LAST WEEK ON RUCKUS:
Beckett Carpenter wants to be a singles champion on their own & left the other Game Changers with the Unified World Tag Team championships to Al and Ashley's begrudging acceptance
Nazir el-Fadal swore vengeance on the entire promotion en route to trying to become the first three time World Champion in QCW history
The Revenant kicked some Red, White and True ass on the way to making a successful first defense of the GRPL+ World TV title
The show opened with a stinger hyping up the first ever limited commercial interruptions edition of Ruckus exclusively on GRPL+ in two weeks…but it'll be the first time ev er for QCW in the UK. We saw some of Epic Studios in Norwich interspersed with some recent QCW highlights as the voiceover promised that a night of QCW from the UK was going to be like nothing else in company history. It was going to be a Bloody Good time, mates – Bloody Good being the name of the LCI Ruckus to come from Norwich.
Open! Pyro! Announce!
Steve and Starr reluctantly put over Naz being in action tonight against Crusader del Oro as well as getting to hear from Einherjar later on in the show, but we were starting things off with QCW's resident wrecking ball…
| • Jacques Krieger d. Toddzilla • | Have you ever seen a Krieger match?
Not if you blink twice, you haven't; Roll of the Dice and lights out in 18 seconds. DUD Krieger actually stood on the turnbuckles after the match to a big crowd pop, then climbed down and headed to the back. Once he actually starts having a pose on the turnbuckles, we'll know the win streak is going to his head.
From there? TOTHEBACK~! where Enya welcomed her guests: OnlyFitness. Karyn was toting the Crush championship again and she and Scott made moon eyes at each other while the Women's World Champion Lolo Vuitton took the majority of the spotlight. Lolo took the promo over before Enya could even get a question out, saying that it took a real woman to be in two title fights two nights apart and still have a championship around these goddess like shoulders. So the rumors about her being banged up are real, but they're overblown.
Three weeks time, she'll be right back here in the Arena. She's cleared out the division and she ain't sweating nobody, so she's putting up an open challenge for her belt on the 24th. (Karyn and Scott exchanged looks behind her upon hearing this. Out of concern or seeing an opportunity? YMMV.) They can look all day, especially if they keep their subscriptions up to date. And if they're feeling froggy, one of them can get a shot. But make no mistake: she runs this.
"We sure do," said Karyn. Lolo nodded and scoffed at the same time before amending things to "We run this." before strutting off, Karyn and Scott a couple of steps behind her.
| • Katsuji Ootsuka d. "Swamp Trash" Ted Holland (w/the Red, White and True) • | the Prince of Punishment's revenge tour against the Red, White and True continued successfully here against the young upstart Holland, who while he keeps improving under Drake Tremble's "tutelage" hasn't found sustainable success with regards to singles action. The former TV champ proved why he was Holland's better as he polished him off with a nasty rolling Koppu kick -> basement rana driver -> Magical Sky three piece. ** ½
Post match you might have seen coming when Bobby Bash and Tremble hit the ring for another 3 on 1 attack against Ootsuka. The crowd buzzed and popped as suddenly Atum Pharaoh came running down the ramp and got in the ring to throw hands against the cosplaytriots. Announce put over Pharoah paying back Katsuji for helping him win his first match a few weeks ago (against Bash) and despite the fact he's got a match later on came to support Ootsuka with the odds against him. Atum used his beef to help Katsuji out but it was still a 2 on 3 situation, which meant that after a while, the Red, White and True got the upper hand back on Atum and Katsuji.
The crowd deflated but then popped again as the Proper Villains ran out with chairs and started cleaning house on the Red, White and True. Holland and Tremble managed to flee the ring but that left Bash to get just that with the chairs as the crowd cheered. Once they wore him out with a few shots, they got rid of Bash and the crowd cheered - the Villains helped up Atum and Katsuji up to cheers from the Quality Controllers. Announce put over the odd hodgepodge of babyfaces standing up to the red hatted black hats.
We saw some highlights from the Cold As Hell ladder match that determined the TV title, with the Revenant taking down both “These Hands” Roy Fade & Einherjar before grabbing the belt for himself. We saw the Revenant roaring atop the ladder when the tape suddenly paused and we heard Einherjar’s voice, talking about how the title should be his but his winter has been fraught with nothing but suffering – suffering that keeps getting in the way of his becoming TV champ. If it’s not his family it’s his so called partner stabbing him in the back to take what’s rightfully his; if those are the cards that have been played, it is time for Einherjar to shuffle the deck - to leave nothing but destruction in his wake on the way to the Television title - and if his ex partner is the thing between him and that, then QCW is about to find out that the Big, Bad Rev is not as big or as bad as the Army of One: Einherjar.
| • the Revenant [c] d. Dom DeSade to retain the GRPL+ World Television championship 2️⃣ • | After a few weeks of hoss skirmishes we actually got a fully fledged hoss fight for the TV title here. Really snug action, a fun hard hitting sprint even if the outcome was never really fully in doubt. The match built to and paid off with the Rev planting the big man with a Red Right Hand. ** Rev took back his title and took in the cheers from the crowd while Starr said we were at 11:52.
From there TOTHEBACK~!, where JD3 were standing by with the International Workrate Consortium, already in discussions amongst themselves. JD3 asked Anton Stahl what was going on, and Serge cut him off to say that as leader of the IWC, he was the man to talk to. Anton nodded at this, and then JD3 broke some news: due to what happened earlier tonight, two weeks from now at Bloody Good - they'd be defending the Ambassadors trios championships against Katsuji Ootsuka and the Proper Villains.
Crowd and the Consortium had the reactions to the news that you might expect, but Anton asked Serge to address this, which Serge eventually allowed. Anton said that in two weeks time they would show those three castoffs what it truly meant to be the upper class in tag team wrestling, and in fact the lessons from the IWC wouldn't stop there – because next week, they would walk out of the Arena with all the tag gold when Serge and Pyotr bested the silly Game Changers and scooped up the Unified World Tag Team championships and brought them to where they belonged: in the hands of the Consortium.
Serge beamed at this, saying that it didn't matter that these people cheered for all this raffraff: the Ootsuka's, the Autumn Powerses, the Improper Villains – the Consortium's goal of bringing the best wrestling in the world to the tag team division would come to fruition this month. Viva la Serge, and long live the IWC. JD3 threw proceedings over to Duck while the Consortium departed in high spirits.
| • "Dark Mirror" Beckett Carpenter d. Atum Pharaoh • | A couple of moving parts going into this one: earlier tonight, Pharoah ended up on the wrong side of some shots from the Red, White and True. And GRPL+ Reminded Us on their way in that Carpenter decided to do something of a split from the other Game Changers in order to become a champion on their own last week.
After the bell rang, Carpenter checked with the referee as well as Pharoah as to whether or not he wanted to have the match with Atum selling his shoulder after the Red, White and True attack earlier. Pharoah came to fight however, and wanted the match - he and Carpenter shook hands and then scrapped.
Atum had a good start but Carpenter got the upper hand going into the break by hitting a Codebreaker on the bum arm and following it up with a single arm DDT. Pharoah recovered from his trip to Divorce Court but started fading in the match's back half as Carpenter cut into the health of Atum's arm. Dark Mirror wore Atum down then landed some hammer and anvil shots to the bad arm before throwing them into the side of his temple and jaw. After Mirror's flurry, Atum went limp but Carpenter went up, flying off the top with a decent 450 splash (!) that won the bout.. ** ½
Carpenter offered Atum a post match handshake then seemed pleasantly surprised to get one, Atum taking in the crowd cheers as he headed to the back and Carpenter took the microphone from Duck.
Beckett put over Atum's fighting spirit before saying that was just the first step on their path to becoming a singles champion, and since they promised it, the fans knew that it would happen. But first: "Dashing" Pierce Moore. Maybe Al had too much aloha in him to respond to Moore's smacktalk the past few months? "But this member of the Ohana doesn't share his laid-back vibe. When we get in that ring, I'll be stiffer than your starched collar and snugger than your inseam. And trust me – once you've Looked Inward, even a narcissist like you will be afraid of what you see in the mirror."
Carpenter thanked the fans and gave the mic back to Duck to wrap things up while announce speculated on a Carpenter vs. Moore match as we hit commercials.
Back from the break we got a pretape from "Bollywood Diva" Sohla Patel, who of course wasted little time in bragging about her successful return at Cold As Hell. Other women brag about their influencing and Sohla shows them Bollywood greatness that they can't handle. Other women brag that QCW will belong to the night or that they run things – but her lotus blossoms all know it's merely a matter of time before QCW's women's division will belong to and will be run by her. "Details to come, dahlings. Ciao for now!"
| • "Night Sky" Diana Spare d. Shelley LaVey • | Not only was this Spare’s return to QCW, but she faced off against former ally LaVey in LaVey’s return fight since Spare won the Cauldron of Chaos match at Mischief Night. They fought hard for nearly three segments (!), LaVey even drawing blood on Spare when her catapult sent Diana over the buckles and into the ringpost. LaVey continued the attack and looked to have things finished off with her Fallen Angel top rope splash, only to eat Spare’s knees when she went to polish things off. That shifted the momentum to Spare’s side of the ledger and she never really lost it, culminating in her winning the match with her new finisher: a powerbomb into a double knee backbreaker she calls Nightfall that put the lights out on the Goddess of Love. ** ½
Post match, Spare stood seething over LaVey to the point where the referee stepped between Diana and her fallen ex-comrade; unable or unwanting to continue an attack, Spare eventually settled for walking towards the hard camera and telling all the lip readers what you’ve come to expect; sooner or later…
Before we got into the main event, the announce hyped up big things to come on next week's episode of Ruckus:
🌟 The Revenant looks to go 3 for 3 in defending the GRPL+ World Television championship 🌟
🌟 Sit down interviews with both Razorblade and Nazir el-Fadal ahead of their World title fight in two weeks at Bloody Good in the UK 🌟
🌟 And Al Buffett and Ashley Szabo, The Game Changers set out to defend their Unified World Tag Team championships against Serge Batroc & Pyotr Caviar of the International Workrate Consortium - can this version of the champs prevail or will Serge's quest for more tag gold finally pay off? 🌟
While Naz might be sitting down next week, he's about to hit the ring and fight right now; cue Arcarsenal.
| • | • the main event • | • |
Naz came down to ringside looking like the cat that swallowed the canary as a result of getting his title rematch, with Starr insinuating and then flat out saying on commentary that Naz’s persistent online whining to the network probably got him said rematch.
That may have been why for the first five minutes of the match, Oro was handing Naz his lunch; clearly not fully focused on the match, el-Fadal found himself victim to a series of armdrags, dropkicks and ranas, and even eating a baseball slide when he tried to bail out to the floor. Naz would come back with a stomp to the foot of all things briefly, but then Oro proceeded to take him around the world with a headscissors and springboard armdrag that sent Naz to the floor without his own volition this time. Oro ran into the ring and wasn’t long for it, hitting Naz with a tope to send him sprawling backwards. Oro pressed the advantage, and hit a second tope. The crowd cheered over Naz getting laid out, firing up a “One more time!” chant that Oro eventually grokked onto and went to complete a tope trilogy…
…Naz caught the third one and gave him an overhead belly to belly into the barricade, then followed it up with a massive Saito suplex on the floor and tried to win things by countout.
Oro rolled back in at 8 and Naz immediately got to work with stomping him out; the final third of the match was all Naz, who threw in another high impact Saito suplex on the way to hitting Oro with his Sudden Death (Sling Blade/Flatliner hybrid) and then surprisingly locking on the cobra clutch STF he calls the Black Lotus that hasn’t been seen in a while. Regardless, after a few seconds of that torture, Oro had no choice but to feebly tap out. ***
| • Nazir el-Fadal ds. Cruszado del Oro• |
The crowd booed lustily as Naz gave Oro some paintbrushes as he tried to come back around, which eventually got Oro to his knees and then on his feet throwing hands at Naz from both sides. The referee tried to get in between them - which unfortunately gave the former two time World Champ the opening he needed to kick Oro square in the cojones.
Not content there, with Oro slowly falling to the mat Naz added insult to injury and ripped his mask off his head.
The crowd gasped, then started booing as Oro immediately covered his face and went down to the mat to try to hide it. The referee asked one of the techs for a towel to cover Oro’s head while the announce made their feelings about el-Fadal very clear.
As for the ref, he was yelling at Naz to get out of the ring. Naz didn’t leave until he held up Oro’s mask to the lights and then made a show of dusting his boots on the mat and knocking dust onto Oro’s fallen body to even more boos. The referee started to get in Naz’s face, but he turned and left with Oro’s mask in hand, slowly walking to the back while the Arena fired off some “Naz sux!” chants. On his way up the ramp, the camera caught part of a Naz monologue about him being juuuuust fine with winning another World title in the UK - that belt - this mask - this Arena? All his, always.
el-Fadal walked through the Tron while Oro was slumped in the corner with a towel over his head and the referee continuing to check on him, bringing the first Ruckus of February to an unsettling end.
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