the punishment, with his thick frame, and he’s able to stay alive by getting plenty behind any of the moves or strikes he’s able to hit to slow down Ki’s momentum. While Barker is surviving (just), his problem in the match is that he can’t ever seem to get any sort of sustained attack going, as soon as he gets in a move, Ki is able to hit right back; he hits a short clothesline, Ki comes back with a springboard front kick, Barker ranas him, Ki hits a Kappou Kick, Barker hits a spinebuster, Ki catches him with a Hanging Octopus Scissors and the Tidal Wave. That’s the pattern. Flash shows great tenacity to hang in there with Ki busting out all his high impact attacks, so Low Ki then tries to wear the bigger man down instead with submissions like the Hanging Dragon and a cross armlock, but the change of strategy isn’t successful and the 20 minute time limit expires. Predictably for a 2000s crowd, the crowd wants five more minutes, as do both guys, but FWA Head Ref Steve Lynskey plays stickler for the rules and doesn’t allow it, even when Samoa Joe and AJ Styles come down to back up Ki. Even with the draw I really enjoyed this, particularly the cat and mouse exchanges at the beginning, and then the pretty vicious beating that Barker is able to survive. I’d recommend to check this one out. (*** ¾)