wrestling / Video Reviews
Euro Fury: Fight Club Pro Project Mayhem V
Loading...Fight Club Pro Project Mayhem V
September 23 2016
We’re in Wolverhampton at the Fixxion Warehouse. A venue I shall be standing in, a few days from now, in attendance at a live Fight Club Pro show. Love the graps. We kick off the show with Pete Dunne interrupting the ring announcer. He suggests if Sami Callihan were here he’d challenge him to a title match but he’s not so he challenges Trent Seven to a fight instead. To Pete’s surprise Sami Callihan strolls out here.
Fight Club Pro Championship
Sami Callihan (c) vs. Pete Dunne
Fight Club Pro sure know how to kick a show off! This is a fine demonstration of British Strong Style as they go to war from the bell. Sami seems to love it in Wolverhampton and brings his best in Fight Club Pro’s ring. This is absolutely vicious with neither guy giving an inch. Sami’s strikes are so brutal. This crowd won’t accept anything less. It’s a rabid cauldron of hate. I fucking love it. These two just batter each other for the entire match. While they’re not wailing on each other with strong style big hits they’re busting out complicated counters and making them look effortless. Callihan hits an apron piledriver that makes the one Marufuji did to Okada at King of Pro Wrestling look like a love tap. The brutality continues down the stretch with both guys throwing huge kicks in an attempt to knock the other out. There’s no holding back and no quarter given. The selling is excellent throughout with both guys knocked loopy for effect and maintaining a fairly pleasing degree of realism. Dunne takes the belt by choking Sami out and acts like a complete dick about it. This was fifteen minutes of unadulterated anger and strong style abuse. I fucking loved it.
Final Rating: ****1/4
Nixon Newell vs. Jessica Havock
This is a rematch from International Tekkers where Nixon scored an upset win. Havock plays a natural heel given her size advantage. Jessica has some of the same issues that blight Nia Jax, in terms of using her size and power advantage. She’s possibly a little further along than Nia in that respect, although she’s got nothing comparable to the bear hug mauling Jax does, and she’s helped along by Nixon. It’s very easy to love Nixon Newell. She doesn’t hold anything back here, going for crazy dives and yelling “fuck you, Jess” ahead of a headbutt. Havock has too much power this time around though and ends Nixon with a jumping Tombstone.
Final Rating: **
Tables Match
The Hunter Brothers vs. The Face Smashers
The Smashers are Wild Boar and Dan Moloney. Both fairly underrated in national terms. Moloney is still very young and improving at a solid rate. The crowd bait him by yelling “Dan” over and over again, channelling the Alan Partridge antics. This is a wild out of control brawl with the Hunters looking as lively as I’ve ever seen them. The crowd is so heated during this it actually wrecks the microphones. You can hear the noise causing distortion. The presence of tables in the ring causes issues with some team moves, as people can’t take bumps in the reduced space. Dan gets double powerbombed through a table to be eliminated but returns to prevent Boar getting superplexed through a second table. In the ensuing confusion one of the Hunter’s gets murdered through a table by a Boar spear. He went clean through the table too. The finish should be Boar getting powerbombed out of the corner but the table won’t cooperate so Jim, I think, splashes it and it still doesn’t break. The crowd start to chant “Botchamania” because the table is too fucked to stand up so the ref has to support the table on another spot and still the table stays intact. The Hunter’s both come off the top to stomp Boar through a table for the actual win. The furniture betrayed the lads here but the improvised multiple finishes actually had the crowd on their feet so we’ll call it a win.
Final Rating: ***
Post Match: Dan, clearly upset with being yelled at all match, knocks Boar out with an elbow. He just had an arduous contest with a Japanese table you thoughtless bastard!
Two Out of Three Falls
Travis Banks vs. Tyler Bate
This should be good. Tyler is the best young wrestler in the world, he’s not even twenty yet, and Banks is having an exceptional second half to 2016. These are the next two names the UK will export to the world, even if Banks is a Kiwi. The technical wrestling on display here is “fucking lovely”. It’s so smooth and cultured. Travis plays a reluctant babyface, with Tyler over the top nice. This degenerates into chops and slaps. It’s a beefy contest between two manly men. Tyler’s casual no-selling during these exchanges is quite beautiful, as is Travis grimacing in response, trying to hide his own pain. The two men drive each other on to be better. Travis seems determined to steal every show he’s on right now and Tyler doesn’t want to be shown up in his own backyard. Tyler scores fall one, in what feels like a culmination of the opening act. They’ve both taken it to one another and established parity. Either guy could have won fall one.
Fall two starts with Travis looking to get a foothold in the match and his increased aggression is notable. This leads to Tyler’s defending himself and some rapid near falls with both men rolling around the ring making the cameraman and Joel Allen dizzy. Travis lands a sensational springboard kick to level up the falls. Act two was all about Travis needing to win a fall and Tyler trying to defend himself. In the end Travis was too determined and we hit a deciding third fall.
The third fall is just pure carnage with both guys throwing huge lumber in an attempt to knock the opponent out. They’ve had fun, they’ve done cheeky roll ups and now it’s a war. Tyler survives another springboard enzuigiri, both men start lifting spots from Chris Benoit and Travis survives Tyler’s finishing spot from fall one. It’s for all the marbles now and the intensity matches. Tyler takes it by dumping Travis on his head twice in quick succession, transitioning an Axe Guillotine Driver into a cradle Tombstone. Two massive head drops one after another is enough to put Banks away. Good sportsmanship follows with both men celebrating the match, rather than the victory. Which is what truly great wrestling is all about. It takes two to tango.
Final Rating: ****
Trent Seven vs. Mark Haskins
God bless the Midlands graps. There should be a King of the Midlands title for Trent, Haskins, Tyler and Dunne to fight over. This was supposed to be Trent vs. Drew Galloway but Drew is injured. The reaction that Haskins gets as a replacement is incredible. There are people in the front row losing their fucking minds. This is two guys getting the love they deserve from wrestling crowds. I’m so pleased for them both. Haskins’ ability to transition from one submission or hold to another is incredible. He’s so fast and so technically gifted. Trent has to slow things down to stand any chance and he brings the British Strong Style, which involves big strikes and a tope that wipes out all the seating. All of it. They actually hit the wall on the bump, both of them. Haskins responds with a tope of his own that’s so fast it almost takes out half a dozen scurrying fans. The ideas at play here are outstanding. Both men seem to know what the other is about to do, to the nearest minutia, and it comes across as so natural and effortless. Haskins even gets to try out the Sharpshooter where he leans right back. The one he used a few days later in Brixton to submit Marty Scurll. Seven does tremendous work in putting all of this over, yelling in pain and calling for help as he’s beaten from pillar to post. In particular shouting “ow” after chopping Haskins because he hits it so hard. Rainmaker and a piledriver puts Haskins down. Don’t worry, he kinda won the weekend by winning the Progress title two days later. Excellent wrestling here though, with both guys out to prove their particular approach to wrestling was superior. Fight Club Pro is where British Strong Style rules supreme so naturally Trent walks away as the winner. I’d love to see them go at it for the Progress strap.
Final Rating: ****1/4
Post Match: Seven stops off to put Haskins over, his Year 6 teacher being in the audience and he calls out Pete Dunne so he can “smash your fucking pig head in”. Dunne cheap shots Seven bringing out Sami to call for a triple threat and he lays Seven out too! It seems Callihan and Dunne are now allied over a combined hatred of Wolverhampton. “You’re not in the same league as me” yells Callihan at the fallen Seven as the crowd get all over his case. Callihan just loves being a heel so much that the earlier standing ovation must have pissed him off. “You’re both cunts” respond the audience. The Bruiser Cats hit a spike piledriver to end the segment. I don’t really get why Sami lost to Pete and then became chums with him but the end game is Pete & Sami vs. Trent and presumably Tyler. So I’m cool with that.
Fans Bring the Weapons Match
Chris Brookes vs. Clint Margera
Brookes won an I Quit match on the last show by threatening Margera’s other half. Then he laid her out anyway while Clint was tied in the ropes watching. Naturally this feud is getting a wee bit heated. Brookes, being a fan himself brings a staple gun, lemon juice and thumbtacks. Also a dildo wrapped in barbwire. Margera loves this environment but unfortunately feels the need to do a really obvious bladejob while face down on the mat. The match is absolutely disgusting, including Brookes having posters stapled to his face and getting his fingertip ripped apart in a spot that clearly causes him discomfort. It’s not a total New Jack style match and there is wrestling involved, albeit minimal. Brookes taking a savage bump on two set up chairs causes the crowd to collectively have kittens. You know when you’re garnering these kind of reactions you’re onto a winner. There are thumbtacks everywhere, which leads to some sickening bumps. None more so than Brookes having his already injured hand stamped into the tacks. Fuck me, lads, I think you may have gone a bit too far. As if to make sure Brookes doesn’t get any sympathy, he shoves a load of tacks into Margera’s mouth and kicks him in the face. My word. With both men bleeding Brookes thinks it’s a good opportunity to pour an entire shaker of table salt into the ring and there’s lemon juice knocking around too. Brookes gets into a spot of bother by killing the ref, which produces more freaked out reactions from the crowd. Brookes eats a DVD through a barbwire table for the pin. Keep in mind Brookes was not wearing a shirt for this match. This was just a horrendous, barbaric display. I’m not even sure it can be rated on a standard scale. I enjoyed it, Rob Reid wouldn’t.
Final Rating: FUCK
