After looking at the Slobberknocker Box, it’s time to have a look at one of their main competitors in the UK – the WrestleCrate.
We’re looking at the UK offshoot of the WrestleCrate, which ships worldwide, but offers a different selection of items to the “other” WrestleCrate. Starting this month, WrestleCrate UK has gone into partnership with PROGRESS, and their first item this month was… a t-shirt!
The PROGRESS shirt has a cool design, and is in keeping with some of their earlier retro t-shirts. It’s a red and black t-shirt, with a very funky/retro logo, almost like a 1950s-inspired design. Very nice, and I’m sure it’ll be seen en masse at PROGRESS’ Brixton show later this month!
The second shirt was a grey Aztec-style t-shirt, featuring two luchadores in the middle of a crossbody. The catchphrase? “Lucha thing”. Very subtle, and it’s something that you could get away with wearing without it screaming “wrestling”, like a lot of shirts seem to do.
Two DVDs came in the ultimate box this month: firstly, the best of LCW (volume one) – Leicester Championship Wrestling. You can probably guess where they’re based, and the best of DVD features matches with the likes of Curt Hawkins, Chris Masters… and Joseph Conners. Points for getting that joke.
The second DVD was of Ring of Honor’s 14th Anniversary Show from earlier this year. Which we’ve reviewed here (since New Japan posted it on NJPW World for free, ahem!)
Next up, was a mug coaster, which was designed in the vein of a Superman punch from Roman Reigns. It’s in a comic-book style design, so it’s something that doesn’t scream “wrestling!” or “Roman Reigns” in case you’re using it around company who like neither of them. In line with the “small items you could easily miss” brigade, was a “Network and Chill” badge in the style of a Love Heart.
A book was thrown in, and unlike the usual Lootcrate booklets that Ashens rips to shreds, this is actually something worth keeping. In association with Wrestling Arcade, it’s an A-Z of gimmick matches, with a nice selection of them, with some cool pixel-art of said matches. Not too in-depth, and a nice thing to have…
Finally, there’s a signed print of Billy Gunn. It’s a cartoon-style sketch, drawn by Earl Tomkins, of him in his DX days doing the “we got two words for ya” catchphrase, and looks pretty nice.
WrestleCrate UK subscriptions can be purchased via http://www.wrestlecrate.co.uk – as with the Slobberknocker Box, you select a shirt size, but they don’t offer children’s sizes – and then you get the choice between “standard” (at £11.99) and “ultimate” (at £21.99). Typically the standard boxes will include a t-shirt, a DVD and a print, amongst other stuff, whilst the deluxe boxes will give you a second, different, shirt, print and DVD.
The website contains full pricing and shipping details, and also lists the cut-off point for each month – typically the cut-off point is around the 12th of the month, and boxes dispatch around two weeks later.