Paid Members BomberPat Posted February 18 Paid Members Share Posted February 18 Yes, definitely Sam Fatu and not Rikishi in this video: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LEGIT Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 2 hours ago, air_raid said: WrestlingData has the Yoko/Fatu tag at a BWF show in Gillingham on 5th May (and credits it as Solofa/Rikishi) - 6 days before his next match in Memphis. A quick Google unearths a local news story placing them in Crawley the night before. Furthermore my best mate went to one of the shows - I’d be lying if I said I remembered where but a weeknight somewhere in the Wolvo/West Midlands area… I want to say Walsall. He got autographs from both and knowing Tom and the length of time we watched wrestling together, if it hadn’t been the former Headshrinker, he’d have known. He chatted to him after the show and asked Fatu if he’d be heading back to the WWF any time soon and he said that actually yes in a couple of months time - which came true. Tom told him “Whatever you do, don’t come back as The Sultan.” At first Fatu looked a bit taken aback, he says, as though he genuinely didn’t think anyone knew it was him under the mask, then laughed it off and said “Don’t worry, I won’t.” More likely that poster is a screw up. I bet Chuck Norris didn’t show up either. All I can speak for was the show I was at (Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, sometime in 99) and it definitely wasn't Rikishi. 100% not Rikishi and I'm 99% sure it was Tonga Kid. He was billed as Fatu and I think the intention was for the kids to assume it was the former Headshrinker and "say no to drugs" Fatu, but it wasn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donald J Trump Posted February 19 Share Posted February 19 (edited) We were broke growing up so I had to make do with repeatedly reading an old WWF European Rampage annual. It was always a dream to go to a live event and thankfully my mum managed to save enough money for this one. WWF Attitude Adjustment Tour - Sheffield April 2nd 1999N. Not a bad card for this one - XPac Def Brooklyn Brawler HHH Def Kane Dlo Brown and Ivory Def Val Venis and Jackie Goldust Def Road Dogg Hardcore Holly Def Al Snow Billy Gunn Def Gangrel Jeff Jarrett and Owen Hart Def Edge and Christian Undertaker Def Ken Shamrock The Big Show Def Big Boss Man Stone Cold Steve Austin Def The Rock This one stands out as it happened just days after WM15. One of the all time great periods in Wrestling history. Edited February 19 by Donald J Trump Was Wrestlemania 15, not 16 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpykeDudlei1 Posted February 19 Share Posted February 19 (edited) On 2/16/2024 at 2:33 PM, DavidB6937 said: My first one was this. I haven't thought about it in ages but looking at that card, I'm surprised I stayed a fan for this long. European Rampage Again Tour (London) - April 14,1992 at the Wembley Arena in London, England. Owen Hart defeated Skinner The Big Boss Man defeated The Berzerker Butch defeated Irwin R. Schyster Virgil defeated The Warlord Rick Martel defeated The Texas Tornado Tatanka defeated Kato Sid Justice fought The Undertaker to a Double Count Out ... especially considering the night before got this: Repo Man defeated El Matador The Legion Of Doom (Animal & Hawk) defeated The Nasty Boys (Brian Knobbs & Jerry Sags) Sgt. Slaughter defeated Col. Mustafa The British Bulldog defeated Ric Flair Bret Hart (c) fought Shawn Michaels to a Double Count Out. Bret Hart retained the WWF Intercontinental Championship Jim Duggan defeated Dino Bravo Randy Savage (c) defeated The Mountie to retain the WWF Championship Starting to think my parents hated me. Or the tickets sold faster for that first one, which I suppose would be more logical and less personal. My first one too. Travelled all the way down from East Yorkshire for it. And I’m with you, couldn’t believe what they got the night before by comparison. My friend and his dad who I went with made up for it 4 months later though when we were back down there for SummerSlam, 10 rows from ringside - ticket cost £25 (which seemed a lot at the time). Edited February 19 by SpykeDudlei1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Lion_of_the_Midlands Posted February 19 Paid Members Share Posted February 19 @Big Benny HG has logged in now. If he posts all the shows he has been too the server will crash. Ive been looking for my show book but having not written anything in it for nearly 10 years I can't find it. I suppose that matters only to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
no user name Posted February 19 Author Share Posted February 19 High stakes was amazing. The atmosphere was incredible. Orange cassidy made a surprise appearance. The crowd went insane he got a massive pop. Stand out matches for me were. Luke jaccobs v jj gale. Zack dabre Jr v Connor Mills and of course the main event, osprey ve oku. However Anthony ogogo should go back to boxing. I was originally cheering osprey in the main event but then he kicked oku's wife so I cheered for oku. After the match they shook hands which is strange considering he just kicked his wife but that's independent wrestling I guess lol. They do kick out of to many finishers for me and there is a bit to much spot wrestling at times but it's still very entertaining and can't wait to go again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted February 19 Paid Members Share Posted February 19 2 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said: @Big Benny HG has logged in now. If he posts all the shows he has been too the server will crash. Ive been looking for my show book but having not written anything in it for nearly 10 years I can't find it. I suppose that matters only to me. These two sentences remind me of Benny leaning of my own little wrestling results book, and chanting at me "Shitty little book! Shitty little book!" and "air raids, shitty book, air raids air raids shitty book!" to the bemusement of a small corner of Preston. Needless to say, we were pals again by the next chorus of "Knowing me, knowing you.... Uhaa!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpykeDudlei1 Posted February 19 Share Posted February 19 (edited) 28 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said: @Big Benny HG has logged in now. If he posts all the shows he has been too the server will crash. Ive been looking for my show book but having not written anything in it for nearly 10 years I can't find it. I suppose that matters only to me. I did a list recently (WWE/F & WCW only as too many British ones to count plus ONE NWA show for the fact it was in the US). It’s WWF/E unless stated. Apr 92 - Wembley Arena Aug 92 - SummerSlam (Wembley Stadium) Apr 93 - UK Rampage (Sheffield) Aug 93 - Sheffield Arena (Hogan tour) Oct 93 - WCW Birmingham NIA Mar 94 - Sheffield Arena Sept 94 - Hull Ice Arena Oct 95 - Hull Ice Arena Nov 96 - London Docklands Arena Apr 98 - Mayhem in Manchester Dec 98 - Capital Carnage (London Docklands) Apr 99 - Newcastle Arena Sept 99 - NWA 51st Anniversary Show, Grady Cole Center, Charlotte NC* Sept 99 - WCW Nitro, Phillips Arena, Atlanta GA Nov 01 - WCW Nitro, London Docklands Nov 11 - Sheffield Arena June 23 - Sheffield Arena *where Brit/Hammerlock wrestler Gary Steele won the NWA Title. Edited February 19 by SpykeDudlei1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Big Benny HG Posted February 19 Paid Members Share Posted February 19 (edited) Good times.... I attended what I confidently believe to be shows #792, #793 and #794 of my lifetime over the weekend, being a 3-day deathmatch weekender in Hull between Yorkshire-based promotion RISE Underground and their visiting US pals from the indie ICW No Holds Barred group. Was great fun, but I always find the best thing about the shows these days is the all stuff around the show (travelling to a town/city, pre-show pub crawl, hanging out with friends) as much as the wrestling itself. I don't get to as many shows as I used to, having a young family etc. now, but still going to about 25-35 shows a year. And I tend to look out for more 'destination' events like weekenders etc. now, when at one time I'd be following several British promotions and heading along to nearly every show they would put out. At the peak of the mid-2000s and again in the mid-2010s, I would be doing 50+ a year, peaking at 80 in 2017, when British wrestling hit it's peak of cult underground popularity. There are plenty of people that'll have done a lot more than me though, as there were folk doing 100+ per annum during those heavy mid-2010s day. And my near-800 comes spread out over a looooong period, with my first ever live show being exactly 30 years ago last week. I never went to SummerSlam 1992 like so many did, or any of the early-90s UK Rampage events or anything like that. I'm told my dad secretly tried to get us tickets to the WCW house show tour in Manchester in 1993 after seeing the advert in a WCW magazine I'd left out, but it had sold out. So, my first show (as mentioned, 30 years ago last week) was one of those AMERICAN WRESTLING LIVE touring shows, in February 1994 at the then-named Hambleton Forum in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, which was the next town along. 5 singles matches and a 10-man rumble, in a creaky, aging British ring. I've reliably worked out over the subsequent years it will have been a Klondyke Jake-promoted show, and was a bit of a weird mix of 'new' American style fanciness (the big WWF-style colourful cartoon characters) and classic British presentation (single turnbuckle covers, public warnings). UK Undertaker (Rick Masters) was the main star of the show, but there was also UK Earthquake (who was Scrubber Daly), shouty WOS baddies Lucky Gordon, Pete LaPaque and Billy Joe Brannigan, the imposing Barbarian (not the WWF/WCW guy, but a Scottish(?) bloke with the same look, hairstyle, facepaint and gear, who'd also be known as Tarantula), 'Tiger' Kashmir Singh, Zulu Warrior, College Boy (a young Pete Bainbridge) and Rory Campbell (as someone else already mentioned in the thread, now a convicted sex offender). It was good fun, with the ring announcer starting chants over the PA and Undertaker last eliminating Earthquake to predictably win the rumble. Got a polaroid photo with 'Taker and still have both that and the newspaper ad for the show in a box somewhere. The rest of the 90s saw me attending more of the AMERICAN WRESTLING shows in the local area, including seeing Davey Boy Smith in Scarborough weeks before his SummerSlam 1994 return to WWF, Giant Haystacks and shamed ex-Gladiator Shadow during his brief wrestling run. There were also Power Rangers, Legends of Doom, wrestling Clowns and many of those already mentioned above. My first WWF show didn't come until Insurrextion 2000 from Earls Court, after we spotted a poster advertising an organised coach trip to it in Middlesbrough bus station, including travel, accommodation and show tickets. My brother and I went down on the 6-hour bus journey, staying in a hotel next to Tower Bridge as part of the trip. The bus was slow getting from the hotel to the arena, so we arrived almost exactly as the show was starting. I will absolutely never forget the real chill and goosebumps hearing the “ROCKY! ROCKY!” chants from the packed arena above echoing through the concourse as we rushed to find our seats. From there, I'd typically try to do at least one WWF/E show when they came over on their UK tours, so saw more UK-only PPVs like Rebellion in 2001 (Austin vs. Rock singles main event!) and 2002, Insurrextion in 2003, various house shows and then the Raw and SmackDown tapings when they started up in 2004. I also did the World Wrestling All Stars shows in Newcastle Arena when they came over in a post-WCW era. After being massively put off by the 2001 WrestleExpress disaster in Coventry, the first show that got me into travelling the UK specifically to see/follow the British wrestling scene was the February 2002 ‘Revival’ show at Crystal Palace. I’d been following FWA on videotape from Strong Style Tapes after listening to the Tommy Boyd/Alex Shane TalkSport radio show and made this my first one to go and check it out in person. I’d go to similar GWF (Jon Farrer), NEW (Dann Read) and ‘British Uprising’ (FWA) events in Preston, Ipswich and London respectively over the rest of 2002, before jumping on-board the FWA train full-time with effect from ‘Seasons Beatings’ that December. I went to 40-odd FWA shows over the next few years, not just their main ones in the Broxbourne Civic Hall, Brent Town Hall or York Hall, but also in places like Cleethorpes Winter Gardens, the Morecambe Dome and Horwich Leisure Centre in Bolton. There was a good community built up around the promotion and it felt like being part of something. Seeing FWA wrestlers advertised on their shows is also what first got me into checking out other British promotions like FutureShock (Manchester-based promotion that originally grew out of the FWA-affiliated training school), GPW (Wigan), wZw (Newcastle/north-east) and 3CW (Teesside) and they became part of my regular schedule in their own right. IPW:UK (based out of south-east London and Kent) took over FWA as the main British-based promotion of my interest from 2006, and I went to pretty much all their shows, as well as selected ones from other groups like Triple-X Wrestling, 1PW, XWA etc. until 2010 when I started being more picky. I would always try to do the 'big' supershow weekends like International Showdown, Universal Uproar, King of Europe Cup, Indypendence Day and the UK shows from US groups like PWG or ROH, but it wasn't until I started going to Preston City Wrestling nearly every month from mid-2012, and the start of the "Brit Wres Boom" that my attendance really picked up again for the next 5 years. I'd be going over to Preston a weekend a month for PCW, popping down to London, Manchester, Birmingham and Sheffield for nearly every PROGRESS show, going to big Revolution Pro Wrestling (which had split-off from IPW:UK) events and filling most of my other weekends with the likes of TIDAL Wrestling, FutureShock, Lucha Forever, GPW, Fight Club PRO and literally dozens of others. There was a whole new generation of wrestlers headlining all these shows, and a really strong community that you'd see all over the place, making the shows a social occasion as much as anything. As mentioned above, though, that has definitely cooled-off over the last few years. That boom/peak died off and things didn't seem to be "must see" anymore, and it got to the point I wanted to do other things with my time. After 16 months without any shows between March 2020 and July 2021 (for obvious reasons), I came back with an attitude of wanting to see more "different" things and being much more selective about what I choose to spend my money and, more importantly, my time on. These days, I'm mostly happy going to a selection of GPW (which took a couple of years to come back after the pandemic, as they couldn't get the previous availability on 'their' venue, but now runs a much-reduced schedule in a new slot in the building, which was worked out great), some BWR (really good, well-presented storyline-based shows in Cleethorpes, that I've only really been going to since the Covid break), True Grit Wrestling (running stacked main shows in Left Bank, Burley, Leeds, one of the best venues I've ever been in for wrestling), OPW in Morecambe once or twice a year (latest promotion to pick up the mantle of the Morecambe Wrestling, putting on shows with long-running storylines that build across a year and an incredibly hot local audience), most TIDAL in Huddersfield (which took me by surprise as being a great town to visit - great pubs) and odd other 'destination' things (like the deathmatch tournament I went to this weekend, PCW once a year for their big tournament in Preston or Blackpool, some big RevPro events, big WWE or AEW shows) and the odd local Megaslam Wrestling show thrown in. And if anything else pops up that takes my fancy (there's a double-ring "GAMES OF WAR" match coming up in Middlesbrough in April, for instance, that might be fun to see). And I'm happy with that. (And, in a few weeks, I'm taking my now-6-year old son to his first ever wrestling event, in the exact same building that I saw my first show described above, almost exactly 30 years on...). 'Fun' stats (yes, Raiders, I have a sheet): PCW is the promotion I've been to the most, at 93 (96 next month!), though 81 of that total took place 2012-2017, and the rest have mostly been multi-show weekenders when I go maybe once a year now. The Monaco Ballroom/Rose Club in Hindley, Wigan is the individual venue I've visited most times for wrestling - 80. First there for me was 2006, latest was 3 weeks ago. London, when considering all its Boroughs, is the town/city I've seen the most shows in - 133. Some of that's due to the sheer size of it, but it's also the case that once upon a time you'd be needing to head to the capital to be seeing the choice stuff, be that WWF, FWA, IPW:UK, RevPro, PROGRESS, etc. and there were times during the mid-00s and mid-10s I'd be there every couple of weeks. Portsmouth is the furthest I've ever been to see a show (PWG in 2007) Biggest crowd is (anywhere between) 72,000 - 85,000 for AEW All In at Wembley last year, followed by 62,000 for WWE Clash At The Castle Smallest crowd is 20 for Monkey Madness Wrestling at Tang Hall Working Men's Club in York, followed by 25 for GRAPPLE in Selby and 30 for Sovereign Nation Wrestling in York/TIDAL Wrestling in Leeds Broxbourne Civic Hall in Hoddesdon, Herts. remains the single venue in which I've seen the most different promotions live, with 6; FWA, ROH, IPW:UK, LDN, Dragon Gate UK, Pro Wrestling NOAH. This summer it'll be 10 YEARS since I last went there, which at one point would have sounded ridiculous. I believe Rumble Wrestling runs there now. All but 2 of my 796 live shows have been in England (and the other 2 were in Wales) EDIT: nice to pop back in and see you all! Edited February 26 by Big Benny HG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted February 19 Paid Members Share Posted February 19 1 hour ago, Big Benny HG said: Portsmouth is the furthest I've ever been to see a show (PWG in 2007) This is literally the only measure by which I have you beat. Ice Ribbon would be my furthest journey - having flow near 6000 miles in the first place to get to my Tokyo "base" for the myriad of shows in the area, getting to the dojo then involved a further 30 minutes on a train. I love telling that story... a week before going out there I posted on their English-speaking FB group asking if anyone could give me an idiot's walking directions from the station to the venue. A friendly German chap told me how to get there. He didn't mention he'd be there too. So I'm there, front row (out of about 4 rows), waiting for the show to start having initially clocked not a single other Western face in the whole building. Suddenly from behind me I hear "Excuse me, are you (raid's real name)?" It took me a second or two to realize it was this lad from the group, but for a second I simply thought "I've been recognised by a stranger. I've made it." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Girl From Mars Posted February 19 Share Posted February 19 Long time lurker, but this seems as good a thread as any to start in! My first was an All-Star show back in 1990 with Rollerball Rocco headlining (according to the flyer I've still got). Of course I had no idea who he was then ! Saw two more All Star shows there including one with Giant Haystacks v Pat Roach from Auf Weidersen Pet. Then nothing for years, until going to a WWE house show in 2011 where Kevin Nash randomly turned up for a six-man tag. Got the Britwres bug a few years after (it's fine, there's a cream for it nowadays) so have been to loads of local indies alongside ROH, TNA, NJPW, Chikara and Sendai Girls. Biggest (and probably furthest away) was Clash at the Castle until hitting show #200 (yes I've got a list too) at All In last year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gmoney Posted February 19 Paid Members Share Posted February 19 I completely forgot I went to Clash at the Castle! I don't know why, it was great, and we bumped into Bret Hart at Heston services on the way. That's why you keep a spreadsheet I suppose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperBacon Posted February 19 Share Posted February 19 1 minute ago, gmoney said: Bret Hart at Heston services on the way. Hest there is, Hest there was etc My hero, mere minutes from where I grew up, I bet he bloody loved it there. Bret would love Hounslow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gmoney Posted February 19 Paid Members Share Posted February 19 (edited) I tell you SB, he was pretty bloody upset that he couldn't get a pumpkin spice latte as it wasn't in season at Costa. But he still shook hands with my mate when he said he was a big fan. (I missed this interaction as I was in the bog, so had to make do with a nod as I walked past.) Edited February 19 by gmoney Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperBacon Posted February 19 Share Posted February 19 "And with a tear in his eye, the barista looked at me and told me my pumpkin spice latte order was the best he'd ever seen and thanked me" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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