FutureShock 20th Anniversary – Night 1

The twentieth year of FutureShock Wrestling ended with a bang this past weekend as both nights of the 20th Anniversary shows were filled with high drama, three new champions and two shocking endings to both nights. To borrow a phrase from that great philosopher Deadpool, to get to where we are now we have to go back to the beginning, so let’s start with Night One at MMU UNION in Manchester.

It began with Managing Director Damien Smith taking the mic and making a speech about 20 years of the promotion and how he is a custodian of the company and thanked David Rayne who originally ran the company in the early years, along with naming both Chris Brooker and Sam Bailey.

GEN 1 vs Deadly DAMON LEIGH/JOEY HAYES

A big crowd was on hand in THE UNION as Night One got underway with a tag team contest between the old and new of FutureShock Wrestling, where the experience of FutureShock originals in Deadly Damon Leigh and Joey Hayes took on the newer generation in the promotion of Gen 1 consisting of Prince Pele and the ‘Millennium Falcon’ James Grayson. This was a fun match to kick off the weekend with, as this was a mix of both comedic and good wrestling.

Before the match, Hayes and Leigh got different reactions from the Union crowd, with Deadly Damon Leigh being showered in boos as opposed to his tag partner Joey Hayes who was cheered to the low rafters. Despite Hayes trying to help Leigh out on how to gain the cheers from the fans, all he did was get more boos. The same couldn’t be said of Gen 1, as they got loud cheers, followed by referee Katie Jacobs who drew even louder cheers. Once the match got underway it saw Pele & Grayson getting the start on their opponents before Hayes clocked Leigh and saw them having a ‘tiff’ before hugging it out on the outside.

Deadly Damon Leigh then began to show why he is one of the best wrestlers as he put a beat down on Grayson, with Hayes hitting a JKO but managed just a two-count. Pele soon got tagged in and took over on both men, with Joey on the outside and Leigh left in the lurch before Gen 1 hit a double move to gain the pinfall victory and see a winning start for the two best friends. After the match, they saw Leigh looking to make up with Joey, but Hayes was wise to the motives and hit a JKO on his tag partner before walking to the back with the crowd cheering him to the back.

TONY WRIGHT vs SAM BAILEY

The FutureShock Head Coach Sam Bailey came out and addressed 20 years of FutureShock before apologising for calling the crowd years ago, which drew boos from the crowd in a sarcastic way. He then called Tony Wright out and saw the two fan favourites having a match with the crowd firmly behind ‘Tony Wrestling’ and the two put on a wrestling clinic, with some fun at the beginning.

It was an even contest with neither gaining the advantage, as during the match it saw ‘the Hunter’ Briac Strong making a cameo appearance as he went for his Hair vs Hair. opponent the following day in Sam Bailey but after Sam ducked the chair shot and saw Wright kicking the chair into the face of Strong, leading him to fall out to the outside and vanish. The end soon came when Wright nailed Bailey with the pedigree to chalk up his first Anniversary victory at the third attempt and against the head coach is a big scalp to take too.

TEDDY REAY vs DYNAMITE LEE DAWSON: ADRENALINE CHAMPIONSHIP

Following the news during the week that the current champion Chris Ridgeway was ruled out through injury, it meant that the originally scheduled triple threat match would now be a one-on-one contest between Teddy Reay and Dynamite Lee Dawson, as they would fight it out for the vacant Futureshock Adrenaline Championship. Beforehand a former FutureShock alumni in British wrestling legend Doug Williams was on hand to present the vacant title to either man.

The match itself saw two young stars putting on a heck of a matchup that went back and forth with Reay being very technical and ground-based as opposed to this rival who used high risk to his advantage. Both men then seemed to use the strength of the other, with Dawson trying to be more technical and Reay using a high-risk offense that involved a hurricanrana from the top rope.

In what was a tremendous battle, and where both men beat the hell out of each other too, it saw the crowd split between who they wanted to win, but in the end, it saw the Rat King forcing Dawson to tap out via the cross-face to become the new Adrenaline champion. Doug Williams presented Reay the title and saw the two opponents raise the arm of the other, despite both men having a bad arm.

LILY WINTER vs Mystery Opponent

After the interval, we had the Ice Queen Lily Winter grabbing the microphone and running down the crowd, FutureShock themselves and speaking about “how everyone is now looking to be drawn towards the stage, but everyone’s eyes need to stay on her”. Winter then caught everyone off guard by saying “Who said this was an open challenge, anyway? I’ve already picked my opponent”. Lily then looked around in the direction of the person doing social media on the night for FutureShock in Hollie Barlow at ringside, with Winter informing her that SHE was her opponent. Hollie was in shock, refusing to be drawn into a fight and kept stating “I’m Retired” but unfortunately the Ice Queen wasn’t going to take no for an answer, and began to give everyone a little history lesson Hollie Barlow.

Winter referenced that she used to do the role that Hollie was now doing, as in the past Lilly would take photos and videos of matches for the company’s social platforms, but now the shoe was on the other foot and Hollie was filming Winter. The verbal assault continued with her
poking the bear and reminding everyone that Barlow was a former Women’s champion herself before she lost her title almost immediately to her ‘best friend’ Lana Austin who betrayed and would go on to take the title minutes later from her. The chants of ‘Hollie, Hollie’ rang out around THE UNION, with Lily Winter having had enough to get her in the ring and took it upon herself to come out to the ring and start the attack, before throwing her into the ring to start the match.

The loud crowd got behind Hollie, as they tried to motivate the former champion against the angry opponent. Barlow was forced to fight back and saw her mounting some offense which was unfortunately cut short and saw the Ice Queen prevailing.

FUTURESHOCK TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP – 4-WAY Table, Ladder and Chairs Match:
MEAT WAGON vs FORBIDDEN PLANET vs The HORDE vs NORTH WEST SAVIOURS

In one of the most anticipated matches on the 20th Anniversary show, this TLC match would be contested differently from the traditional TLC ruling of climbing a ladder to retrieve the titles, due to reasons it then became a 4-way Tornado match, but still incorporated the tables, the ladders and the chairs. In the case of Forbidden Planet, they were down to one man – after Jack Critchlow and Tom McColl attacked Aiton Steen outside the FutureShock Performance Centre and left Star Killer Dave Birch on his own in the contest.

The champions going into the match were Max Brooker and Rizman Khan of the North West Saviours, as it saw all four teams fighting across The UNION and having all three sets of weapons being used by all involved. Most of the action saw the three challenging tag teams getting stuck into each other with the tag champions staying clear of the action as best they could. Moments like Gorgon tipping the ladder over and seeing Star Killer Dave Birch flipping into the rest of the three teams, later on, we saw Birch splashing Khan off the top of the ladder.

This was a crazy wild contest that saw Solomon DDT’ed by Dave Birch up on the staging before he got triple-power bombed through a table by Birch and both members of Meat Wagon to take him out of the match. Gorgon helped to put Khan through the table with double knees off the top rope, however after a year of Gorgon screwing the Meat Wagon over numerous times, it finally saw him getting his comeuppance, as the Troy Ryan and Anderson Daniels hit the Tenderiser off the ladder through a table to see NEW TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS. The outgoing champions Max Brooker and Rizman Khan entered the ring with their former belts, before shaking hands and hugging after handing over the titles to the new champions, but the final shock had yet to come.

With everyone happy to see the new tag champions crowned, what followed saw the UNION in stunned disbelief when Rizman Khan began to unlace his boots and have both the new and former tag champions dropping to a knee, with Khan leaving his wrestling boots in the middle of the ring for the final time to signify his retirement. Having always been one of the main bad guys at FutureShock Wrestling, It saw the crowd showing their respect to him by giving a standing ovation and chanting ‘Thank You Rizman’ as he headed one last time up the stairs to the back and caught everyone out with his shock retirement.