LAST WEEK ON RUCKUS
The Proper Villains notched another win and challenged Team Batroc to put up the Unified World Tag Team championships against them tonight - that match will main event the show
Jacques Krieger defended the GRPL+ World TV title in under a minute against Katsuji Ootsuka, leaving the Ambassadors champion shaken post match
Karyn Tisch-Warren won a four way elimination match to regain the Crush championship and called out Women's World champion Cindy Monet afterwards
Unfortunately for us all, this episode began with a pretape from the Red, White and True. Hannity lite music played in the background while Drake Tremble stood behind a podium with the cosplaytriots’ logo on it, surrounded by American flags and his loyal minions Bobby Bash and Ted Holland. Tremble thanked all the real Americans listening to him right now and said he heard them refused to be silenced just like he and his boys. But as bad as the sicknesses were coming over the border, you still had to contend with people from hellholes like Chicago, like Justice Davis. How it came to be that a drunk and a sicko addict like Davis could even call himself Justice was beyond him, but they would serve true justice tonight –
– and suddenly in black and white, we saw an obscured tombstone before a small hand shot out from the grave in front of it, reaching up for the sky as dirt fell. Another hand took a few beats to follow it, and then with both hands slowly pulling a figure out of the grave –
– we somehow returned to Tremble’s pseudo press conference, saying that he would prove that he was right, that their way of life was better than Davis’ and that they would prove it tonight. Tremble walked off the set, his klan followed, and we went to the standard opening from there.
Once we were in the Quality Arena, Steve Vandeblanche welcomed us to the show alongside Nazir el-Fadal before hyping up this episode of Ruckus featuring three championship matches with the first of the three happening right now to kick off the program; it might have seemed familiar if you remembered how Ruckus closed last week it was going to seem like a little bit of history repeating…
| • Karyn Tisch-Warren [c, w/International Lotus] ds. Jane Doe to retain the Crush championship 1️⃣ • |
Karyn got her record fourth title reign started successfully against the woman she beat last week to get the belt back, but Jane didn't exactly roll over on her back and show her belly. In fact, the early moments of the match saw Doe on the upper hand despite the fact she was wearing a bandage around her right knee after the elimination match seven days ago. Doe used a flurry of armdrags to send Karyn on an unwanted tour of the squared circle, and a couple of minutes after that she reversed a whip and hit a quebrada that dropped Tisch-Warren. Doe came up limping a bit after the move hit, but she was able to stay in control for a few beats right after that…right up until Karyn snuffed a heart punch attempt and log rolled Jane down to the mat.
The match didn't end there, but that's where it began unraveling for Jane. Karyn went from barely to comfortably ahead by ditching her usual backbreaker based offense and throwing the kitchen sink at Jane's leg. And every time it looked like Jane was going to get out from under something came along to keep her under Karyn's thumb: sometimes thigh kicks, sometimes a shinbreaker and even once Sohla Patel punching her ankle from the outside of the ring. Jane got off a late heart punch but when she tried to follow up on it Karyn chop blocked her injured leg and sent her down in sections. Karyn spent the next couple of minutes breaking down the leg before hooking Jane into the Circuit Breaker. Last week Jane passed out rather than give up; this week she lasted more than a handful of seconds but eventually opted to tap out rather than get her leg further damaged. ** ½
But after the bell rang, both Sohla Patel and Scott Warren-Tisch hit the ring to stomp Jane Doe out. The Quality Controllers booed this loudly as Karyn put Jane in the Circuit Breaker again and Sohla went to the floor so she could rummage under the ring until she found a chair she could use. Sohla slid into the ring but just as soon as she was headed towards Jane she was sliding out of the ring - thanks to Cindy Monet.
The crowd popped as Cindy hit the ring, causing Karyn to flee to the outside. The Women's World champion checked on her tag partner alongside the referee, but then suddenly she was getting smacked in the back by a chair swinging Patel. Sohla punted Jane's bum ankle before snatching Cindy up and planted her on the chair with the Ninth Incarnation. Karyn ran back in the ring and hugged her partner before International Lotus smack talked Science Fiction Double Feature. "Roar" came up on the PA as Karyn held her Crush championship high and Patel mockingly kicked back dirt onto her fallen rivals, and International Lotus celebrating their attack all the way up the ramp was the last thing that happened before our first major commercial break of the night.
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Now that we're in October, hope you enjoy squash!
| • Jacques Krieger [c, w/S. Mark Starr] d. Il Postino to retain the GRPL+ World Television championship 4️⃣ • | Even though Postino lasted a little bit longer than Katsuji Ootsuka did last week somehow, this one was obviously never in doubt. Jacqueshammer, check please. DUD
Post match, Starr held up Postino so his client could unnecessarily smack him around some more while the Controllers booed. But their attitudes would completely flip once someone came to make the save for the USPS enthusiast: "Superfine" Reggie Strong, who probably got jumped at Anniversary by Krieger and even in an impressive suit wasted no time in lighting up the World TV champ. Krieger couldn't even get a hand on Strong offensively before Reggie sent him from the ring with a clothesline while the crowd roared. Starr held Krieger back and got the belt while Reggie got the mic from Duck.
Once Strong did, he was far from his usual easy going mood. Reggie said his entire career had been building to AnIIIversary and his first title shot in QCW - then not only does he get jumped in the parking lot and screwed out of his shot but Krieger actually gets the belt?! He had to sit at home and heal up watching Krieger strut around with what should be his belt, but on the off chance Jacques couldn't see where he was, he was back in the Arena with all his smooth operators having his back. Krieger took AnIIIversary from him, so Reggie was going to take the one thing off him that kept Krieger from being just another card in QCW's deck – the GRPL+ World Television championship. Strong tossed the mic and continued to glare down Krieger and Starr while the crowd showered him in "Superfine!" chants.
| • The Game Changers d. Beauty and the Beast Mode • | Before this one began, GRPL+ Helpfully Reminded Us That Last Week there was a “Tiki God” Al Buffett v. “These Hands” Roy Fade singles match that ended with “Dashing” Pierce Moore interfering to keep his partner from getting pinned; when Ashley “THEE Influencer” Szabo came in for the save, both the Changers ended up getting laid out by both members of Mode, and thus the longtime rivals found themselves scrapping once again for supremacy.
What turned out to be a minor surprise was the baddies from California honestly dominating ⅔rds of the fight. At first they were doing so with quick tags and halving the ring, but as the Game Changers started to try and mount a comeback the tactics got more underhanded from B&BM.
While the Changers fought off what dirty deeds they could, it looked like the rubber was going to meet the road for them as both Fade and Moore got increasingly cocksure of their victory and proved it with taunt after taunt. An apparently beaten down Buffett got his Hawaiian shirt ripped off of him by Moore while the Controllers got increasingly livid, and Moore added insult to insult by slapping him in the face with the Tommy Bahama collection. Sufficiently pleased, Moore leapt up for his signature Fresh To Death – and Buffett suddenly took him to the mat in a backslide. Fade ran into the ring for the save but ran right into a Codebreaker from Szabo, and just like that the former Unified World Tag Team champions had pulled victory from the jaws of defeat much to the delight of the Quality Controllers. ** ½
Ashley quickly grabbed Al and rolled to the outside where they got their hands raised by the referee, leaving an agog Moore fuming between the ropes as Steve chalked up the win to the championship pedigree of TGC. Al took a ringside fan’s Polynesian Physic Grog and shotgunned it to get his wits about him before posing for a selfie with them; back in the ring you could see a clearly confused Fade asking Moore what happened.
From there we went TOTHEBACK~!, where Enya Face didn’t teleport in – she was here to welcome her guests at this time, challenging for the Unified World Tag Team championships in tonight’s main event – the Proper Villains, along with Katsuji Ootsuka. The crowd popped as “the Fury” Jim Jaspers and “the Proper King” Richard Windsor came into the shot, with Ootsuka a few steps behind. Enya asked the Ambassadors trios champions what their game plan was tonight, and Ootsuka started to answer before apologizing and ceding the floor to his partners. Jaspers said that the plan was simple: take the titles. See, this goes back years and years and years, and all because Serge was a self-important [bleep] who wanted Jim to bend the knee, and anyone who knew Old Jim knew that was never going to happen. Richard got tired of all Serge’s crap like any royalty would, and now their mission in QCW was simple – shut Serge up once and for all. Once they won tonight, they would hold every single piece of tag team gold, with any luck that Russian bear would eat Serge, and he and the Proper King would reign supreme over the tag team division. Windsor added that this was a long time coming, and he was going to rejoice in beating the men he helped train because those – pardon his language – jerkoffs had it coming. Ootsuka nodded and Enya threw to commercials after that.
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| • the End Times (w/Summer Rose) d. the Hard Way • | The back half of Ruckus kept the tag division in the spotlight and marked the returns of the End Times and Summer Rose. After giving the Wonderful Ward Brothers the power of temporary flight the Quality Controllers booed them out of the building.
They got a little bit happier when ex tag champs and fellow former End Times victims the Hard Way came out of the gates hot and fired up the faithful. Within minutes they'd cleared the ring of both Danny Castle and Dr. Martin Williams and it seemed like they were on their way to a statement victory to bump them up the tag power rankings.
Summer Rose called over her charges, started a huddle and then broke it off so she could slap them both in the face repeatedly before barking that it was their job to bring about the end – so they'd better get to work.
The End Times robotically got back in the ring and proceeded to wreck the former champions, bringing newfound intensity as poor Paul Fifita and John Goodish took the ass whooping of six men. It turns out that the statement win would belong to the End Times, who ended the fight with a tornado DDT variant of the Doomsday Device that put poor Fifita to sleep the har…you know. ** ½
Summer Rose raised her boys' hands post match and said loudly enough to be heard even without a mic that she would have her revenge on QCW, and that anyone who stood in their way could end up sharing hospital space with the Wards. Between matches, Steve and Naz (in a mild shock) ran down the End Times’ tactics and mentioned it’d be close to Thanksgiving before the Wards could come back. But Naz also pointed out that Summer’s managerial skills and former championship experience meant that the Times were going to have to be taken seriously and feared, and who knew who she would send her attack dogs after next?
Banter at the announce table was broken up by “Stranglehold”, which unfortunately brought out the Red, White and True for trios action with Drake Tremble leading the charge. Bobby Bash & “Swamp Trash” Ted Holland flanked their leader as Tremble berated the Controllers.
“New Day” by the Bouncing Souls brought out Justice Davis to a good pop from the crowd, and Davis’ usual laser focus was replaced by…well, not a wide grin, exactly, but a smile that suggested he had gotten two decent mystery partners in his attempt to finally silence Tremble and his goon squad. Davis paused halfway down the aisle, shaking his head at Drake’s smacktalk before he pointed behind him up the ramp.
When “Unscripted Violence” hit the PA the roof came off the joint as Mason “Razorblade” Savage returned to QCW and took the side of a man who’s career he inspired, Davis alternatively psyched and thankful as the former Unified World champ shook his hands and whispered some words to Davis while Tremble got increasingly furious in the ring.
Suddenly the lights went out in the Arena and the Qualitron 9004 whirred to life with footage of someone crawling out of a grave, the same footage that had interrupted the promo Tremble had kicked off the show with. The figure shook off some dust and started walking towards the camera until everything went black.
Pause.
And cue “Mota” by the Offspring.
And the back up roof that’d been in the process of being built also came off the Arena, because Autumn Powers was back for the first time since AnIIIversary. The former World TV champion came out to a rapturous reaction as Tremble was almost slackjawed in the ring. Steve sold the hell out of this, saying that two of the best of the modern era had not only come back but come back together in support of Justice Davis and justice in general. Powers met Savage and Davis at the mid point of the ramp and they all exchanged pleasantries before Autumn pointed to the ring with one hand and made a throat slash gesture with the other. The babyfaces smiled before running down the rest of the ramp into the ring together, and you didn’t need to sport a Rolex to know that it was going to be Ass Whoop O’Clock for the outmatched cosplaytriots.
Things never really got above sea level for the red hats, and they got even worse after Davis and Savage teamed up to send the behemoth Bash into the ring post and busted him open to effectively take him out of the fight. Faced with the prospect of facing off against QCW’s only ever double champion, a three-time World TV titleholder and the up and coming Davis, Tremble tried to remove himself from the fray under the guise of trying to help Bash get unloopy and left his ostensible protege Holland to the wolves. Ted showed some fighting spirit but the odds were hysterically against him. Eventually the white hats took over, and then they took him out: Savage dropped him with a Soul Crusher, which fed Autumn for the Hazy Shade of Autumn, and that set up Davis putting a bow on the bout with his signature Davis Driver, the crowd counting along with Justice and the ref as the three came down to seal the victory. **
| • Justice Davis, Autumn Powers and Mason "Razorblade" Savage d. the Red, White and True • |
The babyfaces took to separate turnbuckles to celebrate as Steve pointed out this meant that Justice’s long delayed one on one match against Tremble would finally happen next week. As for the Red, White and True, Holland stared daggers at Tremble for more than a little bit before he helped Drake aid Bobby to the back. Autumn, Justice and Mason took another curtain call in the ring before we hit our last big commercial break ahead of the main event.
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Is the next week of QCW TV going to be loaded? Does the Pope take a shit in the woods?
⌨️ Unleashed will not only feature International Lotus facing off with Science Fiction Double Feature, but the Unified World Heavyweight champion the Revenant has issued an open challenge for the main event (non-title, of course) ⌨️
And with Ruckus celebrating its second anniversary next week, the show is New Year's Eve loaded with action:
💫 After being able to dodge it for weeks, the Red, White and True's leader Drake Tremble has to go one on one with the newcomer Justice Davis 💫
💫 Karyn Tisch-Warren is doing something with the Crush championship called the International Lotus Invitational and we'll find out more about that next week, hopefully, I guess 💫
💫 Jacques Krieger will aim to hit the halfway point on his march to 10 with another successful defense of the GRPL+ World TV title 💫
💫 And the main event will see Cindy Monet defend the Women's World championship against a member of International Lotus – Sohla Patel gets the shot after what happened earlier and who knows what Karyn Tisch-Warren's going to think about that - and can Jane Doe even back Cindy up after everything Karyn's done to her the past two weeks? 💫
It feels like the only reason the Unified World Tag Team championships aren't on the line next week is because that's what right now is for; and we went from Steve hyping next week's show to him sending things TOTHEBACK~! with Julius Duquesne III standing by with the Unified World Tag Team champions.
Despite the Controllers already booing, JD3 asked the champions – and Pyotr Caviar piefaced poor Julius out of the shot before handing the mic to Serge.
Batroc said that he was sick of the Villains hounding him and Pyotr for months on end chasing the Unified World Tag Team championships, and they had failed time and time again. If they wanted to fail again right here, right now, they might as well hit the champions’ music so they could get humiliated again.
On that demand, the creepy whistling and dulcet tones of Rammstein’s “Engel” presaged the arrival of the champions inside the Arena. God knows they didn’t want to be angels, they wanted another day/month/season lording it over all the other tag teams in a stacked division. The French Assassin and the Tracksuit Tsar took their usual positions mid-ring, slowly lifting the Unified belts over their heads as red, yellow, white and blue spotlights roamed over their heads.
As they sneered, “I Predict A Riot” by the Kaiser Chiefs took over the PA and out came the Ambassadors trios champions looking to consolidate every piece of QCW tag team gold. A cut to the ring saw the usually unflappable Serge taunting and waving on Jim Jaspers and Richard Windsor; all “the Fury” and “the Proper King” needed was an excuse and they floored it down the ramp, causing Duck Eko to dive out of the ring right before a Pier 4 broke out in the ring to the joy of the rabidly cheering crowd; ladies, gentlemen, and others…welcome to…
| • the main event • |
Even after the referee called for the bell, the brawls continued; not only that, they spilled out to the floor. The Villains got a leg up on the fight when Windsor dodged a Serge uppercut and back suplexed him into the apron. Batroc bounced off and sluiced to the floor but Windsor wasn’t done there – he helped jump on Pyotr and he and Jim started double teaming the massive Russian on the other side of the floor. The Villains swung for the fences and eventually got Pyotr down to his hands and knees before they teamed up to throw Caviar into the barricade. But they didn’t stop there – they threw him back first into the apron, then back into the barricade, then back into the apron and back into the barricade. A joyous looking Katsuji Ootsuka came down the ramp as Windsor got Serge into the ring before bullrushing him into the Proper corner and dishing out some hardcore European uppercuts in a flurry on his own. He tagged in Jaspers, who followed up with some short range knees to the gut, and the Villains continued the double team effort in the next couple minutes culminating in a crossbody/suplex combo that got them a decent two count before the recovering Caviar came in to break it up with an elbow to the back of Windsor’s head.
Jaspers swarmed onto Caviar and began punching and kicking him out of the ring, leading the referee to try and get the illegal men free from the ring. Unfortunately for Windsor, while that was happening the ever shady Serge used the opportunity to uppercut the Proper King right in the thrones, and Richard went timber while the crowd booed. Serge started to crawl for his corner – but no one was there, because Caviar was on the floor crawling for the corner. Batroc would end up tagging air while Windsor tagged out to Jaspers, and the challengers teamed up for a sort of Poetry in Motion but the Fury leapt off the back of his partner with a pump knee that sent the French Assassin tumbling to the canvas. But when Old Jim went for the cover, Serge found a way to kick out at 2 ½. Jaspers was briefly pissed but then a sinister smile spread across his face, and he slowly dropped his Union Jack kneepad to signal that he was going to take his longtime rival down to Fury Road. Jaspers bounced off the ropes but when he went for his finisher, Serge spun away from the moment of impact and Jaspers went sailing past him.
That’s when the top rope got lowbridged and Jaspers bounced off the apron to the floor. A desperate Batroc tagged in the man who did the lowbridging, but Pyotr Caviar took the tag and went to the floor eyeing Old Jim. As Jaspers drew himself up using the barricade, Pyotr Caviar had a better idea: put him through it.
With a running start, Caviar’s flying crossbody sent nearly 600 pounds of wrestler through the barricade and into some unlucky knees of front row fans, causing Steve to get bleeped on G+ for what the whole of Quality Arena would be chanting long and loud soon enough: HOLY SHIT!
A camera got a shot of Caviar’s wince turning into a grin as he rolled over and got into the ring while we got oh so many deserved replays of Caviar’s messed up version of fung shui. As Caviar demanded the count come faster, Ootsuka was hovering by Jaspers hoping that he could answer it on the outside. Caviar went to check on Serge in their corner while the count was on, and Jaspers didn’t even start moving until the referee hit 5. Jaspers got to a knee, and pulled himself up slowly while Ootsuka rooted him on, but Jaspers fell down before pulling himself up, shoving Ootsuka aside so that he could roll in the ring at 9 ¾. The crowd cheered as Jaspers had just b aaaaa r e l y survived the count, then gasped and screamed as Caviar flew off the top with a 325 pound frog splash that buckled the ring and engulfed Jaspers entirely. Caviar went in for the cover, but it got broken up by a desperate Windsor flying off the top with a double foot stomp that caught Pyotr in the upper back.
The crowd cheered the fact that the match was going to continue, and Windsor started to leave the ring only to be snatched up from behind by Serge and thrown into the ring post. The next couple minutes got uncomfortable to watch as the champions got increasingly vicious in their attack that ended up being Batroc and Caviar grounding and pounding the Villains, it being especially egregious seeing the massive Caviar ragdoll the much smaller Windsor. The referee tried to get involved on Jaspers' behalf but Serge just barked at her and went back to work; when she went to get Windsor free from Caviar the Russian land monster shoved her on her ass.
Things continued like that for a few beats and Caviar cackled away while the crowd booed, but pretty soon they would be cheering loudly because Katsuji Ootsuka hit the ring and he wasn't just hitting the ring, he was hitting the Tracksuit Tsar with what appeared to be a police baton, and for the first time in about 20 odd minutes Pyotr Caviar looked human. Ootsuka tuned him up like a piano while the crowd roared the approval, and it might've continued until he beat Pyotr from a solid into a vapor if it hadn't been for Serge Batroc hitting him from behind.
Then there were several hits - the loafer of Ootsuka catching Serge in the baguettes, and then the baton of Ootsuka trying to turn Serge into pulp just like he'd done to a still fallen Pyotr. It seemed like this joy could've continued until 2024 but everyone got jolted back to reality by the bell ringing. The referee looked apologetic but she passed along word to Duck, who had to tell everyone else.
Due to outside interference, Team Batroc were still the Unified World Tag Team champions. No one was saying Boo-urns after that, and some bullshit chants could be heard under the nega ovation. High quality TV match until the end, though. *** ½
| • Team Batroc [c] ddq. the Proper Villains (w/Katsuji Ootsuka) to retain the Unified World Tag Team championships • |
Ootsuka and the referee had a bit of a back and forth for a few testy moments before the Prince of Punishment threw his hands up in the air and went to check on his partners. As Team Batroc was barely beginning to stir, with their belts on their stomachs, Katsuji first went to Richard and then Jim to make sure they were in better shape than they had been. The Villains were both talking to Katsuji as the credits box came up, and whatever Ootsuka said to them landed far better with Richard than with Jim. By the time we faded to black it looked like Jim was going to go after Ootsuka of all people, but Richard pointed out the beaten down champions and sort of tried to play peacemaker between his stablemates. Prince and Proper problems aside, see you next Friday night when QCW continues to bring the Ruckus!
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