LAST WEEK ON RUCKUS:
- the Proper Villains announced they wanted ALL the tag team gold and would be taking their shot at the Wonderful Ward Brothers' Unified World Tag belts alongside Katusji Ootsuka (a shot they've earned as Ambassadors trios champions)
- "Night Sky" Diana Spare notched her 10th decision as Crush champion and haunted the new Women's World Champion Karyn Tisch-Warren
- "These Hands" Roy Fade retained the GRPL+ World TV title over Katsuji Ootsuka but "Dark Mirror" Beckett Carpenter ran him off when he tried to pile on post match
We're in a Florida town by the water on a Friday night, so of course fireworks are going off and people are screaming their fool heads off. What makes Ruckus different is that that's the overture for a symphony of tonight's violence. Steve Vandeblanche and Nazir el-Fadal are behind the announce desk, and the former hyped up hearing from the Unified World Tag Team champions the Wonderful Ward Brothers as well as a Proper Villains vs. Team Batroc match.
Then Ruckus started the way more things in life should: with Sade.
| • “Superfine” Reggie Strong d. “Great American” Bobby Bash (w/the Red, White & True) • | Strong got the show started in a manner befitting his name, some fans even getting on camera for swaying to his entrance music like palm trees wearing Razorblade shirts. After the Red, White and True came out to ringside, Drake Tremble got right in Strong's face and Reggie wasn't having any of Drake's verbal pollution.
The last thing he said before the bell rang was "Watch what happens to your boy," and then he spent the next few minutes making good on his promise. Strong worked over the bigger Bash's legs like a kick pad until he broke down the powerhouse of the cosplaytriots, then added injury to injury by springboarding off the ropes and taking him down with a Meteora. Strong pointed at Tremble then called for the end, and Bobby was anything but Fine and Dandy after Strong shocked most people in attendance by getting Bobby up and planting him with his signature spinning Michinoku driver. ** ½
Of course nothing good can last, and the referee couldn't even raise Reggie's hand before Tremble was in the ring cheapshotting him. Strong met his firepower but Tremble had backup he didn't, and pretty soon the black hats weren't wrestling, they were playing Finisher Bingo. First "Swamp Trash" Ted Holland, then Bash, and then they handed over the scraps to Tremble so he could Truth Bomb him. With Strong laid out the Red, White and True posed over his body, Tremble continuing to put the bad mouth on him even after the referee stepped between them. Stranglehold played over the PA and Steve reluctantly put over Tremble finding a way to get over on the Face of QCW.
The rest of the referee corps came out to get the red hats out of the ring ahead of the next match:
| • El Vengador de Gente Jr. & Super Avión d. Ian Cook and Gerry Greene • | Cook and Greene are expats from British ally fed Catch Hell; Avión you know already, and we got the return of Vengador here after the Rev laid him out in a a TV title defense a couple of months ago.
Lucha libre vs. World of Strong Styled action followed, with both teams showing chemistry despite never having teamed on QCW TV before. The luchadors controlled the opening but a Cook cheap shot opened the door for the Brits to take control of the match and keep Avión below the ring's equator for a couple of minutes. The former Unified Tag champion Avión flipped the match on its head by plucking off a Greene charge and reversing it into the Spanish Fly. Avión not only recovered first, he smartly ankle picked Greene and dragged him to his corner before bringing in Vengador Jr. The former Lucha Salvaje Campeon del Mundo was a fuega casa, showing off his offense and getting the Quality Controllers behind him. Avión and Vengador kept Cook from getting back into the match and put Greene on the mat for good after teaming up on a simultaneous guillotine leg drop/450° splash combo out of their corner. **
After replays we got Vengador slapping hands with fans on the way to the back while Avión pumped up the Quality Controllers, Steve wondering at the desk after their impressive W if we had seen yet another great tag team added to the stacked division before we hit our first commercial break on the night.
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We came back to a stinger highlighting the Wonderful Ward Brothers, especially their refusal to hand over the Unified World Tag titles over to the Consortium and their being able to beat Team Batroc at Mayday Payday. This segued into the Wards themselves – well, Jason, let's be honest - saying that now their fans in QCW are learning what Calgary and the rest of Canada already knew: when they were on the same page, nobody could stop the Wards and their Wonderful title reign was just beginning no matter what anybody else had to say about it. With a wry grin, Rich came in to say Vive Le Wards and long live their title reign. Jason tried and failed to maintain his composure, giving Rich plenty of time to shine up his title and say all jokes aside, the champs aren't hard to find…but getting these belts off of them might be harder than anyone trying to get them realizes. Either way, they'll be ready for whatever challenge comes their way next.
| • “Night Sky” Diana Spare [c] d. Hilary Highnote to retain the Crush championship 1️⃣1️⃣ • | Newcomer Highnote came in boasting a little win streak but despite a little bit of offense this was Spare's to lose and she might not be doing that this year or anytime soon. Nightfall, good night. **
Post match handshake before Hilary headed to the back and Diana celebrated (well, looked stern and nodded, some of us are into that) on the buckles.
From there, we went to a black and white vignette of Jacques Krieger, voicing over footage of his last few months of his undefeated streak, winning the TV title briefly before losing it in the Duquesne Classic and then having the triple threat Vegas $treet Fight. Krieger said that the house of QCW doesn’t always get to win. They don’t get to roll out the red carpet for him and pull it out from underneath him. They stole his streak and they stole his title. The situation needs fixing. And that fixing starts next week when he returns. And once QCW is fixed the way it should be…everyone else will be unlucky, if he had to guess. We went to break in a staredown with the seething Krieger’s good eye.
✨
The second hour was supposed to start with a tag match featuring Team Batroc going up against longtime rivals the Proper Villains – what actually happened was that Team Batroc lied in wait by the Tron for the Villains to come out and jumped them. The “match” never got in the ring and never got close, Serge & Pytor Caviar fighting Jim Jaspers and Richard Windsor on the ramp, or in the crowd, a little bit around ringside – anywhere in the Arena that wasn’t between the ropes, and after about a minute and a half of pleading to no avail the ref said the hell with it; Duck announced a no contest.
| • the Proper Villains NC Team Batroc • |
Of course, all four men continued brawling through the announcement then past it, and it took the purple shirts of Quality Control to start breaking up the brawls. Crowd booed this and you could hear an undercurrent of "Let them fight!" chants. It took a minute for the fights to start getting broken up for good, then we went
TOTHEBACK~!, where JD3 brought on the Game Changers as his guests to a big pop. Duquesne asked them how they were feeling after last week's win, and Al stopped sipping his Polynesian Physic Grog to start talking about it when they got interrupted by "Dashing" Pierce Moore, who said he wanted to quickly interject about their win. The GCs rolled their eyes as Moore pointed out, not as an excuse but an explanation, that frankly put he was a little more into his partner (Shelley LaVey) than the match so of COURSE they took advantage of his pleasantly distracted mind. But if one of them would like to face off against him in singles action next week - and Ashley accepted before he could finish the sentence. Everyone seemed a little bit shocked at that and Moore tried to backpedal, but Ashley doubled down, saying she never liked his attitude or his face and that next week she was going to bench press him all around the ring and beat his sorry ass again.
Pierce Moore's impersonation of Homer backing through the hedges is uncanny, and he showed it off here. Ashley apologized to JD3 but she's never liked Pierce. CREEPER. JD3 said he didn't have to apologize to him and plugged the Moore/Szabo match for next week. Ashley flashed a grin and had some Grog as Julius threw things back to Duck in the ring who introduced the semi open challenge for the Women's World Championship.
“Roar” came on over the PA, bringing out International Lotus and the new Women’s World Champion Karyn Tisch-Warren in her first title defense. Once they hit the ring, Sohla Patel played Short Attention Span Theatre for anyone who missed last week – this is a title defense open to the whole division outside of Lolo Vuitton and Crush champion “Night Sky” Diana Spare. Tisch-Warren handed off her belt and gestured to the Tron as “Immigrant Song” came on to bring out the biggest powerhouse in the division, “Shieldmaiden” Val Curry. She and her Sound of Thunder partner Bettie Rokker came down to ringside looking focused and all business, getting a decent response from the Controllers even if Patel’s instinctive response was to try and laugh it off.
| • Karyn Tisch-Warren [c] (w/International Lotus) d. “Shieldmaiden” Val Curry (w/Bettie Rokker) to retain the Women’s World Championship in a semi-open challenge • | Patel wasn’t laughing in pretty short order when Curry used her power to toss KTW around the ring a few times and get the upper hand on the champ. Tisch-Warren would bail to the floor for counsel but even then Bettie Rokker would be lurking over the shoulders of the Lotus members just as an unfriendly reminder that they were the hunted.
Karyn would return to the ring, eat a couple more minutes worth of offense at the hands of the Shieldmaiden and find herself on the outside looking in again. Another International Lotus huddle occurred outside of the ring with Rokker lurking, but it turned out that this was a trap – Patel started going after Rokker with Scott the Simp helping out, and when Curry went after the people going after her partner Karyn ran Val into the post. Curry recovered by pulling herself up with the apron but Tisch-Warren used that to her advantage and grabbed the bigger woman to pull her into the post three more times before trying to win the match by countout. Curry dove into the ring at 9 ½ to save the match, but Tisch-Warren took advantage of the situation by hopping up to the second rope and planting her with a flying DDT off the second rope as Patel sent Rokker into the ring steps. Pointing to Sohla, Karyn hooked up Curry before planting her with a Falcon Arrow, and that won her the match. ** ½
But it wasn’t the insipid “Roar” that hit the PA the moment the three count was registered…it was “you should see me in a crown”. The Arena roared as Diana Spare’s music hit and it quickly brought out the Crush champion, who came speedwalking down the ramp with the belt in tow — and then a figure in a hoodie jumped the railing when she got to the bottom of the ramp and beat on her before throwing her into the steps. The crowd deflated then freaked out when the hoodie was dropped –
– and revealed Lolo Vuitton.
Vuitton stood seething over Spare before tossing her into the ring, and coming up the stairs to the shock of the Controllers and International Lotus. Karyn smiled as Lolo came into the ring, gesturing towards Diana’s fallen body. Tisch-Warren talked smack to Diana and then got shut up with a Bloody Shoe from Vuitton, thus freaking out the crowd in a completely different direction than they had been 30 seconds earlier.
The announce was trying to figure it out, but Lolo made it clear, chasing Patel and Scott Warren-Tisch from the ring before laying out Karyn with another Bloody Shoe and dropping Diana with one when she barely got to her feet.
Vuitton looked around at all the carnage she had wrought before bending over and picking up the Women’s World title before caressing it like a former lover. With a defiant glare to the hard camera, Vuitton slowly raised the belt with one hand and three fingers with the other before she laid it across her former partner/current champion and left the ring. Lolo didn’t look back, just kept three fingers in the air as she walked up the ramp and the Arena had a l o u d if mixed reaction to the former two-time champ’s first appearance since Mayday Payday. Naz pointed out that Diana could cash in her title for a shot, but Lolo was still owed a rematch after Vegas. Steve said that Karyn’s title reign was already looking to be under siege from champions past, present and possibly future as we went to the back and Lolo parted the Tron.
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Before this week’s main event, Steve gave us an injury update on Anton Stahl. GRPL+ Helpfully Reminded Us That Last Week he was in a match against former teammate Serge Batroc, but Serge didn’t come alone – with help from Pytor Caviar, they absolutely folded Anton up, and he needed help from officials and the medical team to get escorted to the back. Vandeblanche revealed that Stahl suffered a concussion at the hands of Team Batroc and would be back in action in a couple of weeks, then hyped up stuff to come on next week’s show:
🎙️ We’ll hear from the former Unified World Heavyweight Champion, Razorblade 🎙️
✨ “Night Sky” Diana Spare, after the craziness that happened right before the break, will be defending the Crush championship once again ✨
📺✨And the GRPL+ World TV title will be up for grabs once again…but who’s walking in as champ? Let’s all find out together, shall we? ✨📺
| | • the main event • | |
“This Town Ain’t Big Enough For the Both of Us” brought out “Dark Mirror” Beckett Carpenter to the pop of the night, even accounting for Naz’s grumping about their existence at the desk. As they came out GRPL+ Helpfully Reminded Us That Last Week they came out for the save after that main event TV title match – a save they made against the man coming out to “Pray For Me”.
As Steve put over as Roy Fade came out, there’s only been one three-time TV Champ in QCW history and it’s These Hands. Fade and Carpenter locked eyes as he came into the ring, and even after they killed the lights in the Arena so they could put a lone spotlight on the ring and focus on Duck making the introductions the air was thick with hostility. Carpenter continued to get a hero’s welcome while Fade got baptized in boos. He didn’t care at all what the crowd was doing and it’s possible that the Duquesne Cup winner didn’t either; Steve said he didn’t know what was going to happen next but that it was going to be another great main event with the GRPL+ TV title on the line.
The bell rang and fists started flying much to the joy of the crowd. Fade swung and missed on a big right, allowing Carpenter to pepper Roy with a series of forearms. Mirror ran for the ropes, only for Fade to follow them in and clothesline them out of the ring. The crowd deflated as Fade smirked, sat on the middle rope and waved Carpenter in to keep getting their ass whooped. Beckett opted not to take Fade up on the offer, opting instead to go around the corner and slide back in under the bottom rope to get back in the fight. Fade went back on the attack but Carpenter dodged These Hands not once but twice - then laid him out with a dropkick. They beat him getting up and dropped him again with a dropkick, then a furious Fade got up only to be backdropped over the top rope and to the floor as the QCers cheered. Now it was Carpenter's turn to sit on the middle rope and "invite" Fade into the ring while Fade started barking outside the ring and Naz grumblemuttered at the desk. That lasted right until Fade grabbed Carpenter by the legs and in one fluid motion swung them into the barricade, drawing gasps from the crowd and claps from el-Fadal. Fade took things up a notch by grabbing the fallen Carpenter and giving them a hard Irish whip into the steps that sent them flying over the top half and down in a heap in front of the announce table. These Hands stood on the bottom half of the steps and beat his chest a few times while smacktalking the booing Quality Controllers before snatching up Dark Mirror and tossing them into the ring.
Fade went on the attack on Carpenter and started putting together nearfalls, using his power advantage to maintain control. When Carpenter started proving to be a threat to him on the mat, These Hands would bully them into the corner before teeing off with some heavy body blows that sent Mirror crumbling to the mat a couple of times. Even after kickouts, Fade would dip into his sadistic side by pressing Carpenter’s head down to the canvas with the back of his knee, taunting them that they weren’t ready for him. Carpenter managed to get out from under and rock Fade with some shots only to run into a hard back elbow after running off the ropes. Fade posed while the fans (mostly) booed, then continued on the attack until Carpenter was gasping for air in the ring on all fours. Roy backed into the corner and set up for the Decision, then ran forward for his signature – but Carpenter sort of rolled themselves into a ball to avoid impact. Unfortunately for them, Fade put on the brakes, and then tried to add insult to injury by laying in a few hammer and anvil elbows and putting Carpenter in their own signature Look Inward hold, Carpenter scrambling to hook the bottom rope with one of their boots.
These Hands were laughing as they released the hold, and even though he told the referee they heard Beckett give up you could tell even he didn’t believe it. Fade’s smile quickly dissipated when Carpenter showed him the Cracked Mirror headbutt, and he staggered away off of its impact. The headbutt bought Carpenter some time, and they shook off the effects of it quicker than Roy before running for the ropes again. Fade swung and whiffed on Carpenter twice before Beckett drilled him with a John Woo dropkick that sent the champ recoiling into the corner. No sooner had Fade staggered out of the corner than Dark Mirror followed up with a Codebreaker that sent him stumbling between the middle and bottom rope before falling to the floor, crowd making lots of noise as Carpenter drew themselves up in the ring. The Duquesne winner got a running start to smack Fade’s face with a wrecking ball baseball slide that flung These Hands into the barricade, then followed it up with an Irish whip into the post that soon had the three-time champ seeing red literally; as replays played of the dropkick and Beckett rolled in and out to break up the count, in real time you could see Fade starting to bleed a bit above his right eyebrow.
Carpenter tossed Fade in under the bottom rope before sliding in themselves, and the buzz in the crowd meant that they could feel the momentum shift as Carpenter grabbed one then both of their opponent’s hands. Fade barely managed to unblur his vision before he looked up at Carpenter, who started to flash a grin before stomping him repeatedly in the face. Dark Mirror didn’t stop at the usual 10 and it seemed like they were only getting more powerful as they continued to lay in the boots and the crowd counted along, all the way until 23 when the effort of it exhausted Carpenter so much they fell to a knee. They were depleted but Fade looked to be borderline unconscious, and Carpenter pulled themselves up with the ropes before stomping over to Fade and snatching him up in a Look Inward, the Quality Controllers getting noisier as Fade tried but failed to fight off the signature submission of Dark Mirror. Carpenter pivoted so that they could step over and lock down the hold; Steve screamed that we were going to see a new champion as Carpenter yelled at Fade to tap out. Roy didn’t tap but his arm was in the air, and after a few seconds it began to go limp. The referee grabbed the arm and let it drop, but Fade suddenly found enough adrenaline in him to start to power up in the hold. Carpenter gritted and tried to keep the hold on, but Fade slowly got to a vertical base and went for a Lawn Dart to get free of the Look –
– sending Carpenter and the referee into the corner in two separate heaps. Everyone was down in the ring as the fans chanted Queue Cee Dub! & stomped the bleachers. We got replays of the Look Inward and Fade’s counter before going back to real time, where Carpenter was pulling themselves up in the corner.
Right before “Dashing” Pierce Moore drilled them with a Fresh To Death that materialized very suddenly.
The crowd booed Moore’s incursion and surprise cutter while the Dashing One let out a cackle and brushed some dirt off of his shoulder. Moore’s grandstanding came to a halt as a blur of blonde and black rushed down the ramp before getting into the ring, and the crowd popped huge as Ashley THEE Influencer showed up to help her old (?) friend and whoop some righteous ass. Quality Arena was rocking and rolling as Ashley laid out Pierce with a couple of shots, then the fans got the rug yanked out from under them when Moore raked the eyes to stop Szabo’s momentum. Moore dusted off his hands and looked to plant her with a Fresh to Death, but Ashley shoved him away and then turned the tables by planting him with his own finisher for the second straight week in a row as the roof almost came off the dump. Fade started to stir at this point and grabbed Ashley by the hair, but she pivoted and dropped Fade with a Codebreaker to an even somehow bigger pop before clotheslining Pierce over the top rope to the floor and following him out. Szabo punched and kicked the Baron of Beverly Hills to the back while in the ring, everybody was in recovery mode.
The referee got up first and started the standing 10 count seeing both competitors down, but Fade would get himself up at five while Carpenter was still stirring. Unfortunately for Dark Mirror, they were in perfect position for the Decision and even worse, Fade could see it. The former Golden Gloves winner lowered his kneepad and then went to lower the boom with his finisher only to see Carpenter dodge it at the death. Dark Mirror leapt up and planted Fade with a rewind rana, then hit him with some rabbit punches before reapplying the Look Inward in the center of the ring to roars. Carpenter was yelling for Fade to tap at the top of their lungs, and Fade flailed trying to get free of the submission prison that was locked down on him. Fade’s body moved and he tried to power up again, but his body gave and soon his stomach was back on the canvas. Fade reached for the ropes but wasn’t close enough, so he s l o w l y used his body to pull himself towards them. The crowd’s chants of “TAP! TAP! TAP! TAP!” only got louder as Fade crawled towards the ropes, Naz pointing out he was having to drag both bodies and survive the hold at the same time. Fade got within two feet of the ropes and Carpenter yelled out “No!”, but Fade kept advancing and got within a foot as Mirror continued to crank the hold. Fade got within six inches…and Carpenter pulled him away to a huge cheer before getting themselves back in the center of the ring and letting out a triumphant scream as they sat back down on the hold. These Hands’ arm went up in the air, grabbing at Carpenter’s arm.
Fade scratched and clawed, and then he didn’t. The referee grabbed the arm – and then it fell to Fade’s unconscious side.
Bedlam. ****
| • “Dark Mirror” Beckett Carpenter dtko. "These Hands" Roy Fade [c] to win the GRPL+ World Television championship • |
You could hear everything Duck said up until “And NEWWWWWW–” - the Quality Controllers drowned out the rest as the referee raised Dark Mirror’s arm and handed them the GRPL+ World TV title, Carpenter’s eyes widening before they took hold of the belt itself and lowered their forehead to it, “Dark Mirror!” chants baptizing the Arena as Steve enthused about the title change on the headset. Carpenter raised the belt overhead and let out a joyous scream before blue and grey pyro exploded from, around and in front of the Qualitron 9004. Beckett held the belt aloft before letting it fall on their shoulder, and staggered towards a corner before standing on a buckle and putting one fist in the air. Confetti started to fall from the rafters as Steve put over the achievement, Naz even giving a couple of begrudging props as Carpenter held the belt tight to themselves. A couple pieces stuck to the sweaty new champion as they walked over to a different set of buckles away from the hard camera and held the TV title high to another roar from the Controllers, and the roar only grew as a couple of figures came out on the stage clapping the achievement – the Game Changers.
Some members of the crowd pointed and nudged each other, and once Beckett saw a few people do it she whipped her head around waiting for an attack then visibly let their guard down as the Tiki God and a returning Ashley THEE Influencer clapped and cheered alongside everyone else who wasn’t el-Fadal or Fade. Carpenter walked their way over to the ropes closest to them and held the belt up high in triumph before pointing between themselves and them, “You deserve it!” chants rattling the Arena to its foundations as Steve put over the instant classic and the new champion that had found a way to win it. Steve wished us a Happy Pride Month as the credits box came up and faded away, but even after it did we got a few more seconds of the Game Changers clapping from the entryway and Carpenter looking down at the TV title on their shoulder that they fought so hard to get – a title that if tonight was any indication, they were going to have to work just as hard if not harder to keep.
