It’s time to step into the realm of British professional wrestling as we head north of the border for another look at Scotland’s Premier British Wrestling. This time around we’re heading back to last May and the Greenock Town Hall for Breaking Limits 8.
The show began with tag team action, with Charles Boddington’s boys T.J. Rage and Jack Jester taking on Sean Maxer and Andy Wild.
I quite enjoyed this one. It was a nice little opener which began with a popularity contest as both teams tried to garner favour from the fans, but when the good guys went to the second ropes for a second time Rage and Jester attacked, and although Maxer and Wild did a good job of working over Jester’s arm early on it wasn’t long before the bad guys were using Wild as their personal punching bag.
Wild looked in some trouble, but eventually he managed to make it back to his corner for the hot tag. It was then that Maxer took to the air as he dived over the top rope to take out Charlie and his boys.
But despite the fact that they made a spirited comeback it just wasn’t to be. When Boddington leapt onto the ring apron to distract the referee Rage picked up his boss’ briefcase and clobbered Maxer. One fisherman’s suplex later and Rage took the pin for his team.
Three-way action followed featuring El Ligero, Tommy End and Noam Dar.
For me this one took a little while to get going, but once it did it was a pretty decent match. Mr. End, the visiting American, endeared himself to the locals by snarling at them as he made his entrance, and when the match began he connected with a few tippy-tappy kicks to both of his opponents.
It was then that the two good guys decided to double up on him. This didn’t last that long though, and after taking out Ligero End focused his attack on Dar. The Scotsman looked in some trouble until Ligero finally got back into the match and the pace picked up a bit.
But despite this the cocky American managed to stay one step ahead of his opponents, until the end that is. After fighting off Dar’s attempts at a superplex and coming down from the top rope with a double stomp on Ligero Dar connected with a kick to the back of the head before rolling End up for the three count and pin.
The singles action began with Rampage Brown taking on Wolfgang.
Now I haven’t seen Brown that many times, but each time I do he always impresses the hell out of me. There’s certainly no fancy stuff with this guy. Wolfgang had a few good moments early on, but it wasn’t long before Brown took control with his no nonsense hard hitting approach.
Wolfie made a brief comeback until Brown re-established control a few seconds later, but when the Scot made his second comeback it developed into something of a slugfest until Wolfgang managed to take control.
However, when he went up top for a senton Brown rolled out of the way as Wolfie crashed and burned. Brown then hoisted him up onto his shoulders so he could take him down with a Samoan drop for the winning pin.
The first title match of the evening saw the Just-UZ team of B.T. Gunn and Stevie Xavier and the team of Red Lighting and Scott Maverick challenging Blaze ‘N’ Rampage for the Tag Team titles.
Contested under lucha-style rules (i.e. no tags, one man goes out another man jumps in), this was a match in which fast-paced action was the order of the day. Sadly the lack of commentary meant that I didn’t know who everyone was at first, but I soon managed to work it out, mainly thanks to one young fan constantly chanting the name of one of his favourites.
We had the obligatory multi-man moves here, such as one man diving over the ropes to take out everyone else on the floor, and the multi-man take everyone down of the top rope type of move. These were well executed, but it would be nice if they weren’t included in every match like this.
As for the ending the champs kept their titles in this one after they took Maverick down with a running double fisherman’s suplex for the pin.
The penultimate match saw Grado taking on Mad Man Manson.
This was more circus act than wrestling match. It was okay, but it was definitely aimed at the younger members of the audience, and not middle aged online bloggers.
There were some nice moments, but after a while I began to get the feeling that this segment was a little too long. Five minutes instead of ten would have definitely sufficed here.
Eventually a wrestling match broke out, and after Grado kicked out of Manson’s roll-up the big man took the pin after taking his man out with a big boot.
The main event saw former TNA star Mark Haskins challenging Liam Thompson for the PBW Championship.
After all of the fast-paced stuff it was nice to see the slow methodical approach take over. Both guys gave a good account of themselves here, especially Haskins, and I can certainly see why TNA took in an interest in him. A shame they didn’t do much afterwards though.
Anyway, back to the matter at hand. Haskins put in a good stint early on as he worked over his man’s arm, but the champ soon came back into it as he centred his attack on Haskins’ back, even going as far as to apply a camel clutch on the stage when the action spilled out of the ring.
Back inside the ropes Thompson went for the clutch again, but he still couldn’t get the job done. A short time later Haskins got his second wind, but an accidental collision with the referee meant that the official didn’t see Thompson tapping out to Haskins’ half Boston.
Then, when Haskins tried to revive the referee, Thompson came up from behind and rolled him up, adding a little extra leverage to the proceedings with a handful of tights. A now-recovered referee saw this, made the count, and gave Thompson the title retaining pin.
Needless to say that Haskins wasn’t too happy with this, and after Thompson taunted him Haskins took him down with a pump handle slam before posing with the title belt before dropping it on the ring apron.
In conclusion – my latest viewing of the PBW product is definitely a favourable one.
This is a very enjoyable show. Most of the matches delivered, and even though the comedy stylings of Grado and Mad Man Manson were exactly to my liking, and the lack of commentary was a tad annoying I found myself satisfied with what I had seen at the end of my night’s viewing.
As for my match of the night no-prize this time around this must have reward goes to the main event encounter between Liam Thompson and Mark Haskins.
So with all of that out of the way there’s just one more thing left to do, and that’s to give this release the thumbs up.
With thanks to the powers that be for supplying a copy of this release. PBW Maximum Impact 8 is available to buy online at www.pbwwrestling.com.
By day I’m an unemployed retail worker, and at weekends I volunteer at a local museum, but by night I’m the author of The Two Sheds Review, Britain’s longest running professional wrestling and mixed martial arts blog. Visit my site at www.twoshedsreview.vze.com. It’s been online in one form or another since June 2000!
