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Preston City Wrestling – “Just Get In The Bloody Ring” Report
Friday September 26
An excited, sold out crowd packed out Evoque in Preston this evening for this month’s PCW event. The show has a unique feel being set inside a nightclub with the fans standing around the ring, sort of like a WWF Shotgun style setup. Team 3D wrestling was the headline attraction for the show, in what I believe is their first match since Bully Ray’s contract with TNA expired. After some brief introductions we learned that the ring announcer is hot, the ring bell is possibly the loudest in the history of professional wrestling, and referees are more popular than commentators. Onto the show ...
Our opening match pitted Martin Kirby against Dean Allmark and the debuting Will Osperay in a triple threat match, the latter being added to the mix late on by GM Lionheart. This match was advertised as a fatal four way on the card, I’m not sure what happened there. Kirby won the match at about the ten minute mark, this wasn’t your typical shtick where one guy spends an eternity on the floor whilst the other two wrestle, there was actually a lot of moves involving all three guys at once. The trouble with such an intimate venue is the ceiling spotlights are literally right above the ring and every time someone went for a high spot – and there were quite a few in this match - they had to be careful not to crash into the rig. The 2nd match was a more traditional affair with Sha Samuels being a typical old school heel against Danny Hope. The match was a beat down from the off, Hope got a few hope spots in near the end (Sorry, I couldn’t resist) but Sha put him away with a rear naked choke.
We got the first of two announcements for future shows at this point, as a hype video declared Brodus Clay is coming to face Michael Elgin at the PCW vs ROH weekend in November. That got a big pop. After the Brodus announcement we got Ophidian vs El Ligero in a weird match that mixed comedy and lucha style spots. They did a spot where Ligero got hypnotised and ended up dancing with his opponent and the referee, it was bizarre but pretty damn entertaining. Once they started actually wrestling it was a solid match. Ligero picked up the three count with a springboard DDT.
Following that match, Dave Rayne came out to issue an open challenge and defend his #BOOM Championship. Good News Garrett came out and squashed Rayne pretty quick with a cool splash off the top but the decision was reversed because the rulebook clearly states that the title cannot change hands on the last Friday of the month. Well that clears that up! Then we had the real highlight of the night as Team Single defended the tag team titles against the Dudley Boys. Bubba and D’Von got a HUGE reaction and seemed to be totally getting into the chants and songs from the crowd and were playing along with it and having fun. They won the match by DQ after D’Von got struck with a title belt. After the match one of team single took the 3D through a table and the place came unglued. Bubba put the crowd over big time and said that he always says it like it is, and he had more fun tonight than he has in the past five years in wrestling. That sounds like a shot at TNA to me. They got a kid in the ring to give him half of the broken table as a souvenir. That was nice, and with that we went to intermission.
The second half kicked off with Noam Dar against Paul London. They had this great entrance for London where he came in through the public entrance, slid down the stairs and walked all through the crowd high-fiving fans. He even started making shadow puppets on the projector screen. Dar chased him out and they brawled all over the building but most of the crowd could see what was going on, so the fans were restless. When they eventually got back to the ring it was another solid match, London went for the 450 splash off the second rope, Dar got the knees up and pinned him. He went to the top rope at first and then stepped down to avoid the lights. Our seventh match saw Freight Train beat Mad Man Manson in convincing fashion. I hadn’t seen Freight Train before but apparently he’s somewhat of an internet sensation, the fans were into him anyway.
The GM came back out to announce that WWE Hall of Famer Booker T will be making a guest appearance at the November shows. They’re really loading this thing up to be a great weekend for wrestling fans. Manson got the line of the night in here when asked to take care of the guest, after the Booker video played he said “don’t worry, I will look after Awesome Kong!”. That cracked everybody up. We went straight to the next match with Dave Mastiff taking on Joey Hayes. Another solid match, not much to talk about with this one but Mastiff is a big guy and Hayes’ underhanded tactics weren’t enough to stop him claiming a clean win with a powerbomb.
The ninth and final match of the night saw Bubblegum defend the Cruiserweight title against Brian Kendrick. This was another really good match, they got about 15 minutes and had a ton of action. It was different from most cruiser matches in that it wasn’t all flips and dives; there was a lot of good wrestling in the match. Bubblegum won by pinfall to retain. The crowd finally recovered from the post Team 3D cooldown period during this match and got really hot again. Bubblegum suckered Kendrick into a handshake after the match and then kicked him. London ran in through the crowd to save the day and chase the heel away, then grabbed a mic and teased a possible match with Bubblegum in the future. We ended with London and Kendrick standing tall in the ring.
Really, really good show all around from the guys tonight. Tons of action, plenty of well timed comedy spots and the odd shenanigans and most importantly just some real good wrestling top to bottom on the card. The fans make the show so much better too with the unique chants and crazy atmosphere in there. No title changes, but it still managed to be far more fun than WWE’s Night of Champions. This event will be out on DVD at some point I believe, and I can’t wait for the ROH cross-promotional weekend in a couple months time. That’s all folks!
