NOTTINGHAM, ENGLAND – A packed schedule, a largely full Waterfront Hall and the knowledge of a rapturous audience rabidly refreshing Veoh.com for the as-live show replay kicking off at midnight GMT was the sort of blend that should have fired up Just Wrestling’s tourists for a repeat of their enormously successful UK debut at Croydon’s Fairfield Halls last week. Whether it was the cold, grey weather in Belfast; the long week spent in provincial Britain after coming to terms with the fact that everything they’d ever heard of was in London; or the traumatic realisation that Belfast was in a part of the country that was neither England nor Scotland and could not in fact be driven to; something fell a little flat tonight. It really shouldn’t have: the second half of the LLII round one match-ups, a JWC defense, an appearance from local hero SurReal, and a mouthwatering three-way dance all promised plenty. And in truth it wasn’t a BAD show. But after Just Wrestling seemed to step it up roughly a dozen notches last week, perhaps it was inevitable that of twelve steps forward the promotion would necessarily take two or three back.
Right from the off we had problems, as a scheduled opener between Meat and Sean Styles was cancelled without explanation. (Rumour has it Styles flew to Dublin, believing Ireland to be one unified entity and geographically far smaller.) Skylar Montgomery followed, and even his heart did not seem to be in it, barely bothering to blather insults at a rowdy crowd before being taken to pieces by Grendel, the Living Nightmare. And if we expected the first Lethal Lottery bout of the night to make up for these false starts, we might have been a tad disappointed, as the mercurial Josh Marquez was a sloppy partner for Sean Edmunds, who struggled valiantly but ultimately unsuccessfully against Maddox Monson and Curtis Penn, the latter visibly ring-rusty having spent a time out of the sport.
Suddenly the noise level in the Waterfront Hall quadrupled as Belfast’s own SurReal emerged, on lease from GCW for one night only. He would be pitted against Impulse, wrestling only his second match outside the States of his career, and despite the latter’s repute one would have expected the home-grown SurReal to take a win without too much trouble, keeping the Northern Irish hordes content. Apparently that’s not how Impulse does things, and the New Yorker came to be seen as a heel, symbolic both of America and of Just Wrestling’s origins, each equally jeered by an audience keen for Just’s one show in Northern Ireland to be a defining moment in the promotion’s history. Impulse seemed slightly bemused by the reception given that it is not often Northern Ireland plays host to wrestlers of such class, and his stubborn refusal to put SurReal over became evident as the match wore on, a sublime display leaving the Tribal War Machine floundering in the deep end conclusively without his armbands. He was barely aware of his surroundings when the Sudden Impact ended things, to a cacophony of boos and the rumoured sight of a Stars and Stripes ablaze.
It was an atmosphere of war, a real hostility taking over the arena, and Impulse’s fellow New Yorker The Back Alley Brawler found himself on the end of a rough reception. The grizzled veteran steeled himself against it but partner Zoey never even emerged for the match, later reported to have fled the Waterfront Hall in fear. Cups of unidentified liquids were raining down on the ring and the night was threatening to get really out of control. Finding himself in an impromptu handicap match, the Brawler took turns fighting off The Magnificent Messiah and Eric “Rigor Mortis” Masterson, each of whom showed flashes of real promise, but with the Brawler’s back definitively against the wall it brought out the best in him, and he knocked his opponents down time and again, determined to carve his way through to round two of the tournament, partner or no partner. And though the sight of brutal right hands smashing into foreheads and noses and chins should not by rights pacify anybody, the Brawler’s determination was winning the crowd back around; at last they had someone to care for. At last they found a reason to cheer. And against the odds The Back Alley Brawler prevailed, nailing the Messiah with The One Hitter Quitter to move through to the tournament’s next round. It would later be announced that the Brawler had been given the opportunity to select one of his opponents to replace Zoey as a partner and had chosen Eric Masterson, whose handshake of respect on conclusion of the match probably earned him this slice of luck.
The next match was the three-way featuring a member of each of the teams that last week progressed through to LLII round two, and had been probably the most hotly anticipated match of the night. Which made it a real shame that Anathkash Dakari ended it so soon. Frank Dylan James was caught clueless right at the beginning when a vicious chop to the neck left him gasping for air and the three-count was completed before The Sentinel could even register what was going on. Less than a minute later he too had fallen, victim to a lightning-quick kicking combo followed by the Metamorphosis. Dakari could have expected to be adopted as the fans’ new hero, dispatching two tournament favourites so soon, but instead he was booed, not having let observers even whet their appetites for such a tasty encounter.
Two matches remained. The final match of LLII round one was scheduled to come first, but in a change to scheduled proceedings would now be the main event. Jay Terror instead made his way out to defend his Just Wrestling Championship for the first time, against two-time champion and self-proclaimed “Godfather of Just” Aaron Nothings. Clearly affected by the media storm surrounding his parody at PRIME’s ReVolution 127, in which Brandon Youngblood, Jason Snow and Boda – some of the world’s biggest superstars of wrestling – hired a local to perform an impression of the notoriously troubled Nothings as a stick with which to beat independent, non-televised promotion Just Wrestling (our website hits jumped fourfold immediately afterward) – Nothings was white-faced and self-conscious. He certainly didn’t look ready for a match – when did he ever? – but instead of the famous displays of resilience we got little more than a whimper as GCW’s new “icon” Terror systematically pulled him to pieces, a particularly lethal backbreaker at one point leaving Nothings in agony with his legs kicking helplessly. With a poor recent record Nothings faced the risk that his legacy as a cult hero will soon be in shreds, but perversely his PRIME “debut” may mean he is now more famous than ever.
With a co-MVP on either team, the main event would be one of the closest LLII calls of round one. “Normal” John Johnson and Steve Harrison partnered against Hush and John Lexicon. It was the tense encounter that had been predicted; with each competitor more than capable of holding his own, nobody wanted to make the first mistake. And after ten minutes of tactical back-and-forth it was that first mistake that settled it, the impressive Lexicon pouncing on Harrison’s slip to hoist him up and over with a German suplex, following up at once with The Epic of Foe to end proceedings and send himself and Hush through to face Impulse and The Sentinel.
Next week we bring you LLII round two from the coldest, deepest, snowiest depths of Scotland. In an unfortunate change of plan there will be no Veoh.com replay, as apparently in Arbroath, the internet hasn’t been invented yet.
