After the Anti-Fun Police disbanded, what now for ATTACK?
Chuck Mambo & Jack Sexsmith vs. Brothers of Construction (Jim Construction & Lee Construction)
The days before the show saw videos appearing online, supposedly depicting the Anti-Fun Police going their separate ways. That led to the return of the Brothers of Construction, as Tugboat’s old theme got an airing! My eyes teared up for that…
One guy in the crowd cried before the bell that he doesn’t like change. Get used to it! We start with Mambo having a call for one of the Brothers, who fell for it… never accept calls from an unknown wristlock! They might just be trying to sell you junk. Jack Sexsmith does his usual mental warfare routine, as it’s surprising just how unsettling it is to be told someone’s junk is on your neck.
Mambo’s back in to pull off a surfboard as I swear he’s lost his boots… some double-teaming from the Brothers knocks his headband off, but it’s not long before Jack’s back to make a save… having the Brothers accidentally kick each other ahead of a double Sliced Bread out of the corner! The Brothers come back with a pair of neckbreakers as music from the next room bled into the venue, but it’s the “Sex on the Beach” team of Mambo and Sexsmith that combined slightly better in this case, finishing off one of the Brothers with a lungblower/wheelbarrow suplex before the other took Jack’s BDSM and a Mambo frog splash for the win. Good opener, with plenty of wackiness to get the crowd going. **¾
I guess walking away from the Anti-Fun Police wasn’t such a sure-fire thing?
El Phantasmo vs. Kyle Fletcher
There’s something insanely wacky about El Phantasmo trying to get a Welsh dear to rock out… along with Chris Roberts disarming ELP’s “Canadian” arrow as he tried to out-archer Kyle Fletcher.
One lone voice urged them to “get on with it” as duelling chants and forward rolls started the match. Man, ATTACK! can be such an easy crowd, but they too cheer when Chris Roberts heads to the back.
Once the action started, it was quite brisk, and very lucha-inspired, with plenty of leapfrogs, headscissors and cartwheels, before they decided to go for chops. Yeah, ELP doesn’t like them… so they go all slow-mo, complete with crowd chants that sound like they were played on a Walkman with a dying battery. Somehow they manage to do a slow-mo headscissor takedown, which is easily the most impressive thing of the lot, since the slow-mo routine rarely figures that sort of stuff in. Even Roberts is in on it, slowing down his count (I think)…
Kyle’s mad at that’s low count, and shoves the ref… who shoves him back into a pratfall from ELP, and that’s where normality is restored as we get a two-count after we snapped back to 1x speed. Jesus wept, I’m dying here!
Normal-speed chops follow, as does the ELP rope-walk and ‘rana, before Fletcher tries the same thing… and needs so much help Phantasmo just tells him to cut to the chase. By which he means “miss a ‘rana”.
Phantasmo’s back with more flips, getting a near-fall with a Quebrada before Fletcher obliterated him with a diving kick for a two-count of his own. Trading superkicks led to Fletcher spiking ELP with a Michinoku driver, before the Aussie’s lawn-dart was countered with a roll-up. Eventually, Fletcher countered a tornado DDT into a lawn-dart, before a flying Destroyer got the Aussie Arrow the win. Beautiful nonsense – and a superb blend of comedy and flips, an excellent shorthand for ATTACK!’s product, really. ***¼
Chris Brookes & Millie McKenzie vs. Moustache Mountain (Trent Seven & Tyler Bate)
Well then, this is a nice surprise – although Trent and Tyler have slowly become more regular at ATTACK! in recent months… Even though Kid Lykos was there, the role of the wolf was played tonight by Millie McKenzie, who was making her debut at the secret bingo hall, thanks to ATTACK! management… whomever that may be. Awkward.
There’s a lot of Trent goofing around with the loose ends of the ring ropes, which passes the time, although it’s a couple of months too late for him to be pretending to be a reindeer…
We started with Millie trying, in vain, to knock Trent down with shoulder tackles… eventually doing the thing after plenty of tries! Trent was firmly in there for the chuckles as he fell back while trying to slam Millie the Giant, before Brookes had to restrain Lykos after a heckle from the crowd.
Tyler swapped places with Trent (in more ways than one), tagging in and missing a flying crossbody before he became too heavy for Millie to roll over. Role reversal, eh? After taking Tyler outside for a dive, Trent wipes her out with a chop, before handing one out to Brookes… then the ring post. Yep, Trent still hasn’t learned.
Brookes turns the tide even more when he slips out of an apron powerbomb to stomp on Trent’s face, before Millie returned to try and keep Trent down, clubbing away on his back so much that Tyler almost came in to break it up. A wet willie comes next as Brookes returns, before Millie damn near tires herself out with chops.
Eventually Trent finds something in him to forearm away Brookes and Millie, before he made it out to a tag to Tyler… who easily tosses Brookes across the ring with a capture suplex. Lykos gets involved, whacking Bate with a baking tray after he took way too long to kip up, prompting one guy in the crowd to tell Lykos to F-off.
Remember when ATTACK! used to swap out their swears? Whatever happened to that kid-friendly crowd?
Somehow Tyler’s able to suplex both Brookes and McKenzie at the same time, before bringing Trent back in for forearms and chops. Lots of chops! Millie takes some Machine Gun chops in the corner, as Brookes tried to use her as a human shield, but it didn’t last long as Trent got him with a Dragon suplex and a piledriver anyway.
We get the revolving door effect as Millie’s in to German suplex everyone, before it degenerates into our favourite Parade of Moves, ending with Tyler’s rebound lariat to Brookes. Millie’s back to wheelbarrow Trent into a low dropkick from Brookes, but it’s not enough, so Millie and Tyler just begin to lay into each other with forearms. A satellite DDT’s countered into a brainbuster as we keep breaking up pins, before Millie succeeds with a wheelbarrow bulldog off the top rope.
McKenzie’s forced to switch a Destroyer into a Code Red as those near-falls keep on coming, but after a lariat and a piledriver took Brookes to the outside, Millie was left defenceless as a piledriver and a Tyler Driver sealed the win. Really good fun, if you can filter out that section of the crowd, and a match that managed to portray all four on a similar level for a change. ***½
Mark Davis vs. Jonah Rock
Here be some big Aussies wrestling!
This was the third time these two had faced off… they’d been in a tag match the night before for Fight Club Pro, and before that you’re looking at 2008, when Rock was part of a team called Furious Styles, while Davis was part of the Sex Panthers.
Once we’d gone past the obligatory shoulder tackles, Jonah squashed Davis with a surprise crossbody and a back senton, picking up a near-fall, and quite a bit of the crowd support in Cardiff. Davis replies with a dropkick, sending Rock outside… and we have a large Aussie diving, by way of a tope! Rock hits back, literally, with a forearm after popping Davis off the ropes, and now it’s his turn to use the surroundings, placing Davis in a chair as we start with chops!
Back in the ring, a vicious back elbow rocked Davis (pun intended), as did a knee drop, but Dunkzilla hits back with some forearms, before sidestepping a charge as he took down Jonah with a stalling German suplex! Davis teases the pull-up piledriver, but instead he has to make do with a superkick… which prompts a kick battle that Rock ends with a snapped Samoan drop.
Somehow, Davis gets off the Alphamare Waterslide on Rock, but we’re back to the pair of them throwing bombs at each other, as they ended up landing a double clothesline in the middle of the ring. Then we’re back into chops, as they try and WALTER each other… but instead Rock knocks down Davis and threatens to go up top… only to get caught as Dunkzilla eventually got off a superplex that the ring somehow withstood! One regular piledriver later, and that was all for Jonah… a solid big lad’s match, and I think Rock has won over the British scene in his first weekend. Like that surprises anyone… ***¾
Yup, Eddie Dennis’ pre-match prediction was right. This was just like WWF’s big guys from the 80s with moves…
Mike Bird vs. Jeff Ramsey vs. Lloyd Katt vs. Mark Andrews
Wacky four-way time now, as we have “some of the names who you’re surprised didn’t factor in elsewhere”. We’re up to three ATTACK! shows since Bird and Boar tagged together, if you’re of the mindset that that’s a thing for a reason.
It’s exceedingly weird seeing Eddie big up Mark Andrews during the ring introduction, considering what’s going on elsewhere. Still, at least ATTACK! had their own substitute sign – Embassy Bingo!
Once Lloyd Katt broke the tension with handshakes, everyone went out for armdrags, dropkicks and kip-up. Well… except one. Katt was too busy doing snow angels! After he was helped up, Katt goes diving, with a tope into Andrews and Bird on the outside, before Ramsey took him down with relative ease with a back suplex. A monkey flip dumped Bird onto Katt, before Ramsey almost pinned Andrews with a wacky leg lock.
Ramsey looked impressive in his highest-profile outing to date, somehow avoiding a tiltawhirl headscissors as he handed off Andrews to Bird as the pace remained breathless. At times, it was perhaps too rapid-fire, as there was barely time for a lot of stuff to settle… but there was a nice series where Bird threw some Machine Gun chops to Ramsey, while having Andrews on his back as a battering ram to kick away any attempted interference from the Bowling Daddy Katt.
They built up into a Tower of Doom, with Andrews’ sunset flip powerbombing Bird and Ramsey, before things seemed to break down a little as we headed to the finish, as Katt pounced away a charging Andrews, while Bird Jackie Chan’d Ramsey… only to get wheelbarrow’d up for the pin! A surprising winner, but this was what it was. **¾
After the match, Bird stayed in the ring, cross-legged, prompting one of the mouthy ones in the crowd to yell out “pipe bomb”. Bird finally speaks, saying he’s been lying to us all for years, as he’s been hurting because he “despised professional wrestling” because of the pain it’s left him in… and those mouthy fans as well. That was a heck of a response to a heckler! Bird said that he was done… and he walked away as we cut away…
Ahead of the main event, Eddie Dennis ran down the events of the last show, where Nothing To Prove beat down the Anti-Fun Police to the point they’d disbanded.
ELIJAH vs. Travis Banks
This was surprisingly the only outing for Nothing To Prove, and they didn’t get too different a reaction. Are the crowd thinking that they’re likely to lose because they’re having a match? Harsh, but probably true…
ELIJAH just seethed in the corner as Travis stripped off for the match, before trying to bait ELIJAH’s buddy Bishop to do the same. All that led to was a punch with a belt, and a lot of Angry Trav Face when ELIJAH jumped him at the bell.
Banks forces ELIJAH to wear the string vest, to the howls of the crowd… and it actually fits him. Unlike the chant. They keep ribbing ELIJAH with the music as Banks tries to capitalise on it, completing the ensemble with the baseball cap as ELIJAH looked the part. Banks made him dance while he was on jelly legs, but ELIJAH snaps out of it with a forearm as he angrily tore off the gear.
In the meantime, Banks found Bishop’s belt, and used it to whip ELIJAH with as we headed into Banks usual collection of dives. Bishop gets involved, grabbing Banks’ leg as ELIJAH took over with ground and pound, but it’s only a matter of time before Banks is back in with kicks of his own, taking ELIJAH into the corner for an eventual cannonball.
ELIJAH quickly rebounds with an Electric Chair facebuster for a near-fall… but a shotgun dropkick and the springboard stomp turns it back around again, as Banks went Coast to Coast with the dropkick for another near-fall. Bishop tries to get involved, but he’s instantly dealt with as ELIJAH countered back with a suplex spinebuster for a two-count of his own.
Banks tries to use the belt again, but the referee disarms him… allowing ELIJAH to kick Trav low and get in a crucifix bomb for a near-fall, as he followed up with a superplex attempt… only for Banks to counter out of into an avalanche Kiwi Krusher for the win. Perfectly acceptable stuff, although this didn’t feel like a main event, and I see we’re keeping up that Nothing to Prove motif. ***½
Travis Banks perhaps spent too long dancing after the match, as he was attacked from behind by ELIJAH and Bishop. Who would save him? Chief Deputy Dunne?!
The sole remaining member of the Anti-Fun Police rushed out to break it up, but with Banks being sent outside, the numbers game took over once more, leading to ELIJAH kicking Dunne low. Who’s going to save him now? The crowd chanted for Santos, and just as Dunne was about to get whipped, the familiar music struck – as the Brothers of Obstruction returned!
Santos was back too, to a monster pop, and now the Anti-Fun Police had the numbers advantage, with Santos landing a Big Ending to Bishop before ELIJAH took… the Shield Powerbomb? Hey, it works, as Roman Santos delivered the fatal blow as the crowd cheered for… No Fun, Nada? The Anti-Fun Police are back together again, with (Sergeant?) Banks onside once more as Dunne vowed that they’re becoming the Anti Nothing To Prove Police, and “you dickheads are going to get hurt!”
God, ATTACK! is weird!
So, on paper, you can perhaps nitpick that this was way too to fast for the Anti-Fun Police to “disband” and reform. I’m very much of that mindset, but it was clear from the off that when Nothing To Prove weren’t crowing about their actions, they were merely the catalyst for an improbable turn for the police. Yes, I’m still not won over by Nothing to Prove, as their habit of winning battles and losing wars continues – and that can only be a trend for so long before they lose effectiveness.
Anyway, that side, this was a fun show (ironic, huh?), with a few shaky moments in terms of matches… but on the whole, this is perhaps definitely a milestone show, just for the main event angle.