Saturday evening saw Futureshock Wrestling taking over Bowlers’ for a fourth straight year, as ‘Futureshock Breaks Convention IV’ saw a very good crowd staying behind after the opening day of the ‘For The Love of Wrestling’ convention. A six match card saw the Manchester company putting on another good show, and one that included three title matches on the card, with the Adrenaline, Women’s and Men’s titles to be defended.
The opening contest saw C.P. Reilly (Genius) taking on the Man-Beast/War-machine Rhyno, as the cocky and arrogant Reilly has been on a bit of a tear since winning the Futureshock tournament last December and hasn’t been pinned in months. But, this was to be by far the toughest task of his career to date, as he was taking on the former ECW World and TV champion. While C.P. had to think how he was going to get out of this unscathed, it saw Rhyno on the other hand enjoying himself and leading the chants from the fans in attendance, as songs of ‘Stand Up If You hate C.P.’ and then ‘Sit Down If You Hate C.P.’ Reilly was already rattled by Rhyno, but having the crowd too just seemed to add to his woes.
Rhyno unsurprisingly had the upper hand for the majority of the match, as the crowd was the loudest they had been for any of the two live shows. Reilly capitalised on a rare mistake from his opponent, as he looked to build some momentum after a missed Gore attempt saw him now in control. C.P. had to use his quickness if he was going to outsmart his foe, as overpowering or outmuscling his opponent was never an option. Rhyno recovered well and saw him getting in position to ‘Gore’ his opponent, but not only did Reilly sidestep the attempt, but he managed to roll him up and have him use the ropes for leverage to steal a win. It saw Rhyno in shock that he lost, while C.P. and his assistant ran like a thief in the night back up the aisle and into the back.
Second on the card was the scheduled match of ‘the Leading Man’ Tony Wright taking on Dynamite Lee Dawson for the Futureshock Adrenaline Championship. However, during the introductions, it saw Jack Critchlow and Tom McColl come out and demand that they were added to the match, so it became a Fatal-4-way. The match itself was ok, but the lack of crowd interaction didn’t help the match much at all. It felt at times more like a tag match with Wright and Dawson working together against the Scouse pairing of Critchlow and McColl and vice versa. It saw the match being a bit sloppy in parts, but the biggest reaction was when Tom McColl leapt from one top rope to the other and performed a stunning moonsault on his fellow opponents on the outside. It saw a double team on Wright by Critchlow and McColl that saw both men going to make the cover, before they argued over who was going to make the pin and have them coming to blows. In the end it saw Dawson hitting Critchlow with a twisting DDT off the middle rope to retain his Adrenaline title.
Next up was the fourth annual Invitational Rumble match, as the first two out were Futureshock coach Sam Bailey and Harley Hudson. It saw a pretty uneventful Rumble if truth be told, as a distinct lack of people looking to eliminate seemingly took a portion of the crowd out of the match and was watched in relative silence. A real lack of a story ran through the Rumble contest, and it made it feel very long winded indeed. The only memorable moment during it came from Ryan Bartram being saved from elimination by his fellow Meat Wagon teammate Anderson Daniels, as he carried him around ringside on his shoulders. The back end of the contest saw Sam Bailey being triple teamed in the corner by Solomon,Oscar Byron and C.P. Reilly, as it saw another countdown timer appear on screen, with those left in the ring looking mystified. As the clock ticked to zero, it saw a slight pause with everyone guessing correctly on who it was, as Rhyno came to the ring and saw him looking to get revenge on Reilly for his loss earlier in the night.
As Rhyno came to the ring it saw C.P. eliminating himself much to the disappointment of the crowd, as they wanted to see a Gore on the Genius one. It saw the former ECW legend going on to eliminate Byron and Solomon, before he and Bailey then bumped into each other in the middle of the ring. After a mini battle, it saw the final man eliminating the first man in the Rumble to be declared the winner and have him as the fourth winner of this event. The celebrations hadn’t even got underway before C.P. Reilly grabbed the microphone and claimed that the Rumble winner was nothing but a loser, and that couldn’t even beat him or throw him over the top rope. Reilly continued to poke the bear, saying he would sue if Rhyno touched him and would have him barred from ever coming to the UK again if he did anything towards him. The crowd egged on Rhyno as Reilly went on and on, to which at this point saw him getting into position to finally charge towards him and ‘Gore, Gore, GORE him out of his boots nearly and and leave him motionless in the middle of the ring. As the referees struggled to move him, it saw them decide that for a certain price, you could come down to ringside and get a photo of you pinning C.P Reilly in the ring. Of course I did this, so my unofficial Futureshock record stands at 1-0, you gotta start somewhere.
After the interval we had the six-man tag with Briac Strong & the Futureshock Tag team champions in the North West Saviours, as they faced Forbidden Planet and former WWF wrestler Gangrel. The crowd bopped along to Gangrel’s entrance (because it is an absolute banger!) and the second half of the evening seemed to revert back to how the previous night started, as the crowd really seemed to be subdued, though I’ll touch more on that at the end. The match itself was a fairly solid one with the heels getting the upper hand most of the time, as the crowd seemed to respond to Gangrel when he was banging the turnbuckle to get some support for his teammates in Forbidden Planet when one was in peril. It saw good work by the N.W Saviours and Strong who cut the ring in half which is what you do in tag wrestling, as the eventual hot tag to Gangrel popped the crowd and saw him kicking some backside as result. The climax to the match saw Gangrel hitting Strong with the Impaler DDT and scoring the win for his side, as they hung around a lot longer after the match to celebrate their victory and felt like they got told to leave.
For the penultimate bout it saw a rematch from the company’s 200th Anniversary show last September, as the Futureshock Women’s champion Leah Raven put her belt on the line against Lily Winter. It took the crowd a bit to get going with this match, but the wrestling itself was very good. I haven’t seen Winter wrestle for a while, but it shocks me that she has been doing this for less than two years as she is solid in the ring. Raven is one of those wrestlers that I feel is easy to cheer for, as she is a plucky character and has a lot of heart too. Leah Raven had the early exchanges and saw her beating Winter to the punch, as Raven showed why she was the champion. A mistake by Raven allowed Winter to take over and saw her putting her opponent in trouble, as the crowd was beginning to stir a bit. There were a couple of people in the crowd that were vocal, and really did help to try and get the crowd more engaged than they were. The match itself I enjoyed, as it felt like the last time they met in a Futureshock ring, it saw Winter being two steps ahead of her. In this encounter, Leah was equal to her opponent and avoided making a fatal error, which then saw her capitalising on one mistake by Winter before hitting her with her finishing move of a DDT off the middle rope to take the win and retain her title.
The Main Event saw the Futureshock Championship up for grab with Deadly Damon Leigh finally getting his long awaited rematch for the title that he lost to Joe Blazr last summer. Meanwhile, for Blazr this was his fourth title defence and looking to make it five on the spin, as it saw another different style of opponent to previous defences, with Leigh being more of a technical one. It saw an enforcer for this match in the former WWF Intercontinental and UFC Superfight champion in the ‘World’s Most Dangerous Man’ Ken Shamrock. It was a match that I feel struggled along due to a combination of things, one being a silent crowd reaction and just added to things personally. It was a strange contest that didn’t see a traditional good vs bad dynamic, as Leigh didn’t seem to lean too much into the heel tendencies. Blazr for me has never given off a champions’ vibe since he won the title, as compared to the other title holders within the company, him as the top champ seems a very odd decision. I do feel like I am avoiding the topic of talking about the title match in question, as in truth the match was pretty dull and uneventful. The only major moments came right at the end of the contest, when Blazr was put in a Boston Crab and saw Shamrock jumping up on the apron and prepared to throw the towel in to save Joe from injury.
The ending to the match seemed massively overbooked, but ironically it was one of more memorable moments. After a referee bump saw James Greenwood sent to the canvas, it saw Leigh use the title on Blazr and having Shamrock shout at the ref. It made no sense when he was the enforcer and could just call the match to end under a DQ. As it was, the match carried on and saw him square up to Leigh who pushed him, before Shamrock punched the challenger and was followed up with Blazr picking him up to then drop him to get the three count and retain his title.
Overall Thoughts: The event was really good, and I’d make the case it was even better than the PROGRESS show the night before to some degree. I made reference to the crowd being quite quiet, but in truth a lot of people had been there since before 9am for the start of the convention, so taking that into consideration, it did take it out of you. Without doubt the C.P./Rhino match was the loudest fan reaction across the two days for me, and saw so much fan interaction during the match. The six man tag had the crowd hooked in due to Gangrel’s input, but in terms of the others it was hit or miss. The Women’s match was solid enough but lacked the crowd reactions, though when it did draw some reaction it was fairly loud briefly. In terms of the scheduled match involving Wright and Dawson for the Adrenaline title, on paper it looked good but I think making it a 4-way wasn’t a good idea. As even when Critchlow tried to say the crowd wanted a four way and was met with silence, it told you no one was interested.