WCPW has recently been affected by YouTube’s recent decision to mark pro wrestling as non-advertiser friendly, so much so that the company had to scrap their plans for the return of their live weekly show “Loaded”. In response, WCPW changed their June 2 Loaded show into a PPV-quality show called Fight Back. How doing a free show on YouTube is fighting back against YouTube is anyone’s guess. This show was pulled by YouTube the next day and the WhatCulture page was given a strike, but a successful appeal got the strike rescinded and the show put back up.

What Culture Pro Wrestling
Fight Back
June 2, 2017
Bowlers Exhibition Center
Manchester, England

Watch: YouTube

WCPW General Manager Adam Blampied comes out and cuts a promo on the recent monetization cuts YouTube made to pro wrestling. He makes a fine speech, talking about how wrestling shouldn’t be lumped in with groups that promote hate. My take on it is that people probably should not have relied on YouTube money to do important things like pay rent, or start a wrestling company.

After that, Prince Ameen comes out. He gets attacked by Sha Samuels, who had called WCPW a “Mickey Mouse company” on Twitter leading up to this. Ameen responded to him, saying that the company always did right by him, and now we’re here. They fight for a while before Samuels chokes out Ameen with a scarf. Samuels gets on the mic and says that WCPW didn’t respect him, so he’s gonna keep badmouthing the company. I’m not sure if having someone claim that the company doesn’t treat their wrestlers the right way is the best idea.

Kay Lee Ray def. Viper

Viper is the bodyguard of the WCPW Women’s Champion Bea Priestley, so whoever beats Viper gets a Women’s Title shot. For a five minute opener, this had way too much going on. Priestley was constantly interfering, the ref was taken out, and Viper got hit with the title. With the ref looking on from the outside, Ray hit Priestley with a Gory Bomb onto Viper. Instead of DQ’ing her, the ref counted the three for Ray. This match would feel right at home on a ’99 WCW show. Too much nonsense in too little time. Kay Lee Ray now gets a title shot against Priestley. *

BT Gunn def. Mark Davis

Davis is making his WCPW debut. Out of Australia, Davis was impressive. (As a matter of fact, you can learn about him and more Australian wrestlers to look out for on this very website!) He’s very agile for a big man, and he has a great energy about him that got this crowd on his side. He and Gunn came out and had a nice little match here. This match was just to heat Gunn up for an important match against Kenny Williams at Built To Destroy on June 17. Gunn got the win here with a ripcord-style DDT, but I definitely want to see more of Davis as a result of this. ***

Kenny Williams def. Aaron Echo

Echo made his WCPW debut on this night as well, but he left much to be desired; it was mostly punches and kicks out of him. I don’t like it when guys wear KT tape, like Williams was tonight, and the opponent doesn’t go after it. I know that it’s probably because the guy is actually sore where he is taped up, but it seems unrealistic that a guy wouldn’t go after an injury in the ring. Personal annoyance aside, this match was ok. Post match, BT Gunn came in and superkicked Williams. Like I said before, Williams has a match against BT Gunn at Built To Destroy for Galloway’s spot in the Pro Wrestling World Cup, so this match was just to get Williams a win. **1/2

Hardcore Match
Primate def. Drake

This match was made to punish Drake for using a wrench to win a match. This was fine but nothing more. I don’t really like random hardcore matches, because they usually lack intensity. This was no exception, as they just did stuff for a while until Primate speared Drake in mid-air to win. Post match, GM Adam Blampied came out and announced that at Built To Destroy, Primate will face Jimmy Havoc to crown the first WCPW Hardcore Champion. Well, at least there’s a belt to fight for now. **

WCPW Internet Championship
Gabriel Kidd def. Zack Gibson

Kidd won the title at the No Regrets show in April. This is his third defense of the title.

This was a very good match. I can see Zack Gibson being a real top guy of a promotion. He’s found a way to cut the same promo at every show and get the biggest boos of the night. He’s also fantastic in the ring, always working toward locking on the Shankly Gates submission. Kidd on the other hand is great at firing up and getting the crowd behind him. There was a spot in this match where Kidd just wails on Gibson for about a minute that was awesome. There was a scary spot toward the end where Kidd hit an Asai moonsault to the outside and hit his feet on the guardrail, the same spot where ROH wrestler TK O’Ryan broke his leg earlier in the year. Fortunately Kidd seemed relatively fine.

Kidd got the win when he reversed a Helter Skelter into a small package. I love that despite being a champion, Kidd still isn’t afraid to just use a roll-up to win. Real good stuff here. ***1/2

Number One Contendership Gauntlet Match
Prospect def. Polo Promotions, Johnny Moss & Liam Slater, Kings of the North (Bonesaw & Corvin) & Glaswegian Culture

The winners will get their title shot against Will Ospreay and Scott Wainwright at Built To Destroy later this month.

Glaswegian Culture, Lou King Sharp and Kid Fite, start off against Johnny Moss and Liam Slater in what begins as a standard tag match. Sharp and Fite worked over Slater, Moss gets the hot tag and runs both men down. Fite bails on Sharp, and leaves him to get pinned by Slater. Damien Corvin and Bonesaw, The Kings of the North, come in next. Same formula, they work over Slater, Moss gets the hot tag. It breaks down into a schmoz until Moss pins Corvin with a dragon suplex.

Jackie Polo and Mark Coffey, Polo Promotions, are in fourth. This one doesn’t go for long. Moss and Slater hit their finish, but Coffey takes out the ref. Slater dives out onto Coffey, but in the ring, Polo hits Moss below the belt and rolls him up to eliminate them.

The final team is Prospect, Lucas Archer and Alex Gracie. The crowd is behind Prospect. Archer gets worked over before Gracie comes in on the hot tag. Polo goes for a fisherman’s suplex, but Gracie rolls him up to get Prospect the win and the tag team title shot. Post match, Polo Promotions attack Prospect, but Moss and Slater run them off. Just as this felt like it was going on too long, it ended. The story with Prospect going on one final run before Lucas Archer’s retirement is fine, but there was nothing in this match that really stood out. **1/4

Number One Contendership Match
Rampage def. El Ligero, Dave Mastiff & Joe Coffey

This match was fine, but again, it was nothing special. Joe Coffey is at his most annoying in WCPW. In WCPW, he does lazy things like doing a Superman Punch to get boos, and doing stupid things like putting a hotel room card in someone’s mouth (even though it never gets boos). Joe Coffey is good, but he just does too much unnecessary stuff here. Ligero almost gets the win with a big splash on Mastiff, but Rampage picks him up from the cover and hits a piledriver to win. Good comedy at the start, but nothing of real substance after that. I am a fan of Rampage getting a title shot at Built To Destroy, since he was in the first ever WCPW Title match at last year’s Built To Destroy event. **1/2

Last Man Standing
WCPW Championship
Joe Hendry def. Martin Kirby

Hendry won the title from Kirby at the Pro Wrestling World Cup Mexican Qualifier show in April. This is his second defense of the title. Joe Coffey, BT Gunn, and Travis Banks (Joe Hendry’s teammates in the Prestige) are banned from ringside, under penalty of an automatic title change.

These two worked hard, and when it was just these two in the ring, the match was very good. But whenever the match was really ramping up, someone would interfere. Before the bell, Hendry put a bounty out on Kirby, with the reward of a spot in The Prestige. Dave Mastiff came out to collect, but then BT Gunn and Joe Coffey came out and attacked Kirby first. Rampage, Primate, and El Ligero came out to fight them off, and it was a huge schmoz to start. Then in the middle of the match, Coffey and Rampage fought out to ringside. Coffey tried to interfere despite being banned from ringside, but Rampage took him out and took Hendry out for good measure.

The last five minutes of this match were good. Hendry gave Kirby a concussion when he won the title in April, so early in the match Hendry kept hitting Kirby in the head. When Kirby got control, he wanted to destroy the champ. Kirby blasted Hendry in the face with a chair and had him down for the count before Dave Mastiff came back out to interfere. El Ligero fought him off before getting in the ring and turning on Kirby with a chair, taking the bounty and joining the Prestige. Ligero hit a C4L on the chair and helped Hendry to his feet for the win. **3/4

Final Thoughts:

Kidd vs. Gibson was the runaway match of the night on Fight Back. Everything else was average at best. WCPW put the matches up separately on their YouTube page, so I would check out the Internet Title match and Gunn/Davis, but nothing else is worth the time.