This past Saturday night at the Manchester MMU saw Futureshock: Ready taking place, which saw six fascinating matches on the card, with three title bouts, along with a last-chance battle royal and to where the victor would fill the final spot on the Futureshock Tournament due to take place next month in the Stockport Guildhall on December 8th.
Futureshock Women’s TITLE MATCH – Lily Winter beat Lucy Sky
The opening contest saw Lily Winter making her second defence of her Futureshock Women’s title against one of the toughest on the circuit in Lucy Sky, and a match that saw both women cancelling each other out in the early going. Winter gained the upper hand by yanking Sky’s foot off the ropes to trip her up as Lily began to wear down her opponent. Sky came back at her and nailed some big impact moves including a spear that saw Lily putting her foot up on the ropes to break the count. Winter refused to stay down and took everything Lucy threw her way, leaving the challenger more frustrated with every kickout. The champion then capitalised on a mistake to pick Sky up and land the ‘Cold Shoulder’ to see Winter score the pinfall victory and retain her title.
The ZUBAWEIGHTS bt Tony Wright/Joe Blazr
Jack Baron and Philip Michael the fun-loving Zubaweights made their long-awaited return to Futureshock wrestling after the fans made they wanted them back following their losing efforts to FTM at “End of the Line” in July. Their opponents were the two men who have a strained relationship, with Joe Blazr becoming a hindrance for Tony Wright especially clocking him with the title belt during Wright’s title match last month. Before a punch or kick was thrown, Blazr tagged himself in immediately into the bout before the first action took place as Tony was confused at what just happened.
Baron and Michael displayed their tag team prowess, as they isolated Tony from Joe in his corner before Wright managed to tag in Blazr and saw the former Heavyweight champion flip the script and have him put his side on the front foot. The closing stages saw Wright tuning up the band for ‘Sweet Chin Music’ before Blazr tagged himself and posed a bit too long as he went to hit the ‘Blazr of Glory’ but Baron wriggled out and rolled him up to pick up the win and have the Zubaweights chalk their first win in Futureshock. After the match, Wright and Blazr stood in the ring arguing with each other with Joe trying to apologise for the loss, but with both men going their different ways, the question now is what is next for this pair moving forward?
LAST CHANCE SALOON BATTLE ROYAL – NADJEI bt (Danny Proper, Jenson Vesper, AC Brack, Slam Johnson, Connor Patrick Reilly and Solomon)
Next on the card was the ‘Last Chance Saloon Battle Royal’ where the winner would take his place in next month’s Futureshock Tournament, and have the opportunity to call his shot on whatever title they desired. With six entrants in the ring already, we had the current Futureshock champion Connor Patrick Reilly come out and inform the crowd that Just John wasn’t here due to ‘work’ and that the self-proclaimed Genius, would take his place, and not only that, he would win and go on to become the two-time tournament winner.
Everyone ganged up on Reilly as he tried to negotiate with everyone but took a punch or boot from everyone in the ring. We then saw a meat-off between Slam Johnson who was making his debut butting heads with the monster Solomon, as it saw the remaining four men in the ring trying to eliminate both men while Reilly stayed outside. Johnson then took turns to slam everyone in the match and had the full support of the Futureshock Faithful who roared with approval on every slam, especially on Connor Patrick Reilly. The first to go was Jenson Vesper courtesy of Danny Proper, as Vester went flying over the top rope with Gorgon and AC Brack then joined forces to eliminate Johnson, much to the annoyance of the Union crowd, where Brack suffered the same fate to become the third man out. Reilly then looked to form a coalition with both Gorgon and Solomon, however, Nadjei quickly ended that meeting by eliminating the champion to set up a final four of Gorgon, Solomon, Danny Proper and Nadjei.
Proper was eliminated and saw Gorgon telling his Horde monster Solomon he was “no longer needed” and eliminated himself to leave Gorgon and Nadjei fighting it out. The two precariously fought on the ring apron with both men trying to get the other to drop, but after Nadjei hit a superkick it saw Gorgon respond by flipping his foe over his head and nearly scoring the victory. Nadjei threw Gorgon out and helped book his place next month in the Futureshock tournament at the Stockport Guildhall.
SCOTT OBERMAN bt Sam Bailey, Dynamite Lee Dawson
Originally pencilled in to be Sam Bailey and Big Declan McCarthy, but following the Ulsterman suffering a broken orbital bone in his win last month against Chris Ridgeway, it saw Bailey happy to take on a triple threat match with Dynamite Lee Dawson and ‘the Real thing’ Scott Oberman. This match was fun to watch, as three-way matches are always unpredictable with all three men having their time on the front foot. Bailey fresh from his PROGRESS match last weekend came out the blocks quicker, with his unique offence off the ropes and then narrating things by running up the corner and nailing a bulldog on Oberman.
Dawson then had his turn to be in control, as he caught both men in the corner and nailed simultaneous Powderkeg DDTs but couldn’t score the win. Oberman pulled off arguably the best move of the night when Bailey came running at him in the corner, only to leapt across the ring and hit Dawson with a cutter out of nowhere, before spearing the coach.
Sam thought he had things well in hand as he set Oberman up for the package piledriver, only to have the lights cut out and have Chris Ridgeway’s music and entrance video play which distracted Bailey enough for Scott Oberman to reverse it into a spinning tombstone and take the win.
MEAT WAGON bt Forbidden Planet – FUTURESHOCK TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP –
On the back of Dave Birch’s controversial win against Troy Ryan of the Meat Wagon thanks to Aiton Steen’s help last month, that one incident proved to be a successful ploy in securing a championship match against the champions at Futureshock: Ready, as the Anderson Daniels and Troy Ryan of Meat Wagon were more than happy to accept the challenger from Forbidden Planet. This was a back-and-forth contest where neither team dominated for long spells in the match, as both teams were evenly matched, with Birch and Steen using speed and high-flying to their advantage and Ryan/Daniels using brute strength in their corner.
Having seen Ryan catch Birch in mid-air and Steen come off the top and take his head off nearly, the challengers tried the feat again, but Troy was equal to it and slammed them down to the canvas with a herculean show of strength. Forbidden Planet could almost taste the gold when a kick into a Canadian destroyer drew a two-count and saw the Meat Wagon coming back at them with their bulk to down their opponents, hitting stereo powerbombs to put the challengers in trouble. Birch then hit a stunning 720 DDT on Daniels for a two count as the champions stayed in the contest, where the frustration of the champions proved costly for Forbidden Planet, with Ryan and Daniels hitting the ‘Tenderiser’ to retain their belts. After the bout, the champions offered their hand in sportsmanship but the gesture was ignored and saw Steen and Birch head to the back.
TEDDY REAY bt Vusyk – FUTURESHOCK ADRENALINE TITLE MATCH
The main event of the evening saw a titanic battle for the Futureshock Adrenaline title with the champion in North West Strong’s Teddy Reay, making a fourth title defence since winning it at the 20th-anniversary show, as he took on the pride of Czechia in the man called Vusyk who has been earning rave reviews around the Northern scene.
Vusyk tried to establish dominance from the off, where he overpowered Reay in the corner and launched him out of the ring with his power, where the Champ realised he had to switch on. The crowd was right behind the champion and saw him returning the favour by forcing the challenge up and out of the ring, which left his opponent unhappy. The middle part of the match saw both men going hold-for-hold, where it began to see a technical wrestling match with Vusyk manipulating the fingers and contorting Reay like a pretzel, with Reay then showing his grappling skills and putting the pressure back on his opponent.
The challenger then took it to the champion but had him on ‘Dream Street’ where he grabbed the arms of the helpless Reay who was on his knees, before driving the most vicious knees into Reay and saw the brutal beatdown of the champ continue. During the onslaught, Reay lost a tooth and was the cause of his mouth bleeding as Vusyk’s head and body were getting smeared in the blood. Just when it looked like Reay was coming back, his high-risk move got turned into a powerbomb that looked to have won it but drew a near fall. Vusyk then went to leg hold but Teddy reversed it and chalked up a huge win to retain his title and pick up a big win against one of the toughest men he has faced during his reign.