In the lead up to the Front Line special on the same subject, Greg Lambert explains how the rise of CM Punk compares to the battle for respect for British Wrestling led by the UK scene’s most controversial personality ‘The Ascension’ Alex Shane.

Photography thanks to Tony Knox

“The problem is, I care too much.”
CM Punk to Vince McMahon, Monday Night RAW, July 11 2011

CM Punk cares deeply about professional wrestling. That overwhelming devoted passion for his art has often been misunderstood, often caused him to be ostracised and ridiculed. But as I write this article – on the day of the WWE Money in the Bank pay-per-view in Chicago where Punk will headline against John Cena for the WWE Title – that passion has catapulted him to where he stands right now. That passion has made him the most talked-about star in the industry today.  

On the other side of the pond, there is another gentleman with overwhelming passion for the art of professional wrestling. Another guy who has raised his head above the parapet to be shot at so many times, taken countless bullets of criticism from fans and peers alike, but never wavered from his devotion. A guy with many similarities to Punk; not quite Straight Edge, but with a kindred all-consuming love for the business. I’m talking about the man who as promoter of the Frontier Wrestling Alliance, brought CM Punk – along with his best friend Colt Cabana - to the UK for the very first time in October 2003 and gave him his first European booking at FWA British Uprising 2 at York Hall, Bethnal Green.  

The day after CM Punk’s phenomenal promo on the June 27 edition of RAW, where he talked about “breaking the fourth wall”, ripped into the McMahon family and verbally castigated the stale WWE product in a manner that no-one else would have the balls to do, Alex Shane called me. Alex was typically enthusiastic for what he’d just seen on his TV screen – he absolutely loved it. Alex may well have been a staunch critic of the WWE creative process for many years but like me, he is a lifelong WWE fan at heart. And when WWE absolutely nails it, when WWE comes up with a storyline that threatens to turn business around and make wrestling hot again, Alex is the first to applaud. Especially when the storyline blurs the lines of fantasy and reality and breaks down that “fourth wall”.  

Alex has felt for some time now that someone within the WWE has been influenced by FWA ideas and storylines. When Wade Barrett and The Nexus debuted last summer their armbands looked startlingly alike those introduced by Alex as rewards for students in his British Wrestling Coalition training programme. Barrett, a Brit who learned his trade on the UK scene, and his cronies (who included former FWA wrestler Justin ‘PJ Black’ Gabriel) spoke of a higher ‘Agenda’ and raised their fists to the sky in the ‘Black Power’ salute adopted by The Agenda, the FWA’s top heel group. And then when CM Punk talked about breaking the fourth wall, of bringing real life issues into the context of a wrestling storyline, it again struck a chord with Alex. Because he has been breaking that wall for a decade now. He is a past master of working the fans to the point that they have no idea where fantasy ends and reality begins in order to create controversial and talked-about scenarios with more twists and turns than the Silverstone race track.  

I have personal experience of Shane’s ability to break new ground in pro wrestling storytelling. Case in point – my debut for the FWA in February 2003, that same year as CM Punk first visited our shores.   

At the time, the FWA was red-hot coming off its most successful live event ever, British Uprising with AJ Styles, Jerry Lynn and Balls Mahoney in front of a rabid crowd at the York Hall, Bethnal Green. All the UK internet wrestling scribes were raving about the FWA as the saviour of European wrestling. Only one of the online hacks dared to criticise the FWA and in particular, take pot-shots at its head booker and lead babyface Alex Shane. That was me, the self-professed Britain’s Number One Wrestling Journalist, Greg ‘The Truth’ Lambert.  

My acidic written diatribes against ‘The Showstealer’ sparked a war of words with Shane where we traded bitter insults on the internet. Many wrestling fans believed the animosity between myself and Alex was real. But it was all a work. In reality, Alex had concocted our written rivalry in order to introduce me onto the FWA shows and launch my career as a character in British Wrestling. This sparked an awesome year-long feud between Alex and his tag partner Ulf Herman, and the much-missed religious cult The Family, with me as their irritating manager. 

The Shane/Herman-Family war set new standards for brutality in a British ring and is still talked about in revered terms today. And it all began with a fight on the internet. Remember, this was eight years ago. Not 2011, when wrestlers bitch at each other on Twitter as a matter of course but their childish spats inevitably lead nowhere and draw no money. Not 2011, when Zack Ryder is lauded as a pioneer for using social media to get himself over. This happened eight years ago. A commercially and creatively successful storyline, launched on the world wide web by Alex Shane. It had never been done before. 

Seven years later, with the FWA in the midst of its comeback after years in the wilderness, Alex came up with another pioneering creative idea. This one was very much rooted in reality because it played on his own real-life feelings and those of two camps within British Wrestling. Two camps with wildly differing opinions about the potential of our homegrown scene. Those, like Alex, who believe the UK scene can be great again…and those who don’t. Those who want to work in a reborn and thriving British Wrestling industry…and those who would rather do a Sheamus or a Drew McIntyre and seek fame where the big money lies overseas. The idealists versus the realists. The likes of Sha Samuels and Leroy Kincaide versus the likes of Martin Stone and Joel Redman. The Resistance versus The Agenda.  

In real life, Alex Shane espoused the beliefs of The Resistance as one of the modern-day British Wrestling scene’s most passionate advocates. The irony of this tale is, he ended up being revealed as the leader of The Agenda (at FWA European Uprising on November 20 2010). In doing so, Alex completely reinvented and reinvigorated his wrestling persona showing a degree of emotional and physical sacrifice for his art on the level of Hollywood method actors like Heath Ledger becoming The Joker or Mickey Rourke becoming The Wrestler (or like CM Punk when he stopped washing his hair and grew a tramp-like beard to become leader of The Straight Edge Society). Alex gave up his nickname of ‘The Showstealer’, dropping it to his handpicked successor Nathan Cruz in a bloody and intense match for New Generation Wrestling in Hull - a selfless act of doing business to put a newcomer over in the right way. He changed his diet and workout regimen, deliberately altering the shape of his body to become slimmer and more serpent-like. He shaved his head, donned eye-liner to darken his glare, completely changed his mannerisms, gestures and movements. His promo style did a complete 360, from chirpy North London patter to deeply philosophical rhetoric. He became a cult leader, wrestling’s answer to the powerful religious figure transfixing his throng on a street corner or at a rally. He became The Ascension, claiming to be the ‘13th Ray’ and a representative of the devil himself. He was totally and utterly convincing in the role, to the point that he spooked out “the boys” backstage at shows, some of whom really believed Alex had lost his mind and become the Antichrist. And I can tell you, as Alex’s friend, that he went through a whole lot more – both personally and spiritually - during his transformation from The Showstealer to The Ascension. A whole lot more. But that’s not for me to reveal. Suffice to say, he suffered for his art. Such was his passion.  

While the fans at the Birmingham NEC that day saw Alex turn heel on Leroy Kincaide, then take the microphone to glory in the revelation of a “great work of the ages” which had been built slowly and meticulously as The Agenda v Resistance feud developed on FWA shows for the previous 15 months, the seeds of his Ascension character had actually been sown seven months previously on April 3 2010 when Alex turned heel on Johnny Phere at XWA War on the Shore in Morecambe. The new persona was then revealed in a YouTube video on the XWA website on the most appropriate date possible, Ascension Day of May 13th (note the number) 2010. Ground-breaking stuff, yet again.  

Alex Shane is a very intelligent man and his combination of intelligence and passion is a potent mix. It can be intimidating, I know this first-hand. Alex and I don’t always see eye to eye (in fact since we took on The Authority and Ascension characters we’ve had some of the biggest arguments in the decade I’ve known him; such is the psychological strain of playing such polarising and cerebral figures – and because we care too much). This combination of passion and intelligence can also be misunderstood. Many British wrestling fans and British wrestlers slate Alex because they just don’t get him. These critics of Alex Shane may have passion for the art of professional wrestling, but it’s not all-consuming. They don’t take the risks he does. Whether you agree with some, all or none of his methods, he deserves credit for trying to grow the UK wrestling industry, not abuse. He deserves credit for thinking outside the box, because let’s face it, staying inside the box has got us precisely nowhere; languishing in a self-defeating pit of mediocrity called BritWres.  

Alex has gone to extreme lengths in order to grow and protect the UK industry, push back the boundaries, explore new ground, try something different in order to get British Wrestling noticed, make seemingly speculative but actually calculated attempts to move it up a level, like by introducing a nationwide syllabus for training young wrestlers (which has been ENORMOUSLY successful at my training school), like by introducing health insurance for British wrestlers (and you’ll note that Vince McMahon has recently followed suit), like by playing a YouTube video on a live show claiming there are plants in all the major wrestling companies worldwide as part of a global conspiracy (and I wonder who might be a plant in WWE, eh?), like by eschewing the meat-and-potatoes way of running a UK wrestling company by putting on tiny arena shows in front of 100-400 people in favour of exposing the product through memorabilia fairs, giant theme parks, national radio stations and serialised YouTube programming in order to attract sponsorship, investment and the massive mainstream breakthrough we’ve all been working for over the past 10 years, and like by risking a mental breakdown and social ridicule by regenerating into what is, in my opinion, the most engaging, thought-provoking and captivating wrestling character to hit the UK scene since…well…ever.  

In his book ‘Alex Shane’s Guide to Pro Wrestling’, Alex talks about the ‘out of context principle’. He writes: “Back in the old days most workers were trunks and boots wrestlers. Gimmicks were few and far between and many wrestlers looked the same.  When Hulk Hogan appeared on the scene looking like a superhero…it was a huge smash that changed wrestling forever. It was out of context from the era of trunks and boots wrestlers that was coming to an end. (But) by the mid-90s everyone had a gimmick and Hogan-like physiques were everywhere. So who was it that turned the business around 360 degrees and was responsible for the industry’s biggest ever boom period? You’ve guessed it…a trunks and boots wrestler called Steve Austin…who was now completely out of context.”  

The Ascension character couldn’t be any more out of context. It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before in the UK and that’s why it’s successful. That’s why Alex is the XWA British Heavyweight Champion. That’s why he’s headlining XWA events. That’s why he’s my cohort in The Authority, the most dominant faction in European wrestling today.  

CM Punk has faced a similar battle for respect from those who don’t get him – namely the management and senior wrestlers who labelled him as an indie darling who “didn’t know how to work” when he first arrived in WWE in 2005. Yet Punk rose above the jibes, “grabbed every one of Vince McMahon’s imaginary brass rings” and created the most absorbing wrestling character to come along in the United States in a decade by thinking outside the box and going out of context.  

In a company full of yes-men and bland robotic athletes who all look the same, toe the line and won’t dare complain when their mates get unfairly fired or they are given silly story lines or others with far less talent get pushed ahead of them, CM Punk is out of context. He’s neither a trunks and boots wrestler nor a muscle man superhero. He’s an ordinary guy, with an average physique, in a black T-shirt. He looks like an independent wrestler…albeit one with an extraordinary ability as a performer. That’s why his displays on Monday Night RAW over the past few weeks have been such a breath of fresh air. CM Punk is so completely different to anything in WWE right now and anything that’s gone before. As he himself said on the June 27 edition of RAW: “The only person who’s real here, is me.” And that’s exactly why it works.  

If at tonight’s Money in the Bank event, Punk’s threat to leave WWE turns out to be a work (as most expect) and Vince McMahon continues to embrace the awakening interest amongst previously disillusioned wrestling fans like he did with Hogan and Austin, the industry could be in line for another boom period with CM Punk as the main man – the man who tells it like it is. Having seen how far this passionate, devoted lover of professional wrestling has come, I feel proud to have shared the same car en route to FWA British Uprising 2 at the York Hall, Bethnal Green all those years ago.  

I only hope that another man with similar passion can achieve his goals on this side of the pond. It won’t be for lack of trying.