BATTLE FOR BRITISH HEARTS
Published January 2014
So
the day had finally come and 2pm on a Saturday in January found me at
Gillingham Railway Station buying my ticket to Chelmsford and the
'Battle for British Hearts' charity wrestling show being held at the
Riverside Ice and Leisure Centre by the guys over at The Charity Wrestling Alliance. This is the second show Promoters Karl Edward Trotter,
Grant Mitchell and Julian Cassar and if the organisation involved was
to reflect the quality of this show everyone was going to be in for a
good evening. A good evening of wrestling it certainly was.
It was good to see a couple of familiar faces in the form of Kevin
and Lisa from Dropkixx when I arrived and entering the venue things were
in full swing with the ring crew and others running around getting
things in order for the 7.30 start time. Karl arrived shortly after me,
looking worried, as only a promoter can on show day, introductions were
made to others involved and then it was a case of sitting back and
waiting for the start of the show. Well for me it was but just about
everyone else was working away as the minutes fell.
Show Time! The worse thing about promoting a show is the age old
question. Will people come? At this point all your hard work and the
work of everyone involved can amount to nothing. No such worry's here,
as come, they did.
I won't go into too much depth about the fights as the footage from
the show will be on here and on CWA's youtube channel filmed by myself
and CWA's in house camera op.
Starting things off we had a singles bout which turned out to be a
nice clean fight that got the show on the road with an insight into what
the large crowd could expect from the evening. This bout was outside of
the official card giving these two young guys Johnny Royal and Jonny
Cruickshank a bit of experience. In my opinion they did themselves proud
and I am sure we will see them again.
Second
up it was a tag team match between crowd favorites The Flying Scotsmen
who I have seen wrestle before and challengers Darrel Allen and Sam
Irving who were new too me. Our friends from north of the boarder are
skilled wrestlers who stick to the rules the same could not be said of
the Allen/Irving team. This was demonstrated by them attacking the
Flying Scotsmen while their backs were turned which started the
proceedings.
After the initial shock the Scotsmen rallied and drop kicked there
opponents out of the ring leaving them in a heap on the floor. Being the
kind of guys they are the Scotsmen then dived over the ropes landing on
them in an effort to assist them back into the ring. A finer example of
sportsman ship you would be hard to find. The rest of the bout
continued in a fairly equal exchange of moves until good prevailed.
Next back to singles and Big Cat Mafia member Brad Beck was up
against 'Nemisis' Tony Kemp. Beck being accompanied by the big man
himself 'Hughmungus' it was pretty much a given fact that some sort of
trouble would ensue. 'Hughmungus' spent much of the fight complaining
that the referee's count was slow or that he was having trouble with his
eyesight. Beck did somewhere between little and zero to get the support
of the crowd and abused them from the safety of the ring.
Big lads these two but that did not result in a slow match and one
or the other of them could be seen on the top rope on more than one
occasion. Don't believe that good always wins this was one such example
of it not.
Accompanied by Panthrax we had Mark Hendry against Dynamite Danny
Morocco in this fast paced singles match up. It must be a little
unsettling when the guy you are fighting has someone with him ringside.
Morocco need not have worried as Panthrax was kept busy by barracking
from the crowd.
Hendry did not have things all his own way with some great moves from both guys.
After a disasterous back flip off the top rope landing on nothing
Morocco took control even having time to attack Panthrax and Hughmungus
who had appeared ringside before finishing off the bout to the delight
of the crowd. Unhappy at just being slapped ring side Panthrax entered
the ring to get revenge on Morocco not giving him a chance to celebrate.
I must admit by this time I was gasping for a cigarette. Now..any
children reading this I would like to point out that Cage Amateurs UK
does not endorse smoking and it will certainly mean you wont grow big
and strong and become a finely tuned athelete like these guys.
As luck would have it.
I had finished growing by the time I started smoking and having no
desire to ever be dumped on my head or any other miss fortune I had no
need for the athletic stuff either. Anyway I digress.
Time
for the eagerly awaited match between Bacardi, Rebel Yell and Jezabeth.
Barcardi entered the ring first looking quietly confident having beaten
Rebel Yell at the last CWA show. Next up full of energy and niceness
Rebel Yell skipped her way round the ring to the delight of the crowd.
By contrast the final of the three, Jezebeth, entered in a far less
friendly manner. Spending most of my time walking backward while filming
I swear her day would have been improved had I tripped over smashing
the camera and breaking a limb. Nasty piece of work this one.
Bout started. Small problem, three people in the ring being a
triple threat match. Problem sorted, Bacardi and Jezabeth beat up on
Rebel Yell. Quiet the master stroke until it came to taking the fall
thus winning the match. The temporary alliance fell apart as both
Bacardi and Jezabeth wanted the win and started fighting each other.
Jezabeth ended up outside the ring but instead if getting back in
to monopolize on the beating Bacardi was dishing out to Rebel Yell, no
doubt tasting victory again, she opted to give a group of children in
the front row grief. It must be said at this point as long as she is
messing someones day up she is just as happy either inside or outside of
the ring.
Meanwhile Bacardi was not having things all her own way resulting
in Rebel Yell taking the win. Jezebeth was not at all happy and could be
heard screaming her displeasure long after the others had returned to
the locker room.
This bought the first half of the show to a timely end with more to come shortly.
More from the Big Cat Mafia as their leader Tigerdor entered the
ring for his bout with the very popular Mountain Stew. The imposing form
of Hughmungus could be seen close behind his boss. This was always
going to be a good bout but with Hughmungus ringside snarling like a
rottweiller whose bone you have just taken off it you kind of knew
Mountain Stew was going to be at a disadvantage. Then it happened.
Tigerdoor refusing to stop attacking Mountain Stew after he had pinned
him, the referee to interveened and was promptly dropped. In the strange
minds of the B.C.M. i am sure this was chalked up as a victory against
both Stew and people who stick their noses into their buisness. Even if
that someone was the ref just doing his job.
Finishing on a positive note Tigerdor is a very snappy dresser even
folding his tie up and handing it to Hughmungus before the bout
started. Now that is class for you.
Tag team time. First into the ring was Muscles Mansfield looking
like a collection of paint tins had exploded in his wardrobe and the
more conservatively dressed Honest Earnest Stirling. My favorite next,
the Cornells. This duo spend as much time bickering with each other as
they do fighting their opposition. A couple of East End wide boys they
should not be underestimated despite their at times bumbling antics.
Mansfield was left on his own by his wrestling partner Honest Ernest who
suddenly returned to the locker room or more than likely to the car
park to rob peoples cars while they watched the show.
I will leave the video to speak for it's self but I have been asked
by Freddie Cornell to point out that although it may have looked to the
untrained eye as if they attacked the ref they were in fact trying to
attract his attention when he fell to the floor. In their efforts to
help him it may have looked as if they were kicking him. Hmmmm thanks
Freddie even to the trained eye it looked like you knocked the ref down
and made an uprovoked attack on him.
Even as they left the ring these two could be seen snatching kids
blow up hammers from them and throwing them away leaving the child to
run and retrieve them.
Panthrax into the ring against Dow Jones for this one. Before
things had even started Pantrax called Dow Jones Willy Wonker which was
taken up by the crowd resulting in Jones climbing out of the ring and
storming over to the mic to complain bitterly. Finally returning to the
ring things got under way. Things started off well for Jones but with
him now paying more attention to the crowd than he was to Panthrax who
had now sneaked up behind him. Narrowly getting away with being pinned
Jones rolled out of the ring until Panthrax had had enough of his
shinanigans and jumped out of the ring himself and proceeded to chase
Jones until he rolled back in but continued rolling until he rolled out
of the other side.
Panthrax was getting the worst of thing for a while until the ref
was distracted by Hughmungus at ringside allowing Panthrax to trap Jones
against the corner post. It looked like the tide had changed with
things going back and forward for a while. Panthrax threw Jones to the
mat but instead of taking advantage of the situation he started to
encourage the crowd to shout Willy Wonka at Jones who proceed to roll
from the ring and head back to the mic to complain about the chanting.
This was a mistake as the referee had started to count which resulted in
him being counted out. Not taking this lying down he complained that he
believed the count to have been 17 rather than the traditional 10. What
with the rate of inflation he may have had a point.
So we reach the last bout of the evening a title match between
Lazer Lagden and 'Wonderkid' Jonny Storm. This was always going to be a
cracking match and a fine way to finish this great evening of wrestling
by The Charity Wrestling Alliance raising funds for The British Heart
Foundation.
The Big Cat Mafia were out in force for this one with five of them
lining the apron. Both being great wrestlers the action was promised
from the start.
It was a very two and fro match with each fighter being in control
in pretty much equal amounts. The BCM watched on and Hughmungus as
expected could not resist remarking if things were not to his
satisfaction.
The count went from one wrestler to the other with the referee
struggling to keep up with the rapidly changing positions. At one point
all three in the ring stopped for a couple of seconds to try and regain
their breath.
Plenty of action that I can't really do justice too by just writing
about so get yourself over to You Tube and enjoy the video filmed by
CWA.
I think all will agree that this second show was a great success
well done to everyone involved and thank you for having me along.
Charity Wrestling Alliance on Word Press can be found here
See the great videos of the show on Youtube
Johnny Royal v Jonny Cruickshank ( Dark Match )
