LAST WEEK ON RUCKUS:
The Revenant celebrated another successful defense of the GRPL+ World Television title by defeating one of Catch Hell's finest
Razorblade beat Nazir el-Fadal in a great main event to retain the QCW World Championship; Super Avión added injury to injury by making a triumphant return and laying Naz out
Commissioner Holmes announced that the World Championship would join QCW's sister leagues to form a Unified World Heavyweight Championship to be decided by all four of the biggest champions at Golden Rule
We got the usual open (now with a couple of shots of Katsuji Ootsuka & the Proper Villains celebrating winning the Ambassadors trios championships last week) before we made a triumphant return to the Quality Arena and sparked the pyro. As usual, Steve Vandeblanche and S. Mark Starr are here to help us through another Ruckus, one that’ll have another GRPL+ World TV title defense by the Revenant and an open challenge for the Women’s World Ch–
–Steve got cut off at that point by Iron Maiden’s “Aces High”, which brought out Super Avión to big cheers from the crowd. But the nattily clad Avión made a march to ringside, where he got the mic from Duck before coming into the ring and looking out over the crowd, some of whom were chanting for him.
Avión said that after last week, it should be pretty clear why he’s back and who he’s back for. He heard Naz wasn’t in the Arena this week, which worked out fine by him since he wasn’t in the mood to get interrupted. Because Naz could brag all day long about his accomplishments, but the Unified World Tag Team titles were a big accomplishment to Avión as his first title in QCW. A title that he won – hell, Naz wouldn’t be able to walk around calling himself a Grand Slam winner if it wasn’t for him! – but the moment they lose the titles Naz doesn’t even wait for the rematch and puts him in the hospital? When Avión came to in the ICU he was pissed, and then being pissed turned into a plan. And the plan is to make Naz regret the day he ever laid him out. Hell, the only reason he didn’t show up sooner last week was because Razorblade was doing a lot of his work for him, and now he was in position to finish off the rest. Because make no mistake about it, Naz made an enemy for life in Avión, and he wasn’t going to stop until he beat el-Fadal and drove him out of QCW. Naz is such a culero Avión finds himself agreeing with Holmes about something – QCW isn’t the Naz show, and his hogging the spotlight leaves people like Avión out in the cold. So it started last week, and it won’t end until he’s won: Avión will drive Nazir el-Fadal out of QCW, and he promised the fans as much before admitting as much as he’d love to say that he’s doing it for them, he’s doing it for him – his revenge, his moment of glory, and his proof yet again that you can put him in the ring with the best of the best…you’ll find out that he looks good and flies better. !Viva Avión! He handed Duck back the mic to cheers and took his leave, announce having the reaction to his intentions of driving Naz out of QCW that you’d expect (though Starr did warn Avión how tough an out Naz was). After speculating what response Naz would have, we kicked off tonight’s in ring action.
| • Ashley "THEE Influencer" Szabo (w/"Tiki God" Al Buffett) d. Shelley LaVey • | Both women got introductions for the opener, LaVey looking to re-establish herself now that the Forbidden Book Club’s blown up and scattered to the four corners of the earth. Ashley came in riding the fans’ support as well as backup from the Tiki God, who opted to bring the aloha in a managerial capacity here. As it turned out, it’s not as if Ashley needed him between the ropes; a focused Szabo put on a showcase effort against poor Shelley, who maybe got in five total offensive moves against half of the Unified World Tag Team champions. Down the stretch Szabo was even using LaVey to do curls with before she rudely dumped her across the ring with a fallaway slam; that set up Smash That Subscribe Button off the top with the fistdrop securing the win for Ashley in under five minutes. **
The announce put over Ashley’s dominant performance before they showed the stinger for El Vengador de Gente Jr. that we got a small taste of last week - here it lasted for a couple of minutes rather than 30 seconds.
| • El Vengador de Gente Jr. d. "Swamp Trash" Ted Holland (w/the Red, White and True) in a non-title match • | Vengador came in as Lucha Salvaje's Campeon del Mundo, set to put up that belt in the main event of Golden Rule in the unification match. Obviously a luchador was going to rub the cosplaytriots the wrong way, and Tremble sent Holland out to do his dirty work.
Ted put up some offense but when Drake and Bobby got ejected from ringside the rookie seemed to be unmoored more so than usual. Vengador started to gain the advantage and while Holland managed to kick out of a picturesque quebrada from the champion he wasn't a serious threat to win the match after he did. Vengador put Teddy boy to sleep with another quebrada, except this time he used it to set up a satellite DDT that spiked Holland, made a big swath of the crowd flip out, and won the match. **
After replays, Vengador got his hand raised and shook the ref's hand before waving to the fans and leaving. The announce put him over and hyped the unification match at Golden Rule heading into commercials.
We came back from the break to Julius Duquesne III on the stage, who quickly thanked the Quality Controllers for their applause but asked them to save it for his guests - the new Ambassadors trios champions, Katsuji Ootsuka and the Proper Villains!
"Death Or Glory" rolled over the PA as the new champions came out gold in tow, with "the Proper King" Richard Windsor uncharacteristically the loudest and the most demonstrative, further stoking the crowd cheers as "the Fury" Jim Jaspers and Katsuji took in the pop and smiled like they were auditioning for a toothpaste commercial. All three of them shook hands with Jules, who couldn't even get a question out before "You deserve it!" chants fired up, Windsor jokingly pointing to himself before his partners. Julius asked them how the past week had treated them, and Jim jokingly (?) said he'd be handling the questions tonight since His Properness hasn't sobered up yet.
Once Katsuji's laughter tapered off, Jim got more serious and spoke about what a joy it was to go back to the UK and win this in front of his friends, fans, family, wife and little daughter. He and Richard got together to show those stuck up prats in the Consortium that their way wasn't the only way, and the proof isn't in the figgy pudding, it's on his shoulder, and Richard's, and Katsuji's. So bad luck to Serge and his boys but there are new Ambassadors in town, and the three of them representing QCW as Ambassadors of the people can only help them with the network and the like. Jim smirked and gave a cheers before the champions bumped belts and smiled over the achievement.
JD3 turned to Katsuji and congratulated him on adding these belts to his World TV title reign last year, and Katsuji said that he'd had a great rookie year in QCW that he couldn't have done without the fans taking him in from Minute 1, or Richard and Jim for accepting him in when he was having problems with the IWC as well.
Hilariously enough, Katsuji seemed to be ramping up to his own heartfelt speech when he got interrupted by Richard, who let out a just-got-banned-from-Chilis sized WHOOOOO! and took over, getting bleeped for whatever he said to the IWC (to a big pop) and then saying he was going to stage dive and enjoy this moment with the people. Before anyone could stop him he ran down the ramp, paused for a second on the barricade and trust fell into the crowd. Fortunately, they caught him and crowd surfed him around for a bit while Katsuji shook his head incredulously and Jim literally fell to his knees cackling while watching his usually staid partner wilding out over winning his first championship in QCW. Katsuji leaned into Jules and said he might want to wrap this up, since Windsor wasn't coming back any time soon. Julius nodded and asked the crowd to give it up once again for the Ambassadors trios champions; the ones who weren't passing Richard around like a party favor did so.
We went from seeing Richard whooping and celebrating with the people to a monitor backstage…where the Consortium were watching on and seething (not Rich so much). Serge was about as red as a small town Mississippi judge, and Anton actually looked a little worried about him before he turned to Jason the Terrible and put an arm around him, saying that the three of them were just like her with their mocking and jibes. A single loss in a hellhole such as England could not and would not define them! So it was imperative that Jason go out there next and take Autumn apart under his eye so that the Consortium would continue to show these uneducated rubes what true wrestling was. Jason headed out with Rich trudging behind but the rest of the IWC stayed where they were. Jason asked if they were coming, and Anton asked if they needed to. Jason seemed like he was going to say something but ended up swallowing it, and "Engel" played to bring out the Wonderful Ward Brothers sans the Consortium.
Jason posed on the turnbuckles while Rich shook his head, but the crowd roaring almost drowned out "Mota" by the Offspring. Out came Autumn Powers to a megapop, the announce hyping up her continuing to hound Serge for a match on social media that's been met by radio silence from the Consortium's leader. Autumn stood on the middle rope and fired up a few more cheers while Jason glowered in the corner.
| • Autumn Powers d. Jason the Terrible (w/"the Wonderful" Rich Ward) • | It took a couple of segments but the glowering returned when Autumn dropped the Hazy Shade in about 15 minutes.
Jason actually got the better of Autumn on the mat early on, and you could see Rich visibly restraining himself from rooting for his brother on the outside. It was Autumn who actually faked a clean break in the ropes and drilled him with a back elbow (the crowd cheered, of course, because fuck him). It was interesting how Starr chalked that up to Autumn's championship experience but it turned out he wasn't wrong - even when Jason had advantages he spent more time complaining to the ref than keeping the upper hand.
Jason even went so far as to try out a Wonder Cutter to the two time former Women’s World champion (raising Rich’s eyebrows on the outside), but Autumn countered out of the attempt and snatched Jason up before driving him into the canvas with an elevated reverse DDT. The crowd popped after Autumn landed it, and it was the turning point in the match; Powers kept Jason away from bailing to the ropes or floor and kept him grounded in the middle of the ring. A Mt. Everest German set up the Hazy Shade that gave Autumn the victory. ** ½
Rich came into the ring and checked on Jason as Autumn was getting her hand raised and she celebrated on the buckles – the rest of the Consortium came out looking various degrees of pissed, and Autumn opted to leave through the crowd…but not before she blew a mocking kiss at Serge on her way out. The announce put over Autumn’s win and the continuing problems within the Consortium as we hit a commercial break.
Back from commercials and we got a This Week In QCW History segment - on February 18th, 1978 QCW crowned one of the first Black champions in any promotion when "Sweet" Curtis Jones (Jupiter's dad) pinned Billy "Mud Stomper" Porter in a packed Qualitorium. (Given the company's lengthy history, we're on something like Quality Arena 5.0.)
In a more somber occasion, February 20th, 1991 saw former QCW Tag Team champion "King" Tommy Berger (alongside "Orange" Julius Duquesne, for whom the Classic is named) miss his first QCW show since his daughter’s wedding. Curiosity turned to grief as he and his car were discovered in a ditch halfway between his condo and the Qualitorium later that evening. He was 45 years old.
| • "Night Sky" Diana Spare d. Winter Wonderland • | We kicked off the second hour of the show with action in the women's division with Spare and Neverland renewing hostilities. While both currently skew better moreso than worse, the former rivalry between the Storybookers & Forbidden Book Club put this one at a bigger fever pitch than you might have expected.
Winter had a really nice spot where they fought on the floor only for her to stun Diana with a ripcord forearm and then ran up the announce table to spike Spare on the floor with a modified tornado DDT. Wonderland recovered and threw Spare into the ring, but when she tried to cover Diana rolled onto her side to prevent the count. Winter let out a frustrated growl and stomped away on Spare before going for her Nuclear Winter implant DDT; Spare slipped it with a go behind, then landed some nasty looking enzui headbutts before dumping Winter on her head with a tiger suplex (!) that crumpled Wonderland and set the stage for Spare's Nightfall. The powerbomb backbreaker secured the win much to the joy of the Quality Controllers. ** ½ After getting her hand raised, Spare walked over to the ropes closest to the hard camera and mouthed her catchphrase while the announce put over her new found aggression between the ropes.
We saw a dark room and heard heavy grunting, but fear not, FCC - it was merely Einherjar unleashing hell on a heavy bag with strikes, kicks and knees before a leaping roundhouse knocked it to the floor and the former tag champ stomped out of frame. The bag rolled over a time and a half to reveal a picture of the Revenant's face where Ein had been doing his striking work, and on that cheery note we headed to the ring for Duck and the first of the night's two title fights.
“Bodak Yellow” brought out Lolo Vuitton and OnlyFitness to boos, both of the muscle mommies strutting down the ramp and smacktalking a lot of the same fans who pay their monthly subscription rates. Once in the ring, Karyn Tisch-Warren asked the fans to give it up for the greatest Women’s champion in the history of QCW, Lolo Vuitton (that went as well as you’re imagining). Lolo took the mic and said that the belt proved she ran this, and since she didn’t sweat anybody it was open challenge hours on Ruckus – if you wanted to come out for a title shot and get your head kicked in the opposite direction, that was on you.
Out came “Bollywood Diva” Sohla Patel, but she didn’t get in the ring - she stayed on the ramp and said hello to her little rose petals (us?). She said that she would love to saunter down the rampway and liberate the Women’s World Championship from Lolo, but in keeping with her luck she’s just booked a shampoo commercial and can’t spare the time for combat sports this evening. And these people need to work on their standing ovations, but she has faith that when she sees them next they will all rise to their feet as one and bathe in the majesty that is Sohla. After saying “Details to come, dahlings; ciao for now!” Patel left everyone in the ring behind confused for a bit until Lolo started talking about how she’d just won by forfeit.
That brought out “Island Flower” Luz Cruz, who started talking about how she’d had Karyn dead to rights a few weeks ago except that Lolo saved her little benchpress buddy and handed her a win. It was bad enough Karyn was walking around with her old title and running her mouth, of course she was next to the only other person on the roster that was worse about it than she was. Luz smiled and then said that since Lolo had made the open challenge, that it was her that Luz would beat for the belt and show QCW what Karyn and fans of Crush could never forget…Luz Cruz was a champion, and it was time she proved it once more.
| • Lolo Vuitton [c] (w/OnlyFitness) d. "Island Flower" Luz Cruz to retain the QCW Women's World Championship in an open challenge • | Cruz started off hot with her use of lucha libre to fly around the ring and put Lolo almost into retreat mode, and Vuitton bailed from the ring after eating a series of armdrag takeovers. Cruz continued to follow up with a tope suicida, but Lolo pulled Scott Warren-Tisch in front of her and he ate the dive before essentially dying. Karyn went Karyn about this and the EMTs eventually came out for Scott, but while they were taking him to the back and Karyn followed, Lolo took advantage of Luz’s being distracted by kicking her leg out from under her leg and going to work. Vuitton couldn’t completely annihilate the right leg and ankle of Cruz but she could put a stop to the aerial offense of the Island Flower and did so. The former Crush champion fought back, and at one point fended off Lolo’s attacks with a couple of blocks and countered the champ’s offense with a step up enzuigiri…but she did it with the bad leg, and Lolo recovered from the blow before she could follow up on it. Vuitton dominated down the stretch and eventually dusted Cruz off with the Bloody Shoe. ** ½
After replays, Lolo strutted around the ring with the belt before leaving with the spotlight entirely on her. As you might expect she let us know that she ran this.
From there we went TOTHEBACK~!, where Enya Face was standing by a limousine and she started to vamp for time before her guests who were leaving the Arena began to filter in – the International Workrate Consortium. Since he usually handles the interviews, Enya began to ask Jason about his night, only for the Terrible to wave her off while looking alternately sad and mad. After a few awkward moments of silence, Serge quietly said that the way things were couldn’t continue, and he put the blame on himself, since if he hadn’t been so busy proving a point instead of maximizing the Consortium’s firepower the Wards would have obviously won the Unified Contenders Challenge last year and the IWC would still have tag titles in their keep.
He turned and fully focused on Jason & Rich, saying this wasn’t a suggestion but a command: go out in full glory as the Wonderful Ward Brothers and capture the Unified World Tag Team championships to bring them back to the IWC. Jason nodded while Rich looked confused, and Serge continued that especially after tonight their memberships were under review, and if you weren’t in the Consortium, well…Anton cleared his throat and interjected that maybe their memberships didn’t need to be on the line, which caused Serge to wheel on him and question if Anton was questioning his leader (despite the fact Anton beat him a few weeks ago), and Anton got tetchy over being questioned…but before things could degenerate further, Jason put up his hand and told Serge if that’s what he wanted, he’d get it. Anything to get the taste of losing to…her out of his mouth. Rich started to protest this, but Jason turned to him and said that they came to QCW for tag team gold, and now they were going to get it. The Game Changers holding those belts when they should be ruling the tag division like they have anywhere else they’ve gone? Ridiculous, and something that wasn’t going to be happening much longer thanks to Serge’s eye. Outside of Rich the members of the Consortium gave thin smiles as they piled into the limo and it drove off, leaving Enya behind.
Before we get to Moore/Rev in the main event, the announce hyped up some of what's to come on the first Ruckus of March:
✨ The winner of the main event will be defending the GRPL+ World Television title ✨
✨ We'll hear from The Champ, Mason "Razorblade" Savage after his successful title defense against Naz last week and possibly get his thoughts on the unification match coming up at Golden Rule ✨
✨ And in a fatal four-way to get #1 contenders for the Unified World Tag Team championships, the Hard Way, the Proper Villains, the Red, White and True and the Wonderful Ward Brothers will face off to see who'll earn the titles shot at Golden Rule ✨
All that and more to come next week, but now it was time to see if the GRPL+ World Television championship was going to get all that and more Moore, and the crowd wasted little time in firing off waves of boos as "Fly Like Me" brought out Him Who Defines Dashing.
Pierce Moore had a smirk on his face while he sauntered down to the ring; GRPL+ Helpfully Reminded Us That Last Week Moore hit the Rev with a Fresh To Death then fled the premises when the Big Bad looked like he was going to get quick revenge. Moore was in the ring beaming about his misdeeds when the lights cut off.
"Here we go!" yelled Starr right before "Killed By Death" hit the PA and the crowd roared in anticipation of the Revenant's arrival.
The lights came up…and the Rev was right behind Moore and everybody knew it but the challenger. The Arena roared as Pierce looked to his left and right and saw nothing but fans. Then he got spun around and saw a red right hand going right upside his head.
| | • the main event • | |
| • the Revenant [c] d. "Dashing" Pierce Moore to retain the GRPL+ World Television title 5️⃣ • | And then Moore got his ass kicked. He got it kicked real bad. He got it kicked so bad members of the Washington Generals started a group chat to mention the guy on GRPL+ getting the crap beat out of him.
The Rev threw him in the corner and lit him up with body blows, then threw him out of the corner and about ¾ of the way across the ring. He repeated that a couple more times then shocked everyone by climbing up to the top rope before flying off with a lariat that went right across Pierce’s chest, and then he called for the end before delivering on that promise.
Chokeslam.
Chokeslam.
Chokeslam.
Chokeslam, and when you lay somebody out with four Red Right Hands, if you want to pin them with your foot on their chest, you’ve certainly earned the right. DUD
Crowd looooooved Moore getting his just desserts after last week while the announce joked that they could have replayed the whole match in the replays. But when we came back from the replays, the Revenant was at the desk, putting the fear of him into both Steve & Starr. He looked with a black grin to the former QCW Champion as he cut the following two word promo:
“Halfway there.”
The Rev hoisted the GRPL+ World TV title over his shoulder and headed to the back, some of the fans sitting ringside able to give him some attaboys and pats on the shoulder as he skulked to the back, the announce and especially Starr putting over the Revenant bringing a level of dominance never before seen to the TV title, and if you didn’t believe them you could ask Pierce Moore in a couple of hours, since he was barely starting to stir now. The Rev paused in front of the Tron, then let out a roar and slowly hoisted the TV title overhead to cheers – Steve thanked us for watching and said to come back next Friday when QCW would continue to bring the Ruckus live on GRPL+.
