The first season of TNA’s British Boot Camp wrapped up as a winner was picked in the Impact Zone.
We open with a Hulk Hogan promo that was very Hulk Hogan, in that it bigged up his past before taking a sharp turn into the actual topic at hand. Unlike the rest of the series, this has “typical wrestling presentation”, with Magnus and Jeremy Borash on hand to commentate for the entire show. Everyone. Is. Walking. Backstage.
Rockstar Spud vs. Marty Scurll
Neither Spud nor Marty had their own entrance video, as we cut to Hulk Hogan in the Gorilla position enthusing over him. Meanwhile, generic club music greets Marty, who’d spectacularly wild-eyed for his entrance.
Spud starts out by working Marty’s wrist as we keep cutting back to Hulk and Dixie in Gorilla. Marty reverses the wristlock, but Spud dives into the rope as they reuse the footage of Jeff Hardy and Kurt Angle watching backstage. From a side headlock, Marty’s shoved into the ropes as he charges down Spud, before Spud got cocky… and got slapped. A low dropkick from Marty takes Spud outside as we went to break… returning as Marty aborted a tope, before hitting it at the second attempt, going through the corner to get to Spud. Back in the ring, Spud catches Marty with stomps and knee drops, before taking Marty outside for a nice tope con giro.
Scurll takes over again with clotheslines, before he caught Spud with a gamengiri in the corner. A snapping tornado DDT almost wins it for Marty, before Spud grabbed the ref to save himself… and created an opening as he tried to win with a Code Red. Spud tries a flying crossbody, but leaps into a gutbuster from Scurll, who finished him off with a pop-up death valley driver for the win. Solid, but exceedingly short, with a LOT of cuts to keep things moving along for the reality TV crowd. Marty looked good, but Spud seemed to be more rounded…
After a break, we see more walking backstage as the Blossom Twins prepare for their finals…
Blossom Twins (Hannah & Holly) vs. Madison Rayne & Gail Kim
Before the bell, we get a promo as Gail Kim derides the twins, as Madison Rayne expected them to bow to their whims. Of course, we open with a roll-up as Hannah tried to get a flash pin out of the gate. Holly tags in as the Blossoms hit a double dropkick to Rayne, before Gail Kim snuck in to attack Holly from behind. Rayne takes Holly into the corner for a boot choke, then took her out of it with a hair mare, while Hulk Hogan backstage worded Al Snow’s comment last week a little more delicately in that the Blossoms “wrestle like wrestlers.”
Rayne drives Holly’s head into the mat repeatedly as Kim tags in, but she misses a splash into the corner as Holly tried to tag out. She eventually gets it after pushing away Gail, as Hannah cleared house landing a standing elbow drop and a snap suplex to boot. Madison tries to run in, but takes a hiptoss as Gail’s pancaked by the twins for a near-fall, before Gail Kim snatched the win with an O’Connor roll (and a handful of tights) after a distraction. This felt a little too edited, with the finish in particular coming out of nowhere, but the Blossoms looked decent for the screen time they got.
The foursome are shown nervously waiting for the decision… while Hulk Hogan talks through his thought process and why you should never pre-judge. He’d originally dismissed the Blossoms until he saw their match… and then we get the moment of truth. All four contestants enter the trailer, where they find out the winner.
Rockstar Spud.
Spud broke down in tears at that, while Marty and the Blossoms took the result on the chin, before they were told they’d get another shot at a TNA deal as the show came to an end.
So, what happened to these four after British Boot Camp? Well, all four were involved as part of the TNA tour of the UK that began literally the day after the finale aired, with Spud being paired up with Marty for most of the tour (weirdly though, not the opening night). The Blossoms would work Gail Kim and Tara, while the tour stop in Wembley – that would be an Impact taping – saw Marty and the Blossoms team up against Gail Kim, Tara and Jesse (Sorensen), in a match that was perhaps remembered more for Marty crashing and burning on his through-the corner dive.
Spud would make his Impact debut proper on the following week’s show – beating Robbie E – and would go on to have a heck of a run in TNA, with their UK tour in 2015 perhaps being a highlight as he’d have a bloody brawl with EC3 in Wembley Arena, before going on to beat Low Ki for the X Division title “next week.” He’d stick around in TNA/Impact until 2017, going on to become Dixie Carter’s on-screen assistant before having a slight problem in losing to small people, with Matt Hardy’s son Maxel beating him in the Total Nonstop Deletion feature, before a feud with Swoggle completed Spud’s tenure there. He’d go on to sign with WWE, where his run featured him pissing himself on-screen, being the GM of 205 Live, and wrestling in the interim NXT Cruiserweight title tournament after being released by them in the spring of 2020.
Surprisingly, Marty’s run with TNA ended after that 2013 tour. Don’t cry for him though – he’d be a star name on the UK scene for the next few years, lighting it up with Will Ospreay before signing for ROH in late 2016, where he remains today as a wrestler and a booker. Oh, and a former member of Bullet Club (and a one-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight champion).
As for the Blossoms, it’d be a slightly different story. Holly never appeared for TNA again, but (per Cagematch) stayed on the scene for a long while as the twins worked a lot for OVW while making appearances in EVE. Holly’s last match on record was for OVW in November 2013, losing a handicap match… Hannah, on the other hand, made a few appearances for Impact later in 2013, appearing as part of the women’s World Cup event in February, before working a Knockouts Knockdown special before making her final appearance for the company on a random episode of Impact in November 2013, losing to Gail Kim. Hannah would work a few more matches on the US indies (per Cagematch), last appearing on the Florida indies in May 2017, before returning home to Manchester where the two run a very active blog of book reviews at theblossomtwins.com
As for British Boot Camp, the format running six episodes in a few weeks led to a rather crunched schedule – two episodes on January 1, episode 3 on January 8, episode 4 on January 15 and two more on January 22. In terms of ratings, it was a hit on Challenge – drawing 113,000 in week one, 162,000 in week two, 140,000 in week three, and 130,000 in week four. While this may have been the end of the road for some in TNA, this wasn’t the last we’d see of British Boot Camp – as the series would return in October 2014 with a new format…