So I had a little problem. British music legend Midge Ure, one of the founding fathers of the Band Aid and Live Aid charities, was coming to Cromer for the first time in five years to play a live acoustic gig, on the same night that DAMPromotions were holding their Spring Showdown event ten miles away in Holt? What was I to do? Simple. The wrestling show was being filmed, so I went to the gig instead, and a year after it’s release, I’ve finally found the time to review the Spring Showdown DVD, courtesy of Pinfall Productions. Our hosts for the evening are John Johnson and Dan Ambrose.
The show begins with a six man elimination tag-team match, with Bash, The Dominator and “The Heretic” J.D. Christian facing Sammy Ray, Red Hellion and “The Dark Angel” Ashe. Red Hellion took an absolute pounding from all three of his opponents, and because he was unable to make the tag, he was the first one eliminated after Christian pinned him following an urinage slam.
The second elimination came when the Dominator pinned Sammy Ray after a powerful clothesline. Although Ray had his moments, I was a little disappointed by his performance, and his slipping off the top rope pretty much summed up his performance in this match. This, of course, meant that Ashe was now along facing three opponents.
But Ashe didn’t say die, quickly eliminating J.D. Christian, pinning him with his top rope neck breaker, making it two against one. The two face painted warriors proceed to use Ashe as a crash test dummy, and despite some brief flurries, he wasn’t able to withstand the attack. After Bash took him down with his three strikes, Dominator distracted the referee as Bash clobbered Ashe with his trusty baseball bat, and when the referee’s attention returned to the action, Bash pinned Ashe for the winning pin.
With Sweet Saraya absent through injury, Destiny’s match became an inter-gender match with Zak Zodiac coming out as Destiny’s opponent. The match is interrupted half-way through as we cut to a promo from Ricky Knight, promising to use a “secret weapon” in his tables match with the Zebra Kid while a strange masked wrestler walked behind him. Later on the match is interrupted again as The Irish Connection cut a promo saying that they’re going to defeat the Pitbulls for the titles. As for the actual match, Zodiac and Destiny put on a good showing, neither wrestler holding back as they gave it their all, with Destiny getting the win after a big splash and then a half-Boston crab. This would have been a good match to watch, hadn’t it been for the two interruptions. Surely these promos could have been shown in either one corner of the screen, or between the matches.
Grudge match time next, as “Filthy” Phil Powers, accompanied to the win by the ever delightful Erin Angel, goes up against the Flatliner. Flatliner annoys Powers with his comedy stylings before the match has even began, which included shooting Powers and Angel with a confetti cannon. Flatliner’s antics annoyed Powers for a number of minutes as the match began, until Powers was able to get the upper hand with some underhanded moves. But this wasn’t enough to keep the big guy down. Even Erin Angel got in on the act, and she ended up getting a stink-face for her troubles. Moments later, Flatliner press slammed Powers down to the mat and followed up with a big splash to get the pin. An okay match, but there were a few moments where Flatliner didn’t exactly look that impressive, especially when coming off the top rope.
Then it’s time for the first title match of the evening, as the Zebra Kid defends the DAM title against former champion “Rowdy” Ricky Knight in a tables match. What can I say that hasn’t been said about the matches between these two before? Great action throughout, with Knight dominating before Zebra came back strongly, blocking Knight’s attempts to put him through the table. But after the referee got squashed in the corner, Zebra slammed Knight through the table. Then Knight’s plan came into operation, as the masked man, later revealed to be someone called Professor Ikeda, came to the ring and clobbered Zebra with the title belt. He then moved Knight away from the table wreckage, and put Zebra in his place. When the referee came to, the first thing he saw was Zebra lying in the wreckage, and declared Knight the winner and new DAM Champion.
Main event time, as the Irish Connection, Andy Boy Simmons and Eamon O’Neil, challenge the U.K. Pitbulls, Big Dave Waters and the Bulk, for the DAM Tag-Team titles, fought over the best of three falls. Before the match could even begin, Bash and the Dominator came to the ring, challenging the Pitbulls to a title match. The first fall saw the Irish lads working over Bulk’s left arm for an extended period, before the big guy was able to make the tag, which lead to Big Dave clearing house. However, the challengers got the first fall. As Big Dave tried to suplex Simmons back into the ring, O’Neil tripped him and held his leg from the outside of the ring as his partner got the pin.
It wasn’t long before the Pitbulls equalised things. The Irish Connection took it to Big Dave for a while, but he was soon able to make the tag to the Bulk, who got the pin after a massive leg drop on Simmons.
The third fall went the way of the champions as well. After O’Neil and Simmons tried to take the fight to the Bulk again, O’Neil’s mistake was trying to exchange head butts with the Bulk. After the big guy made the tag to big brother, both Pitbulls took O’Neil out with the Pitbull Powerbomb, with Big Dave getting the winning pin.
There’s the usual DVD extras here, with a chance to watch the show without commentary, and a UKP music video, with music supplied by Bulk’s band spot.
In conclusion - an okay show, and the reason it just makes okay is because of the thing that really bothers men about DAM Promotions’ shows.
I’ve now seen almost every show they’ve held since their debut show in Sheringham in 2002, and those I haven’t seen I’ve read the reports off, and if you go back through the review archive on my website you’ll see what I mean.
Every DAM show ends in exactly the same way - with the Pitbulls always in the main event, with one or both of them standing in the ring, arms raised, in triumphant victory. It’s the same with every show, and for me that’s what spoils my enjoyment. Although they always seem to have a couple of good matches on the undercard, and the Pitbulls’ matches are entertaining, you always know exactly how the show is going to end, and if truth be told, this was the reason I chose to go to the Midge Ure concert instead of this show, because DAM shows are just too predictable.
Production wise, I’m not really sure if the Holt Community Centre is the right place to film a wrestling show. Although the shows look okay in person, they don’t come across very well on film, mainly because of the poor lighting in the hall. I also feel that showing promos from the Irish Connection and Ricky Knight detracted from the Zodiac/Destiny match. A match that could have been a cracker on DVD was spoiled by two segments that could have been shown in between the matches. But otherwise I can’t fault the camera work or any of the other technical aspects of this release.
With thanks to Pinfall Productions for lending me a copy of this release. To order this DVD, and for more information on the U.K. Pitbulls and upcoming DAM Promotions shows, visit www.ukpitbulls.co.uk.
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