It could perhaps have been expected that 20th November in the Birmingham NEC would become one of the most memorable days in FWA history... but that is probably the only thing that could have been predicted in the course of a two-hour spectacular that was exhilarating and baffling in equal measure. Birmingham is unlikely to soon forget the day the stars of British wrestling collided in a European Uprising...

Shane betrayal brings Resistance to its knees

FWA Head of Content Alex Shane has often been the centre of controversy during his career, but what happened on Saturday afternoon went far beyond anything that he has done before – in fact, it left even the people who thought they were closest to him questioning whether they had ever really known him at all. It was the closing moments of the long-awaited World Heavyweight Championship rematch between Martin Stone and Leroy Kincaide, and despite the nefarious efforts of the Agenda’s leader it looked as though the gold was headed to the Resistance. Guest referee Shane, who had earlier been knocked out of the ring by Stone, had now recovered and was urging Kincaide to deliver a spear that would have sealed the deal. Stone was slowly getting to his feet, oblivious to the jeopardy his title reign was now in. Kincaide started to charge, and the crowd braced for a final impact that would change the course of British wrestling.

Then, in an instant, the world was turned on its head.

Kincaide was struck in the temple by Shane’s boot and crumpled to the mat. The former two-time British champion suddenly seemed possessed, ordering Stone to lift up his rival and drop him to the mat with a London Bridge DDT. Three seconds later, after Shane had screamed in the face of terrified referee Chris Roberts, Stone had retained the gold and was handing the championship belt over to the man who had apparently been his master all along. Half of the NEC crowd reacted with a chorus of jeers, while half retained a shocked silence.

A few moments after the match had ended, the Resistance members flooded ringside and got a harrowing glimpse at the sheer scale of the conspiracy before them. Commentator Greg Lambert appeared to be in on the plot, grabbing a microphone and heralding the “great work of the ages”; Shane himself spoke of an “Illuminati” whose influence had shaped the course of history; and perhaps most ominously of all, Shane’s new apprentice David Deville – a footman for Her Majesty The Queen – stood in line with the rest of the Agenda and made the same Pyramid hand signal as his co-conspirators. First, the Agenda seemed to be a group of wrestlers wanting to make it big in America. Then it seemed as though top names from the big US promotions were involved. But now, something else seemed horribly apparent – perhaps the Agenda actually reached the corridors of power in the British establishment itself...

Wonderkid keeps his name in brush with British wrestling’s future

When Jonny Storm entered the ring on Saturday afternoon to receive a British Wrestling Council award for Outstanding Contribution to British wrestling there was quite literally a shadow hanging over him. As gracious as the “Wonderkid” was in his acceptance of the honour, his mind must surely have been elsewhere: he was moments away from defending the rights to his famous nickname in a ladder match – but worse still, he didn’t even know who his opponent was going to be!

Earlier in the evening, Storm’s long-time nemesis Rockstar Spud told the NEC crowd that he would not be able to compete in the match after doctors refused to clear him for action. Still bitterly favouring the neck that had been injured a year ago by Storm, the self-proclaimed Baby Jesus of British Wrestling was, for once, almost worthy of sympathy as he pulled out of the match and vowed that one day Storm would pay for the pain he had caused him. A few minutes later, Spud’s first attempt at revenge was revealed – he had selected BWC Scarlo Scholarship winner Axl Rage as his replacement for the ladder match.&br; &br;Unfortunately Rage wasn’t the only one who realised what a great opportunity he had just stumbled across. The obnoxious ”Showstealer” Nathan Cruz, who earlier had won an award for Breakout Star of the Year, interjected and goaded Storm and Rage into making the match a triple threat. Soon enough the action got underway and what followed was a spectacular display of death-defying moves that undoubtedly shortened the careers of all three men. Ultimately though, it was the veteran Storm who claimed the briefcase and retained the “Wonderkid” name, much to the chagrin of an increasingly bitter rock star at ringside.

Resistance proves futile in brutal six-man battle

The war between The Agenda and The Resistance raged on at the NEC, as Joel Redman, Iestyn Rees and Dave Moralez tried to subdue the fiery trio of Sha Samuels, rookie Nick Riley and the returning Bubblegum. The hatred between the two sides boiled over from the early part of the match, with Samuels picking up first a yellow and then a red card from the referee for punching his opponents with a closed fist. Eventually the popular East Londoner lost his cool one too many times, and was disqualified from the contest, leaving his team at a seemingly insurmountable disadvantage.

Fortunately, “insurmountable” is not a well-known word in Hubba Bubba Ville, and the fearless Bubblegum looked as though his decision to risk further injury to his vulnerable abdominal muscles might have paid off, when he launched off the top turnbuckle with a cross-body block to take out two of his opponents. But Redman rolled back into the ring just moments before the count-out, and his survival proved fatal for the Resistance. Moments later Nick Riley was booted in the face by Rees and German suplexed by Redman, who viciously pinned his shoulders to the mat for the 1-2-3.

El Ligero acrobatics puts Singh out for the count

No-one had seen El Ligero since the incident at Hope and Glory that apparently threatened the sight in his right eye. The man who most fans hold responsible for that injury, the remorseless RJ Singh, was as much in the dark as anyone when he entered the NEC and awaited the arrival of the masked luchador whom he had tormented for the entire 15 months since the FWA’s rebirth. Finally, the Mexican Sensation emerged, and as feared he had a patch over his right eye. But he also came holding something else – the disfigured mask from which Singh had sawn off his trademark horns in late 2009. Clearly, this was the most deeply personal match of El Ligero’s life, and he came ready to fight.

It was a good job he did, because the odds were clearly stacked against him. As well as his impaired vision, El Ligero had to deal with the ever-present Singh entourage at ringside – a task he approached by showing a characteristic lack of fear. After escaping the Sweet Bollywood Dreams and fighting his way out of a camel clutch, the high-flying fan favourite suddenly launched into the air, soaring over the top rope and crashing down onto Singh and two of his lackies in the aisle. Chaos ensued at ringside as the referee started his count, but with a second left El Ligero managed to roll back in the ring and won the match via count-out. It was perhaps only a small measure of revenge in a rivalry that is far from over, but El Ligero will take heart in the fact that he bested his most hated foe on the biggest show of the year.

Leaders decimated despite semi-final success

With either Northern Xposure or The Agenda waiting for them in the final, neither of the teams in Saturday’s tag title tournament semi final could be sure of championship gold if they won at European Uprising, but for either team it would have been a giant leap towards that goal. The ever-popular Leaders of the New School took the fight to the much bigger Stixx and Malen in a battle between two of the most dominant teams in the FWA. Zack Sabre Jr was soon taken out of commission thanks to a devastating Critical Condition from the Nottingham bad boys, leaving Marty Scurll to mount a fierce one-man stand for much of the contest. He did so impressively, giving his partner enough time to shake off the cobwebs and eventually hook in a cross armbreaker hold on Malen to force the submission.

Horribly, though, that was not all. Stixx and Malen continued to attack their exhausted opponents after the bell, now focusing their attentions on Scurll. With Sabre quickly incapacitated, the callous duo dropped Scurll with two consecutive Critical Conditions that left him completely unconscious. Sabre Jr tried to help his partner backstage, but both men needed medical attention after the match – Scurll was still unconscious as he was rushed from the building into a waiting ambulance, with medics fearing a fractured skull. It was an awful end to a moment that should have been jubilant for the Leaders, as they were left just one win away from the most valuable gold in European tag team wrestling.

HISTORY OF THE FWA

The Frontier Wrestling Alliance has been crossing the frontiers of British wrestling for over a decade. No other UK wrestling promotion has made the same kind of massive impact as the FWA during the past 10 years.
 

The FWA, then known as the Fratton Wrestling Alliance, was formed in 1999 and promoted its first show in February of that year. At the time, the FWA was a small Portsmouth-based company run by ‘The Specialist’ Mark Sloan. The FWA’s main achievements during its formative years were a regional TV show in the Portsmouth area, its critically-acclaimed live wrestling events and the success of its training school – the FWA Academy – which later spawned a whole host of talented young grapplers including future WWE superstars Paul Burchill and Katie Lea.

But it was in 2001 when the FWA really shot to national prominence. One of the promotion’s top wrestlers, ‘The Showstealer’ Alex Shane, became the co-host of a weekly Saturday night wrestling radio show on TalkSPORT. Alongside famed children’s TV presenter and radio DJ Tommy Boyd, Shane had a forum to promote the FWA to a national audience and make British wrestling fans sit up and take notice.

TalkSPORT listeners really began to get excited about the FWA when Boyd and Shane began talking about a groundbreaking event that they claimed would herald the dawn of a new era in British wrestling. This event was called Revival, and took place on February 9 2002 in front of 2,000 fans – a huge crowd for a British wrestling event. Although most fans ventured to the Crystal Palace Indoor Arena that day wanting to see American superstars Eddie Guerrero and Brian Christopher, they left enthusing about the fantastic performances of the new wave of British stars – such as ‘The Phoenix’ Jody Fleisch, ‘The Wonderkid’ Jonny Storm, ‘The Anarchist’ Doug Williams and Alex Shane himself. This unbelievable event was broadcast live on TalkSPORT and then an edited version appeared on Sky TV’s Bravo channel, marking British wrestling’s return to TV after years in the wilderness.

Although Boyd was the promoter of Revival, the stars of the FWA were its heart and soul. And with Alex Shane and British wrestling veteran Dino Scarlo at the helm, the FWA then went on to deliver a series of spectacular live events in the same vein as Revival – mixing stellar overseas talent with the cream of the young Brits.

On October 13 2002, FWA British Uprising raised the bar still further. Held at the legendary York Hall venue in Bethnal Green, British Uprising was UK wrestling’s answer to WWF WrestleMania. Fans paid up to £50 a ticket – the most expensive seats ever for a British wrestling show – such was the demand to see the FWA in person. And after an amazing spectacle including tremendous matches such as Doug Williams v Jerry Lynn, Jonny Storm v AJ Styles and Jody Fleisch v Flash Barker, the FWA had the entire UK wrestling scene buzzing. Even Power Slam magazine – the UK’s top independent grapple mag whose editor Findlay Martin is notoriously sparing in his praise for British wrestling – waxed lyrical about the quality of the FWA.

2003 saw the FWA cement its newly-found status at home and abroad. A joint promotional show with red-hot US promotion Ring of Honour –entitled Frontiers of Honour - saw the very best of British take on the top indie stars from America (including future WWE superstar Paul London, and TNA’s Samoa Joe and AJ Styles) at the York Hall on May 17 2003. Also in 2003, FWA broke out from the south of England in 2003 to promote a pair of well-received national tours. And British Uprising returned to the York Hall on October 18 2003 as FWA’s momentum grew and grew. Then in 2004 the company gained a national TV deal on the new Wrestling Channel on Sky Digital. After an over 20-year absence, British wrestling was back where it belonged in the country’s living rooms on a weekly basis.

The FWA promoted British Uprising 3 in front of the company’s biggest-ever crowd of 1800 on November 13 2004, in the promotion’s first ever arena show at Coventry Skydome. Major American names Terry Funk, D-Lo Brown and Jimmy Hart were part of this extravaganza, alongside the wave of hungry UK wrestlers whose development had been assisted by the FWA – the likes of Hade Vansen (who would go on to sign a WWE contract and appear on SmackDown in 2008), Andy Simmonz (who appeared on RAW in 2007), Spud and Ross Jordan.

The Coventry Skydome would also be the setting for two of the biggest events ever seen on the British Isles in 2005 – International Showdown and Universal Uproar. Like at Revival, although the FWA’s name was not on the bill, its stars and behind-the-scenes staff were the backbone of these ‘supershows’ as the likes of James Tighe, Jonny Storm, Alex Shane and Doug Williams worked with the very biggest names in the industry like Mick Foley, Raven, Mitsuharu Misawa and Kenta Kobashi. And in June of that year, the FWA would also be part of another first as its superb northern venue The Morecambe Dome played host to the first ever Japanese World Title match on British soil, when Minoru Suzuki and Naomichi Marufuji won Pro Wrestling NOAH’s GHC World Tag Team Titles from Williams and former WWF superstar 2 Cold Scorpio.

In 2005 and 2006 the FWA branched out far and wide across the country, bringing its product to more different areas of the UK than ever before. And even when the company took a sabbatical in 2007, it made a far-reaching impact while doing so. The FWA’s ‘Losing Company Must Fold’ feud with upstart promotion IPW:UK had British wrestling fans talking excitedly for months about its twists and turns, until ultimately the FWA was forced to ‘shut down’ at the historic Final Frontiers event on March 25 2007.

Even though the FWA has not promoted any wrestling shows since that date, its influence on the direction of British wrestling since 2007 has continued to be immense. Daniel Edler and Andy Quildan (promoters of IPW:UK), Greg Lambert and Mark Kay (XWA) and Sanjay Bagga (LDN) all got into the wrestling business through the FWA – and now run three of the top promotions in the country. And there are countless other wrestlers and companies across the UK which took their inspiration from the groundbreaking FWA.

Now it is 2009, and the FWA is coming back. August 2 2009 will see the return of the Frontier Wrestling Alliance to its spiritual home of Broxbourne Civic Hall. On that night, we will cross New Frontiers and once again, the FWA will be the most talked about wrestling promotion in Europe. And another exciting chapter in the history of this legendary company is about to be etched in stone.