The first Loaded after Delete WCPW contained two title matches a storyline that arrived perhaps a touch too late?
#TLDR: Next week, Martin Kirby and Matt Hardy will team up to take on Paul Robinson, Scott Wainwright and Bully Ray in a 3-on-2 match – with Kirby either leaving WCPW or becoming GM. That storyline in itself was better than anything they did with Matt Hardy going into the iPPV.
The Full Review: We’re watching this away from our usual base, so this is going to be a shorter report than usual.
The show started with a 15 minute talking segment. Yep, just like Raw. The show they frequently lambast. Drew Galloway came out to celebrate his WCPW title win. Joe Hendry interrupted him. So did Joseph Conners. Despite this being on the internet, they bleeped out a load of swearing (so why not brief the roster that swearing isn’t allowed… or is this meant to be edgy-yet-YouTube-revenue saving?). End result, just like you’d see in an Attitude era Raw… impromptu triple threat rematch!
WCPW Championship: Drew Galloway (c) vs. Joe Hendry vs. Joseph Conners
A fun opening match, even if it did feel a little on the long side. We started with three-way clubbering before the focus seemed to turn to “who can DDT the other the most”. You know, that “Righteous Kill DDT that nearly ended Drew’s career” would have been a cool spot, had it not been teased endlessly since Drew’s return.
Galloway spikes Conners with a short piledriver early on for a near-fall, before Joe Hendry and Drew exchange chops against each other. Conners gets back into it with a double push-down stomp to Galloway and Hendry, before we get a nice spot where Drew’s German suplex to Hendry added to Hendry’s Freak of Nature fallaway slam to Conners. More chops followed, before Conners almost stole the title with a slingshot DDT onto Hendry for a 2-count.
The big call-back to the Righteous Kill DDT came when Galloway and Conners fought on the top rope, and it looked like Conners was going to hit a Super Righteous Kill off the top rope, but Galloway countered it as Hendry completed the tower of doom with a powerbomb. Conners brought in the title belt, and for some reason this was sold like it’d end in a disqualification… perhaps in NGW where they’ve had triple-threats end on count outs… in the end, the three-way battle to grab the belt ended when Galloway hit the Futureshock DDT on Conners for the win. This was slightly better than the iPPV match… ***¼
Backstage segment with Adam Pacitti now. He’s on the phone to the injured Will Ospreay, whilst the remaining Swords of Essex are in the room. Pacitti promises a surprise as he orders the Swords to take down Martin Kirby. They leave, and the camera pans to Jack the Jobber, whose head is taped up like a rugby player after having his “ear” “bitten” by Matt Hardy at the iPPV. Jack’s sent off to tell Bea Priestley she has a women’s title match next week. This week, Pacitti seemed more demented than deluded teacher.
Another backstage segment now. It’s Prince Ameen and Gabriel Kidd, and they looked to be going back to the servitude thing, despite the last two weeks of programming revealing that Ameen was softening on Kidd.
Doug Williams vs. Gabriel Kidd
This was a nice, slow-paced match that Williams excelled in – yet it worked to build up to a win for Gabriel Kidd that I hope is coming down the line.
Kidd and Williams work headlocks and reversals early on, before Kidd avoids a superplex and mounted a comeback. A monkey flip saw Kidd take over briefly, but Doug sent him to the outside where he took advantage of Ameen’s “encouragement”, by shoving Ameen into Kidd and into the ringpost. That was the start of Williams targeting Kidd’s left shoulder, shoving it into the turnbuckles whilst landing several overhead belly to belly suplexes.
Kidd comes back with dropkicks and a running death valley driver for a near-fall, in the midst of which Alex Shane’s commentary gave up (thanks God!). A Finlay roll and a moonsault gets Kidd a near-fall, but Williams returned with a clothesline and more belly-to-bellies, before a blocked Chaos Theory just riled up Doug once more. Williams trapped Kidd with a bridging armbar – a la Mark Haskins – but Kidd made the ropes and later nearly won the match with a lifting reverse DDT.
Out of nowhere though, an inanimate carbon rod (okay, it was a pipe) appears… Williams hits Kidd with it, and that’s enough to get the win. A decent match up until the finish, which would have fit in with the Doug Williams-hating-foreigners gimmick… except Kidd’s from Nottingham! ***
After the match, Ameen clocked Williams with that pipe – and the babyface turn is complete. Kidd went to kiss Ameen’s feet, but his master ordered him not to, and I guess the master/servant thing is nearing its end. I fully expect Kidd’s first win to be over Ameen though…
Next up was a pair of backstage segments filmed during last week’s Delete WCPW event. They were promos with the competitors for our next match, with the WCPW tag titles on the line…
WCPW Tag Team Championship: Strong Style Collective (Pete Dunne & Travis Banks) vs. Johnny Moss & Liam Slater (c)
This was a good mixture of styles – and made for a pretty decent match. Slater worked over Banks and Dunne early on, countering a grounded wristlock by spreading Dunne’s legs before Banks was grounded in an abdominal stretch. Dunne got his usual inane chant from a crowd that doesn’t seem to realise what they have (but will still happily post “LOL WCPW INVASION!” on YouTube when the time comes for Pete Dunne to make his NXT debut…)
Johnny Moss worked a few shoulder tackles with Dunne, whose efforts barely moved the big guy. The champions largely were in control for most of the match, with Moss landing an impressive slingshot shoulder block into the ring at one point, before going all Doug Williams and busting out overhead belly-to-bellies like they were going out of fashion. Moss drilled both challengers with pop-up powerbombs, before the end came – Moss’ powerbomb to Banks was followed up by him trapping Dunne in a Fireman’s carry, as Slater tagged in and leapt off of Dunne with a swandive headbutt to retain the belts. A good match that went over 15 minutes, but again, felt a little on the long side. Perhaps I’d have felt more invested had one of these teams’ won their spot in this match by not being the worst of two of this company’s joke teams? That’s no slight on Dunne or Banks… just the way they’ve been handled here. ***
Speaking of, we go to a backstage segment with James R. Kennedy, hyping up our main event: Rampage vs. Primate. Hey, they’re doing the same as the WWE’s best-of-7 series by rushing through these. I wonder how match 7 will be tied? Kennedy’s interrupted by Prospect – with Lucas Archer & Alex Gracie both unhappy at how Kennedy seems to have deserted them as of late. Kennedy blows them off again as he “has a phone call”. By the way, our main event is a No Holds Barred match. My guess: somewhere down the line, Prospect turn on Kennedy, possibly costing him/Primate this series?
No Holds Barred: Primate vs. Rampage
Plunder-iffic. Kennedy’s out here, despite having had to take a call seconds earlier (I guess that was a “last week…” promo without a caption?). Primate’s added red mist to his entrance, which adds to the intimidation factor.
Primate misses a plancha during Rampage’s entrance, and he sends himself careering head-first into the entrance-way. Rampage replies by getting a screwdriver and stabs it into Primate… but not very hard, since there’s no blood. Rampage gets a kendo stick and uses it repeatedly on Primate, before a German suplex was used by Primate, sending Rampage through a folded-open chair.
Primate takes over from there, more kendo stick shots and a German, before tying up Rampage in the ropes a la Andre the Giant. With Rampage incapacitated, Primate goes outside to grab a wrench from under the ring, which gets used on Rampage… more chairs are used as they’re set-up as a four-way landing pad, which Primate lands in courtesy of an overhead belly-to-belly suplex. That move again, eh?
A table’s grabbed from under the ring by Primate, but Rampage cuts him off by throwing a chair in his direction… the table’s used as Primate takes a powerbomb on it, before eventually eating a piledriver onto a chair for the win. Decent match, but there was way too much use of weapons – they may as well have booked this as a hardcore match. **¾
Our main event, just like some episodes of that WWE show this crew like to heavily criticise, was a segment! Adam Pacitti’s out with Paul Robinson, Scott Wainwright and Jack the Jobber for some reason. Jack’s taped-up ear looks a lot like he’s Hulk Hogan wearing a do-rag… neither ironically, nor intentionally at the same time. Pacitti invites Martin Kirby out, and challenges him to a match for next week: Kirby vs. Robinson and Wainwright; if Kirby wins, he takes over as GM of WCPW. If Kirby loses… he’s fired.
Kirby agrees to it, and after Jack ferries the contract to him, he signs the deal. Jack’s dismissed… then Pacitti slips into heel GM mode, and announces that Kirby didn’t read the contract, as it’s actually a 3-on-1 match, with Bully Ray added to the mix. Way to make your top babyface look like a fool. Bully Ray comes out and beats on Kirby with the Swords, as Pacitti grabs a pair of pink furry handcuffs to tie Kirby to the ropes with. Credit for them calling back to how Kirby got his title shot and spawned Pacitti’s heel turn all those months ago. The beatdown continues until Matt Hardy comes out and makes the save.
Matt signs his name to the contract, and just like that, this is now going to be a 2-on-3 match. Is that how contracts work? Anyway, Hardy threatens to delete the “Adam Pacitti Club” (which sounds like the world’s worst fanclub that would be in a treehouse somewhere in America); and this is a much better storyline than the sweet bugger all they did to build up Matt for the iPPV!
Some takeaways – and free research for those folks who like to play dress-up:
- Who’s agenting these shows? If the main event of one show has a guy delivering a belly-to-belly suplex through a chair as a high spot… why is that move used in almost every other match?
- Did someone forget to tell Jack to sell the ear? Just wearing tape over it doesn’t mean you’re selling. Even a week later, if someone had bitten my ear, I’d at least be wincing, not walking around like someone had put electrical tape around my head!
- Several weeks on from the Swords’ WCPW debut, they’re nowhere near the tag team picture. It’s good to know that their reign of domination sees them not even think about championships.
- Would it kill this group to build some main event babyfaces? Save for Drew, we’ve got Martin Kirby and Joe Hendry being written as fools. Below that, you’re down to the likes of El Ligero, Liam Slater and Johnny Moss for babyfaces who aren’t cast as morons.
- One final thought: for a company that apparently demands fans to not spoil shows… perhaps don’t give them away on the live stream? In the last segment, it’s easy to guess that Bully Ray and Matt Hardy would be playing a part when they’re a) named as appearing in the show titles and b) haven’t appeared yet!
All-in, good in-ring action from a crew that’s still having to shoulder some inconsistent writing – a crew that evidently isn’t trusted to draw houses and numbers for bigger shows. Think WWE writing and “big name” booking, plus 1PW’s alleged wage bill, and some production traits from WCW. Perhaps that’s where the name spawns from really? Speaking of big name booking… February’s next iPPV is to be headlined by Kurt Angle vs. Alberto el Patron. I think we may be talking about that one nearer the time…