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[2003-10-18-FWA-British Uprising II] Jack Xavier vs Homicide


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https://vimeo.com/19142823

 

British Uprising was designed to be the FWA’s signature show each year. Coming off the success of Uprising I and a good year for the company, the pressure was on for Uprising II to live up to expectation. It was a show which the company poured a lot into, but while no means a bad show – I think there’s a lot to like, especially viewed many years after the fact – for whatever reason it just didn’t land as was hoped for.

 

As with the previous year, the FWA ran the York Hall – a great venue for wrestling – and there is a good crowd on hand. The production; from the entrance way, the video screens, onscreen graphics, ramp and use of pyro shows the time and effort put into trying to make the show feel big time, and it’s one of the reasons I always enjoyed the FWA; they were a company – for better or worse – taking those risks to try and build the UK scene. It’s clearly not WWE level production, but when compared to what indie companies on the US scene were doing at the time for example, it deserved credit. A word as well for the great Uprising opening video, introduced following a clearly ECW inspired in ring introduction from the often much maligned (they were pretty bad) but infectiously enthusiastic FWA commentary team of Tony Giles and Nick London.

 

Finally, before getting onto the opener, this show is rather infamous for being heavily delayed because of a bomb scare, causing the building to have to be swept by the police for explosive devices. Thankfully a hoax call, but it was perhaps a sign that despite no lack of effort and goodwill, fate really was conspiring against the FWA and Uprising II that day.

 

The opener is the culmination of a storyline that had been running for most of the year, whereby home grown up and comer Jack Xavier was being matched against a series of imports being brought over for FWA shows to prove himself. After matches against Juventud Guerrera, Chris Hamrick, Mikey Whipwreck and EZ Money comes arguably his biggest task – taking on Homicide.

 

This match is at its best when Homicide is on top, and at times he really lays a beating on Xavier with plenty of chops and kicks and some nasty looking face washes and drop kicks in the corner, one of which looks to legitimately injure Jack’s nose. I enjoyed Homicide immediately putting on an STF at that stage and wrenching back on the now bloody nose – work that cut!

 

Jack was able to generate sympathy from the crowd through his selling and Homicide was always a wrestler that worked well on top as a Japanese strong style/New Jack lite hybrid. Jack is able to get in some brief flurries using his pretty unique move set but nothing to where he’s able to inflict any sustained damage. Showing how much punishment he’s dished out, Homicide almost wins by count out following his trade mark tope con hilo to the outside.

 

It’s something of an upset, both in terms of the profile of each guy and the context of the match, when Xavier ends up winning what is a fun contest. On the one hand it was good – it’s to the detriment of your own guys when the better known imports would always get put over – and it fits with the storyline of Xavier having now proved himself, but due to the nature of people’s perceptions you sense some resentment from the crowd at him going over. It’s tough, sometimes you can get over more in a hard fought loss rather than fans feel you are being over pushed. As I say though, that is only a slight sense that you get, and this is a good match that helped cement Xavier as a key player going into 2004. (***)

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