MODERN NOMADS PRO WRESTLING – TOYBOX NIGHT GRAPS!

This past Tuesday saw Modern Nomads Pro Wrestling putting on one of their legendary shows, as TNG stood for – Toybox Night Graps, with the usual mix of fun entertaining and comedic wrestling, while also having one hell of an absolute banger of a match separate to the card too. A decent turn out on a lovely late April evening managed to see a few come down to the Bread Shed in Manchester City centre, as it was a night filled with fun, laughs, keyboards and fancy dress.

MATCH ONE : ALIEN (Jack Bandicoot) vs WHEEZY the PENGUIN (Rhio)

It saw the match originally schedule to be a triple threat contest with Alien, Wheezy the Penguin and Rex the Dinosaur, but during Rex the Dinosaur’s (Tom Thelwell) entrance, it saw him being jumped and put in a sleeper hold by the bully Sid (Lee Dawson) and kidnapped, so this became a one-on-one bout. Things started out slow, with the Alien bouncing back and forth off the ropes before Wheezy got the first blow in through a drop kick, followed by an intended suplex that got reversed into a near pinfall by Alien.

Alien mounted some offence by slapping on the Figure ‘Ooooh’ Leg lock and saw Wheezy getting out of it and poking all three of its eyes, before hitting a pump handle powerbomb and spinning neck breaker for a two count. Alien then hit a back cracker and cutter to gain the advantage, but Wheezy would use ‘THE CLAW’ and have their opponent initially blocking it, before accepting it by claiming “the claw is my master’. The crowd then gave a rendition of “oh, he has been chosen” which saw Wheezy chokeslamming the Alien and telling Referee James Greenwood that they were out of breath, until he grabbed first aid and helped the Penguin out. This then saw an impromptu dance with ‘Wonderwall’ playing as both Wheezy and Greenwood waved their arms in the air from side to side, with their opponent using the most devastating move in all of sports entertainment in the roll up to win the match. Wheezy sat in the middle of the ring looking sad, with the crowd all showing love by chanting for them.

MATCH 2: HANDICAP 2-on-1: GREEN SOLDIERS (Will Kroos & Millie McKenzie) vs SLINKY the Dog (Kid Lykos II/ Gene Munny)

Watching two of Sarge’s best in Major McKenzie and Corporal Kroos trying to get around and stay upright, with their feet taped over a cardboard square for a makeshift base, while Slinky (Kid Lykos II – front end/Gene Munny – back end) came out all happy and tail wagging, with garden wire as the slinky part. It saw the match start with a standoff between Major McKenzie and Slinky, where the Major had him in a headlock and escaped from it, only to watch on as Major McKenzie lost her balance and fell face first. This drew a ‘Good Boy’ chant from the crowd. After a drop kick from the Major, it saw her whipping the front end of Slinky to the corner, as the backend of Slinky in Gene Munny came flying through the ring ropes and in pain due to where the wire was, leading to a “He got neutered” chant and Munny retort, “I am now”.

Slinky tried to use their wiry body to take down the Major, but McKenzie leapt over it twice only for the third to clean her out with the slink being used to clothesline her. It saw Slinky stretch corner to corner on the turnbuckles, with Corporal Kroos falling forward in the middle of the wire to send both crashing down to the mat and cause front and end pain and have Munny scream out in pain ‘Holy Slink’ which led to that being chanted. We then saw teamwork from both Soldiers’, as Kroos had McKenzie in his arms and used the base of her feet as a weapon to take charge. Soon after, it saw Slinky’s backend dive out of the ring towards Corporal Kroos while the front-end got the better of Major McKenzie and saw her shouting over her lesser ranker officer in the corner.

The front of Slinky didn’t stretch enough to reach, so that saw him using the wire like a coiled spring to send the backend splashing their opponents in the corner. Kroos then landed a sit-down powerbomb on Slinky’s back-end and it looked match over, but the front-end managed to kick out on two. Kroos pulled out a toy gun and took Ref James Greenwood as hostage, but the referee ripped the gun away from the Corporal and aimed it at all of those in the ring. Corporal Kroos then dived in the way of a potential shot coming towards McKenzie and saw “Greenwood’s got a gun” being chanted while both ends of Slinky wrapped up their opponents to score the win.

MATCH 3: MODERN NOMADS KEYBOARD WARRIOR CHAMPIONSHIP: ‘KEYBOARD DEATHMATCH’ : ‘Mancunian Cowboy’ LUKE JACOBS (c) vs HARRY MILLIGAN

In the only serious wrestling contest of the night, it saw the sentimental fan favourite in Harry Milligan challenging the holder of the golden ‘MDN NMDS KEYBOARD WARRIOR Title in Luke Jacobs, with the crowd solidly behind Harry. Luke had early advantage by overpowering his opponent in the collar and elbow tie-ups, where the third tussle resulted in the champion slapping the challenger so hard across the face, that it could have burst an eardrum with the velocity it was thrown at. We had a spell of great technical wrestling by both men, as Milligan then grabbed a keyboard to use and saw Jacobs dash out of the ring to avoid being hit, while the chant of “Ctrl, Ctrl. Ctrl, Alt, Delete”.

Harry took the lion share of punishment in the match, as after Jacobs placed a Keyboard on his stomach and smashed another down on it, he then picked up a stretchy keyboard keypad and used it as a whip on Milligan, which sounded like a wet flannel thrown against a shower wall as it connected with Harry’s upper back and neck. Milligan then turned the tables on his foe, as he used the stretchy keypad himself as both to whip and choke Jacobs before setting up two chairs with Keyboards on it and had his original attempt of a Sega Mega driver reversed, he then hit a Falcon Arrow down across both chairs. The Mancunian re-established his dominance against his opponent, making chest red raw with some knife edge chops and causing his hometown fans to beg “No more times”. Luke set up one of the tables and retrieved a bag from under the ring that contained some keyboard letter keys and poured them on top with the fans chanting “You sick f*ck”. Despite his opponent originally escaping and trying to mount an offence, it saw him get caught before Jacobs powerbombed him hard through the table and saw the keys flying everywhere.

The champion disrespectfully slapped his tiring foe, but while hitting three lariat clotheslines on Harry, all it seemed to do was fire him up and had him roaring back, by smashing a keyboard over Jacobs head and hitting a codebreaker for a near fall. Luke then returned the favour by smashing a keyboard of his own over his opponent’s head and added insult to injury with a tombstone piledriver that saw Harry kick out at 2. The champion just sat there in utter disbelief that he didn’t get the three count, so he set up the second table and looked to end things with a suplex off the top rope. However, Harry fought back with a shot to the body as well as headbutt, before coming off the top rope to hit a Canadian Destroyer through the table and grabbing victory. The explosion of noise that came from the third and final hand smacking the mat was deafening, as Harry Milligan was – the NEW, Modern Nomads Keyboard Warrior Champion, with the Harry stunned by the win and saw him fall to his knees and pull off his black armband that he wears in memory with the word ‘KURTIS’ in tribute to his late friend in Mad Kurt (Kurtis Chapman).

A chant of ‘Mad Kurt’ started up and was a fitting that his former tag partner should now be in possession of the Keyboard title. It then saw the former champion in Luke Jacobs staggering over to the new champion and placing his cowboy hat on the new champion by way of a show of respect.

MATCH 4: SIDNEY ‘SID’ PHILIPS vs ANDY DAVIS

We then saw Sid returning and bringing out Rex the Dinosaur, to which Sid tied him up on the outside of the ring post and saw Andy (Myles Cayman) coming out himself and inform everyone that he was “Back from College” and went on to question the Bully in the ring, by asking “What did you do to him?” while pointing to his toy Rex who was tied up. Andy then took Sid back for a stroll down memory lane and reminded him of a past event where Sid tore up his favourite toy, before the days of Woody and Buzz and the like, as he owned a cat that Sid had ripped up in front of him and said “TOYS ARE FOR PUSSIES!”. Andy then said it bothered him so much still to this day that he challenged Sid to a match there and then, but under NO DQ rules!

Andy immediately went on the attack by lifting his legs and raining punches down on Sid, before the bully escaped and tried to avoid the clutches of his opponent by running around the ring till Rex tripped him up on the outside. From there the crowd wanted to see him depositing his opponent in the bin and put his foe head first into the bin. Of course, the Bully fought back and took over the contest, proceeding to beat up Andy and taunt Rex in front of him, until Rex bit his neck. Andy tried to use this distraction to attack Sid from behind, but he missed and got Rex by accident, with the bully rolling his opponent back into the ring and screaming at him – ‘Toys are for pussies’! That anger got channelled and saw Andy going full on John Cena, with a ‘You can’t see me’ hand gesture followed by a ‘five knuckle shuffle’ and hitting the ‘attitude adjustment’ for a near fall. Rex then got freed and rolled into the ring where he kept falling down, but while Sid was creeping up behind Andy looking to surprise him, Rex took him out and saved his friend from peril as Andy turned round having no clue at what had just taken place. It saw him then hooking the leg as easy as you like to pick up the win.

MAIN EVENT: STINKY PETE (Brendan White), LOTSO THE BEAR (Aaron Black) & EMPEROR ZURG (Leon Slater) vs WOODY (Kid Lykos), JESSIE (Lizzy Evo) & BUZZ LIGHTYEAR (Man Like DeReiss)

Your Main Event saw the good toys in Woody, Jessie and Buzz Lightyears facing off against Stinky Pete, Lotso the Bear and Emperor Zurg. Woody and Stinky Pete started us off in the match, where early on it saw Woody riding on the back of his opponent ‘Rodeo style’, to which drew a ‘YEE-HAW’ chant as his opponents didn’t find it funny. From there it saw some boisterous behaviour going on with Zurg & Buzz, where Lightyear reversed a chokeslam into an arm drag and a tombstone into a head-scissors, with Zurg then reaching for his blaster and having Buzz kicking it out of his hands and using Star Command to inflict damage on his opponent and saw Zurg take a hit. Jessie the Cowgirl wanted in the match so much, but both Buzz and Woody seemingly ignored her attempts for a tag, which led to her walking away to a neutral corner and having the crowd chanting ‘We Want Jessie’. “When she loves me” from Toy Story 2 then played out on the PA, where both Buzz and Woody felt guilty and made a heart gesture between them using their fingers.

Lotso the Bear then told Jessie – “I’m not a fighter, I’m a hugger”. Despite the crowd telling her not to hug, it was of course a ruse by the villainous bear and soon put her in the ‘Bear Hug’ – but Jessie reversed it into an ‘Aloha Lotso’ for a two count. Woody then took a blow from Stinky Pete from the outside behind the ref’s back, as the Bad Toys isolated poor Woody. Just as he seemed to turn the corner, a shout of “ANDY’S COMING!” rang out from the villain’s corner, to which all the good toys hit the deck but it was a lie. Then a real cry of “Andy’s Coming” saw everyone play dead again and see Andy coming out and checking on all the toys. A chant of “Who’s Your Favourite?” came from the fans and saw Woody’s hand raised to answer the question. Buzz got tagged in and saw him taking it to Zurg, but before he could come off the top rope it saw Zurg screaming “BUZZ!” and unmasked, before informing him that, “I am your father Buzz!”. Again, the hesitation allowed the bad toys to gain the upper hand.

The good toys then rallied, as Lotso was tripled teamed – with Buzz putting him in an aeroplane spin, followed by Jessie kneeing him to the face and then Woody dropped the elbow from Bret’s rope. We then saw Buzz and Woody argue and go nose to nose, before Buzz then got triple-powerbombed by the Bad Toys, with Woody sending Stinky Pete and Zurg falling into the pin to stop the count. Lotso then turned Buzz evil, as he went to attack Woody until the intervention of Jessie. But then it saw Buzz flirt with Jessie as Nathan Black accidentally called him DeReiss and had Jessie convince Buzz not to attack Woody. The end of the match saw the good toys get the better of the bad ones, with a dropkick by Buzz on Lotso, as a Canadian Destroyer by Jessie on Stinky Pete was followed by Woody shooting Zurg and Buzz Lightyear came off the top rope with the ‘too Infinity and beyond’ to win the match for his team!

OVERALL: It was another FANTASTIC MODERN NOMADS show, as the wrestlers, the fans and those watching online was thoroughly entertained! Long May the Tuesday Night Graps continue! 4.5/5

Match of the night: Obviously it was Harry Milligan vs Luke Jacobs for the Keyboard warrior title, as while it broke away from the traditional fun of these shows, it saw an unexpected banger of a contest and my new personal favourite match of the year so far in 2024. In terms of the fun stuff – the ‘Handicap’ match between Soldiers and Slinky was a PURE NOMADS and has to be said Lykos II & Gene Munny are NATIONAL TREASURES together!!!!