This coming Sunday sees another stop heading towards the 20th Anniversary of FutureShock Wrestling, as ‘High Gear’ takes place at the Stockport Guildhall where the Cheshire venue hosts its third show this year, with the last event being held being arguably one of the best shows to date in Danger Zone this past April. At the time of posting, It sees a six match card with some very interesting bouts on the show, with a couple of championship matches thrown in for good measure.
Following on from the last show at MAY IV – it sees Prince Pelé wanting some of ‘The Hunter’ Briac Strong, as the two came close to blows after Strong’s win over James Grayson, where Briac taunted Pelé after defeating his friend. Strong in recent times has become the resident ‘trophy-hunter’ in FutureShock wrestling, as he has started to take items from his fallen prey as a memento. After taking out the FutureShock head coach Sam Bailey with a chair at the performance centre and claiming his headphones, he then added James Grayson’s towel to his growing collection, as we’ve seen a new Briac Strong, one that is far more dangerous than we have ever seen before. However, the ‘Coffee Connoisseur’ in Prince Pelé politely interrupted the post match thoughts of James Grayson, before going on to challenge ‘the Hunter’ to a match at High Gear and directed the words, “I’ve survived him before, and I want to face him again and have it done.”
One aspect of FutureShock that has been cooking a lot of late is the Tag Team division, as we’ve seen the likes of the – Meat Wagon, The Horde, Forbidden Planet, F.T.M and even passing teams in Oscar Byron & Steven Cross, and Act 2 have all added something too. However, one team that has practically been forgotten about during this recent upturn in the division is that of the current, reigning and defending tag team champions in Rizman Khan and Max Brooker – the North West Saviours. For some time now, the duo have mentioned how they feel disrespected by the promotion for being passed over on the card, considering they are champions, their last outing was a non-title success against Cross and Bryon at Danger Zone, but Brooker & Khan have vowed to be in Stockport, as they will look to make an impact.
Another encounter born from the last show sees former Heavyweight champion ‘Deadly’ Damon Leigh taking on ‘the Leading Man’ Tony Wright, as the two were part of a tag match where the team of Wright and Women’s champion Leah Raven saw them prevail over Lily Winter and the ‘Deadly’ one himself. The matchup saw both men showing their technical abilities in the ring, with the term ‘Tony Wrestling’ being first coined during the contest by the fans in attendance. Leigh wasn’t too happy with being on the losing side, nor was he happy to be out wrestled at times by his more ‘inexperienced’ opponent compared to him, plus being called ‘Chicken’ was the last straw for the former FutureShock champion. The last time they met one-on-one it saw Damon Leigh picking up the win, and no doubt that ‘Deadly’ will want to stop Tony’s recent winning streak, while Wright will be out to prove he has come a long way since that last encounter.
In one of the two title matches on the card for High Gear, it sees the Adrenaline championship being defended by the holder Chris Ridgeway, as the Strong-styler technician will face the debuting ‘Ace of Hearts’ Jenson Vesper, and there can’t be any more daunting or tougher men to make your debuts against than one Mr. Ridgeway. It was the champion who hand-picked his opponent, as after informing ‘Dynamite’ Lee Dawson that he wouldn’t get a rematch of his title after winning the belt at Danger Zone in April, the Grand Slam champion then made a successful first title defence of his new belt at the start of this month against Lance Revera. The selection of the challenger raised a few eyebrows, as Chris was quoted as saying “How about that Jenson Vesper, he’s got a bit of fire in him.” and so this Sunday will see the debutant handed a huge opportunity of going for gold in his first match, while we wait to see if the Adrenaline champion has made the wrong decision by his selection choice.
The second confirmed title match sees the FutureShock Women’s Championship on the line when the ‘Empress of Anarchy’ in Leah Raven defends her title against the former four-time FutureShock Women’s champion in Lana Austin. Raven will be looking to avenge their previous encounter between the two less than a year ago at the FutureShock XIX Anniversary show last August, where Austin came out on top in a two-of-three falls encounter, with Lana picking up two straight falls to win on that occasion. This is a chance also for the challenger to make history and become the first five-time champion having lost her title back at the FutureShock XVII Anniversary show in 2021 to Aurora Teves, so she will want gold around that waist again for sure. For Leah Raven, her run as champion has seen her taking on some stiff competition and kept coming out on top each time, with battling wins over Lily Winter (twice), Helen Charlotte Campbell, Lucy Sky and saw her also winning back to back matches over the former champion Harley Hudson, with the first being when she became the new holder back at Lotto Thunder in January
One of the late additions to the show sees the FutureShock Tournament champion in CP Reilly going up against the ‘Rat King’ formerly known as Tu Byt, as under the new name of Teddy Reay, he will be making his long awaited return to a Futureshock ring. From the vignettes posted online by himself across social media platforms, this is a drastically different person to the one we last saw at Lotto Thunder. As Teddy Reay has a completely new change of attitude and while we have no idea of what to expect from Reay going into this match, we do know exactly what to expect from one – Connor Patrick Reilly, as it won’t be a clean fair fight for sure, even though annoyingly he is without doubt one of the brightest stars in the company today.
And last, but by no means least, the final match on the card sees Joey Hayes taking on ‘the man of the people’ Chris Egan in a possible retirement match. This goes back to April at Danger Zone when Egan was berated by CP Reilly and saw the youngster calling him an ’embarrassment’ amongst other things after he was rolled up by Ethan Kelly for a defeat. But the veteran of Futureshock then decided that he needed something to light a fire under him, and so the additional stipulation of retirement from FSW is constantly hanging above him in every match now until he tastes defeat. Both men are FutureShock OG’s and have incredibly only faced each other twice in nearly twenty years of the promotion running, with a tag team match back in 2007 and a scramble match in 2018 having Joey come out on top both times against Chris. But this will be their first ever one-on-one encounter and maybe it is third time lucky for Egan.
FUTURESHOCK: HIGH GEAR – Card rundown:
‘The Hunter’ Briac Strong v ‘Prince’ Pelé
FSW Tag Team Championship – North West Saviours (Max Brooker & Rizman Khan) in action
‘DEADLY’ Damon Leigh v ‘Leading Man’ Tony Wright
Teddy Reay v C.P (Connor Patrick) Reilly
FSW Women’s Championship – Leah Raven (c) v Lana Austin
FSW Adrenaline Championship – Chris Ridgeway (c) v Jenson Vesper
Retirement Match** Chris Egan v Joey Hayes (If Egan loses he must retire)