For fans across the world who may not have discovered the hardcore promotion that is Insane Championship Wrestling, it is certainly worth a viewing or multiple viewings in fact either by going to a show or even watching their shows on YouTube that act as a teaser, an introduction to their own brand action of awesome action.

On October 23rd, Insane Championship Wrestling celebrated their 10 Year Anniversary with ‘Fight Club’ from The Garage in Glasgow. From the unpredictable world of ICW on this night spawned an incredible show that is available to be seen soon on ICW:OnDemand and FifeTV but also a worldwide announcement. I’m not going to spoil the entire show for you, seriously check out the outlets I mentioned earlier to get the full show.

The worldwide announcement was told in a fantastic segment, fans who many have seen ICW before may say it’s all about “Hardcore wrestling”, “It’s about Blood” but they ignore one of the key attributes about the promotion, emotion.

At the beginning of the show as fans cheered at the promotions Birthday, they knew there was going to be a word from it’s Co-owner, Mark Dallas to mark this momentous occasion and they weren’t disappointed.

From the moment Mark Dallas’s music played the fans cheered, their celebrations roared over The Garage Nightclub and then the Co-owner of ICW stepped into limelight but his was face wasn’t full cheer, his body language slumped and slowly he walked to the ring. He grabbed a chair placed it in the ring and sat, despondent.

The fans slowly knew something was wrong and then Dallas spoke the words, “I’ve got some bad news to open the show, I received word from the WWE that Mick Foley will not be allowed to appear at the Hydro because he has to be at the Survivor Series that night.”

Immediately the cheers turned to boos and it seemed the rumours as well as the words of wrestling’s insiders proved to be true, that the RAW G.M couldn’t possibly be at ICW’s biggest show ever as well as one of the largest shows in UK wrestling history at the same time that WWE was hosting one of their big four Pay-Per-View’s as well. However what happened next, no one saw coming.

Dallas continued, “Before he hung up the phone he said there will be a special guest enforcer…” at that moment Dallas was cut off by his ICW counter-part, Red Lightning alongside “The King of Kink” Jack Jester. Both revelled at this announcement, that Mick Foley who has made it clear that he would be on the side of the fan favourite Mark Dallas come ‘Fear and Loathing’ at the Hydro.

After both Lightning and Jester laughed at the apparent distraught Dallas, Jester mocked the situation at who would Foley and WWE send as ‘The Enforcer?’, sarcastically guessing, “The Red Rooster?”, “The Genius” “Brooklyn Brawler?” and to add insult to injury, cracked “What’s wrong not having a nice day” in reference to Mick Foley.

Suddenly on the screen a familiar face appeared,“Hello ICW, I did say I’d be back.”

Those now illustrious words, etched in ICW folklore came from one man, the man who had carved a name for himself in not just ICW, not just in the UK and not just in Japan as Prince Devitt but now in WWE that man is the former WWE Universal Champion, Finn Bálor.

The ICW fans in attendance erupted positively at the news and in contrast Lightning and Jester were furious that the Hardcore Legend Mick Foley was placed by the Demon King Finn Bálor.

One thing also stated by Dallas in his news to the fans was this,

“WWE have said that they will have him here via satellite, let’s put this into perspective Triple H didn’t need to do that, they could have treated us like a small time company, the fact that they cared enough to do that means a lot to us.”

This is a far cry from the company that many years ago that would have treated ICW “like a small time company” but the environment has changed in both promotions. ICW has grown into a promotion that is seen by over hundred countries. While WWE has shown interest in strengthening relationships with promotions across the world, with WWE not just contacting ICW directly but sending such a high-profile star is a statement of intent publicly that it sees the promotion as something to keep their eye on for the future and this definitely means so should the world.

Photos: David J Wilson @mrdavidJWilson