Saturday February 18th.
Sheffield Works Department Sports and Social Club.
Pro Wrestling Ignition Present “Locked And Loaded”
A New stage for me to get a chance to impress a potentially new crowd. Pro Wrestling Ignition had set up for their debut show under difficult circumstances. In an already potentially crowded environment and also running up against ICW, who were running the O2 on the same night, it was an uphill battle from the start, but on a show with the likes of Chris Tyler, Joe Conners, and Paul Malen it was always going to be a good show.
3 out of the 4 Monsters were booked to appear on this show. Myself, Sam Kenny would be accompanied by Ivy and issuing an open challenge to any team in the back.
But first….Here’s a bit of advice kids, when you are playing backstage at a wrestling show.
DO NOT PRACTICE YOUR STRIKES ON YOUR TAG PARTNERS PHONE.
IT WILL NOT END WELL.
Messing about backstage, I pretended to slap Sam, accidentally hitting his phone sending it crashing to the floor. Face down, as I go to pick it up I hear the scrape that any iPhone user is used to hearing at some point in their lives. The screen had broke. The screen had not only broke but had completely smashed. Hanging off and the lot. I felt so bad and this hung over me the entire day. I just couldn’t shake it off!
Anyway, on to the wrestles, or “The Graps” as the kids now apparently say.
We make our entrance in what felt like that longest entrance way in history. A big echoey sports hall. It was difficult to hear the music being played but we managed to adapt. I rolled in the ring and climbed to sit on to the top rope. Sam rolled in the ring, with his new straight jacket on. Ivy starts trying to unbuckle the jacket. But seems to be taking a while.
Uh-oh – he’s stuck.
Our opponents make their entrance. Kyle Bradders and Dirtbag Dave Stewart accompanied by Shax and immediately they click on to whats happening. Dave being the clown is having a ball with this. “Wait a minute. Are you stuck?” and proceeds to up the comedy factor, to mine and Ivy’s dismay.
Eventually Sam was let out and the match began. Dave and Kyle quickly teamed up on Sam to take control, up to a point where were are able to regain the control. Once we were in control it was time to up the bad guy mode!
Because the hall gave such a weird acoustic environment, I was shouting so loudly at people in the ring, outside the ring and probably even further away! There was one point in the match, while choking Kyle on the ropes, I was just screaming at the fans and they hated it, giving me some verbal lashings in return!
That’s when I knew we were doing things right, because the moment Kyle started fighting back the crowd came up with him. Kyle smashed Sam in the head with a massive roundhouse kick and both came for the tag. All while this was happening Shax had dragged Ivy off the apron for no reason – she was only up there explaining to the ref that he was doing his job incorrectly!
Sam and I went running at Dirtbag, but he ducked and proceeded to punch us in the face (ahem, that’s illegal) and then double dusty elbowed us. We fell in to opposite corners. He came running at us one at a time, SPLASH, SPLASH, UPPERCUT – then he went and grabbed Sam around the head for a bulldog and come running at me as I stumbled out of the corner.
As he hit Sam with the bulldog, he jumped up and hit me with a clothesline, a show of respect to his good friend, the late great Kris Travis. Sam rolled out of the ring and I pulled my self up in the corner. All I could hear was Dirtbag stomping on the ring, signalling for his big move, the Sweet Shin Music!
I turned round, avoided the shin attack and lifted him for my finisher, the AKDriver (which is a sit out Death Valley Driver), but he escaped and spun me round into a DDT, which I also spun out of and ran at him to hit a clothesline. He ducked and I turned round, straight into his cutter finisher, The Dirtsheet.
He then tagged in Kyle, who went up to the top turnbuckle, and hit his finisher, the Swanton bomb, on my face!
OUCH!
That got them the three and I stumbled to the back.
At the time I was not happy with my showing – I thought I was a bit sloppy and that I didn’t do enough to get the desired effect for the crowd, to make them boo us properly and cheer for the good guys. But having watched it back since I’ve come to see it was better than I thought at the time.
All in all, I look back and I’m happy with the performance we put out on, and on the day, hopefully everyone enjoyed what we did and the note we went out on.
Photo Credit – Brett Hadley Photography
Cover Photo Credit – John Mayo Photography
Until next time!
Alan Kay on Instagram – @ak89wrestler
Later nerds x