Scott Lang Syne, everybody!
There was a black screen after the GRPL+ logo went across, then you could hear chants of “Queue Cee Dub!” before the disembodied voice of a female robot (best description I got for ya) said LAST WEEK ON RUCKUS and purple static pulsated across the screen in time with her/their/its voice before we got to see some short clips of the following;
Jupiter Jones dropping Serge Batroc in the main event with a Bolt From Olympus to win
Both “These Hands” Roy Fade & the new Women’s World Champion Lolo Vuitton winning qualifying matches to get into the six pack ladder match for the vacant TV title at the upcoming Cold As Hell
Mason “Razorblade” Savage celebrating regaining the QCW World Championship and thanking the fans who helped made it possible while the ex-champion and his longtime rival “the One Man Jihad” Nazir el-Fadal watched wordlessly on a monitor in the back
Two loud pulses flashed purple static on the screen - repeated - two more times and powering down.
Before powering up a thousand fold, purple, a little gold and even some (I think) blood splatters rolling for a half a minute straight behind footage of QCW superstars from the recent past: Katsuji Ootsuka flying off the balcony with Midnight Sky through Roy Fade and two tables, the Consortium in their usual mid ring pose, the Immortals smiling evilly with Einherjar rubbing his hands together and the Revenant tipping his duster, little snaps of the roster like that. Pulsating electronic music played with some unknown B+ rapper dropping bars over it, and the action got interspersed with the roster posing, flexing and roaring to the hi def cameras on a soundstage with the new color scheme firing off lasers in the background – and in a nice touch, G+ wrapped the new open with the chain of (all new!) QCW champions:
🌟 Lolo Vuitton flexing with one arm holding the belt, the other one kissing the back of a peace sign before pointing at the camera and smirking while Karyn Tisch-Warren and Scott Warren-Tisch looked admiringly at her behind at her admiringly from behind the Women's World Champion 🌟
🌟 Super Avión strutting with his half of the Unified World Tag Team championships while Naz looked at the camera with a full glare, his share almost scraping the ground 🌟
[World Television champion footage not found]
🌟 And Razorblade – in street clothes – wordlessly laying down the Thirteen Pounds of Gold and waving on any and all comers before letting a small grin seep out from the corner of his mouth 🌟
And then the pyro went off and you might as well have hit the Jeffersons theme song because a fuckton of purple, gold and red pyro went off on the stage before revealing the…let's call it the Qualitron 9004. It's a Tron that's actually a rounded oval that folds in for the entrances then a steel ramp leading to ringside.
Steve and Starr will never make a GQ cover but they were more nattily clad than usual, and welcomed GRPL+ viewers to the first Ruckus of 2023, the first episode of their being on the network. They promised a special look at Jacques Krieger to come in the program which would be main evented by the Insurgency defending the Unified World Tag Team championships against the Hard Way but "Fly Like Me" meant that the GRPL+ era is going to get off to a Dashing beginning…
| • "Dashing" Pierce Moore d. Il Postino • | Moore was somehow even smugger than usual on the way to the ring, bragging to the cameras that of course GRPL+ wanted to start things with the Face of QCW. The next Postino win will be his first one, so this was a showcase for Moore’s sliminess and skillset. Didn’t even go five minutes before he put it to bed with the Fresh to Death cutter. DUD
After the match, Moore rustled around under the ring before finding a Hawaiian shirt — he then put it on the groggy Postino, waited for him to stumble to his feet, and then hit another Fresh To Death to his great amusement and the crowd’s loud jeering. Moore smirked his way up the ramp, the announce mentioning him continuing to clown “Tiki God” Al Buffett before they threw things TOTHEBACK~! and backstage interviewer Julius Duquesne III, who was standing by with the challengers of tonight’s main event, the Hard Way.
Paul Fifita & John Goodish got a good pop as they came on, Jules asking what the game plan was for them to walk out of the Arena as the new Unified World Tag Team champions tonight. Fifita said that they came up short last year in trying to get the belts, but even though the year is different and the champions are too, their goal is the same – to regain tag gold. Goodish added that they’d probably had more title reigns than the Insurgency had matches as a team, so that’s what the plan was – show Super Avión and Naz that as talented as they are, the tag team belts would be more at home with the Hard Way, and would be home with the Hard Way after tonight. On to the next fight! They thanked JD3 and took their leave to another pop.
| • Science Fiction Double Feature d. The Angel Twins • | The currently hapless Angel Twins on loan from Room 237 served as fodder to introduce to the G+ audience to SciFi, with the unusual friendship between Jane Doe and Cindy Monet getting pushed as well as everyone but Cindy having come from the late, great Crush Wrestling all women’s league that QCW acquired a little over a year ago. SFDF got the duke when Cindy flew off with a double stomp off the top rope onto Sara on Jane’s shoulders; Doe followed that up with a running Samoan drop and the Feature won in a rout. ** Cindy and Jane got their hands raised and celebrated their way up the ramp while Steve promised more QCW Ruckus after a word from their sponsors…
THIS WEEK IN QCW HISTORY:
1974: "Cowboy" Jack Powers wins an inaugural one night eight man tournament known and dedicated as the Duquesne Classic; as a result he wins a new car given to him by former tag champion (and Duquesne's partner), Tommy "King" Berger
1976: The semi-retired Berger stuns the field and wins the Duquesne Classic, then stuns the audience by officially retiring from the ring having "won one for ol' Jules", though Berger remains an avid QCW fan until his untimely passing in 1991
After that video package ran we unfortunately saw “the Voice of Freedom” Drake Tremble stood flanked by his support system: “Great American” Bobby Bash and “Swamp Trash'' Ted Holland, the rest of the Red, White and True. Tremble paced a little bit as he said it should be criminal on a fine night like tonight for a former TV champion like himself to have to participate in a qualifying match, let alone against a dirty foreigner. But fortunately for all the silenced patriots out there, Drake was on the job, and it was only a matt–uh, a mat–the camera followed Tremble’s eyes and then we saw what he saw: the Immortals - one of whom Drake is about to face in Einherjar. Einherjar, who would have gotten a TV title shot at Season’s Beatings had he not gone to his uncle’s wake, walked up to Drake, sniffed him, and got right to the point: foreigner yes, dirty no. And all the grief, rage and pain he’s felt lately? Drake’s going to get hurt tonight. Hurt badly.
Bobby and Ted got in Einherjar’s face, then the Revenant got in their faces, and all five men started glaring each other down with both Tremble and the Revenant exchanging a few threats in their own right before Team Teal appeared on the scene to provide a human wall between them lest they not save the fighting for the qualifying match later on in the show…but the first qualifying match of the night was up next.
Rammstein's Engel came on over the PA, bringing out the International Workrate Consortium as a unit despite the fratricidal nature of the match to come. The announce explained that all the qualifier matches were determined by random draw, thus two of their five members would face off here. Starr stirred the pot for new G+ viewers by noting Serge was leader now because he'd beaten Anton 357 days ago clean in the middle after a hard fought match that became known as the Consortium Especialé – the Consortium wrestling internally for leadership because they're that cocksure that their technical style was stronger than any other mat discipline.
After handing off their tracksuits to unwilling member "the Wonderful" Rich Ward and putting him on ring gear duty to further humiliate him, Anton and Serge shook hands before beginning the fight…
| • Anton "Teknik" Stahl d. Serge Batroc in a World TV championship qualifier • | …and it would be one that Anton won clean.
This was the longest of the qualifying matches so far, going a little over three (!) segments as both Consortium members went hold for hold, counterhold for counterhold, and quite possibly at times having counters to the counters to the counters. Unlike the first two sprints that began the action tonight, Anton and Serge seemed to be almost having fun the more the match went on and the more their stablemate could draw out of them.
Serge went for his Arc de Triomphe but Anton not only landed on his feet but responded with a Mt. Everest release German suplex of his own; Stahl went for the Matter of Time only for Serge to reverse out into sort of a rolling cradle into the prawn hold, but Stahl shot out an arm to kick out at 2 ¾. Batroc got the upper hand from there and looked to have things wrapped up with the Arc but Anton countered again, this time leveraging the French Assassin into a cross legged victory roll that of all things actually got the victory and advanced him to Cold As Hell in a minor upset. No blood…not even a whisper of foolishness or black hattery…but if you just want to watch two elite technical wrestlers kick out the jams for almost a solid 20 minutes, get some bread and butter because this decidedly will be your jam. *** 1/2
After replays showed Anton having pinned Serge however narrowly, Stahl offered his hand to Batroc. Serge looked at Anton up and down for a couple of beats, then allowed a small smile and shook Anton’s hand before raising it, Jason the Terrible off to the side yelling at the crowd that Anton would do the Consortium proud and walk out with the TV title. The non Wonderful members and Starr applauded Serge’s leadership literally while Anton looked…so much less dour than usual it got close to joy. The Consortium shook hands with Anton (Serge making Rich) before joining in their group pose, Serge pulling Anton a bit closer to him than usual. Steve promised that Ruckus would be right back with the other TV title qualifying match, and Starr hoped it would live up to the technical exhibition everyone in the Arena and at home just witnessed.
Back from the break we got a stinger for “Night Sky” Diana Spare similar to the one last week, though this one got a bump up in production value thanks to our new friends at GRPL+. More brief highlights were shown this time of Diana in the ring, as well as her sort of becoming the overseer of the women’s division since she was turfed out of the Forbidden Book Club last year. In a voiceover, Spare swore that her watch was just beginning…that she saw all even when she couldn’t be seen…and that sooner or later, QCW would belong to the night.
| • Einherjar (w/the Revenant) d. "The Voice of Freedom" Drake Tremble (w/"Great American" Bobby Bash & "Swamp Trash" Ted Holland in a World TV championship qualifier • | This was supposed to be a match; what ended up actually occurring was Drake Tremble having a far less fun January 6th than he was hoping for. I don’t think Tremble got even four offensive moves in, one of which was an eye rake; the Immortals came out stomping down to ringside while Lemmy was still blaring, and the Revenant went after the outside men. Inside the ring, Einherjar treated the former QCW & World TV champ like he was a speed bag much to the delight of the crowd. On the outside, the Revenant managed to matador Bobby Bash into Ted Holland then took the Great American down and out with a chokeslam into the apron, the Revenant looming over the fallen Bash and smiling evilly as Einherjar wrapped things up by battering Tremble for the better part of a minute with forearm strikes, then crisp knee strikes, then a troika of urakens set up a vortex backbreaker that advanced Einherjar into the title match at the PPV. ** ½
After the replays fired off, Einherjar joined Stahl, Fade and Vuitton in the graphic for the ladder match to determine the QCW World Television champion at Cold As Hell - announce mentioning it was possible that after next week, the Revenant would be joining him in that ladder match.
Before we hit some commercials a stinger rolled out highlighting Jacques Krieger arriving in QCW by way of Atlantic City and laying fools out in under a minute, usually less than half of one - we heard the announce marvel over his fast wins - see him getting his hand raised and quickly heading to the back afterwards - the crowds are cheering for him, but he's still an island upon himself:
K R I E G E R
| • Pyotr Caviar (w/the International Workrate Consortium) d. "The Fury" Jim Jaspers (w/"the Proper King" Richard Windsor) • | In the early moments of the match the announce clued the newer viewers in as to the IWC being a tentpole of the modern era in QCW with Windsor’s place being taken in the Consortium (at least in part) by Caviar and them being always at odds with Jaspers.
Jaspers put up the fight you knew he would, but simple math and physics reared their ugly heads; Caviar not only caught Jaspers’ finisher Fury Road coming in but turned the running knee into an absolutely vicious elevated powerbomb. Jaspers managed to kick out of that around 2 ¾ but for obvious reasons wasn't a threat to the bigger man after barely surviving the powerbomb. Caviar opened up the throttle on Jaspers, and after a Russian sickle/lariat crumpled the Fury like a beer can Caviar delivered Hit My Music on Jim and pinned him for the IWC W. ***
Post match, Caviar making fun of the fallen Jaspers drew Windsor in a beeline to throw hands at the Tracksuit Tsar. Even without Rich Ward willingly participating, the Consortium had a four on two advantage over their longtime rivals in the Proper Villains and put a beating on them that only stopped after Team Teal security came out to finally save Jaspers & Windsor from hospital visits and the referee of record threatened to overturn the match.
While the medical staff checked on the Fury and the Proper King in-ring, the announce put over Caviar as a land monster and used that to segue into next week (for some reason Danny Castle was walking through the shot behind them in the concourse holding a THE END WILL COME sign):
🌟 In one of next week's World TV title qualifiers, Caviar will face off against Lucius Patton from the College Park Family🌟
🌟 The other World TV title qualifier will see the Revenant of the Immortals go up against "Dark Mirror" Beckett Carpenter of the Game Changers 🌟
🌟 And in a non-title main event fight, Mason "Razorblade" Savage will be up against the International Workrate Consortium's possible future World TV Champion, Anton "Teknik" Stahl 🌟
All that with another major announcement to come from the Commissioner's Office and more on GRPL+ next Friday night, but this one still has a title match left before we put it to bed – we went TOTHEBACK~! where Enya Face was standing by with the new Unified World Tag Team champions the Insurgency.
Enya Face welcomed the new champions, who were roundly jeered (a third of the crowd is gone and probably never coming back). Enya asked if they heard what the Hard Way had to say earlier and what they are going to do to hold onto their newly won tag titles. Enya rolled her eyes and put the mic out towards Naz so he could hog it, but he let out something that most closely resembled a screech before skulking further back in the shot. Super Avión looked back for a second, then came closer to Enya and said Naz is ready to go for the fight tonight. Avión's the only one around here with the cojones to say it but the Hard Way are washed.
Up.
Cute little dogs that belong in an attractive woman's purse. Not nothing…it's that they used to be something – in fact, they were tag champs once, no? But they weren't UNIFIED TAG champions…and they didn't have the talent to pull it off in their first match together as a team. End of the day, the Insurgency was going to be all over GRPL+ showing you pinche gringos what the gold standard in wrestling was going to be for 2023, 2024, 2043 and all the rest AND looking good while doing it. And as for Na – el-Fadal walked past Avión and out of the shot and presumably the locker room. Avión spared a look back at Enya and gathered up his half of the belts before yelling behind the former World Champion to wait up for him.
| • | • the main event • | • |
When Nate Dogg sang “Oh, no / players ain’t scared to hustle” the Tron parted and Naz looked at it as if he was a grandpa and it was a TikTok account while Avión ran out past him and pulled up, rocking to the beat of the song. Naz came into the Arena then got jolted when a bunch of gold pyro exploded behind them and cascaded down, Avión laughing with his arms outstretched and his share of the belts up in the air while Naz looked around the new set as if he expected to get jumped. The Insurgency hit the ring and Avión posed on the buckles while Naz sat on an opposite side turnbuckle and looked towards the entryway.
“Buried Alive” from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs & Dr. Octagon brought out the Hard Way to a good pop, Fifita and Goodish marching to the ring in their own right and getting right in the champions faces (well, Avión’s – Naz remained seated in a neutral corner). They killed the lights and spotlighted the ring while Duck made the introductions, Naz only coming to life when the champions were announced, making sure to get right next to Duck and glare him down to non-verbally remind him of how he got the mask on his face; Eko made a nervous if accurate announcement to get the fans booing and Naz to back up a couple of steps. The bell rang and Naz ceded the ring to the fired up Avión, who asked him a question; while el-Fadal nodded, once the match began he wiped his eyes and then laid his head down on the buckle almost as if he was a schoolchild falling asleep at their desk.
Avión held his own against Fifita early and made sure to crow about it when he had the upper hand, but after showing off some of his lucha libre Fifita dodged a couple of moves and landed a vicious running back elbow to slow him down. From there, it looked like it was going to be the Hard Way’s night, finally – the former tag champions showed why they’d been the gold standard of QCW’s recent past by employing some double teams, quick tags, and keeping Avión on their side of the ring. At one point while this was going on, Naz tired of resting and sat on the steps, not even facing the match and glaring at the announce and Duck. Starr made a crack that if he could distract Naz by just doing commentary that maybe he’d lose the belts tonight and we wouldn’t have to hear another word out of his rotten mouth ever again.
In the ring, however, Avión was starting to wear down, pushed by a series of Hard Way nearfalls and absolutely no help from his ostensible partner. In fact, it looked like the former champions were setting up for Down to Earth to win back tag titles when Avión essentially saved himself with a counter – spiking Goodish with a rewind rana before dropkicking the incoming Fifita down, and crawling for his corner. Naz looked on passively as Avión got close, pulled himself up with the ropes – then slapped Naz across the face to the shock of everyone and the delight of most.
“¡HELP ME, PENDEJO!” yelled Avión, and even if you don’t speak Spanish, you get the gist if I had to guess.
Naz rubbed his jaw and slowly entered the ring while the crowd waited, but once they were done waiting they probably didn’t like what they got – a snarling el-Fadal running wild with his staples like the Sudden Death/Sling Blade Flatliner but also some new tricks up his sleeve like a hiptoss into a Michinoku Driver and some brutal Saito suplexes. Fifita saved Goodish and dragged him towards his corner before tagging himself in, but Fifta got immediately laid out with a chop block off the ropes from el-Fadal, and things didn’t improve from there. A sadistic former World Champ picked apart Paul with a couple more chop blocks, shinbreakers and even a ringpost figure four before locking in his rarely seen Black Lotus cobra clutch STF. Goodish came in for a save, but Avión duffed him up afterwards and spiked him with a running up the ropes tornado DDT. Naz looked up at Avión but then reapplied the Black Lotus, with Avión starting to shove Goodish out of the ring. The referee made Avión get back on the apron at 5, just in time for Naz to tag him in with a hard chop to the chest. Avión looked askance at it, but ultimately it didn’t matter – Naz threw the Outsider’s Edge into Avión’s Backstabber, and Goodish was stirring before the zebra got to three but couldn’t save his partner. ***
| • the Insurgency (Super Avión & Nazir el-Fadal) [c] d. the Hard Way to retain the QCW Unified World Tag Team championships • |
The crowd deflated as Duck reluctantly announced the #AndStill Unified Tag Team champions, but Naz got in Avión’s face after the belts were handed back to him before wheeling on him without a word and started to leave the ring.
Cue “New Born”?!
The crowd popped huge for the arrival of the former Unified World Tag Team champions the Game Changers as they emerged from out of the Tron and stood on the rampway looking down towards the new team they lost to at the Season’s Beatings PPV last month.. All three of them (“Tiki God” Al Buffett/“Dark Mirror” Beckett Carpenter / Ashley “THEE Influencer” Szabo) stared down their longtime rival el-Fadal, all their faces stony seeing Naz with their old belt. Avión got to the ropes closest to the ring and where Naz was on the ramp and started yelling Spanglish at the Changers as well, willing to fight if they felt froggy. Naz looked up the ramp at his challengers…then back into the ring with his partner smacktalking the ex-champs. The show ended with el-Fadal’s eyes narrowing and still surveying the scene - as usual, looking out for #1.
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