This past Sunday saw SOVEREIGN PRO WRESTLING returning to the Trinity Sports Centre in Manchester City centre, as it recent show “It’s Dark, and Hell is Hot” saw as it’s main attraction, the rare appearance of former Coronation Street star Les Battersby, who was making his debut for the company. It was a very good turn out for the show, and after being plagued with late starts and finishes, it saw an early start for once. Was good to see a couple of friends at the show, as really going with friends is what makes it more enjoyable.
The show kicked off with the ‘Killective’ – as four of its five members headed to the ring to help welcome back it’s ‘El Capitan’ in Leyton Buzzard to Sovpro, as Buzzard has been wrestling over in Japan for the last few months, with a stop off in Germany and Ireland. Bullit spoke about how the group are always looking to add more gold to their stable, what with the Women’s and Crown Cup titles already in the Killective already. Buzzard then came to the ring and saw his promo giving off deja vu vibes, as he practically repeated Bullit’s promo. The leader of the ‘Killective’ then announced that he would be in the five man – Tables, Ladders and Chairs match at the next big event for Sovpro, which is False Idols on March 8th, Bank Holiday Monday. . However, the lights then went out when he was mid speech, and when the lights came back on again, it saw Joey Hayes with a chair and began to attack the group, as he gained a small measure of revenge on the stable that he has been having running battles with in the company.
CPF (CLOSE PERSONAL FRIENDS) Vs The Quintessential
It was a weird way to open up the show, instead of a match, as it felt very flat and lacked any reaction from the crowd from where I was in the stands. The opening match of the card saw a tag team match that was added late on, as Joe Lando & Danny Black of CPF (Close Personal Friends) took on the tag team of the exciting Irish duo of Christy and Padraig Quinlan of the ‘Quintessential’. It was a fun contest with high flying moves and saw the CPF showing ‘Heel’ tendencies in their approach, yet still being good guys. It saw the Quintessential taking the win on their debut in SOVPRO, with Danny Black not happy with his teammate shaking hands with the victors and saw him shoving and bad mouthing his partner. Christy and Padraig were celebrating and trying to encourage CPF to hug it out, but while Black left the ring and had Lando in the ring, it saw him punting Padraig between the legs and have the CPF turn on their opponents and the fans in the process.
GAUNTLET OF THE GOD MATCH – feat. Iestyn Rees
Next up was the ‘Gauntlet of the Gods’ match involving Iestyn Rees, as it James Roach and Wimbo setting up three opponents for their man to face, with the first opponent in ‘Mighty’ Joe Young getting destroyed inside 30 seconds with an F-5; before the second opponent in Nishiki was pinned in even quicker time, and that saw Nadjei from the Sovpro hype team taking a chance and jumping in the ring to challenge Rees. The crowd was right behind Nadjei, but despite getting a couple of punches in, he too suffered the agony of defeat and then came the announcement, that there was one person selected by Sovpro themselves to face Rees. Rees’s management team argued with each other on realising there was one more person, so when the video screens showed ‘0121’ it brought out the Lyrical dragon in Man Like Dereiss to the ring. The Birmingham native stood in the ring across from Rees, and after a back and forth, it saw an impressive show of strength with Dereiss catching Rees Rees in mid-air and dumping him over the top rope. Dereiss then got on the microphone to say that he would be entering the five-man TLC match at False Idols next month and had the crowd excited to have him enter it.
LUCIA LEE Vs LANA AUSTIN
Next on the card was the ongoing rivalry between the ‘Cult Classic’ Lucia Lee and Manchester’s own Lana Austin, with Austin’s Deceibelles associate in Ivy not being at ringside. That meant that this would be a one-on-one contest for once, and the match was a bit of a slow burner. Austin had the better of the exchanges in the match, as the crowd seemed split on who they wanted to win. On this night, it saw the ‘Cult Classic’ pinning Lana to leave her opponent stunned in the ring, while Lee got on the mic afterwards and said the Sovpro nation wants to see the real Lana Austin, not this version they see now in the ring.
‘THANK YOU MATCH’ – BRADY PHILLIPS Vs SAM GRADWELL
Before the show reached the break, it saw Sam Gradwell and Brady Philips involved in a ‘THANK YOU’ match, as the deep seated rivalry reached its climax with a brutal contest. While the match officially was a short one, it saw the two brawling around the arena for some time, with Gradwell attacking his opponent as he made his way to the ring and saw chaos ensue. The fight spilled across the arena, with Phillips being thrown through the sea of empty chairs by Sam, before heading up into the temp seating area, where Gradwell continued to beat on his rival and had Phillips lay across our laps in the stand. Gradwell attempted to throw his opponent over the high stand, with Brady clinging onto the side for dear life. Brady Phillips then managed to get a low blow in on his foe at the back of the temp stand, before then hitting a piledriver on the empty row of seats. The two men finally got back to the ring and had this match officially getting underway, with Phillips continuing the attack on Gradwell and cleaning his clock yet again thanks to some ‘knucks’.
Brady wanted to hear his fallen opponent utter the words ‘Thank You’ – while the crowd screamed that Phillips saying it himself should technically have been the end of the match. Sam defiantly shouted, “No!” into the microphone – before he launched his comeback and soon dished out a few knuckle sandwiches on Brady. Gradwell then took his belt off and began to choke his opponent and demand he say those two words. While Brady was down, he noticed the knuckle dusters on his foes’ hand and the same ones that he has felt time and time again. He then ripped them off his hand and yelled for him to get up. As Phillips stirred and turned round, he saw Sam cocked and ready to use them on him, and this saw him grabbing the ref and in a mixture of pleading and fear, shouted “THANK YOU!, THANK YOU!” to bring an end to the match. The victory seemed to be a hollow for Gradwell, as while victory was nice, it had a feeling of not being a real win. Philips put his hand out to almost make a truce with his rival, and after a few seconds, Sam grabbed his hand and pulled him towards him so he could finally nail his long-time rival with a shot to the head using the knuckle dusters and end this chapter.
SOVPRO TAG TITLES: THE 87 (C) Vs Simon Miller & Ian Skinner
The second half started with the SOVPRO Tag Team Championships up for grabs, as The 87 took on the unlikely pairing of Ian Skinner and Simon Miller, as both men have had their differences in the past, and saw the Sovereign Pro owner Shotty Horroh booking a tag title match with the pair forced to team up. This was the first defence of the titles for ‘The 87’ having seen them winning them against CPF at Second Reign a couple months ago. Most of this match seemed to be around the challengers, as Skinner wanted to prove to his partner that he and the team could work and that he was equal to Miller. Simon would provide the muscle and saw him hitting some big moves on the champions, but Skinner would then come in and try to carry on what Miller was doing and would always come up against a brick wall in Alexander Roth and “Big Wavy” Roy Johnson. In the end, it saw the champions retaining through the miscommunication of Skinner & Miller, as the latter took a double team move that saw the 87 defending their straps. After the match, Skinner still seemed to try and get Miller on board, but clearly wanted nothing to do with him, as Skinner looked down heading to the back.
We then saw the real main event of the evening, as Les Battersby came out on his first night at Sovpro wrestling to the theme music of Coronation Street, quickly followed by Status Quo’s ‘Rockin ‘All Over The World’ to play him out. Dressed in almost a Canadian Tuxedo, he grabbed the microphone and was serenaded with chants of “Les! Led! Les!” – as his name rang around the Trinity Sports Centre. He then uttered the immortal words of the late Scott Hall, “You know who I am. But you don’t know why I’m here!” which of course drew a massive pop from all fans and wrestlers alike. Unfortunately, not everyone was pleased to see Les Battersby in Sovpro, and that was Thatcher Wright and members from the ‘Wright Way’ came to the ring with the traditional sight of Margaret Thatcher on the Union flag, and the traditional loud chants of ‘F*ck The Tories’ and ‘Maggie In a Box’.
The collective began to berate the ex-Corrie star and demand he left their ring, until members of the ‘LbWo’ – ‘Les Battersby World Order’ formerly the Banter Bus arrived on the scene. After a call back to the old nWo days when a survey was taken on who the fans came to see, as well as a ‘Hey Yo’, it saw Thatcher Wright and his cronies beginning to gang up on the ‘lbWo’ and take out Les-Pac (X-pac) first. This then led to another member of the LbWo coming out as the ‘Madness’ part of the group, as if this wasn’t madness already. But soon enough, the group gained the upper hand and saw Battersby laying in a few shots to Charles Douglas, before putting the ‘Iron Claw’ on Thatcher Wright and soon saw them retreating like real Tories, with Les and the ‘World Order celebrating in the ring.
We had the ‘The Nine Stone of Scouse Girl Power’ in Harley Hudson come out to initially say her goodbyes to the SovPro nation, but she, and like everyone else, felt like this wasn’t the way that she should leave. So the TNA Gut check winner gave a passionate speech, and informed all in attendance that on March 8th at False Idols, she wanted one more match with anyone to go out with a bang.
RORY COYLE’S VIDEO MASSACRE MATCH – RORY COYLE Vs RPD
Next up was the ‘Rory Coyle Video Massacre’ match, as the man known for the video nasties in Rory Coyle saw him taking on ’The Natural Fighter’ RPD, while having his fellow SNUF members of Alton Thorn and HT Drake around ringside. Before the start of the match, it saw RPD leaving the ring and heading to the back, where upon his return he brought out an Axe to ringside. The last time we saw RPD in Sovpro, he was threatening to take HT Drake’s head off with an axe, until Coyle stopped the contest in the Director’s Cut match at Second Reign. Coyle wanted to see his opponent getting violent and showing how nasty he could be, which helped set up this match as a result. Both men inflicted damage on each other early on, as they both used a photo to give each other papercuts between the fingers, as Alton Thorn produced a Lemon from his pants, to have Coyle then squeezing the juice onto the cut. RPD would soon return the favour, however, he would use the photo across the mouth of Coyle, just for one upmanship. A staple gun was then introduced, but it failed to work, while HT Drake brought out a plastic tub of VHS cassettes to the ring, of which Coyle poured them over his head like a demented scene from ‘flashdance’.
It then saw a VCR player come into play, as both men battled and used the tape player to their advantage and looked to crush the other mans’ hand. Nettles were introduced to this match too courtesy of Thorn, but Coyle was then powerbombed onto the scattered cassette tapes in the ring and drew a close fall. The closing stages saw Coyle picking up a loaded cassette tape and saw it explode upon impact of hitting RPD’s head, and saw the leader of SNUF getting the pinfall for the win.
MAIN EVENT: SOVPRO COMMONWEALTH TITLE: Jordan Oliver vs Leon Slater (C)
And in your main event of the evening, for the Sovpro Commonwealth Championship, Jordan Oliver took on the ‘Youngest in Charge’ in title holder Leon Slater. This was a fast paced match, as both hit high flying moves and saw the contest see-saw back and forth with both Oliver and Slater at times looking like they had done enough. Slater made his trademark leap over the corner to the outside, but saw him not just taking out Oliver, but also a one or two in the crowd and almost collected the lighting stand too. Both had close falls, but it was to be the champion who would prevail with a Phoenix splash to secure the win and see off a talented opponent. After the match, it saw the TNA Gut check winner celebrating his victory with the Sovpro nation, but had the surprise appearance of one Ian Skinner in the ring, and seemingly trying to get the attention of the champion.
It seemingly had Slater scoff at the thought of Skinner wanting to face him, as Leon then patronisingly patted Skinner’s head and continued with his celebration. This made Slater feel disrespected, and so yanked the champion of ‘Bret’s rope’ before proceeding to kick Slater between the legs and grab his title. That led to Dereiss rushing to the aid of his fellow ‘0121’ teammate, while Skinner left the ring, and also left with Slaters’ Commonwealth title in his mitts as the show closed.
Overall: Started earlier but still after the official start time. Couple of occasions if they had left things alone after matches it would have been good in some cases, but then they just over did it. One or two matches didn’t fully click, but they were evened out by afew good matches on the card. People came to see Les, and they got arguably more than they though. Mixed shows if nit pickety. 3.5/5 – Not a bad show and would give it 3.8 if i was able to with stars.
