HarmonicGenerator

I’m devastated. Truly. I didn’t think I’d get upset like this about a wrestler death again. But then, I never, ever, expected to wake up to this news. Didn’t expect to cry three times already; didn’t expect to be walking to the train station in a daze. PAC is my favourite wrestler. And I’m not just saying that. He’s a guy I’ve followed for almost his entire career, he’s the wrestler I’ve seen live more than any other, and I should not have to be saying this knowing I’ll never see him wrestle again. October 2nd, 2005. I’m at Eldon Leisure Centre in central Newcastle for MEW. The opening match was a six way cruiserweight thing, the draw of which was Spud from FWA. But then out comes this guy PAC, who nobody in the audience has heard of, and who blows everybody away. His athleticism, his speed, his ability to fly. This show had former WWE guys, former ECW guys, ROH stars, big BritWres names, but it was PAC people were leaving talking about. 2006, 2007. I get to see him wrestle for MEW two more times, against Jody Fleisch and again Spud. The second of these shows has Christian Cage on it but I’m more excited when I see PAC at the bar of the Tyne Theatre and say hello. ‘Hello, I’m Ben’ he says, in a very quiet voice. I have friends now, in 2026, who knew him as Ben not PAC, and I hope they are doing okay, they’ll be so much more upset than I am right now. At one of these shows, PAC hits the most beautiful Shooting Star Press I’ve ever seen in my life. At the other, he debuts this new move, which we know now as the Black Arrow and my mind is blown again. I could not figure out how he did that. He jumps, he shooting stars, but he twists, in the flip? It’s been nearly twenty years - for fuck’s sake, he hit on on Ace Austin last week - and I’ve still never understood how he can fly like that. ‘The Man that Gravity Forgot’ was the truest nickname. I’ve got some terrible digital camera photos of those shows, I’ll see if I can dig them out because I bet I got the Arrow on camera. From there, it was clear PAC was set for big things, and I was thrilled to see him get booked for FWA, then IPW:UK, then America! It was in PWG he had matches with El Generico that really got him noticed, who was this British guy who could flip and fly and wrestle like nothing anyone had seen before? From there it was on to Dragon Gate and I felt really proud for some bizarre parasocial reason. Here’s this lad from Gateshead, from tiny North East Indies to making it in Japan! Then he got signed to WWE. It’s 2015, and I’ve gone to the NXT tour at the Newcastle Arena. It’s not full, but there’s a couple of thousand people in, and PAC comes out to wrestle Baron Corbin. At the Arena! He gets a great reception even though he’s got a stupid name, and happily he wins. That’s the peak, right? Eldon Leisure to the Arena? On TV, they never quite know where to put him, until he becomes the focal point of 205 Live and turns it into my favourite WWE show. The show revolves around him and he grows his character to match. This incredible athlete, this gymnast, should be a natural babyface, but 205 Live is where The Bastard starts. He adds the Brutaliser as a finisher, and uses ground moves and submissions much more often. He can fucking do it all. It’s 2019. Along comes AEW. This new super Indy with Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks and Cody Rhodes, okay fine. It’s when they announce PAC has signed that I start to take proper notice and plan to watch their TV show. On ITV! I’m watching PAC on ITV! And he knocks it out of the park in the ring against the likes of Omega and Orange Cassidy. The commentators constantly acknowledge him as one of the best all-round wrestlers in the world. They did that this weekend, fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. How could this happen. It’s Covid, and PAC can’t get across to America. So instead he starts filming promos and it’s this insane thrill seeing him strolling like a mardy bastard past the Monument and across Sycamore Gap, on American wrestling TV, doing proper, full promos in his proper accent, and it’s brilliant. There’s certain promo words that just sounded better coming from PAC - ‘Bastard’ being one of them - and then he’d throw in a ‘Bonny lad’ or a ‘Billy big bollocks’ and how could you not love him. It’s 2024, and I’m at Wembley Stadium for the second All In. Yes, Bryan Danielson winning the title was an all-time great moment. Yes, the surprises in the Casino Gauntlet were an absolute thrill. But one of my favourite moments of that night was seeing PAC in the Trios Ladder Match. This guy who I’d seen blow them all away in a Newcastle leisure centre twenty years earlier is wrestling at Wembley Stadium. And he won! He fucking won at Wembley! It’s 2025, and I’m at the Manchester Co-Op for Dynamite and Collision. It’s Continental Classic season and we’re expecting good matches. The best one by some distance is PAC against Kyle Fletcher. I’ve got photos and videos of some of the stuff they do in that match, which was an absolute thriller. I still can’t figure out how he does the Black Arrow. It’s 2026, and I’m in bed on Sunday morning watching PAC against Andrade and it’s 24 hours later and I can’t believe that is the last time he’s ever going to wrestle and I can’t believe it was his last full day on Earth. This one has hit me hard and I am only some geeky fan on the internet. I can’t imagine how much harder it must be for his friends, his colleagues, his family. It’s awful. It’s awful. It’s awful and I hate it and I hope they’re all okay and I wish, I wish this hadn’t happened. Rest in peace, you Bastard. My favourite wrestler.

Suggestion in the All Out thread is that the show’s been hidden way down the page due to an injury suffered in one of the matches. They haven’t removed that match from the show but it was a very scary situation and they may not feel it’s appropriate to put it front and centre on MyAEW right now. That’s the theory anyway.

Obviously the first thought is that I hope Steven Borden will be okay. That was so frightening to watch. I just hope he’s okay. Not much else to say about the first half of the show other than Okada is the most magnificent dickhead. My heel of the year for sure. Things stepped up several levels from the Trios Match onwards, so you’re in for a treat when you get to the rest of the show @Supremo. Trios Match was ace, everybody on top form. Brodido great, New Level great, and every single second Hangman and Swerve interacted was electric. It’s true magic when you put those two against each other. It’s good enough to make you feel like you can be a Hangman fan again. Willow vs Thekla was very good, the targeting of the hand was the logical move and they used it well. Thekla and Mercedes will be a cracker. Ladder Match was as well put together as you could hope for, it never felt like a “do a spot, lie around and watch and wait for your next spot” match like every WWE ladder match I’ve seen for the past 15 years. Well done to them. I love Ospreay’s special Assassin’s Creed entrances. They’re corny as hell but I love them. Match was very entertaining, I enjoyed the big schmozzy run-in section because it gave it something different to the rest of the show. Excellent show overall, with the very big caveat of Borden’s injury and the worry for him. They handled it as well as they could, but I hope we’ll hear some additional positive news about it soon.

Those of us in the Paid section know the hard work and effort that went into this post by Thunderplex. It deserves recognition

The thing that was confused me was Ciampa (and maybe the commentators) repeatedly mentioning that in 2018, him vs Okada was the dream match everyone was talking about. Was it? That was when we were all neck deep in Ciampa vs Gargano matches. I guess someone might have said “if this was Okada instead of Johnny it would probably be much less melodramatic” but were we all begging for Ciampa-Okada and I just missed it?

The feud is carrying on at least until Blood & Guts (that’s surely the point of AEW setting up its own United Empire). I can’t see them ever turning on him, they’re such a grey area that the idea of a ‘turn’ barely makes sense. They try and kill top babyfaces, but the same top babyfaces are either fine to carry on as normal afterwards, or in Ospreay’s case, thank them for it. It’s so weird.

I hadn’t seen any Mysterio in WCW, so the first I’d heard of him were the mask-themed vignettes hyping him turning up in WWE in 2002. “Think you’ve seen high flying? You ain’t seen nothing yet” had me immediately buying into this guy. His debut match against Chavo was good, but it was his run-in during the Cage Match main event (Edge vs Jericho?) that was the real grabber. Rey climbed up that cage with such speed and then just leapt off the top of it with a beautiful cross body onto everyone. Straight away, night 1, you knew this was someone special. They very quickly moved him away from the cruisers and into a feud with Angle after that. I’m not a huge fan anymore, I think it was that stupid ridiculous pathetic Eye For An Eye match during Covid that made me lose all my interest in Rey.

I've been there as a tourist for exhibitions and for Star Wars Celebration, they do have cafes in the Excel. Or rather, there's definitely a Costa. Nothing world-shattering but you'd be able to pass the time.

Bron Breakker and… Brok Breakker? The Breakker Bros? I’m never going to see them unless it’s the Royal Rumble or maybe WrestleMania, but I want this.

Springsteen at the top, you love to see it.

2007 over here, having migrated from The Wrestling Channel forum. I think the UKFF 50 was the first thing that caught my interest, and I remember it was already such a strong community (although scarier then than it is now). Since then, through twatlists and battle raps, Shitarse 50s and organising the rounds for the paper boys, which involved organising the rounds for the paper boys, kwesh and cheese on, prune juice and chippy teas, awards and secret Santas and all the rest, this place has kept me sane and kept me interested in wrestling (not sure if the two are connected) for nearly 20 years now. I’ve only met @Kaz Hayashi in real life, but have had great chats with @Frankie Crisp and @Onyx2 as well. Let’s get it to 50 for some actual UKFF Gold! (Also, bring back UKFF Gold)

Tony, I know you’ll be too busy getting the show ready to pop on UKFF beforehand, but just in case you do, please just tell these two to CALM DOWN. Save their bodies.

Both Rose and Paul are in a new show called New Zealand Spy which has just been added to Now TV and which you might enjoy. Also has Bret from Flight of the Conchords.

This has reminded me that Hocus Pocus got its own legacy sequel a couple of years ago - which I think was largely forgotten the day after it came out. Edit: Although maybe not, because they're doing a third one?

I hope they make the Butcher Battle Royal an annual thing. Would be a nice lasting tribute to him.

I’m still watching US Ghosts (they just added season 5) but it’s gone a bit long-running-US-sitcom for me, much broader comedy and not a patch on the U.K. one. It also seems so much more obvious when one living character is talking to the Ghosts that the other living people in the room must just be standing there in awkward silence for ages, before saying one sentence then standing awkwardly for ages again while the ghosts get their quips in. Anyway - iPlayer have also added the first season (8 episodes) of Ghosts Australia, which is still early days but I much prefer to the American one. Tamala, who plays the Charlotte Ritchie equivalent, is as close to Ritchie level charm as you could hope for, and her being First Nations adds a different cultural level to things. And for Aussie standup/Aunty Donna fans, Michelle Brasier is one of the ghosts. By episode five I’d already completely warmed to all the characters and found myself getting emotional at the finale, which American Ghosts has never managed but the British one did on the regular. Aussie Ghosts is well worth a try.

Dynamite making me cry multiple times on the train today. Britt and Rebel on the ramp after the match, and Excalibur’s speech about Butcher, both just broke me. But this episode also had some lovely light hearted moments that made me laugh. PAC had two bits in his backstage segment (“he’s an absolute twat!” and when they cut from the segment halfway through him saying “fuck’s sake”), Kofi and Orange Cassidy were a delight whenever they interacted in their match and I’d like that as a singles please, and the Waiting Room, as has been said, showed Rebel’s lost none of her great comic timing. Hope this show has helped them raise a ton of money. Collision is going to be a tough watch this week.

Paul Schrader on his new crime film: “We sent it out to actors, and no Black actors wanted to play in a movie where there are no good Black people,” he said. “And it sort of died. But then AI came along, and I didn’t need Black actors.” Fucking hell.

That’s such sad news to hear. Butcher was one of my favourite lower card AEW guys, always enjoyed him showing up, and loved how he developed a rep over time of being lethal in a battle royal. RIP.

More Henare vs. Toa Liona, please. Lovely stuff.

Me again. Starting to hear rumours that there may be some European shows in the offing for next spring. Very much in the “someone messaged to say they heard something from somewhere” level of official right now, but I’ll take it.

There’s definitely some truth to that, but his return to WWE and subsequent main event star treatment does lend itself to the suggestion that all the above was a means to an end, and his going into business for himself was ultimately so he could go back into business with WWE. I picked Danielson, kind of because he feels like the opposite of that. He’d reached the top in WWE - he’d main evented Mania just months before, as has been pointed out - but chose to come to AEW and appeared to be/actually was genuinely happy to do so. He made the most of it, had some fantastic matches and storylines, wrestled some dream opponents, and finished his career how he wanted, which as it turned out was in AEW*. I’m surprised after Danielson’s Wembley win and Sting’s retirement that more old-timers don’t want to head that way to finish up. *ignoring the Death Rider murder as we all should.

Agree with this gripe, which was Mrs HG’s biggest disappointment from the show. She wanted to see everyone’s big-show-entrance getups and, despite there being enough screens around to do that, we didn’t get to see any of it until I watched a few bits back on MyAEW last night. Should be an easy thing to sort in future - they’re already filming the entrances, after all. Especially in the Gauntlet where you could only just see things like Garcia attacking Mistico, explaining why his music cut off at the best bit. Of those outfits, Ospreay’s was great and we assumed those were osprey feathers on it (they’re endangered Will! Don’t do it!), Mercedes’ really cool especially the ermine on her elbow pads, Willow’s chest cannons bizarre, and my wife’s favourites actually ended up being Harley and Stat on the preshow with their complementary Captain Marvel attires.

Still thinking about the show. AEW haven’t ever had the best options for merch at the Wembley shows (no programme again this year) but one thing they did on Sunday that I loved was rival football shirts for Ospreay and Omega. Felt really fitting for where we were, really nice touch. A lot more Ospreays than Omegas, though our section was very pro-Kenny. My wife asked me why I didn’t wear my Hangman shirt from Manchester. I explained. She was disappointed. If anyone wants a Hangman shirt it’ll probably be on her Vinted soon. Still absolutely electric when he and Swerve faced off in the Trios match, though. They have a well they can go back to forever with those two.

Great show, the time flew by. A few scattered thoughts *The pre-show was really enjoyable, did not expect a Britt Baker return! *Trios match a lot of fun, though it felt like they blasted through a load of teams entering in quite short order then had to wait ages for Swerve and New Level (which was an expected but great moment and the new name caught on pretty sharpish). Loved the roulette spins for each new team. Loved seeing a Kofi escape live. *Moxley vs Nigel was my wee break match and I wasn’t that fussed, but I got back quite quickly and found myself totally sucked in. I was audibly shouting “come on Nigel!” by the end. Great work by both. *Okada was a fantastic dickhead in the triple threat. *Very happy to have seen Mistico in the Gauntlet, even if it was spoiled by Justin Roberts announcing his name for Komander! *Tag title match was Mrs HG’s favourite other than the Ospreay match. The Christian Cage effect. Tag division looks like it’ll be getting some good focus in the next few months. *Very, very sad to see Willow lose. Mercedes is fantastic and looks like they’ll be heading to her vs Thekla which will be ace, but Willow 😔 *Sting! *Main event was outstanding, as many have already said. What a moment when Will won. He should be a great champion and hopefully keep it for ages. We scarpered pretty quickly after that to avoid the rush, did we miss anything or just a celebration? *The people around us were… okay actually! The guy in front didn’t seem to want to sit down until after everyone else already had, and the two behind us were obnoxious but were definitely enjoying the show so could have been a lot worse. An excellent time was had. A fantastic experience, and huge shows like this are by far my favourite live wrestling. Hope they do another - I don’t know why they wouldn’t!