Victor Is God

"Does anyone know anywhere decent in Preston that'll be showing the Fury vs. Chisora and Eubank Jr. vs. Saunders boxing on Saturday night?"

 

I echo this question!

Can't possibly miss this opportunity to plug the book for those who haven't read it yet.http://www.amazon.co.uk/Holy-Grail-British...il+greg+lambertIt's also on Kindle.

Internet forum awareness is the holy grail to them.

Nah, not any more. Learned the hard way about that. It's just one of many ways to make people aware of your product, and certainly not the best way. I would be stupid to ignore it altogether though.

Can't possibly miss this opportunity to plug the book for those who haven't read it yet.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Holy-Grail-British...il+greg+lambert

 

It's also on Kindle.

Here is Mark Kay's review of the event for WrestlingX.com, published days afterwards. The title was blatantly nicked for Chapter 4 of my book...

 

No Ring Circus

 

It’s 11 o’clock. The Truth and I have just made the short trip back to Morecambe from Blackburn after watching the wrestling show that never was - GWF Aftermath.

By now anyone reading this will know the story. The last GWF show in Preston was blighted by the no-shows of various wrestlers, this time it was the ring that no-showed. This just has to be a promoter’s worst nightmare.

How am I feeling at this time? Angry? No.

Sympathetic? Yes.

Many fans were angry, chanting “F**k you, Farrer”. But in my opinion, the man acted with honour, courage and dignity in a very difficult situation. Let’s look a the sequence of events.

4pm - A reasonable enjoyable Fanfest. I not a big fan of Fanfests but Greg is in his element. He wondered around introducing himself to the likes of Doug Williams, James Mason and the UK Pitbulls, as well as chatting at greater length with Five Star Flash, journalists Phil Austin and Mo Chatra. Despite all the heat of recent weeks, the fans we spoke to, including several from UKFF, were all really top blokes.

5.30pm - The Truth is timidly booed as he goes to the toilet in McDonalds. He’ll be scarred for life after that.

6pm - The first of hint that anything was wrong was when fans turned up for the show. After a brief wait, it was announced that the ring hadn’t turned up but a second ring was on its way. We are told to come back at 7pm. Oh bugger, we’ll have to spend another hour in the pub. It’s a hard life. As it happens it give us chance to meet a few fellow fans. Everyone is still in good humour.

Just after 7pm - Back to the St George’s Hall. In the foyer we meet Julian Radbourne, WAW’s webmaster (and WrestlingX columnist). Myself and Julian have e-mailed each other but had never actually met.

“Who’s this fine figure of a man?” asks Julian as I walk over. I think this was a compliment. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t calling me fat.

Sometime later we take our seats in the balcony. Comedian Ted Robbins was at the show and has graciously decided to do a turn. He told a few jokes, got some kids up on stage and told a few more jokes. It wasn’t the most hilarious stuff I’ve ever heard but, to give the guy a lot of credit, he hadn’t turned up to do a show. It kept everyone entertained for a while.

After the Ted Robbins’ interlude we’re back to the bar. Hurray.

For once, Hitman is right. This incident is indeed featured in my new book, along with many other stories from the FWA years, available from www.xwawrestling.com and also from www.authorhouse.co.uk, and on Kindle at Amazon and e book at other online outlets including Waterstones and W H Smith. 25% of royalties go to the Kidscape anti-bullying charity.

 

Incidentally, there is a wrestling show scheduled to take place tomorrow at King George's Hall in Blackburn, exactly 10 years on to the day. I saw a poster advertising this recently when I was in Blackburn doing book promotion with Radio Lancashire; Johnny Moss is on the poster, not sure of the company running the event.

Ahem.

 

http://ukff.com/index.php?showtopic=131906

And so the day of the 10th anniversary dawns! Here's the final part of my memoirs from Feb 9 2002. Reasonably prophetic in parts...

 

VOLUME FOUR- REVIVAL- THE EVENT

 

 

6.30pm

 

Dann and I got great

Here's part two of my Revival report from Feb 2002, including the first time I ever spoke to Alex Shane...

 

VOLUME THREE- THE INTERVIEWS

 

5.15pm

 

Interview with Tommy Boyd- promoter of Talksport

Blimey, this is a blast from the past. My (lengthy) report from www.wrestlingx.com

I note with embarrassment that at the time, I couldn't spell "Eddie".

 

THE TRUTH DIARIES- SATURDAY FEBRUARY 9th 2002

The story of REVIVAL by Greg 'The Truth' Lambert

Volume One-THE WAIT

 

3.00pm

 

Exhausted by the six-hour journey from Morecambe, feeling

Pretty sure I spotted Andy Quildan front row and Greg Lambert 2nd row too.

 

I wasn't that far forward I don't think. I was further back sitting next to Dann Read. That was my first experience of a major UK wrestling show. It was all downhill from there!

Hells bells, 10 years since I met Alex Shane and Dann Read, and my life changed forever.

Jeez Ben, if you think this is bad, you'd better hope AJ Spitfire's not number one.

You tell me how many other matches on UK soil this year created so much emotion within the audience that they actually incited a proper, full-blown riot.

 

Go on. Tell me. You can't, can you?

 

Spud & Phil Bedwell vs The Models from SAS in Collingwood. Spud nearly died. Fact.

 

Gah. There's always one know-all....

Stevie Knight eliminates Sam Slam to win The Goldrush 15-man rumble, Saturday February 2 2008, XWA, Morecambe Dome.

 

I refer you to an excerpt from UK Hat Guy (whoops, sorry, Big Benny HG)'s review of the aftermath of the finish of this match, first posted on the UKFF earlier this year:

 

"What happened next was just plain mental. The crowd erupted and ran up to the ring, desperately trying to tell the referee that trickery had been afoot. The kids were livid at the referee. How could he possibly be the only person in the entire building that didn't see what had happened? How could the referee have got it wrong? How could Stevie Knight get away with this? As, in XWA, the referee's decision is always final, the decision was not going to be overturned.

 

As the fans started to realise this, they went berserk, pounding on the ring mat, chanting "SAM SLAM WON!" and hurling whatever they could get their hands on at the referee, at Stevie Knight and into the ring. Plastic bottles, sweet wrappers, raffle tickets, flyers, posters, etc all ended up being hurled in rage. Someone even climbed under my chair, grabbed my empty beer glasses and hurled them into the ring. This wasn't just kids being daft and chucking stuff at people "for a laff, innit", this was people absolutely incensed that their hero had been screwed in a manner such as this, and that the bad guy was going to get away with it scot free. You could only describe it as a riot. The look of anger and disbelief on kids' faces was all the evidence you needed that this had been bang on the money. Absolutely awesome."

 

 

You tell me how many other matches on UK soil this year created so much emotion within the audience that they actually incited a proper, full-blown riot.

 

Go on. Tell me. You can't, can you?

47 - Robbie BrooksideCalled 'Relic' by some, 'an anachronism' by the Wrestling Observer/Figure Four Weekly monolith, 'mutton dressed as lamb' by someone who I forget, and 'great' by others, Robbie Brookside is a no doubt controversial entry into the SHITARSE FIFTY. Called a legend by people who nevertheless cannot point to a match that validates that claim, Brookside is a man in his forties still trying to play the 17 year old firey young babyface. Has a body comparable to a million Johnny Kickpadz figures out there, but nobody seems to notice. Recent shitarsery includes accepting a payday from WWE, which is fair enough, but the payday led to him losing popularity among hardcore All Star fans who saw it as him selling out, and the abysmal six man tag at LDN Legends Showdown, in which powder thrown in his eyes somehow led to his eye 'hanging out of his socket' and during which Lloyd Ryan sat at ringside rolling his eyes and burying the match to ringside fans. Brookside then left LDN halfway through this feud because they wouldn't put him on a poster in Leicester. The ultimate piss break wrestler.

Dean Malenko vs Robbie BrooksideThe look on Malenko's face at the end says it all.

Robbie Brookside as a heel is frigging awesomeHell's bells, I bit again. That's twice now.

Fair point, he did always hit the deck a little too willingly, but that doesn't make him rubbish (think of all the free kicks he's earned!). He's had a good career, the only problem was he underachieved compared to what many experts thought he could do when he was in that very good Leicester City team in the late 90s/early noughties that won the League Cup twice - and because he looks like he should be a killer due to his physical size and speed for a big man. Heskey gets criticised because he doesn't score enough goals but I've always thought his role was more a target man who set up a lot of goals for others, especially for Michael Owen. And he did score 23 goals for us in the 2000/1 season (us being Liverpool) when we won the League Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup in the same season, including some absolute belters. He was awesome that year.We shall see how he copes with Ferdinand and Vidic tomorrow, having already had a huge say in the title race with his last-minute equaliser against Chelsea.Sorry for going off-topic.

Can I just say that I am absolutely furious with the outright lies that have been posted in this thread.Emile Heskey is an underrated team player whose unselfish attitude and high workrate has created countless chances for his team-mates at Leicester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Wigan...and he scored in England's legendary 5-1 win over Germany, he was arguably England's best player during the 2002 World Cup AND he was man of the match when England played Russia and Israel in the Euro 2008 qualifiers AND had he not been injured against Croatia, we might have even qualified for the finals.Ayass, I don't care how drunk you are, you're out of order. You'd kill for someone like Emile at Ipswich Town.

Calzaghe won it on my card 115-112.From the fifth round on Hopkins barely threw the jab, held on every time Joe got close and tried to get by on sneaking in two or three clean right hands per round. In contrast Calzaghe forced the fight, threw and landed plenty of jabs, held his own with Hopkins on the inside and although he missed plenty, got through with enough to win every round from five onwards on my card apart from the 10th, to overhaul his early defecit clearly.Not a great performance by Joe but at least he wanted to fight. Hopkins didn't. But those who scored all the close rounds for Hopkins - and there were many close rounds- I can understand why they had the American winning. Like two of the judges, I thought Calzaghe just nicked most of those close rounds.

Martin Stone v Flash Barker - FWA v IPW:UK Final Frontiers, March 25 2007.

Traitor.

Look, it may have been the most disasterous night of my professional life, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate what a great match and occasion it was!I don't think any British match this year beats it for significance, emotion, storytelling, action and crowd response.

Martin Stone v Flash Barker - FWA v IPW:UK Final Frontiers, March 25 2007.

I will also mention Jonny Storm as his matches with Robbie Brookside and Johnny Phere for XWA were fantastic.Also Sam Slam, El Ligero, Ross Jordan and grudgingly, Martin Stone.

"With FWA losing to IPW:UK at "Final Frontiers", it essentially lived on as XWA in Morecambe and XS:W in the south." Just to clarify this statement from UKHG's excellent Jonny Storm biog, XS:W and XWA are not connected as such.XWA is the promotion set up to keep the FWA lineage alive, while XS:W is an entirely separate promotion which just happens to be run by former FWA management team member Dann Read. XS:W did step in to run the Sudbury show in March which was previously billed as an FWA show though.

I was very impressed with Sam Slam at the last FWA show in Morcambe, he made himself a star in that one night. His 450 is incredible. Good to see him getting recognition in the top 50 and I wouldn't be surprised to see him much higher up the list next year.

That's XWA! And Morecambe, with another e, while we're at it!Excellent job you're doing at the moment, Mr Hat Guy, extremely readable and interesting stuff.