Broadcast live on FanDuel Sports Network Florida
The show opened with a video package that took up the first couple of minutes that showed some Duquesne Classic history before focusing on this year's final four: Bonnie Agrippa, Hysteria's new leader looking to leverage her Dealer's Choice into joining the Triple Crown Club - Pyotr Caviar, the bruising Russian under former Classic winner Serge Batroc’s tutelage looking for his first taste of singles gold - Justice Davis, the suddenly inscrutable powder keg who's clearly been changed by his failed attempts to thwart the Chosen - and Nazir el-Fadal, possibly the most decorated superstar in QCW history who’s resume is only missing being a Classic winner on it. At the end of tonight, one of them will be holding the Duquesne Cup and looking forward to the main event at Mayday Payday. Tonight..is the Coronation.
Purple and teal pyro exploded on the stage as a sold out Bojangles Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina raised up and got loud. The big 3 of Steve, Carl and Duck were in their usual spots as Carl hyped the Last Stand match for the World Tag Team championships before Steve said that even on a supershow with limited commercial interruptions, there was no time to waste and that we’d kick things off with the semifinals of the Duquesne…
1. Pyotr Caviar (w/Serge Batroc) d. Nazir el-Fadal at 21:02 in a Duquesne Classic semifinal match Gotta assume matches like this are why FDSN Florida paid for Ruckus, as the Tracksuit Tsar and the Greatest Man Alive essentially had an AnniVersary level match with Caviar eventually notching the biggest win of his career so far (and he might be a couple hours away from the new biggest win at that). As expected, Naz played a cat and mouse game with Caviar early given the fact that he was outweighed by nearly 80 pounds. Having problems lifting Pyotr, Naz went a different route and tried a sleeper which was easily tossed off but opened the door to option C: cheating. Foot stomps, eye rakes, closed fists, whatever it takes - and since it was against Caviar the crowd actually got behind Naz’s shortcuts. But all that came to a halt when Naz tried to get Caviar up for a Saito suplex and ended up eating a jawbreaker of a Russian lariat that sent the former World champion between the middle and bottom rope to the floor. Caviar asked the ref to check on his injured eye and rightfully complained about Naz’s shady ways - but on the floor Serge got revenge on Naz eliminating him from the Classic by grabbing el-Fadal by the back of the neck and head and throwing it into the steps before hiding under the ring.
The One Man Jihad was already in a bad way and to add injury to injury Caviar flew in out of nowhere and smashed Naz into the steps with a high octane running crossbody. Pyotr was content to win by countout but Naz managed to flop back into the ring just after 9. Pyotr then spent the next few minutes beating el-Fadal down but Naz didn't stay down for 3 no matter what the Tracksuit Tsar threw at him. Naz fought back and actually rattled Caviar with a flurry of European uppercuts but Pyotr shook off a cross chop to the throat and hit another running crossbody for 2¾. Pyotr continued pummelling Naz for a bit and hit a pop up European uppercut - but Naz kicked out at 2.9. The crowd began chanting for Naz (still weird), while Serge yelled from the floor for Pyotr to end it. Caviar had a sick grin as Naz staggered to his feet and turned around, then he flattened Naz out with a discus version of the Russian sickle. The referee's hand came down two more times and as it went down for the third, Naz’s right hand shot out and grabbed the bottom rope. Caviar had thought he won the match and was incensed when the ref informed him that he hadn't, to the point that the berating essentially led to Pyotr cornering the zebra. If he’d been listening to Serge, he would've heard Naz coming up from behind him and leaping on his back to apply a sleeper. It took a few seconds to get Naz off his back but when he missed another sickle Naz put the sleeper back on. Caviar struggled more and ran backwards into the corner, but Naz didn't shake loose. Caviar ran to another corner and repeated it; it loosened Naz’s grip but el-Fadal quickly moved hands into a cobra clutch. Serge pounded the apron to keep Pyotr alert but the crowd started chanting NAZ! over it, and when Pyotr started to power out Naz hit a Lungblower to complete his Heat Check. Caviar staggered away only for Naz to spin him around so he could drop him with the Hamrin Valley Driver to a big pop. Caviar slowly got to his feet and Naz greeted him with another Hamrin Valley Driver and made a cover but it was Pyotr’s turn to kick out at 2¾. Serge got on the apron but Naz blasted him with a leg lariat that sent Batroc flying into and off of the announce table. el-Fadal turned around to blast Pyotr with one only to fall victim to the first ever pop up Russian sickle. Even if that hadn't been enough to finish Naz off the following Hit My Music was, and it was Pyotr's trusty finisher that punched his ticket to the final that’ll close the show tonight. No celebration for Caviar, who focused on helping Serge to the back and that left Naz in the ring to get a pretty sizeable ovation from the Bojangles crowd. el-Fadal looked a little pissed and a lot in pain, but gave the crowd a small wave in recognition before gingerly making his way to the back. Babyface Naz is weird as hell, but what isn't this year?
2. Justice Davis d. Bonnie Agrippa (w/Hysteria) at 11:29 in a Duquesne Classic semifinal match Agrippa is shockingly a one and done after losing to Davis, who's behaving more like a mechanical animal since his…whatever happened with the Chosen back in January. Davis used his power to get the upper hand, and even used the fact that Hysteria was reluctant to interfere for a change to go after them out of nowhere and eventually wipe them all out with a cannonball from the top rope into the coven on the floor. That did allow an opening for Bonnie to grab Justice and toss him into the dividing barrier a couple of times to gain control. Bonnie got Justice back in the ring but within a couple of minutes Justice launched Hysteria's new leader across the ring with an overhead belly to belly suplex. That was the beginning of the end for Bonnie, who ate a chain of 3 JDDDTs before the Davis Driver sent Justice into the final and tonight's main event. Crowd seemed to be more into this win than the one he notched over Ashley “THEE Influencer” Szabo last week even though you could see some fans feeling uneasy about it; as he has for the past few weeks Davis didn't even stick around to get his hand raised and walked silently to the back after getting the win.
We went to Steve Vandeblanche in the ring, who brought out Mason “Razorblade” Savage to a massive pop. Dressed in street clothes, the World and National champion made his way down the stairs and through the concourse through the crowd who were busy losing their minds. Razorblade joined Steve in the ring and shook his hand, made slightly hardér by the fact he had a belt draped over each shoulder. Steve welcomed Razorblade and was in the middle of asking a question when the crowd’s “Champ Champ!” chants got too loud to ignore. Razorblade waved them down and mentioned that he knew Charlotte was rowdy, but he had something important to say. The crowd quieted and Razorblade said that as the new National champion he got to do with the belt what he wanted. So not only would he be defending the National championship next week in an open challenge, not only was he opening up competition for the title to both genders, neither gender, whoever the hell wanted to come after the belt, sure…but if Ig was going to disappear the Crush championship then he was going to put the 10 Count on the National championship as well. But before someone could even go cash in the National title after 10 wins he was going to hold onto it as long as he could; whoever came after it next week was going to leave disappointed and he was going to leave still double champion.
He then pivoted, saying that while that covered the National championship in the future, he was going to focus on the World championship tonight. Whoever was about to win the Duquesne, whether it was that human tank Pyotr or…Justice…he would be waiting for them at Mayday Payday and if he still had both belts, they could get a shot at both belts. But he'd beaten Omar, Naz, and both of them at the same time so whoever won the Duquesne better realize they were in the ring with the gold standard of QCW and he was going to walk out with all the gold just like he did in Dublin. In fact, he was going to be joining Steve on commentary for the main event to see who won the Duquesne and who he would bleed at Mayday Payday. Steve then brought up Caviar being seen by Serge Batroc and others as the future of QCW, but obviously his…well…well, actually, nobody knew what his relationship with Justice Davis even was anymore. Could The Double Champ provide any insight on what was going on there? Razorblade fixed Steve with a state that cut off the questioning and things got awkward for a few seconds before Razorblade said that he'd see Steve and Carl later. “Unscripted Violence” played as Razorblade headed to the back, while Carl wondered on commentary if Razorblade didn't know what the relationship with his former (?) partner was or if he just didn't want to say.
3. Orion d. Sohla Patel at 6:11 Sohla cut a prematch promo and said that nobody who covered their face could ever become the face of International Lotus or complete her Sohla Search; Orion showed they could give a rat’s ass and beat Sohla like a rented goalie in an extended squash. A beautiful satellite DDT set up Orion’s Nebula for the win. After replays we saw QCW’s cosmic superstar holding up a fan’s MALICÍA FEARS ORION sign while announce hyped the fact that rematch might be coming, hopefully sooner rather than later.
We went from there TOTHEBACK~!, where the newcomers Sky’s the Limit were hyped about the eight man tag coming up, especially Tre Boyd who said that after his boys showed up and showed out last week it would be his turn to light QCW up and show them they would be the ones running things soon enough. A female voice asked sarcastically “Y’ALL gone run things, huh?” and the newbies turned to see Shelley LaVey with a smirk on her face. LaVey said her boys were on the way and said she knew a bit about Kam Ellis so she was looking forward to seeing Tre fly high tonight. Shelley was cut off by an entering Lolo Vuitton, who blamed Shelley for their loss against Hysteria on Unleashed and said that if Ig hadn't just given her a rematch against Fiona Fogg next week she’d be whooping Shelley again right now. Shelley took that as you might expect, and Sky’s the Limit looked on #respectfully but before things could break out into a brawl Beauty and the Beast Mode came on the scene and broke things up.
Lolo told LaVey to watch her back and told the men to watch her back before she left (Tre didn't need to be told twice). Shelley shook off the confrontation and said that she’d settle things with Lolo down the line - this was about them going out, and who knows: maybe the Culture had room to grow. Sky's the Limit looked split on the idea and Beauty and the Beast Mode didn't seem too enthused about the idea but “Dashing” Pierce Moore broke the tension by saying they had a match to win so let's go do it. “Pray For Me” hit the PA and they all went out as a unit with Sky's Cooper twins bringing up the rear and playfully arguing between themselves if Lolo or Shelley had checked them out.
4. Beauty and the Beast Mode and Sky's the Limit (Tre Boyd and Kam Ellis (w/the Cooper Brothers and Shelley LaVey) d. the End Times and A World of Pain (w/the Chosen) at 8:16 A lot of moving parts in this eight man tag, highlighted by the fact that both sides had the obvious friction with their opponents but a bit with their partners as well. For obvious reasons the punk rockers didn't get along well with the reformed, but after AWOP hit a combination wheelbarrow suplex/diving lariat on Moore then let the End Times go to work that eased the heel tension. From the floor Goody Gardner and Drake Tremble preached the evangel to the Pain dyad while their acolytes went to work. Things were going swimmingly for the heels until a sudden Fresh To Death on Danny Castle hit a reset button on the bout. Both Castle and Moore crawled for their respective corners and Castle tagged in the bruising DeSade - but when Moore tried to tag in his partner “These Hands” Roy Fade, Tre Boyd from STL reached past and tagged himself in.
Then something unusual happened: for the last few minutes of the match, Tre Boyd essentially became the mayor of Charlotte. He flew around the ring and had no problem repeatedly dropping DeSade and when Bob Osterberg tried to come to his partner's defense he got roughed up, too. The End Times tried to save the day but Boyd laid them out, too, and when no heel could catch him Boyd zipped around the ring until he ran up the turnbuckles before turning around and laying them all out with a ropewalk Shooting Star Press style crossbody that had Charlotte going nuts. The rest of the babyfaces cleared the heels from the ring while Boyd cinched up DeSade and hit him with a backflip Styles Clash (Carl’s “WHO IS THIS GUY?!” response spoke for a lot of us). Boyd went up top and made the sign of the cross while rolling his eyes, then hit a picture perfect Spiral Tap that had announce and crowd alike counting the 3. All the babyfaces raised hands midring after the win, with Beauty and the Beast giving a bit of side-eye while Sky's the Limit were clearly pumped…except for Tre, who had a “Of course I did that” look all over his face. Steve raved about him on commentary, saying that as good as the Cooper twins were last week it looked like young Mr. Boyd might be even better.
5. The International Players [c, w/Collipark] d. A Cut Above (w/the All Starr Stable) to retain the QCW World Tag Team championships at 14:25 in a Last Stand match This ends a rivalry that goes back to last fall, one in which the Players went from challengers to champions again right before last Christmas. That put Cut in chase mode, leading to Starr asking for one more chance at the belts last week with the Last Stand meaning they’d either become 2x champs like the Players did or they’d never be able to challenge for the belts again. They fought with a sense of urgency from the outset and took control with a double flapjack on Lucius Patton. 2024’s Tag Team of the Year showed why they were the only unanimous Quality Award winners last year by cutting the ring in half and employing quick tags. It looked like they were going to regain the belts with the same Final Cut that won them the championships but Patton countered with a hurancanrana to leave Broderick Palmer II to accidentally get splattered by Evan O'Neill. With them down, that left Benjamin Valentino to get a hot tag and start putting meesters on keisters, but a distraction from Starr allowed Prince Ootsuka to land a cheapshot kick on Benjamin, who staggered into a flapjack DDT from ACA.
It looked like they were on their way to regaining the tag titles when the crowd's boos turned to cheers as Jacques Krieger ran down to get revenge on his former Stable and specifically the man who replaced him in the Prince. Longtime rivals Ootsuka and Prince brawled on the floor and on the ramp while in the ring the Players used Jacques’ appearance to lay out Palmer II with a double Stun Gun. The Players rallied, using O’Neill as an unwitting third man to use their offense on him to further debilitate “Upper Class” before taking Broderick down with the Playa Hata to continue their titles reign.
After replays, Collipark was celebrating in the ring when Quality Force Security came out, followed by Interim Commissioner Ig de Catur. Ig first congratulated the Players on another successful title defense, which got some boos and drew a deep sigh from him. He noted the response and chalked it up to him decommissioning the Crush championship last week, which got more boos. de Catur looked around Bojangles and shook his head, saying that it was a necessary move to get out the waste and cut down on the company's overhead, especially given how crazy the stock market had been lately. Unfortunately - and he knew this was going to piss off a lot of people - that's why he was out here now. Roster cuts were going to come and in order to make QCW’s bottom line better he had to start with the fattest and honestly most unnecessary deals.
And that brought him to Jupiter Jones.
Ig said a couple of nice things about what Jupiter meant to QCW before whinily explaining that the old administration had given Jones free reign. But the reality is he’d gotten three shots at the National championship and lost them all, then when Ig tried to give him a soft landing on the Golden Rule preshow he lost again to Pyotr Caviar. So between the contract and the losing streak, Ig regretfully…regretfully…had to come out here to inform Jupiter that he was fired.
Bojangles was shocked into silence for a couple of seconds before a voice from the crowd yelled out “What the FUCK?!??!” - something that was quickly repeated by both Steve and Carl at the announce desk that got by the censors live - and chaos ensued from there. Collipark lost their minds in the ring while Jupiter's head slumped into his chest and he shook it sadly - Steve, of all people, got bleeped a couple of times - the deafening boos for Ig’s announcement quickly turned into people throwing things at Ig on the stage, and after someone nearly connected with a wadded up program half of Quality Force quickly formed a circular barrier around de Catur so the lot of them could make tracks for the back and possibly a private jet back to Parts Unknown. That left the other six security members to dodge incoming trash as they came to the ring to lead Jupiter out of it, despite the rest of Collipark reading them the riot act and Duck Eko playing an uneasy peacekeeper while Steve and Carl actually stood side by side with Collipark and angrily demanded answers. The censored “BULLSHIT!” chants took over FDSN for almost two minutes straight, and it took Jupiter himself to try and calm things down in the ring. Science Fiction Double Feature hugged him tight after what he said to them, Steve was crying after they talked, Carl looked like he was ready to fight like it was 1991 and the World Tag Team champions kept shaking their heads like it would wake them up from the nightmare. Jupiter left the ring peacefully and began to make the long walk out of Charlotte, the booing and crying mostly giving way to thunderous “THANK YOU, JUPITER!” chants. We saw Duck trying to talk Carl back from the ledge and try to recruit Steve to help him at the bottom of the ramp while at the top of it, Quality Force was getting an earful from Shelley LaVey and Benjamin Valentino; a couple of them clearly had their shoulders shrugged in a nod to the what-do-you-want-US-to-do-about-it? nature of the depressing and volatile nature of the situation. But despite the chaos all around him, Jupiter remained calm. He walked to one end of the ramp and bowed, clearly saying “Thank you. I love you guys.” As he walked to the other end of the ramp to do it for that side of Bojangles, you could see multiple fans crying, some begging and pleading him not to leave. Jones stood on the top of the ramp and took a long last look before pounding his fist to his heart and pointing all around at the crowd, then he took a deep sigh and went through the curtains with QFS and Collipark in tow.
With the announce leaving things in radio silence for a bit, chyrons for things to come on 💫 next week's Ruckus 💫 played: Malicía Fernandez will take on Ashley “THEE Influencer” Szabo • we’ll find out where and when the next QCW PPV Mayday Payday is happening • and Razorblade will defend the QCW National Championship in an open challenge.
We came back to see Steve and Carl on the ramp while a “WE WANT JUPITER!” chant drowned out whatever they - mostly Carl - were saying. The crowd’s chant got drowned out by “Unscripted Violence” hitting the PA, and Mason “Razorblade” Savage coming out to call the main event. He looked pissed, but then calmed down as he got to the announcers, only to get met by an incensed Carl, who pointed at the World title before pointing to the back and sputtering angrily some more. Razorblade have a couple of slow nods while Carl shook his head and then stormed to the back, drawing a pop from the Charlotte crowd. Steve looked back at the ring, then up the ramp and shook his head sadly. He said something quickly to Razorblade, who's eyes went a little wide as Steve threw off his sport coat with the QCW logo on it and followed Carl through the curtains. Razorblade looked back at him before heading down the ramp and sitting down at the empty announce table and putting a headset on. After all, there was the small matter of finding out who would win the Duquesne Classic this year (though who'd blame you if you’d forgotten about it given what just happened to Jupiter)...
6. Justice Davis d. Pyotr Caviar (w/Serge Batroc) at 11:45 to win the final of the 2025 Duquesne Classic Razorblade was at the announce by himself for a few beats before Julius Duquesne III came out with the Cup in tow and put it on a pedestal at ringside. JDIII sat down at the table and they both expressed shock over Jupiter’s firing before Pyotr then Justice came out. Davis took the fight to Caviar right from the start and wobbled Pyotr, even knocking him down to a knee pretty early on. Just as Razorblade was complimenting his fighting spirit Caviar dodged an attack ond then ran through JD with a sick Russian lariat to the back of the head. Pyotr threw Justice around the ring a few times and inched closer to the Cup by nearly eclipsing Davis with a running crossbody for the match's first nearfall. Pyotr continued the beating and started to dominate Davis – right up until Nazir el-Fadal popped up out of nowhere and clobbered Serge in the back with a chair. Both Razorblade and Duquesne expressed shock at Naz's reappearance as el-Fadal continued beating Serge down with the chair. Caviar shoved Davis down and left the ring, chasing Naz off and then chasing Naz, period. The One Man Jihad sprinted to the back while things got worse for Caviar when he rounded a corner and Davis flew at him to take him down with a cannonball from off the apron.
Davis wasted no time and followed up with a tope suicida that drove Caviar's back into the retaining barrier. Davis set up and hit a JDDDT that sent Caviar into the ramp before getting back in the ring to break up the count, then looked around at the crowd before going back out and planting Caviar with a second JDDDT on the ramp. He got Caviar back in the ring at 8 before following in at 9 and covering for 2¾. Caviar got up bleeding while Justice's gaze never wavered, he just went to the top rope. He got his balance and threw caution to the wind, flying off with another cannonball that had the crowd roaring. JD slowly pulled himself up with some of Pyotr’s blood on his back and looked in the direction of the Cup (or maybe Razorblade) before making almost a military turn and, seeing Pyotr on his knees, hit him with a basement JDDDT and another. Davis didn't look like he felt how hard the arena was rocking, but Razorblade and Duquesne did as the battle of former tag champions ended when Justice hit the Davis Driver – rolled through – and won this year's Classic with a second Davis Driver dead center in the middle of the ring.
Razorblade took a deep breath and told JD3 they had a job to do, so replays of the match’s big moments played on FDSN without commentary. We went back to the ring live, where Duck Eko made the announcement that the winner of the match and the winner of the 2025 Duquesne Classic was Justice Davis, which got a loud, mostly positive if mixed reaction. JD3 handed Davis the Cup, which Davis slowly accepted with a blank look on his face as if he’d forgotten he was even in the tournament. Julius gave Justice congratulations and a couple of claps on the back before he left the ring.
Savage Justice ruled the ring, Davis the new owner of the Duquesne Cup and, well, you know Razorblade already. The Mayday Payday opponents faced off but Mason Savage gave Davis applause before offering a handshake. Justice didn't look at it, or at Razorblade at all. Instead he looked down on the canvas where Razorblade had set down the National and World championships and eyeballed them for a bit before turning around and leaving the ring with the Cup to a loud and now slightly negative reaction. Razorblade watched Davis go up the ramp incredulously and we heard him go “Really? REALLY!?” before gold and white pyro exploded on the stage and the Qualitron showed a chyron announcing JD as the Classic winner. But Davis no sold everything and walked to the back holding the Cup like it was just a boring Friday night, leaving a clearly pissed off Razorblade shaking his head and grabbing his belts as Coronation came to a close.
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