This past Saturday afternoon saw Futureshock going Sci-fi, as the most holiest day on the Star Wars calendar in May the Fourth saw the Manchester based promotion present ‘MAY IV’ from The Union MMU in Manchester and saw some closure on some things, while furthered others on a six match card that included two championship bouts.
MATCH 1: 2-on-1 Handicap Tag Match: TROY RYAN vs ‘THE HORDE’ – GORGON & SOLOMON
The opening contest on the show saw the continuing rivalry between both Gorgon and the Meat Wagon, with the bad blood having started last September at the Futureshock’s 200th show and saw Gorgon screwing the duo out of a tag team title shot. It was last month when this rivalry intensified, as it saw Gorgon spitting black mist in the eyes of one half of the tag team in Anderson Daniels, with Troy Ryan looking to carry on the fight with his tag partner out injured. Gorgon recently sought the help of the Monster Solomon as his protector, as the duo named ‘The Horde’ have been on a path of destruction and looked to take the remaining member of the Meat Wagon out. Those plans looked far off when Troy started out the aggressor from the opening bell, as he took it to both members of The Horde and saw the 2-on-1 disadvantage looking from a handicap with his quick start.
The numbers game soon became all too much for Ryan to handle, as he was worn down by the opponents and yet saw him still fighting on. Gorgon and Solomon even tried to rub salt in the wounds of Ryan by using the opponents’ finisher in the Tenderiser, but all it did was ignite a fire under Ryan and have him gain a second wind. During the comeback it saw him ripping off the mask of Gorgon to see him dealing with one less opponent in the match. And while Solomon tried to quell his opponent as best he could, the rage from Ryan took over and saw Gorgon reappearing on the ring apron sporting a new mask, as he sprayed black mist in the eyes of his opponent just like he had done to Daniels the previous month. Despite it being a DQ win for Troy Ryan he looked anything but a winner, as The Horde put a beat down on him with Gorgon calling Ryan an ‘Idiot’ before Forbidden Planet ran to the ring to make the save.
MATCH 2: ‘The Hunter’ BRIAC STRONG vs ‘Millennium Falcon’ JAMES GRAYSON
Before anyone made their way down to ringside, it saw a video being shown on the big screen of the Futureshock Head Coach in Sam Bailey being attacked with a chair from ‘the Hunter’ Briac Strong, as he took the headphones of Bailey with him as a trophy. The match itself saw the singles’ debut of the ‘Millennium Falcon’ James Grayson, as he was accompanied to the ring by Prince Pele and saw him giving some advice prior to the bell. Grayson put in a very impressive debut performance against one of the toughest men in the company today in Briac Strong, as he got early offense in on his opponent that seemed to catch Strong out. That said, it saw ‘The Hunter’ merely just toying with his prey in truth, as he began the assault on Grayson with some power moves and had the newest rookie out of the Performance Centre getting his ‘welcome to the show’ bumps.
While it saw Grayson being beaten into the mat by his much stronger opponent, it saw Prince Pele threatening to throw in the towel at point to stop the match while Strong had the crossface chicken applied, but the Rookie stayed in the match through effort and plenty of heart. It seemed like the ‘Millennium Falcon’ had weathered the storm and was now in the ascendency, as a nice springboard arm drag saw him trying to mount a comeback. Unfortunately, this falcon had its wings clipped and saw ‘the hunter’ hitting the Hunted to score the one-two-three. After the match it saw the winner standing over his opponent to which Pele came in to check on the fallen Grayson, that before he went after Strong and saw Futureshock security holding Prince back while ‘the Hunter’ smirked at them both and left with a trophy in his opponents’ towel.
MATCH 3: TAG TEAM: DEADLY DAMON LEIGH/LILY WINTER vs TONY WRIGHT/LEAH RAVEN
If the first two contests were intense battles, then the third match on this card was more of a mellow one, but it still served up some entertaining wrestling. Both teams had different dynamics to them with Lily Winter and Damon Leigh being the serious ones on one side, while the other side saw the fun-loving duo of Tony Wright and Leah Raven.
It saw the male counterparts starting off for both teams, as Damon Leigh was coerced into wearing Tony Wright’s tassel jacket having refused to put it on originally, as both the crowd and Tony himself mentioned that they thought Stone Cold Steve Austin had entered the room. Once the match got underway, it saw both men being very sound technically and even had the chant of ‘Tony Wrestling’. Leigh came out with some zingers both to the referee and fans during the bout, as we finally saw two of the rising stars in Futureshock going up against each other in Leah Raven and Lily Winter.
The ‘Deadly’ one told Leah to tag out and bring Tony Wright back in, as he wanted nothing to do with her but Raven responded by giving him a few swift kicks to the body and finally to his head, with the ‘Empress of Anarchy’ showing that she was an equal opportunist in kicking the back sides of both men and women. Wright then came in to follow up, but he was soon distracted momentarily and had Leigh come from behind to ground his opponent and have his side take over in the contest.
Everything looked to be coming up Milhouse for both Leigh and Winter, where ‘Deadly’ Leigh shouted ‘Piledriver City’ until Wright reversed the move and flipped him overhead before making the tag to his corner and bringing in Leah Raven. Leah came in and took it to both her opponents who both ended up in opposite corners, as she hit running uppercuts to both Leigh and Winter with her and Wright hitting stereo suplex’s and then stereo finishers – with a Rebellion and a Pedigree to get a double pinfall.
MATCH 4: FORBIDDEN PLANET vs F.T.M
It seemed only fitting to have Forbidden Planet on the May the fourth, as the two played up to the ‘nerds’ in us all by coming out as Star Wars characters from the film franchise, with ‘star killer’ Dave Birch dressed in a Obi Wan Kenobi cloak and Aiton Steen painting his face as Darth Maul. F.T.M then came out and had Critchlow running down both their opponents and Star Wars too, but it didn’t take long to see the high flying style from Birch & Steen, who launched themselves at both youngsters on the outside.
Tom McColl and Critchlow gained the upper hand in the contest and saw them hoping to score their first big win in Futureshock as a tag team, despite having the advantage many times in their previous matches. Aiton Steen was the one to find himself being isolated away from his tag partner, but it was made worse having to contend with Critchlow bad mouthing and narrating the match down his ear. On the same hand, It saw Critchlow and Birch jaw-jacking back and forth too, as whether the Liverpudlian was on the apron or working on his Steen, they were constantly talking smack to each other. Steen would eventually tag out and have his teammate come in and land both a standing moonsault and traditional moonsault on McColl.
Both members of Forbidden Planet then headed up top on opposite corners to splash the unlucky Tom McColl to score the pinfall victory, as the wait goes on for F.T.M to win as a tandem in Futureshock and see Steen and Birch celebrate their May the Fourth and look to press for another title shot.
MATCH 5: FUTURESHOCK ADRENALINE TITLE – ‘the playboy prince’ LANCE REVERA vs CHRIS RIDGEWAY (c)
In the penultimate match of the show – it saw Lance Revera challenging for the Adrenaline Championship against champion Chris Ridgeway, and having the match taking place at the Manchester Union seemed very fitting due to their history in recent months. It was back in January during a six match tag match when this rivalry really started, and having saw Revera score the surprise win against his opponent at the Union back at Reality Check in March, it then saw Ridgeway gain revenge by choking out Revera in that epic triple threat match last month at Danger zone to become a grand slam champion.
After two bruising encounters involving the duo, a third was expected but this turned out to be more of a technical match than a brawl in truth, as Revera seemed to want to try and out wrestle the great Ridgway and seemingly surprise his opponent by his methods. The Playboy Prince looked to have scouted Ridgeway well and was out manoeuvring him, but he then made a fatal mistake getting caught when stepping back through the ropes and suffered a dragon screw on his left leg and found himself in trouble. Ridgeway smelt blood and zoned in on his leg using every possible method to weaken the limb of his opponent, be it wrapping it around a ring post, having it tied up in the ropes or even just basic wrestling holds.
The champion switched his attention then to the ankle, and saw him locking in the ankle lock submission more in the bout, to which it nearly saw a repeat of Reality Check when Ridgeway was rolled up for a surprise win for Revera having it saw him constantly going back to the ankle lock. After further punishment, It then saw the shoe being on the other foot, as after Ridgeway put his opponent back in the ring, it saw him having a leg either side of the middle rope and that allowed the Challenger to use the dragon screw on him. After he put Ridgeway in a sharpshooter and then tried to add more damage, the champion would fight out of it and go back to the ankle lock submission, where it had him wrenching back and forth on Revera’s ankle, as the result saw a brave effort coming to an end with Lance having to tap out.
MATCH 6: FUTURESHOCK CHAMPIONSHIP – ‘the real thing’ SCOTT OBERMAN w/ Ethan Kelly vs JOE BLAZR (c)
The Main Event saw the Lotto Thunder winner in the ‘Real Thing’ Scott Oberman facing the Futureshock champion in Joe Blazr, as Oberman looked to make it 8-0 in the company and posed a genuine threat to the title reign of Joe. While Scott had the height advantage, Joe had the power on his side and made for a fascinating title match. Blazr wasn’t intimidated by his opponent, as the challenger for the FSW title was showing uncharacteristic signs of becoming frustrated, and was the first real time we’d ever seen Oberman showing his emotions during a match.
Meanwhile his protégé in Ethan Kelly was always in his ear and helping to try to hatch a plan, as it saw the numbers game pay off when the two surrounded the ring and had Oberman gain the advantage thanks to Kelly. While there were some fans of the challenger in attendance, he couldn’t have cared less really and saw him mocking the claps of the Futureshock faithful that tried to will Blazr back into the matchup. As the contest went on, it saw the number one contender bossing the match throughout, and helped to put the champion in all sorts of trouble, but just couldn’t get the pinfall. Kelly was a constant distraction for Blazr, as he would try to disrupt Joe whenever he could and help to keep the challenger in control.
Joe had been dominated for the majority of the contest, but saw him firing back at his opponent and begin to mount a fightback after hitting Oberman with a ‘Blazr of Glory’ that had Kelly drawing the champion over to him and took a punch for his efforts. Blazr then had his opponent tapping out to the lion tamer behind the referee’s back, but Kelly once again caused a distraction to stop Joe from winning, as Joe grabbed the title from Kelly and saw Scott kicking Joe right between the legs before nailing a tombstone piledriver to score just a near fall. Both Oberman and Kelly couldn’t believe it, yet the challenger went up to top to finish the champion off, but Blazr caught him with a second Blazr of glory and then followed it up with an elbow drop from the top rope to retain his Futureshock title.