GPW: "A Night To Remember" - Jun 6th, Wigan

[Mr. Noble]

On June 6th, we return with our second annual Dom Travis Memorial show as we remember and celebate The Champ at A Night To Remember!

 

 

Date: June 6th

 

Venue: The Rose Club, Atherton Rd, Hindley, Wgan WN2 3EU

 

Time: 7PM Doors / 7:30PM Show

 

Card: Heavyweight Title Shot / Six Man Tag / "Intergender" No DQ / Tag Match / Singles Match and more!

 

Cost:

[Mr. Noble]

The show is THIS FRIDAY!! And added to the card is:

 

 

Special Challenge Match:

Jiggy Walker v. Alex Jones-Casey

 

The start of the year saw anti violence student protestor enter the GPW fray as he made the short list for the vacant GPW commentators spot looking to use the medium to spread his anti violent message. Unfortunately for Alex, this is where he first came across Jiggy Walker. The two have continued to clash over the last few months and Jiggy has challenged the University student to a special challenge match, where if he wins he will grant him 5 minutes of mic time at the next show. What will happen? Find out Friday!

 

 

Tickets still selling get yours today and remember, every ticket sold generates a donation to MIND in memory of The Champ, Dom Travis!

[Big Benny HG]

I'm on t' train on t' way to this one now.

 

Looks tremendous and, for me, could well be one of Jeepy Dub's best ever shows.

[GPW Kristian Zane]

Results

 

Before the show got underway officially, the GPW roster hit the ring to pay their respects to Dom Travis. GPW Owner Johnnie Brannigan offered some words of encouragement to Nate Travis ahead of his debut and revealed he had been able to make the night's main event, a 2 on 1 Handicap Match rather than the 5 on 1 bouts which The Cause had competed in previously. "Dangerous" Damon Leigh was sceptical but seemed proud that Dom's brother was finally ready to step up.

 

Dylan Roberts w/ AAA Tasker defeated JC Thunder via pinfall. As Dylan and Alan left ringside in triumph, JC Thunder was visibly disappointed by the outcome.

 

Toxic Waste defeated The Blackpool Blonds

 

CJ Banks defeated T-Bone w/Lana. T-Bone was quite aggressive towards Lana before and after the match and when Sexy Kev arrived on the scene, T-Bone again tried to restrain her only to be met with a slap from Lana who then joined Sexy Kev on the ramp. Sexy Kev may have the girl but he may have also earned himself the ire of T-Bone.

 

Alex Jones-Casey defeated Jiggy Walker in a match with "No Disqualifications" and the stipulation that Walker must be blindfolded (in this case his face covered by one of Alex's preferred masks) and have one hand tied behind his back. Agreeing to these stipulations led to Jiggy's downfall as The Bad Lads arrived on the scene (wearing similar masks) and began to assault Walker setting up the pinfall by Alex.

 

New British Champion El Ligero, Ashton Smith and Sam Wilder defeated Zack Gibson and Tag Team Champions, The Island Brothers. During the match not only did Caz Crash get involved (albeit with a bandaged eye courtesy of the Island Bros actions last show) but so did JC Thunder! Thunder, still exhibiting frustration from his loss earlier seemed to want to have a word with his friend and sometimes rival, El Ligero. Ligero/JC, The Proven and The Island Brothers all left ringside leaving Ashton and Zack to fight to the end, one on one. After a series of counters yielded no joy for either man, Ashton managed to catch Zack with a Superkick/Clutch DDT combo and pick up the pinfall.

 

Joey Hayes defeated Martin Kirby w/Noah by submission with the Cross FHayes

 

Heavyweight Championship Match

The Cause

[Big Benny HG]

The show started with the entire roster out to pay tribute to Dom Travis, who died just over two years ago. From there, Johnnie Brannigan and Damon Leigh debated whether or not Nate Travis, Dom's brother, would be able to step up and wrest the GPW Heavyweight Championship away from The Cause in the 5-on-1 handicap match later on (remember, The Cause as a whole are currently recognised as the co-holders of the title). Brannigan was confident, Damon wasn't so sure, so put himself in Travis' corner for later on. At that point, what seemed like half the audience let out a collective groan as they foresaw the inevitable!

 

Dylan 'You Son of a Bitch' Roberts beat JC Thunder with a spinning torturerack into a powerbomb. I like both of these guys, but this still surprised me in how good it was. Full of fire and intensity and some great dramatic closing stages. After the match, Thunder acted as though he'd been knocked all loopy, stumbling around and muttering.

 

Toxic Waste (Cyanide & Binman) beat The Cause members The Blackpool Blondes when Binman hit a double-spear onto both the Blondes. Decent bout, loads of fun. Afterwards, Binman absolutely SMASHED one of the Blondes over the head twice with his steel rubbish bin, while the other lay incapacitated on the floor. The Blondes were supposed to be back later for the 5-on-1 main event, but Toxic Waste started the show-long story of the odds moving in Travis' favour.

 

CJ Banks beat T-Bone with the Busaiku Knee. Another strong match, and the pair of them went at it hard. Lana Austin, revealed to GPW fans as T-Bone's missus over the past few shows (where she has attracted the seemingly not-unwanted attentions of Sexy Kev), accompanied him to ringside, but he put her in her place before the bell, threatening that she would feel his fists if she didn't do as he said. The slow turn of Banks continued, as he is now being 100% cheered by the fans, but still isn't quite sure what to make of it. For instance, he doesn't slap hands on the way out or encourage the audience in any way, but this time started doing his signature bicep pose walk around the ring a lot closer to the rail so that supportive fans could slap his arm. Sexy Kev arrived and did his dance, while Lana smiled and clapped behind T-Bone's back. When T-Bone caught her and was about to smack her, she slapped the ever-living crap out of him then left arm-in-arm with Kev.

 

Hitman215684821292 won the top prize in the raffle (a 10-disc DVD box set) for the second consecutive show. Gutted doesn't begin to describe it.

 

Alex The Student beat Jiggy Walker in a match where, as per the stipulations agreed last time to convince Alex into the ring, Jiggy was blindfolded with one arm tied behind his back and Alex could not be disqualified. The 'blindfold' was a plastic comedy/tragedy mask with the eye holes gaffer-taped over and the arm was so loosely tied that Jiggy had to pretend it was still tight, before giving up and just holding it by his side. More of an angle than a match, which mostly consisted of Jiggy stumbling around trying to find his opponent, Alex running and hiding and getting quick swipes in at Jiggy before retreating again. The Student had paid-off The Bad Lads (Micky Barnes & Drill) who came out and, due to the no-DQ stip on Alex's side, dished out a beating ending with a Shield-inspired triple-powerbomb. As a result, Alex The Student gets 5 mins of microphone time on the next show (4 July) to spread his anti-violence message.

 

El Ligero & Sam Wilder & Ashton Smith beat Zack Gibson & The Island Brothers (Rio & Tabu). Sounds like I'm repeating myself, but this was another good match. Cause member Gibson was subjected to chants of "CHEESEBURGER" following his recent appearance in Adam Rose's group on Monday Night Raw, which was funny. One of the main stories of the match was Wilder wanting to get at the Islanders following their recent tag bouts, with his lack of control often to the detriment of the team. Gibson was also unconvinced about the ringside Simon Valour's abilities to keep his Island Brothers team under control. 2014 is the first time I've started seeing a fair bit of Wilder and he's pretty damn great. Gibson and Wilder worked really well together, and that's a singles match I wouldn't mind seeing. After the heels had the heat on Wilder for ages, Ligero came in off the hot tag and was clearing up, before he was distracted by a still-bonkers JC Thunder staggering through the curtain. Thunder spotted "his old friend" Ligero and wanted a bit of a chit-chat, but the heels knocked Ligs of into JC, who thought that his old acquaintance had wronged him. Ligero and JC argued to the back, with referee Mike Fitzgerald in tow. With no official, Wilder's Proven tag partner Caz Crash, who had been wandering around with an eye-patch on, jumped the rail and attacked the Island Brothers. The Proven and the Island Brothers also brawled themselves backstage, leaving Smith and Gibson to battle one-on-one when the second referee came out. After a few minutes of top-rate action, Smith planted Gibson with an Implant DDT for the win. A lot going on here, with the Island Brothers/Proven feud continuing, the classic JC Thunder/El Ligero rivalry re-flaring and a hint of a possible new singles programme between Smith and Gibson. Boy, that will be something special. Gibson, who was due to re-appear for the main event handicap bout, was all woozy afterwards as he joined the Blackpool Blondes in having his main event appearance in doubt.

 

Joey Hayes beat Martin Kirby by submission to the crossface in what was probably the match of the night. The referee ejected Kirby's creepy follower Noah in the early going, leaving it one-on-one. This was an athletic back-and-forth match, with Kirby's added daft baddie routine, and it worked well. Not the best match Joey Hayes vs. Martin Kirby match I've seen, but that isn't a criticism since these two simply cannot have a bad match against each other.

 

The main event started with the confirmation that the toll of the earlier matches had taken Zack Gibson, James Drake and Axl Rage out of contention, so the main event was now only 2-on-1 with Dave Rayne and Sean Daniel of The Cause going up against Nate Travis, who had Damon Leigh in his corner. Travis came out to his brother's entrance theme, wearing his brother's hooded blue ring coat. When he stood on the stage looking down with his arms out-stretched, he looked EXACTLY like Dom. This match was a fine tribute to him and was a well-executed piece of drama. Travis took out Daniel on the ramp with a DDT, leaving it one-on-one for the title. After an Alex Shane brawl around the room (including Rayne doing the old Shane legsweep into the wall), Nate hit Dom's old Northern Lights bomb finisher in the ring but Cause manager Mel Price pulled the referee out at the last second. With the referee dealing with her, Damon Leigh jumped in the ring and smack Dave Rayne with the GPW Heavyweight title belt, but then turned and also smacked Travis with it too. With both men down, the referee counted Nate's shoulders down (I presume Dave had the slightest of touches on him) to retain the title for The Cause. It may have been predictable, but it was pulled off very well and left more questions to be answered in the second half of the season. Leigh may have turned on Nate, but it doesn't seem as though he is aligned with The Cause either.

 

And that was that. A special night, but also one that delivered as promised in the ring. Four weeks until the next one, on Friday 4 July, which is the annual 30-man rumble event... EVERYONE LOVES A RUMBLE, and the last one was probably GPW's highest attended show last year. Should be great!