Last week on Ruckus: OnlyFitness cost Autumn Powers a win in the main event six person elimination match • Super Avión got his first QCW win by beating Ashley from the Game Changers • Nazir el-Fadal interrupted Jupiter Jones' Triple Crown ceremony but got told off by, of all people, Duck Eko; Jones celebrated further later on in the program by retaining the TV title over rival “Dashing” Pierce Moore
The show opened with a brief message from various QCW personalities thanking veterans for their service and sacrifices in a nice touch.
The show kicked off with a pretape from the Commissioner's Office, where Holmes announced that due to his ruining the Triple Crown ceremony last week, Duck Eko is serving a two week paid suspension and had already paid off both and a half dollars of his fine. Julius Duquesne III will be doing the ring announcements tonight and Duck will return on the Black Friday limited commercial interruption edition of Ruckus. With that out of the way, Holmes thanked us for our time, wished the five competitors in the main event tonight good luck, and the pretape ended after that.
Show open rolled from there with the biggest change being Jupiter Jones in the cavalcade of champions that finishes the open, holding up both the Triple Crown trophy and the TV title at separate times.
The Arena's sold out once again, we've got pyro to burn and Quality Controllers to get hyped. Steve and Starr hyped up the fighting five way elimination match in the main event as well as Autumn Powers putting the QCW Women's World Championship on the line in an open challenge, but Ruckus would kick off with two contending teams in the tag division.
| • OnlyFitness (w/Scott Warren-Tisch) d. Science Fiction Double Feature • | The former #1 contenders got a very, very narrow win here over the resuscitated SFDF. Jane Doe being back from injury has had her & her partner Cindy Monet hovering in title contention in both the women’s and tag divisions - aspirations held also by OnlyFitness, and thus they fought it out here.
Fitting that for a match that was a virtual coinflip the entire time it was happening that it got decided in the margins; the finish came down to Lolo Vuitton of OF against Jane from SFDF. Jane looked to have Vuitton wrapped up and went for her Standard Finisher but Lolo slipped out the back, then a few moments later Lolo went for her Bloody Shoe but ended up getting countered into a rollup by Jane. Both women exchanged rollups for the next half minute before Lolo sat down on a Jane sunset flip attempt and pinned her legs over her shoulders to barely keep her down for a three count. ***
Jane didn’t seem to fully comprehend what had just happened to her in the ring even if her partner Cindy did, facepalming and looking exasperated while OF proudly crowed to the camera about their win, saying that they still were going to whip QCW into shape, pick up some championship gold along the way and in Lolo’s terms “look oh so fine” doing so.
From there the announce threw to a video package talking about the long, proud tradition of having December PPVs in the Greensboro Coliseum, and QCW joining that tradition next month with Season's Beatings.
It'll be headlined by a World title match, and Season's Beatings itself will have a major announcement from the Commissioner's Office about QCW's 2023; Steve and Starr implored fans to make sure that they were following QCW on social media to get more updates on Season's Beatings.
Let Us Take You Back To Last Week where Super Avión got the first win of his QCW career over Ashley of the Unified World Tag Team champions the Game Changers. Understandable that Avión would want to celebrate getting off of a lengthy schneid; equally understandable given their close knit nature was the fact that celebrating for that long over beating one of the Game Changers would cause another one of them to want to face off against him this week as a result, and here we are.
| • QCW Unified World Tag Team champion “Dark Mirror” Bennett Carpenter (w/the Game Changers) d. Super Avión • | The Avión win streak ends at 1, but it’s not entirely his fault.
Hard fought, borderline stiff match for both segments that it lasted, Avión looking to impose his will on the smaller Carpenter and succeeding at it early only for the Dark Mirror to pick up on some of his tendencies after a few minutes and start rolling out counter offensives. Carpenter fought off Aces High where Szabo couldn’t last week, and eventually had Avión in press slam position before throwing him up and catching him coming down with a Codebreaker. Carpenter hooked a leg and the referee made a count – completely missing Avión’s far leg under the bottom rope after 2 and counting the 3. ***
Carpenter and the other Changers celebrated their way up the ramp, while Avión read the zebra the riot act over missing his breaking the plain, and was trying to get the announce to put a replay up on the QualiTron 3000 when we went TOTHEBACK~!, where Enya Face brought on her guests: the Red, White and True, "Swamp Trash" Ted Holland and "the Voice of Freedom" Drake Tremble.
The crowd booed as they came on, Holland shaking then kissing Enya's hand before the interview started. Tremble was in high spirits: the Voice of Freedom was going to get another main event win tonight - Teddy was going to bring back the TV title and save it from that thug Jupiter Jones - and if Bobby Bash wanted to be a winner he'd join them. But the ball was in his court. Either way, the people should be learning from a couple of proud American winners instead of not shutting up when they were talking - Tremble apologized but ended the interview, leaving Holland behind to leer at Enya for a few seconds before receding into the darkness.
Back in the Arena, "Mota" by the Offspring brought out Autumn Powers to a sizeable pop. As she slapped hands with a couple of fans on her way to the ring, the announce hyped her open challenge for the QCW Women's World title on the other side of a few commercials.
When we came back from the break the Autumn Powers chants were loud in the Arena, as QCW's longest reigning champ thanked the fans for their support once again. She laid out the open challenge for the uninitiated, but added she was making a couple of notable exceptions: OnlyFitness. After what they did to her in last week's main event, they don't get a shot at this. But if anyone else thought they were going to stop her after four straight months, they could come down to the ring and try it – they just better not whine and complain after they lose.
She handed off the mic to Duck and waited; a few beats went by with her waiting followed by an unfamiliar theme hitting the PA: Billie Eilish's "you should see me in a crown". The crowd and Autumn looked towards the entryway but nobody appeared through the curtains…at least for a while.
And then a buzz grew in the crowd and turned into a pop as out came "Night Sky" Diana Spare to fight for the gold. Autumn looked at her with a raised eyebrow as the announce put over Spare winning the Cauldron of Chaos match at Mischief Night. Spare confirmed she was making the challenge and said it was good to see Autumn, but it would be even better to get her first QCW title. Despite the smack talking beforehand, they slapped hands after the bell.
| • Autumn Powers [c] NC "Night Sky" Diana Spare; Powers retains the QCW Women's World Championship • | A tight match that went back and forth for nearly 20 minutes befitting the first title fight of the evening. Announce was loving it, as was the crowd and your intrepid reporter on his big screen.
Who wasn't loving it was, you guessed it, OnlyFitness, who waited until after Spare landed a superplex to rush the ring and swarm the both of them. *** That's as high as I'm willing to go for a match without a finish, so hopefully they run it back and keep OF in the back next time.
But that's next time. This time both Lolo and Karyn got the upper hand with the sneak attack and thanks to some help from Scott Warren-Tisch dropped Autumn and Diana with hydroflask shots, then gave them both the Only Finished This and left them laying in the ring. Former champion Lolo took special pleasure in grabbing her old title and draping it mockingly over Autumn's waist before OnlyFitness took their leave to major boos from the Quality Controllers as we went to commercials.
Once back, we got a lot of video footage of Atlantic City in black and white. A gravelly voiceover talked about life being a gamble, and how growing up rough makes you put your head on a swivel…but once they've made it to QCW, it's going to be everyone else who's going to have problems keeping their heads on their shoulders. “How’d I survive all this? Just lucky, I guess…” The word Krieger appeared briefly in bold, cursive letters before blowing away in the unseen breeze.
| • "Great American" Bobby Bash d. Atum Pharaoh • | HOSS FIGHT!
And poor Atum, who got closer than he ever has been to a QCW victory but didn't manage to pull it off. Bash looked better than he has in weeks, maybe months, and put Pharaoh away with a delayed Jackhammer. * ½
After replays, we saw Drake Tremble and Ted Holland with grins on their faces watching Bash celebrating his victory on a monitor; their matches will close out the show.
From there we went elsewhere INTHEBACK~!, as Enya Face welcomed the Unified World Tag Team Champions, the Game Changers. The Quality Controllers popped for their favorite trio and Enya congratulated Beckett on their win earlier in the show, but when she went to ask them about Avión having his foot under the bottom rope, Carpenter trailed off. They trailed off because the Hard Way were walking up to them.
Fifita apologized to Enya for interrupting the interview but noted that since they were keeping their talking to a minimum they’d cut to the chase: they got screwed over in the Challenge finals and beat OnlyFitness last week so if anyone was going to be getting the next shot at the tag titles, it’d be them. Al Buffett stepped in front of Ashley and Bennett before asking the Hard Way what they were up to next week before extending his hand. Goodish said they’d be getting reacquainted with title gold, while Carpenter gave a wry grin and said “....wellllll….you can try.” The teams exchanged handshakes and glances full of uneasy subtext, but nothing physical happened and Enya threw it back to Julius to make the intros for the TV title semi-main event.
| • Jupiter Jones [c] d. "Swamp Trash" Ted Holland to retain the QCW World Television title 1️⃣ • | Holland got the shot here based on his recent wins since falling under Drake Tremble’s “tutelage”, and was also looking to put a beating on Jones after he took the TV title from Tremble at Mischief Night.
Holland had Jones on the backfoot early due to his unhinged style, causing Jones to fight a little dirtier than usual in return. The self proclaimed Swamp Trash got a bunch of nearfalls on Jones and seemed to have him pressed with only five minutes to go in the time limit for him to gain the belt and set up for his (Liger) Grouch Bomb, but when he ran forward with it Jones suddenly reversed the momentum with a snap sunset flip that drove Ted into the mat, and he couldn’t kick out until 3.3 with Jupiter’s legs properly over his shoulders in the winning pinfall. ** ½
Holland complained to the referee afterwards so fervently that even Jupiter had to check with the zebra that he’d retained the title – and that was the exact moment Bobby Bash ran into the ring and laid him out with a running avalanche that flattened the future Hall of Famer. Ted looked up at Bobby with an evil grin breaking out over his face, then they both stomped away at Jupiter to the boos of the crowd. After this went on for a few beats, Lucius Patton ran down to ringside with a chair causing Bash & Holland to flee, but as Sweet Lu checked on his partner, Bash & Holland were all smiles as they walked up the ramp to Drake Tremble, who shook both their hands much to Holland’s delight. All three men raised their interlocked arms while the crowd booed, the Red, White & True adding the powerhouse Bash to their growing ranks in trying to make QCW great again.
After that and before the main event, announce hyped up next week right now:
🌟 We'll hear from the QCW Women's World Champion, Autumn Powers 🌟
🌟 Jupiter Jones will make another defense of the QCW World Television title 🌟
🌟 And the titles fight made moments ago, with the QCW Unified World Tag Team championships on the line - the Game Changers go against the Hard Way 🌟
| | • the main event • | |
This was similar to the six person elimination fight that headlined last week less one Autumn Powers with the same rules: try not to lose.
The bell rang and chaos immediately broke out. Again as with last week, too much going on here for a full recap, but you’ll find out all the major stuff.
| • Katsuji Ootsuka d. "These Hands" Roy Fade in a fighting five way elimination match (other survivors: Einherjar, the Revenant and "The Voice of Freedom" Drake Tremble) • |
Tremble tried to duck and hide, and almost stole pins off of both Ootsuka and Fade while they brought back their rivalry as one of the main thrulines of the fight. It wasn’t that the former TV champions only fought each other, but when they had the opportunity both Katsuji and Roy would rather fight each other than any of the other participants.
This made sense, especially considering two of the other participants were the Immortals, who had sadistic fun teeing off on anyone who came their way. In fact, the loudest buzz of the match might have come after they cleared the ring of the other three participants and exchanged wry grins. The Quality Controllers got themselves hyped for Einherjar & the Revenant to exchange blows but first Katsuji, then Fade and then Tremble all interceded before it could happen, turning the match into an ad hoc 3 on 2 handicap fight.
That went on for a while until things broke down into more individual fights, and once that happened Tremble found himself on the run from the Immortals for most of the rest of it while the latest chapter in Fade/Ootsuka played out. Fade looked to have things won and set up Ootsuka for the Decision only to have the Prince of Punishment leapfrog him at the last possible second before crumpling him with a basement rewind rana driver – the Magical Sky that followed put a button on the match, with the Immortals watching approvingly from the floor as Fade got pinned. ***
Tremble smiled on the ramp flanked by Bash & Holland, who were already exchanging words with the Immortals. But as Fade recovered on the mat, it was Katsuji Ootsuka standing on the buckles and posing, making A Familiar Gesture around his waist while the announce speculated on which title he was referring to as the credits box came up and Ruckus came to an end.
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