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📍 Quality Arena in Parts Unknown, FL
Last week's Quality Summer Classic was recapped in the opening video package, which focused on the successful debut of International Lotus 2.0 and Hysteria winning an eight woman tag before Razorblade and Nazir el-Fadal won the all star main event tag match against the World and National champions then got some help from the returning Scott Holmes, who helped clear out Omar Littlefield and Malicía Fernandez before hitting a leg drop off a ladder to Ig de Catur. Was that Commissioner-on-Commissioner violence? And was Naz as salty as he looked standing next to long time friends Holmes and Savage to close the show?
Standard open to “Invincible” rolled from there ending with the Cavalcade of Champions. Quality Arena is sold out yet again and live as hell on a Friday night from Parts Unknown. Steve Vandeblanche welcomed us to the show but barely got to hype the main event of Pyotr Caviar vs. Nazir el-Fadal before being cut off by a blast from the past.
The crunchy grunge of Soundgarden's “My Wave” rang out over the PA in QA got everyone's attention, and the murmurs turned to roars as the Qualitron 9004 parted and (former?) Commissioner Scott Holmes walked into the arena for the first time since the first week in February and the roof damn near came off the place. Holmes stood on the apex of the ramp and took in the love before coming to the ring, slapping hands and thanking fans along the way. Holmes hit the ring and shook hands with “the Voice of QCW” Duck Eko, who handed him the mic and left the ring with a smile on his face.
Holmes was about to speak but had to wait as the crowd’s thunderous “Welcome back!” chants went on for 30 seconds straight. Scott waved them down and thanked them for the warm reception, saying that he’d been gone too long and it was a long, hard road to stand here in front of them tonight. Way back in February, Omar Littlefield had brutalized him and sent him to the hospital - and now that he was older, it took him a while longer than he wanted to recover to be back here. As he recovered, he watched Ig’s hostile takeover, something that only happened because his attack dog Omar was unleashed. And it filled him with sadness and desperation, but mostly? It just pissed him the hell off. Because Ig’s dad may have co-founded QCW, but Scott’s dad built QCW. For 40 YEARS he ran QCW, trying to do right by the boys and girls in the back but especially trying to provide the best wrestling show Parts Unknown and the Southeast had ever seen. And when the time came a dozen years ago, Scott took the reins and spent damn near every cent he had to keep QCW in the family and take it to new heights. But it was the fans who had made Ruckus a top ten staple every Friday night, the same fans who’d turned a little indie into an international audience with a Friday night show, PPVs around the globe and made every subsequent year this decade the biggest and best in the almost 70 year long history of QCW. That's why he came back last week, because he would be damned if someone like Ig would take over QCW. That's why he flew off that ladder last week, to shut Ig up, and that's the reason why no members from the Republic were going to be allowed in the building tonight!
The crowd roared but Scott talked through it, saying that Ig may have been walking around like the Emperor of QCW but only one man ran this madhouse, and that's HIM! He heard Naz and Razorblade talk about running the Republic out of town last week, and while he and Naz…well, quite frankly, they hated each other but even he could agree with Naz on something: Ig was worse, and Holmes would do everything in his power to send Ig out of Parts Unknown for good. Speaking of sending people out of Parts Unknown, months ago Ig had brought on Craig Jacobs to the announce team and “Mr. Excitement” had roughly brought as much to the show as a ham and cheese sandwich would. So as of this moment, Craig Jacobs was fired. But Holmes had a feeling his replacement would make everybody who wasn't Craig or Ig happy, and then brought back Carl Christensen to a big pop. Christensen passed a blank faced Jacobs and gave a salute to the departing Holmes as he walked to the announce desk. Steve welcomed his old friend back to the desk with a hug as Carl smiled and settled in. Things went to Duck in the ring and he gave the introductions for the first match…
1. Lolo Vuitton (w/Beast Mode) d. “Explosive” Emily Bennett at 6:26 Ruckus kicked off with women's division action, with former allies Bennett and Vuitton squaring off. As expected, the multiple time former Women's World champion controlled the early going - so much so that she sat on the middle rope and told Emily to walk out of her ring after a couple of minutes. Bennett’s head slumped as she started to walk towards the ropes but it was a fake out, as a dropkick sent Lolo out to the floor. Vuitton recovered quickly from that but not quick enough to avoid a follow up wrecking ball dropkick that put Lolo down and in disarray. Bennett followed up with a tope con hilo to fire up the faithful and put things further on her side of the ledger. Bennett controlled the next couple of minutes until “Dashing” Pierce Moore swiped at her leg from the floor.
He couldn't trip her up but he could distract her long enough for Lolo to recover and drop Emily with a scorpion kick. Lolo controlled the rest of the match after that and didn't take long to put down Emily for 3 with a Bloody Shoe. Post match, as she was being paraded around the ring on Beast Mode’s shoulders, she threw up four fingers while making A Very Familiar Gesture around her waist.
From there, we went TOTHEBACK~!, where Naomi Lee was standing by to bring on guests Team Batroc for an interview. Pyotr Caviar walked on stoic as usual in his track suit but Serge came uncharacteristically in a silk shirt unbuttoned to the navel, gold chains around his neck, and rocking Louis Vuitton sunglasses for a night time interview indoors. Naomi began the interview by bringing up the rumors she’d seen on Quality Social and other sources online that'd spotted Team Batroc on Ig de Catur’s private jet a few times in the past week - were the rumors true? Had they bought into the Republic? Serge began to respond in French, only for Naomi to fire some French back at him before saying to us that only know English (some of whom recap the show) that she'd repeated what he said. Serge spoke again, this time smiling as Naomi said that according to the French Assassin talking to the real Commissioner opened his eyes that Serge was being selfish by teaching only one pupil instead of everyone on the roster, and gave him several hundred thousand pieces of evidence in his favor. Team Batroc had run its course and was as of now officially dissolved. He was sure his favorite protegé would find nothing but success in the days, weeks and months to come, but tonight young Pyotr had business to take care of. On the other hand, he had a flight to Ibiza to catch. An incredulous Naomi asked if he was admitting to taking a six figure bribe to send Pyotr the Republic's way and Serge replied, in English for the first time in months “Think of it less as a Republic and more of a…international workrate consortium.” Batroc laughed the laugh of a rich man whose stock just jumped up another four points and walked off, presumably to catch his flight. Naomi shook her head and turned to Pyotr, asking what he thought about his mentor’s shady ass money moves and if it would affect how he went after Nazir el-Fadal in tonight's main event. Pyotr glared at Naomi, who backed up a couple of steps. Caviar sneered and said “You ask windshield how it go after bug?” before also taking his leave. A clearly exasperated Ms. Lee threw to commercials after that.
2. The All Starr Stable (w/S. Mark Starr) d. Ashok Banjerjee and the Proper Villains at 10:03 Back from break, we got some trios action in a match modified earlier on Friday - Jacques Krieger was unable to get medically cleared so he was on the floor for this one with “the Proper King” Richard Windsor taking his place. After the feeling out period, the Stable were able to get the upper hand and began isolating Ashok, with former World Tag Team champions A Cut Above lighting into him with tandem offense and Prince Ootsuka targeting his head and neck. It looked like the Stable were going to secure victory when ACA teamed up for their Final Cut but “the Fury” Jim Jaspers dove in and made the save. Despite a numbers disadvantage, Ashok and Old Jim managed to put the bad guys on their heels culminating in Ashok hitting a Destroyer DDT on Ootsuka. The Pier 6 ended and Ashok stumbled over and made a tag to Windsor, who leapt into the ring - and then tagged Ashok back in before walking to the back. A confused Jaspers took a couple of beats to realize what had happened and chased up the ramp after him, leaving Ashok to get choked out by a Princely cobra clutch before being handed over to A Cut Above, who hit their Final Cut and got the win with it.
After that we got a video package that showed On This Date In QCW History back in 2020, the league had its return show; not as massively packed as it is nowadays due to the social distancing but still. S. Mark Starr was given the QCW championship in part to a massive online campaign that possibly/probably saw him or a fan of his rig the online vote in his favor. He would lose the main event by disqualification to Autumn Powers (whatever happened to her?) and the card kicked off with a Nazir el-Fadal victory followed by him promising to capture the QCW belt in the next year no matter who had it, a promise he lived up to by beating Jupiter Jones clean at the following year's Mayday Payday PPV.
After the vidpac ended, we quickly went back to tonight's action in the ring…
3. John Arneson d. Gerry Greene (w/Ian Cook) at 6:08 One more match before commercials, as recent signee Arneson keeps getting showcase matches against the bottom of the QCW food chain to establish himself in his new company. The diminutive Wisconsinite fended off Cook’s attempted outside interference and finished Greene off with his avalanche powerslam he calls the Natural 20. We went into the break with the announce, especially Carl hyping that given “the Iron Dwarf”’s resume we shouldn't be surprised if he becomes a champion in QCW sooner rather than later.
We came back to footage shot Earlier Today of the Chosen in formation with Justice Davis having a touch of RBF as the backstage photoshoot got in their last series of snaps. As the photographers began wrapping up, Caleb Gray asked JD to come over; well, since he owns JD’s contract now, maybe “ask” is a bit too kind. Justice came over to ask Caleb what he wanted, and after some bragging about their recent winning streak attributed it to JD, which clearly shocked the unwilling Davis. “The Purifier” brought up Goody Gardner’s win last week and said he’d never seen Ms. Gardner so happy inside or outside of the ring before and said that was definitely Davis’ doing - she might praise Caleb as any good Christian should, but she would follow Justice wherever he stood. So…so what was the secret? Justice was almost offended as he said “Nothing!” but Caleb took it in stride, saying “Keep ‘nothing’ up, then.” before exiting with “the Paragon” Drake Tremble and the End Times. Justice watched them leave and turned around to see Goody, who gave JD a tight lipped smile before speed walking to catch up to everyone else leaving Justice looking confused yet again.
4. The Cooper Brothers (w/Tre Boyd and Kam Ellis d. w @ s t 3 l a n d 3 r s at 8:42 Big win for the members of StL as they look to fight their way into position for another shot at the World Tag Team championships. Marc and Mare had to fight QCW’s resident scavengers from underneath for at least 80% of the match but found a way to persevere and gut out a win, getting phones all across Quality Arena in the air as they finished off f @ l l 0 u t with their Aim High finisher where they deliver a 450° splash and a guillotine legdrop in stereo. The Air Force alums celebrated post match but Tre Boyd found a camera and made sure to reiterate that just because he was carrying his boys to the promised land tonight, it wouldn't stop him from carrying the National championship real soon.
Before we went to commercials, the announce hyped the fact that tickets were going on sale for AnniVersary on Monday at noon EST; per usual the crown jewel of the QCW PPV calendar will come live from Quality Arena. Clear your calendars for September 28th. Do we know anything about the card yet? No. Will it probably sell out in under half an hour? Probably! So get those tickets come Monday before you can't.
5. “Night Sky” Diana Spare and Luz Cruz d. Justine Danek and Bella Jolie of Hysteria (w/Bonnie Agrippa and Nancy Crowley) at 11:18 The semi main was the latest chapter on the Hysteria Wars, and a match that already had intrigue due to Cruz facing off against her former subordinates got goosed even more when before a lock up could even happen, there was a disturbance in the crowd. A buzz hummed through Quality Arena as the Catch Hell Wrestling League tag team champions the Undaunted took front row seats, as they have been beefing over Quality Social for weeks with Hysteria over who the next tag team in the world is. Tim McMurray and Dave Mullin’s arrivals led to Justine and Bella getting the jump on Diana and Luz, a Pier 4 briefly breaking out before they managed to toss Diana from the ring and drop Luz with a double side Russian leg sweep. Justine and Bella then began to work Luz over, isolating her and making quick tags while smack talking their old boss about the beating they were dishing out.
At one point Luz tried to tag out, only for Bella to cut it off with a baseball slide that undercut Spare's legs and sent the Women's World champion bouncing face first off the apron. A back suplex/neckbreaker combination got Justine two, at which point two loud Irish accented voices near the ring count could be heard egging on and increasing the “Hysteria sucks!” chants from the Quality Controllers. It rattled every woman in QCW’s resident coven and things went from bad to worse for Hysteria a few beats later when Luz snuffed out a potential diving leg lariat from Justine and turned it into a buckle bomb to a neutral corner. Bella managed to tag in before Diana could and picked Luz’s leg to stop her but got blasted by a step up enzuigiri that opened the door for a tag to the women's World champion. Diana hit the ring and started cleaning house like a disinfectant, laying into the opposition and showing further evidence to her possibly being QCW’s Wrestler of the Year in 2025. At one point after a couple of cheap shots it looked like Hysteria had regained the upper hand, only for Spare to Duck a double clothesline and lay them both out with a stunning double Black Hole Slam. Shortly after that you could see Bella desperately calling for help from Bonnie and Nancy, but the World Tag Team champions were too busy getting in a war of words with the Undaunted to lend a hand. Left to their own devices, J&B soon found themselves on the business end of a rare loss, as Diana and Luz teamed up for a buckle bomb/gamengiri combination in their corner set up Luz tagging in and killing the match dead with ¡MUERTE!
The bell rang after the double jump poison rana and the three count. Diana and Luz celebrated the W and that caused Bonnie and Nancy's heads to whip around to see their hated rivals, when they turned around to blame the Undaunted, Tim and Dave were already heading for the exits. Bonnie and Nancy rushed the ring but Luz snapped her fingers and the lights went out - when they came back on, Cruz and Spare were nowhere in sight to the delight of the crowd. It turned out Hysteria didn't like their own tricks being used against them, and there was plenty of teeth gnashing from Agrippa and Crowley.
Ahead of the main event we got some hype for 💫 next week's Ruckus 💫, from Steve and Carl: we’ll take a special look back at Anniversary from ‘21 | Women's World champion “Night Sky” Diana Spare will face her ex friend Nancy Crowley of Hysteria in a non-title match | and in a triple threat match to find the #1 contender for the National championship, Tre Boyd, Orion and Razorblade will throw down to see who gets the next shot.
And now, the main event!
6. Nazir el-Fadal d. Pyotr Caviar at 12:21 After bangers at Coronation and Mayday Payday, it was little surprise that Naz and Pyotr put on another one here under the bright lights. Naz rushed Pyotr at the bell and went after him with forearms, only for his attack to get stopped by a hard chop. Naz fired back with a couple of European uppercuts only for Pyotr to respond in kind, and soon Quality Arena was YAY!/BOO!ing along to every strike. Caviar blocked an attempt with sheer power and spun Naz around before clearly rocking el-Fadal with a massive shot, then hit a beautiful spinning sitout powerbomb for 2½. Caviar used his power advantage to control the opening chunk of the match, as what played out in the beginning continued to manifest itself: Naz had to throw flurries at the Tracksuit Tsar to even wobble him while Pyotr could shut down the Greatest Man Alive with a mighty shot or two. Pyotr was pretty easily ahead on points for the next couple of minutes until Naz managed to duck a discus Russian sickle, hit the ropes and sent Caviar ass over teakettle with a chop block to the right knee.
With his earlier plan of attack not paying off, Naz shifted gears and went after the knee to chip at Pyotr's power base and break him down. The multiple time former World champion used thigh kicks, a couple more chop blocks and even a rolling trifecta of dragon screw leg whips in his attempts to neutralize this year's runner up for the Duquesne Cup - then once he’d driven Caviar down to his knees moved behind the burly Russian and clamped on a cobra clutch. Not wanting to fall victim to Naz’s notorious Heat Check, Pyotr forced himself to a vertical base and stagger-limped his way backwards into a corner, but el-Fadal didn't release the hold. Pyotr staggered towards another corner and repeated the sandwich but after briefly slumping Naz let out a war cry and cinched down tighter. Pyotr staggered towards another corner before suddenly pivoting back towards where he’d just splattered the One Man Jihad but this time Naz shifted his body so he would land on the apron and pulled Pyotr over the top rope with him. Naz fired off a flurry of European uppercuts before straining to muscle Pyotr up over his shoulders. The buzz in the crowd grew to a roar as Naz got his footing then drilled Pyotr into the hardest part of the ring with a Hamrin Valley Driver. Naz looked like a snow angel under the bottom rope on the apron but having bounced off of said apron, Pyotr was face down and out on the floor. Naz took a couple of beats before rolling into the ring and telling the ref to count Pyotr out while FDSNF fired off multiple replays of the apron Hamrin Valley Driver. el-Fadal was relaxing on the top rope with a Cheshire cat’s grin and merrily counting along with the referee’s count but his face turned into a hard grimace as Pyotr stumbled back in between the bottom and middle ropes at nine and a half.
Naz sluiced back into the ring and stalked Pyotr before bouncing off the ropes and log rolling into the injured leg. With Caviar crumpled and crying out in pain, Naz delivered the last rites behind his back and served up a dose of Nazquil. Unlike at Mayday Payday, however, Pyotr stunned everyone in QA with a bench press kick out at 2½ that made Naz almost accidentally splash the ref in the process. Naz was agog that Pyotr kicked out of the movie that'd won him the World title at Cruel Summer and once he got over the initial moments of shock got in the referee's face about the count. Naz was pressing the issue before remembering why he was there, and even if he hadn't Pyotr was quick to remind him by spinning him around and launching el-Fadal up to drill him with a pop up European uppercut. Now it was Naz going ass over teakettle, and he rolled out of the ring to buy himself some time - but Pyotr wasn't about to let that happen, rolling out himself and getting a running start before delivering a running crossbody that sent him and Naz both through the retaining barrier. They lay in a heap on the floor as Parts Unknown lost their minds, and the profane choir sang the Hymn of “HOLY SHIT!” as FANDF fired off replays.
Caviar emerged first from the wreckage and dragged Naz out of it before muscling him into the ring and following suit. Naz was so on Dream Street he was using the ropes to pull himself up while Caviar was behind him ready to put this to bed. el-Fadal turned around but Pyotr was already turning to obliterate Naz with a rolling European uppercut that took him from 5’10 to 6’1”. Caviar plucked a flailing Naz out of the air for Hit My Music, getting in nearly 20 revolutions as he Giantly Swung Naz around – but when he went to put the finishing touch on with a spinebuster, Naz went over the top and rolled him up with a schoolboy then rolled over Pyotr's legs with his body to make a bridge. Pyotr would've kicked out at 4 - hell, probably 3¼ – but Naz had used his experience advantage to get the necessary three count to the joy of the nazir World Order. And for that, he would pay dearly.
No sooner had the ref raised Naz's hand that Pyotr blindsided him with an enzui Russian sickle, and el-Fadal fell limply to the mat. Caviar delivered a series of rabbit forearms right into the spot he’d just splattered with the sickle, and when the ref tried to intervene Pyotr slid him under the bottom rope and let him fall to the floor. The crowd booed as Pyotr rolled out of the ring and gathered the broken barricade and a steel chair from ringside, ignoring Steve and Carl’s pleas as he slid back into the ring. Naz saw Pyotr coming and tried to throw something at him but Pyotr used the weapons to bell clap Naz and send him right back to the mat. Pyotr swung the barricade section against Naz’s back like one would use a rolled up newspaper against an unruly dog multiple times before unfolding the chair. Caviar again went for Hit My Music, only this time after 17 swings Naz got spinebustered onto the edge of the chair, and you could feel the audience in the arena cringe as it connected. Some new faces in Quality Force Security shirts came out with the medical team but Pyotr had one last message to send to el-Fadal as he grabbed him by the head and bellowed “I promise one squashed bug, I deliver one squashed bug!”. Pyotr have a couple of the med staff a scare as he stomped off to the back, leaving the credits box to come up and Naz to be looked over as this week's Ruckus came to a close.
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