We’re back to Harrow as we dip back into FWA TV for another pair of episodes, featuring another ECW veteran.
Episode 21 opens with Ulf Herman coming down the stairs as he threatens to eat Doug Williams in front of his family. Hey, if it means Ulf can take the FWA British Heavyweight Championship back to Germany “forever”, I guess it’s all fair game.
Those FWA opening credits always seem to have three folks sticking out like a sore thumb in amongst the quick-cuts of moves… Alex Shane and his pool table, and the New Breed with their wrestling figures. Not sure why I laugh at those two, but I don’t think it was the desired result! We’ve still got the over-exposed hard camera, and we’re starting with a Loser Leaves the New Breed Match! Featuring a ring announcer who’s craning his neck to see what order the Breed is coming out in…
Ashe vs. Kruiz vs. Curve
They’ve barely been together as a team for a few weeks, and already the Breed are splitting up.
Ashe and Curve slap each other, before they turn on Kruiz. A lot of missed dropkicks as everyone comes up short, before they trade near-falls en-route to a three-way stand-off. Kruiz gets double-crossed as the original New Breed look to work together, but Kruiz hits a dropkick to knock them both down. A spinning heel kick from Curve knocks down Kruiz, but then Ashe stands up and offers Curve a handshake and that signals the end of Kruiz… the original New Breed double-team Kruiz with “Selective Breeding” – a tombstone off the top rope, and that’s Kruiz out of the New Breed! Short and sweet, but I was never a fan of this rushed together and rushed apart storyline… **
Kruiz walks out after the match with his tail between his legs – and in the middle of this, I’d forgotten that the New Breed were tag champions!
FWA British Heavyweight Championship: Ulf Herman vs. Doug Williams (c)
This is now a no-DQ match based on Herman’s threat to cannibalise Doug at the start of the show…
Williams is the clear favourite, but he’s instantly thrown into the corner from the opening tie-up and we go to a break as another tie-up sees Williams go to his knees to break free. After the break, Herman sends Williams into the ropes, but Doug ducks under and gets a dropkick for a near-fall. Herman replies with a clothesline, before he sends Williams into the corner – and dropkicks him to the floor as Doug leapt up and waited to hit a back elbow out of the middle turnbuckle. They fight outside the ring as Herman dismantles some of the crowd barrier and brings it into the ring with ease. It’s propped up against the turnbuckles like a table would, but wrestling logic enters the fray as Williams reverses a whip and sends the German into the barricade for a near-fall.
The tables turn when Williams gets slammed onto the barricade, before it’s dropped onto his back… but Herman doesn’t go for a cover, and instead keeps up with shoulder tackles. Another reversal sends Herman into the corner, but he misses a dropkick and crashes to the mat, allowing Williams to hit a Bomb Scare knee drop off the top for a near-fall.
Williams goes under the ring for a steel chair, and we get an unprotected chair shot to the head of Herman. The German leans into another one as he collapses to the mat, before kicking out at two as Williams delayed his cover. The Anarchist is sent careering into the chair wildly with a drop toe hold as Herman returns the favour with a chairshot to the head of Williams, before he switches tack and locks in a sleeperhold to Williams.
A piledriver takes down Doug for another near-fall, as does a Muscle Buster, as Williams keeps kickout out of everything the German (literally) throws at him, before he wriggles out of a superplex and drops Herman with a neckbreaker onto the chair. Out of the corner, Doug hits the Revolution DDT, and that’s your lot – Doug retains! A good match for the time they had, but man, those unprotected chair shots some 15+ years on isn’t a good look… ***¼
After the match, Herman leaves, but Dino Scarlo and Drew McDonald come out to applaud Doug. Scarlo shakes Williams’ hand, and it looks like the Anarchist was going to be part of the Old School… before Robbie Brookside comes out to add his name to the group. Mark Priest namechecks Brookside’s partnership with William Regal (some 15 years before he was better known as an NXT coach). The show ends with Brookside giving Williams an Iconoclasm, as the Old School stand tall with the FWA title belt.
Episode 22 starts with a replay of the segment from the end of last week where Doug Williams was accepted into the Old School… only to be beaten down by Robbie Brookside.
We have a new personality on-screen in the form of Jane Childs, and she’s here introducing the new FWA women’s division. Childs introduces the first member of the women’s division: Nikita… she puts over the FWA, and is identified as someone who’s wrestled all over the world beforehand. This leads to a contract signing, but because this is wrestling, the Old School come out to crash the party. Or, as the graphic lists them, “The Double D”.
Insert bra jokes here folks!
Dino uses another three words for the FWA acronym – at least one of which we can’t use here. He takes exception to Nikita’s signing… Nikita stands up to him and tells him to be a man… which apparently means swiping her with a chairshot. Yep, it was unprotected, and it looked nasty.
Alex Shane’s music hits and he comes out to make the save with his security detail. It’s the usual litany of catchphrases and for some reason Mr Blonde is in the ring. Alex makes the boob joke we were waiting for, before he mocks Drew McDonald’s Scottish accent. That turns into a rushed, modified version of the nursery rhyme, “Old McDonald Had A Chairshot”, and that ends the segment as Mr Blonde steps in front of Shane to protect him from an angered Highlander.
The Double D leaves, so does Shane, and that’s a rather anticlimactic ending, I must say…
James Tighe vs. Scottie Rock
We’re still in Harrow for this, and apparently Scottie’s character has changed from being a gypsy fighter to an East End Gangster? Alright then…
Rock drops Tighe with a Japanese armdrag as Tighe’s time outside the ring only leads to a baseball slide dropkick, before a somersault plancha sees Rock land on his opponent. Mark Sloan tries to throw Rock back in, but it’s less than half-hearted, and Rock goes back in anyway to land a missile dropkick to Tighe for an ultra-slow two-count.
Rock goes up top once more, and this time lands a cross body for a two-count as the referee holds up his count in lieu of a kick-out. Erm? We go to a commercial as Rock AGAIN goes up to the top rope, but he misses a senton bomb just in time for some adverts. Back from the break, Tighe has taken over, and he lands a drop toe-hold before Rock fights out of a front facelock.
Tighe leaps over a shoulder charge and turns it into a sunset flip for a near-fall, but Rock hits back with a bulldog out of a wheelbarrow suplex attempt. Tighe lands on his feet from a monkey flip, but he’s caught in a Northern Lights suplex for another slow two-count, before a top rope legdrop gets the win for Rock. Eh, it was too short to be much, and that messed-up kickout midway through was a little on the “what the hell?” side… **
We’re told in a fortnight’s time, Alex Shane and Drew McDonald will face off… and now we’re taken to a plug for the FWA website.
Justin Richards vs. Scott Parker
Well, after beating Steve Corino a few shows back, Parker has been somewhat MIA… and this match with Justin Richards is a little out of the blue.
The pair shake hands at the bell, before they tie-up, and we get some hammerlock reversals that ends in a fireman’s carry takedown from Richards. Parker gets free and grabs a wristlock, but Richards monkey flips himself free, before grabbing a full nelson. Yep, this is wrestling (said with a rolling r at the start!) – but in this era, anything that wasn’t high-paced and flippy struggled to get a reaction.
A back body drop from Richards takes down Parker for a two-count, as does a spinning heel kick. Richards goes up top, and misses what looked to be a big splash, and Parker takes over with the Golden Arrow (Falcon Arrow) as “Solid Gold” gets the win. That has to be considered a banana peel finish, as Parker was only holding his own before Richards messed up. **¼
Someone jumps the barrier after the match, and grabs the microphone… and it’s none other than Dean Ayass. Dean slaps Justin Richards and tells him to “wake up”. The crowd chant “who are you?”, and Dean tells us that he knows Richards… then berates him for moving away from what he knew best.
Ayass seems to be part of the Old School, and invites Richards to be a part of it… but Justin walks away, only for Ayass to threaten him on his way out as the show comes to an end.
Well, this was content left over from the High School Hell show, and save for the Herman/Williams match, it sure did feel like it. This was taped in late 2001 – and given that Nikita didn’t seemingly wrestle on a main FWA show until early 2002, I have to wonder if she (or the FWA women’s division) will ever make it onto TV? Certainly, not a terrible pair of shows, with enough content to make this a somewhat worthwhile 50-minutes of TV.