RE-POST: 1 Stop Wrestling 1st August 2003

In my last column I wrote about the events around the WAW British Championship, which was declared vacant last September when Hot Stuff fell ill, and could not defend the title.

WAW announced almost immediately that at the upcoming October Outrage IV show in Norwich, Bash would be facing Ricky Knight for the vacant crown. However, at the time I came up with an idea that would have allowed WAW to use the vast majority of the wrestlers that were hired for the show - a one night tournament to crown the new champion.

OO4 was scheduled to have eight matches. In my plan, only two of those original matches would have had to be scrapped. Triple X v Fabuloz, which was basically a four minute knockoff job before the victorious Fabuloz was signed up by Lloyd Ryan in an angle which ultimately didn't go anywhere, and Jace The Ace v Lee Darren. On the night in question, although Jace v Darren was an entertaining bout it drew very little heat from the crowd.

So my plan was this - keep two of the scheduled matches as they were - the women's four way involving Sweet Saraya, Nikki Best, Angel and Kharisma, and the four-way tag for the Crusher Mason Memorial Trophy, involving the Battlekats, the U.K. Pitbulls, the Dark Angels, and Fast & Furious. If my plan had gone ahead, it would have meant seven matches that night, which was one less than planned. But the extra time left by the gap would have been taken up with an angle. More will be explained later.

The evening would have begun with the first round matches before the interval, each match having a time limit of twenty minutes, starting off with Ricky Knight against Paul Tyrell. These two have wrestled each other many times before, so they would have put on a good match. But for my plan to work, Knight would have had to go against his golden rule, and win in his hometown of Norwich. He would have to beat Tyrell in an underhanded way, of course! Knight would then face the winner of the next match in the semi-finals.

Doug Williams v Flash Barker actually did take place at OO4, as they competed in a shoot-style contest which resulted in a draw. My plan would have seen these two compete a normal match, but the result would be the same - a twenty minute time-limit draw, thus eliminating both men from the competition, and giving Knight a bye to the final.

The third bout would have seen Bash against Phil Powers. At OO4 Bash was pushed as a monster-face, and because he was facing Knight the crowd were really behind him, so Powers would have had to play heel in this scenario. Bash would win this contest, no doubt using his trusty baseball bat to gain the win, although as he was the face, he would have probably had to win cleanly.

The final match of the first round was another won that took place at OO4, although on this card the result would have been different. Jonny Storm v the Zebra Kid would have been a good way to finish the first half of the show, with Storm playing the heel in front of Zebra's hometown crowd. However, although Storm won the match proper and the Cruiser weight title, the Zebra Kid would go over in this tournament, and onto a semi-final meeting with Bash.

So the semi-finals would have looked like this - Ricky Knight would have received a bye to the final due to the double elimination of Williams and Barker, while Bash and the Zebra Kid would have faced each other for the right to face Knight in the final. The Rowdy Man would have had an advantage.

With the interval over, Ricky Knight would come to the ring, to be announced the winner of the semi-final via bye. But just before the referee raises his hand in victory, one of the backstage crew would come to the ring and hand MC Michael Mann a note. Michael would read the note to the crowd - the WAW Championship Committee, in the interests of fairness, have decreed that both the Zebra Kid and Bash would advance to the final of the British title tournament, making it a triple threat contest, and in doing so making it fair for all the remaining competitors. Knight would of course be irate, because his advantage would be wiped out.

With that angle out of the way, I would have then held the women's four-way, followed by the Crusher Mason Memorial Trophy match. This would have built up the anticipation in the crowd as the final of the title tournament began.

At the beginning of the match, Knight would convince his son, the Zebra Kid, to help take Bash out so that they can get on with the match between themselves. However, an irate Storm, still annoyed at the fact that he lost to Zebra, would come out from the backstage area, and grabbing Bash's bat from the ringside table, would clobber Zebra with out, taking him out of the equation. Injured and unable to continue, Zebra would return backstage making it a one-on-one encounter between Knight and Bash.

The match would then continue much as it did at OO4. Storm would once again come out from backstage, and allying himself with Knight, would try to use Bash's bat against him. However, Zebra, although injured, would return to the ring and attack Knight and Storm after the referee gets accidentally hit and is taking a nap. While Storm and Zebra are brawling to the back, setting up their rematch in Lowestoft six weeks later, a groggy Bash would crawl over to Knight, and as the referee came to, Bash would get the three count, the victory, and be declared the new WAW British Champion.

While this booking idea was put forward, given the frosty reception it received, it was never really discussed. I think it's a great shame that this never happened. Given the success of All-Star's recent one night tournament to crown a new World Heavy-Middleweight champion, and the way that Norwich fans are towards wrestling, this would have been a great show.

Apart from the dire Triple X/Fabuloz match, October Outrage 4 was a great success. This tournament could have made the night a little bit more special. But now, it's nothing more than fantasy booking, something that we fans on the Internet are becoming quite adept at.