So, by my calculations, I have approximately 14 shows over the last 3 weeks to catch up on, as my scheduling has been ridiculously busy that I’ve barely had a moment to sit down and reflect. Thus, the following article is going to be somewhat of a monster. Which, ironically enough, is one of the prime reasons I’ve managed to get through the last few weeks. Monster that is. An energy drink. I’m lost already.
Credit: Brett Hadley Photography
Right, let’s go alllllll the way back to June 10th, as HOPE returned to Derby with improvements to a) the crowd size, drawing a far bigger audience than their previous efforts and b) a ring that didn’t quite feel as if death was lurking just around the corner anytime you did anything physical in it. I wrestled a fun match early in the card against Blake, a guy I’ve quite wanted to be put against for a while. Blake is one of those guys who always asks people if they wouldn’t mind watching his matches, and always wants honest feedback. The exact attitude that’ll help him improve as he goes along. A solid little match this, with me getting my ribs worked over until I was able to rally back and finally nail a big Suplex on the big fella that I’d been building up to all bout. I ended up suffering a loss however, due to a distraction from that insufferable pest Craig Anderson. But more on that later!
The next morning, I wrestled on an outdoor event for NGW, in a field. So obviously, it had been pouring down in the hours before it and the skies were worryingly grey as I drove up to Hull. I arrived at Queens Gardens, and I’ll be honest, my expectations weren’t high. I’d wrestled on an outdoor event for NGW a few years ago, with a great set-up outside the City Hall, and an absolutely packed crowd! This….wasn’t quite that. The ring was set up at the back of all the other activities to celebrate the Lord Mayors Parade, with the changing area being a small tent MILES AWAY from the ring, which we shared with the other acts. No big elaborate entranceways here (or music obviously), more a long wander towards the ring punctuated by confusion and odd looks. Despite these bizarre and, at times hilarious, conditions, this ended up being SO much fun! Mainly down to the great morale with all the lads on the show, the afternoon turned out to be a really enjoyable affair. I ended up wrestling a couple of times, a comedy match (or 5) with JD Boom that went down a treat, and an 8-man tag at the end that featured most of the guys involved on the show. My initial fear was that the positioning of the ring would mean nobody would really watch, but due to the hard work of the wrestlers and the ring announcer, the matches attracted a healthy crowd of 100 or so, and we all had a bloody good time!
Straight after NGW, I drove down to Mansfield for another instalment (or Evolution if you will) of HOPE Wrestling. This evening provided the biggest advancement of my ongoing dispute with prick referee Craig Anderson. Hustle Malone, a rookie that HOPE management are high on due to his talking skills, had offered up an open challenge, and one that Craig took him up on….but dressed as El Ligero! To be fair to Craig, he played his role (or is that my role..) to absolute perfection. To the point where some people in the crowd took a LONG time to realise the masked man wasn’t actually me…..which is kind of insulting… Of course, after Anderson had been mockingly pinned after a finger push and unmasked to revel in his glory, I hit the ring to batter him and got into a short scuffle with Malone. The match itself, from a match perspective, wasn’t much to really write home about, but it serves it’s role as a backdrop to the angle very well, with the finish coming when Malone conspired with his associates Team MAD and Anderson decked the ref and adorned his stripes to count the fall, with the final image being Anderson stood tall over me. Anderson is embracing this side of him exceptionally well, and people really do want to see him eventually get battered!! Malone himself needs to slow down a lot, which is understandable given his experience level. One of these overly-frantic exchanges did lead to me receiving a nasty full-on headbutt, which resulted in a rather sporty black eye for 2 weeks afterwards! Accidents do happen though, and you just get on with it, and Hustle was very keen to get as much feedback as possible, which is again a good sign.
Credit: The Ringside Perspective
The following Wednesday, I travelled up to Newcastle for a couple of days to begin the initial tapings for What Culture Pro Wrestling. Now, at press time, only 2 episodes of the YouTube-based show ‘Loaded’ has aired so I can’t really give away match spoilers or story progressions etc, but what I CAN briefly say is that I had a brilliant time over those 48 hours. The entire What Culture team were a pleasure to deal with, and were completely humble about their involvement on the shows. I know that some have criticised them for appearing to make the YouTube show about themselves, but, the live shows especially, they massively took a backseat role to the wrestlers and all of them were great to have around. All of the wrestlers and staff were looked after tremendously well, and the morale surrounding the events was awesome. The live crowd both nights were excellent as well, and I was extremely happy with the matches I was involved in. Really looking forward to seeing where WCPW goes!
On the Friday that week (June 17th), I took a drive across to Gainsborough for wrestle in this huge beautiful church for FFW. Fight Factory Wrestling have been brilliant to me lately, and this event was no exception, pitting myself and Robbie X against Paul Malen and Robin Lekime in the main event, stemming from a short match with Lekime early on that was interrupted. Despite a small portion of the crowd having had to leave before we went on, due to the show over-running slightly, the atmosphere for this was belting! The venue provided brilliant acoustics and the match told the story of Lekime being the reluctant fan favourite partner of villain Malen, as Lekime was being scouted by a heel ownership faction that had constructed the match. Everyone played their roles really well in here, and the crowd were hooked throughout. A small highlight of the bout for me was the adverse reaction Robbie had to some pre-workout before the match, as he spent the whole match itching away!!
Stoke was next on the list, as NGW provided a house show in front of around 200 fans at Biddulph Valley Leisure Centre, a venue I’d last wrestled at during the World Cup a couple of years ago for Southside. A grudge match between myself and Dara Diablo was pretty well received by a crowd that took some warming up at times, due to some peoples bizarre choice to sit far away from the ring in the bleachers instead of the chairs near ringside, meaning these people needed a bit more attention to keep them engaged due to their distance from the ring. The match came off as 2 enemies colliding I thought, despite the Stoke crowd perhaps not being too up on the current feud between myself and Dara, which is all building to a Last Man Standing Match on July 16th at Hull City Hall. I was victorious in this one with some strange twisted anomaly version of the C4L….
To cap off that weekend, I travelled to Chesterfield, for another episode of HOPE Wrestling. They put on more shows than I have hot dinners these days, which, with my massively tedious diet could well be a factual statement! I wrestled a prince in this one, neither Ameen or Iaukea though. In fact it was Brett Ryans, a man I’ve only very very recently become familiar with, but someone I think has been on the radar for HOP and LCW for a little while now. Shenanigans with capes, robes, rolls and his demanding I kiss his hand being greeted with some young fan informing Ryans that he had to kiss my arse first! I very nearly dropped my tights to reveal my spectacularly tight buttocks too! Ryans played his role in this match perfectly, with his comic timing being to an absolute tee. Indeed, this was a hugely pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and after wrestling 7 matches over the previous 4 days, I couldn’t have been happier with the cards I was dealt with here.
Credit: Over The Top Wrestling
Ireland was my next destination, as I spent the following Friday and Saturday with shows in Limerick and Dublin, making my much-anticipated (well, for me anyways) debut for OTT Wrestling! I’d heard nothing but great things about OTT, and from the footage I’d seen, it really looked like they’d cornered the market in Ireland for wild and raucous adult shows. The anticipation was certainly met, and I had a fantastic time over there. I wrestled Pete Dunne both nights, closing the first half of the first show, a smaller but nonetheless packed house in what appeared to be a pub with a balcony in it, and opened up the show the next night at the electric Tivoli Theatre. These were likely Dunne and I’s best efforts against each other and the second night especially might have been one of the very best atmospheres i’d ever wrestled in. The response I got from the crowd afterwards as well was incredibly rewarding and I can’t wait to go back there. OTT definitely feels like something special and it was a pleasure to be a part of both nights. Huge thank you to everyone who either looked after me or welcomed me into their dressing room with open arms as well. Massive fan of wrestling in Ireland. If only Ryanair wasn’t a thing.
Arrived back in England at around 9am on the Sunday morning, played on the PlayStation for an hour, went to the gym and drove to Birmingham. Well, my girlfriend drove seeing as my car decided not to start, likely sulking about the huge amount of miles I make it drive so I can run around in a mask and cape. If I was a car, I’d sulk too. That night was Kamikaze Pro’s 3 Year Anniversary, a promotion I’ve been with since the very first show, something I’m rather proud of. A solid and busy house saw myself take on Jody Fleisch in a spirited contest. Jody was, as I’m sure was the case with many, one of the guys I really looked up to when I started watching UK wrestling and attending FWA shows back in 2001/2002. So, to be seeing him and working with him fairly regularly 14 years later is still pretty cool. This was our second singles match of the year, the first being back in February in Liverpool for NGW, and much like that one, this one came off rather nicely as far as babyface displays of athletics goes. Kamikaze continue to draw busy numbers and produce very entertaining shows, and hopefully they’ll continue to build momentum as they deserve to be seen by more and more fans.
Annnnnd finally! Last weekend, to get everyone all up to date! First up on the Friday, it was off across the border to bonny Scotland to wrestle for BCW. The company have pretty much sold out every show I’ve worked for them in recent memory and this was no exception, completely packing East Kilbride’s Ballerup Hall. I wrestled my close friend Davey Blaze early on the card and had a smashing time doing so! Fun little bout this, and being on early meant I could enjoy the rest of a great show as well. Not much more to say about this one, as I had a fun enjoyable match in front of a busy and receptive crowd, what more could you ask for?
You could also apply the same to the following night also, as I opened up PCW’s latest foray into Blackpool (my first time there for the company) taking on Iestyn Rees, a man who has made a solid run for himself in Preston as almost an antagonistic version of Chris Masters, right down to using the Full Nelson, or ‘Alpha Lock’, which I succumbed to here. I’ve not wrestled in a singles match since around 2007/2008 back in the days of RQW and when I was a regular for 4FW. Safe to say, this match was probably a lot more solid than those. I actually look like I eat food these days. A simple story of him trying to lock on the AL and me trying to take him off his feet, this played out well. I do, however, blame my loss on the hearty pat on the back that Hardcore Holly gave me upon my arrival to the venue. I think I’ve just hurt myself again actually, dropping that name on my foot.
And to finish off this ridiculous catch-up that you’ve all lost interest in weeks ago, I wrestled on a UCW event in the north east on the Sunday afternoon. It’d be generous to say that the draw was large for this, but I’ve still been paid to turn up and do my job to the best level of my ability and that’s exactly what I aimed to do. I was part of a 15-man Scramble/Gauntlet/Rumble concoction that eventually lead to myself, Liam Lazarus, Oliver Barrett and Robbie Ryder spilling into the car park, and in an even further highlight, Lazarus and I ended up brawling into the Main Street and into a restaurant next to the venue! Certainly a first for my career! I know that a photo of the crowd I took that ended up on my facebook drew some less than favourable reactions, but truth be told, the atmosphere backstage was brilliant, there was zero issues financially and those that did show up to watch the show seemed to have a fun time. I had a wonderful time personally.
And that’s that!! If you saw the length (Lolz) of this article and decided to skip to the end, here’s basically what to take away from it: I have been busy. Cheers.
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Where You Can See El Ligero This Weekend
Jul 8th: Kamikaze Pro ‘Underground II’. El Ligero vs DJ Z. The Empire, Coventry.
Jul 9th: British Wrestling Entertainment ‘Fallout’. BWE Championship: El Ligero (c) vs Prince Ameen. Belle Isle Working Mens Club, Leeds.
Jul 9th: Southside Wrestling ‘Gunning For Glory’. 8-Person Elimination Tag Team: Team Ligero (El Ligero, Hardcore Holly, Nixon Newell & ???) vs The Righteous Army (Joseph Connors, Paul Malen, Kay Lee Ray & The Pledge). Stevenage Leisure Centre, Stevenage.
Jul 10th: Southside Wrestling ‘Infamous’. Fatal Four-Way: El Ligero vs Shane Strickland vs Robbie X vs Dan Moloney. Corporation, Sheffield.
*Our thanks to Nik Towers for the use of his artwork in the column header. You can see more of Nik’s artwork at the Wrestling Artwork NT Facebook page.
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