LAST WEEK ON RUCKUS:
"Night Sky" Diana Spare continued rolling on as Crush champion, now only a few more defenses away from a cash in and a possible showdown with the Women’s World Champion, Lolo Vuitton
Serge Batroc and Pyotr Caviar became the #1 contenders to the Unified World Tag Team championships by winning the back half of Tag Team Turmoil - they’ll face the Wonderful Ward Brothers for the belts tomorrow night in Las Vegas
Thanks to a chairshot, “Dark Mirror” Beckett Carpenter ended Jacques Krieger’s undefeated streak & reign as World TV champ to win the Duquesne Classic, only to express remorse over the way they won and offered to put up the belt at Mayday Payday in a triple threat Vegas Street Fight with Autumn Powers (who Krieger cheated a win out of to make the finals against them)
Ruckus started at the desk (has that ever happened before?) with Steve Vandeblanche making quick introductions for himself and the Only Color Commentator That Matters, Nazir el-Fadal, before revealing that while Ruckus was about to start, not everybody waited for the evening's scheduled fights to begin.
Steve then did a voiceover as we started to see security footage from Earlier Today. We would see The Unified Champ arriving to the Arena and some Quality Controllers lining the ramp in the parking lot popping huge for his arrival. Razorblade walked over and started signing autographs when a massive red right hand shot out of the crowd and jacked his jaw.
You can guess who delivered that shot, and you can guess what came next – a parking lot fight between the Revenant and Mason Savage with fans cheering while recording it on their cellies. Unfortunately, nothing good can stay, so within a few moments security showed up to break things up despite a hearty "Let them fight!" chant in the air and both the champion and #1 contender more than willing to skip tomorrow if they got to fight today. Back at the desk, Steve barely got out the words Pick Your Poison before "Unscripted Violence" came on over the PA.
Razorblade stomped out to the ring and got the mic from Duck, saying that he was already in a pissy mood after getting sucker punched and jumped in the parking lot. So since he got to pick the Rev’s opponent for tonight, he was going to pick someone who had all the strength that the Revenant did without any of the assholery - Atum Pharoah!
The crowd gave a decent if slightly confused reaction to Atum as he shook hands with The Unified Champ and headed down to the ring for the PYP match. The lights went out and the Hellevator rose from the stage to bring out the #1 contender and force of malevolence in its red right hand.
| • the Revenant d. Atum Pharoah in a Pick Your Poison match • | The opening minutes of this went to the Rev as expected, with Naz absolutely upbraiding Razorblade for his choice in picking someone on Pharoah’s level when he should have found some champion or former champion to win or elongate this match for him going into tomorrow night. el-Fadal looked to be proven right early as despite Atum hanging in there, the Rev shrugged off most of the power man from the Nile’s bigger moves and in fact dropped him with a ring-rocking lariat before signaling for the end. The Rev actually got Atum up and planted him with the Red Right Hand – but Atum managed to get his foot on the ropes at 2 ¾ to hang in there much to the surprise then joy of the crowd.
Furious over it not ending the match, the Rev stalked and intimidated the referee (who was clearly rattled but maintained the fact that it was a 2 count), Atum rallied a little bit with some uppercuts and then emptied his tank to rattle the longest reigning former World TV champ with some heavy back elbows and eventually an overhead belly to belly suplex that popped the Arena big. Atum went for the Claw of Horus, but the Rev powered out of Atum’s goozle before wasting no time in showing Pharoah where the power in QCW truly lied. The Revenant ended the match after the FOURTH Red Right Hand, dismissively pinning Pharoah with a foot on his chest. Good hoss fight here. ** ½
Replays played of the Rev’s solid win and we got the time of decision from Steve at 7 minutes and 50 seconds, so whoever Razorblade faces in the main event and other Pick Your Poison match tonight he’ll have to beat faster than that to avoid the resident Big Bad getting to pick the stipulation for tomorrow night.
From there, we went TOTHEBACK~!, where Julius Duquesne III welcomed Autumn Powers to a sizeable pop from the Quality Controllers. JD3 expressed his condolences over Autumn not being able to win the tournament last week thanks to some chicanery but mentioned that she’d be able to get a bit of revenge later on in the evening, as she was teaming up with “Dark Mirror” Beckett Carpenter to face off against “These Hands” Roy Fade & Jacques Krieger. After asking her thoughts about the match, Autumn was as livid as you might expect over her shady loss in the semis to Krieger and said that it wasn’t just tonight that she’d be kicking his ass, she’d do it tomorrow as well, and once she got done with that she’d add the TV title to her reigns as Women’s World Champion – if Fade wanted to stand with that asshole tonight, then he’d get the beatdown Krieger had coming. JD3 asked Autumn about what it would be like to team with Dark Mirror given their long and twisted history. You could see a few emotions flicker across Powers face before they gave a terse “No comment” and marched off the set already ready to throw hands. More Ruckus to come after the break.
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| • "Night Sky” Diana Spare [c] d. “Shieldmaiden” Val Curry to retain the Crush championship 7️⃣ • | Another showcase for Spare, who seems to be on such an obvious collision course with Lolo Vuitton the announce was openly speculating about that potential future match during this one. Diana fought from underneath early on before dominating the back ⅔rds of the match and making another victim greet Nightfall. "*
Steve pointed out as Spare headed to the back with her title in tow that she swore for months QCW would belong to the night and now the women's division might belong to her soon.
From there, we went TOTHEBACK~! where Enya Face wasn't teleporting on the set, no. She was welcoming her guest, "Dashing" Pierce Moore.
Moore took a couple of steps into the frame and then got knocked out of it; to the joy of the crowd "Superfine" Reggie Strong dropped him from behind and started beating on Moore, yelling that since he liked cheap shots so much he should start speaking his language. Moore raked Reggie's eyes and started sprawling away from Strong, but the newcomer proved his last name wasn't a joke by grabbing Pierce from behind and launching him into a vending machine head first. Moore bounced off with a dull thud and fell to the floor while Quality Control in the purple shirts arrived and formed a pseudo wall between them. Strong let out a cackle and told Moore he'd see his sorry ass in Vegas so he could finish the job before security sent him away. Enya picked up the mic she left behind, got her composure together and threw things to Duck Eko in the ring for the next bout.
| • Serge Batroc & Pyotr Caviar d. The Hard Way • | Smart if narrow win by the Europeans here in a spirited fight here between the former champions and current #1 contenders that ran for two segments. Still stinging from the embarrassment of how they got bounced from Tag Team Turmoil last week, Fifita and Goodish fought even hungrier than usual and not only cleared the ring of Serge early on, they managed to double clothesline Pyotr Caviar out of the ring (even if he landed on his feet).
The Tracksuit Tsar's steadiness proved once again to be the glue for the former (?) IWC, as neither member of the Hard Way could match his power. Caviar even busted out a shotgun dropkick that almost obliterated poor Goodish before bringing Serge in for borderline mop up duty. Batroc spent the next few moments suplexing Goodish around the ring before cheapshotting Fifita off the apron and tagging back out. Fait accompli from there, as they delivered their signature Russian sickle/Mt. Everest German suplex combo to get the win. ** ½
Post match the creepy whistling of Engel was cut off by a rarity of Serge cutting a promo with Anton Stahl mysteriously not around. Batroc said that it took them barely a week for them to lay waste to 2 separate former tag team champions – give them one more night and they would add the ungrateful turncoat Wards to the list. Once they were under his boots and his eye he will have the tag team titles back under his control as he should have years ago. But now you see Young Pyotr as more than an equal in this ring, and under his mentorship eye he has flourished. Tomorrow night they get retribution, tomorrow night the Wards start their long, cold walk back to obscurity in Canada without titles to keep them warm, tomorrow night…well, tomorrow night…
Viva la Serge..and long live Team Batroc.
"Engel" played as Pyotr & Serge shook hands in the middle of the ring to boos, the announce plugging the rechristened Team Batroc going up against the Wonderful Ward Brothers with the Unified World Tag Team championships up for grabs tomorrow night before we hit a commercial break.
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More tag action kicked off the back half of the show in an almost parejas incredibles situation – Roy Fade came out by himself first, salty that he was teaming with the man who beat him in the Classic last week in under half a minute: Jacques Krieger. Krieger himself was pissed coming to the ring now and getting booed pretty decently, though Steve revealed as the mystery man from Atlantic City came out that between the words of the Duquesne winner and Krieger somehow finding a star lawyer who successfully argued that once the time limits went over 20 minutes the belt shouldn’t have been up for grabs, the GRPL+ World TV title was being held up until tomorrow night’s Vegas Street Fight triple threat.
Of course, the other people in that triple threat were the opponents – Powers salty at Krieger over cheating to beat her in the semis and always distrustful of Carpenter no matter their presentation, and Carpenter themselves, who took a shortcut to beat Krieger in the final and temporarily take the TV title.
Tense would be a good way to describe it.
| • “These Hands” Roy Fade & Jacques Krieger d. 2023 Duquesne Classic winner "Dark Mirror" Beckett Carpenter & Autumn Powers • | Both teams had squabbles amongst themselves even after the bell rang, but when Fade & Krieger’s ended before Carpenter & Powers’, they decided to temporarily shelve their differences and jump their opponents. Steve decried the lack of sportsmanship while Naz blamed the whole thing on Carpenter being unwilling to accept their true nature, saying that if they’d just be honest about being a shark instead of trying to be a dolphin for the Quality Controllers, they’d be champion right now instead of catching a beating from Roy Fade.
Fade and Krieger weren’t going to be costars in a buddy cop comedy any time soon, but despite some very hard tags they started to look close to something resembling a functioning team. Even Autumn going to the air couldn’t change their fates, as Krieger plucked her out of the air with a jarring heart punch before bringing in Fade to continue the job.
Tags between them remained hard but increased in frequency, and Autumn started to be on the brunt of the beating while Carpenter remained stoic on the apron and reached out for a tag that unfortunately wouldn’t be coming any time soon. It got to the point where it looked like Krieger was going to put Autumn down with the Roll of the Dice, only for Carpenter to finally launch themselves into the ring and save the match for their side. Fade charged only for Carpenter to matador Fade into Krieger, then Powers popped up and her neckbreaker on Jacques made him DDT Roy. The ref got Carpenter out of the ring, and Autumn crawled over for safe harbor. Powers hesitated on pulling the trigger but finally tagged out, and Carpenter hit the ring looking to put some meesters on their keesters.
Carpenter unloaded on both Fade and Krieger, including a really nice spot where they used the momentum of a standing tornado DDT they were hitting on Krieger to drill Fade with a step-up enzuigiri. Mirror laid in the hammer and anvil elbows before looking to make Krieger Look Inward, with Steve putting over how this would surely help Carpenter atone for the way that they felt after the way they won the Duquesne in last week’s show.
Krieger fought it off, so Carpenter laid in more elbows and went for it again. This time they got it locked in, but Fade actually ran in for a save and laid out Dark Mirror with a right hand. Powers leapt into the ring, things breaking down into a complete Pier 4 while the referee helplessly tried to restore order to the match. Powers got Fade on the back foot and looked to take him out with the Hazy Shade of Autumn, but Krieger dove into the picture and made sure Fade avoided it.
Even worse for the white hats, Powers’ signature Shining Wizard drilled Carpenter in the jaw, and Dark Mirror went down a heap while the crowd made a collective noise that sounded like they all just realized they stepped in dog crap. Powers cursed over the accidental dropping of their partner, then turned right around and ate the Decision from Roy Fade. Sneering, Krieger lifted up Carpenter’s mostly dead weight before planting them into the canvas, and that Roll of the Dice won his team the bout. ** ½
No sooner had we come out of replays to see Fade and Krieger get their hands raised then we saw Krieger try to heart punch Fade, only for These Hands to drill him with that Golden Glove winning right hand. Krieger went down and Fade got his revenge from last week by drilling Krieger with The Decision before standing on the turnbuckles and holding up 3 fingers before making A Very Familiar Gesture around his waist, Steve suggesting that no matter what happened in Vegas, Fade’s desire to be the first ever three-time TV champ in QCW history was going to be a problem for whoever won the Vegas Street Fight.
We went backstage to Commissioner Holmes in his office, where he wasn’t sitting for long before he stood up and welcomed an unexpected guest – Anton Stahl. Stahl took a seat across from Holmes and greeted him before asking what he’d done to end up in this chair. The Commissioner said that Anton was there because he was a unique man in a unique position, and he wanted his Mayday Payday involvement to reflect that. He was something special - reflective of the former Consortium, and still his own man. Not exactly the sort of man who should be the odd man out so Holmes was going to put him right in the middle of the action by making him the special guest referee for the Unified World Tag Team titles match. Anton didn’t show any outward emotion as Holmes added that if he threw the match for Serge and Pyotr, he’d be fired, but he had a suspicion that Anton would be the sort of man to call things down the middle – otherwise he wouldn’t be giving him this spot. Stahl’s face remained expressionless while he nodded, then said that if that’s what the Commissioner wanted, then he’d put on the stripes tomorrow and call things right down the middle as requested; may the better team prevail. Stahl offered a handshake, which seemed to surprise Scott at first, but then he took it. Stahl left the office, but not before making one more request – regardless of what was happening with the World TV title situation, he wanted another shot at Autumn Powers to prove himself after what happened in the Duquesne. Holmes said if he called the tag titles match fairly, he would get it. Anton nodded again, thanked the Commissioner for his time and left. Holmes watched him leave and then looked around his office with a small smile on his face before saying “Why can’t they all be like that?”
We went back to the ring, where we got tag action for the semi main event. Danny Castle & Martin Williams came to the ring through the crowd in their drab gray jumpsuits toting their THE END IS NIGH signs; we saw footage of them absolutely decimating the Hard Way last week with those signs and forfeit their tag team turmoil chance just to inflict pain and suffering. Since they haven’t spoken recently or have theme music as of yet light booing filled the Arena before the crowd popped at the arrival of their opponents, the Proper Villains. Old Jim and the Proper King carried their shares of the Ambassadors trios championships with them while in the ring their opponents were like statues. The bell rang and the Villains were quick to get the upper hand, clearing both Castle and Williams from the ring and celebrating to the joy of the crowd right before we hit the last big commercial break of the night.
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We came back to bedlam and the bell ringing repeatedly – the Villains were on the mat getting plastered by the THE END IS NIGH signs, Castle & Williams repeating their actions from last week on new victims. During The Break we saw that after getting knocked to the floor, Castle & Williams exchanged a glance before grabbing their signs and swinging for the fences, Richard Windsor blocking a shot with his face to cause the DQ and then Jim coming to his partner’s defense before getting swarmed himself. DUD
| • the Proper Villians ddq. Danny Castle & Martin Williams • |
Back in live time the assault on the Villains continued with several referees unable to plead reason into either Martin or Danny. So since the zebras talking wasn't stopping the charge, leave it to the Game Changers and a couple of baseball bats to put a stop to things.
The crowd cheered as the Tiki God and Ashley THEE Influencer ran down to the ring with baseball bats, and eventually Castle and Williams walked off with their increasingly bloody signs. The Red, White and True walked out on the ramp with Drake Tremble clearly in recruitment mode after the past couple of weeks, but neither Castle or Williams paid him any mind and left through the concourse they had emerged from before receding into the night.
Ahead of the second Pick Your Poison match, Steve and Naz showcased the Mayday Payday card: the preshow will see newcomers Hilary Highnote and Midsomar face off in singles action and there'll be an eight person tag with Danny Castle and Martin Williams teaming up with the Red, White and True in an unlikely alliance against the Hard Way and the Game Changers.
Once the main card gets underway, the fans in Vegas are going to have a fun Saturday night, let me assure you.
🎲 Diana Spare will once again defend the Crush championship in pursuit of 10 🎲
🎲 We'll get a rematch between "Dashing" Pierce Moore and newcomer "Superfine" Reggie Strong 🎲
🎲 Lolo Vuitton has issued another open challenge for the Women's World Championship 🎲
🎲 With Anton Stahl forced (?) to call things down the middle, who will prevail when Team Batroc, Serge Batroc and Pyotr Caviar face off against the Wonderful Ward Brothers with the Unified World Tag Team championships on the line? 🎲
🎲 The GRPL+ World TV title will be up for grabs in a triple threat Vegas Street Fight – "Dark Mirror" Beckett Carpenter against Jacques Krieger against Autumn Powers - after all the craziness that went down in the Duquesne, who will emerge from Vegas as the undisputed TV champ? 🎲
🎲 And the main event has been months in the making: the Revenant vs. Razorblade with the Unified World Heavyweight Championship on the line is written in ink, but there's still the matter of what the stipulation for that fight will be…if only we were a match away from finding out what that would be… 🎲
| | • the main event • | |
“Unscripted Violence” hit the PA again to bring out Razorblade to the pop of the night, with Mason Savage even redder than he was earlier in the evening. Savage was all no killer no filler as he rolled into the ring before gesturing to the back for the Rev to appear, which he did – on the Tron.
The Rev said that since he’d taken care of business earlier, it was time for him to have a little fun on the last show before he officially took the top spot in QCW and the little man’s title with it. So since this person had the temerity to end a title reign of his in a three on one match, Savage should feel free to do his worst and hope he could find a way to win fast enough, otherwise…the Rev let the threat hang in the air before a series of raspy chuckles and blipping off the Qualitron 9004. Savage seethed in the ring but got surprised with the entire rest of the Arena when “New Born” by Muse played throughout the Arena, and the Game Changers were right back out to the cheers and mild confusion for the crowd. We found out who would be fighting Razorblade when Duck made her official announcement as they both headed down to the ring.
The Game Changers both shook hands with Savage before Al went out to the floor to support Ashley, Savage still looking piqued at the whole situation while the former Unified World Tag Team champion looked focused at the main event opportunity despite the circumstances in which she got it.
Early moments of the match saw Ashley surprise Razorblade a little bit with her strength and knock him down to the canvas a few times. Steve pointed out that teaming with Al sort of camouflaged the fact that Szabo was a powerhouse in her own right, and she added to the point when she caught Savage off the ropes and hit him with a floatover DDT to send him down to the canvas. The clock on the Tron went under six minutes as Ashley went for a cover that Razorblade was able to shrug off before it even got to a two count.
Savage still found himself in trouble for the next few beats after this, but managed to have tricks up his sleeve even when he was on his back on the mat – Szabo moved to snatch him up for a move only to have Savage kick her left leg out from under her with his right leg before sending her face careening off of his left knee. This bought Savage recovery time…at least until the lights went out. The Rev appeared on the Tron with his black tongued grin, but then pretty soon after that things restored to normal. The Rev’s attempted intimidation seemed to fire Savage up, and he took it out on Szabo. Savage started laying in the offense and started to swallow up Szabo’s power meter. It looked as if THEE Influencer was about to get their Soul Crushed but then the lights went out and “Red Right Hand” itself started playing over the PA.
When the lights came on, the Revenant was standing on the steps closest to where Savage was going for his signature. Savage taunted the Rev, telling him to take his best shot. The Rev just smiled his black grin at Razorblade, since he was about to get what he wanted.
Szabo not only wriggled out of the Soul Crusher but converted it into her own offense with an emphatic sunset flip powerbomb that left both of them out on the mat for a stretch, “QCW!” and “Holy shit!” chants well in abundance. Szabo crawled over for the cover while the Rev cackled in the background, but Savage kicked out at 2 ½. Szabo went for more offense, but part of the reason The Damned Man was laughing was the fact that the sunset bomb connected with under half a minute left. The Rev didn’t need Ashley to win the match, Naz reminded us as the final eight seconds went off the timer, he just needed her to survive it, which she did.
| • Mason “Razorblade” Savage DRAW Ashley “THEE Influencer” Szabo (w/”Tiki God” Al Buffett) in a non-title Pick Your Poison match • |
We got some replays of the bigger moves in the match and the announce put over Ashley hanging with The Unified Champ before the Rev scared the crap out of poor Duck Eko and went to grab the mic from where he left it on the ground. The Rev offered sarcastic congratulations to Ashley before saying that her good job was going to turn into Mason’s hard time tomorrow out in West Gomorrah. For years he’s been hearing crap about how Savage is the best fighter in QCW when everyone knows the best anything QCW has is the Big Bad himself. Savage bragged about fighting his whole life, but now he was going to be fighting for his life. Because at Mayday Payday, they weren’t having some BS wrestling match and after screwing him out of the TV title the word fight didn’t do it justice.
If Savage was the champ all these morons said he was, then it meant that tomorrow night the Rev was going to put him and his title reign six feet under in a buried alive match.
Everybody lost their mind. Even you. Razorblade wasn’t freaking out about the announcement, but the scowl on his face and the cackling from the Revenant told you all you needed to know as Steve wrapped up the show while the credit box came up. Tomorrow’s night Mayday Payday, as if you didn’t know. See you in Vegas, baby!
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