Friday night saw the Stourbridge promotion Bridge Pro putting on another banger show as their third show of the year at the Amblecote British Legion saw WONDERLAND taking place where it saw some Incredible bouts, as well as a Street Fight, the Wonderland match itself, and the ‘dangerous’ Trolley Match!
‘The Inquisitor’ ALEX Connors/’The 21st Century Hero’ LUKE DOUGLAS vs LIAM JONES & MYSTERY OPPONENT
The opening contest saw a tag team encounter involving a side on something of a roll right now in ‘The 21st Century Hero’ Luke Douglas and tag partner, “the inquisitor,” Alex Connors. They put their two-match winning streak on the line against the originally scheduled pairing of Liam Jones and Levi Muir; however, Muir wasn’t in attendance in Amblecote, and Connors took full joy in revealing the news to the Bridge faithful. Jones would then cut joy short for “The Inquisitor,” as he named his replacement in Kamikaze Pro’s George Lydon.
It saw Jones and Lydon getting off to a good start as they put their opponents in trouble, but that changed when Jones was reversed and thrown into the corner where Lydon was perched on the top rope. Lydon suddenly became prey for Luke Douglas and Alex Connors as they started to beat him down. Jones could only watch on waiting for the tag, and after Lydon clotheslined both, he evaded a move and tagged in Liam Jones, who began clearing house.
It saw the match breaking down with Connors & Douglas re-establishing control to hit a double team before a superkick and neckbreaker combo put Lydon away for the 1-2-3 and see another successful win for the Connors & Douglas tag team in Bridge Pro.
BRANDON JORDAN vs STEVE VALENTINO
This was the second time that Bridge Pro Wrestling had seen the brother of Chantal Jordan in action, with Brandon making a splash himself in his own right, and that was evident in this encounter against a veteran of the ring in one-half of the Dead Sea Souls, Steve Valentino. It saw Valentino testing the youngster with his arsenal of holds, even reversing the reversals. Jordan took the lumps and took the fight right back to Valentino, to which he perhaps may have surprised the ‘People’s Captain’.
It saw this contest swaying one way and then the other, with no one holding the upper hand for too long, as it was a pretty even match. Valentino was the proverbial butcher in the ring, what with the number of chops he was handing out to the chest of Jordan, as Brandon himself answered back with his chops to the chest of Valentino, with the pair trading chops to see who would buckle first. Both looked to land the defining blow on their opponent, but neither could keep the other man down for a three-count.
The closing stages saw Valentino looking to hit a suplex or something big off the top rope with Jordan laying on the top turnbuckle, to which Brandon hit a frog splash to score the upset victory, with the two shaking hands as a sign of respect.
‘Red Haired Razcal’ SAMUEL HUGHES vs HAZZ HYPE—STREET FIGHT
This match came about following events back in April at Bridge Pro’s second show, BRAND NEW LEVEL, where Hazz Hype was due to be a participant in the Five-Man Scramble match but unfortunately picked up an arm injury that ruled him out of competing. During the back end of the scramble match, Samuel Hughes was about to use a Kendo stick on Zac Walker, only for Hazz Hype to run out and make the save, even using the cane on Hughes, to which the ‘Red Haired Razcal’ will have remembered those shots before this Street Fight.
Both men took it to the other, and the weapons were soon brought into play for this encounter. When Hazz Hype pulled out a Kendo stick and began to strike the Red-Headed Razcal numerous times with the object. The back of Hughes had red marks from the cane strikes that were inflicted on him before he then gained possession of the weapon and used it on his opponent. Hazz Hype flew out of the ring and into the crowd when taking out Hughes on the outside, but he went to the well once too often, and the second time was met with a chair shot at the ropes.
Hughes then tried to put his opponent through two chairs laid out, but despite trying to fight out of it, he still got put through one at the very least. Lego blocks were then brought into the match with Hughes being back-dropped onto the pieces, with his opponent nailing a spear for a near fall moments after. The media man then set up a painting table while using a chair on the back of his foe when trying to put it up in between. While his initial attempt of slamming Samuel Hughes failed, he would get it on the second attempt by crashing him through a table, only to have Hughes’ associate Will Stevens pull the ref out to stop the count. Another distraction led to Hughes kicking his opponent between the legs while the referee wasn’t looking, only to then follow it up with a chair to the head and score the pinfall victory.
‘The Pocket Rocket’ LILA KYLE vs ‘Suplex’ MILLIE MCKENZIE
In one of the matches I was looking forward to the most, we had fun and games beforehand, as we saw Millie McKenzie have one of her now traditional pre-match ‘comfortable breaks’ with the crowd giving a rendition of Happy Birthday towards the birthday girl in the ‘Pocket Rocket’ Lila Kyle. When the match finally got going, it saw Millie using her height and power to her advantage as she outwrestled her opponent, as Kyle struggled to get a foot in the door of this contest.
Kyle had to use her smarts in how to approach her opponent, as she began to mix up her offense using both fast-paced and technical holds to grow in the match. But while she fought back, McKenzie seemed to always be a step ahead, and that saw her in complete control of the bout. Millie had the better of the match, using her strength to put ‘The Pocket Rocket’ in danger as Kyle, who’s small in stature but big in heart, saw McKenzie becoming visibly more and more frustrated with Lila constantly kicking out.
Lila seemed to kick out of everything Millie threw her way, even after multiple suplexes and a huge spear that still wouldn’t keep Kyle down. You felt if one opportunity arose for Lila in the match, she would have to make it count, and so when it did present itself, Kyle took full advantage by reversing Millie to gain the three-count and registering one of her biggest wins over one of, if not the best female wrestler around today.
After the match, Lila Kyle made a heartfelt speech towards the Bridge Pro crowd about how much this match and win meant to her, only to have her speech cut short by Jay Cee and Tyler Davies of Alexxis Falcon’s new faction as they came out mockingly applauding her. That was before Will Stevens blindsided her with a clothesline from behind, and when he set Kyle up to give her a piledriver, TJ Sky came to the rescue to make the save before grabbing the microphone and sternly telling his two opponents, Davies and Jay Cee, that he’d be seeing them soon in the WONDERLAND match, before asking why Steven was even here, having said, “why are you here? You’re not even booked on the show, go home.”
WONDERLAND MATCH: ‘Speed Demon’ EDGAR ADAMS, TYLER DAVIES, JAYCEE, WILL STEVENS, ‘Skywalker’ NATE STEVENS, TJ SKY, ‘The Future’ ZAC WALKER
Next on the slate was the first-ever WONDERLAND match. Where the rules for this match were as follows: Two men start in the ring, with another man entering after an allocated time, then once all competitors have been announced and entered, the match will officially begin.
The first two competitors in the match were Edgar Adams and Tyler Davies, shortly followed by Zac Walker, who was then taken out on the staging area by Will Stevens, who subsequently took Walker’s place in the match. They were joined by ‘Skywalker’ Nate Reilly, Jay Cee, TJ Sky, and later on, the returning Zac Walker, who shook off Stevens attack earlier on to re-enter the match officially.
Soon after, the action moved to the outside, where Walker was the only one left in the ring, and he did a front flip off the top rope into the group. Walker landed across the chest of Will Stevens when performing the Swanton Bomb, as that saw Stevens’ challenge end there and then, but Sky was on hand to stop the count. Things then came down to a rematch of the Kamikaze Pro Showcase match from earlier in the year, when it saw the Speed Demon (Edgar Adams) and the Skywalker (Nate Reilly) squaring off, but TJ Sky was still very much in the contest. It saw the match end after a stray boot landed on Adams’ head, and despite being a bit worse for wear, Edgar had the presence of mind to roll up Reilly for the victory.
Following the match, both Sky and Reilly took their time to look after a banged-up Edgar Adams before helping him to the back. Once again, it showed that professional wrestling is not ballet and the risks that come with the job.
KEMPER v SHREDDY
Next on the slate was the “MEATY” battle involving the self-proclaimed ‘Jack Stacked Daddy’ in Shreddy, where he went up against the Monster known as Kemper. Shreddy, who is recently back from his tour of Japan, saw him endearing himself to the Stourbridge crowd but asking, “Who’s the Daddy?” as well as “Who’s the strongest?” as the Bridge Pro fans chanted, “Kemper’s gonna kill you!”. Shreddy, wasn’t intimidated by the size of his much taller opponent, as his brute strength seemed to negate the height difference. Kemper took some chops, with the red marks causing his chest to look like a Robin. But you can’t keep a monster down for too long, as Kemper stormed back into the match and finally hit a giant chokeslam on Shreddy for the win, having seen him fail to land the move a couple of times previously in the match.
TROLLEY MATCH: PUN INTENDED vs NATALIE SYKES/AMIRA
My god, how do you describe this encounter?! It started with Natalie Sykes introducing her tag partner in the debuting Amira from RevPro and recently AEW. Amira came strutting out and striking many poses against the ring posts before she serenaded the crowd with her rendition of Take That’s ‘Back for Good’. It saw absolute chaos prematch involving both teams, with Pun Intended posing like their opponents, and saw their opponents trying not to crack up. When the match got underway, Amira looked to push Sykes out while she sat in the shopping trolley, as I think the rules were lost on the female side of things. That said, there was to be no enforcing of the infamous ‘OUTLAWS’ rule.
Amira could be heard shouting throughout, ‘What’s going on?” and “What’s happening?’ as she and Sykes attacked both Ryan Parrott and Harry Cruise, with Pun Intended taking a bit to get going in the match. Everyone was either enjoying or watching in utter disbelief over what was going on, as a chant of ‘SERIOUS WRESTLING’ broke out in the crowd, while the collective sight of referee, announcer, and the commentary team all with a confused look summed up this wonderful car-crash encounter. After the teams fought tooth and nail over the shopping trolley down at ringside Parrott then made the save for his team, having seen Cruise looking like he was about to be wheeled out until Parrott put Sykes in the trolley, followed by Amira, with Pun Intended pushing the trolley out of the building to chalk up the win.
CHANTAL JORDAN vs CJ RAWLINGS
The main event of WONDERLAND saw one hell of a final match to finish off the night, as the scheduled match of Chantal Jordan against Charles Crowley was changed due to Crowley being unable to compete. However, his replacement was none other than the other half of Dead Sea Souls member, CJ Rawlings. Before the bell rang to start this match, CJ Rawlings had asked for the microphone and praised his opponent beforehand, before going on to end with him apologising for “having to do what he had to do,” which saw Chantal have a wry smile and look of ‘we’ll see’.
As the bell rang, Rawlings displayed his power until Jordan answered back, using martial arts kicks to keep Rawlings at arm’s length. ‘The Bad Girl’ had the quickness of the two and had to use that when compared to her larger opponent, with CJ dominating her and Chantal Jordan being in all sorts of trouble for most of the match. Despite Jordan battling to stay in the contest, the contest felt very much like Rawlings was just moments away from victory and almost felt like he didn’t want to pull out certain moves on Chantal, as with every kick out from Jordan saw the look of a man that was torn between frustration and reluctance of wanting to hit his more devastating moves.
After Rawlings refused to kill off ‘the Bad Girl’ in the match, the contest became even with near falls for both competitors and had Chantal Jordan administering the knockout blow, as she nailed a devastating kick to the head of Rawlings to score the big win. The match itself was one of the best main events seen in Bridge Pro’s short history to date, as their next event will be their 1st-anniversary show and sure to be another cracker too.