ICW Fear & Loathing VII

With just a few days to go before ICW present what will be the biggest show put on by a British wrestling company in some 30 years with Fear & Loathing VIII, I decided it might be a good idea to take a look back at last year’s Fear & Loathing event which is available, for free, on their on-demand service. It is a great credit to them that they are gearing up for a show which will play out before 5,000 fans, a sell out no less, in Glasgow this coming Sunday- and shows not only the level of their success (unprecedented in my lifetime) but also the rising popularity of British wrestling as a whole. For my part, I’ll admit to not having seen very much from the company, aside from the Drew Galloway return video that went viral last year and a YouTube clip of Grado’s excellent promo where he put out the challenge to face whoever was champion come this year’s event, and so this was in many respects my introduction to the product. The show, which took place at a sold out Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow, had followed what was another runaway success of a year in the company’s meteoric rise and included their first national tour- promoting shows in England as well as their usual strongholds of Scotland. The main event would see ICW Heavyweight Champion, Jack Jester take on his long time friend, turned rival, Drew Galloway.

ICW had been the subject of a a very high-profile documentary on BBC- Insane Fight Club, which had aired earlier in the year and charted the build up to the promotion’s previous biggest show- Fear and Loathing VI. Insane Fight Club exposed the company to a far wider audience than anybody in British wrestling could have hoped for and had ushered Grado and Jack Jester into the spotlight thanks to their starring roles in the documentary- Grado became the most popular and recognisable face on the UK scene (no matter what some fans of British wrestling might think of it) and Jack Jester became known as the ICW Champion after his victory over Mikey Whiplash was heavily featured. Viewing figures for Insane Fight Club far exceeded a million viewers (or more than 4 times the size of the biggest audiences that tune in for TNA Impact Wrestling over on Challenge) and set the entire company on fire. ICW promoted 24 shows in 2014, far more than ever before, and expanded their reach with shows in Dundee, Newcastle, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham and London. Fear & Loathing VII, just like this year’s event will be, was the biggest show in the company’s history.

It begins with Billy Kirkwood, comedian and lead announcer for the company welcoming the crowd to what he calls Europe’s biggest ever show before he introduces Mark Dallas. Dallas thanks the fans for making all of this happen and the fans reply in turn with a “thank you Dallas!” chant. Dallas then mentions WWE’s decision to change their launch date of the WWE Network in the UK to the same day as ICW’s own on-demand service and threatens to smash Vince McMahon in the face if the WWE owner wants to try and bully his company. Leaving the partisan rabblerousing aside for a second, it is significant, and no little coincidence that this had happened- WWE were clearly concerned about the growth of the Scottish based company at the time (and probably still is) McMahon and company couldn’t dream of the kind of publicity that ICW had received from the BBC from Insane Fight Club. WWE have faced only minimal competition from other US touring companies to its dominance in the UK for the last two decades- but a UK based company, able to tour the country all year, every year would represent a serious threat to WWE’s overall UK business (which has been a lucrative one since the early 1990s).

Dallas then announced that he was responding in kind by booking ICW’s return to the Barrowland Ballroom in March on the same night at Wrestlemania, with tickets set to go on sale the following morning. The fans, unsurprisingly, roared their approval and the night’s action began with a 4-way match over the Zero-G Championship between Big Damo, Kid Fite, Joe Hendry and defending champion, Kenny Williams. Very quickly, ICW’s style becomes clear- this is not your average independent promotion where in-ring action takes precedent over all else- there is a tongue in cheek, attitude era meets ECW kind of vibe going on and in the opening match’s participants there is evidence that ICW have created the characters capable of pulling it off. Kenny Williams for example is simply the 2015 version of Marty McFly from the Back to the Future films, replete with ‘futuristic’ sneakers, cap and jacket. Joe Hendy emerges from the backstage with an entourage and a sing along entrance theme, which Hendry himself leads in amusing adoration of himself. Kid Fite meanwhile is accompanied to the ring by two attractive, young women who he promises will take some clothes off if the audience do a Mexican Wave (a promise which is broken, when after the wave is completed, Hendry comes out- nobody seems to mind).

This is a match that races along at 100mph, with everybody getting in as many big spots as possible, and yet somehow it succeeds in not feeling over crowded despite a run time of only 6 minutes. Damo delivers a fallaway slam and samoan drop on Kenny Williams and Kid Fite- at the same time; Hendry catches Fite in mid air as he comes off the top rope to deliver a fallaway slam of his own; Williams dives to the outside through the top and middle ropes and executes a tornado DDT on Damo as he comes down; Fite delivers a double powerbomb to Williams, the second of which is a devastating tiger driver; Damo powerbombs Fite onto Williams. The contest comes to an end when one of Hendry’s entourage, Tim Wiley sets up a chair but Williams reverses an Irish whip into the chair and Hendry’s head goes straight into it allowing Williams to pick up the pinfall and retain his title. Rating 7/10. With a hot crowd on hand, this was a breathless bout that flashed by in a stream of consciousness. It included big power moves, thrilling aerials, interference and a chair shot and as a stand-alone exhibition of what ICW is all about worked very well. However, with 3 hours of a show still to get through, what price would the show pay for this blitz on the senses from the get go?

The 2^nd match of the night featured Stevie Boy and Kay Lee Ray going up against the team of Liam Thompson and Carmel Jacob in a 2 out of 3 falls match. To keep things at a similar level set by the opener, Kay Lee Ray and Stevie Boy throw themselves out of the ring onto their opponents with stereo suicide dives. Then, when the two male competitors get in the ring, Stevie Boy runs at Thompson who uses Stevie’s momentum against him and rolls him into a small package to get the first fall just seconds into the contest. After the surprise early fall, the big spots continue when Stevie Boy delivers a somersault dive out on to both the heel team, then as the brawl continues, Thompson back body drops Stevie onto the entrance ramp. Back in the ring, Stevie Boy manages to tie the contest up at one a piece when he pins Thompson with a victory roll. After a double clothesline, both men tag out to their respective partners.

From here the match begins to ramp up for its conclusion with all four wrestlers getting involved including a German suplex by Jacob on Kay Lee Ray and a superkick by Stevie on Jacob. As Kay Lee Ray goes to the top rope, Jacob shoves the referee into the ropes, causing Kay Lee Ray to lose her balance, Jacob then takes full advantage and delivers a devastating hangman DDT to get the victory for her team. Rating 6/10. Unfortunately, there are a couple of awkward moments in the final few minutes of this one, which make for a sense of anticlimax and ever so slightly dent the crowd’s enthusiasm for the two teams involved and the respective issues running into it. The post match involves some more shenanigans however, when Jacob and Thompson continue the attack on the babyfaces only for Stevie Boy’s partner in the Buckie Boys, Davey Boy, to make his triumphant return after months out with injury and make the save, before he and Stevie take out Carmel with a 3D to the delight of the crowd.

Next up, as the Sumerian Death Squad came to the ring for their bout with the New Age Kliq, they carried a body bag with them which, it emerged, contained Mikey Whiplash when the team unzipped the bag. This represented Whiplash’s first appearance in ICW since he lost the ICW Heavyweight Title at the previous year’s Fear and Loathing and made the match a 6-man tag with The Sumerian Death Squad & Whiplash going up against NAK members Chris Renfrew, Dickie Divers and Darkside. The match breaks down early on with all 6 men brawling in and around the ring during which Tommy End shows off his class with some cool looking roundhouse kicks to Chris Renfrew and Renfrew hits a big Stunner on Whiplash as he comes off the top rope. Unfortunately there are a couple of loose moves here and there before Whiplash pins Divers after a chokeslam. Rating 5/10. It appears afterwards that Darkside and Renfrew blame Divers for the loss.

After the all action opener, the surprise returns at the end of the mixed tag match and beginning of the previous match, the crowd seemed to be already struggling with fatigue, and perhaps this wasn’t the best time for a long build up video to document the ongoing war between the men in the next match- BT Gunn and Wolfgang. That fatigue seemed to permeate their Last Man Standing collision which was a good effort but never quite reached the epic feel it was shooting for. Again the big spots were wheeled out with Wolfgang hitting a Swanton Bomb over the top rope onto his opponent, before taking the action back into the ring only to gorilla press his opponent back out of it and into the crowd. Despite the long build and the commentators doing their best to hype the personal hatred between the two, there was a lack of intensity through most of the match which detracted from the sense that this was a war. In fairness to them, they had to contend with a crowd already desensitised by an incredibly busy first 3 matches which had made their task all the more difficult. Furthermore, the finish didn’t exactly help their cause, after coming through such a supposed war, a conclusive finish would have been advisable however, after a powerbomb from the top rope by Wolfgang, both men get counted to 10, resulting in a draw. Rating 6/10. After the match it appears as if they want to continue the fight but The New Age Kliq and The Buckie Boys come out to keep them apart. As a consequence, Wolfgang challenges Gunn to a rematch at the Square Go in January in a steel cage.

The Tag Team Titles were on the line in the next bout as Paul London and Brian Kendrick defended against Polo Promotions (Jackie Polo and Mark Coffey). Prior to the contest, Paul London decided to go on a detour to the ring, through the crowd, which took so long that the match began without him! Kendrick’s exchanges with his opponents looked good, but London did not seem on his game and made a couple of errors that brought the crowd’s mood down. After all the high flying that had taken place on the show, even London’s Shooting Star Press was unable to raise the crowd out of their slumber. The finish came after Polo Promotions executed a pop up German Suplex on Kendrick to take the victory and win the titles. Rating 5/10. After a brief post match celebration, Jackie Polo grabs a microphone and claims that Lionheart (who Polo had been taunting for months since the neck injury he’d suffered at the hands of AJ Styles on a Preston City Wrestling Show earlier in the year) didn’t have the balls to meet him tonight. This of course brought out Lionheart, to a rapturous response, who then proceeded to cut a great promo in which he claimed he was unable to get physical as he hadn’t been medically cleared to fight but that if Polo wanted to make it personal, he would give him some further fuel to do so.

Lionheart subsequently presented a collection of artefacts documenting some of the other things that had happened in his life that Polo could pick on before telling Polo that he should remember this night as the night that, when he told him he couldn’t get physical, he lied- before attacking his enemy. Polo however took the advantage and attempted to hit Lionheart with a Styles Clash (the move that had badly injured Lionheart’s neck) before Lionheart escaped and executed a Rock Bottom on Polo. Lionheart then made one more announcement- that his return for ICW was set for the promotion’s next show at the Barrowland Ballroom in March, against none other than Jackie Polo. This was a very well executed angle and brought the crowd back up ahead of the 3 main singles matches of the evening.

The first of those 3 matches was between Noam Dar and Joe Coffey in the final of a best of 5 series of matches between the two. Prior to the match there was an abundance of movie themed joviality beginning with ‘Ironman’ Joe Coffey coming down painted as Marvel’s Ironman character before Dar emerged along with ‘Yoda’ (played by Chris Toal). This once again would have benefited from a little restraint from the early matches. They hit the home straight of the contest when Coffey missed Dar going for a dropkick and catches the referee instead. With the referee down, Coffey grabs a chair and brings it into the ring at which point Yoda tries to ‘use the force’ on Coffey which Coffey responds to by brutally dropkicking him out of the ring. Dar then grabs a light sabre and hits his opponent with it before impressively lifting up his opponent from the top turnbuckle and powerbombing him to the mat, in spite of Coffey being at least 50 pounds heavier. This draws a near fall, after which Dar locks in the Champagne Super Knee Bar, but Coffey reaches the ropes. In another impressive feat of strength, Dar uses a German Suplex on his opponent but Coffey no sells the move and then rattles Dar with a lariat. When Dar kicks out, Coffey smashes him with another discus lariat to take the victory by pinfall. Rating 6/10.

This was a good match but suffered in a similar way to the earlier Wolfgang vs. Gunn match with both wrestlers and commentators trying to sell the idea of this being an epic collision but it not really managing to hit those heights, either visually or with the crowd reaction. Thankfully, the crowd noise hit a peak when Grado stepped out to contest the penultimate match of the evening where he would face ‘East End Butcher’ Sha Samuels. Despite Grado’s new found fame, I wasn’t sure how the crowd here would react to him, given the manner in which his career had taken off in comparison to his contemporaries. I need not have worried however, as Grado was undoubtedly the most popular man on the roster and received the biggest pop from the crowd from his ever-entertaining entrance to ‘Like A Prayer’. ICW did a good job also of building this one along nationalistic lines, with Grado standing up for Scotland against the arrogant Londoner Samuels. As such, half way through the match the crowd strike up a stirring rendition of ‘Flower of Scotland’ in support of Grado’s fight.

There is of course no denying that Grado’s athletic credentials are up for question, let’s face it, he’s never likely to produce what you might call a 5 star match (or what this site might term a 9/10) but that would be missing the point- Grado’s strength is that he has got a lot of people invested in his journey and the narrative that has carried that journey. As such, people care about Grado and will pay to watch him. Unfortunately for his fans on this occasion, Grado is on the losing end of the result when, after Grado goes for a Wee Boot, Samuels pulls the referee into the line of fire, and with the ref down, Martin Stone runs to the ring and takes Grado out with a steel chair. The resultant kick out is greeted with cheers but unfortunately for Grado, and the crowd, Martin Stone is not done and he plants Grado with a hangman DDT before Samuels makes the cover and takes the victory. Rating 6/10.

It was now time for the main event of the evening with Jack Jester defending the ICW Heavyweight Championship against Drew Galloway. Many were surprised at Galloway’s release from the WWE, his name being amongst a group of lower card acts in the company that had fallen victim to the company’s cost cutting measures in the wake of disappointing sign up numbers for the WWE Network. Galloway however had not let the release get on top of him, and rather than give up on his dream of being a pro wrestler now that his WWE journey was over, Galloway made a bid to become more relevant than he’d ever been before- and arguably he achieved that over the course of the next 12 months- his return to ICW was the beginning of this effort, receiving a hero’s welcome upon saving his friend Jack Jester from a gang attack, before turning on Jester immediately and staking his claim for the ICW title.

Jester in the meantime had held the ICW title since the previous year’s Fear & Loathing and while now it seems a given that Galloway would take the victory here, on watching this show, there is a palpable sense of division amongst the ICW faithful. Some are clearly itching to see the company’s first ever Heavyweight Champion become its first 2 time champion also, others are behind Jester, possibly believing that a victory for the man who had been on top of the company during its most successful year should be booked to overcome the former mainstream star (not to mention be rewarded for his hard work during that time). The match gets underway before the bell when Jester, posing with the title belt, quickly turns around and takes Galloway out with it kicking off what would be a wild brawl that would take in pretty much the entire Barrowland Ballroom. Before the match could spill anywhere else, Galloway managed to hit an early Futureshock DDT that almost caused a premature finish. Afterwards the pair brawled to the outside of the ring and up the entrance ramp during which time Jester suffers a cut to his head.

There are a number of occasions during the match where Galloway appears to be selling the idea that he regrets what he is going to have to do to his former friend in order to take the belt from him, though this side of the story seems to get lost halfway through. Jester and Galloway then brawl through the crowd to one end of the hall, and then continue, right to the other side of the hall as fans swiftly clear a path for them. Eventually, Galloway brings out a table and sets it up with the intention of blasting Jester through it however, Jester hits Galloway with a succession of low blows, places him on the table and then walks out of view. We soon see that this is just so he can climb to the stage area behind and then launch himself off of it with a Mick Foley style elbow drop through the table. The match does return to the ring in the end and Jester takes another trip to an unknown location, this time ducking behind the curtain, when he emerges he is accompanied by a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.

With both men now busted open, Galloway avoids the barbed wire baseball bat by throwing a chair into Jester’s head. Claiming the bat for himself, Galloway scrapes it across Jester’s forehead and then after a blow to the head with the bat gets himself a 2 count. Following this both men get more near falls- Jester off the back of a tombstone and Galloway from a regular piledriver. With both men struggling to their feet, Galloway kips up only for Jester to throw a chair at Galloway’s head as he lands on his feet- for the best spot of the match- but again only manages a two count from the resulting cover. With Jester desperate, he retrieves his weapon of choice- the corkscrew but before he can use it, Galloway ducks and then hits Jester with a tombstone of his own, followed by another Futureshock DDT to get the pinfall and win the title. Rating 6/10. Galloway and Jester worked hard here, but their efforts didn’t amount to the great match they were shooting for, when Galloway finally took the victory, it didn’t feel like the major significant moment it should have done, following the year long title reign of the now former champion.

After the match, Galloway and Jester shook hands and hugged, and Galloway celebrated as new champion. Even this sportsmanlike moment was tainted by the fact that it wasn’t the first time during the evening we had seen it after the earlier Coffey/Dar match. In many respects, that was the big issue with this show- whilst there was nothing that was even approaching bad, not a lot stood out thanks to the busyness of the opening match and subsequent attempts to keep the crowd going through the middle section of the event. Understandably, with the company launching their on-demand service the following day and making Fear & Loathing the big launch show for the service, ICW wanted to provide viewers with an instant hit of what the promotion was all about, and so booked the fast paced, high flying, title match opener which featured outside interference and a chair shot to begin, but paid a heavy price with the rest of the show. In the meantime, BT Gunn/Wolfgang, Dar/Coffey and the main event all attempted to convey that a war had taken place, but none of them quite delivered.

Had the company led with a straight singles match, building on that with subsequent matches, using interference, weapons, cool aerials and big spots a little more sparingly, this probably would have made for a far better overall show. Ultimately though, it’s possible the size of the occasion got to them and they attempted to pull off far too much in one night believing that more is more and that in order to live up to the hype of their reputation, they had to pack in as much as possible. Whatever the case, there is no denying that Fear and Loathing VII didn’t derail the ICW train- far from it, the promotion has gone from strength to strength and is this week gearing up for a genuinely massive show- there are only a handful of promotions anywhere in the world right now that are capable of drawing 5,000 fans to a wrestling event. How much further the company can go is anybody’s guess- the title change from Jester to Galloway in particular needs to be reviewed and improved upon if ICW plan to crown Grado as their next Champion at this year’s show. If ICW are to continue to grow, that moment needs feel era defining, the task of pulling that off will be made far easier if they show more restraint early on, than they did here.

Overall Rating: 5.96