XWA Last Fight At The Prom 2011, The Carleton, Morecambe, 8th October 2012
Am back with another review from XWA, first off i would again like to thank Greg Lambert and the guys over at XWA for providing me with this DVD, i really appreciate it. XWA Last Fight At The Prom, held in October last year in The Carleton venue,in the seaside town of Morecambe was XWA's last show of 2011, so naturally they were looking to end the year with a bang in the shape of a massive 6 man tag consisting of Sam Slam, 'Psychotic Warrior' Johnny Phere and 'Heavyweight House of Pain' Stixx going up against Dave Rayne, Colossus and the 'Showstealer' Nathan Cruz. Which ever team wins this tag match then the landscape of XWA would be changed forever, as if the team of Rayne, Colossus and Cruz won then Sam Slam must hand over the power and ownership of XWA to Greg Lambert and the evil authority faction, however if Sam Slam's team picks up the win, then whoever scores the pinfall will receive an XWA Title shot against current XWA champion Dave Rayne at Goldrush 2012. Safe to say the steaks on the line in this match are massive !!
so with out further a do onto the review …..
match 1 – Joey Hayes vs Max Angelus [**1/4]
The opening contest of the night was a decent match up, between Joey Hayes and Max Angelus, who many on the British Indy scene are touting to be a future stand out on the British indy circuit. The match up was a decent back and fourth affair, but thats all it was it never seemed to shift up a gear when needed and such the match never reached the heights for what it should have with the talent involved. Joey Hayes picked up the win when he hit Angelus with the JKO, diamond cutter like move to pick up the win.
Match 2 – Axel Rage vs Spud [**1/4]
Axel Rage of the Blackpool Blondes took on former stable mate, the charismatic Spud, like the opening contest of the night this was another decent outing, but thats all it was. JD Sassoon accompanied his tag team partner Rage to the ring and through out the match up tried to get involved in proceedings but to no avail. Axel Rage tried to capitalize on the recently repaired neck of spud throughout the match, who was competing in his first match up in the XWA for 18 months. Rage nearly picked up the win with a superkick he hit on spud who had been distracted by JD Sassoon, but Spud was able to pick up the win after taking his belt off and pretending Rage had hit him with it, just like the great late Eddie Guerrero used to do in the WWE, the ref gave Rage a yellow card and whilst his back was turned Spud low blowed Rage and hit him with a spud gun which is basically a stunner for the 3 count.
Match 3 – Declan O'Connor vs JD Sassoon [**]
This match came about after the Blackpool Blondes had attacked O'Connor and thus preventing him from taking part in XWA's previous event. The action got underway with O'Connor jumping over the top rope onto the Blackpool Blondes on the outside. The action was decent in a really sort match up between these two. The match was a back and fourth even affair. However, it came across as both guys hitting big moves to get the crowd going, it was an entertaining match up, but possibly with a little bit more time and structure to it the match up could have been better. Sassoon got the win after Stallion handed him his boot and whilst the ref was distracted clocked O'Connor over the head with it.
Match 4 – RJM vs CJ Banks vs El Ligero [***]
Best of the North West Champion Jynkz made his way to the ring before the match, as the winner of this match would earn themselves the opportunity to wrestle Jynkz for the Best of the North West title. When i looked on the back of this DVD at the match listings, this match jumped out at me straight away. RJM really impressed me on the last XWA show which i reviewed, from the matches i have seen involving CJ Banks he appears to be a good talent and El Ligero is probably one of my favorite wrestlers on the 'BriWres' scene at the moment. So you can only imagine my disappointment when this match the co main event of the evening was given 10 bloody minutes, hell the entrances and intros lasted nearly as long as the match, at 9 minutes. As far as the action, it was good and up to this stage, was match of the night. The interactions between all three was on the money especially between El Ligero and CJ Banks. There was a couple of occasion when all 3 competitors worked in some nice 3 way sequences. This match however fell into the pitfall like many 3 way matches do with 2 wrestlers in the ring going at it and one on the outside basically doing nothing or jawing on with the fans. The finishing stretch saw some near falls, but i did however find the finish weak, as all down the final stretch all three wrestlers hit some big moves on one another but the finish saw Ligero pinning RJM after he rolled off his shoulders and pinned him with a bridging pin. Like i say i found the finish a tad weak.
Post match, roster members of nearby promotion GPW, were heckling the competitor's and chanting 'GPW', venue security despite the GPW alumni showing them they paid to see the show ejected them to the delight of the XWA crowd. This was clearly a worked angle, but at the time some members of the UKFF didn't thinks so and promoter Greg Lambert was given some abuse on the forum for having the two GPW guys ejected, here is the link http://ukff.com/index.php?showtopic=126951&st=30 . As i previously stated this was a work and has lead to a rivalry between both promotions with them co promoting a joint event with XWA alumni going up against GPW roster members for later this year.
Match 5 – Nathan Cruz, Colossus and Dave Rayne vs Johnny Phere, Stixx and Sam Slam [***1/2]
The stakes in this match are massive, Sam Slam must hand over the power and ownership of XWA to Greg Lambert and the evil authority faction if any of his team are pinned, however if a member of Slam's team picks up the win then they earn a title shot at the next XWA event for Dave Rayne's title. This was a really good match that went a good 20 minutes, and was my first chance to see both Sam Slam and Johnny Phere in action and to be honest i was impressed by both guys. Sam Slam is a big stocky dude but is really agile and that really took me by surprise, he also has a couple of real classy looking high impact maneuvers, where as Mr Phere is a real big intense dude who likes his high power impact moves and imposing his will on the opposition. As a tag match this was really good, Nathan Cruz was his usual self playing the heel everyone wants to see get his ass kicked, the blokes magic and i honestly wouldn't be surprised if the guy ended up state side sooner rather that later. He is really good in the ring and little things like his facial impressions during matches just make him standout. Another component which added to this match was the tension which mounted between Phere and Stixx throughout the course of this match up as both guys wanted to score the pinfall to earn a title shot, this saw both guys at numerous times in the match breaking up each others pinfall attempts and thus allowing the opposition a route back into the match up to gain momentum and the upper hand. I liked the finish of this contest also, Stixx hit Cruz with a sitout powerbomb, Sam Slam then grabbed Stixx, as Phere made the pin to prevent him from breaking the cover, the finish was really good as it involved the stipulation that the one who scored the pin earned a title shot i just felt it was really good story telling.
After the match, Sam Slam announces that Johnny Phere will get his title shot right now !!! Rayne and Lambert try to leave the arena but Stixx throws Rayne into the ring and Phere hits Rayne with a spinning spinebuster to pick up the win and become the new XWA Champion, to the delight of the XWA crowd and just for good measure he hits his spinning spinebuster as well on Greg Lambert. To close the show Stixx and the new champion shake hands and Sam Slam joins the the celebration as all three men stand tall in the ring.
Overall show thoughts- This is a difficult one for me, there is nothing here that is must see thats for sure, and bar the two final matches the rest is really just throw away,however the starting of the GPW and XWA feud begins on this show and there is also the feel good moment of Johnny Phere capturing the XWA title, in all honesty i could only recommend this to existing fans, if anyone wants to get into XWA then pick up Goldrush 2011 as a starting point as that was a cracking show. Again i would like to thank Greg Lambert and XWA for supplying me with this DVD.
To find XWA on the internet and to order this DVD:
website: http://www.xwawrestling.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/xwawrestling
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/21359939410/
To contact me:
E-mail: jamiepwponderings@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/JamieIndyPW