The 7pm bell chimed and it was door opening time! Here we go again...!

There had been a huge queue outside, it was a good start, but there was still a nail biting 30 minutes before the show started for real, and we needed at minimum a couple more hundred people. I kept my eye on the door, and one good thing was that it seemed like there was a constant stream of people coming in.

"Please don't all have ticket stubs from last month." I thought to myself.

Another 30mins on and we were ready to start, problem was, and it was a good problem - we couldn't start. There were people STILL coming in. We were nearing capacity but I had no idea if we'd managed to sneak into profit, or break even yet. The venue though, was full and that had to be a good thing for both us and the venue management who were for the third month in a row - in attendance. Also for the third month in a row, the demographic of our draw had totally changed. Where I once looked out and saw tons and tons of kids, I now looked out and saw a much older audience, 16 - 24's, and older.

I've thought about it a great deal and still don't understand it. We hadn't ever at any point dropped audience figures, they'd just seemingly been replaced. It's weird. You'd think that you'd have a couple of lower draws, or higher draws even before the shift took hold. But we didn't. Was it the posters? Was it the renewed focus on more wrestling? Was it because the kids had all grown up and grown out of it? Was it thanks to the WWE and their change of direction? I didn't know, and I don't think I ever will. In the short term though it meant that on one hand we'd be making more money on the door. Less family tickets = less discount. More single tickets = more profit. However, adult were much less likely to spend their money at the merchandise table on the kid themed stock we have there. That wasn't something to start worrying about now, I was just happy that everywhere looked packed! It was genuinely heart warming to think that all those people had come to watch the show and support the company after such a disappointing show the month before. I walked around backstage with a huge grin on my face.

Eventually at 7:37, nearly 40 minutes after the doors had opened the crowds finally seemed to stop pouring through the door and we were able to start the show Jiggy and myself had re-written about 17 times. How would the audience take to it? Would it play out as well as we had envisioned? Or would it come across as overbooked?

The first match on was Bruce Sheila vs. El Ligero. It had been a last minute match we'd thrown in when we were concerned the card needed a singles match. We were at a crossroads with Ligero storyline wise, he could've been put in the Cibernetico and continued the MasterPlan feud, or we could freshen it up and put him against Bruce, and Bruce deserved another chance. He may have laughed all the way through the Thriller Dance rendition last month, but he'd done pretty well in the ring and was in people's psyche.

Bruce had started off so promisingly on his debut in early 2010 but has really dropped off the pace since. I don't think Bruce actually knows how good of a gimmick he's got. The more frequently he challenges himself by doing shows, the better chance he will have of understanding his gimmick and how best to play it. His opponent for this night is someone who has absolutely mastered that over the years.

I was confident that our opening contest of Mexico vs. Australia would deliver a memorable start to the night. I may have been a little over-confident...

Ligero never arrives at any venue he's booked at without ideas for the match and a complete, in depth knowledge of his opponent. Before he gets there he'll know their moveset, their gimmick, their abilities, their limitations and exactly how he can use those things to get himself over, his opponent over and the match over. All of that is a massive compliment to a man who truely knows and loves his craft. I don't know of anyone else who puts in the type of groundwork before matches Ligero does. But sometimes, just sometimes - things don't go to plan...

I'll have to shoulder my part of the blame in this story as i'm ultimately responsible for green lighting it, but before the show Ligero had approached me with an idea for the match. He proposed he would beat Bruce 4 times in one match. He explained the idea to me, it sounded funny, I like things that make me laugh, so I gave it the nod and thought nothing more of it. I really should have.

The show gets underway without a hitch and Ligero is the first to the ring. We routinely have a drama with Bruce's music every time he's on, I held my breath as we hit play, but there were no dramas to speak of this time. I was pleased for Bruce, alright, he'd slipped down the rankings of recent shows but I was pleased we'd given him a second chance against Voodoo and now another chance against such a high ranking opponent such as Ligero. One of Ligero's ideas was to have Bruce sing the Australian National Anthem over the mic before the match. I'd wanted Bruce to use the National Anthem more in his matches so was pleased about its inclusion here and was anxious to see what kind of reaction he'd get.

Bruce started to sing and he got the perfect reaction, even louder was the reaction when Ligero rolled him up to score an unexpected 1,2,3. The crowd jumped up to their feet and cheered. It was there we should have left it. But that's not what was booked. Ligero went onto pin Bruce another two times in quick succession after Bruce had pleaded for the match to be re-started. It was Bruce's mic work here that really highlighted the total mis-understanding of how good his gimmick could be. He didn't do a bad job on the mic and got decent reactions, but he could've done so much better. Not that any of that would've made any difference to what happened next...

Bruce had been pinned clean by Ligero 3 times in quick succession, each time the pops had got less and less, mistake no.1. Now they were going to start the match for real. mistake no.2. You can only surprise people once, and the reactions to the pins were never as loud as the first one. People stopped being surprised. And when they started the match for real, what kind of hope did Bruce stand? The audience had just watched him get beaten 3 times in a row and now they're expected to buy into a 4 - 5 minute match? No chance. It was stupid. Really stupid. So come the 4th pin when he eventually put Bruce away, the crowds pops, where they should've been at their highest, were at their lowest.

It was a bad move to start with this kind of match. Mid card, maybe. But as an opener - for me, it monumentally didn't work. By the time that match went out, people had been waiting 45 minutes for some action. I think they'd have accepted the match after the first pin and still stayed buoyant, but for any level of competiveness after the third pin was silly.

It was my fault for letting it go ahead, but there was no changing that now and GPW: "Night Of The Brave" was well and truely underway.

I looked out at the draw which made me feel a lot better. We'd ran out of seats. That meant we had definitely broken the 300 barrier! Yes! A triumph! But, things in the ring were yet again going to take a nosedive...

Next up was a match that arguably some of the audience were only in attendance to see and one we'd been waiting for 4 years, the Women's Match, Jenny Sjoden vs. April Davids. I am by no means a fan of womens wrestling. Infact, I couldn't tell you the last women's match I sat through. That's the main reason why women's wrestling hasn't featured on our shows. I don't deny that there is a substantial market for it, but it has to be done extremely well, tastefully, without fault and moreover - done in a way that sends people, sceptics like myself, away thinking.

Despite our audience not having seen any women's wrestling in 4 years, I didn't want the girls to go out there and try and kill themselves making a point. What I wanted was to change people's perception about women's wrestling without forcing it down their throats. A lot of the stuff they'd normally do, i.e mat wrestling was veto'd as Gallgher / Sabre Jr. were due out right after, so they'd have to approach the match differently.

It was nice to be able to give April a chance on our shows. She's been around the company for some time, always supporting shows and offering a helping and, even in the most menial tasks! I'd not met Jenny before, but had seen enough of her stuff to know she and April should / would have a match befitting a Grand Pro return to women's wrestling.

I spoke with the girls about their finish and made them change it. The finish they'd suggested didn't fit in with my own views of the match. It needed to be less messy, cleaner, crisper and quicker. They agreed and we re-booked it, it was now time to see what the girls could deliver.

I'd prepped the girls for a strange reception from our audience. They'd not seen a female wrestler in 4 years, and for some, this might be their first ever live women's match. I wasn't wrong. As Jenny made her entrance, the crowd weren't quite sure what to do. I didn't panic, this was going exactly how I thought it would.

April had chosen Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation" as her entrance music, and the crowd were energised as soon as it played. It was a really good choice of music and the moment April made her entrance, by the time she'd got to the ring I don't think the crowd were in any doubt of what her gimmick was. She'd done an excellent job of portraying it from the outset. So far, so good! It wasn't going to last...

Within the opening couple of minutes of the match, the action spilled outside. Whilst on the outside, Jenny caught April and DDT'd her from the apron to the Ballroom floor.

What. The. Fuck?

This was our second match of the night and April was getting dropped on her head less than 2 minutes into the match? Absolute madness. The girls then went onto wrestle a further 9 plus minutes. It was the exact same move, on the exact same side of the ring that we'd stretcher job'd Sam Bailey in May just a few months earlier. I was fuming.

The fans though, were still into the match. They really wanted to cheer for April but were just not given enough of an opportunity to do so. Jenny's reactions were still mediocre and after the strange opening match, this was pretty much the last thing I wanted.

The girls finished up, and April went over to a big pop. The action in the ring had been decent, their psychology, not so. I don't think many people picked up on the ridiculous DDT cut off to April's shine but it had certainly registered on my part. I don't understand wrestlers who dare to throw away a DDT. It's a finisher. What part of your head getting driven into the ground against your will is not going to score you a 3 count? Especially when you take that head, elevate it and drop it onto the floor opposed to the canvas. The sooner wrestlers start treating the DDT better, the better the business will be. A finisher is called a finisher for good reason and the DDT is one of the best ever invented.

Two matches down, a packed house but it had been a very odd start to the evening. Next up though was one match that would have everyone talking, our British Title Match, Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Champion, Jack Gallagher.

Jack had broken away from his Jack Toxic character and morphed, what seemed like overnight into the man we know him as today, Jack Gallagher. His break-out match happened about 14 months before NOTB when he fought El Ligero at Friday Night Thriller IV. After the match people started to sit up, take notice and talk about Jack Gallagher. Jack cemented his newly gained reputation when he fought Zach Diamond the month later at "Only The Strong Survive 2010" I asked him after his match with Ligero, who he thought would give him his best match. He said, without taking a breath to think: "Zack Sabre Jr is the only person I know who wrestles my style, i'd love to have a match with him." Since that date, i'd been trying to book that match, and now finally, here it was.

Zack had also had Jack high on his "to-do list". He told me he had been looking forward to wrestling him for some time. Two guys who want to work with one another are always going to deliver more in the ring opposed to a match where one of the parties involved isn't that bothered or unmotivated for it. I knew these two would produce a classic. The other thing I, Jiggy, Zack and Jack knew and had discussed at length was the crowd reactions. A portion of the audience may well have come to see this match alone, but even that small group of people wouldn't be sat watching the match jumping out of their seats, not least the audience who'd never seen Zack before. It just wasn't that type of match. It would be a slow build that would suck you in as they built it into a finish sequence. It was almost an education in mat wrestling to an audience who hadn't really been exposed to it before. You don't pop a crowd with a intricate reversal of a toe hold. People pop for big false finishes and gut busting sequences, they don't pop for wrist lock and waist lock reversals. And that's the way Jack and Zack were going to wrestle, at least at the start - I was really looking forward to it.

We were that full at the venue, we had to lay on extra seats. As I went out to speak to the audience members needing the seating, I got talking to someone in the audience who'd brought a few of the guys from the famous Snake Pit. They'd come to see the next match, they were in for a treat.

We'd purposely not announced what was the shows main event, so a few people may have been expecting the Brit Title Match to go main may have been surprised to see Zack make his long and awaited GPW entrance. As he did - he couldn't of played it down any more. I don't think he even looked at the crowd once, nevermind acknowledged, but Zack is the rare type of wrestler that will engage you and pull you in with what he does in the ring, not on the way to it. He didn't have a character to portray, he is a wrestler, in the truest sense of the word and where normally i'd be throwing a fit backstage that someone wasn't working the audience - I knew on this occasion that it wouldn't matter. As soon as that bell rang, all the work would be done between the ropes.

Jack made his entrance next. He'd come to me requesting mic time earlier in the night in an effort to really get the audience to hate him more. His mic work the previous month was confident and decent, but he had almost babyfaced himself in his content. The idea for any heel promo is to create enough room for the fans to hate the heel and cheer the baby, Jack didn't leave Danny (the face in the ring at the time) enough room for babyface pops. Another problem with his crowd reactions was the "Joey effect". The better Jack, the heel was wrestling, the more he was getting people cheering for him. It was what happened with Joey in 2007, and if Juice had still been around, I think the same would've happened to him. I could feel it happening to Jack and he needed to give the crowd a fresh reason to hate him. We spoke about it and came up with a few ideas to get heat in a verbal attack on Zack.

As he snatched the mic from Rick, Jack did much better this time. He built Zack up with a big announcement that might have had people thinking he was going babyface, but then he chopped him right back down in a seething verbal attack. It was what his character needed, and the crowd responded well. His heat was back. The match was on.

The two hadn't spoke about the opening 10 minutes. It was all improvised freestyle wrestling, and what wrestling it was. Exactly what i'd hoped for when we booked the match and the crowd reacted in the exact why we'd thought. There was 10 minutes of intricate mat wrestling, no crowd in the world is going to be hot for that. If the wrestlers are doing their jobs, the crowd will be drawn into it and marvel at a mat wrestling education, and that was exactly what was happening here. The crowd weren't stood up on their seats, they were intently watching. I looked out at them and every single person had their eyes trained on the ring. It was something they'd never really seen before and they didn't want to miss a thing.

The match built, and as planned the audience built with it. Reviews from the show have read that the audience were "dead". They categorically were not. They respectfully watched a mat classic that built to frantic finale. It was exactly how we anticipated the reactions to go and I was very happy with the two lads work. Jack scored the win, but they'd both done so well - it didn't matter who'd gone over, everyone in attendance loved what they'd seen. Me included. Zack seemed to love it so much, he was going to help himself to a re-match... post match and off script. After the 3 count, Zack slapped Jack across the face, the crowd popped and I felt like the strike had left me with no option but to book a re-match........ To be continued!

We were ready for an interval now. The capacity crowd needed to gather themselves after a strange first half. The British Title match had brought them round, but they'd had a lot to take in during the first 3 matches. I did a quick head count and counted 356 people, (not one of them being the Dynamite Kid, Tommy Billington…!) I was very happy and looking forward to a stacked second half.

As we returned for the second half, we ran a segment with Danny Hope as he drew the raffle but as far as the audience were concerned - they still didn't know what the main event would be. However, by process of elimination, they were about to find out! Up next - the match i'd fought hard not to go ahead - the Torneo Cibernetico.

Danny Hope was scheduled to turn heel at FNTV, but due to the ring break - we couldn't do it. The plan was for him to attack Whippy after his British Title match with Jack after having already sewn the seeds earlier in the night during a promo where he pulled out of the 4-way out of injury. We were at a crossroads with what to do with Danny. Keep the heel turn on ice until 2012? Or try and fit it into NOTB?

We went for the latter. I never got the feeling Danny had ever been truly comfortable playing face. Watching his confident heel work from circa 2006 - 2008, it was almost unrecognisable to what at times seemed like a babyface going through the gears. He was clearly much more comfortable playing "da bad guy", and I was glad to be able to give him another run, this time in singles. There was no other possible point we could fit that turn in other than right now.

The thinking behind when we had the original turn scheduled for was for it to be a shock, just because we’d had to wait a month, I didn’t want to lose that element and change focus to go with a “everybody knows he’s eventually turning heel” slow burn, or float Danny in pointless matches. It was now, or not at all and there was nowhere else on the card it could go. I knew we wouldn’t get any arguments from Danny, but Jiggy and I knew it would always run the risk of being overlooked, that’s when Jiggy had a genius, innovative idea…

During the raffle I’d scripted Sam Shaw to rub Danny’s nose in the fact that he was still on the injured list while Zach Diamond was scheduled to triumphantly return in the very next match after his injury. It was a step closer to a heel turn for a frustrated Danny Hope. Raffle over, seeds re-sewn and it was time for the Cibernetico I’d fought long and hard against doing. Here we go, but before we started the action – it was time for Jiggy’s idea to take form and its inclusion would determine if the whole Danny Hope heel turn would sink, or swim.

The idea was to turn Danny right at the start of the match. Just as the bell rang and Zach was about to lock up with Bubblegum, Danny ran down to the ring and jumped Zach. Standard for a heel turn. But then there was the twist, instead of leaving Zach lying and walking off, Danny would stay and now having re-established himself as a heel – he’d join the babyface team. I loved it. It
was new, it was different and I couldn’t wait for it to pan out. In reality, it fell just short of the mark. However, I was still pleased with what happened. I think the thing that almost buried it was having such an eventful Cibernetico after it. In short, there was just too much that happened that allowed people to forget the turn.

I always think of the first Cibernetico as being our best, but this one certainly ran it a close second, and in some respects may have overtaken it, especially in the final stages when it came down to Dirk and DDL. These guys tore the house down with a finish sequence that seemed to go on for about 30mins but had every single member of the audience absolutely enthralled, and me – surprised.

I’d booked the finish for Dirk to go over DDL, so imagine how surprised I was when DDL got the win over Dirk.

It transpired that Dirk, DDL and Jiggy had decided to change the booking of the match round at the last minute and couldn’t get word to me in time. Whilst I was displeased about not being informed, I couldn’t complain about the way the final segments of the match were received. Damon had been on a slow rise with the crowd all year, the title round his waist validated him as a true champion and a worthy competitor, all he had to do was step up to the plate. I was unsure if he would earlier in the year, but he did, and then some, every bit evident in the final stages of this wonderful match with Dirk and the newly revealed MasterPlan member, and match official - Mike Fitzgerald.

I’d never expected reactions like that for Dirk and DDL and was over the moon with the reception they’d got from the match. It hadn’t harmed plans by putting DDL over Dirk instead of the intended finish. We were still able to further the story between the two and this way meant we’d become somewhat, less predictable with our storytelling and we couldn’t be leading into the blow off any hotter than how the guys had left it here. Very impressed and after a somewhat strange first half, we'd started the second off with a bang!

There was just enough time for the crowd to catch their breath and then it was time for the main event that no one had been expecting, but by now everyone had figured out. Ste “Bin” Man vs. Jason Logan, the North West Rookie League Final.

Could our two rookies with 6 matches between them headline the show with a credible main event match? Could they keep up the good name of excellent main events we'd offered up before them that had ran over the 8 plus years prior? The answer you'd get from me was "absolutely." Ste and Jason, despite the hand injury, were ready, and so were the crowd. It was on, and I was every bit as excited as they were.

Before I get to the match itself, let me just go on record and gloat. The North West Rookie League was an experiment. An experiment that just got better and better after each instalment. I am absolutely sure that without Bin Man's magnetic charisma and personality, it wouldn't have been half the success it turned out to be. We never once changed the course of the NWRL booking, it had always, always been about Bin Man and Logan. That was the primary, everything else was secondary and the culminating moment of the entire thing was now. Life was made so much easier being able to build the entire NWRL around two level headed guys who’d wait their turn, do as they were told and let the story do the talking. It was a blessing. Even if the main event failed, the NWRL had done its job. It was a vehicle to introduce some new face and create new stars. With 2 of its participants now headlining the show, it had most certainly done that. Now, it was down the crowd and the two finalists.

Before the music hit, I got to spend a couple of minutes with both Bin Man and Logan backstage. There was so much positive, nervous energy surrounding them, they just wanted to be out there. I'd spent some time with them during the day and the whole week leading up to the show, going over the story for the match and what needed to be achieved and when. I hoped by telling them that despite it being at the top of the card, they'd still only be wrestling for 10 minutes, no longer than they had been doing anyway, might’ve eased their nerves. 10 minutes or 40 minutes, a main event should deliver as any main event should – drama, emotion and story. Only people who’ve gained experience in wrestling at main event level truly understand how to execute the right things at the right times. I helped them with that, and told them to just enjoy it and to take their time on their entrances and introductions. And from the moment their music hit, to also to listen to the audience and their reactions as that could determine how to change the match. They both nodded in agreement. Bin Man puffed the air out of his cheeks with one last exhale of nerves as Sam Shaw announced the main event. It was time. It was their time. Could we pull this gamble off?

As both men made their entrance, you'd be forgiven in thinking that they'd been main eventing all year by the reactions they got. Not at one point throughout 2011 did it fail to surprise me the amount of Bin Man support there has been in the Ballroom. In a normal wrestling environment, (assuming the heel had done a good enough job) those babyface pops would transfer from the baby, onto the heel, in the form of heat. There was no such thing here.

We'd given Bin Man a little amount offence at the start, to give the crowd something to cheer as they were cheering, Jason cut him off. Neither man did anything wrong, infact Jason was brilliant here , but the crowd were so into Bin Man they just wanted him to fight back, they wouldn’t of cared if Jason had cut him off with a Range Rover. All they wanted to do was what they’d done all year - cheer the Bin Man. If this had been one someone who had worked a long list of main events, they’d of known to have fought back and given the crowd more of a reason to cheer and stay alive. But Bin Man didn’t. It wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t Jason’s fault but the planned audience reactions had gone against the grain. Would that sway our two rookies off course? Not a chance.

They haven't learned to improvise with audience reactions yet, but they will and to expect that from 2 guys in their first ever main event and 6th ever match, is far too expectant. They had done us, me, themselves and our school very proud as they rallied to the finish. I'd thrown in the rest of the NWRL contestants to add a bit of main event spice into the mix and not to mention - it made the most sense. Why wouldn't they run in? Jiggy had been against it, but in the end I think it worked perfectly.

After the run in, an exhausted Bin Man fumbled the finish a bit on Logan, but the audience didn't care. He could've won with the finger poke of doom for all they cared, all that mattered was they got to chant "Bin Man, Bin Man, Bin Man" into the close of the night.

Post match, Sam Shaw announced that as a "bonus" for winning the NWRL Final, Bin Man was now being granted a shot at the British Title. Now, this is something people may think we'd changed the booking around to accommodate the Bin Man fever, well news for you guys - it wasn't, and we didn’t. A shot at the British title for Bin Man was always on the cards from the very first drafts of the NWRL. The bonus, was not for Bin Man, it was for us that Bin Man had got so over during the year. We weren't going to tell him about the title shot and let it be a shoot on the night so we could tap into his genuine reactions, but Ste has done a lot of theatre and TV work so I caved in and told him some time before the Final. His reactions were great as he sold the match to much applause from all the fellow members of his NWRL team and of course, his ever growing fan base.

The night had been a sell out. There wasn't a seat left in the building and against massive odds, we'd pulled through - and made a profit. Back in profit after such a horrendous month the month before and the worry of all the half price tickets seemed like a dream away at the time, but we'd made it a reality and I was delighted. Alright, there was no Tommy Billington in attendance, but I could live with that! There had been elements of the show, namely the first half that I wasn't happy, and am still not happy with but the night could've been an almighty failure and we'd steered it far away from that and into a wonderful success.

I had trouble sleeping when I got home that night as the draw went through my head. What if we'd charged people full price, how much money would we have made? Good job we'd given people half price tickets, if not how much money would we have lost? How much, if at all had Bonfire Night the following night effected the draw? We'd undoubtedly gained some new audience, had we done enough to keep them over for the next show? For now at least, we could rest easy and reflect on a truly triumphant night in our history.

With more or less double the amount of advertising done, plus a printed invitation to Tommy Billington in the local press out, we were in the final build up to Night Of The Brave. Could we overcome the massive odds? Would Dynamite Kid turn up? Time to find out!

Before we got there though, there was some bold and brave decision making that would make two certain individuals quake in their boots...

With a Torneo Cibernetico and Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Jack Gallagher on the card, it may have been easy to think the main event slot was already taken. Think again. When we booked Zack / Jack, the idea was for it to go in the main, but that was completely reliant on enough people coming to the event purely for that match, and then Zack getting main event strong reactions. Sure, it might well be the best wrestling match on the card, but was it the best main event? No, no it wasn't. We also needed to give the two time, if we over run during the night we'd be eating into their time, the best place for Zack / Jack was "1st half main event" i.e one before the interval.

Cibernetico for the main then?

No.

Jiggy wanted it, but the Cibernetico was filled with people who'd been in and around the main event for a while. The whole reason for doing the North West Rookie League in the first place was to create new stars, so what better way then cementing that than putting our two finalists, Jason Logan and Ste "Bin" Mann in the final together? It was bold, it was brave, it definitely wouldn't't be what people were expecting, and I was absolutely sure that those two would give us main event drama and more importantly, generate main event reactions.

I broke the news to the lads about 2 weeks before the show and they couldn't believe it. The main event spot is hallowed land, and here they were, with only a 5 pro matches between them basking in the main event spotlight. They certainly weren't expecting the nod, and were very surprised, I knew a few other people would be too, and was a good thing in my opinion.

One week later...

What's the worst thing that could happen to you 7 days before your first main event in a story we'd been building all year? An injury you say? Yeah, you'd be right.

Jason somehow managed to break a glass in his hand whilst he washing up. That meant a whole lot of blood, and stitches. Last month it had been he and Ste worried about Bubblegum being injured a week before the show, but now, in a reversal of fortune - it was Jason himself on the injured list. Would a week be enough time for the injury to heal? I had fingers on both my hands crossed, Jason though, could only manage the one hand...

A couple of days before show day and I hadn't yet answered my phone to anyone professing to be Mr. Billington. I didn't know if to be disappointed, or relieved. Nevertheless, with still a few more days to go, i was still very wary every time I answered, just incase, just incase...! My phone had been ringing quite a bit too, we had done a few pre-sales but nowhere near enough to start feeling comfortable, or daring to dream about breaking even yet.

Our newest member of the crew, Chris, had designed us a brand new snazzy website, and for the first time it felt like we were catching up with the rest of the world.

Previously, the online part of Grand Pro had been all over the place. We had one URL for blogs, a different URL for the shop and a third different URL for the main site. It was nobodies fault, it was just what we had to do to get by without having the right people doing the right jobs. Chris was able to make everything cleaner and most importantly, put everything under one roof. We were finally, finally able to start selling tickets online! Halleluiah!

In this day in age, you absolutely have to offer customers a range of options on how to purchase goods or services. The more ways there are to pay, the better chance you have at selling your product. I'd flirted with the Skiddle website that a few promotions are now favouring, but selling tickets directly through grandprowrestling.co.uk gave us ultimate control and added value to the company, not to mention that it created much needed traffic through our brand new site. Or at least, that was the goal. In the lead up to NOTB, we ran promotional bundle deals for DVDs and tickets to the show, of which we sold zero. It's all a learning process for our fans though, older fans may just be used to turning up and paying on the night, or paying over the phone, in future however, I hope we can get more people using the site and see a big turn around.

We were now at the business end of the month and I still had every reason to feel confident about the card, and confident about the draw. I had been looking forward to our last 3 shows of the year since we booked the 2011 dates in mid 2010. I had visions of high draws and big profits. I knew that after a long 3 month break, our October draw would be good. Our middle show of the three, November, which could arguably be the banana peel of the trio promised something different and was attractive to a new audience that should sure up any gaps. And, for our last show of the year in December, i'd hoped that our traditional big draw for the year end finale would continue and that we could get our hooks into any new audience with storylines from October and November to tempt them back for the December show. However, since the October ring break all that logic had gone completely out of the window. Despite the air of confidence, it was nail biting time!

In the week leading up to the show, we were given yet another big screen set-back.

This was becoming quite a saga. Since the new management had taken over the venue, the old council screens had been done away with and never replaced. I was promised by the new management in June, they would replace them, but... they hadn't. I had lived in hope for October, but still nothing. I was told that they'd be in for November latest though. So, a week before the show I checked in with them, thinking they'd already be up and running. They weren't. By "replacing them", the actually meant trying to get them back off the council. Yeah, no chance. We were going to be screen-less for the foreseeable future.

As blog readers will already know, I hate being without our big screens. The overall production of British wrestling has come on leaps and bounds these last 3 years or so. At one point, i'd like to think of ourselves as market leaders in that field, but with no big screen to air music videos, entrance logos, show logos etc. on we were far from that now. I actually felt embarrassed without them. Venue management finally admitted they were unlikely to get the screens back for the show, or for future shows, I wish i'd known that in June! But, at least we were able to start planning ahead now. As in June and in October, I wasn't going to take the news lying down, it was Operation Replacement Screen Part II. For some of the plans in the can, it was imperative we had that screen up and running...

When we first scrambled around trying to assemble a last minute screen, we had 3 hours notice, this time - we had 7 days. In that time, I was able to source a new projector, one that was this time compatible with our laptop and one that, fingers crossed - would work! The only drawback was in order for us to have a screen, we'd have to have the dirty great big scaffolding rig back. It was a step back to 2006, but it was a step we really needed to make.

To add to my pre show woes, Rick aka Sam Shaw was the next person to send my nerves a-jangling. He wasn't finishing work until 6 and had to get through 45mins of traffic at rush hour on a Friday. He prepared me for the worst. I did my best to source a stand-in ring announcer, ready at a moments notice. This wasn't going to be pretty.

One worry off my mind however, was the injury to one half of our main event - Jason Logan. His hand injury had improved, he had more movement and was able to give the match 100%. But, that didn't stop the night prior to the show being spent in a sleepless torment. Would we lose money? Would we break even? Would the screen work? Would the main event get over? Was the card over-booked? Was our big draw, Zack Sabre Jr. going to arrive on time? And moreover, my main concern - would the ring turn up?

You'd think after all these years of promoting shows, these questions wouldn't stop me from sleeping. Wrong. Infact, shows of the past have been a lot less tormenting than the ones these days. I think the ring break the previous month, has re-newed my fear of things that "could", go wrong. I'd cut a deal with the SLAM ring crew over the cost of the ring for NOTB seeing as though we were set to lose money on the door due to the break the previous month. And even though I had absolutely no reason to second guess them, and they'd been a fantastic loyal ring crew over the 6 years we'd been using them - was the reduction in hire cost enough money to ensure they'd actually turn up? Time to find out, it was show day.

Come the day of the show, we had just over 70 pre-sales. Most of those though were people taking advantage of the half price offer from October, so on the day we were still chasing a good 300 walk ins if nothing but to keep the venue happy...

300 people walking into a live event one night before Bonfire Night? Jeez.

Over the years, i'd got used to arriving at the venue to find a surprise. As it turned out, there were more than one waiting for me this time...

In the 8 years we've been running shows at the Monaco, never once had the ring arrived before I had. Never. 4:30 was just about the record and 5:30 - 6 was the average. Just a few hours earlier, I'd been lying awake in bed worrying if Chris and SLAM were going to pitch up at all, I needn't have - they were already setting up when I arrived. I felt like throwing my arms around Chris in a long lost brother type fashion as I ran up to him and screamed "YOU'RE HERE!?"

Chris, as laid back as ever: "Of course we are buddy, we'd never let you down." Such a weight off my mind, now we just needed a respectable draw. Time for surprise No.2...

I walked into the Rose Club expecting to be met by the self proclaimed Super Granddaddy, venue manager, "Big" Tony. As of October, the new venue owners had appointed him the general manager at the venue and we'd got on like a house on fire. "Big" T was the 8th man in charge in as many years at The Monaco, and i'd quickly learnt that It is so important for us to have a good understanding and working relationship with those managers. I felt we'd established both those things with "Big" Tony within the first few minutes of our chatting. So, imagine my shock and surprise when I walked in and was met with yet another new manager! Another Tony, but much, much smaller, we'll call him "Small" Tony. I was taken aback, but apparently he'd taken over from "Big" T because it was closer for him to get to from where he lived. Oh well, here we go again as I set out to re-establish what we were all about, what he can expect from us etc. etc. now, for the 9th time in 8 years. Again, you'd think i'd be used to this, i'm not...!

Next up I was scheduled to meet someone else who i'd not met before, Zack Sabre Jr.

Zack arrived in Hindley just after I had. He was going to spend the weekend up North with us and wanted to stay as long as he could because he never really got bookings in the North of England, and to quote him, he "owes a lot to Lancashire for his wrestling style." I'd been offered some co-corporate hospitality tickets to watch the WWE house show at the M.E.N the night after NOTB and asked Zack if he wanted to go, his response was:

"Nah, fuck WWE mate. Let's get on the beers."

From that sentence alone, I could tell we were going to get on well. So, it was quite fitting that when I went to pick him up, just minutes after arriving at the train station, he was in the pub next door!

With Zack safely rescued from the Hindley drinking hole, the new manager met, the ring being set up, it was time to turn my attention to that dirty great big scaffolding rig that would hold our makeshift screen. Was the projector going to work was the major question!

Our main event of Ste Bin Man and Jason Logan were at the venue early, excited like children. With all that excitable energy, I enlisted their help with the scaffolding rig. Main event or not, hand injury, or not - they had dues to pay!

I'm not sure i've ever met more "can-do", practical people than these two! Both of them, Bin Man especially, ooze positivity and are fun to be around. Between the 3 of us after a few dark moments - we were able to get the rig and the projector set up... and, most importantly - working! We had a screen! Albeit a shabby looking one disguised in scaffolding and bed sheets, but we had one! And when an image was being projected onto it - it didn't look half as bad as i'd built it to be in my mind. I think we were safe. Phew.

The erection of the scaffold meant that we had to move all the merchandise stands to the side of the room. It wasn't ideal as the stands would be less prominent hidden down the side of the room, but it was our only option. We'd printed up some new flyers to sell on the stall with the card for the show printed on them, so hopefully that would create some kind of traffic to that side of the room and once the audience had noticed other people getting up, going over there, they would too, follow suit.

A missed call from Rick at 6:30 sent me into a mini panic, but luckily it was to say that he was through the worst of the traffic and would definitely make it on time. At 6:50, he walked through the door. Ahh, things were coming together! I prayed to Guy Fawkes himself

that the people of Wigan would be lighting fires and setting off fireworks on November 5th and not the night earlier, no distractions please! We needed 300 walk-ins, minimum!

As the clock counted down, there were no other real problems to report and still no phonecall from the Dynamite Kid (!) Was it the calm before the storm? It was 7pm and we were about to open the doors...

FINAL SHOW OF 2011 - December 2nd GPW: "Do Or Die" Rose Club, WN2 3EU tickets at £7.50 per person / £26 for a family of 4. http://www.grandprowrestling.co.uk

Final Part 3, next week!

Following the aftermath of "Friday Night Thriller V", we had an uphill battle to break even on our most expensive show of the year, GPW: "Night Of The Brave"...

Due to the ring break at FNTV and subsequent half price ticket offer to the follow up show, "Night Of The Brave" I spent most of the month with a target of breaking even in mind. Assuming everyone from FNTV came back with their ticket stubs,

we would be starting NOTB over £600 down.

Along with all the other show expenses, it was a massive, massive deficit to overcome. I was worried, real worried! We needed a huge draw and as many people through the door paying full price as possible. But, that was only half of the problem... the immediate headache was an awkwardly big re-book of the last two shows.

(Mikey Whiplash, one of the many to miss out at FNTV)

Storytelling is much simpler in triangles. We'd lost one side of our triangle by not being able to run the second half of FNTV. We weren't able to further storylines for Cyanide, Gallagher, Jiggy and Cameron, RJM & Echo, Kirby, Whippy, Bubblegum, Danny Hope, Dirk Feelgood or DDL. We had tried our best in the post show brawl to get over what we could, but had still left ourselves with a lot to do. We now had a hard job telling the stories we needed to in order to set up our big end of year finale in December. Instead of 2 shows then the finale, we had one, then the finale. A re-book was going to be tough.

There was one solution though, a Torneo Cibernetico.

In the post Friday Night Thriller V debrief, Jiggy was the first to raise the Cibernetico alarm. I, however was reluctant to run with it. I wanted to try and find another way round the problem. I didn't feel enough time had passed from our last Torneo, 13 months earlier. I wanted to create a sense of anticipation around the unique Survival match and felt that running them too frequently would impact on their exclusivity. We'd also had some early discussions for a different kind of Torneo in 2012, details on this will obviously stay close to my chest for now. Not to mention, the two opposing Team Captains we'd have to assign for NOTB would be exactly the same two Team Captains from the 2010 Torneo, Dirk Feelgood and Damon Leigh. Was I over-thinking it? Was there a work a-round? Or were we tied into another Torneo?

Aside the headaches of re-booking and the stress of filling the venue, there was some positive things happening behind the scenes in the build up to NOTB.

In Part 1 of the last blog, I talked about Rob Small having left the company and his departure having left a void in our play-by-play role. Rob had got involved in GPW through having known me since we were both about 4 years old. It was re-assuring and fulfilling having someone like Rob, who i'd known for years around to help. I've said it over and over again in these blogs, having reliable staff is essential to running any business, never underestimate or overlook anyone reliable willing to help. It was fitting then how Rob's position was filled. Along came Dave Riley to try the play-by-play boots on for size, ironically another individual who i'd known for 10 / 11 years.

I'd first met Dave through Damon who'd introduced us at a training session in 2000 / 2001. While Dave was trying his best to get through the training and realise his dream as a pro wrestling superstar, his apparent fear of the gym, and sunlight coupled with the fact that a Milky Bar Kid gimmick would never get over made sure that his dream of wrestling stardom never really left the ground. Not giving up, he re-emerged as a referee, which in actual fact, he was very good at. I ended up calling upon his officiating skills several times over the years but, his refereeing days turned out to be short lived before Dave seemingly disappeared. Fast forward a few years and Dave burst back onto the wrestling radar as a paying punter, along with a number of his friends. They'd all set up home at GPW and had regularly been attending shows for some time.

Among the posse of old faces Dave brought to the Ballroom was former wrestler turned punk rocker, Steve Starr. Ste is a real character and had wrestled for GPW on our first ever show "Defection" in July 2003 and then at the infamous "Nemesis" show in November of the same year. He was the first person to ever brave diving off the Monaco balcony at "Defection" in 3-way match against Heresy and Richard Noble. I always thought Ste could've made a big noise in pro wrestling and was always sad to see him walk away, but music ended up taking over and it meant that there had been no room for wrestling, until now. Along with Dave, Ste was now a paying punter and 8 years since last being at the Ballroom, he was back and loving the shows!

Dave put his name down for the play-by-play as soon as it came up and I just knew he'd be ideal for it. If ever there was a man who looked like a play-by-play guy, it's Dave. (I just wrote that, and still not sure if it's a compliment or a put down, you decide!). Dave was on the comms team for FNTV taking notes and he was set to debut at NOTB. I felt the same way about giving Dave a role in the company as I had done with Rob.

It's really nice to have the people around you that were there at the beginning.

We've seen a lot of faces walk through our doors, for sentiments sake alone, i'd like to have kept at least 90% of those who are either not involved in wrestling anymore, or not involved with the promotion anymore. Again, 'll let you decide who's in the 90% and who's in the 10%...

(One of the graphics Chris had made ahead of FNTV)

Dave's arrival mirrored Rob's. As in when help comes, it comes in abundance. When Rob arrived, he brought with him Terry Mercer, Rob Welsh and Gareth Dooton to name but 3, all of whom had some kind of influential effect on the company's growth. Dave's arrival brought Chris Smith. Chris, who'd been to the shows as a fan, had took it upon himself to make a poster for FNTV that had got everyone online talking. He'd done an ace job and got in touch to ask if we wanted more of the same. The answer to that was simple - of course we did!

As a graphic designer by trade, Chris was, pretty much able to change our image overnight. Prior to him coming on board we'd relied on photographers doing web design jobs, shoe salesman making DVD covers, investment managers designing posters and so on and so on. With Chris on the team, it allowed people to do the jobs they were qualified for, and he concentrated on design.

(Tony's NOTB poster.)

Chris had joined us too late for the poster run for NOTB, both Tony and Jiggy designed a poster each for the show. But, in the month's build up to NOTB, we had a new (at this point unofficial) logo, a new website, a new look and quite a few people talking. Welcome aboard Chris!

Back to the Torneo debate, and it was a debate I was definitely losing.

Jiggy and I must have gone back and forth on 10 or more different card drafts, but every which way we tossed up the stories, they ended up being too bunched up, and as a result - the show overbooked. Even a Rumble or a Battle Royal, which had gotten us out of a booking hole before had its major drawbacks. In the end, I had no choice but to relent, accept and embrace the second Torneo in 13 months.

Jiggy had been right all along, the clever bastard.

On with the promotion of the event and it was a second month on the serious advertising offensive. With the NPWA piss take the month before, and now the battle against the half price onslaught, I decided on extra adverts, extra flyers, extra posters - extra everything. The aim for all our shows has always been to pick up new audience as we go, but now more than ever we needed a large influx of new audience to counter the half price discounts on the door. Luckily for us, two matches we'd booked long before FNTV were booked with attracting a whole load of new audience in mind. We needed to advertise the life out of NOTB, and we had a few hooks to help us do just that...

(Zack Sabre Jr. credit Tony Knox)

I'd been trying to bring Zack Sabre Jr. to GPW since October of the previous year, but whenever I tried - there'd always be a date clash. Eventually, our dates tallied up and we were able to book him for NOTB in a dream match we'd been trying to book for 12 months! Zack Sabre Jr. vs. British Champion, Jack Gallagher. I also booked our first women's match in over 4 years as we brought in April Davids to take on Jenny Sjoden.

It may have taken 12 months to book Zack, but in that time he'd notched up a 3 month tour of Japan with NOAH as well as a tour of the States with the likes of HWA, Chikara, EVOLVE, CZW and more. This gave us extra punch on all press for the event that we wouldn't of had 12 months earlier. April too had also been to Japan on her own separate tour so we were able to use that to our advantage in the press and it lead to a very interesting invite... more on that later!

There's not many, if any, big drawing matches left in the UK.

I'd be hard pressed to give you two names who'd never fought before, or maybe even who had, that would excite people and spur them into buying a ticket to the show as much as Gallagher vs. Sabre Jr. would. With that said, I knew the match would bring in a new audience. I decided to capitalise on that forecast by also booking a women's match, Jenny Sjodin vs. April Davids. The thinking behind it being that it would also attract another set of new fans. I'd hoped for our regulars draw, topped up by the Zack / Jack draw and topped up again with the women's draw. I had high hopes for a sell out, or at least 350 plus, and even higher hopes for a decent profit making show. But, the half price ticket offer had cast some serious doubt over any big profits from NOTB. I was sure it was still going to be busy, but we'd need double the forecasted amount to sit comfortably in profit, or even just to break even! Could we do it?

One of the things that had won me over most with the Torneo was that it was a "GPW match". There's no other European company that can lay claim to doing a Torneo. If we were going to get a load of new audience in and wanted to show them what GPW were all about, why not give them something we had made our own? Something that they couldn't get anywhere else? Put like that, I wonder why I ever questioned doing the match in the first place. It was our best chance yet to sell the company to a new audience.

With the Torneo, the women's match and the British Title match booked,

it gave us 3 unique selling points in the press.

And of course, talk about selling the company - we'd long had the North West Rookie League Final scheduled for November 4th too, it was top to bottom a great way of saying to the wrestling world "this is what we're about." I had every reason to feel positive about the size of the draw, but more worryingly, would it be enough for us to break even? Or, against the odds, could we even turn a profit?

There was a lot of pressure in the air, and the weeks leading up to the show were particularly tense. Venue management started to put the screws in, obviously with FNTV ending before the second half could begin, they'd only done half a nights takings behind the bar. It was no longer a council run venue, this was a business and their business needs were the same as our, or any business needs, we/they need to be turning profit, which neither of us had done at FNTV. They wanted more, I wanted more - but all that is easier said than done when you're up against what we were up against!.

I had several meetings with management as we brainstormed ideas to help us both, there were some good suggestions put into motion, but the outcome of the meeting was - the rent was going up. Owch. Not by loads, not by a totally unmanageable amount, but it was another squeeze on an already very tight looking show. They set me a target of 350 - 400 people, do-able. We'd had that figure in before. But, our average draw thus far in 2011 was 229, our average draw over our 8 years of shows at The Monaco is 262. We needed to find another 120 / 170 people, whoa. A tough call. Would these USP's be enough to bring in the extra? I had some serious work, and praying to do.

I found an in with the local rag: the connection between Wigan and Japan. "How?" I hear you ask. The answer,

Tommy Billington aka The Dynamite Kid.

Billington, famously from the Wigan area had become a legend in Japan before ever gaining any recognition in the States. His training in Wigan had taken him to Stampede Wrestling in Canada before touring Japan for IPW in 1979 and then again the year later for NJPW. From there his reputation skyrocketed.

His name is the first name out of many locals' mouths when the mere mention of wrestling crops up. His achievements in the ring helped put Wigan on the map, for something I genuinely, strongly believe local people have absolutely no idea how much the area is revered for. Even asking a life long resident of the area

"what is Wigan famous for?"

they'll probably list 10 things before they say wrestling. I accept that wrestling has a long way to go before it can dislodge Rugby League from people's mindsets, but I passionately believe it should be at least the second thing people think of when they think of Wigan.

Afterall, the list of names doesn't just stop with Tommy Billington. If the people of Wigan knew how much Billington is held in legendary / godlike status among wrestlers and wrestling fans the Globe over, they'd shudder in disappointment for not embracing the man, or the sport more. Our generation are the generation in a position to make a change whilst Tommy's achievements are still fresh in people's minds, in another generation, it could be too late. I personally look toward wrestlers like Jack Gallagher, who train at the famed Snake Pit that spawned Billington as the individuals to once again put Lancashire wrestling on the map and get a new generation of people interested in the sport in this area. It's something the town, the county and the country should be a lot more proud of. It's time for England, it's time for the North West of England, and more importantly it's time for Lancashire to take wrestling back!

Billington, nowadays is every bit as well known for being withdrawn from the sport as he was when he was in it. His relentless in ring style and drug abuse have meant that he is confined to a wheelchair with an amputated leg coming across in interviews as wanting nothing more to do with the sport. He, to my knowledge has only made one public appearance on the UK wrestling scene since his retirement, and that was over 10 years ago. So, imagine my delight / concern / horror when the press pounced on the Wigan, Japan, Dynamite Kid references and printed a public invitation to the man himself. Would he call and book tickets? Would he call and verbally tear me a new arsehole for whoring his name out in the press? Would he even get to hear about the invite? He was only a few miles away from the venue, he hadn't ever been to one of our shows before, that I know of - why would he come now?

You've read that and thought to yourself, "there's no way Dynamite Kid would ever turn up to a wrestling show!" Well, the invite wasn't so pie in the sky as it may seem...

(Harry Smith, son of "British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith)

In 2005, at GPW: "Wanted" we had TJ Wilson (now of course Tyson Kid with WWE) vs. Mikey Whiplash. Thinking of the mass press coverage, I had originally tried to book "The British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith's son, Harry Smith for the match but he was unavailable. Our next best bet was his tag team partner, TJ. TJ also just happened to be Harry's best friend and in a long term relationship with Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart's daughter, Natalyia Neidhart. Due to his connections to the Smith and Hart families, we brought him in and were able to begin spinning the press.

Davey Smith's parents heard about TJ being on the show and bought tickets to see him fight. It was a total surprise for me, and a real honour to think that the parents of arguably

Britains most famous wrestling export,

were watching our show! So Tommy Billington showing up wasn't so far fetched, or was it? I nervously answered the phone every time it rang in the weeks leading up to "Night Of The Brave", just in case the Dynamite Kid was on the other end!

All press out, matches decided on and ticket sales starting to come in - I was as ready as any promoter would facing a £600 handicap before the doors had opened...!

Find out in Part 2 if The Dynamite Kid blew up my celly. What dramas went down in the final lead up to the show. A last minute injury to one half of our main event. Some last minute setbacks. A brave decision and much more!

Tickets for our final show of 2011 on December 2nd are on sale now!

Buy yours by calling 07703 312 146 or visiting http://www.grandprowrestling.co.uk/shop

Live the drama!

Despite the signs pointing to disaster, all were duly ignored, and it was show day. I was really eager to get back in the saddle and excited about the show we had lined up. However, that excitement suffered a serious gut punch when I pulled up at the venue...

Every year without fail, no matter when in the month we have a show - once a year, the fair is always in town, directly opposite the venue. Shit. Every year without fail, I forget about it too. Not that that would matter. I'm convinced the people running the fair purposely put it on to clash with our dates. Forget NPWA and PCW, this was a massive threat to attendance. Circus', fairs, other events attracting large groups of children and families usually spell the death nail for any wrestling show in the area. Doomed? Just maybe.

We never make any money on the door.

It's usually all gained from merchandise sales, I was hopeful we had an ace up our sleeve in a new DVD release. After the odd speed bump, we'd finally got round to releasing our "500 DVD". A DVD celebrating our 500th match with 15 of the best out of the last 500. I'd had 3 months to ask round fans and wrestlers alike to get an idea of which matches they felt should go on, but it hadn't made the decision process any easier at all! My initial shortlist consisted of 42, I was proud of myself for whittling that down, but the list was still 36 matches strong. I left it and left it, chopped a couple more off and got to 28, I left it again and with my 3 months very nearly up and 10 days before FNTV, in the end I just had to pick 15 matches at random.

(Our 5th Anniversary Show from 2008 available on DVD at http://www.grandprowrestling.co.uk/shop)

I'm proud of our DVD team being able to turn round the DVD's quickly, but, this quick turn around has left us with a DVD library of over 60 shows! Unless you're a fan who's followed us for a bit, or know something about the product, the wrestlers etc. being faced with over 60 shows to choose from, you're never going to be able to make a decision and we risk you walking away without making a purchase. The 500 DVD, I hoped would help people decide which one to buy. 500 of The Best Matches, would surely cut right through all the decision making process and make it easier for the customer to part with their £10, and at just over 65p per match - that price was a bargain. I'd hoped for an increase in business to hopefully make up for any shortfall on the door. Would we get it?

It had been 3 months since I was last at the Monaco, since then it had undergone quite a few noticeable changes. Mainly, the name. The Tyrer brothers, Gary and Kerry owners of 8th Wonder, the company that had bought all the old council venues had re-branded as Rose Leisure and The Monaco was now - The Rose Club. I loved the new name, I think Wrestling at the Rose Club has a real ring to it. But, i'm sure it'll take many a year for locals to start calling it such, and to many The Rose Club will always be The Monaco / The Man-A-Ka - / The Moan-a-go-go / The Mon-acha / The Monacorr / The Manacka / The Monacooo, depending on which Wigan accent is pronouncing it, there are several colourful ones!

As well as a change in staff (the chap mentioned in my previous blog, you know - the guy going to see Peter Kay about doing a show there, the one getting a Lexus company car) was sacked, and in his place came Big Tony. There were some obvious aesthetic changes to the venue too. Backstage now had a shower, much to many of the boys' delight, there was a new box office, new flooring and several other changes underway. It was starting to look a lot better but it was still mid change and a bit messy.

I'd briefly spoken to but never met Big Tony before, he had been appointed the new Rose Club manager and I was set to meet him face to face for the first time. As with any of the new managers we've had since being at the venue, it was a new battle to help him understand wrestling. Half my battle was won when I heard him talk on the phone, the conversation, in one of those wonderful regional Wigan accents, went something like this:

"Nay chance me gerrin in that ring on Friiidee'neet lad? Me wiiiife thinks i'm reet big fat bastard, 'n I am! I'm 25 storrrne, that's why they call me Big Ton-eh! I'm 65 year old, 25 stone fat bastard,

but I won't harf shurra few people up if I gorrin that ring on Friiidee'neet cock."

With only me stopping to giggle, Big Tone relentlessly continued...

"I'm a grandad, does thee knorr!" (funnily enough, this being the first conversation i'd ever had with him, this was news to me) "You could call me Super Grandaddy 'n I could show me wiiiife that i'm not such a fat lazy bastard afterall and can still do a bit, ya know? I use play rugby, me, professionally when i were a youngun like..."

Whilst Big Tony carried on these thoughts ran through my head. 25 stone, 65 year old grandad, with a bit of banter and used to play rugby. A real old school publican demeanour about him on the phone - those components considered, I knew half the battle had been won. He sounded like a real man's man and someone we wouldn't have to necessarily go on the charm offensive with. I immediately liked him and had been looking forward to meeting him.

When I did, Tony's belly arrived about 2 or 3 minutes before the rest of him, his wife wasn't lying.... but he was every bit i'd hoped he would be. Easy going, understanding of wrestling, knew about us, knew about the product, wanted his family to come and see the show that night and was really accommodating. I was feeling really positive during our conversation about our upcoming working relationship, then he threw in something to make my head spin, he said:

"Well, thee'll be busy taneet then lad. It's the Rose Leisure first staff neet out taneet and they're comin here..."

As that one sunk in, "Super Grandaddy" waddled off: "Ta da cock, see'thee later."

Half of me was pleased, the other half, scared shitless.

 We were going to get a load more walk ins i'd not forecast for and that might help counter the threat of the fair, but they were all going to be employees of the company that owned the building. Pressure was on!

Among the mixed news, there was some definite good news too. Bubblegum, a few days earlier had checked in to say he was off the crutches and fit enough for the match. This was a massive weight off my mind, and too for the two North West Rookies involved in the match too. Both Jason and Ste had been really nervous about teaming up with the vets and even those nerves were compounded when they'd learnt of Pip's injury. The news of his recovery help settle them down, but the two were still very much on edge. If only the knew what lay ahead...

By 4:30, the ring arrived. It's always a huge weight off my mind to know that the ring is actually in the building and not stuck in traffic on the motorway somewhere! Chris and the boys travel a long way up from Northampton and in all the near 7 years we've been using them, Chris has never let us down. The SLAM ring was one of the most used rings in the UK at one point and It seemed like the same ring was at every show across the country! I asked Chris if he'd been busy recently, as laid back as ever, he told me he hadn't been. He'd hardly done any jobs since our last show, something that would later come back to haunt us...

Time marched on, and the 7pm door time got closer and closer. Gary, the venue owner was buzzing around with Big Tony at about 6:55 saying there were loads of people outside, open the doors now and get them in, it was one of the first events under their banner and I think they were excited. My nerves too had been displaced by excitement and I was really looking forward to delivering the awesome show we had planned. All the concerns about the effect on the draw were beginning to vanish too. Ring in, roster in (thankfully none of them on crutches), everybody knew their roles and it was time to kick off our leg of the THW and show these Rose Leisure staff just how we roll.

7pm came and it was time to let the public into our most unpredictable show of the year, Friday Night Thriller V.  

Just how unpredictable would things get?

We were about to find out!

A steady influx of punters gave us a quick head count of 217 just before 7:30 and there were still more coming in. I'd hoped for 300 considering we'd been missing for 3 months, but 217 plus was still a good draw, especially with the fair across the road. I was happy, the venue looked busy and we were ready to rock. I gave the nod to Chris Egan and Sam Shaw to get the show on the road and looked forward to see how the crowd would take to our opening segment...

It was Jiggy's idea to start the show with an angle. We'd made a habit of it back in 2006 / 2007, but had only done it sparingly since then. Starting off on angles, isn't always the best idea because by the time the show is underway, all the fans want is to see some action. WWE start every single Raw off on an angle, but... the big difference is, they're a TV show, we're a live show.

It was a risk, but one thing we always try and do is keep people guessing and never do the same show twice.  The angle was worth a roll of the dice, it was different and knowing our hardcore fan base well, I think they'd appreciate the characters involved and the story we were selling without the atmosphere falling flat before we'd started.

The angle was for Danny, who was a named participant in the 4-way to come out and announce his withdrawal due to injury from the match, which brought out Jack Gallagher, the title holder who's belt would be up for grabs later and then Mikey Whiplash, who had been previously unannounced to come and take Danny's place in the 4-way. The angle was intended to be a slow burner with the pay off later in the show, whilst the crowd didn't jump up and down screaming their lungs out at every spoken word, they reacted well and took the angle on board, little did they know at this point - they'd never see the pay off.

During the angle, Jiggy and I had kept an eye on the punters coming in, and to our surprise for the second month on the bounce - we had a adult dominated show. Later, I would find out, we'd only sold 3 family tickets! An audience like that was so rare for us, if the fair had caused a drop in numbers, I day dreamed a moment to wonder how full the venue might have been if any potential families had had their head turned by the fair. We could've had a sell out! Was it a change in this year's direction? The wrestling? What was the reason for our upturn in adults?

I left the question pondering until later as we went straight from the angle into the 4-way match to determine the number one contender to Jack Gallagher's title for a title match later that night. I'd asked all 4 guys to go out there at full throttle. I wanted to come back after our break with a bang! With the names involved, I was certain we could do that giving the crowd a MOTN and leaving them with their jaws on the floor. However, it didn't go like that.

While Noam was individually fantastic, and had improved tenfold from his last appearance, all 4 guys just didn't seem to gel well together. Couple of missed strikes in the early going, couple of spots that led nowhere made it hard work for the rest of the match. There was some good stuff in there, but not all of it joined together consistently.  

I was hoping for 10/10, at a push, I think we got 7/10.

(Man Of The Match, Noam Dar)

After the match was over, the seeds were sewn for some developing storylines later in the evening. I checked in with Mikey as he had a fairly quick turn around time for his second part of double duty. He was good to go and so were we, match 1 down, it was time for the return of Voodoo in match 2...

Greg aka Voodoo had not been on a GPW show since May 2010. He'd been studying in Hong Kong since June last year and had returned in June this year. He'd kept his hand in the mix having got on the roster of a local HK fed and done a number of shows over there, but - he was overjoyed to be back with us and eager to get back involved. I, too was eagerly anticipating his return.

Greg and his brothers Mike and Alan have long been the source of some of the craziest and stupidest ideas we've ever had, Greg taking credit for main instigator.

Without some of the totally insane Tasker ideas of the past, GPW definitely wouldn't be the place it is now.

Greg had come to me about 3 weeks before the show, not asking, but stating:

"I want to make Fox do the Thriller dance and i'm going to turn the referee into Michael Jackson."

"What has Greg been smoking now?" is a oft used term among the GPW guys, and was my exact thought after hearing of his latest crazy idea. As with most of Greg's ideas, I laughed, told him I didn't want to make Fox look a fool and duly forgot about it. 1 week later, he was back, asking again.

"Now that Fox isn't doing the match anymore, can we make Bruce dance instead?"

I'd forgotten about it, clearly Greg hadn't."Ok Greg, give me more details."

He told me about how he was going to use Voodoo, have loads of zombies in the ring and make everyone dance, then turn the ref into Michael Jackson.

"Dancing zombies? Easy enough. Voodoo spells? Standard. But how are you going to turn the ref into Jacko?" I asked. "I don't know." was what I got back.

The funny thing was, for as long as we've been doing Thriller shows, i've always, always wanted to start the show off with the Thriller dance and a load of dancing zombies. I'd nearly one year come close to hiring a dance group to do it, but here was Greg offering, I wasn't going to turn him down. I ok'd it and over the next 2 weeks, for hours and hours on end, Greg, a collection of zombies and Bruce practiced the Thriller dance.

Greg seemed to be in as much control as Greg can ever be of a situation, so I gave him an outline for the match and let him get on with the trimmings. The night before the show I checked in with him to see how it was coming along, to my horror, I was met with:

"Well, everyone knows it inside out apart from Bruce..."

Not really what I wanted to hear. "How long do you think he needs to get it right?".

"About another 4 / 5 hours minimum...". Oh, how I worry about Bruce!

By the time they'd all get to the venue, we wouldn't have another 4 or 5 hours to play with.

Earlier in the day, they'd all arrived at the venue about 3:30 and practiced and practiced and practiced. I watched a rehearsal and immediately jumped on Greg, "There's no way this dance can go on this long." I said. It has to be said, and it has been said before, the Tasker brand of humour is an eclectic taste to say the least. I was worried, as I always am with any of Greg's ideas - that if this thing didn't get over, we'd be up shit creek without a paddle and Voodoo's big return in the dump. "Is there anything you can take out?" We went back and forth with it:

"The dance is only 2 minutes long, and trust me - it doesn't seem it!"

"2 minutes?! It's too long Greg, take something out."

"Trust me, it WILL be funny."

"I know your type of funny Greg and the majority of people probably wouldn't agree..."

"Just trust me."

He was very persistent, and that was something he hadn't been before. Greg had actually improved ten fold in his match planning and storytelling and against my better judgement, I ok'd 2 minutes.

Jiggy, who had arrived mid rehersal #227 took one look, shook his head and said:

"We don't half let Voodoo get away with some stuff you know mate."

I was quick to remind him that this was the stuff we'd allowed, imagine the stuff we hadn't!

The moment of truth was here. Never mind the stupid dance, Bruce had a 7 minute match to remember! Could he do it? Had he done it? It was time to tell. The idea had been to play the amazing Voodoo-made "Voodoo Return" video before the match started to build up an atmosphere, but with no screens - that was impossible! But that video can be seen here:

It was into the match cold and I took up residence in the audience to test the waters for Voodoo's reactions. I was nervous about everything to do with this match, but so badly wanted it to go well.

My nerves were settled at the start as the two got good reactions and went through the opening sequences. Then came the Voodoo spell to signal the start of the Thriller dance. Here we go... we were going to get laughs, walk outs, boo's? More importantly, would Bruce remember it?

The zombies came through the curtain (who all looked absolutely great) to a tepid audience reaction... , they took their spots in the ring and the music hit. It was obvious from the first beat and the first dance move what it was all about and the audience, i'm pleased to say - roared with laughter! I was totally over the moon. It's so important to include laughs as part of the show and we've done all sorts of comedy on our shows before, but this was by far the best and the biggest reaction ever.

The crowd clapped along as I think they forgot they were at a wrestling show. Just as they were dying down at about 1 minute 30 seconds in, and I was saying to myself "i knew Greg should've finished it earlier!" from underneath the ring, the referee (who'd disappeared quietly earlier) re-appeared dressed as Michael Jackson got into the ring and busted his own moves, the crowed popped again and it resulted in one of the best things we've ever done! It didn't even matter that Bruce was laughing all the way through it, at least, if not slightly out of time - he had remembered everything!

(Voodoo, Buce & The Zombies, great job!)

The dance itself, can be seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBmBH3aTXbI

Greg was right, it didn't feel like 2 minutes and I was the first to tell im I was wrong. He was back, and more over than he'd ever been, the crowd chanted his name louder than i've ever heard. I was absolutely made up, and the crowd were too! But things weren't going to stay so jubilant for long...

It was time to test the metal of the two NWRL finalists, Ste "Bin" Man and Jason Logan. The two were about to mark their long journey into professional wrestling with two incredible tag partners who brought with them a wealth of experience, Martin Kirby and Bubblegum respectively. I was every bit excited as I knew Ste and Jase were nervous, it meant a lot to them to be tagging with Kirby and Pip.

Even after 3 months off, the crowds' love for Bin Man hadn't dwindled as they came off their seats and joyously chanted his name as he and Kirby made their way to the ring. I was pleased too with Jason's reaction with Pip. I knew how nervous Jase was, but he didn't one bit look like it. He's a mean looking sucker when he wants to be with a really imposing frame, I was really looking forward to watching him and Ste interact with the two established stars.

Before the bell rung, we'd scripted a Mikey Fitzgeral "respect the ref" promo, and I was really happy with the way Mikey delivered it. We were still telling the story of a heel ref, and furthering his storyline with Kirby, and as you're about to find out - I was very pleased he was in there!

(Bin Man and Logan)

The match started well, everything was going to plan and both Jase and Ste looked totally at home in main event company. But, disaster was just around the corner. I sat on the balcony with a birdseye view of the action as Kirby took Jase up top for a superplex. A big move by anyone's expectations, but standard at the same time. The two came off the top rope and hit the canvass, then something made only of nightmares happened, the ring let out a cracking sound and the canvass they'd just landed on sunk as the ring folded around them both. I got a text on my phone from Rick the announcer saying "The ring is fucked - what shall we do?"

I looked at the ring crew sat next to me, and pleaded with them to get down there as quickly as possible, "I think one of the boards is out" (a common problem). I was being optimistic.

It was blatantly obvious to the naked eye that there was no way we could continue the match. But how do we do it without insulting the fans' intelligence? I had an idea but before I got had chance to reply to Rick's text to convey it, Pip picked up the bell and rang it himself declaring he wouldn't go back into the ring because it was unsafe. We had an out. Mikey then got on the mic and announced that he was DQ'ing Kirby because it was his superplex that had broken the ring. It was on the spot magic. It was absolutely genius. It gave us the result we'd booked and still furthered the Kirby / Fitz story, plus gave us time to fix the ring as the interval was next. I remained optimistic, I shouldn't have...

For approximately the next 3 minutes that followed, I remained optimistic, telling myself, "it's a board that's gone, it's easily fixable." It wasn't just a board that had gone, and more importantly - it wasn't fixable. To put it in Lehman's terms and in exactly the same way Chris explained it to me, the ring was fucked. In more technical terms, the spring that supports the underneath of the ring and gives it that "spring", had snapped. A solid metal object, completely broken in two. The chances of which happening, more than a million to one!

I honest to God, can't quite put into words what my feelings were right at that moment. It felt like the eyes of the entire Ballroom were on me, gazing. Like the lights went out and a spotlight was on me, burning a hole right where I stood, if only - i may have jumped in it if it was! A host of people came up to me, none of them registered. They were waiting for me to make the call. I refused to call time on the show until i'd searched every possible option open to us. Could we replace what was broken? Could we re-book the second half? Could we support the ring in anyway for us to be able to continue? The answer to every question, was no. The ring had now sunk completely and resembled a skate park, I think it was obvious to the audience what was happening and that the show wasn't going to get its second half.

I headed to the back to seek the opinion of some trusted members of the roster. I immediately headed for Dirk, Damon and Jiggy. Three cool heads who would feel exactly the same way as I about cancelling the second half of the show. They wouldn't want to do it. FutureShock promoter Dave Rayne's words were ringing in my ear too, a fellow promoters viewpoint was a welcomed one at that time. Whilst secretly thanking his lucky stars, he must've known how it felt for me.

Danny Hope, Chris Egan and Joey joined the emergency meeting in the back but the answers were the same - we couldn't go on. We could support the ring, somehow, but

it would've been a total insult of people's intelligence.

We had one bullet in the gun we could fire - a brawl outside of the ring, but we couldn't run the remaining the 3 matches like that and we couldn't tell the stories we'd booked. We'd get one brawl to try and send the audience home happy and tell as much story as we could. But the show, was over. We quickly came up with a refund / compensation package of half price into the next show, November 4th.

Before we made the decision final, I waded through the Rose Leisure staff to speak to the two venue owners and venue manager, Gary, Kerry and Big Tony to put the problem in their laps and see if there was anything they would do. They were as matter of fact as everyone else was about it - "if the ring is broken, you can't go on." I explained the refunds / compensation package to them and completely unexpectedly, they offered to chip in with it, offering free tickets to an event at the Rose Club the following week. It was extremely kind of them and I was very thankful. The kindness didn't stop there either, on my way to the back to make it official among the boys, Dave Rayne approached me again to offer his support and free tickets to his part of the THW on Sunday. Again, totally unexpected and very generous.

I think something kicked in, it was like an outer body experience as I told the guys it was over, but my heart felt on the floor. First thing was first and that was to book the brawl. Jiggy and I quickly went back and forth on it, we both stumbled on something but Damon was the one who chipped in with the final product. Jiggy relayed the rest of the message to the roster who had one chance to listen and take it in, as I had to tell Rick, our announcer what was happening.

I sat down with Rick, went over the options for refunds and compensation and told him what to say. He looked like I felt. He didn't want to go out there, to be honest - if I were him, neither would I. I thought about breaking kayfabe and going out there myself so he wouldn't have to, but I just couldn't. Rick was an absolute rock though, and agreed to do it saying it was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do. I knew how he felt, this was the hardest thing i'd ever had to do too. It wasn't just letting down the fans, it was the guys who'd not been out and done their match yet, guys who'd travelled a long way, taken days off from their real job etc. etc. it was just about the worst thing to happen.

Another rock in this crisis was Dave Rayne,

an absolute legend infact. He offered his help with the tickets, and offered to make Mikey vs. Jack at his show for the GPW British Title and offered us the footage to use. An amazing offer, North West solidarity was back!

After about 30 minutes since the ring crushing superplex, Rick went out to announce the premature end of the night. His genuine, sincere and likeable character shone through and in a night where unexpected people came out of the woodwork to help, Rick really did stand tall among them and was my Man Of The Night #1. It was a job I wouldn't have wished on anyone, but he handled it masterfully. The initial announcement did get a "ahhh" from the crowd, but it didn't last long and before we knew it, they were chanting GPW GPW GPW again.

The rushed booked brawl, Damon, Jiggy and I had put together backstage followed and we entertained the crowd some more. What helped was giving them the bad news first, then entertaining them beyond what they thought they were going to get. I'm sure with our audience being adult-heavy, that many people could see there was no way we could continue, so to at least look like we'd tried was important. We ended the night, like we always like to end nights, with the crowd chanting GPW! GPW! GPW! GPW!

In a night of absolute disaster, you have to look for the good.

I was so thankful that the NWRL boys were in there with two experienced guys for a start. I was thankful for Pip and Fitzy for being so quick witted, thankful Voodoo, Bruce and the rest of the zombies had done such a good job with their segment. They'd really entertained the crowd, and with the 3 matches and 1 angle we'd given them, we'd pretty much given them a full spectrum of a wrestling show.

Most of the boys refused their wages after the news, no one wanted to take it and I quite literally had to force it in their hand where some people were concerned, but there was one man who was more adamant than most about not taking their wage, and physically wouldn't let me give it to him, that man was Dirk Feelgood. A rare breed and a truely wonderful guy to have around.

With so many people coming up to me, offering advice, offering their take on things none of it really stuck with me, apart from something a man who was close to Rick's Man Of The Night award as Man Of The Night #2, and that was Dave Rayne. Dave, very calmly said - "it's today, October 7th 2011 that GPW fans on October 7th 2022 will be saying 'remember when the ring broke, we were there for that', people pull through a crisis together, and you've got the fan base to do that." and he was right, he was so right. It was sound advice from a man I was very glad to have around that evening. With all the prickly goings on in the THW from June, it was a polarizing moment.

I braced myself for the worst when I asked venue management about complaints and/or kick offs from the exiting audience, but to my surprise - there were none. I was devastated when I left the building that night, but waking up the next day knowing that there was nothing else that could have been done eased my mind a little. But my eased mind wouldn't stay that way for long...

IN RESPONSE TO GREG LAMBERT & THE XWA:

The next night was XWA's leg of the THW. It was a night where Greg had given us the ok to go and flyer his event to help promote our next show. It was a generous notiion, but one I felt we were owed after such a lackadaisical effort to promote the THW in June. I sent along Bin Man and Dylan to do the flyering, two stand up guys who I know would do a good job. After the fuss Greg had made with his YouTube posting and anyone from GPW having to pay for tickets, I made sure Dylan and Ste were ok with paying to watch the show and to flyer the venue. They were, so the job was on, or not as the case was.

They started flyering at the interval, only to be rudely approached by XWA staff. Dylan and Ste said they had permission from Greg and responded to being spoken to in such a derogatory manner by making a point of cheering for RJM in his match. They had both trained at the GPW gym with RJM and know him well outside of the ring, the fact that he was booked on an XWA show to play heel was just unfortunate for Greg. If his staff hadn't of spoken down to Dylan or Ste, and had been less aggressive about it, they might have played along and boo'd, but because they cheered, the venue staff then were instructed to evict them from the building. WHOA.

Wait up, as if my weekend wasn't going like shit anyway and on Saturday night I get a bundle of texts and calls from Ste and Dylan telling me what's happening. What the fuck was Greg playing at? He, invited us to his show, which we paid to get in and now he's having his heavies throw us out?

I've bided my time to respond whilst I thought about this. I've spoken to Greg about it and heard his side of the story, I can accept what he's saying and have asked Dylan and Ste to apologies for any disruptive part they may have played, but I have had no apology from XWA side and I think this boils down to one thing - paranoia.

Greg doesn't want us to flyer his event, of course he doesn't. He's scared of losing custom. He tried to play it down the middle in the build up to the THW, but when it came down to it, even with half a show on the night before, we'd proven we're the better product. Greg knows it, and is scared his fans would become our fans. Before XWA was even thought of, Greg was a GPW fan.

He wishes his XWA outfit was as good as ours, but Greg it isn't. Keep trying, and we'll see you at the next THW. Maybe.

GPW: "Night Of The Brave" November 4th Rose Club, Atherton Rd. WN2 3EU £7.50per person! http://www.grandprowrestling.co.uk

Despite the signs pointing to disaster, all were duly ignored, and it was show day. I was really eager to get back in the saddle and excited about the show we had lined up. However, that excitement suffered a serious gut punch when I pulled up at the venue...

Every year without fail, no matter when in the month we have a show - once a year, the fair is always in town, directly opposite the venue. Shit. Every year without fail, I forget about it too. Not that that would matter. I'm convinced the people running the fair purposely put it on to clash with our dates. Forget NPWA and PCW, this was a massive threat to attendance. Circus', fairs, other events attracting large groups of children and families usually spell the death nail for any wrestling show in the area. Doomed? Just maybe.

We never make any money on the door.

It's usually all gained from merchandise sales, I was hopeful we had an ace up our sleeve in a new DVD release. After the odd speed bump, we'd finally got round to releasing our "500 DVD". A DVD celebrating our 500th match with 15 of the best out of the last 500. I'd had 3 months to ask round fans and wrestlers alike to get an idea of which matches they felt should go on, but it hadn't made the decision process any easier at all! My initial shortlist consisted of 42, I was proud of myself for whittling that down, but the list was still 36 matches strong. I left it and left it, chopped a couple more off and got to 28, I left it again and with my 3 months very nearly up and 10 days before FNTV, in the end I just had to pick 15 matches at random.

(Our 5th Anniversary Show from 2008 available on DVD at http://www.grandprowrestling.co.uk/shop)

I'm proud of our DVD team being able to turn round the DVD's quickly, but, this quick turn around has left us with a DVD library of over 60 shows! Unless you're a fan who's followed us for a bit, or know something about the product, the wrestlers etc. being faced with over 60 shows to choose from, you're never going to be able to make a decision and we risk you walking away without making a purchase. The 500 DVD, I hoped would help people decide which one to buy. 500 of The Best Matches, would surely cut right through all the decision making process and make it easier for the customer to part with their £10, and at just over 65p per match - that price was a bargain. I'd hoped for an increase in business to hopefully make up for any shortfall on the door. Would we get it?

It had been 3 months since I was last at the Monaco, since then it had undergone quite a few noticeable changes. Mainly, the name. The Tyrer brothers, Gary and Kerry owners of 8th Wonder, the company that had bought all the old council venues had re-branded as Rose Leisure and The Monaco was now - The Rose Club. I loved the new name, I think Wrestling at the Rose Club has a real ring to it. But, i'm sure it'll take many a year for locals to start calling it such, and to many The Rose Club will always be The Monaco / The Man-A-Ka - / The Moan-a-go-go / The Mon-acha / The Monacorr / The Manacka / The Monacooo, depending on which Wigan accent is pronouncing it, there are several colourful ones!

As well as a change in staff (the chap mentioned in my previous blog, you know - the guy going to see Peter Kay about doing a show there, the one getting a Lexus company car) was sacked, and in his place came Big Tony. There were some obvious aesthetic changes to the venue too. Backstage now had a shower, much to many of the boys' delight, there was a new box office, new flooring and several other changes underway. It was starting to look a lot better but it was still mid change and a bit messy.

I'd briefly spoken to but never met Big Tony before, he had been appointed the new Rose Club manager and I was set to meet him face to face for the first time. As with any of the new managers we've had since being at the venue, it was a new battle to help him understand wrestling. Half my battle was won when I heard him talk on the phone, the conversation, in one of those wonderful regional Wigan accents, went something like this:

"Nay chance me gerrin in that ring on Friiidee'neet lad? Me wiiiife thinks i'm reet big fat bastard, 'n I am! I'm 25 storrrne, that's why they call me Big Ton-eh! I'm 65 year old, 25 stone fat bastard,

but I won't harf shurra few people up if I gorrin that ring on Friiidee'neet cock."

With only me stopping to giggle, Big Tone relentlessly continued...

"I'm a grandad, does thee knorr!" (funnily enough, this being the first conversation i'd ever had with him, this was news to me) "You could call me Super Grandaddy 'n I could show me wiiiife that i'm not such a fat lazy bastard afterall and can still do a bit, ya know? I use play rugby, me, professionally when i were a youngun like..."

Whilst Big Tony carried on these thoughts ran through my head. 25 stone, 65 year old grandad, with a bit of banter and used to play rugby. A real old school publican demeanour about him on the phone - those components considered, I knew half the battle had been won. He sounded like a real man's man and someone we wouldn't have to necessarily go on the charm offensive with. I immediately liked him and had been looking forward to meeting him.

When I did, Tony's belly arrived about 2 or 3 minutes before the rest of him, his wife wasn't lying.... but he was every bit i'd hoped he would be. Easy going, understanding of wrestling, knew about us, knew about the product, wanted his family to come and see the show that night and was really accommodating. I was feeling really positive during our conversation about our upcoming working relationship, then he threw in something to make my head spin, he said:

"Well, thee'll be busy taneet then lad. It's the Rose Leisure first staff neet out taneet and they're comin here..."

As that one sunk in, "Super Grandaddy" waddled off: "Ta da cock, see'thee later."

Half of me was pleased, the other half, scared shitless.

 We were going to get a load more walk ins i'd not forecast for and that might help counter the threat of the fair, but they were all going to be employees of the company that owned the building. Pressure was on!

Among the mixed news, there was some definite good news too. Bubblegum, a few days earlier had checked in to say he was off the crutches and fit enough for the match. This was a massive weight off my mind, and too for the two North West Rookies involved in the match too. Both Jason and Ste had been really nervous about teaming up with the vets and even those nerves were compounded when they'd learnt of Pip's injury. The news of his recovery help settle them down, but the two were still very much on edge. If only the knew what lay ahead...

By 4:30, the ring arrived. It's always a huge weight off my mind to know that the ring is actually in the building and not stuck in traffic on the motorway somewhere! Chris and the boys travel a long way up from Northampton and in all the near 7 years we've been using them, Chris has never let us down. The SLAM ring was one of the most used rings in the UK at one point and It seemed like the same ring was at every show across the country! I asked Chris if he'd been busy recently, as laid back as ever, he told me he hadn't been. He'd hardly done any jobs since our last show, something that would later come back to haunt us...

Time marched on, and the 7pm door time got closer and closer. Gary, the venue owner was buzzing around with Big Tony at about 6:55 saying there were loads of people outside, open the doors now and get them in, it was one of the first events under their banner and I think they were excited. My nerves too had been displaced by excitement and I was really looking forward to delivering the awesome show we had planned. All the concerns about the effect on the draw were beginning to vanish too. Ring in, roster in (thankfully none of them on crutches), everybody knew their roles and it was time to kick off our leg of the THW and show these Rose Leisure staff just how we roll.

7pm came and it was time to let the public into our most unpredictable show of the year, Friday Night Thriller V.  

Just how unpredictable would things get?

We were about to find out!

A steady influx of punters gave us a quick head count of 217 just before 7:30 and there were still more coming in. I'd hoped for 300 considering we'd been missing for 3 months, but 217 plus was still a good draw, especially with the fair across the road. I was happy, the venue looked busy and we were ready to rock. I gave the nod to Chris Egan and Sam Shaw to get the show on the road and looked forward to see how the crowd would take to our opening segment...

It was Jiggy's idea to start the show with an angle. We'd made a habit of it back in 2006 / 2007, but had only done it sparingly since then. Starting off on angles, isn't always the best idea because by the time the show is underway, all the fans want is to see some action. WWE start every single Raw off on an angle, but... the big difference is, they're a TV show, we're a live show.

It was a risk, but one thing we always try and do is keep people guessing and never do the same show twice.  The angle was worth a roll of the dice, it was different and knowing our hardcore fan base well, I think they'd appreciate the characters involved and the story we were selling without the atmosphere falling flat before we'd started.

The angle was for Danny, who was a named participant in the 4-way to come out and announce his withdrawal due to injury from the match, which brought out Jack Gallagher, the title holder who's belt would be up for grabs later and then Mikey Whiplash, who had been previously unannounced to come and take Danny's place in the 4-way. The angle was intended to be a slow burner with the pay off later in the show, whilst the crowd didn't jump up and down screaming their lungs out at every spoken word, they reacted well and took the angle on board, little did they know at this point - they'd never see the pay off.

During the angle, Jiggy and I had kept an eye on the punters coming in, and to our surprise for the second month on the bounce - we had a adult dominated show. Later, I would find out, we'd only sold 3 family tickets! An audience like that was so rare for us, if the fair had caused a drop in numbers, I day dreamed a moment to wonder how full the venue might have been if any potential families had had their head turned by the fair. We could've had a sell out! Was it a change in this year's direction? The wrestling? What was the reason for our upturn in adults?

I left the question pondering until later as we went straight from the angle into the 4-way match to determine the number one contender to Jack Gallagher's title for a title match later that night. I'd asked all 4 guys to go out there at full throttle. I wanted to come back after our break with a bang! With the names involved, I was certain we could do that giving the crowd a MOTN and leaving them with their jaws on the floor. However, it didn't go like that.

While Noam was individually fantastic, and had improved tenfold from his last appearance, all 4 guys just didn't seem to gel well together. Couple of missed strikes in the early going, couple of spots that led nowhere made it hard work for the rest of the match. There was some good stuff in there, but not all of it joined together consistently.  

I was hoping for 10/10, at a push, I think we got 7/10.

(Man Of The Match, Noam Dar)

After the match was over, the seeds were sewn for some developing storylines later in the evening. I checked in with Mikey as he had a fairly quick turn around time for his second part of double duty. He was good to go and so were we, match 1 down, it was time for the return of Voodoo in match 2...

Greg aka Voodoo had not been on a GPW show since May 2010. He'd been studying in Hong Kong since June last year and had returned in June this year. He'd kept his hand in the mix having got on the roster of a local HK fed and done a number of shows over there, but - he was overjoyed to be back with us and eager to get back involved. I, too was eagerly anticipating his return.

Greg and his brothers Mike and Alan have long been the source of some of the craziest and stupidest ideas we've ever had, Greg taking credit for main instigator.

Without some of the totally insane Tasker ideas of the past, GPW definitely wouldn't be the place it is now.

Greg had come to me about 3 weeks before the show, not asking, but stating:

"I want to make Fox do the Thriller dance and i'm going to turn the referee into Michael Jackson."

"What has Greg been smoking now?" is a oft used term among the GPW guys, and was my exact thought after hearing of his latest crazy idea. As with most of Greg's ideas, I laughed, told him I didn't want to make Fox look a fool and duly forgot about it. 1 week later, he was back, asking again.

"Now that Fox isn't doing the match anymore, can we make Bruce dance instead?"

I'd forgotten about it, clearly Greg hadn't."Ok Greg, give me more details."

He told me about how he was going to use Voodoo, have loads of zombies in the ring and make everyone dance, then turn the ref into Michael Jackson.

"Dancing zombies? Easy enough. Voodoo spells? Standard. But how are you going to turn the ref into Jacko?" I asked. "I don't know." was what I got back.

The funny thing was, for as long as we've been doing Thriller shows, i've always, always wanted to start the show off with the Thriller dance and a load of dancing zombies. I'd nearly one year come close to hiring a dance group to do it, but here was Greg offering, I wasn't going to turn him down. I ok'd it and over the next 2 weeks, for hours and hours on end, Greg, a collection of zombies and Bruce practiced the Thriller dance.

Greg seemed to be in as much control as Greg can ever be of a situation, so I gave him an outline for the match and let him get on with the trimmings. The night before the show I checked in with him to see how it was coming along, to my horror, I was met with:

"Well, everyone knows it inside out apart from Bruce..."

Not really what I wanted to hear. "How long do you think he needs to get it right?".

"About another 4 / 5 hours minimum...". Oh, how I worry about Bruce!

By the time they'd all get to the venue, we wouldn't have another 4 or 5 hours to play with.

Earlier in the day, they'd all arrived at the venue about 3:30 and practiced and practiced and practiced. I watched a rehearsal and immediately jumped on Greg, "There's no way this dance can go on this long." I said. It has to be said, and it has been said before, the Tasker brand of humour is an eclectic taste to say the least. I was worried, as I always am with any of Greg's ideas - that if this thing didn't get over, we'd be up shit creek without a paddle and Voodoo's big return in the dump. "Is there anything you can take out?" We went back and forth with it:

"The dance is only 2 minutes long, and trust me - it doesn't seem it!"

"2 minutes?! It's too long Greg, take something out."

"Trust me, it WILL be funny."

"I know your type of funny Greg and the majority of people probably wouldn't agree..."

"Just trust me."

He was very persistent, and that was something he hadn't been before. Greg had actually improved ten fold in his match planning and storytelling and against my better judgement, I ok'd 2 minutes.

Jiggy, who had arrived mid rehersal #227 took one look, shook his head and said:

"We don't half let Voodoo get away with some stuff you know mate."

I was quick to remind him that this was the stuff we'd allowed, imagine the stuff we hadn't!

The moment of truth was here. Never mind the stupid dance, Bruce had a 7 minute match to remember! Could he do it? Had he done it? It was time to tell. The idea had been to play the amazing Voodoo-made "Voodoo Return" video before the match started to build up an atmosphere, but with no screens - that was impossible! But that video can be seen here:

It was into the match cold and I took up residence in the audience to test the waters for Voodoo's reactions. I was nervous about everything to do with this match, but so badly wanted it to go well.

My nerves were settled at the start as the two got good reactions and went through the opening sequences. Then came the Voodoo spell to signal the start of the Thriller dance. Here we go... we were going to get laughs, walk outs, boo's? More importantly, would Bruce remember it?

The zombies came through the curtain (who all looked absolutely great) to a tepid audience reaction... , they took their spots in the ring and the music hit. It was obvious from the first beat and the first dance move what it was all about and the audience, i'm pleased to say - roared with laughter! I was totally over the moon. It's so important to include laughs as part of the show and we've done all sorts of comedy on our shows before, but this was by far the best and the biggest reaction ever.

The crowd clapped along as I think they forgot they were at a wrestling show. Just as they were dying down at about 1 minute 30 seconds in, and I was saying to myself "i knew Greg should've finished it earlier!" from underneath the ring, the referee (who'd disappeared quietly earlier) re-appeared dressed as Michael Jackson got into the ring and busted his own moves, the crowed popped again and it resulted in one of the best things we've ever done! It didn't even matter that Bruce was laughing all the way through it, at least, if not slightly out of time - he had remembered everything!

(Voodoo, Buce & The Zombies, great job!)

The dance itself, can be seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBmBH3aTXbI

Greg was right, it didn't feel like 2 minutes and I was the first to tell im I was wrong. He was back, and more over than he'd ever been, the crowd chanted his name louder than i've ever heard. I was absolutely made up, and the crowd were too! But things weren't going to stay so jubilant for long...

It was time to test the metal of the two NWRL finalists, Ste "Bin" Man and Jason Logan. The two were about to mark their long journey into professional wrestling with two incredible tag partners who brought with them a wealth of experience, Martin Kirby and Bubblegum respectively. I was every bit excited as I knew Ste and Jase were nervous, it meant a lot to them to be tagging with Kirby and Pip.

Even after 3 months off, the crowds' love for Bin Man hadn't dwindled as they came off their seats and joyously chanted his name as he and Kirby made their way to the ring. I was pleased too with Jason's reaction with Pip. I knew how nervous Jase was, but he didn't one bit look like it. He's a mean looking sucker when he wants to be with a really imposing frame, I was really looking forward to watching him and Ste interact with the two established stars.

Before the bell rung, we'd scripted a Mikey Fitzgeral "respect the ref" promo, and I was really happy with the way Mikey delivered it. We were still telling the story of a heel ref, and furthering his storyline with Kirby, and as you're about to find out - I was very pleased he was in there!

(Bin Man and Logan)

The match started well, everything was going to plan and both Jase and Ste looked totally at home in main event company. But, disaster was just around the corner. I sat on the balcony with a birdseye view of the action as Kirby took Jase up top for a superplex. A big move by anyone's expectations, but standard at the same time. The two came off the top rope and hit the canvass, then something made only of nightmares happened, the ring let out a cracking sound and the canvass they'd just landed on sunk as the ring folded around them both. I got a text on my phone from Rick the announcer saying "The ring is fucked - what shall we do?"

I looked at the ring crew sat next to me, and pleaded with them to get down there as quickly as possible, "I think one of the boards is out" (a common problem). I was being optimistic.

It was blatantly obvious to the naked eye that there was no way we could continue the match. But how do we do it without insulting the fans' intelligence? I had an idea but before I got had chance to reply to Rick's text to convey it, Pip picked up the bell and rang it himself declaring he wouldn't go back into the ring because it was unsafe. We had an out. Mikey then got on the mic and announced that he was DQ'ing Kirby because it was his superplex that had broken the ring. It was on the spot magic. It was absolutely genius. It gave us the result we'd booked and still furthered the Kirby / Fitz story, plus gave us time to fix the ring as the interval was next. I remained optimistic, I shouldn't have...

For approximately the next 3 minutes that followed, I remained optimistic, telling myself, "it's a board that's gone, it's easily fixable." It wasn't just a board that had gone, and more importantly - it wasn't fixable. To put it in Lehman's terms and in exactly the same way Chris explained it to me, the ring was fucked. In more technical terms, the spring that supports the underneath of the ring and gives it that "spring", had snapped. A solid metal object, completely broken in two. The chances of which happening, more than a million to one!

I honest to God, can't quite put into words what my feelings were right at that moment. It felt like the eyes of the entire Ballroom were on me, gazing. Like the lights went out and a spotlight was on me, burning a hole right where I stood, if only - i may have jumped in it if it was! A host of people came up to me, none of them registered. They were waiting for me to make the call. I refused to call time on the show until i'd searched every possible option open to us. Could we replace what was broken? Could we re-book the second half? Could we support the ring in anyway for us to be able to continue? The answer to every question, was no. The ring had now sunk completely and resembled a skate park, I think it was obvious to the audience what was happening and that the show wasn't going to get its second half.

I headed to the back to seek the opinion of some trusted members of the roster. I immediately headed for Dirk, Damon and Jiggy. Three cool heads who would feel exactly the same way as I about cancelling the second half of the show. They wouldn't want to do it. FutureShock promoter Dave Rayne's words were ringing in my ear too, a fellow promoters viewpoint was a welcomed one at that time. Whilst secretly thanking his lucky stars, he must've known how it felt for me.

Danny Hope, Chris Egan and Joey joined the emergency meeting in the back but the answers were the same - we couldn't go on. We could support the ring, somehow, but it would've been a total insult of people's intelligence.

We had one bullet in the gun we could fire - a brawl outside of the ring, but we couldn't run the remaining the 3 matches like that and we couldn't tell the stories we'd booked. Jiggy's simple response to the situation made it clear what we had to do -

"What would they do in Memphis laa? They'd fucking brawl and send them fans home happy."

He was spot on, we'd get one brawl to try and send the audience home happy and tell as much story as we could. But the show, was over. We quickly came up with a refund / compensation package of half price into the next show, November 4th.

Before we made the decision final, I waded through the Rose Leisure staff to speak to the two venue owners and venue manager, Gary, Kerry and Big Tony to put the problem in their laps and see if there was anything they would do. They were as matter of fact as everyone else was about it - "if the ring is broken, you can't go on." I explained the refunds / compensation package to them and completely unexpectedly, they offered to chip in with it, offering free tickets to an event at the Rose Club the following week. It was extremely kind of them and I was very thankful. The kindness didn't stop there either, on my way to the back to make it official among the boys, Dave Rayne approached me again to offer his support and free tickets to his part of the THW on Sunday. Again, totally unexpected and very generous.

I think something kicked in, it was like an outer body experience as I told the guys it was over, but my heart felt on the floor. First thing was first and that was to book the brawl. Jiggy and I quickly went back and forth on it, we both stumbled on something but Damon was the one who chipped in with the final product. Jiggy relayed the rest of the message to the roster who had one chance to listen and take it in, as I had to tell Rick, our announcer what was happening.

I sat down with Rick, went over the options for refunds and compensation and told him what to say. He looked like I felt. He didn't want to go out there, to be honest - if I were him, neither would I. I thought about breaking kayfabe and going out there myself so he wouldn't have to, but I just couldn't. Rick was an absolute rock though, and agreed to do it saying it was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do. I knew how he felt, this was the hardest thing i'd ever had to do too. It wasn't just letting down the fans, it was the guys who'd not been out and done their match yet, guys who'd travelled a long way, taken days off from their real job etc. etc. it was just about the worst thing to happen.

Another rock in this crisis was Dave Rayne,

an absolute legend infact. He offered his help with the tickets, and offered to make Mikey vs. Jack at his show for the GPW British Title and offered us the footage to use. An amazing offer, North West solidarity was back!

After about 30 minutes since the ring crushing superplex, Rick went out to announce the premature end of the night. His genuine, sincere and likeable character shone through and in a night where unexpected people came out of the woodwork to help, Rick really did stand tall among them and was my Man Of The Night #1. It was a job I wouldn't have wished on anyone, but he handled it masterfully. The initial announcement did get a "ahhh" from the crowd, but it didn't last long and before we knew it, they were chanting GPW GPW GPW again.

The rushed booked brawl, Damon, Jiggy and I had put together backstage followed and we entertained the crowd some more. What helped was giving them the bad news first, then entertaining them beyond what they thought they were going to get. I'm sure with our audience being adult-heavy, that many people could see there was no way we could continue, so to at least look like we'd tried was important. We ended the night, like we always like to end nights, with the crowd chanting GPW! GPW! GPW! GPW!

In a night of absolute disaster, you have to look for the good.

I was so thankful that the NWRL boys were in there with two experienced guys for a start. I was thankful for Pip and Fitzy for being so quick witted, thankful Voodoo, Bruce and the rest of the zombies had done such a good job with their segment. They'd really entertained the crowd, and with the 3 matches and 1 angle we'd given them, we'd pretty much given them a full spectrum of a wrestling show.

Most of the boys refused their wages after the news, no one wanted to take it and I quite literally had to force it in their hand where some people were concerned, but there was one man who was more adamant than most about not taking their wage, and physically wouldn't let me give it to him, that man was Dirk Feelgood. A rare breed and a truely wonderful guy to have around.

With so many people coming up to me, offering advice, offering their take on things none of it really stuck with me, apart from something a man who was close to Rick's Man Of The Night award as Man Of The Night #2, and that was Dave Rayne. Dave, very calmly said - "it's today, October 7th 2011 that GPW fans on October 7th 2022 will be saying 'remember when the ring broke, we were there for that', people pull through a crisis together, and you've got the fan base to do that." and he was right, he was so right. It was sound advice from a man I was very glad to have around that evening. With all the prickly goings on in the THW from June, it was a polarizing moment.

I braced myself for the worst when I asked venue management about complaints and/or kick offs from the exiting audience, but to my surprise - there were none. I was devastated when I left the building that night, but waking up the next day knowing that there was nothing else that could have been done eased my mind a little. But my eased mind wouldn't stay that way for long...

IN RESPONSE TO GREG LAMBERT & THE XWA:

The next night was XWA's leg of the THW. It was a night where Greg had given us the ok to go and flyer his event to help promote our next show. It was a generous notiion, but one I felt we were owed after such a lackadaisical effort to promote the THW in June. I sent along Bin Man and Dylan to do the flyering, two stand up guys who I know would do a good job. After the fuss Greg had made with his YouTube posting and anyone from GPW having to pay for tickets, I made sure Dylan and Ste were ok with paying to watch the show and to flyer the venue. They were, so the job was on, or not as the case was.

They started flyering at the interval, only to be rudely approached by XWA staff. Dylan and Ste said they had permission from Greg and responded to being spoken to in such a derogatory manner by making a point of cheering for RJM in his match. They had both trained at the GPW gym with RJM and know him well outside of the ring, the fact that he was booked on an XWA show to play heel was just unfortunate for Greg. If his staff hadn't of spoken down to Dylan or Ste, and had been less aggressive about it, they might have played along and boo'd, but because they cheered, the venue staff then were instructed to evict them from the building. WHOA.

Wait up, as if my weekend wasn't going like shit anyway and on Saturday night I get a bundle of texts and calls from Ste and Dylan telling me what's happening. What the fuck was Greg playing at? He, invited us to his show, which we paid to get in and now he's having his heavies throw us out?

I've bided my time to respond whilst I thought about this. I've spoken to Greg about it and heard his side of the story, I can accept what he's saying and have asked Dylan and Ste to apologies for any disruptive part they may have played, but I have had no apology from XWA side and I think this boils down to one thing - paranoia.

Greg doesn't want us to flyer his event, of course he doesn't. He's scared of losing custom. He tried to play it down the middle in the build up to the THW, but when it came down to it, even with half a show on the night before, we'd proven we're the better product. Greg knows it, and is scared his fans would become our fans. Before XWA was even thought of, Greg was a GPW fan.

He wishes his XWA outfit was as good as ours, but Greg it isn't. Keep trying, and we'll see you at the next THW. Maybe.

GPW: "Night Of The Brave" November 4th Rose Club, Atherton Rd. WN2 3EU £7.50per person! http://www.grandprowrestling.co.uk

So you think you've got the handle on these blogs now huh? Start off with a drama, sometimes minor, sometimes major. They'll be various other little / big dramas leading up to show day along with a concern about the level of ticket sales. Then, sometimes, on show day - there's more drama, but in the end, come Part 3, we've avoided disaster and put on another great show!

Yeah? Sound familiar?

Well, that's just the way all the shows have gone. I don't make this stuff up just for a happy ending you know. Sometimes, the ending isn't at all happy, like the one at Friday Night Thriller V... so, don't sit too comfortably, this one is a rocky ride!

We went into Friday Night Thriller V after a long 3 month break. It was the longest break we'd ever had between shows since 2004 and the start of 2005 when the shows management changed over from Damon to me. I was hoping the time off this time would result in a big increase in both profits, and draw. But, there were some

big changes that took place whilst we weren't around that might effect our business...

During our down time, two new feds set up in business - NPWA (Nitro Professional Wrestling Alliance) and PCW (Preston City Wrestling). One, directly on our doorstep and the other in neighbouring City Preston, about 20 miles away. Both weren't exactly "new", NPWA had been around a good while but gone out of business several times and PCW was basically a new incarnation of NBW:Southside who'd ran a couple of shows in Preston before.

PCW had debuted in August, their second show was scheduled exactly two weeks before ours, 23rd September. The promoter had done the gentlemanly thing and been in touch to check our dates didn't clash and he was prepared to book around us etc. etc. No such behaviour from NPWA. They decided to run their debut return show exactly one week before us, 30th September, almost quite literally on our doorstep!

As for PCW, they are more or less the same distance from us as FutureShock are, just in the other direction. So, we should be able to work around one another to make sure we don't effect each others draw, as we do with FutureShock. My only wish is that they don't end up recycling our matches and that all 3 of us maintain individually different rosters and looks. I'm sure PCW just want to do good business, the same can't be said for Nitro "Professional" Wrestling Alliance.

NPWA setting up one week before our 3 month break was due to end was no coincidence. Them contacting half our roster to work the show, was also no coincidence. And it was certainly no coincidence that the venue they'd picked wasn't 20 miles away in another City, wasn't in another town or borough - they'd chosen very carefully when they set up shop

1.6 fucking miles from our venue.

They'd never dare run on the same night as us, all this was, was an opportunistic attempt to steal away our audience one week before we were set to come back. Members of our roster were contacted by someone involved with the company asking to work a show without divulging whereabouts it was. I soon got wind of it and veto'd any of our guys working the show. All of them understood and pulled out.

(Joey Hayes and El Ligero, just two of our regular roster members to have been asked to do the show)

If they'd been contacted for an NPWA show in another town, I may have privately questioned their need to perform in a working men's club, but wouldn't have stopped them. This though, was 1.6 miles away from our home. From the place where we'd built those names up as main players and performers over the last 8 plus years, there was absolutely no chance on earth I would let any of our guys on their show. It was a ludicrous attempt to harm us, and all it did was make me angry. 1.6 miles away, 7 days before our show was taking the fucking piss and I was mad.

In the last blog, I spoke about early turf wars with FutureShock and how eventually, we were able to overcome the issues and work together for the better. Don't ever expect any of that with NPWA, it could never happen.

NPWA have been polluting our blue British wrestling skies since about 2000.

It once had a glimmer of hope in its early days, being one of the only Northern feds around. It spawned the likes of TJ Cain, Joey Hayes, Heresy, Roxi, Danny Hope and "Dangerous" Damon Leigh. NPWA founder, Paul "Flash" Andrews actually had some athletic ability. He may have, in much earlier years have done more with himself, and wrestling. But, there was a vacuum of intelligence sucking all who surrounded NPWA down into its depths, and "Flash" was the individual at its epicentre. Since it's conception, the promotion has never failed to attract the jobless scurge of the underbelly in society. If nothing else, though these inhabitants have provided the more ambitious, up standing members of British wrestling a small laugh, if not cry or two at times...

Heresy had gained the promotion some notoriety in its early years, turning John Lister into a fan! However, Heresy walked out on the promotion, mid show in 2002. In typical NPWA fashion, they'd advertised a main event ladder match between him and DDL... only to have forgotten the ladder. Further into their wisdom, they'd not told either DDL or Heresy this until just before they were due to go out. It was a final insult to their then International Champion, Heresy. He walked out through the crowd and out the front door 10 minutes before the advertised match was due to start, abandoning the show and the promotion.

The other promising names mentioned above stayed until Lee Butler arrived on the scene and in shortly after started GPW. Then they all jumped ship, re-joined Heresy, re-trained and flourished with bigger exposure, breaking out across more of the UK and beyond.

Aside the ladder incident, there were other classic NPWA moments, such as running a show with two ropes on the ring, holding a pre show remembrance service and minutes silence for a member of their roster who they thought had died, when in actual fact - they were sat at home with their gran! Other moments such as a host of shows in dirty working men's clubs with sub 10 people as audience, in which a First Blood or I Quit match were commonplace as an opener. Boxing rings for wrestling rings. Untrained kids in street gear. 

A mockery was made of everything we, and other companies like us have tried hard to improve.

Honestly, you could write a very entertaining comedy sketch on how bad they are.

It was no surprise that they eventually went out of business. Various horrible little feds rose out of their ashes, only to go out of business again but it was only a matter of time before they reared their ugly heads once again, and they certainly picked their moment to do so.

In no way was I worried about being out-done by them, I was far more concerned they'd do more harm with their take on "professionalism".

We strive to attract a diverse audience. The 16 - 25's, the smarts, the families, the casuals and those who'd never been to a show before. It was the latter that were at the most risk of being turned off wrestling for good if they'd gone to see NPWA before they saw us. Think of it this way, two sets of posters, two sets of adverts doing the rounds in the same area, for the same niche product. You've never been to a wrestling show before but you take your little Jimmy's and Johnny's (Hi R-Truth) to the cheaper show on the earlier date, sit down and watch untrained kids go hell for leather in a First Blood opener, and that's you or your little Jimmy's and Johnny's never going to watch another wrestling show ever again. They'll have ruined it for us, for PCW for FutureShock and for every fed the world over.

Note to promoters:

 when you promote a show, you are the ambassadors to UK wrestling. You risk losing trade for already well established feds and ones who might do good business in the future if you fail to represent the business in a professional manner. Use a good venue, have a good roster, advertise well and professionally, book sensibly and for fucks sake remember the ladder if your advertised main event is a ladder match!

I could spend sleepless nights from now until the end of eternity worrying about how badly firms like NPWA are soiling our good work, but what's the point? They're probably more disgusting little feds based on the NPWA model than ones based on how wrestling should be done. Wrestling has always, and will always have the uncanny ability to attract some of the worst kind of people to its breaches. It's down to the good guys like us, like FutureShock in Stockport, 4FW in Swindon, IPW:UK in Kent, PBW in Scotland, NGW in Hull and a handful more promotions who work hard to keep business away from these horrible Working Men's shows run by idiots. It may be saving 10 poor fuckers at a time from seeing them, but that's 10 more wrestling fans still out there who haven't had their intelligence trampled on by utter shit, and there still might be a good chance they'd come and see a decent show.

In light of the NPWA set up, I decided to go on a advertising offensive.

I doubled up on everything; flyers, posters, adverts etc. all with the aim of leaving the good people of Wigan in no doubt as to which local wrestling show to attend, i.e not the one in the working men's club...

(THW fellow promoters, XWA's Greg Lambert and FutureShock's Dave Rayne)

While we now found ourselves with direct competition on our doorstep, it was the second consecutive lot of shows we planned on working together with other local companies, FutureShock and XWA in another North West Triple Header, or THW for short. I'd been promised by XWA promoter, Greg Lambert an improved approach to promoting the whole weekend, and not just his own show, which is basically what he'd done in June at the previous THW (read the June blog if you want to get clued up). It was a promise I believed and he wasted no time getting straight onto promoting all 3 shows quite fervently. It was a good start, but would it last?

Despite the 3 month break, we'd had October more or less booked for a while. Outlines were made at the start of the year, and changed as the year had progressed. We were left with a decent outline for us to come back to after the break. We had set ups for the tag division, Dirk the No.1 Contender to DDL's title, the final stages of the NWRL, Jack Gallagher's reign as British Champ and Voodoo's return. So it was just a case of filling in the gaps.

It was early August before we picked up the card again. Jiggy and I started to carve the finer details out, and after a week or so of consultations and brainstorming, we'd re-written the rest of the year for about the 11th time! We'd kept to the skeleton outline we had planned for October several months earlier. We decided on the best route to take Dirk and DDL down, chose opponents for both Voodoo and Gallagher, debated and eventually added a 4-way, then added a 6-man, put a couple of killer angles in - and viola, our 5th ever Friday Night Thriller was booked.

With no show the month before, we were able to start promotion early. Considering NPWA were skulking around the corner, that was a big bonus because £1 to 1p they wouldn't be doing any. We announced our finalised card on September 1st and gave ourselves over a solid month to promote.

The four Thriller shows that had gone before had all been booked with an element of unpredictability in mind, the same was done for this Friday Night Thriller. But at this point, we had

no idea just how unpredictable the night would turn out to be...

Part of the unpredictable element of the show was the unnamed opponent for Jack Gallagher. It had been Jiggy's idea to book a 4-way where the winner of it would go onto face Jack for the British title that night. The winner we booked was Mikey Whiplash. The Whiplash / Gallagher match had been in the book since the start of the year, it was the only combination of the Diamond / Gallagher / Whiplash feud we'd not run yet, but we obviously couldn't announce it. Everyone would head into FNTV not knowing who Jack would be facing later on in the night, but that might've been a mistake...

When I say "everyone" I mean - everyone. We only told Jack and Whippy, didn't make it common knowledge to the roster, or indeed to the other two components of the THW, XWA and FutureShock. So what did Dave book as his marquee match for his event? Yep - Whiplash vs. Gallagher.

He contacted me to tell me he was going to do it, and he too had had it planned for some time. Oh well, the good people in the North West of England that weekend were going to get the same great match twice in two days! It wasn't ideal, but neither of us were going to change the booking. It was full steam ahead for the THW.

Even though we'd started earlier with promotion than normal, there's always more promotion you can do. It was with about 2 weeks to spare that I began second guessing myself - had we done enough? Had we hit all our promotional markers? Was there enough stuff out there to snuff out any potential threat NPWA might cause? It was here where I thought that the long Summer break which had seemed such a good idea at the time, probably wasn't. We'd left it open for competition to come in, and gotten out of the rhythm of promoting. But, we were slowly getting there, and for now - all was quiet on the Western front..., that was until I got an email from Rob Small aka Robbie James.

I've known Rob nearly all my life, Facebook was responsible for reuniting us in mid 2007. I'd not seen him much in the previous 7 or 8 years and only sparingly in the 7 or 8 before that, but there had always been one major common denominator between us - wrestling. So, in 2007 it was a no-brainer that when Rob and I were back in touch, Rob would come on board with GPW. As most people do, he tried his hand at training first. That didn't go too well for him, but there was plenty more he would bring to the table...

Rob is an outspoken, honest, loud, enthusiastic, hard working, loyal, forward thinking individual who can take credit for quite a few important changes in GPW. His first contribution came when he gave our "Back To School" shows their name. He brought a new enthusiasm and fresh ideas to the table and was responsible for making our most viewed YouTube video ever!

http://www.youtube.com/embed/cHt1qifrTKQ

He quickly notched up several different roles, helping out in pretty much every area of the company other than announcing or wrestling. He also brought with him quite literally an army of other helpers too, Gary Dooton and Terry Mercer to name perhaps the most influential. At the time, there were so many new faces around, it seemed like we were being invaded! But, as is with wrestling - none of them lasted. Some fell by the wayside, others in Terry's case moved abroad, and i'm pleased to say in Gary's case he's at least still involved with wrestling, but not with us as he moved down to London.

Wrestling has always had one massive revolving door. Not to mention 

a bad habit of attracting some of life's strangest individuals.

I get, on what sometimes feels like an hourly basis, people getting in touch declaring a "lifelong passion" or a "burning desire" among plenty of other emotive descriptions of their love for the biz. They harp on with explanations of how they want to get involved with the company either as a wrestler or get behind the scenes to help out. During which declarations, I'm usually sat with a huge grin on my face thinking "Ahh, another one." Why? Because about 1% of these people actually last.

I've learnt to ride those with declarations of undying passion hard. Really hard. I'll unashamedly juice them for all their worth, get out of them as much commitment and hard work as possible and if they survive, they survive. If they can't stand the heat of the biz afterall, well then we've both learnt something. Once you've been tested and passed, i'll lay off.

Rob's literal army, (who must've felt like some neuvo nWo at the time) were weeded out fairly quickly, some only managed weeks. Terry and Gary stayed the longest but eventually fell away, leaving Rob as the sole and only remaining guy out of about 10 or 12 others that had originally come along.

I don't think i'll ever understand people who make that cross over from fan to trainee, or fan to helper who then just disappear. Some people are made to stay outside the biz, as fans. Others are made to be in the biz, to help improve it and make a difference. Make absolutely sure which category you fall into before you ring, text or email your local promotion. Chances are wrestling doesn't need you.

There's 10's of 1'000's of you's already - what wrestling needs is more fans, not hanger-ons, helpers and trainees. Don't waste yours, or someone elses time if you're going to be fly-by-night. If you are as passionate as you say, be passionate. You'll need that if you're ever going to stick it out.

I digress, Rob proved he had more metal than some of his pals and did every job I threw at him with enthusiasm. After a plethora of roles he eventually found a permanent home in the commentary booth as alter ego, Robbie James. He started off as the colour to Alan Keys' aka The Great Suzuki aka Dominic Nix play-by-play, but in what would be his last act as a GPW employee, as we moved from pre-recorded comms to live comms, Rob moved over to his "dream wrestling job" - play-by-play.

(Not Alan Keys and Robbie James...)

As life would have it though, we only got 4 shows out of Rob in his new dream play-by-play role. He'd been accepted into Sandhurst for Army Officer training some time at the start of the year, so I knew we were on borrowed time with him. However, before his proposed start date at Sandhurst, he decided to walk away. It was a massive shame, Rob had been a real help to have around and whereas he might not be as important as a ring announcer or on shows like the Heavyweight champ, what he did for us was important and moreover - he was loyal and reliable. I can replace Rob, or anyone else on our team, but we wouldn't have the loyal and reliable people around us that we need. For all the good Rob did in his 3 years with us, and for all the years i'd known him before - his premature departure meant he fell into the "stay as a fan" category with me.

In wrestling, you rarely see the last of anyone, especially someone who'd been involved for over 3 years. I'm sure we haven't seen the last of Rob. For now though - we were one man down. One man who many on the show mightn't even noticed wasn't there any longer, but Rob was as important to have round as anyone involved with the company.

He's not the first influential person to leave, and he definately won't be the last, for now though it was one man down or not - the show must always go on!

But..., one man was about to turn into two men. Next up, Voodoo's scheduled opponent Fox Carter.

Fox called about 2 weeks before show day to pull out. Something had come up meaning he couldn't make the show at all. He was gutted. It was the second time he'd pulled out in 12 months, neither time could be helped but he hasn't had much luck since Juice's departure from the company. He's had plenty good chances, but failed to capitalise. We'll have to see what the future holds for Fox, he was missing another chance here.

As always, when there's an unexpected curve ball thrown in your direction - look to make the best out of it. Fox's missed chance, was an opportunity for Bruce Sheila to come in and take his spot. And an opportunity for us to change the focus of the match.

Voodoo's return match was always going contain an element of comedy, but against Fox I wanted less comedy and instead a more competitive focus. However, now we were Fox-less and Bruce was in, I felt we could afford more of a comedy routine. Bruce is a lot more of a colourful character in comparison to Fox, he'd done comedy before during his feud with The Eastern Bloc so therefore, as far as the audience were concerned another comedy routine wouldn't seem so alien for his character to be doing, and if we did it well, he could keep his heat.

Would things work out that way though?

Wanting to avoid the shock of a screen-less venue when we turned up on show day (see June blog), I checked in with venue management about a week before Friday Night Thriller V to find out what was happening. I was told there was still no screens. I really wasn't happy, they'd promised me faithfully in June that they'd be replaced before our next event. At least in this case though forewarned meant forearmed. They'd said they'd definitely be up before the October show, not wanting to come across as Problem Child just as they'd taken over the premises, I said "ok" and was fully prepared for Naked Show No.2 in a row.

As time drew closer, i'd become less and less concerned about the NPWA show. I'd spent some time in the local area and hadn't seen much advertising presence. When the date of the big NPWA comeback show, 1.6 miles away at a Working Man's Club came, it marked our own show being just 7 days away. I kept an eye on reports and especially, the draw. As suspected, the draw was of no significance and would unlikely bear any impact on us. What might effect us though was Bubblegum... he'd gone over on his ankle playing football, and with 5 days to go to the show - he was hobbling about on crutches. Great. Would he pull through in time?

Up to this point, Greg had kept his word and promoted the THW well as the weekend was collecting some pace and excitement was building around all 3 shows. I was much happier with Greg's involvement this time,

but things wouldn't go smoothly for long...

No screens, no Fox, no Rob, NPWA's stink in the air and one of our main draws on crutches. These were all signs pointing to the inevitable, I just hadn't seen them yet.

In part 2, find out what happened next on what was possibly the worst night of our lives! Also, find a response and final comment to Greg Lambert.

GPW: "Night Of The Brave" November 4th tickets available online at our new website - http://www,grandprowrestling.co.uk get yours now and follow us on Twitter @grandpro

http://www.youtube.com/embed/cHt1qifrTKQ

A match i'd been wanting to book for some time was going to open us up for GPW: "Heroes & Villains" was Mikey Whiplash vs. William Gáylord.

I knew that Gáylord had wanted this match for some time and ranked Whippy among a Top 3 wrestlers he wanted to work with. As with a few people on the roster, Whippy had had an impact on Gáylord's development and I knew that their styles would compliment each other and give us a match that would undoubtedly surprise many. I often don't think Gáylord is given half the praise he should be. He's an incredible talent. His facials are second to none and although at this point he does still need more seasoning in the ring, he has got all the tools to be a huge, huge star and works incredibly hard. Maybe a slight change of ring gear with "GAYLORD" printed on back, a bit more toned and slightly more "serious" matches are what's needed for Gáylord to turn the corner as a performer and get more people to take notice of him. It's too easy for promoters to book him in that comedy role, but he'll learn a lot more from more meaningful, serious matches. This was one of them.

I'd spoken with Gáylord just before he went through the curtain and he thanked me for giving him the match and the opportunity. I asked him if he were nervous, he didn't need to answer, the smell from his trunks was enough. Ha, of course, I'm joking, he hadn't soiled himself but he was nervous, I could tell. Not that anyone in the audience would have ever of noticed though, his music hit and he strutted like an arrogant peacock through the curtain, down the ramp and into the ring to a wall of boos.

I'd given the boys 11 minutes to wow the audience with a flawless technical display. They did one of those things..., luckily that was the wow'ing the audience bit. In doing so they ran over 4 minutes. That however was going to be the least of my worries, it was how they finished that concerned me most...

The problem was there were two other booked submission finishes that night, one in the British Title Match and one in the Main Event. I hadn't had time to hold our usual pre-show meeting because of all the drama surrounding the scaffolding and hadn't got to inform people. The guys knew no better and we were looking at 3 out 7 matches finishing with a tap out. Someone had to change their finish. Who was it going to be?

Despite the unexpected finish and the 4 minute overlap, a match that crisp, that good and that engaging that had the audience totally pumped throughout deserved high praise, and that's what it got. From me, from their peers, their critics, and from the audience. A great match that did everything I hoped for, and a little bit extra. We were off to a flyer! In the first match I'd noticed how dark the entrance way was without a spotlight on it. No one wants the spotlight job, so it was time to put my persuading face on and went out to pull one of the helpers off one job to get them on the lights. Come the second match, the lit entrance way made a huge, huge difference and so far there were no comments, complaints or even a mention from our punters about the lack of screens...! Yessss!

(The shows re-designed poster (c) Tony Knox)

The second match continued the evolution of our newest star - Ste "Bin" Mann.

The next instalment of the North West Rookie League gave us a Handicap Match, Bin Man vs. Skullcrusher & JD Sassoon. If Bin Man lost, the NWRL would be won by Axl's team. If, against the odds, Bin Man won - he would eliminate both Skullcrusher and JD from the league before progressing to the final and meeting Axl's last surviving member, Jason Logan. Jiggy and I had no idea how well Bin Man would get over, no one, not even Bin Man himself could have ever of dreamt it. So, for the booking to fall with our new top babyface in a 2 heels on 1 handicap match - it was an absolute gift.

The dynamics of the match called for it to be kept simple. There was no need to overcomplicate or overbook. Bin Man going over may have been the most blatantly obvious thing since Linford Christie's "lunchbox" but there was no mileage in toying with the audience. Not to liken this match to a horror movie (although Skullcrusher mightn't object to that...) but if you watch a horror, you mightn't expect an indepth story, but you do expect to be titillated at the right times and that's what we needed to do here. Ride the audience and hit the right things at the right time, making the match all it could be. Sometimes those type of matches can be the hardest, especially for rookies. Rookies are often at fault for wanting to do too much, and doing it at the wrong time. Being restricted in this way was as much

a test for the rookies as it was for us as bookers.

However, the first test was with Rick, our announcer.

With no screens to call upon, Rick's job as announcer was made that little bit harder as he needed to build emotion and anticipation around the match. He had to get over the importance and magnitude of the fact that this could be the very last time anyone would see Bin Man in action. As Rick did his schtick, I decided to head out into the audience to get a closer feeling and understanding of "Bin Man Fever" in the Ballroom. Rick didn't let me down, the crowd were worked up into a suitable frenzy at the thought this might well be the last time they'd see their beloved Bin Man wrestle. They'd all seemingly looked the other way at possibly the most obvious result in GPW history and totally bought into the match. Here's a crowd that wanted to be sucked in, now it was up to the lads to do the sucking, without sucking... if you know what I mean.

(Get your coat Skull, you've pulled...)

Aside from the obvious list of what we needed to achieve from the match, all the NWRL instalments were meant to be a platform for the performers. JD had had his chance, so I wanted use that platform here for Skullcrusher. He, Ken-Zen and L.A Ausin all work incredibly hard at training, and Skull, despite the odd scrap in 2010 had waited the longest out of all his NWRL counterparts. He was well deserving of more exposure here and I hoped he would be able to learn from the mistakes L.A Austin had made in the Six Man he'd made his debut in. Skull is a hell of a talent, but totally restricted by his gimmick. A gimmick he will not, for love nor money change to maximise his own abilities. I think it'll have to be a realisation he makes on his own. I hope one day we'll see Skullcrusher in a more befitting guise, but for now he was out to quench his thirst for skulls...

As the bell rang, i'd taken up residence among the audience. I'd worried / thought that some of the Bin Man love we were getting wasn't as great as we'd built it up to be. I wanted to see first hand if the reactions were true and unforced - I wanted to be swept up by the Bin Man Fever!

I moved from side to side, from the bar to the back row, the front row up to the balcony and no matter where I stood or sat - the results were the same. There was no way we'd got this Bin Man love wrong, if anything - we'd underestimated it. It was huge. It was massive, and what surprised me most of all - from adults to kids, teenagers to parents - 100% completely genuine. Everyone was enjoying themselves and wanted more and more and more. A smile was the one thing that linked the audience as they all chanted "BIN MAN! BIN MAN! BIN MAN!" they had a huge ear to ear grin on their faces. I'd not seen any character elicitate that strength of feeling before, ever. I was quite simply, blown away.

JD and Skull were eventually defeated, and I was pleased Skull got enough exposure from the bout. Bin Man was announced as the second finalist in the NWRL to rapturous applause by his adoring public. This was bigger than I ever gave it credit. The roof came off and the Bin Man Fever was getting hotter and hotter! Pity though that the fever hadn't spilled over to the merchandise table where i'd invested in some Bin Man esque High-Vis jackets... we sold one.....

.

A "Voodoo Return" video was scheduled next, but due to there being no screens, we had to skip it. Greg, aka Voodoo had actually returned from Hong Kong (where he'd been living for 12 months) a few days prior and was on the balcony for the show. He'd drunk too much Apple Sourz (Voodoo has a sugary tooth) by that point to care, but I still thought it was a shame we wouldn't get to air it. But, even with no video screen - two matches down and we were flying. The contrast in matches had really set our stall out for the evening and the audience had reacted well. The Ballroom had such an awesome atmosphere inside and the place was rocking. Next match up was one of Jiggy's "silly ideas"....

Jiggy's "silly ideas" have now become an infamous part of our booking. Such ideas in the past have included: an impromptu 30 Man Rumble, mid show. An Alaskan Rules Tag Match (I still don't know what one of those is, pretty sure he doesn't either). A game of chess, mid show. A 3 second main event. A faction of faux Eastern Europeans. A Mike Baldwin remembrance moments silence and many, many more. Sometimes, i'm not sure he even means what he says and they're just suggested to see what reaction I give them and if i'll sign them off. Signed off is what I did with his latest crazy suggestion - a first time ever Double Dog Collar Match. Two teams of two where the individuals are chained to one another by the neck. There may well have been a good reason why it had never been done before...

After trawling through a whole host of S&M sites looking at £50+ dog collars, Alan Tasker finally came to my rescue. He'd luckily seen some at his local Pound Shop of all places. Brilliant, I thought - get 8 just incase one breaks. £8 for dog collar gimmicks? Result. That was until I saw them and realised why there were so cheap. They didn't fit round people's necks properly, and didn't enthuse confidence that they'd stay in one piece all match. So, in the afternoon Alan resumed his dog collar duties and dug some up at a local pet store. £15 each this time. At this rate, we may as well have bought the S&M ones...!

The new ones though, fitted and everybody was happy. Now with a surplus of dog collars, and a few more quid down than first anticipated, I saw my chance to sell the surplus off on the merchandise stall (as if selling plastic knives wasn't bad enough!?). It was only when I saw one kid walking his mate round the ballroom on all fours, and who was cocking his leg and panting, and more worrying - another kid trying to hang himself with the collar, that I re-thought it, took them back and refunded the money immediately. Sometimes, when death and / or deep emotional scaring are at steak, I can stand to lose a few quid!

I had gotten the same reaction from Kirby, Dylan and Cam when I told them about the match, "Oh.." they said, "You're not ribbing me? I thought this was a joke." By the time their entrance music was playing and the collars were around their necks, I think they believed me. I certainly didn't envy them being in that match but I knew the 4 personalities would come up with some creative spots, and I looked forward to seeing them in action. But, I think I may have been the only one...

4 grown men, in trunks and lycra attached to each other with dog collars and leads round their neck?

Not homo-erotic, whatsoever.

It wasn't until I was stood on the balcony looking down at our "S&M inspired tag match" that I realised just how dodgy this looked. No wonder the audience were quiet... the guys had some work to do to bring the audience back, they weren't quiet as in bored, I think they were just bemused at what we were offering them. It took the crowd a little while to get into it, but after some clever spots, they were able to look past the diamond studded chokers and steel leads, and we got the reactions we wanted. The match picked up pace and the audience became more and more invested. By the time Jiggy and Cam went over, I think the crowd got it.

Even with the dodgy crowd reactions, we were still flying. We had a good draw and we'd had a really great 1st half, the 2nd half was going to be even better...

We were opening up the second with our history making 500th match, the British Title Match between Jack Gallagher and Zach Diamond.

It was a match i'd wanted to re-run since their awesome break out match in October 2010 at "Friday Night Thriller IV". The match was voted MOTY and I knew there'd be interest in a Zach / Jack II, not to mention I knew that the two would have an even better match.

The plan had always been to shift the title onto Jack in the re-match, But, if that hadn't been the case - my hand may have been forced anyway...

Zach contacted me a couple of weeks before the show to say he needed surgery on his elbow that could put him out for 6 months or more. He'd chipped it badly in February against Juice and had gone onto chip another 3 large chunks out of it since then. The 3-Way Iron Man Match really took it out of him and it was hurting so much that he couldn't event put his elbow pad on. He needed the floating bits of bone around his elbow removing and likely an operation to do it. With that in mind, he cancelled all his bookings.

At this point in the conversation, I saw our much built up re-match flash before my eyes, then Zach said:

"...but there's no chance i'm going to miss this match."

Hats off to the guy, he was in considerable pain and the thought of skipping the match never crossed his mind, but... considering the injury and the pain he was in, would we still get the match we wanted? It had a great deal to live up to, could they do it?

Taking the injury into account, and the fact that we'd be without Zach for a little while, both Jack and Zach approached me earlier in the night to ask if they could work a submission finish. Zach wasn't going to be in action until at least 2012, he'd had a good run with the title so why not put Jack over the best he could? They ran passed their idea for it, and i'd agreed. Despite Whippy and Gáylord doing a submission finish, the Zach / Jack match made the most sense to keep as a tap out, so it was never in danger of being re-booked.

Before the boys came out for their match, Rick had a big job to do on the mic. It was down to him to do the work of the ill-fated music video that never was and hype up the enormity of our 500th Match. He was on form, and he did just that. There was an anticipation about the match before they'd even locked up, exactly what you'd want for a title match of such important historical standing. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife.

Within seconds of watching Zach move round the ring, I knew he wasn't going to hold anything back, and we were in for a match every bit as good as their first outing.

The two bust their asses and went through the pain barrier to give the audience a match they couldn't keep their eyes off. Both men took some sickly bumps as the match built and built to its finale. Just as their first outing, I gave both men a good time frame to build, except this time, they'd really earnt their 16 minutes. The ending was very well done, all credit due to Jack and Zach who'd come up with it themselves. Zach went up top for a missile dropkick, Gallagher caught him in a leg trap ankle lock and tapped him out at a point in the match no one in the audience was expecting and the tap out finish seem to shock the audience. Even though the crowd sighed at the loss and that Zach had lost the title, everyone in attendance that night knew they'd witnessed an absolute classic and acknowledged it so by giving the two a rare standing ovation. I couldn't remember the last time a match at the Ballroom, nor Britain received a standing ovation, I was choked up. God knows what Jack and Zach must have been feeling!

Jack took his leave, letting Zach soak up the last pops from the still standing crowd. He knew he didn't know when he'd be coming back and in that scenario, there's such a temptation to be selfish and over-do it. Zach didn't. As I watched him limp through the curtains, I thought about our new British Champion, Jack Gallagher.

As corny as it sounds, Jack above most people on the roster had been on a real journey

as a GPW wrestler. Always a performer with potential, he never performed to his capacity. His backstage attitude had rubbed people up the wrong way and in the past it had made him some enemies. In the last 12 months, he had turned his gimmick, his attitude and his skills around to transform himself into a true champion and now one of the most respected guys in the lockeroom.

The standing crowd then took their seats as they awaited match number 501 in the GPW history books, another title match, this time, the big one - The Heavyweight Title. Challenger Cyanide took on champion Damon Leigh.

I'd purposely placed this after Jack's match, two former team mates who'd arrived in GPW at the same time both receiving title shots in consecutive matches. As had Jack, Cyanide had also risen through the ranks on the roster through the years and had earnt his own title shot. He, as had Jack, had matured greatly as performers and had both grown up as individuals since their debut 4 years prior.

DDL vs. Big Man is Damon in his element. It's a match we'd worked to all year to help showcase DDL as the heavyweight champ and help create a new main event level talent in Cyanide. The squashes Cyanide had been involved with leading up to this match made him a serious, serious threat and finally the crowd were beginning to look at him differently. I knew he and DDL would deliver a quality heavyweight match that would surprise many. Especially with what was planned for the finish...

Up until this point, Cyanide had only ever been bumped and pinned once, and that took two people to do. We'd built up Cyanide as a killer monster and in a proper Andre / Hogan moment, Damon was set to slam Cyanide in this match, but... that wasn't the only bump Damon had in mind for Cyanide..., he wanted to Splash Mountain Bomb him i.e) lifting Cyanide above his head then throwing him forwards to land infront of him between his legs. At this point i'll remind you that Cyanide weighs over 20 stone.

"Are you sure you can do it?" I asked Damon during the day of the show.

"Of course I can! I'm DDL, I'm the champ!" He said.

About 10 minutes before they were due out, I checked in with him again - "Are you ready for this?".

"Listen, I'm DDL - i'm the Champ, and these guns can lift anything!".

I could've asked him to come up with a cure to the common cold, and I'd have got the same "I'm DDL, i'm the Champ" response. If anyone loves being the GPW Heavyweight Champ, it's Damon... The two men made their entrances, and we were about to find out if holding the title did indeed give DDL superhuman strength...

After the Zach / Jack match, the fans were in tune and ready for another classic. As I walked through the audience, I realised one thing - Cyanide scares people. Some people poked fun at him, until he gave them a glare or hit a big move and they shut up straight away. Both he and DDL won over the entire Ballroom with a perfectly executed storyline match and each member of the audience bought into this as a heavyweight classic.

They'd drawn me in too, so much so, i'd completely forgotten the planned finish. So when Damon hoisted up the massive Cyanide above his head for the Splash Mountain Bomb I was as surprised as everyone else in the audience! After one impressive feat, he then threw him forwards and landed the move to absolute perfection. The ground shook and the audience, for the second time in consecutive matches, rose to their feet. Infact, "rose" doesn't do it justice - it was more like leapt. Like an involuntary motion at the sight of a 20 stone man-monster being picked up above someone elses head and into the air with apparent ease. If I hadn't already been standing myself, I'd have done the same as everybody else and been on my feet. It was an amazing moment, one of "those" moments that will be forever re-capped on music videos in years to come (when we have screens...) re-played in many people's minds and a big talking point for the evening. It was just brilliant.

I heard a group of 20 something lads all turn round to one another with disbelief on their face and yelled "DID YOU JUST SEE THAT!?"

Damon doesn't generally appeal to that demographic, but he'd certainly made some new fans there.

(I couldn't find any photographic evidence of the Splash Mountain Bomb, so to see it, you'll have to buy the DVD! £10 at http://www.grandprowrestling.co.uk)

I expected Damon and Cyanide to deliver, I expected the audience to enjoy it - I never expected them to deliver to that standard, or expected that kind of reaction. Awesome. The night was getting better and better.

Next up, GPW match number 502, the match that was originally going to get the 500 nod, Dirk Feelgood vs. Joey Hayes.

We'd been building the Dirk / Joey story since May 2010 after Dirk had eliminated Joey from the Rumble and this was to be it's pay off. Joey is so over with the audience, he practically doesn't even need to do anything to get a reaction these days. The audible gasp of mass disappointment when he was eliminated from the Rumble still rings in my ears now. It was the loudest reaction to someone either being eliminated or beaten i'd ever heard live. I was expecting big things from this match but the audience weren't ready. As the match started, it didn't feel like the whole of the Ballroom were into it. Any match following two standing ovations was always going to face some hurdles, even if it was Joey wrestling in it! The audience were suffering from burn out and

for the first time ever in a Joey Hayes match, the audience were quiet.

Luckily, it didn't last. I'd given the guys 14 minutes in which to tell their story, and that was enough time to bring the audience back round and by the time we were at the finish, they were back in full voice.

We'd long had a Michael Fitzgerald turn in mind, Mikey was a wrestler before he was a ref, he'd been an awesome and reliable referee for us since he joined an unlike many other people in his position, he never once complained, or begged to be put on shows in any other capacity. I much prefer that attitude, and am more likely to reward that individual with what they want. That's what I wanted to do with Mikey. The heel ref storyline was one of Dirk's ideas back in September / October of the previous year, we just had to bide our time before implementing it and tonight was Mikey's night.

There were several scenarios in which we could turn Mikey, we discussed them all, at length but went with the maximum amount of drama possible. With the match reactions dwindling, I wondered just what drama we could evoke from our burnt out audience. As we built up to the finish, I stopped worrying. The audience were sucked back in and although on this occasion they were still sitting, they were sat right on the edge of their seats. No one saw the turn coming and the whole finish sequence was given the attention it deserved as we drew a line under the long running Dirk / Joey storyline, turned Mikey and built toward the second half of the year.

The crowd had had their downtime during the Dirk / Joey match and had come back up again just in time for the main event. Next up was the match that was meant to be the month before, 5 Years In The Making - Bubblegum vs. El Ligero, Main Event time.

There was a load of history to get your teeth into here, for both in and out of the ring stories. The pair had wowed the audience in their closing exchanges at the "Only The Strong Survive 2011" show and I was eager to see what else they could produce. At OTSS11 they'd done a reverse hurricarana spot, much to the amazement and jubilation of the crowd. I said to Ligero after the match  

"what the hell are you going to use for the blow off now?"

 If there were two people who could top it, it was Pip and Ligero. I was hoping for something special. Although a lot of their personal rivalry may have been water under the bridge before the bell rang in this one, there was always going to be an extra bite to this match. Personal rivalries have always made for more interesting matches, and putting them in the ring is nothing new.

(The infamous Shawn Michaels / Bret Hart rivalry.)

The big man, Vince himself was famous for exploiting the bad blood between Shawn and Bret. It put dinner on his plate for a good 12 years or more. WCW cashed in on the heated personal rivalry between Kevin Sullivan and Chris Benoit following Nancy's divorce from Sullivan and subsequent engagement to Benoit. It was another woman was the catalyst for a very publicised feud between Edge and Matt Hardy that WWE decided to carry over to TV. Ric Flair's personal differences with Mick Foley and Bret Hart both made money on TV for WCW and WWE too, not to mention a whole host of other outside the ring rivalries that have made great feuds and spiked ratings.

Back to our own little personal rivalry match..., the finish had been booked as a submission, Bubblegum tapping out to Ligero. It was Ligero's suggestion to do this finish when we were supposed to have ran the match the previous month. Taking into account their rocky relationship outside the ring, I was quite surprised Bubblegum had agreed to it,

a submission finish is really the ultimate way to put your opponent over.

If Pip was happy to do it, and this wasn't some kind of one up-manship ploy on Ligero's behalf, I was happy to agree to it. Happy that was until Whippy tapped Gáylord out in the opener. And with Zach dropping the title in a submission finish in his match with Jack, so it was this match where we had to changed the finish. The guys were fine with it and we all agreed on two Ligero C4L DDT's in its place. Still, a generous way to put your opponent over.

Just before go time, Pip asked me for some mic time pre match. We were running slightly late but I agreed anyway. The finish re-booked and a last minute promo thrown in - it was time to wrap up "Heroes & Villains" with a main event some had been waiting 8 weeks for, others had been waiting 5 years.

The boys made their entrances, the fans were amp'd up and buzzing with anticipation as Bubblegum took the mic and cut a promo stood among the audience. He'd convinced me into the promo by saying he felt it would really add drama to the match and get the crowd on his back, he was spot on - it did just that. He verbally soaked himself in honey and kicked away at the bees nest, it was quite something.

Reaction wise, the crowd picked up where they'd left from with Dirk and Joey - on the edge of their seats. Cleverly worked in was the same reverse hurricarana that most who'd been present for OTSS11 would remember, and it was again in the finish sequence that these two excelled.

(Bubblegum vs. Ligero: The two traded stiff blows throughout the match.)

I am the first person to say:

"don't get too silly with the finish sequence, do things in order to build and in a way that makes sense."

But... sometimes, there is a match that you can get away with being a bit "silly". This was one of those occasions. The biggest move in the match should arguably be the finish, the reverse hurricana was the biggest move in the sequence, but they had some way to go before the 3 count went down. However, it was done in such a way, the nonsensical almost made sense and the audience stayed with it right until Ligero hit his 2nd C4L DDT and won the match with a 3 count. Brilliant stuff.

There were no standing ovations for this one, just a Ballroom sized "Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na, Hey, Hey, Heyyyy - Goodbye." (repeat to fade) in the direction of Bubblegum. Whilst briefly worrying that the audience had mistaken "Grudge Match" for "Loser Leaves Town Match" I was over the moon, heat was heat and there was no mistaking the strength of the reaction - the match had done exactly what we set out for it to do.

As Pip soaked up the boo's and Ligs revelled in the pops, I sat back with a smile on my face. We were in profit (despite the dog collar refunds) and we'd finished the first half of the year on a high. As usual, the show had had its problems and it had been a very, very stressful afternoon. But, the end result was a night of real genuine heartfelt emotion from our audience. We'd had standing ovations, bemusement, edge of the seat drama, ear to ear smiles, singing, chanting and I think we'd even managed to hold the attention of 20 kids with millions of E Numbers coursing through their bodies. All in all, it was an uplifting, wonderful, wonderful night.

Who needs any endorsements from Greg Lamberts' XWA huh?

The show might have been over, but the THW had only just started, and our story with the XWA was certainly still unfinished...

After "Heroes & Villains" it was time to tackle the beef with Greg and the XWA. After our show, I was in a really great mood. We'd worked hard all year and delivered an excellent show, it was now time, for the first time ever to sit back and relax over a long period of time. I was in a good mood, such a good mood, i'd even decided to tone down the retaliation on Greg. I wasn't going to "let him off" but i'd decided just to bring the problem to his attention calmly. But, I wanted to do it face to face, at the XWA show. With me going to his show, i'd hoped he'd be sensible enough to feel a bit small about not coming to ours and it at least serve to underline the lack of support throughout the THW from the XWA camp. Only, that plan never came to fruition...

(Sheep aka Jiggy Walker)

I rang Greg Saturday lunchtime, told him I was thinking of coming to his show and asked if he could put me plus one on the comp'd guest list. Considering he'd not done one single thing toward the THW, not bothered checking in with me one single time during it, or bothering to come to our show where "his boys" were wrestling - me asking to be comp'd was clearly an ask too far for Greg "The Truth" Lambert...

"Errrrm, ooooh, errrrrm - no. We don't do comps. We'd need you to pay. Not necessarily full price, but you'd have to pay at least £15 for two of you..."

Wait a minute.........., what?

Let me get this in right at the start - I have no problem paying for tickets for anything, I don't have a Hollywood complex whatsoever - it wasn't the money, it was the ask. If Greg had helped in the lead up to the THW, I wouldn't have even questioned the money, but here's a guy who's not pulled his weight one single bit for the THW asking me for money to his show? What? The times (and those I can count on one hand) that Greg and his entourage have graced us with their presence at a GPW show, they've never been charged. I often go and watch FutureShock and Dave never expects any money from me and vice versa. It's called working together.

There's an argument that goes "well, if you're really helping one another - you'd pay." Right, so I pay Greg for the tickets, he comes to my show and pays me for my tickets and we go round and round. - there's no point. It may as well be comp'd from the off. Greg had really pushed it too far now.

I was shocked and taken aback,

"Oh, right. Ok, well - i'll let you know." I said.

I put the phone down, walked around for a minute or two, trying to think about it from Greg's perspective but I couldn't. The smoke started coming out of my ears. I was ready to bury this, bring it up in polite conversation and move on. But this latest disrespect was really, really the last, and final straw. I picked my phone back up and made a call I knew would do nothing to help the situation... - I called Sheep, Jiggy Walker.

"You fucking what? He said what? What a fucking nonce! How many times have we charged him? Does he not get this Triple Header working together thing? I hope you told him to do one. That guy is fucking retarded."

That's Jiggy in a private conversation and sober.

This was Jiggy after a few pints, on a public forum for all to read:

"How was XWA lad? I know you planned on going to support the north west scene, especially with all those roster members we helped polish as performers. Was it a banging show that featured no convoluted booking and absolutely no characters that you would define as off putting 'noncey' if pressed. I hope so..."

He'd not finished there either: Later, this appeared.

"I asked my mate to buy me a drink last night as he owed me a few. He told me he couldn't, but he'd go halves with me if I really wanted one. I was aghast."

Needless to say, I didn't go to XWA and

I planned on not working with Greg ever again.

I wasn't even going to waste my time telling him why, I didn't think he deserved to know. But, he'd seen Jiggy's posts before I did and got in touch with his tail between his legs. We spoke on the phone but his defence was flimsy to say the least and he knew it. There was no defence. He accepted he'd not done enough and vowed to make a difference in the future.

I was happy with his apology, but can't trust him until I see more action from his corner. Can we repair the damaged GPW / XWA relationship and get back to the North West promotions working together for a common goal? Between a hot headed Jiggy Walker, a willing to work for it Dave Rayne, only interested in himsef Greg Lambert and myself - time will tell...

**** We're back in the Ballroom after the Summer Break on October 7th for GPW: "Friday Night Thriller V" tickets still left, get yours now! 07703 312 146 / richardnoble@yahoo.co.uk ****

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Dave, Greg and myself had had several meetings throughout the year in conjunction with the THW's and the NWRL, we'd come up with a number of concepts to help each other out. We'd toyed around with the idea of a talent share weekend and one of the early propositions was for all 3 of us to use either Joel Redman or Zack Sabre Jr. but with our show being the last of the first half of the year where feuds would be settled etc. there was no room for us to bring in anyone that hadn't featured in the previous shows. Dave and Greg were able to come together to bring in Joel Redman though,

but that was the only time there was any teamwork in this THW...

(Joel Redman)

With XWA running 4 events per year, Greg was able to start promotion for his part of the THW (XWA's "War On The Shore VII") 11 weeks before Dave or I could. His first online press release was made on March 1st and in this first release, there was only a brief mention of the THW, buried at the foot of the document:

"Please note this is part of a triple threat of North West Wrestling that weekend as GPW will run at the Monaco Ballroom in Wigan on the Friday (June 3) and Futureshock will run at the Stockport Guildhall on the Sunday (June 5). Many of the stars of XWA will feature on all shows. So why not travel and make a weekend of it."

The same throw away sentence was used (and lost amid plenty of other news updates) on the XWA website. Fair enough, I thought. He's not made a song or dance about it, but he's at least mentioned it and there were still 3 months left for him to sing it from the rooftops, and advertise the hell out of the first THW since 2008... or not, as the case may be...

As time rolled on and more updates were released on XWA's "War On The Shore VII" there were no further mentions of the Triple Header Weekend, infact, it looked like both

Dave and I had been completely forgotten about

and replaced by something else that had taken Greg's attention.

Come April, Greg had organised his own "wrestling weekend" in a "Learn To Wrestle Promotion", totally ignoring the Triple Header and concentrating on a local festival. Now i was beginning to feel shunned. He released the following:

"THE WRESTLE WEEKEND!

XWA Wrestling is proud to announce its contribution to Morecambe's new "Top 20" festivals season - the Wrestle Weekend including our live pro wrestling event XWA War on the Shore on Saturday June 4 and the Learn to Wrestle Open Day on Sunday June 5. The Wrestle Weekend begins on Saturday, June 4 with our annual live extravaganza XWA War on the Shore VII at The Carleton in Morecambe, Lancashire! This great night out for all the family has received rave reviews all over the country from local people and wrestling fans from across the UK who travel to enjoy the fantastic entertainment the XWA is renowned for."

He went onto promote his own event and there was not one single mention of the two shows taking place either side his. But, on the plus side, we still had 2 months left and there was plenty of time. I had faith in the journalist by day, evil heel manager by night Greg "The Truth" Lambert!

My faith, was misplaced.

Updates throughout the month of May continued online with news releases put out on the forums, Twitter, Facebook and the XWA website, but there was no further mention of the THW. As we announced our show on May 18th we immediately made a big deal of the weekend, updated our website, our Facebook and began to tweet to our followers information on not just our event, but all 3 of the North West events.

"As part of this years massive North West Triple Header Weekend alongside neighbours XWA and FutureShock, GPW will be the first to step up and get your weekend kick started! And we're going in strong with our biggest show of 2011! GPW: 'Heroes & Villains'.

Dave had announced his show on May 21st and did a great job of driving the THW home with a very generous ticket offer. He offered fans attending 2 out of the 3 events (FutureShock being one of them) and who brought their GPW or XWA ticket stubs a massive drop in price from £9 to £5! An excellent offer Dave had done off his own back, costing himself £4 per person. I was hoping this would prompt Greg into action, but it only served to highlight the lack of corporation from the XWA office...

In every update and tweet leading up to the show, both Dave and myself mentioned the THW but there was nothing from Greg. Not even a single tweet. Without Greg pulling his weight, it certainly didn't feel like we were "in it together" and there was a sour feeling coming over the THW.

New promotion, NBW: Southside were running the same night as us in Preston. Originally, they'd advertised several huge American names: Road Dogg, X-Pac and others to appear but, for one reason or the other they all eventually pulled out. In their place NBW brought in former WWE star, Dave Taylor. Even with the promise of Road Dogg and X-Pac et al, I never saw NBW as a real threat to us despite being only a few miles down the road. Their last shows hadn't drawn well and I was confident in our local drawing power. I did expect to lose some people to the NBW show, but not enough to cause us an issue. What I didn't expect was for Greg to attend the event and not come to ours... another shun in our direction.

I'd not heard from Greg throughout all the THW promotion. And what really made matters worse was that i'd not even had any contact from him to let us know that despite us promoting his event on all our press releases, and featuring some of his own guys on our show, he wouldn't be attending. Instead, he was going to be at NBW, a company for all intents and purposes, a rival who were only in their second show.

So much for North West solidarity. So much for a Triple Header Weekend!

I'm not sure what Dave's feelings on it were, afterall - he had every reason to be as miffed as we were. He was just as busy as us plugging the THW and in turn, Greg's event. And, like us, he too was getting no love back from XWA in acknowledgement of his own event. If anything, he should be the most disgruntled as it was him that was standing to lose money with his ticket offer.

I was mad. It was the final straw on one long 3 month drawn out big let down. And I wasn't the only one who'd noticed...

It had caught the attention of Jiggy Walker aka Sheep. I'd hoped it would've fixed itself by Greg pulling his finger out before it reached Sheep, but it was too late. And the last thing I need in these situations is someone like-minded as fired up as I am, it usually results in an argument. But it was too late, it was on his radar as well as mine and he was as pissed off as I was, and that spelt T.R.O.U.B.L.E.

I've never met anyone, other than myself, more fiercely passionate about GPW than Sheep. Infact, "fiercely passionate" doesn't cover it. I'm not sure what words do. We've got a lot of passion on our roster, afterall, it's passion that keeps us all going, certainly not the money. But, no one is as passionate quite like Jiggy. He would gladly march into the bowels of fiery hell to fight the GPW cause, lead the charge bare footed into any battle to defend the GPW colours with no regard to who's turf it was on. I don't even think Vince himself would be safe...! He's not all gung-ho with no brains either, one of the most intelligent people i've ever met - he'll out-think you before you've had a chance to know what's hit you. Woe be the man who picks the wrong argument with Jiggy Walker!

He is, and always has been "Mr. Company". Sometimes, not always what you'd describe as being exactly a "model" employee (a lot of mis-placed passion and anger have caused me some major headaches in the past!) but you can never fault his heart for the progression of the company, the roster and the shows. It was that cross between passion and anger that I feared when I saw his name flash up on my phone as the pot with XWA was about to get stirred...

"When are we fucking off the XWA off? Dave wants to help, but Lambert isn't interested one bit. He's missed the entire point of this NorthWest Weekender and we're making mugs of ourselves. As long as 'his boys' are getting bookings, he's not interested. He's not even got the good fucking manners to come to our show and he's going to Preston instead. When was the last time he bothered to come and support this NWRL?"

As usual, he was right and I couldn't argue Greg's case for him, even though there was surely a side to his story. I was already disappointed and angry, but Sheep's words compounded my own thoughts and feelings. And things were going to get worse... but, that wouldn't take place until after the show. More on that, and the conclusion to this little story in Part 3. In the meantime, despite feeling more stirred up about the situation than ever, I put a lid on it. My plan was to let the THW play out and afterward, part ways with XWA, amicably. I wanted to hear Greg's side of things on it. My approach cooled Sheep's jets too, well at least until after our show...

So, with feelings of frustration and anger put aside, it was on with our own contribution to the North West Weekender. Dirk had come up with the name of the show about 7 months prior when we were brain storming names for "Guts & Glory". I loved his comic book inspired title, and had banked it to use at a later date. The name wasn't the only thing comic book inspired either, the poster was too. Or at least that was the plan. Tony, another comic book fan, (there's a lot of them in wrestling!) planned on designing the poster as a War of the Worlds replica. It didn't work out well. Infact,

it was fucking terrible.

I could see where Tony was going with it, but it didn't carry over from comic book land to the wrestling world. Unfortunately, we had to get him to re-do it and get them all printed up again which a/ lost us time and b/ cost us twice as much money. Despite the set back though, I was happy with the promotion we'd done for the event and was boosted early on by the news of a 12 year olds birthday party booking, held for him and 20 of his friends at the show! However, this news came with its obstacles, the 12 year old in question was the son of one of the new venue owners. Eeek. Not only would the new owners be in attendance, but their children, their families and their children, their friends and their children their children's' friends and their parents... all at our biggest show so far? Phew - a massive chance for us to impress! Not to mention, 20 seats sold in a package deal all at the same time is much better than hustling down 20 individual pre-sales!

The matches for "H&V" were the easiest thing about the show to organise.

We'd built to the feuds since the start of the year and because of that, the show would largely be a "blow off show". In addition to the matches that had been booked, we also had Bubblegum vs. El Ligero carried over from the main event we weren't able to run the previous month, so that meant we had an extra quality match to add to an already tasty card. Luckily, no one was bumped off the show because of the carried over match, infact In some of the original drafts we'd pencilled in a Ligero vs. Bubblegum NHB match anyway, so no one actually got bumped off. But, it did mean that the original main event for "H&V" (Dirk Feelgood vs. Joey Hayes) would have to make way for Pip and Ligero. Neither Joey, or Dirk minded making way, and we had a majorly stacked card to finish the first half of 2011 off.

Posters done, card done and with 20 plus pre-sales before we'd even started advertising - we were in good shape ahead of "Heroes and Villains". I was starting to look forward to it! We tucked away a few more pre-sales in the weeks leading up to the show and come show day we'd sold and reserved 75 places. That's good going, all of a sudden this blow off show had a well deserved, really big feel atmosphere about it. To help with the big show appeal, i'd organised a music video to be made to help celebrate match number 500. The M.V would be played just before the milestone match.

Who to give Match 500 to had been a bit of a talking point leading up to the show, it was originally supposed to be Dirk and Joey who got the nod. I'd chosen them as two guys who'd been with the company for a long time and widely regarded as "GPW guys" but with the

finish of that match having long been booked as a "sportsents" one,

a straight finish was more befitting of match #500, and the nod was given to Zach vs. Jack II.

Aside soured feelings in XWA's direction, I was happy with everything we'd done to promote the show and unlike the 4 shows that had gone before, I was ready for "Heroes & Villains"! It's just a pity the venue and the music video weren't...

The date of "H&V" was June 3rd, the date the new owners officially took over from the council was June 1st. I'd had a conversation with an employee (now ex-employee, which may go some way to explain this next story...) in May who'd told me that within 48 hours of the takeover, the whole venue was undergoing a massive makeover, but not to worry it would "no way interfere with" our show. They'd be new carpets, a whole new front and a host of other changes. I should add that in the same sentence, the guy in question also told me that he was "... just off to meet Peter Kay" (not his agent or anything, Mr. P Kay himself) "to sign him up for a date at the venue." You know, the same Peter Kay who's been doing a year's worth of dates at the 20,000 plus seater M.E.N arena...

He also said that as one of the venue managers, he was going to get a company car just like the car I drive. He was getting it all paid for by the company, even the petrol! I drive a brand new Lexus IS 250. Somehow, I doubt a venue manager would be given one of those as a company car... With raised eyebrows and a rye smile, I questioned him on all 3 wild claims, but was told with such conviction, I walked away even half believing him. There was not a hint of a wavering lie, this guy was a pro. Who was I to question him? I'm only the customer.

The morning of the show arrived, the music video didn't. First blow was in good and early.

The music vid I was hoping to underline our 500th Match milestone was not to be. One of our biggest excuses to expose some nostalgia wasn't going to see the light of day and after a decision i'd made a week or so earlier, not to start production of our "Best Of 500" DVD until after the Summer break, we were going into our big milestone with no gimmicks and no fanfare, relying solely on Rick getting it over in the announcements and the match itself delivering. Damn. We were going to be naked out there.

After shaking off the disappointment of no M.V I arrived at the Monaco at about 3pm to find old boy Steve the caretaker (who'd worked there for donkeys years) replaced by a young fresh faced Craig, who had previously worked behind the bar. Odd, I thought. Steve had taken early retirement, I guess the new company's pension scheme didn't quite match up to that of their "company car" one...(!)

Unsurprisingly, there had been no makeover, and no changes at all in the venue. No such thing as 60 Minute Makeover at The Monaco... And the only Lexus parked outside, was mine. The jury is still out on Peter Kay.

Well, I say "no changes", that's the way it appeared at first glance anyway. As I looked up to the ceiling there were two massive things missing... - the screens.

This, was not good.

We rely on the screens quite heavily during our shows, mainly as enhancements to our product and an overall more professional feel. I bet there are a lot of fans out there that a/ wouldn't expect a screen and be surprised and impressed we had not one, but two. Or, b/ expect a screen and be happy that we'd got not one, but two. It was when shows go ahead without them that people have reason to find fault, or complain. We've always had a screen at the Monaco and I didn't want to be taking a step back this far into our promoting life. All this when we were trying to impress the new owners and their massive party of kids? I was angry, really, really angry.

"Where have the screens gone?" I barked at youngster, Craig.

"Screens?" Blankly, was all I got back.

"Yeah, you know - the two massive things that are usually in either corner of the room. The things we project images onto from our laptop, where we play music videos onto and where a massive part of our show is focussed on. The screens."

Shit. Shit. Shit. What else we relied on the venue having had been deemed "council owned" and gone M.I.A?

There was never a good time for this news to break, but you'd think that someone out there might have thought to let the people hiring the venue know that a major part of their props wasn't going to be there.

A brain cell too much, clearly.

Over the years we'd played round with different entrance videos, logo's etc. before finally settling on match graphics. It made the most ense. Everything else took too much maintenance to up-keep. Having said that, it still results in a hell of a lot of work and man hours going into the designing of the graphics. The reason we do it is to get the product looking and feeling more professional. Many a man has had their ears bent about meeting deadlines when getting said graphics in, and "H&V" was no different. Our graphic man from 2010 onwards has been Chris Egan, and he'd worked really hard to get the graphics together, I was gutted i'd have to tell him that all his work was going to be for fuck all.

As I thought about the 500th Match M.V, I was a little calmer about it, if we'd had that to play or a huge angle revolving around the screen - we'd have been sunk and i'd have been even more mad.

Not one to take no for an answer though, it was all hands to the deck for Operation:

Try-To-Mock-Up-A-Last-Minute-Screen-With-Minimal-Resources.

My knee jerk reaction was to do what we could to revert back to our old set up, pre-Monaco installed screens, where the entrance was under a man made entranceway of scaffolding set to one corner of the room instead of entrances through the curtain and down the ramp. This would allow us to construct our own make-shift screen we'd used lovingly from 2006 through to 2008. It was a home made screen delicately put together from a collection of bed sheets, ropes, pins that all rested on this huge scaffolding rig... Being able to set it up relied on a/ the council having left the scaffolding behind following the take over and b/ us being able to find our old projector and hope it was compatible with our new laptop. Here goes...

(Si Valour making his entrance under the "old" entrance way, scaffolding and bed sheets.)

The first hurdle was jumped and the scaffolding was where it always had been, tucked away in the darkest depths of a huge store room. Yes! I guess the council must've forgotten about it. So the task of unloading the scaffolding from the store room, into the venue and setting it up began. It was a good job Chris Echo had decided to return to the ring as he's the only one who knew what he was doing with the construction of it! As he shimmy'd up and down the scaffolding I went on the hunt for our old projector and a quick supply run to the local 24hr Tesco's for pins, ropes, bed sheets, graphics cards and anything else we might need.

Just gone 4 o'clock and bed sheets, pins, projectors and all other essentials for a "Last Minute Screen" had been located. It was now an anxious wait for the projector to arrive. It was 50 plus miles away and there wasn't enough time for me to go and get it, but i'd arranged someone to bring it. The waiting game was on.

As we waited, we got the scaffolding set up and ready. We moved all the merchandise to the side wall, put the heavy entrance ramp ways we'd been using since '08 away and re-arranged everything inside the venue around the scaffolding rig. Worst case scenario being: the delivery of the projector was late, it didn't work and we'd have to dismantle everything, move the merchandise back, move the ramps back and re-organise the whole venue. And, this could all have to potentially be done whilst punters waited outside. That was worst case. Best case scenario: the projector arrived in good time, it worked and we could leave everything set up as it was.

How lucky were we?

Time would tell.

There were several pitches from members of the roster and GPW team to keep the scaffolding up whatever the outcome and try and do something with it. Queue one of the strangest, and might I add, serious suggestions i'd heard in a while from one half of our commentary team - Rob Small.

"How about, you have the commentary team sat up on the scaffolding with their desks and PC doing live commentary up there all night?".

I won't list the thousands of reasons why that wasn't a good idea. From the sublime to the most over elaborate hard cam stand in the world suggestion. Yep, someone, who I can't remember suggested we keep this huge over-elaborate scaffolding rig set up all night, just to have one tiny hard cam up there... needless to say, that too was rebuffed.

Meanwhile, on the M56... things weren't looking too pretty for Dylan. At 16:26, I received this via text (he'll be overjoyed i've decided to quote him.):

"Here's one for your next blog, if this traffic doesn't clear up soon, I dunno what time, if any that i'll be rocking up."

Could things get much worse? After the M56, he still had the M6 to contend with and was due out third. But just like the projector, all I could do was wait.

Thankfully, no one else from the roster was coming in that direction and most of the guys had arrived by 5ish, the ring had also arrived but there no updates from Dylan and no projector. This was going to be one hell of a rush!

6 o'clock comes, still no projector, still no Dylan. But, the kids for the kids party had arrived.

Part of the package they paid for was to get in early and have party food on the balcony. It wasn't ideal, and if it hadn't been the owner of the venue, I wouldn't of allowed it. So now, to add to stress levels there were 20 screaming kids running around causing havoc whilst we all broke kayfabe stood round a large scaffolding structure pondering our impending fate.

After finally managing to pen them in to their party area on the balcony, it was 6:30 and there was still no projector, but praise the Lord, Dylan Roberts walked through the door. It had taken him over three times the normal length of time it takes to travel from his home to the venue. Every credit, another member of our roster who really

epitomises the passion to perform and loyalty to the product.

Mere mortals would've given up long since.

It was just gone 6:40 when the projector arrived. There was already a queue formed outside and the kids party were raising hell. The time for truth had arrived. Would the projector work?

After 10 minutes of trying, our fate was sealed. The projector wasn't compatible with the laptop. Shit. Shit. Double Shit. Worst case scenario time. We had tried our best, but we were resigned to doing a show with no screens. At 6:50, with 10 minutes before doors opened, I made the call to dismantle the scaffolding we'd spent 30 plus minutes erecting, move it out of the view of the audience, move back the merchandise tables, re-organise the venue, the seating, the crowd control barriers and re-set up the entrance ramp. Mission, impossible?

It wasn't the first time, and i'm certain it

won't be the last that the GPW roster had to pull together in a last minute dash.

The scaffolding came down quicker than it had gone up and we rushed to do our best to put it out of sight as putting it back in the store room we'd got it from was going to be a logistical nightmare. The merchandise table resumed it's normal position, crowd control barriers re-jigged, ramp out and at 7:05, we were ready to open the doors to a screen-less venue.

As the fans poured in, I caught Kerry, (father of birthday boy, and one of the new owners) part way through his sausage and pineapple on a stick to complain about the screens. Just as Craig had been, he too seemed very bemused by it and hadn't noticed the two huge screens missing in the 3 days that had passed since the take over. However, he did vow to either replace them or get them back. He was one of my major concerns, afterall, it was him I wanted us to impress the most and without the screens we weren't really showing him everything we were about. He was at least understanding and apologetic, I just hoped some of the audience taking their seats wouldn't mind either...

Before we started the show, part of the birthday package was to "meet the wrestlers" So I dragged Zach Diamond, Ste "Bin" Mann, DDL and Jynkx on the balcony to do their babyface thing and mingle with the fans. The kids really, really loved it and despite a little resistance from some of them, the guys ended up loving it too. It had nothing to do with the free jelly and ice cream... I think. If anything, it was a good ploy for better pops later on in the show, not to mention a good chance to promote new business for future birthday parties.

7:20, I looked out and didn't like what I saw. More to the point, what I didn't see. The audience was sparse to say the least. There seemed like there was hardly anyone in! I was worried. I did a quick head count and didn't even reach 100, and that was including the 20 kids that were behind me. Oh no....

Then, something happened. Maybe it was a really strong wind that blew another 150 people in, or maybe it was a coach party or two just arrived, but within minutes the venue filled right up. We'd swelled from having a sub 100 draw to having well over 200, within a couple of minutes. And no, Greg Lambert wasn't one of them. He hadn't changed his mind and was in Preston. We were repping this North West Weekender on our own! Nevertheless, the sight of the door being knocked down to get in was a much welcomed relief. Could we finally rest easy and start the show now? At 7:37 - we did just that.

Wow, had I been looking forward to this one?! We'd worked really hard since January to get to this point, our biggest show of the first half of the year before we had a 3 month break. I have to admit, I was looking forward to the break just about as much as the show!

We'd had a shift in profits and attendance over the previous couple of months, so that usually means the crowd are ready for a break too. With that in mind, it always amazes me how we a/ found the time b/ made the money and c/ got the audiences we did when we were running 10 shows a year in 2006, 2007 and 2009! Especially when you consider just '06 and '07 alone, that's 20 shows in 24 straight months, in the same venue! Whoa. A lot by anyone's standards. I surprise myself when I think of all the work that'd gone into those shows and how little break i'd given myself in between. It's a wonder I, and we, didn't suffer from burn out. Personally speaking, I'm pretty sure I couldn't do it again!

Our attendances and profits always go up after a little break. The audience miss us. It becomes less expected and more exclusive, more special I suppose. There's always that mindset among the casual fans of "oh, if we miss this month, there's always next month, and the month after, and the month after that..." that I fear.

2011 so far has arguabley been our strongest year for talent and storylines yet, but that's never enough to ensure people buy tickets. We badly needed a good profit-making, draw-smashing show to turn a couple of lowly months around and finish the first half on a high. So, in all mail shots and press releases, I played up to the fact that we were going to be gone for 3 whole months after this show. It was an effort to try and drive pre-sales and make the show more of a "must see" event to the casual audience that may have otherwise have fallen into the "there's always next month" category.

Something else I hoped would create a special feel about the show was that it would feature our 500th match. It may be a footnote for some, a milestone for others but I thought it was a big enough landmark for us to make a big deal of it. And I did.

(XWA owner, Greg Lambert)

Another useful tool, aimed more at the smarter fan was that "Heroes & Villains" would be the first time since July 2008 that all 3 local North West promotions worked together to promote a full weekend of wrestling that had become known as a "North West Wrestling Triple Header Weekend", or for short a "Triple Header Weekend". With our show on the Friday night, Morecambe based XWA on the Saturday and FutureShock on the Sunday, it was a perfect excuse for any would-be traveler to come and check us all out on the same weekend and hopefully, all of us benefit from an increase in business. We'd built on an already productive working relationship with FutureShock and had worked together on several different occasions since the initial THW to promote a number of successful "Double Header" weekends. But, this was the first time since 2008 that all three promotions dates had tallied up and I was looking forward to working with Greg and his XWA outfit again.

I've said this before, but it bares repeating - having healthy working relationships with (an)other promotion(s) are few and far between in this business. If more people were able to shelve their egos, the business would be a bigger and better place. We're very lucky having not just one great working relationship with FutureShock but since the debut of the North West Rookie League, we were building on an existing one with XWA. However, working relations hadn't always run so smoothly...

Inspired by a recent Matty Taylor blog over at http://www.stopmeifyouthinkyouveheardthis.tumblr.com I thought i'd tell the emergence of FutureShock from another perspective...

With confidence in Lee Butler's management of GPW having been at a consistent low for some time, the days of him being at the helm were numbered long before he physically left, and people knew it. There were sharks circling the waters as plans for FutureShock (then just plain old FSW) were being made as far back as 2003. Having upset one too many people with his off-hand man management, it was Declan O'Connor and John O'Rourke who were, I think, the first to jump ship and look at other options. After making contact with Alex Shane, (whose eyes had been opened to potential business in the North of England by GPW) it wasn't long before there were some serious discussions about FutureShock setting up as a promotion.

Some time before "Nemesis" in October / November 2003, Alex approached both Heresy and Damon Leigh (two of our biggest names) to leave GPW and be the two to run FutureShock. How different the landscape of British wrestling would've been if they'd said yes... but, just because they eventually chose to stay didn't stop plans for FutureShock going ahead.

In a strange reversal of fortunes, just as GPW was born out of the shadows of unhappy, disgruntled NPWA trainees and roster members who wanted more from wrestling and who chose to jump ship for greener grass, FutureShock too was started in exactly the same way, by disgruntled GPW trainees looking to jump ship. A host of GPW trainees that included Declan O'Connor, John O'Rourke, Dave Rayne, Lance Lenahan, Paul Zantar, Dom Travis and Axl Rage (then Ben Rage) among others fled to the "other side".

Some people, like Dave Rayne left the company honorably, others, like Declan left a real stink behind, and that only fanned the flames to a growing and very distinctive "them and us" divide that would last a very long time. Matty, in his blog using hindsight described this as being childish - it wasn't. It was anything but. Even with the benefit of hindsight, It was serious, really serious. And if it were to happen again, it'd be every bit as serious now as it was then. There was no way this was childish. GPW guys saw it for what it was - a direct threat on our business and our plans. Someone coming in on our patch. It's never been an acceptable thing to happen in business. Especially the wrestling one, see any problems with the North American territories between the 30's - 70's for further proof.

(The huge and impressive team of The UK Pitbulls)

And speaking of the territories, there was another side to the coin.., when GPW first set up, Lee developed links with FWA and Alex Shane, so much so infact that our first show, "Defection" (named by Lee as a dig at NPWA where all the GPW talent had come from...) was a co-promotion show featuring The UK Pitbulls, Alex Shane, Stevie Knight, Ian Dasciple and Paul Travel. Lee had put us in bed with the FWA.

At the time however, that wasn't too bad of a place to be. FWA were argubley at their hottest with some amazing shows with top U.S Indy promotions like ROH and Indy talent like CM Punk, Steve Corino and Brian Danielson. But, I for one knew at that time it was important to keep our own identity. It felt like Alex (who i've often said has a "Vince Complex") was trying to do exactly what McMahon had done in the early 80's - take over every single territory in the Uk. Tear their names down and put "FWA" outside the venues and schools. Ambition-wise, there's nothing wrong with that goal, I just can't say that it appealed to me, and luckily his attempted "takeover" of GPW never went any further than the first show.

After "Defection", thankfully both Alex and Lee went their separate ways, (for a while anyway, you'll find out in a minute what happened when they next crossed paths,,,!) and whist GPW was under Lee, we never used any further FWA talent. Lee, steered us away from being branded "FWA" but Alex's seemingly ego driven obsession with turning the whole of the UK into "FWA Land" wasn't dead. He hadn't succeeded with us, but he had succeeded in setting up FutureShock, and although the letters were FSW and not FWA, the company was FWA affiliated enough that it may as well have been FWA: Manchester.

Fast forward to present day, and Alex's obsession with controlling all of the UK wrestling scene continues as he tries to get all schools and promotions to dance to his beat under his British Wrestling Council idea. There's a reason why GPW never signed up for that...

Anyway, back to 2004 and to a story that's never before been told...

Lee and Alex had more than one disagreement during their tumultuous relationship and these disagreements lead to an almighty, and famous incident backstage at GPW: "Revelations", August 2004...

Earlier in 2004, quite literally overnight, Lee disappeared. He left GPW, the shows, the school and the day to day running of the promotion behind. He also left us in debt. He'd double crossed just about everyone he'd come into contact with, conned people, scammed people and given us a bad reputation which made other companies reluctant to deal with us. I'm not sure how true this is, but I heard there was even a price on Butler's head around this time. Alex and the FWA were on the list of possible enemies who might have taken that out...

All this considered, Lee's self preservation kicked in. He somehow got involved with the early set up of IwW (Irish Whip Wrestling, the promotion that spawned former WWE Champion, Sheamus) and moved to Ireland. So the story goes, whilst in Ireland, Lee was very outspoken in his opinions of Alex Shane. Accusations surrounding transvestites were made and word quite quickly got back to Alex, who, as you'd imagine - was not happy.

Lee sporadically returned to GPW training, ruffled a few feathers and a day or so later, left again. However, he was very withdrawn in his attitude and man management. He returned for the Damon Leigh promoted and booked show "Revelations". Not to take part on the show, just to watch from backstage. Someone else also planned on attending that event, that person was an extremely irate Alex Shane.

With the venue filled with about 200 plus fans and the show about to start, Alex burst through the front doors of the Legion with his entourage. He immediately made a b-line for the dressing room Lee was in (i've never know if he were tipped off or just got lucky as to which room to head for. Fureshock was established by then and Lee had plenty of enemies in the building) and smashed through the dressing room door. As soon as he came through the door, he and Lee got into it. Rolling around, on the floor, throwing punches, kicks and anything they could land on one another. At first no one really knew what to do, beyond the curtains the show was about to start. The GPW guys were divided, here was there so-called "leader", the "leader" that had deserted them, run them up in debt and tarnished any chance of a decent reputation in the business getting mauled by a man largely viewed as an outsider and responsible for not only setting up a rival company down the road, but the man who'd nearly tore our own identity away from us before we'd got going. In the end, I don't think anyone did anything. The fight continued, although it didn't last that long, Alex had other ideas as he bit a chunk out of Lee's ear.

Lee really needed his ass handing to him. Although he'd done well at holding his own against the much bigger Alex, he had been humbled and humiliated on his own patch. The police were called, and Alex was taken into the station for questioning as the audience were left thinking "was that real, or not?". Lee stayed at the venue and watched what turned out to be an awesome show, but was never the same. He slithered back to IwW where eventually, and predictably fucked up there too. Damon then pretty much took over the day to day running and promotion of GPW and we didn't see Lee again. Infact, none of us have seen Lee since. He posted a short message on the GPW forum months and months later saying he'd

retired from pro wrestling after he'd "broken his neck from a sledging accident..."

An outrageous untruth that really summed Butler up. He followed up his massive lie with another, after breaking his neck, he was now going to become a policeman. "PC Butler" even went as far to tell people he was a policeman, he wasn't. He didn't even get an interview and i'm not even sure he filled our the form to apply.

Weather it was the many debts and enemies Lee had amassed over the short couple of years he'd run GPW, the swell of zero confidence from his students, his "broken neck", pending career in the police, or the attack by Alex that ultimately caused Lee to walk away, we'll never know. There was talk of very serious threats against his life if he should ever come back. I've no idea how true they are, but i'm pretty certain he left IwW with enemies there too. Even if you asked Lee himself, you'd be none the wiser. Whatever the reason may have been - Lee has never stepped foot in a wrestling ring since.

("The Showstealer" Alex Shane, stole more than just the show...)

At the time of the Alex vs. Lee's Ear incident, relations with GPW and FutureShock were already fraught and had been for over 12 months. Those relations would be further tested when we ran "Last Orders At The Legion" in January 2005...

As i've alluded to, following Lee's departure, Damon took the reigns at GPW and out of his own pocket promoted "... A Heroes Welcome", "Revelations" and his final foray into promoting was "Last Orders At The Legion". As discussed in previous blogs, DDL hadn't taken well to promoting and long before "LOATL" he'd announced wouldn't be promoting anymore. The future and leadership of GPW was once again in doubt.

The unsure future coupled with the fact that this would also be the last ever event held at the British Legion before the council pulled it down to build flats (hence the show name), it's fair to say - emotions were running extremely high.

There was a intangible, indescribable charm about the Legion. We all collectively, loved it. It was hard not to love after the polarizing "Nemesis" show in November 2003 where you could literally feel everyone fall in love with the place during a pre-show video package. The Legion was always going to be special place after that. It helped that it played host to some truly awesome GPW shows that we always drew good houses for, and always created an unbeatable atmosphere inside. The guys just loved wrestling there. We were going to really miss the place.

As well as running GPW, Damon had helped with training at FutrureShock and done a good job of playing it down the middle with the two promotions. His 3 promoted shows would feature a lot of FutureShock and FWA guys. There was a large number of people who objected to this, but Damon was oblivious. He was trying his best, but was being heavily manipulated from the outside. With no Lee around and no "leader", Alex Shane was in his ear on who to bring in and he was being pulled from both sides. It was a tough time for Damon, because as accomplished and competent as he is in the ring, he was by no means ready to take the reigns of booker and promoter. Having said that, GPW would not be the place it is today without some of the balls Damon had shown in booking (bringing in Chris Hero and Mike Quakenbush) and some of the mistakes he made (see the GPW: "Revelations" card for a near unrecognisable GPW show...) during this period.

(Chris Hero and Mike Quakenbush)

Alex, now very much established as a "FutureShock and FWA guy" i.e the enemy, was in Damon's ear for "Last Orders..." as the two of them, along with referee, Mike Bishop planned one of the biggest moments in GPW history. A huge moment, there is no doubt, but it did absolutely nothing for building bridges...

Damon hadn't told anybody backstage what was happening, he'd said "just make sure you're ready if shit goes bad in this one." During the main event title match, Mike Bishop rung the bell prematurely, awarding the title and the win to Alex. Alex and Bishop fled from the scene out the front door of the building and into a speeding vehicle, and took our title with them. Leaving behind an out and out free-for-all riot inside the Legion. I shit you not readers, with not single work in sight - this was as real as it gets. Of course, the screw job was scripted, but what happened next was real, very real.

With several FutureShock guys, such as Dave Rayne, Declan O'Conner, Si Valour and Dom Travis appearing on the show, as well as "FWA guys" like Darren Burridge, James Tighe, Greg Lambert, Paul Travel and Carbon backstage, there were also plenty of "non GPW guys" planted in the audience too. After the bell had rung, GPW trainees in the audience rose to their feet and scuffled with FutureShock trainees, GPW roster members spilled out of the back and tangled with FutureShock roster members, Everyone, bar, I think TJ Cain and Heresy were throwing live rounds, taking liberties and stood in amazement. The story even reached the local press, not the rioting part of it though, that was acceptable in Leigh, the "theft" that had taken place however, wasn't. A wonderful reflection on Wiganners, they reported the scripted part of the story as gospel, yet ignored the unscripted mayhem that ensued. Thumbs up.

I digress. Damon's decision to put our title on Alex directly involved him in our company, weather we liked it, or not. The decision among most, was an unpopular one and one that continued to drive a wedge between FutureShock and us. I think it's fair to say that there was a great deal of animosity between the rosters and the people involved in both promotions back then. Friendships were tested, mud was slung, people publicly chastised. and some downright ignored. But, holding a grudge like that is high maintenance, unhealthy and more hard work than it's worth and i'm pleased to say those days are well behind us.

Despite Alex holding the title until Feburary 2006 where he eventually dropped it in his final GPW appearance to former Champ, DDL at a sell out "Back With A Bang 2006" (available for just £5 from http://www.grandprowrestling.co.uk) the atmosphere between FutureShock and GPW had eased up around the time that GPW took on a new direction in mid 2005. The arrival of Dom Travis as the third member of Damage Control at "Hold Tight" March 2006 (available for an amazing £2!! at http://www.grandprowrestling.co.uk) marked the start of a much improved working relationship and talent share. His debut opened the doors for more "FutureShock" guys like Sam Bailey, Dave Rayne, Si Valour, Jack Domitrescu, Chris Egan, Cyanide, Jack Gallagher and many more. There was the odd niggle from some of the more withdrawn roster members, but overall they were welcomed and each have helped improve our product a great deal.

The ride hasn't always been easy or popular, but I think we're a great example of what can be achieved by working together, communicating with one another and helping each other out. The THWs are testament to that, and with XWA, Futureshock and ourselves all working together, i'm confident that we could really make the THWs become a valued destination for wrestling fans. However, for this to work I do stress the "working together" bit..., our joint approach and

happy working relationships ahead of this THW were about to suffer a serious blow...

Find out what happened in Part 2...

Don't forget to visit http://www.grandprowrestling.co.uk for all your DVDs and make sure you're in attendance for GPW: "Friday Night Thriller V" Oct 7th

After a fairly uninspiring first half was out of the way, the interval gave me chance to do the rounds and fire up the participants in our remaining matches. A lot was being pinned on the Tag Trophy and British Title matches. The first half had fallen flat, we needed to pick our game up.

The first match of the second half was the match we'd been forced into booking only 30 or so minutes beforehand, it was El Ligero vs. Cameron Kraze. The two have worked with each other countless times, so I knew weather they'd have had 5 minutes or 5 months to plan the match - it was going to deliver. And it did. It was the second time we'd had to throw these two together last minute. In April of the previous year when Darkside missed his transport to the venue and we couldn't run him vs. Ligero, we turned to both Cameron and Kirby to fill the void and they didn't disappoint. No change here either, the two presented a solid and enthralling match that whilst it may not have replaced some people's expectations of the announced Bubblegum / Ligero main event, it certainly gave the audience no reason to complain.

With Ligero getting the win with his patented C4L DDT, the match was followed by a segment furthering the MasterPlan storyline. As already discussed, a MasterPlan angle was always going to be on the agenda here, but it was just a case of a re-book. The principles of the angle stayed the same: The faces this time needed the upper hand and we needed to develop the stories that would come to a head the following month.

With the angle having done exactly what we needed it to, we were rocking our way into the second half, leaving a frustrating first half behind us and venturing into a promising looking second. But, one person who was still struggling, was our announcer Rick. Normally, our most consistent performer - he was having a bad day! Weather my pre-show nerves had transcended onto him, or weather he'd just got himself in a muddle from the off, I don't know. But, his poor first half had carried over to the second.

Following the Kraze / Ligero match and before the Tag Team No Holds Barred Match, we were supposed to air the Voodoo return video. Greg, who plays Voodoo had not been seen since the previous NHB match 12 months prior. He'd actually taken time off to go and study in Hong Kong where he'd appeared on quite a few shows. He'd made a "return video" whilst over in HK and sent it over for us to air BEFORE the tag match. It was a tool I wanted to use to help get over the importance and enormity of the upcoming tag match without doing a pre-match promo, and of course, exploit a bit of nostalgia and get people excited for a Voodoo return! But, airing the video wasn't going to happen - Rick forgot to announce it and we went straight into the NHB tag title match, cold. One of the matches i'd hoped would lift the show from mediocrity into decency was about to start with no on-the-night build up, no hype, no back story for the first timers, not ideal. But, just getting the match to this point had been a struggle in itself...

Tag champs, Paradise Lost were scripted to drop the titles here, however - they'd been

originally supposed to drop them back in November 2010...

however, following the "RJM vs. The People" incident post show in August of the same year, we had to re-book and tread water until he was able to return. Upon his return, we then had to re-introduce him to the audience, re-build the feud and set up the blow off match all over again. It had been a lengthily process but one where real life had intervened on more than one occasion and circumstances had taken over. And there was another twist in the tail yet to come...

Relations between RJM and tag partner "Super" Sam Bailey had been frayed from the start. Sam had asked if he could team with someone else other than RJM just days before we debuted them as a team. It wasn't possible with the amount of notice I was given to re-write so I ploughed ahead with the teaming of RJM and SSB, thinking the two would gel. However, Sam had become less and less interested in the pairing and it had come to a head the previous month when among other things, Bailey had no sold the Paradise Lost finish and did his best to look as uninterested in the feud as possible. It was obvious Bailey was playing up to get out and we needed a change of personnel. I decided that Bailey and McKenzie could never carry the titles together and do the division justice, but with only the blow off left, how do we get Bailey out and someone else in without starting the feud all over again?

It was a really difficult position to be in. There was no way we could keep them together, the two weren't getting on in, or out of the ring. Keeping them together would be harmful for backstage morale, as well as the tag division. As a resolve, I thought about keeping the titles on Paradise Lost, could we do it? Yes, we could but if we did they'd become the most unbeatable team in the history of tag team pro wrestling. There was no one else who could possibly challenge them and that would only do lasting harm to the individuals in the team, to the team itself,  and to the tag division.

ROH had a similar problem with Samoa Joe's reign as their World Champion. He held the title longer than anyone in ROH history and defended it successfully against so many people of high international standings that there was a sense of

"whoever beats this guy is never going to be better than him."

I didn't want that to happen to us.

After fleeting thoughts of ways to keep the title on Paradise Lost I began to think of other solutions to the problem. But, no matter how hard I thought of ways round it, there was only ever one answer - keep the blow off booked for a title switch and simply replace Bailey with someone else. However, it was the "simply" bit I was struggling with...

How could we "simply" do anything so far into the feud? How could we alter anything without harming everything we'd done in the feud and / or the final blow off? Not to mention, who could we logically replace him with?

Despite the many question marks still surrounding it, it was definitely the answer. The feud would not have survived another re-start, and the tag division would've been belittled after being booked into a tight corner if Paradise Lost continued their reign as champs. We definitely had to switch the titles and we defiantly needed to write Bailey out. No sooner had I decided on that course of action when I further complicated it... never being a fan of replacing someone before an announced match, especially in the case of major blow offs such as this one, nor a fan of doing needless "injury" angles to build up for a replacement lead me to decide not to replace Bailey BEFORE the match but to replace him DURING the match...

My idea was, instead of running an over-booked, convoluted injury angle before the match started, run an injury angle once the bell had rung.

Following on from the problems we had with Sam at "OTSS 2011", we had some talking to do. We spoke on the phone quite soon after the show and ironed out the problems stemming from the show. There was nothing at that point Sam could've said to make me change my mind about writing him out of the title switch. As it happened, he didn't. There wasn't a single protest, he wanted out of the storyline and he didn't care if that cost him a title reign or not. I proposed the idea of replacing him mid-match in the blow off to which he agreed and was very positive about. Knowing he was in agreement, it was now down to putting some nuts and bolts on the idea.

The match was going to be a NHB match, so the part of "how we get to the injury" would be easy. What wasn't easy was a/ agreeing on when the injury would take place and b/ who would actually replace Bailey. The idea was different and still made sense. It was bound to take everyone by surprise, and perhaps most importantly - it fitted perfectly into the feel of the story between the individuals. From the off, the story had been about high drama, twists, turns and more about RJM vs. Paradise Lost than Bailey & RJM vs. Paradise Lost. It was about two people who'd not teamed before trying to prise away the titles from the wiley veterans. In this latest instalment, we would now see a brand new pairing, made on the night turn the long reigning champions over. Irony!

Now, who to fill the role with? There were 3 people in the frame:

Johnny Phere, Xander Cooper and Chris Echo.

At first, Johnny Phere was the clear out and out front runner. It was perfect. He'd returned to the roster as part of the Cibernetico the month prior, and considering his back story with Heresy and SIN, he had a water tight reason to return in a feud that featured Heresy. However... there was two things that kept bothering me: 1/ Johnny Phere and RJM in a team together? Two beefed up skin heads say "heels" to me. Individually they were accepted as baby faces, but because of their look, when they were put together, I think it'd pretty hard to expect fans to accept them as babies. Problem number 2/ Johnny looked far too main event...

Put a wrestler in a room of "normal", non-wrestling people, and they should stand out. Everyone in that room should know that that person is a wrestler or performer. That's the way it should be, however, I fear that most "wrestlers" in the UK would even fail to stand out in a room of mutes...

Take Johnny and put him in a room full of wrestlers and he'd still stand out. It's called having the x-factor and Johnny has it. He's got what's known in the biz as, "the look". However, it's his look that negates him really being in anything other than upper mid card / main event. With that in mind, Johnny turned out to be a no. However, the thinking time had not been a waste as i'd decided beyond any doubt that whoever was going to come in as RJM's partner would have to be someone returning to GPW. I'd convinced myself that it couldn't be anyone the audience hadn't seen before. So I turned to Chris Echo.

Having been an essential part of the fabric of GPW since 2004, Chris had once upon a time risen to the heights of a CC8 Final in 2008, and at one time we were all set to put the British Title on him before we deciding to put it on Bailey instead. However, he had lost some of his edge and by his own admittance, for a while before walking away from the ring - he'd been phoning it in. Chris took a step back in 2009 and had pretty much disappeared off everyone's radar. Until about a month before Battlefield when he out of the blue returned to training. I guess he must've felt something in the water. I was amazed to see that he still had it. His movement, footwork, strikes and selling were still pristine, he'd not dropped a beat in the time he'd been away. He openly said to me that he wasn't coming back to training to get onto shows as they were a long line of people more deserving than him for that, he just wanted to help out some of the trainees and maybe if something came up, he'd consider it. It was a bit of a suck it and see thing for him I think, but every week he came.

Once i'd dismissed Johnny as an option, I couldn't shake the notion that Echo was the man for the job. And he was. Or so I thought. Jiggy was about to cast doubt into my mind... I rung him and told him my decision on Echo. He fired back with:

"I'd give it to Cooper, he's more hungry."

And he was right. Like Johnny, Cooper was once again fresh in people's minds having been part of the previous months' Torneo Cibernetico following a short period off. He was a strong candidate for the job, but... I just felt as though there were more holes in Cooper being the one to replace Bailey when compared to Echo. At least with Echo we had the WKD connection with Bailey. With Cooper - we had nothing. Echo, I would've thought, would at least get a pop for nostalgia, whereas Cooper wasn't that established yet and would never garner that kind of reaction. Plus, Echo and RJM were friends outside the ring. My mind was made up - the job was going to Echo.

The decision to write Echo in would actually mean sweet irony for Chris. As I eluded to earlier, it was Echo who was nailed on for a British Title run in 2008 when he was booked to beat Jack Domitrescu at GPW: "Back II School" then enter into a feud over the title with Juice. But, we changed our minds last minute and quickly wrote him out of the proposed run. Instead, we kept the title on Domitrescu at and manoeuvred Bailey into a position to win the title at "Christmas Crunch" in December 2008. It meant that Bailey had basically hijacked Echo's title run, but now Echo was about to do some hijacking of his own...

It became abundantly clear that his return would possibly get the best reaction of the match so I'd come up with a few scenarios on how to introduce Echo into the match. One of the plans was to have Echo hit a giant cross body / dive from the platform above the staged area (about 25 - 30ft high) down onto Paradise Lost. I clung onto this hope as it could be one of the biggest stunts we'd ever done, if it came off. All that stood in our way was those three words that have give many a business a sleepless night - "Health & Safety".

With a determined walk and a hint of brash in my attitude, at about 4 on the day of "Battlefield", I approached the duty manager, Anne and asked, or should I say, told her about the dive we were going to do. I walked off thinking "Yesss! Job done!" when I heard a thick, Wigan accent "Oh, no you won't." Damn. She wasn't going to sign it off. I pleaded with her, but still no. I didn't want to pull the rank card on her, but I was out of options and absolutely determined to get my own way. I said, "well if you wont sign off on it - who will? Get me David (the Leisure Manager) on the phone."

She fired back with: "You can ask David yourself, he's due here in 45 minutes, but there's absolutely no way on my watch i'm signing that off. You can forget it."

She sounded as determined as I thought I did. I was getting nowhere. So instead of wasting my charm ammo on her, I saved them up for David. There was still light at the end of this tunnel.

As Anne had said, David arrived 45 minutes later, suited up with clip board in hand and looking uncharacteristically in charge. I saw him taking notes of the venue and of the set up, this was a bit strange. I gave him 15 minutes or so to settle himself in before I went over to try and talk him into what Anne wouldn't even entertain. I loaded up my charm bullets and took aim...

"Hi David, have you spoken to Anne about the stunt I want to do tonight?"

He looked blankly back at me. (more blankly than normal, more vacant in his gaze). Of course he'd spoken to her! 100% it was the first thing she said as soon as he walked through the door, that surprised / vacant glare wasn't fooling anyone. Yet, looking slightly sheepish, he replied with (in that slow, Wigan drawl):

"No... what's this about?"

Ahh, come on David! Entirely typical!

I approached the explanation with David the same way I had unsuccessfully done so with Anne. I TOLD him what was happening instead of asking his permission. Shifting the power of the conversation from the start, it was a method i'd used to get my own way many other times before. However, it wasn't meant to be. But instead of Leisure Manager David firmly replying with: "No, absolutely not. You can't do it." (at which, I would've accepted his answer and left him in peace) his response was:

"I would hate anyone to get hurt..." So, sensing the lack of any conviction - I pressed him again, to which he said:

"I'm not comfortable with the idea... what if people get hurt?"

"David", I said - "we've done this stunt, or a variation of it time and time again with no staff, performers or punters injured. This is exactly why we have public liability insurance!"

I got the same cop out, conviction lacking, flimsy, political answer, "I'm not comfortable with the idea."

I tried going in at a different tact but after a quarter of an hour of trying - it was clear it wasn't going to be my day. So, looking as wounded and hurt as I could, I tucked my tail between my legs and walked off. I would later find out that the clip board he was clutching onto was a health and safety report book... no wonder they wouldn't let us do it!

While the wall of Health & Safety was too high to hurdle, there were plenty of other safer ideas still in the mixer. Fast forward to match time.

With the problems between Kastor LeVay and Sam Bailey still fresh from the month before, I paired off Kastor with RJM and Bailey with Heresy. There had been some sticking points in the planning as to when we should introduce Echo into the match. I'd expected some resistance from Bailey when Heresy put his idea forward on how to eliminate him from the match, but Bailey was more than happy with it and agreed. By the time the music was playing all problems had been ironed out and everybody was happy with what was planned. It was actually only a few points of high drama that were planned as such, the rest, as most brawls are - was improvised. It was down to the boys when to hit the high points, those being: Bailey's elimination. Echo's entrance. The finish.

As the 4 of them stood behind the curtain, I saw a unanimous sigh as Rick forgot the video package and went straight into the announcements, but, there was still an exciting anticipation for the NHB match. That was probably down to the heavily adult populated audience, who'd be more savvy with the violence and weapons used. I was excited to see how they'd take to this ever changing storyline as we needed the second match of the second half to deliver.

In crowd brawling always goes down well at the Monaco and it didn't disappoint here as Bailey and Heresy paired off into the audience, before RJM and Kastor ventured out among the fans, the audience were raucous in their responses. Several minutes into the match and back in the ring, Bailey went for his signature "Low-pe" dive but Heresy caught him in a DDT. It was here where Bailey would be eliminated. Heresy DDT'd him from the elevated ring apron onto the Ballroom floor. The move was hit out of nowhere and done at the perfect point in the match, as a result it got a huge reaction from the audience who rose to their feet in disbelief. Unlike the finish last month, thankfully this time Sam sold it! And so did Heresy, taking most of the impact on his arm and busting his lip from the Low-pe impact, it was a risky move for both of them to do and they did it really well. The crowd were alive!

So far so good. Infact better than good, it was going great. Such a contrast from the first half. Even another mistake by Rick as he made the wrong announcement mid way through the match didn't dampen spirits. This story had had reflected so many real life twists and turns, it was a credit to the four guys who continued to tell an excellent story. Blow offs are always good fun, especially in a case like this where it had been a long feud with so many things having happened there were that many reference points the guys could refer to. For example, when Heresy was given a handbag containing his signature brick by Miss North West, it brought some major factors of the feud together and the audience recognised that fact, cheering loudly when they realised "Heresy's Hand Bag" was back in play.

Whilst the match went on as a 2 on 1, the crowd regained their breath somewhat, and they'd needed it. The guys didn't keep it to 2 on 1 for long before they moved the match onto the second phase. Since the feuds start, it had revolved around high drama and it was almost as if the crowd were expecting something else to happen, but

I bet they'd never have guess they'd be seeing Chris Echo return...

Following the 2 on 1 and subsequent announcement that by the referee that RJM couldn't continue, McKenzie grabbed the mic to declare the exact opposite. He yelled that he would never give up, that whilst he still had breath in his lungs, he'd have fight in his heart. He appealed backstage that if any one could replace Bailey and team with him against Paradise Lost right now, he'd continue the match as a tag match.

At this point, instead of Echo diving from the ceiling, the lights were supposed to go out. And when I say "the lights were supposed to go out" - I mean every single bulb in the building was supposed to go out leaving the place in pitch blackness. Think Undertaker / Sting entrances. Then, when Echo was on the walkway, the lights would come back up to reveal him stood there, ready to pounce. Except it didn't work out like that... some lights went out, the majority stayed on so it more or less looked like a lighting failure rather than what was intended to be a lighting effect. It looked amateur, but - Echo's entrance more than made up for it. Spearing LeVay and unloading on Heresy Echo replaced Bailey and the crowd were going wild.

It was a gamble to approach the match the way we had, we ran the risk of over-booking it but everything was timed to perfection and the crowd were with us every step of the way. When the 3 count finally went down and we crowned new Tag Team Champions, the audience erupted and I instantly felt a connection between RJM and Echo that had been so lacking with RJM and Bailey. We'd made the right decision.

After a roller coaster booking the feud, we'd finally reached the end and everybody, even including Sam Bailey, were happy. Well, I say everyone...

there was one unhappy Church going punter who wrote into complain about Heresy. She emailed me directly to complain about the use of the Bible (or lack of) in the match. The complaint was because the Bible had been brought into the ring and dumped onto the canvass among all the other weapons in the ring and then ignored throughout the match. I had to smile because all the times Heresy has used the Bible as a weapon itself, tore pages out, thrown them into the audience, put them down people's throats and never one single complaint - the moment we don't use it, we get a complaint. You can't please everyone!

Time for the main event.

Zack, Mikey and Jack hadn't had that long to adapt to the fact they'd be headlining the show. I'd dropped the bombshell on them about 2 hours earlier, but it wasn't enough time to settle their nerves. All 3 men, even Mikey with all his experience were pacing up and down backstage nervous as hell. All of them 100% dedicated to their craft, they all wanted to deliver for themselves, the fans and for me. So many workers go through that stage of performing "for the boys" for their girlfriend sat in the second row, for a group of smart marks, or even worse - for themselves. But Mikey, Zack and Jack were so far beyond that at this stage of their careers - there was no questioning their motivation. It didn't matter what the pay off was, who was getting the rub, who was getting more money or what happened next - what mattered was what they did in the ring for the next 30 plus minutes. 

It would be all 3 men's first ever GPW main event. Over the years the main event spot has become "hallowed land" for many of the roster members. It was really nice to be able to give 3 new guys the chance to shine in it all at the same time, and even nicer to see they appreciated it. I'd asked them to take the match into sudden death after drawing level on pinfalls and submissions in normal time. The basic remit for the match was slow build, couple of pinfalls, into some innovative 3-way submissions, more pins, hectic finish and sudden death.

From a poor first half, we'd managed to turn the show around, we'd had two really good matches but they would mean nothing if we weren't able to finish the night on a high in the main event, which just so happened to be the first ever 30 Min Iron Man 3-Way... with a long and complicated 30 minutes plus to execute - no wonder they were nervous...!

As they made their entrances, we put the big clock counting down from 30 minutes on the screen, the bell rang and the only 30 Min Iron Man 3-Way i'd ever heard of was on. Live reactions to any Iron Man match are always going to be quite different to a straight up match. The crowd can see the big timer ticking away so they know when the match is going to end and as a result

you can't build any drama through false finishes until the final few ticks of the clock.

You can only build drama from scoring pinfalls and changing whoever is leading in the match. It was a difficult one to engage the audience with, but it was another match that really favoured the more adult based audience. As long as the three executed everything cleanly, told a good story and hit the pinfalls at the right time - there's no reason this match shouldn't be one of the very best we'd done.

The guys carried out the match i'd asked them to, to the letter. The audience weren't as hot as they had been for the dramatic twists and turns of the NHB storyline, but this just simply wasn't that kind of match. In this, they watched intently, (as did I) as the 3 guys in the ring began telling a really great story. Jack scoring the first pinfall and the drama unfolding from there. Half way into the match, the three lads still had the audience, and me captivated. The audience though, still much quieter. I wondered if more kids had been in attendance if the noise levels would've risen. But, it didn't really matter - people were into it and that's all that mattered. And they were about to get even more into it...!

As the clock ticked further down, Mikey had taken some really rough tumbles out the ring. Everytime he was sent through the ropes and met the floor, I wondered if he'd be able to get back up again and it seemed that the audience agreed with me. Everytime he was shot through, his impact with the floor was met with a sympathetic "oooooh". That Ballroom floor is every bit as hard as it looks. However, without fail, each time he got back up and carried on.

The 3 of them entered into the part of the match i'd been looking forward to, the "innovative 3-way submission bit". When I first mentioned this to Mikey several weeks earlier, he'd been quick to reply with "don't worry, i've got loads of those kind of spots in mind..." I was looking forward to it, and the guys didn't let me down. Some awesome innovation that really brought the crowd to their feet. As the crowd applauded all 3 men, it crossed my mind that it was a good job we'd put this on main event! Not that Pip or Ligero couldn't get the same reactions from the audience, but because a/ we were running out of time and b/ I think the NHB, the 3-way, AND the Ligero / Pip grudge match could've taken the show into the overbooked territory. Some things happen for a reason.

As the match entered it's final stages, it wasn't until after the boys had got backstage that I learnt they'd ran out of their ideas quicker than expected and the last 6 minutes of the match had been completely improvised!

An absolutely amazing feat considering the type of match they were in and what was delivered. They might have not known what was happening, but the boys in the back (who'd now gathered around the Gorilla position to watch - always a good sign that a main event is going well...) myself, and the audience could've been fooled otherwise.

It was a superb ralleigh toward the end as the clock counted down to zero. It was here where the test was really going to take place, the over time gimmick. If we'd encapsulated the audience enough, they'd stay to see what would happen. If the audience were tired, uninterested and unentertained, they'd most certainly be too tired to see what would happen in sudden death and its very announcement would have them rolling their eyes and reaching for their coats. However, that was not the case. Whilst I expected some wastage at gone 10pm, there was none. Every single member of the audience bought into it. At the announcement of sudden death, the crowd didn't up and leave - they popped.

As we entered sudden death, each wrestler had two decisions in their favour, be it submission or pinfall. However, the finish of the match was important. It was never a doubt that Zach would be going over, but it was important he scored the pinfall victory over Jack. It was Jack who defeated him when it was one on one at "Only The Strong Survive 2010", it was also Jack who'd eliminated him from the "Only The Strong Survive 2011" match, Zach had already beaten Mikey and Mikey had been the one who'd got the rub and eliminated Jack from "OTSS 2011". So, it had to be Jack taking the loss here. It would also mean it'd set us up nicely for Zach / Jack II the following month, a match i'd been working up to ever since the success of their first outing in October 2010.

At this stage of the match you'd see many a unseasoned worker milking false finishes, submissions. and really taking the match too far. Not in these three men's case. I'd instructed them to only go 1 - 2 minutes in sudden death, to just feed off the audience to judge when it was time to take it home. They didn't let me down, but I doubt any of them would've been able to have gone into a long drawn out false finish sequence, they were all dead on their feet! It was red hot in the Ballroom and they were all on their last legs! As the final 3 count went down and Zach's hand was raised, the crowd went mental. They knew they'd seen an absolute classic, and I knew we'd done right putting these three on at the main event.

The match only had one winner, but the three men involved had their stock raised by quite some margin after the final bell.

I was there to give them all a big hearty pat on the back when their exhausted bodies came through the curtain!

It was time to see how we'd done profit-wise. Despite a low-ish draw, I wasn't ready for the news that we were £500 down on the door compared to last month and nearly double that compared with what we'd taken in March. With depleted merchandise stock, I was braced for the worst. I wasn't surprised to hear we made a loss. But the loss we made was about as frustrating as the whole month and most of the show had been - we lost 40p.

How annoying! It pretty much summed up the show and everything that had lead up to the night and happened on it. There were some really excellent bits, and some really low points.

On reflection, having the show straight after a double bank holiday (Easter weekend, followed by the Royal Wedding both at the end of April) was always going to leave people with limited funds. No wonder our draw wasn't bigger, and if anything we'd done well to only lose 40p. At least i'll know not to do a show so close to the next Royal Wedding...!

After handing out wages and holding the odd debrief with people, I went to find Mikey. When I found him, he was still in his trunks and had changed colour. He'd turned purple. The poor guy was absolutely spent and he had a 5 hour wait at Manchester Airport to look forward to before he boarded a flight to France to do it all over again the next night. I looked for Zach but couldn't't find him anywhere, however, on my travels, i found Jack. Jack, usually so pasty white he's positively translucent was.... yep, still pasty white and translucent. The super fit Jack Gallagher looked like he'd not even broken a sweat. Amazing. Maybe there's something really in that straight edge lifestyle he leads afterall... he really does personify the term "machine". I was very proud of all the guys and especially proud that such a great match had taken place in a GPW ring.

At around midnight, I was about to leave for the night when Zach appeared. I'd not seen him since he'd come back after his match. He was clutching his elbow and still, 90 minutes after the show had finished, looked absolutely drained. Even Mikey, who was no on his way to the airport had regained the colour in his face but Zach wasn't even dressed properly! He'd left everything in the ring and given the match absolutely everything he had. The other two had too, but Zach was feeling it the most.

People like Zach, Jack and Mikey are special in wrestling, and in any business. Very few times will people be that dedicated to any job they do. These three all shared the same passion and hard working mindset. it's very easy to become complacent and I think Jack had been through that phase in his Jack Toxic days where he wasn't putting in anywhere near the effort he does now. In my experience, most wrestlers need to go through that door to get to a better place. Jack had definitely gone through that door.

I could see Zach's enthusiasm and effort increase match after match, and although i'd always considered Mikey to put in 100%, i'd never seen him this passionate about it. It's a real compliment to him that he can still give it that level of commitment after such a long time in the business. Wrestling does have a habit of dragging you down, wearing you down, chewing you up and spitting you out but Mikey, still showed no signs of these effects. Promotions the world over should be built around people like this. We're lucky at GPW because the hunger among performers doesn't end with these three, we're surrounded by intelligent, enthusiastic and charismatic performers who would all always give 100% to our product and for that i'm very thankful.

Despite the 40p loss, we'd managed to avoid disaster, and yet again put on another wonderful show. Although the loss was frustrating, I walked away from the GPW Battlefield feeling proud of the roster and extremely happy the night was over!

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