It’s not all about the top of the tree, you know…
In today’s extremely saturated market, it’s very easy to write off anything apart from the “big boys” when it comes to watching live wrestling. With the likes of PROGRESS, Rev Pro, Fight Club Pro and EVE running at least once a month, it’s understandable that the hardcore group of fans who makes a point of travelling to a few of those every month gets burned out.
However, for most of us, there’s probably a show that’s not from one of the “big boys” that’s virtually on your doorstep once in a while. For us, that once in a while was earlier this month as we made the short trip to Iver for a show promoted by New Force Wrestling. How short was the trip? Well, on a summer’s afternoon, it was walkable… let’s put it like that!
Going in, the show featured a slew of names that we’d never seen before – with David Francisco and Alexander Roth being the most prominent names that we’d seen before. In addition, London School of Lucha Libre trainees such as Bruno Brown and the Football Factory (Evan Lee and Harry Pane) were also touted, as was the debut of Simon Miller – perhaps more known around these parts from Defiant Wrestling, in addition to his YouTube videos for WhatCulture.
Arriving at the village hall with a playlist of WWE themes playing (everything from Neville to Erick Rowan to John Cena), it was quite stark how much of a departure this was from shows we’re normally at – with the crowd being almost exclusively families, helped in part by the promotion’s offer of a family ticket for two adults and two kids (which amounted to the second child going for free).
With that family friendly tag in mind, you weren’t going to see any bad language or gratuitous violence. In the opener, the local babyface Billy Ranger took shot after shot at his opponent, Fabio Romano, for “running away like a chicken”, while the Football Factory’s entire shtick completely fit their characters, from playing their “anthem” (the Match of the Day theme tune). Heck, all of their attacks worked within the characters of “wrestling footballers”, from the ubiquitous PKs all the way through to diving header… butts.
A lot of the characters on this show were either trainees, or guys whom you’d probably not see outside of that area. I mean, you’ll not find this show listed on Cagematch, nor the vast majority of wrestlers on the show. While most of the crowds for these shows have likely never heard of, nor care about it, you never know what’ll happen to everyone on these level of shows… and that’s a lot of the fun. You never know if you’re seeing the early steps of the next big star of Britwres, or a new character whom you’re left wondering “how on earth have I never heard of this guy before”? Perhaps because nobody’s seen them outside of that venue…
If you’ve hand-waved these sorts of shows before, why not take time out and give your local a try? You never know what surprises await you…
- Entirely by chance, there’s now an app available for iOS and Android that lets you see what shows are near you. Give it a try – search on your appstore of choice for “Babyface UK Wrestling”, or follow the team at @TurnBabyface on Twitter…