RE-POST: WAW Monthly Report November 2003

Some of you may be wondering why I haven’t written about the mighty WWE lately. The answer is simple; I haven’t watched much of their product lately. This is because I’ve been busy attending to WAW matters.

So it’s that time of the month again when yours truly, in his role as WAW’s chief reporter, looks back at what’s happened in and out of the ring in the past month or so.

To say things have been a bit hectic have been an understatement. Although the first few weeks of the months were quiet on the show front, things kicked off on the 21st November with another trip to the Town Hall in Hunstanton. This was the first time I had been to Hunstanton in about twenty years, but the third time WAW had been here this year. The last two shows, in April and August, were somewhat disappointing attendance wise, so it was a welcome surprise to us all that the show was sold out, with around 200 fans turning up on a cold winter’s night, and this despite the fact that the BBC were holding their annual Children In Need charity appeal on television that night as well.

However, things didn’t run smoothly at all to begin with, as engine trouble meant that the regular ring announcer Michael Mann couldn’t make the show. The fact that he was also bringing a wrestler and a referee meant that the show was in danger of not going on. But give the powers-that-be credit. With a great deal of thought and last-minute planning, the show went without a hitch, and the fans went home happy, not realizing just how close they were to not getting a show at all!

As far as the action in the ring was concerned, it was top-notch from top-to-bottom. Everyone on the show did well, some more than others.

This was the first time I had seen promising rookie Rock Weiler in a singles match. Having competed in many battle royals since he first entered the Training Academy, Rock had made his singles debut six months previously against Hot Stuff in Diss. Going up against the Kraft, someone who could still be considered a rookie of sorts, Rock put on a display a ten year veteran would have been proud of. The crowd were on his back as soon as he entered the hall. His ability to work the crowd, as well as those in the ring was also good. For a guy in only his second singles match, Rock Weiler showed that he is one to look out for in the coming months.

Another guy I have to tip my hat to is Ashe. Ashe is proving to be one of the top cruiserweights not just in WAW but possibly in Britain at the moment. I felt a sad for him that he had to give up the tag-team title after his convincing display partnering Paul Tyrell in defeating the Pitbulls at October Outrage V, but perhaps Ashe’s future really lies in the singles ranks. He is already a credible challenger for Steve Quintain’s Cruiserweight title. He can fly, but he doesn’t rely on this tactic all the time. He is able to combine aerial moves with a solid mat-based attack. Like everyone he does make mistakes, but when these errors happen he isn’t put off by them. He just gets on with his work.

Ashe must also be praised for his work outside the ring. The lad worked his backside off helping promote the show in Hunstanton, his hometown. It’s this kind of attitude, this love of wrestling that he has, that will do him no harm in the long run.

While on the subject of attitude, one of the reasons that the show almost didn’t go to plan was the very late arrival of the Zebra Kid. Zebra arrived just minutes before the show was due to begin, forcing a hasty rearrangement of the card. Calls to his mobile phone went unanswered, and as he arrived at the hall, it was obvious that WAW owner Ricky Knight, who would later wrestle Zebra that night, would take out his frustrations on him in the ring.

And this he did. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen Ricky Knight wrestle the Zebra Kid. I’ve even had the honour to referee one of their matches earlier this year in Southport. But each time they step into the ring together, they always pull out all the stops, never holding back, always giving one hundred and ten percent. But this time, Ricky feels he has something to prove to the youngster.

The Rowdy Man continues to impress me with his performances. It amazes me that at a time when youngsters come into the industry, perform nothing but over the top rope and off the top rope moves, and retire by the age of 25, Ricky Knight is still performing, at the top of his game, just a few weeks short of his 51st birthday. He may not like it that I’ve let you all know that he’s nearly 51, but the fact that he can still give his all, still match power with the super-heavyweights, and speed with the cruiser weights, shows what conditioning can do. Ricky said to me last year that he will retire on his 55th birthday. I get the feeling the old sod will still be kicking ass when he’s in his 70’s. Would this be a good thing? Not for his opponents it won’t be.

Performance of the night, however, would have to go to the Sweet Saraya. In recent weeks and months I’ve written about how I consider Saraya to be the best female wrestler not just in Britain or Europe, but perhaps the world. Her performance in Hunstanton proved this to me even more. She not only competed against Kharisma in a singles bout, but also worked as Ricky’s manager in his match, and in the final elimination tag match as well. She worked three matches, and gave and took a hell of a beating in each and every encounter. While watching her in the tag match, dishing it out to her male counterparts, I found myself forgetting most of the time that she was a woman, the smallest competitor in the contest. But the fact that she was able to more than hold her own against far larger opponents just shows how tough she is. She is a pure, wrestling machine.

But the sad thing is that Saraya is getting frustrated at the moment. “No disrespect to girls like Kharisma and Destiny, but I need a challenge.”, Saraya confided in me a few days later. “I’m the best female wrestler in Britain right now. I’ve been in the ring with the best, and beaten the best, but at the moment there just doesn’t seem to be anyone around who wants to wrestle me.

“And that’s the sad thing. I keep hearing about these girls around the country who are in training, about how they want to be the best female wrestlers in Britain. You mention the name of the Sweet Saraya to them though, and they run the proverbial mile.

“I’m not afraid to face anyone in the ring. If any of these new girls want to wrestle me, they should talk to their promoters and ask them to book me on their shows. Or if they want to get on a WAW show, give me a call so we can set something up. As the old saying goes, to be the best, you have to beat the best, and right now, I’m the best there is.”

I have to say I agree with her on this one. Many up-and-coming female wrestlers have complained recently about the amount of publicity Saraya receives. Think of it this way – imagine the amount of publicity YOU would receive if you were to challenge Saraya for her Unified British Title.

One week later, and it’s a short journey down the road for the DAM Promotions show at the Holt Community Centre. DAM Promotions is the company run by the U.K. Pitbulls, the Bulk and Big Dave Waters. This was the fourth show they had run, and the third at the Community Centre. In an area of Norfolk starved of wrestling action for twenty years, these shows are a welcome addition.

This show had more of a WAW connection than any of the previous DAM show, with only one man, “The Shining Light” Stevie Knight, who hadn’t come through the WAW Wrestling Academy. I had heard and read a lot about Stevie on the Internet in the past few weeks, and was looking forward to seeing him in the ring for the first time.

If you observe either of the Waters brothers at one of their shows, it’s obvious that just wrestling on a show is a lot different, and a lot more stressful, than running your own show. Normally when I see the big guys before and after shows they’re always up for a laugh, always playing and telling jokes with the other workers. When they run their own shows, it’s a different matter. They are concerned about everything. They want everything to be right, to be perfect, so the fans go away happy. At times this may make them seem like they’re a bit snappy, a bit aloof, but as Dave explained to me a couple of days later, it’s just one of the stresses of running a wrestling show.

The show itself was being staged to help raise money for the Theresa Bellingham Appeal, a local girl who suffers from cerebral palsy. Previous shows have also raised a great deal of money for charity, and with the help of several local businesses, the Pitbulls were able to put on another good show.

Although seeing the Pitbulls has heroes is a little different. No disrespect is intended to the big men when I say this, but I prefer them as villains.

The following day it was down to Lowestoft for “War At The Waveney”. The shows at the Waveney Sports & Leisure Centre always pull in a good crowd, hovering around the 1,000 mark. A big shout out must go to Steve Quintain here. Despite running his own, full-time business, Steve works his backside off to get sponsorship and publicity for these shows, and at times it seems he doesn’t get the credit he deserves. But Steve did it again, even if he did play a cruel joke on me by telling me that he was announcing his retirement from wrestling that night!

The big talking point as far as this show was concerned was the appearance of the FWA’s number one man, “The Showstealer” Alex Shane, as he tagged with the Zebra Kid to go up against Ricky & Stevie Knight, Stevie coming in as a late replacement for Thunder.

There’s been a great deal of talk in WAW circles lately about where the Zebra Kid’s loyalties lie. The previous evening in Holt, Zebra’s differences with Ricky had cost them a match as they teamed in the final elimination match against the Pitbulls. In Lowestoft, as he awaited the arrival of his tag-team partner, I managed to grab a few moments with him, to see what he thought of the situation.

“I’ll always be grateful to my family, and to WAW, for giving me my start in the wrestling business.”, he said. “But the thing is, this is my job, this is what I do for a living. If someone rings me up offering me work, whether it’s Alex Shane, Vince McMahon, or whoever, and the price is right, I’ll do it.”

It’s obvious just by talking to him just how much his family means to him. Reading between the lines, it must be tearing him up inside when he hears people he was worked with over the years questioning his loyalty to WAW. However, yours truly was left wondering this when the tag-team match actually happened.

And so with around 1,000 people packed into the arena, the show began. The Pitbulls returned to their cowardly ways as they went up against Hot Stuff and The Kraft in singles matches, Bulk losing to the comeback kid via disqualification, the Kraft and Big D wrestling to a time-limit draw.

Then it was on to what many considered to be the main event of the evening as Steve Quintain defended his Cruiser weight title against Jimmy Ocean in a good, old fashioned British-style contest. The crowd were really into this one. This was by far the loudest Lowestoft crowd I’ve ever heard! I’m still recovering from the battering my ears took!

It’s this kind of crowd which makes me proud to be a wrestling fan. In an age when the vast majority of the wrestling industry seems to be run by the Internet, and the average fan spends more time in front of a computer monitor than they actually do watching wrestling, these fans were great. Young and old gathered together, not caring if someone screwed up one move or if they had a strange haircut or walked in a funny way. These guys were true wrestling fans. They cheered, they booed, and at one time even attacked poor Jimmy with their walking sticks! This was what wrestling should be about. They didn’t care that their local hero had lost the match! They wanted blood (in a proverbial manner, that is).

Then it was onto the match that the Internet gang would have marked out for. It was surprising to me that this was announced as an inter-promotion match, with Alex Shane and the Zebra Kid being announced as “Team FWA”. Going up against the Knights, who had the “Queen of the Harpies”, the Sweet Saraya, in their corner, the self-styled invaders knew they were going to have their work cut out for them in this best of three falls match.

Despite the fact that this match was being held in what could be considered WAW territory, the crowd were clearly behind the FWA boys. But then again, this could be put down to the fact that although the majority of crowd had never seen Alex Shane wrestle before, they loved his tag-team partner. The Zebra Kid is becoming more and more of a positive heat magnet. No matter where he goes, he gets a good response from any crowd. He could have chosen Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein as his partner for this match, and the crowd would still have cheered him. They love him that much.

Team FWA were victorious that night, with Alex gaining the winning pin fall over Ricky, his WAW counterpart. After the match, as Ricky grabbed the microphone, it was slightly humorous to see Ricky try to go eyeball-to-eyeball with Alex. Ricky soon grabbed a chair from ringside so he could stand on it and look down on the so-called invader. This was the kind of thing any long-time fan of British wrestling would have relished.

Seeing these two guys in the ring together made me think that a WAW v FWA feud could be, if it ever happened, be the best thing that’s happened to British wrestling in years. The FWA are the biggest company in Britain as far as the Internet is concerned, whereas as WAW, a company that has a more traditional-style approach to wrestling, and who, although they have their own web site, are not driven by the views of the smart marks. It has the making of an old school v new school kind of feud, and if the powers-that-be of both companies can get this thing going, then it could take British wrestling back to where it was all those years ago.

Having watched the FWA for about as long as I’ve watched WAW, the armchair booker in me is already coming up with some dream matches that I’d love to see on a combined WAW/FWA show. I really hopes this happens.

And as November drew to a close, those connected with WAW began to think about other things. The gruelling holiday camp schedule over the Christmas and New Year period, and the numerous awards that those connected with WAW will be nominated for on various web sites over this same period.

Before I end this little report of mine, I’d just like to say a gracious thanks to a few people. I know I said a few paragraphs ago that WAW is not a company driven by the Internet, but there’s two web sites who have supported the company a great deal over the past few months. 1 Stop Wrestling (www.1stopwrestling.co.uk) is, in my opinion, the best British wrestling web site around at the moment. Chris Hatch, Brett Summers and all those connected should be proud of their efforts. Like many others who run wrestling web sites, these guys put in time and effort for very little praise and no financial reward. They do it because they love wrestling, plain and simple.

Also, the guys at Eastern Wrestling News (www.easternwrestlingnews.cjb.net) also deserve some praise. This site, dedicated to promoting the wrestling scene in East Anglia, is doing a great job of promoting WAW and getting it’s news across to the fans. Although it’s a shame that other promotions in the area don’t realize just how much EWN can do to help them it, WAW is proud to be associated with them, and thanks them all for their time and help.

Well, that’s your lot for this month. This opinionated little geek is off for now! See you at the shows!