So, it's been a full week since the awesome weekend that was the Kris Travis Tag Team Invitational (KTTTI). I had planned on getting this review out a lot earlier than this, but sadly real life gets in the way sometimes and it's difficult to keep on top of these reviews.
Sunday's events kicked off in the morning with the live Wrestling Friends podcast with 'Flash' Morgan Webster. Webster's guests were 'Bronco' Brendan White, Jim Lea and 'Fat Cat' Lloyd Katt. This podcast sent us all through a massive range of emotions. I can't quite explain what the emotion was listening to Brendan White telling his story of his battle with Cancer. It was obviously sad to listen to but then when the story had a happy ending it was overwhelming happiness. I said on the brief video that I recorded that I've always respected Brendan in the ring and now I have another reason to respect him, too. Jim Lea talks about meeting Pete Dunne at a training school, how they both started ATTACK! together, why he stopped wrestling, how he left ATTACK! and subsequently returned. The main bulk of the humour was supplied to us by Lloyd Katt who gave us a brief rundown on the history of Bowl-A-Rama and how he started wrestling alongside Splits McPins. On the subject of Splits, he suffered a broken nose and Lloyd announced that the champion bowler was unable to wrestle on the card later in the evening. However, he would be doing everything in his power to find a new partner. Just as 'The Modfather' was wrapping up the podcast, Elijah Dahl came out of nowhere to assault our host...sorry...Facilitator to set up a match for the evening's show. After the podcast, I had the chance to meet up with an old friend and work colleague of mine who moved over to Wales a year or so ago. I hadn't seen him since he moved over the to the other side of the River Severn, so it was awesome to spend some time with him and his bride to be before their wedding in May. After a bite to eat and browsing around Cardiff city centre, it was back to Cathays for night two of the Kris Travis Tag Team invitational. Before the show began, I had chance to have a quick catch up with Jim Maitland from Turning Face (@Jim_TurningFace on Twitter). He spoke very enthusiastically about a few opportunities he'd been afforded over the recent months; mainly being able to work Morgan Webster's first match back at Chaos from a couple of weeks prior and then also this event where 'The Modfather' made his return to ATTACK! If you've not checked out Jim's awesome work before, make sure you do because, as I like to say, he's a bit good at what he does! I managed to grab a front row seat with my friend Henry Arnold and we were set for what we knew was going to be another incredible event. On our seats were raffle tickets. It was explained to us that these were given to people in the front row for a "bonus raffle" in the show. We had absolutely no idea what this meant, but hey, anytime we get more raffles in ATTACK! the better! The familiar sound of Reel Big Fish's 'Beer' hit our ears and ATTACK's ring announcer Jim Lea made his entrance. It may be a bias opinion because I absolutely love RBF, but this has to be my favourite entrance music in all of ATTACK! Plus, it suits Jim perfectly! Jim welcomed us back to Cathays Community Centre, or as I'm going to start calling it, the ATTACK! Arena! KTTTI Semi Final - Bird & Boar vs Project Lucha This one started with Bird and Boar jumping Martin Kirby and El Ligero from behind. This had become a theme over the weekend with rule breakers looking to gain an early advantage on the fan favourite wrestlers. I don't mind it happening once, or sometimes even twice on a show, but for my liking it happened far too often during the KTTTI. One of the highlights in this one was when Bird told Boar to get his foot up to the top rope for Bird to use it to gain a further advantage on Martin Kirby. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts at "getting it up" (minds out of the gutter please ladies and gents. This is a family blog!), the crowd got behind Boar in the hope that he could successfully hoist his foot up onto the turnbuckle. Finally, after months of failed attempts, Wild Boar finally managed to successfully stretch those hamstrings enough to get his foot on the top turnbuckle. It was all in vain, however, as Martin Kirby managed to reverse Mike Bird's attack and sent 'Ginger Jesus' head first into Boar's boot to get his team back into the match. The ending came about when Bird and Boar scored with Mrs Patterson's Revenge on Martin Kirby. Referee Shay Purser only got to a count of two as El Ligero came back in to break up the pin. Boar threw Ligero from the ring leaving Kirby alone in a one-on-two situation. As Boar attempted to feed Kirby to the vulture known as Mike Bird, the Yorkshire native managed to avoid punishment from Bird, came back round, caught Boar with a big boot to send him out of the ring and used a backslide on Bird to keep him down for the three count. An awesome match to star the show in my opinion. There was a fantastic show of respect after the match from Bird and Boar to Project Lucha. As Mike Bird put it so eloquently on Instagram "Some things are bigger than being bastards". KTTTI Semi Final - The Models vs Lloyd Katt & ??? One of the big questions of the show was "Who is going to be Lloyd Katt's Partner?" Several suggestions were thrown around by members of the ATTACK! faithful in attendance with many people thinking Mark Andrews would be the man. Remember the "bonus raffle" I mentioned earlier? Well, the winner of that raffle would be the man to partner Lloyd Katt. Jim Lea drew the winning ticket as number 316 and it just so happened that the person holding ticket number 316 was the man who likes to drink as much beer as 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin - CJ Banks! To be fair, CJ wrestled exactly like 'Stone Cold' in this one. He used a Lou Thesz Press, stomped a few mudholes (and walked them dry!) and, of course, drank beer. The humour in this was supplied when 'Fat Cat' tried teaching CJ how to bowl, but ended up falling flat on his face! The Models then tried to pick up Splits McPins' ball but what they neglected to realise was that they didn't have neither the power or the technique to be able to lift ATTACK's version of The Sword in the Stone. Even the assistance of CJ Banks wasn't enough to get the ball off of the canvas. After a few jokes about fingers in holes, Lloyd Katt came back in and picked the ball up! Piece of cake! The Models advanced in this second semi final of the evening scoring the pin on CJ Banks after a 3-D, this was even after initially losing after CJ pulled off a bit of Twin Magic with Sam Bailey! This match was awesome. Some people say there's no room for comedy in wrestling and, in my opinion, they couldn't be more wrong. This one is definitely worth watching on the VOD. Non-Tournament Match - Mondai Lykos vs Mark Andrews Sadly, this one didn't make the VOD, which is a shame because it was absolutely awesome. I can only assume for the obvious reason of Mark's WWE deal. I still think it sucks that the smaller companies such as ATTACK! aren't able to showcase guys like Mandrews on VOD/DVD when other promotions are able to. I'll never begrudge any wrestler for making the choice to go to WWE to earn guaranteed money, but it does leave me with a bitter taste for those who are unable to attend shows and rely on DVD/VOD releases to see some of their favourite wrestlers. Ah well, it is what it is unfortunately. Lykos was in full Lykos mode here, giving the crowd lots of verbal and being on the receiving end of lots of "Shut up, Lykos!" responses. Brave for a wolf without his buddy by his side. (Just a side note, Chris Brookes wasn't on this show. Instead he was busy winning the Rev Pro tag team titles with Travis Banks). The one spot that gets me every time with Mondai Lykos, is the springboard Spanish Fly. If one move could epitomise how much Lykos has improved over the past 12 months, this would be it. If one spot in a match were to define Lykos, though, it'd certainly be the failed Brainbuster's. Poor little wolf. He might actually hit one one day! Speaking of Brainbuster's, this match came to its conclusion rather ironically when Mandrews called fora Brainbuster of his own. Lykos was able to reverse it into a pinning combination and that 15 year old snooker player, Shay Purser, counted a rather quick three to give his buddy Mondai Lykos arguably the biggest win of his career so far! I have to say as well, this is the best match I've ever seen Lykos have in a one-on-one situation. He and Brookes have had countless amounts of awesome matches over the past year, but this for me really helped to establish Mondai as a singles competitor. Non-Tournament Match - Elijah Dahl vs 'Flash' Morgan Webster It's been a long, long time coming but after being away from an ATTACK! Pro Wrestling ring for almost 12 months, 'The Modfather' is back and after what had happened that morning, he was in no mood to be taking any sort of crap from Elijah Dahl, who again attacked 'Flash'. This time, it was a pre-bell sneak attack. Once again, far too many of them. I know they're great for heat, but as mentioned earlier, we had too many of them over the course of this weekend. This match served an incredible purpose in my opinion. They perfectly exhibited Elijah's dominating style while putting Webster's grit and determination over awesomely. A very good story to tell and it was executed very well by two of the brightest stars on the ATTACK! Pro Wrestling roster. Webster picked up the win here using The Strangler, forcing Elijah to tap out. We did have an appearance from EC-Drew when Elijah thought it'd be a great idea to stay away from Webster when 'Flash' started to show the passion that Elijah had earlier questioned him on. However, what Elijah wasn't counting on was Drew Parker coming through the curtain with a Singapore Caine. I'm expecting a match between these two to take place at the Cardiff Walkabout show on April 2nd. As for Webster, it was great to see him back in the ring doing what he does best. Up until this point I'd see two of his matches since his return and I could not be happier to see him back. Let's just hope that he can soon get back to the heights that he was at before the unfortunate injury last year that cost him almost a full year of his career! The interval was up next, and it was only a brief one as there was lots of raffling to get through. I picked myself up a Defend Indy Wrestling shirt from Mark Andrews and had a few minutes talking to him about his match with Mondai Lykos. We both agreed that he should be working for bigger companies like PROGRESS, ICW and Rev Pro and hopefully that isn't too far off because he's an incredible worker. The raffle was up just after the interval. There were a dozen or so prizes (including the usual t-shirt and DVD prizes) to win so I'll try to list as many of them as I can remember: - Morgan Webster's Lionhat - 5 bottles of some form of wine/champagne (these were individual prizes) - The "Player 1" and "Player 2" signs from the "Press Start" shows - An in ring photo op with ATTACK! Pro Wrestling 24/7 Champion, Warren Owen (who lost the title but the chap who won it had to return the title to Warren because he wasn't allowed to appear on the ATTACK! Vimeo channel) - The KTTTI banner signed by all of the wrestlers in the tournament. ATTACK! Pro Wrestling Championship Match - Chief Deputy Dunne (w/ Los Federales Santos Jr.) vs Nixon Newell The Anti-Fun Police were out first. Chief Deputy Dunne said that there was no man on the ATTACK! roster who could beat him for the title, so Nixon Newell answered this apparent open challenge. And for those who think they can see me singing along to Nixon's entrance music, they're sadly mistaken. Basically, during the break, I was abducted and replaced by someone who looks like me and apparently likes B*Witched. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. The chap who was sat in my seat was kind enough to take some notes for me and he said that this was one of the best matches of the weekend and having watched it back on Vimeo, I can only agree with this. For me, Damien Dunne is one of the most under rated wrestlers in the UK at this moment in time. He knows how to get under the skin of an audience both in the ring and on the mic. And branding the ATTACK! Pro Wrestling Championship the 'No Fun Title' was a stroke of Anti-Fun genius! There were too many awesome spots to talk about during this match so I'll pick out a couple of my favourite moments for you: - Of course, we had the usual "fun" chants directed at Chief Deputy Dunne who always reacts perfectly to them. - There was the cross body off the top rope to the outside by Nixon to Chief Deputy Dunne and Los Federales Santos Jr. Nixon did take a brief moment to snack on Pringles given to her by a fan in the front row. - The springboard lungblower which Dunne connected with only for Nixon to power out of at the count of one. Unfortunately for Nixon Newell, the ATTACK! Pro Wrestling Championship didn't change hands in this match. After Newell scored with a Destroyer, she covered the champion but lurking on the outside was Los Federales Santos Jr. who pulled Chief Deputy Dunne's foot onto the bottom rope meaning Shay broke the count at two. Nixon realised what happened and, from the apron, hit Santos Jr. with a PK to send him crashing. Turning her focus back to Dunne, Nixon climbed to the top rope but when she came down, The man from Scotland Yard caught her with a vicious Spear before nailing Nixon with the flatliner/DDT move he's used so effectively as of late to retain his title. With this successful defence of his ATTACK! Pro Wrestling title, you have to believe that Chief Deputy Dunne will go on to face Eddie Dennis at Cardiff Walkabout on April 2nd in a rematch from Gorilla Pressed. As for Nixon Newell? Well, I'm sure she'll finally be getting her hands on Chris Brookes in what's likely to be Nixon's final ATTACK! match before her trip across the Atlantic to join Los Federales Santos Sr. in Orlando, Florida! Shooting Star Four Way - 'Raving' Danny Jones vs 'The Very Best' Sam Bailey vs EC-Drew vs 'Bronco' Brendan White This match was named in honour of Kris Travis. It was a way for guys not in the tournament or who had been eliminated from the tournament to pay their respects to Kris Travis. As always, the one question I asked about this was "Which ECW legend will Drew Parker wrestle as tonight?" It turned out to be 'The Drew Beast' Rhyno. I'm still waiting on Bam Bam BigeDrew to make an appearance. It was fair to say that Brendan White got the best pop out of the four. Amazing to see really because the guy is immensely talented and, in my opinion, is destined for huge things in wrestling. The main talking point in this match were the injuries. 'Raving' Danny Jones had a cut under the eye that looked pretty bad at first. I've seen wrestling since and he appears to be OK now, thankfully. The other injury was to Drew Parker. It seemed to happen when he attempted a sunset flip off the top rope and landed awkwardly on his foot. Initially I thought he'd broken an ankle or his foot, but it was apparently soft tissue damage. It was Brendan White who picked up the win in this one after scoring with a Black Hole Slam on Danny Jones (I'm guessing that's what Brendan is calling the move anyway. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). I sincerely hope Brendan is afforded more opportunities moving forward in ATTACK! Also, I really, really want to see Sam Bailey gracing the ATTACK! ring in the future. I was thoroughly entertained by his in ring work over the course of the KTTTI weekend. After the conclusion of this match, it was announced that (after a few last minute donations from members of the audience) the final amount raised for Cavendish Cancer Care was £5,025. This really was an amazing achievement by everyone involved so anyone who purchased a ticket, raffle tickets or put some money into the donation buckets, you should be extremely proud of the contribution which you made. KTTTI Final - The Models vs Project Lucha The final of the first ever Kris Travis Tag Team Invitational was contested between four of Trav's best friends in wrestling: Martin Kirby and El Ligero vs Danny Hope and Joey Hayes and the way this match went, I can't think of a more suitable that this match could've played out. The first thing worth noting about this match is the attire of Martin Kirby. Martin was wearing his Project Ego attire. For those who don't know, that was the name of the tag team of Martin Kirby and Kris Travis. And boy were they a successful team! The second thing I'd like to mention is the absolutely amazing level comedy these teams entertained us with. As I said earlier, some people will tell you that there's no room for comedy in wrestling. If you're one of those people, sit back and enjoy this match. It was 45 minutes of incredible entertainment and I've listed just a few of the moments below: - Both members of The Models squatting referee Shay Purser. - The WWE taunts traded between Danny Hope and El Ligero. - Joey Hayes pulling Martin Kirby's "hair". - The chicken fight leading to Joey Hayes hurting his willy. I got a small "rub it better" chant going after this part of the match. Shay refused to help Joey in his time of need and subsequently disqualified both teams, announcing himself as the winner. With that, the glass shattered and out came CJ Banks to a huge ovation from the Cardiff faithful. CJ hit the ring, nailed Shay with a Stone Cold Stunner and was announced as the referee. Heck, he even had the zebra stripes...well, sort of. He had what looked like the tights worn by Drewy Funk the night before and put them on like a shirt. From then on it was wrestling until the final bell with the highlight being Danny Hope's dive from the ceiling onto the other three men in the match. That ceiling really should come with a health and safety warning attached to it with the amount of people who've come off the top of it since ATTACK! started using the old Bingo Hall at Cathays. The ending came about after a series of attempted pinning combinations between Joey Hayes and Martin Kirby with the latter finally being able to keep 'Hot Stuff' down for a three count to win the first ever Kris Travis Tag Team Invitational for Project Lucha. After the match, the ATTACK! faithful showed their respects to both teams for their efforts over the course of this magnificent weekend. The entire ATTACK! roster and fans surrounded the ring to applaud both Project Lucha and The Models for an incredible main event match. Danny Hope took the mic and thanked Mark Andrews for his part in arranging the weekend and also thanked the fans for letting them come to ATTACK's home to entertain us. Believe me when I say this, it's the fans who should be thanking the wrestlers for the entertainment they provided us with. That just about wraps up the weekend that was the 2017 ATTACK! Pro Wrestling Kris Travis Tag Team Invitational and we now look forward to the next event, 'My Sacrifice', at Cardiff Walkabout on April 2nd which I'll be in attendance for. Until then, make sure you follow ATTACK! on all forms of social media, get yourself a ticket to 'My Sacrifice' and check out their past shows on Vimeo.
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The weekend of March 4th and 5th hosted the first ever ATTACK! Pro Wrestling Kris Travis Tag Team Invitational (KTTTI) from Cathays Community Centre in Cardiff, South Wales. The aim for the weekend was to raise as much money for Cavendish Cancer Care as was humanly possible over the two days, as well as having an absolute blast with the amazing wrestling which we had witnessed.
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