ICW 5th Annual Square Go

Back in November, Insane Championship Wrestling packed the SECC Arena in Glasgow for Fear & Loathing VIII with 4,000 people- a giant crowd for a British wrestling show in modern times, and confirmed their place at the top of the British wrestling tree. In my review of the event however (which can be found here) I wasn’t overly enamoured with much of the show, which gave me a similar impression of the promotion as I had seen when reviewing the previous year’s event. Featuring large amounts of overbooking, too frequent an amount of sloppy wrestling and a trigger happy approach to ‘surprises’, I concluded that ICW wasn’t for me. One thing I was unable to criticise however, was the expertly executed conclusion to Grado’s rise to the top of the promotion in an emotional contest with Drew Galloway in the main event of the show. Grado’s journey had lasted 4 years and had taken him from being a comedy figure, desperate just to be booked, to the point of being British wrestling’s biggest star and, perhaps more importantly, a genuine money draw. I therefore opted to persevere with ICW for their 5^th Annual Square Go event which would feature Grado’s first high profile defence of the title he won at Fear & Loathing and their take on the Royal Rumble match.

TNA Genesis 2011

In January 2010 TNA signed Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff to contracts in a bid to turn the wrestling world on its head, reprise the Monday night war and lead the company to new heights of commercial success. There were a number of changes made, perhaps the most significant of which was the company’s decision to take Impact head to head with Raw on Monday nights and attempt to engage in a ratings war with the established WWE programme. That was, of course, an absolute failure; ratings for Impact dropped to such an alarming level when on at the same time as WWE’s flagship show, that TNA was forced into a humbling retreat, back to their regular time slot despite heavy investment in talent including Jeff Hardy, Rob Van Dam, Ric Flair, Mick Foley, Mr Anderson, Sting and others. By the time Genesis 2011 rolled around however, TNA had recovered slightly from their embarrassing defeat, and with the new regime (that not only included Hogan and Bischoff, but also involved Vince Russo and Dixie Carter herself) having been around for a full year, they were presumably presenting the vision for the product that they had from the beginning.

ICW Fear & Loathing VIII

From a commercial perspective, Fear & Loathing VIII was a phenomenal success for Insane Championship Wrestling before it even took place. Managing to draw a genuine sell out crowd of 4,000 to the SECC in Glasgow demonstrated exactly how big the promotion has become and how much of a clamour there was to see Grado’s bid to win the ICW World Championship in the main event. There can be no denial now- ICW is the real deal and the only question left is: how big can they get? That very question may be answered this time next year when, as was announced by ICW owner Mark Dallas at the beginning of the show, the company promote next year’s Fear & Loathing event at the Hydro Arena- a 13,000 capacity venue where WWE hold their annual shows in the city on their visits to these shores. You might argue that such a jump within a year is over ambitious for any wrestling promotion, but saying that would be to ignore the phenomenal rise the company has enjoyed over the past couple of years- and specifically in the 12 months since Drew Galloway won the ICW World Title back at Fear & Loathing VII.