#ActionChaos – Adam Priest looks to win back his ACTION Championship at the first attempt as ACTION’s first show of the year was capped off with a building-wide brawl.
It’s been a while since I’ve dipped my toe in the ACTION pond – so much so that we’ve had three champions since I last covered them, with Arik Royal having since been succeeded by Kevin Ku, Adam Priest and Anthony Henry. Henry won the title at the end of 2022, beating Priest in under eight minutes… and we’ve an instant rematch here as we go back to the Roger Spencer Community Center in Tyrone, Georgia. This one’s available via IWTV.live…
No Ropes, No Disqualification Match for ACTION Championship: Adam Priest vs. Anthony Henry (c)
As the stipulation suggests, they’ve taken down the ropes… which makes this a little like Bloodsport. Priest’s being hyped as the only man to have wrestled and won every week on the most recent series of Uncharted Territory, back when they were doing that in Tennessee. Remember the whole North East vs. South East thing that just faded out?
Anyway, with no ropes, there’ll be no easy way out of submission attempts, which anyone watching along will be cringing at.
We start with Henry tripping Priest to the mat, before Priest was threatened with a throw into the ring post as the pair ended up taking the centre of the mat. Priest tries to back Henry into the corner, but gets rolled up for a one-count before leapovers and dropdowns almost saw them spill to the outside… before Priest just chucked Henry out of the ring and leapt onto him. Priest keeps it on the outside, but got stung with a chop as the front row were leaning back in expectation of having a wrestler fall onto their laps.
Henry goes under the ring for some chairs, but Priest’s kick stops him in his tracks before a back suplex dropped Priest on the side of the ring. Here come the chairs, but first Henry heads up on stage to kick Priest in the back… before they jockeyed for a suplex onto the commentary desk. Priest escapes and heads off the stage, sidestepping a charge from Henry, who’s suplexed onto the floor…
Priest heads back up onto the stage, and AAAAAHMAKEWAYFORWILLIE! Charging from off-camera, Priest leaps off the side of the stage and bounces Henry through a table, before another struggle for a suplex at ringside ended with Priest just getting posted. Henry throws a chair onto the floor and aimed Priest onto one, before he made him wear an open chair… and threw him into the post once more. Yikes.
Henry scatters the crowd as he kicked Priest into the front row for a drive-by dropkick… before he put a chair back on Priest’s head… but the follow-up lap of honour allowed Priest to escape, throwing the chair at Henry’s foot, before slinging another one across the ring as Henry sought solitude. Priest grabbed yet another chair and began swinging, but an attempted DDT onto a chair is caught and countered into a wild leaping tombstone onto the open seat.
The quick turnaround couldn’t be capitalised on as Henry’s knee was giving him problems, but still the delayed cover nearly won it. Kicks from Henry hurt him, allowing Priest to pounce on the bad knee with a Figure Four, which nearly led to a pinning attempt as Henry had no choice to break the hold but to roll out of the ring and to the floor. Splat. Yet still Priest keeps the hold on, and almost won with a pin on the floor as Henry had to throw a chair at Priest to break it up.
Everyone’s hearts stopped as Henry went for a powerbomb, while facing an upturned chair… but instead he opted to dump Priest back in the ring before Henry wandered outside… and came back dragging a table. Priest throws another chair to the back of Henry as he was dragging that table, before those chairs again got launched at Henry from the floor.
Priest sets up the table on the floor, but Henry returns the favour with some chairs before Priest again was reintroduced to the ring post. Henry heads back into the crowd and towards a suspiciously-placed ladder, which gets brought to ringside in a move that Moses on commentary deadpan called “suboptimal.” Depends which side you’re rooting for, I suppose!
Henry sets up for a piledriver, eventually hitting a snap Gotch piledriver for a near-fall, before a JAY DRILLER earned another near-fall. Priest tried to roll outside to avoid being pinned, before he took advantage of Henry’s stalling by countering another piledriver into an Alabama Slam. Priest rolls outside quickly and sets up that huge-arse ladder by the table from earlier, and now I’m in fear.
Priest rakes Henry’s eyes as he’s taken onto the table… giving Priest time to scale the ladder. Oh God. That’s got to be legitimately 12-feet from top to bottom, but Henry meets Priest on the other side, pulling Priest’s foot through a rung before Priest maneuvered himself to kick Henry onto the table ahead of a huge leg drop off the ladder, putting Henry through the table… and that’s enough for the three-count!
Result: Adam Priest pinned Anthony Henry in 17:18 to win the ACTION Championship (****¼)
That win makes Priest the first two-time ACTION champion, and considering how hated he was a year or so earlier, it’s been a remarkable turnaround as Priest prepares for some European bookings in the coming months – and who knows what’ll come after that as it feels like Priest may well be on the verge of bigger things.