January 20th 2004

It's been a while since I've done a Rampage, simply because there's been little to discuss.  December is usually a quieter time for live wrestling, as most parents would rather spend money on actual christmas presents for their children, rather than buy them tickets for a wrestling event. 

Still, now we are well into January, and live wrestling in the UK is back in full force, with Brian Dixon's All Star Wrestling still at the top of the tree, with a major tour underway which will take in towns and cities all over the country, this year including a number which have not hosted wrestling recently.

All Star's usual monthly event at Croydon was complimented by a special sunday afternoon event on January 11th, and the focus of my Rampage today will be comparing the two shows.

The sunday event came first, and with a 3pm start, it was going to be an early start for me.  Earlier than planned actually.  I was meeting Lee at Fairfield Halls, as he was visitng his nan that morning, who lives in London.  But I received a text message from him at about 9am warning me there were major delays with the trains, and recommended that I leave home about 2 hours earlier than I had planned.  So, instead of leaving at 12, I left at 10.30, and thanks to that blithering idiot I ended up getting to Croydon at about 12.30, leaving me with 2 and a half hours to kill before the show started.  I spent it wisely, spending my Virgin Megastore vouchers which I got for Christmas, and exploring the town centre of Croydon, which despite 11 months of regular visits to the town, is something I have never explored.

Anyway, I had killed enough time, so arrived at the venue a good 70 minutes before the show was to start.  Luckily this turned out to be the best plan, as plenty of wrestlers were walking around.  I also got to witness Brian Dixon's foul mouth in full force, which was a treat.  Jorge Castano, Flatliner, James Mason, Johnny Kidd, Doug Williams and Kid Cool were all there, which was nice.

Lee arrived at the venue with about 10 minutes left, so we took our seats.  What we saw was one of the best Allstar shows I have ever seen.  This turned out to be a great relief, as December's show was a boring uninspired event, with little to get excited about.  I probably wouldn't have gone to this show, but I had booked the day off work, and would have been a fool to then sit at home doing nothing. 

The one thing I didn't like was that, as always, Allstar failed to reach their potential.  If they would utilise all the opportunites they have, they could be so much more.  But instead they put together basic cards which give most fans no reason to come back.  While the shows might have really good matches on, fans need more than great matches.  Someone must notice how smaller the crowd is in Croydon than it was 12 months ago.  Still Brian Dixon makes enough money from selling his "merchandise", so he's not bothered.

Anyway, back to the show, the crowd was bigger than the usual tuesday crowd, probably around 100 more people were there than December.  But it does seem no reason was given for the 'new' fans to come back on Tuesday, as the crowd was back down to about 150.  However the show was fantastic with match of the afternoon honours going to the opener between Jonny Storm and Phil Powers. 

Sadly after Doug Williams pinned Robbie Brookside in the tag team match, the finish of the show ending Royal Rumble was disturbingly predictable.  Doug and Robbie were the last 2 men in the ring, and Robbie won!!!  Doug then challenged Robbie to defend his British Heavyweight title against him, but did this match happen on Tuesday....no!!  Why not?  I bet Robbie was available for the show.

Tuesday's event had much the same roster.  It seemed those who saw the tag match on sunday were impressed by the debuting Birchill, who despite playing the villain both nights, received a very friendly reception on Tuesday.

Jake Roberts was in the house, looking terrible, but with main thanks to his partner Phil Powers, and also opponents Dean 2 Xtreme and Flatliner, he was part of a highly entertaining main event.  For some reason Jake was playing the villain, despite being promoted in a major way as the attraction of the show, and also being the good guy at his last appearance in April.

Doug Williams and Five Star Flash had a fantastic match together, with Doug Williams coming out on top, but the crowd's reaction was not quite as fantastic. 

It was also good to see Skull Murphy again, he showed that he can still do what he can do 50x times better than what most of today's youngsters can.  He and James Mason told a great story in their match, and Skull did a great job of getting the crowd to turn on him, after pretending to have changed his cheating ways.  A challenge was made by Skull, wanting to defend his WAW Hardcore title against Mason, but when and where it would happen was not confirmed, despite Mason accepting the challenge.

Sunday's show was better, but Tuesday came awfully close, now all I hope is Allstar can continue this trend for next month, and also their tour shows.  I should be attending Watford in January and Felixstowe and Colchester in March, as well as Croydon next month, so it will be interesting to see what we see on these shows.

It's good to see wrestling come back to my local area in the next few weeks thanks to Phil Powers and Paul Tyrrell.  UWA will be running Chelmsford - which hasn't seen wrestling since March last year where WAW had a fantastic show - on January 31st. And Witham on February 6th, which hasn't had wrestling since July 2002!  I will be at both events as well as the show in Waltham Abbey on January 29th, which has Jake Roberts vs. Bulk headlining.  I will also be at RBW in Enfield and RPW in Biggleswade in the coming weeks. 

Thanks to all those who voted in the 2003 Awards, you can see who won by clicking on the Awards page. 

Until next time, bye bye.