With its days numbered, we headed over to Dublin’s (in)famous Tivoli theatre for a quick hello – and goodbye.
At least, that was the plan. About a week beforehand, we added another stop over to our trip: Fight Factory Pro Wrestling. I’ll admit, going into this, I knew next to nothing about the promotion, save for the clips of their first “Episode” show from last summer that was characterised by the ring ropes snapping during the entrances. It feels like a backhanded compliment, but I was going into this show with rather low expectations and low knowledge of the roster.
Heading towards FIght Factory’s venue was a bit of a trip from Dublin’s city centre. Despite early forecasts of rain showers and thunder, the walk through towards the east end of the city was a bit of a breeze, save for a moment where Google Maps directed us through a deserted street, right by a canal, with a trio of guys drinking at the end of it. Passing that by, it was another quick walk through towards an otherwise anonymous shopping centre, as we came up to the venue.
The big Seán. Forearm pumping is optional. Hoo-ahh.
Helpfully not bigged up by the promotion as an arena or anything else that it isn’t, the Seán O’Casey Community Centre was a venue that had aesthetics like no other. From the outside, it can be quite an imposing sight – a multi-story building to the side and a single-level bulding that housed separate performance halls… tonight, one was for the graps, the other for a Shakespeare play. If you’ve seen the videos, GIFs or clips, you’ll be well aware: it’s entirely cladded in chipboard from floor to ceiling, producing an entirely unique visual. It’s a blank canvas, and one that Fight Factory chooses to leave alone, save for an entrance way in the corner.
Starting just after 7pm, because BritWres Time still applies in the Republic of Ireland, we opened with a debut match between two kids. That’s not a slight, that’s what they were: a fourteen year old and a fifteen year old (not sure which way) in Justin Daniels vs. “Flamboyant” Fabio. I was left gobsmacked by the news that this was their debut outing, as the pair put on a match that I’m pretty sure some seasoned pros would have been happy to have. Yeah, there were some hairy moments, as there were throughout the show – as you’re likely to get with folks learning and developing their trade. Daniels, playing the bad guy, worked well, but as is usually the way, it was the good guy who won the battle of the debutants…
Next up was a tag team match, as two guys who’d already qualified for the Grapple Games match (for the Irish Junior Heavyweight title, a belt currently held by one Jordan Devlin) were in action, as Michael May and LJ Cleary took on the Enterprise of Liam Royal and Luke Cullen. This was more of a prelude for their involvement in the Grapple Games, and after a miscommunication the Enterprise took home the win – which led to some shoving between May and Cleary afterwards.
Third on the card was the appearance of an older hand, as Paul Tracey took on B. Cool. This was one more for the casual crowd, with Tracey doing a lot of the things that you just don’t see in wrestling these days – mostly because things like begging off to the referee and trying to con him don’t tend to work in larger rooms.
Our “first half main event” was a title match, as the Irish tag team titles were defended by More Than Hype – the team of Nathan Martin and Darren Kearney. Their opponents, a duo going by the name of Club Rock Shandy, which I later found out was an Irish soft drink as well as a tag team. Unfortunately, it’s not a faux alcoholic beverage, as the name suggests. As for the team, well, the pairing of Martin Steers and Clayton Long… they knocked it out of the park against Martin and Kearney. I really, really hope that FFPW are able to get this out on-demand in some form (or even just this match on YouTube) pretty quickly, as this match will go some way to making stars out of all four guys.
The second half had a tall order living up to this – and while it had its moments, it struggled in parts. Opening up with a trios match, headed by Debbie Keitel and Katie Harvey, who picked their partners at random, like they were picking ties for the FA Cup. Keitel drew one half of the Super Nintenbros, Player One, and a guy who, I believe was debuting (at least in the gimmick) – the mad scientist John Bernard, while Harvey was less than thrilled with her choices: Rocky Star and Dom Tuck. Her reactions led you to believe that she’d have been better off going it alone… and from the result, you’d be right, as team Keitel took the win in a match that had its moments.
Next: Justy vs. Valkyrie. Having been exiled by OTT, the former Justin Shape has been plying his trade in these intergender matches – and coming a week after Ireland’s 8th Amendment vote, Justy vowed to play it clean and win with just a clothesline. While he did hold off on the underhanded tactics, he wasn’t just spamming clotheslines, as he told the crowd “you voted for this”. Was there another referendum we all missed?
Alexander Dean – who is Justy’s partner when they tag – was back out next for a four-way that featured Dimitri Krakovic (who is the owner of the highest senton bomb I’ve ever seen live), Sammy D (who has really gotten the raw end of the deal from that Gymnasties split in OTT, as that, coupled with a badly timed injury led to a rather silent reaction to his arrival). Sean Guinness was the fourth guy, being the glue of the entire match.
Main event time was for the final spot in Grapple Games, as Phil Boyd – “Mr Small Package” took on J-Money. I’d heard a little about J, and all I can say is that while he looked small even by indy standards, the guy has developed an act that has connected with the crowd. Essentially playing up a rich kid, some of his vignettes have stood out: the most recent one before the show was him shooting down Boyd while taking a bath, completely oblivious to the fact he’d dropped his phone (and a glass of champagne) into the tub… but what the hey, he had someone else hand him another one of those too!
By the end of the night, it had been a thoroughly entertaining show for my €10 – even if the Big Sean was getting to be a little on the sweaty side by the end. Let it be a lesson: support your local indy! This was the first show we’d been in forever to where we’d never seen anybody on the card live before… and going in with those (no) expectations was a nice change. Good wrestling can usually overcome all but the most uncomfortable of settings, and walking back out onto the streets of Dublin, headed for the Luas back to our hotel was a pleasant change of atmosphere.
The next day was our visit to the Tivoli – a venue that OTT has called home for the entirety of their run. Unfortunately, ongoing development in Dublin had left the venue with a rather questionable future – and with the promotion having tested out another venue in the form of the GAA Hall in Suir Road earlier this year, coupled with the fact that (at time of writing), there’s still no further OTT dates announced beyond July… some perhaps sensed that the end was nigh. Sure enough, days before the show, OTT announced that the show, titled “A Haven For Monsters”, would be one of the final in the venue. Just as well we could make the trip over when we did!
Some sightseeing earlier in the day took us near to the Tivoli, which already had fans queuing outside it. At 11am. For a show that wouldn’t start for another EIGHT HOURS. I know the Electric Ballroom has people queuing early, but that’s ridiculous! Inside, the Tivoli is one of those venues that looks way bigger on TV than in real life: entering the venue, you head through a tunnel of sorts into the main room, where you’re instantly on top of the merch tables and a bar. Our seats were on the stage, which meant we had to wiggle between the ring and the wall that just about everyone dives into… or the other route, which was an even tighter squeeze as you shimmied between the area that housed the hard camera and commentary crews, and another dividing wall.
We’ll do a fuller review of the show once it drops on OTT’s VOD service, but…
- Originally booked for the three-way later in the evening, Trent Seven (knee brace and all) was appointed as GM for the show… his first act, was to fire the self-imposed commentary crew of William Humperdink and Tony Kelly… and to re-hire Don Marnell and Aonghus Og McAnally once more. The storyline there is that Don was fired ages back because he’d slept with Humperdink’s wife… although I’m not sure how often you can have someone bring him back. That’s just me nitpicking for the hell of it, because I loved this in the moment.
- Speaking of Trent, he’d clearly gorged himself on 90s WWF TV in the weeks ahead of this show, as he was all about those Vince McMahon mannerisms. The voice. The exaggerated arms. The catchphrases. Again, as a one-off, it worked here, and as long as that’s all it was designed to be… then fair play! Trent was involved in some shenanigans throughout the night, including a bid to wreck another of Angel Cruz’s partnerships as he tried to have the Fabulous Nicky beat him to death in order to get a shot at WrestleMania… Axxess. It was played for comedy, and it worked, even if it did risk getting a little long in the tooth with the revolving door o’ stipulations.
- More Than Hype impressed for two days in a row, with the pairing of Darren Kearney and Nathan Martin excelling, this time against Team White Wolf. To the best of my knowledge, they’ve not wrestled outside of the Republic or Northern Ireland… surely the time is now for them to broaden their horizons, particularly with certain promotions in the UK having to deal with weaker rosters as a result of WWE signings…
- Dan Barry. Oh, Dan Barry. Where do we begin? When his booking was announced, there was a part of me going “aw, it’s nice to be able to see him before he retires next year.” By about five minutes into his match, that mindset had done the mother of all U-turns, as Barry had gone from being “that guy who leads the Amityville Project in Beyond” or “that guy from Holy Foley”, and turned into an outright God of the Tivoli. Whether it was the crowd finding new ways to turn Dan’s name into a chant, or his initial self-deprecating comedy as he told the crowd that he just wanted to get drunk since “nobody wants to see a Dan Barry match”, I couldn’t help but think that it was a crying shame that this moment came in the twilight of his career.Never say never in wrestling, but I can only hope that Dan is able to squeeze in at least one more match in Ireland before the boots are hung up…
- The first half came to an end with a trios match as the Rapture of Zack Gibson, Sha Samuels and Charlie Sterling defended their OTT tag titles against “team OTT” of Mark Haskins, Pete Dunne and X. Yeah, Zack’s shots of team OTT being a guy from Malvern and a Brummie were perhaps a little to close to the bone, but at least the roster has improved to the point where the home grown talent are more than cannon fodder. So, who was the third member?Well, after being written out nine weeks earlier at Martina’s Gaff Party 3: Sayonara Session Moth (and missing a grand total of ONE show – ScrapperMania)… she’s back. To a club version of Pete Dunne’s original OTT music, Martina drew fairly mixed reactions as she emerged with a knock-off belt between her teeth as the “Boozerweight”… much to the chagrin of Dunne and Haskins. Unfortunately for her detractors, Martina was back in the same character – all about the bants, all about the grinding… and still stunned that she can do a move, despite us being able to see that in a dozen-or-so matches for STARDOM in Japan she’s more than that.Like with all characters, you need to evolve, lest the crowd get fed up – which is gradually becoming the case here, even before you figure in other rumours, which we shan’t be repeating here since we try not to factor in “real world” stuff when it comes to describing matches.
- In the second “half”, we had more appearances from Trent Seven as he replaced “tired” referee Niall Fox in what seemed to be a fix as Tyler Bate joined Kris Wolf in challenging for LJ Cleary’s Gender Neutral championship. Yeah, there’s a lot of things to not like about that title, but as a clearly delineated secondary title, it’s a fun diversion. Here, Trent played the heel referee to form, fast-counting for Tyler, slow-counting everyone else. It eventually backfired though, as “Foxy” returned to count the pin, as Kris Wolf ate the fall with LJ retaining the belt.
- …and your main event. Well, it was just the debut of WALTER in the Tivoli, as he teamed with Low Ki to take on the “BFFs” of David Starr and Jordan Devlin. This offered up some tasty combinations, particularly part oh-I’ve-lost-count of Starr/WALTER, but the prospect of WALTER against Jordan Devlin was another entry in the list of “Matches I Want To See, Just That I Didn’t Know It”.Yeah, Starr spent a lot of the match on the defensive, taking what I can only term as abuse from WALTER and Low Ki as only he can. Problem was, when the proverbial hot tag came from Devlin, the tide barely changed. Devlin did fire back, and prompt WALTER into one of his glorious moments where he roared into life… and in the end the Tivoli was left aghast when der Ringgeneral caught Devlin in a Gojira clutch, forcing a submission.A loss. For Jordan Devlin? How?! How could the Import Killer lose? Heck, his last singles loss at the Tivoli was more than two years ago against the man who’s now known as Charlie Sterling – since then, he’d gone on a tear, beating the likes of Tyler Bate, Chris Hero, Mike Bailey, Moose, David Starr and Timothy Thatcher. The Import Killer… took a nasty shot and finally had a hurdle he couldn’t clear. After the match, the universal sign of “I want your belt” highlighted the trouble Devlin was facing, as WALTER was eager to add the OTT title belt to his collection… and with WALTER returning to the Tivoli in July, the threat is very much real.
So, what of the Tivoli? Well, during the show, they announced that July show – entitled “That Ring Really Tied The Room Together” – would be the final themed show of the year there, with talks for a sequel to April’s critically acclaimed Defiant women’s show at some point in October. There’s been talk for a massive send-off for the venue, but with no dates beyond July set in stone (which has already sold out, save for general admission), your chances to get to the venue are all but over.
Sure, we’ve not been massive fans of OTT in the past, with the promotion’s booking having been a bit of a thorny issue for us, to the point where we’d dropped off of even watching the shows. A long diet of inconsequential trios matches will do that for you! That being said, we recognised the importance of the venue in building up the Irish scene – with all due respect to Fight Factory Pro, it wasn’t “just” a community centre, or a sports hall, or a hotel banquet room. There was something about the Tivoli that was special – something that worked live and on tape.
The small size of the venue, before you add the standing room areas, is roughly that of Rev Pro’s Cockpit theatre… but when you add in the standing room, the low ceiling and the loud crowd, you get an atmosphere that’s been likened to a pressure cooker, with chants and the like quickly picking up steam.
Yeah, the Tivoli has its flaws; especially in how cramped the seating is, or just how (for some) it’s a given that you’re going to lose a part of your drink if you’re heading back to your seat… but let’s face it, on the indys, wrestling venues are hardly ever going to be glossy, pristine or, dare I say it, corporate. It’s part of the charm. A part of the charm that’s easy to romanticise, but also part of the charm that I hope OTT is able to retain once they find a new home base. We’ll be back one day, but it sadly won’t be at the Tivoli…