September 28th 2004

Wow, it seems like ages since I did a Rampage, and I guess it has been! 

But this time I have lots to go on a Rampage about.  Mostly train fines and long walks, but it all relates to wrestling one way or another.

Last time we were just coming up to RAMWA's debut show in Shoreditch, London.  This truley unique combination of rock music and wrestling would make for an interesting night.

The wrestling was mostly first class, and the crowd, which was made up of largely non wrestling fans were well into everything on offer.  The first match pitted two guys in masks called Mace and The Question.  Their high flying ability put so many others to shame, as they showed off some amazing moves which I'd never seen before. 

The crowd really felt a part of the show as there were no seats, the room was relatively small and cramped and we were right up against the ring. 

The 4 corners match between Ashe, Justin Richards, Tom DeMorney and Jorge Castano was a bit all over the place but a really intense and violent match up nonetheless.  And the crowd loved it.

Leroy Kincaid vs. Joe Riot was a hard hitting smash mouth affair, which again the crowd loved.

The main event was not too good wrestling wise, but the crowd were really into it, as one of the teams were members of one of the bands playing (one of whom was also the promoter of the event).

The music was not my kinda stuff, but still enjoyable, and the lesbian dancers were rather nice!

I am very much looking forward to the followup event, which is this wednesday nice, also at CARGO in Shoreditch.

The next weekend I went to my first ever FWA Academy show.  Along with JB and The Slim we went to a lovely little restaurant in Havant before heading to the Leisure Centre for the debut of the 6 sided ring.  Of course FWA fans will have you believe that the Academy aren't copying TNA by using the 6 sided ring, because they have had it for years.  But they sure did choose a convenient time to start using it didn't they!!  Not only that but they totally ripped off the TNA X Cup format.  Still the show was enjoyable, with a mixture of really good wrestling and utter junk.  Justin Richards vs. Aviv Mayaan, Raj Ghosh vs. Spud and Raj & Rishi Ghosh vs. Spud & Jack Storm stodd out as good matches, while Dan James vs. Dan Head and Harry Milles & Dan James vs. Dan Head & Max Voltage stood out as utter junk.

Also worthy of note was Mark Sloan coming up to me after the show and saying "I know this man, how are you?" and shaking my hand, despite the fact I've never met him before in my life.  Ho hum.

A couple of weeks later the UWA returned to Ipswich, and naturally me and my Pinfall Pals were there filming the prestigious event.  And what a show it was!  The crowd was slightly smaller than the UWA's last trip to Ipswich, possibly due to an England World Cup Qualifying Football match the same night, but they were well into it.

Everything on the show was great, especially the main event, which the crowd went nuts for, pitting the Superflies against the New Liverpool Lads. 

The DVD of this huge event will of course be released through Pinfall later in the year, so keep an eye on www.pinfall.net.

The next day I went to FWA Hotwired in Broxbourne with Lee, who was going to his first FWA show in 11 months!

The journey there was not pleasant though.  About 5 minutes away from Broxbourne we were and we get asked for our tickets.  No problem of course, I had a valid ticket.  Or so I thought.  Turns out you can't use a travel card to get to Broxbourne, but the staff at my train station never told me this.  They always have told me I can use a travelcard to get to Broxbourne.  So despite the fact that it was the staff at Witham Train Station's fault I'm the one who gets fined.  Totally ridicullous.  Then I find out that there's some internet geek a few carriages up who intentionally used an invalid ticket to save money and gets away with it.  I naturally wrote a letter of complaint but was told it was my fault for not having a valid ticket, so I am gonna write back to them and ask why I should have to pay a fine for the staff making a mistake.

Anyway, the show was good, and it was nice to actually be at the show with someone, as most the FWA shows recently I have sat alone!

So onto this past weekend.  I made the amazingly long train trip down to Battle in East Sussex....alone!!  What a lovely place Battle is.  I looked around the town for a bit, before heading into Tourist Information to find out how to get to the Wylands International Angling Centre for an afternoon of wrestling.

So I was told it was about a mile up this road with no footpaths.  No problem I suppose, as I sure ain't paying 8 quid for a taxi.  A mile!!!! She must have been joking.  It seemed I had been walking forever when I finally saw a human walking the other way.  I thought I'd ask him if he knew where the place was.  Before I got the chance though, he asked me!!  He was heading back, cos he thought he must have passed it.  I assured him I hadn't passed it, and we should carry on.  Eventually we got there, that was a seriously long walk.  In fact it was about a 75 minute walk from the town.  My back was killing me as I had a very heavy bag with me.  But still we were there, and it was just starting to rain. 

The show was supposed to happen on the field there, but because of the weather they moved it into....a cattle barn!!!  Wow, this was gonna be different.  Turns out the wrestling was fantastic, all the way through.  We decided to share a taxi back, as that was a long walk.  We managed to find 3 other people heading back to the station (including Premier Promotions' timekeeper/referee John Allen) to share the taxi with us, which was good.

I didn't get the train home though, no no no.  I got the train to Orpington in Kent for IPW:UK's debut show. 

Overall this was another very good show.  A nice mixture of styles, and a nice mixture of old and new school attitudes towards the presentation of the show was cool.  I also met Spud for the first time, as well as Super Dragon.

The announcement of Nick Mondo from CZW for the next show kind of turned me off though.

Anyway, it's been a good month, and this upcoming month should be awesome, with RAMWA, 3 WWE shows, Premier Promotions, UWA and plenty more on the table.

October 17th 2004

So, on September 29th the RAMWA crew returned to CARGO in London for their 2nd event.  The promotion for this event was poor in comparison to their debut, which was advertised on the Wrestling Channel months before the show.  This one was only even announced 2 weeks before the event.

Still roughly the same number of people were there, although if what I hear about only 10 of those people actually paying to get in, that is pretty poor.  Still it was another great show! 

The addition to the roster of well known names like Alex Shane, Paul Travell and Dominator was an interesting move, and Alex Shane winning the Southern Area Championship should provide for some good moments on future shows.

A huge couple of events took place on October 6th and 8th in my home town of Colchester.  2 of the biggest names in Mexican wrestling made their way to the UK for the first time for the Arena Mexico Tour, co promoted by the UWA. 

El Hijo Del Santo and Blue Panther battled for a gruelling 35 minutes with Santo picking up the win at the Colchester Arts Centre on October 6th.  I was there of course, and fan cam footage of this match will be available on a future UWA DVD.

I couldn't make the rematch 2 days later at Essex University, but I hear it was just as great.  This match will also be available on future UWA DVDs.  Some people were calling the first match "British" Match of the Year, which is pretty amazing.

The reason I couldn't make the rematch was because WWE were at Wembley Arena, a show I had bought tickets for in June!

Our seats were pretty good, the best I have ever had for a WWE show (that wouldn't last long though), and the show was amazing.  The sell out crowd of 10,500 were hot all night, and the action was decent.

It was a long long day, as we got to Wembley at 12, with the intention of seeking out autographs and the like.  No luck though.  I really don't like that arena.  Not only does it look horrible from the outside, finding your seats is impossible, and it is fenced off totally, so getting autographs is pretty much impossible.  So we were there for hours and hours before giving up and going to McDonald's.

After the show we hung around for a little bit longer, but decided to give up and go home.  This was when the tricky stuff begun.  Getting to Wembley was as easy as pie, a train direct from Liverpool Street.  Getting back would prove tricky though.  We had to go back one stop then change.  Then finally going in the right direction we had to change at Finchley Road, Baker Street and Moorgate before finally arriving at Liverpool Street.  After all the worrying and stuff that we had missed the last train, we actually had 25 minutes to spare.  Lee had to stay round though, cos he couldn't get home.  Haha.

The saturday I was gonna go to Harlow for a small show, which turned out to be in a room on top of a pub, but I opted out in favour of rest.

Because it was gonna be a tiring few days!  I woke up monday morning, and got the bus to Witham.  Then of course the train to Liverpool Street, a quick stop off at McDonald's and then on to Victoria.  With almost an hour before my coach left I walked to Buckingham Palace, had a little look around and then made my way to the coach station where I met up with Mario and Ben.  The journey up to Manchester was surprisingly not bad, and we arrived 7 minutes before the designated time.  Mario and co. had to find a hotel, but after a number of failed attempts I walked to the train station to meet up with Tom, who had my ticket.  On the way to the venue we saw Mario again, who had found a hotel.  That was the last I would see of Mario as he was going home tuesday morning, I was staying until wednesday afternoon.

So after looking around Manchester a bit, we joined the huuuuuge que, which was going well into town.  It moved extremely fast though, and before we knew it we were in the venue.  No bag checks or anything like that.  Another reason I don't like Wembley.

My first time at the venue, and man is it big!!  So I find my seats, which were awesome.  2nd row on the floor by the aisle.  And, even better, all the people in front of me moved to the aisle everytime someone came to the ring, so I moved to the front!!

Naturally this was a huge event, being televised worldwide, and on a 5 hour delay in the USA.  One treat was seeing Robbie Brookside wrestle for WWE, against Maven.  We had all read that Burchill, Thunder and Drew McDonald were also supposed to be wrestling, but that never happened.  Drew was backstage however.  There were 10 matches on the show, but none bigger than the tag team title match with La Resistance against Eugene and the UK's own William Regal.  Wow is all I can say, the crowd were so hot for this match, and we all thought the title's had changed hands, but that bad man Eric Bischoff ordered the match to continue, cos Regal had cheated.  Then of course La Resistance cheated to win.  Booooooo!!

After the show I hung around the arena a bit.  We all saw glimpses of Flair, Lawler, Jericho, Michaels, Benoit and Batista, but didn't meet anyone. 

So I walked into town with a freelance lighting rig operator who was working on the show, and showed me where the bus station was.  He had some interesting insights into the backstage world of WWE, but nothing I didn't already know.

While waiting for the bus a lady - drunk as a goat - approached me, asking how to get to Blackpool.  She then asked me if I wanted to come back to hers with her!!  Haha.  Northerners!

After missing the bus stop I walked back to my mate Dave's, who after going to University in Manchester, decided to stay there.  Handy eh?

The next morning I helped him put posters up around town for his quiz night he runs every tuesday, then looked around Manchester.  It really is a fantastic place.  I went to the cinema, where I watched possibly the worst film ever made......Open Water.  I was alone in the cinema, which has never happened before!

When I eventually went to the arena I met the most gorgeous and lovely girl ever.  We chatted for a while, but she had to go home to meet her mates before coming back to the arena for the show.

After a trip to KFC I was casually walking around near the library where I met none of than referee Tim White.  I asked him how he liked Manchester, asked him if he had ever heard of the UWA, and got his autograph.  Nice guy.

The Smackdown! show was not as good as RAW, but still great.  My seats were right at the back, but we moved forward a bit, cos there were some empty seats.  The show actually came across better on TV than RAW though.

We were treated to an 18 man Battle Royal which was cool.  When you compare a DQ ending with Guerrero vs. Reigns, to a 6 man tag with Evolution vs. HBK, Edge & Benoit with a clean finish, you know which show was better.

So after the show I met up with Dave in town, where we were going clubbing, to celebrate his mate's 22nd birthday. 

We never got in the club though.  Dave decided he needed to go to the toilet, and did it on the wall around the back of the club.  He was seen though, and ejected and banned from the premises.  So rather than go somewhere else we went home, so he could get an early night. 

The next morning I slept in, then got the coach back to London and the remainder of my journey home.

So overall, it was well well worth going to Manchester for WWE's TV tapings.  I only went all that way as it was the first ever time etc. 

Now I've done it though, I am very pleased, and very poor