Preview: ICW – Fight Club Tapings (3/1/20)

With all of the fallout from the 9th Annual Square Go!, a night that saw three new champions crowned plus the return of two former World Heavyweight Champions, Insane Championship Wrestling (ICW) are back at the Garage in Glasgow this coming Sunday evening to tape more episodes of Fight Club, featuring one of the most stacked cards in Fight Club history. While you usually get one or two matches being raved about online, this whole card could be up for consideration of match of the night. Star-studded, to say the very least.

Craig Anthony vs Daz Black

After both men impressed ICW management on the most recent GONZO event, both Craig Anthony and Daz Black have been given the chance to blow the roof off of the Garage, which marks the latter’s first time wrestling in the home of insanity. While Anthony officially made his ICW debut last April in a barnstormer of a bout with Charlie Vyce, he had been prowling around the bowels of ICW venues for much longer than that as a masked member of Mark Coffey‘s Power Forward stable with Grant McIvor and Scott McManus. Since the three were ditched by ‘The Power Forward’, it’s only really been Craig that’s stuck around (McIvor and McManus have had one match each since the masks came off). He bested Luke Kyro to earn a spot in the 9th Annual Square Go! Match, and even though he was eliminated almost immediately, ‘The Natural’ left an impression that weekend, as did Daz Black. ‘The Orbit Breaker’ stole GONZO with his match against Kieran Kelly, a match that earned him the chance to make his proper main ICW debut – he had previously competed in the Fear & Loathing XII pre-show Rumble Match. If you want the type of fast-paced high-intensity match that you could see on any NXT TakeOver, then here’s your answer.

Jason Reed vs Kieran Kelly

Jason Reed and Kieran Kelly are two men who have been leading rather different careers in ICW as of late. While Kelly has been on quite a losing streak over the last few ICW shows, ‘The One For The Future’ has been racking up victories, which surely puts him in the running to challenge for a championship further down the line. Since gaining the managerial services of Coach Trip, Reed has become a new person so to speak. In his sole ICW appearance before that night at GONZO #1, the cheeky Fifer didn’t necessarily get off to the best start, losing to Kenny Williams in his first match in ICW during March 2019. After bringing in his new gaffer though, Jason has remained near undefeated, with his only singles loss coming to Liam Thomson, and even that was only because ICW management insisted on using their VAR system to get a decisive winner. Essentially, it’s one of the more successful ICW wrestlers against one of the least successful, at least in today’s timeframe. Will Kieran’s losing streak finally come to an end?

The Purge (Krobar & Stevie James) vs The Nine9 (Dickie Divers & Jack Morris)

The Square Go! proved to be a devastating night for both The Purge and The Nine9. Krobar and Stevie James dropped the ICW Tag Team Championships to The Fite Network‘s Lou King Sharp and Krieger in a wonderful Glasgow Street Fight, whereas Dickie Divers and Jack Morris were both ousted from the Square Go! Match itself. Not the night either team was looking for, but they have a chance to bounce back from their failures, and perhaps earn the right to challenge the new tag champs in Newcastle in three weeks’ time, seeing as the role of the challengers for that show remains empty. These two teams were on the opposing side of the ring from each other once or twice in 2019, usually in multi-man matches as they each set their sights on being the ones to end The Kings of Catch‘s reign as ICW Tag Team Champions. With some new teams now entering the fray in ICW, such as More Than Hype and Bad Luck (the new tandem of Mark Coffey and Kenny Williams), it’ll take a lot, lot more for either of these teams to prove to Mark Dallas and the rest of ICW management why they deserve to be the first in line to challenge The Fite Network.

Leyton Buzzard vs Jonny Storm

In early 2019, the ICW fans took a serious liking to Leyton Buzzard as he finally turned his back against Joe Hendry and The Dallas Mavericks following some berating courtesy of ‘The Prestigious One’. The audience came unglued when he captured the Zero-G Championship in December, but things turned a new leaf at the start of February. As it turns out, the Bristol native had played the ICW fans like a fiddle. If they rooted him on, ICW management would listen to him, and grant him with huge opportunities. It didn’t go quite to plan the rest of the night as he lost the title back to Liam Thomson, but now ‘The Badman’ is back in pursuit of championship gold. He faces a pioneer of British wrestling in the form of a returning Jonny Storm, a man who would make for a viable contender to challenge Thomson if the opportunity arose. Just imagine the sheer smugness of Leyton if he’s able to score a pinfall victory over a British wrestling royal such as ‘The Wonderkid’. We’d never hear the end of it.

Ravie Davie vs Davey Blaze

The beef between Ravie Davie and Davey Blaze has been stemming ever since Fear & Loathing XII, when the latter returned to save Grado from a post-match beatdown at the hands of ‘The Ned Nightmare’ and his gang of Glaswegian neds after their Scheme Lumberjack Match. Since then, the pair have waged war against one another, which has also involved Ravie Davie’s Govan Team partner and cousin Zander McGuire as well as Blaze’s old Bucky Boys pal Stevie Boy. The Bucky Boys would be victorious over The Govan Team in January, but tensions between the two main men involved haven’t died down whatsoever. Both men are legitimately dangerous competitors when the time calls for it, as has been evidenced before. No flips, just fists is an apt description for this match.

Liam Thomson vs Adam Maxted

With the ICW Zero-G Championship once again in his possession, Liam Thomson returns to the Garage to take on Adam Maxted in what is currently scheduled to be a non-title match. ‘The Bad Boy’ defeated Leyton Buzzard at the Square Go! to regain the title he lost in December, using a low blow en-route to his championship victory, much like how Buzzard had won the title in the first place. It’s a bit odd, in this writer’s opinion anyway, that the title wouldn’t be up for grabs here, but that’s something that Maxted agrees with. ‘The Most Handsome Man in Wrestling’ was left fuming at this being a non-title affair, and has demanded a title match when (not if) he defeats the Edinburgh native. Seeing as the Irishman is currently in possession of the Frontline Wrestling Heavyweight Championship, the Over The Top Wrestling (OTT) Gender Neutral Championship, the Main Event Wrestling (MEW) Heavyweight Championship, and the Big League Wrestling (BLW) World Heavyweight Championship, he knows what it takes to be a champion of a high calibre. The ICW Zero-G Championship would only be another trophy to add to his impressive list of accolades.

ICW Women’s World Championship Tournament – Semifinals: Kasey vs Molly Spartan

Sadly, the current ICW Women’s World Champion Aivil is being forced to vacate her title due to an injury she suffered at the 9th Annual Square Go!, however, that now creates an opportunity. Four women will be given the opportunity to compete for the vacant title at So’s Yer Maw 3 on April 5th, just hours before WWE WrestleMania 36, the first two of which will square off on Sunday evening as Kasey and Molly Spartan will have the chance to prove why they deserve an opportunity to be the next ICW Women’s World Champion. These two are no stranger to one another, seeing as they’re aligned in The She-Wolves group down in TNT Extreme Wrestling in Liverpool, where Kasey recently lost her TNT Women’s Championship to Liverpool’s own Lizzy Evo. In ICW, ‘The Mother of Chaos’ is no stranger to holding gold, being a former three-time ICW Women’s World Champion – in fact, it was actually Kasey who Aivil defeated to become the champion back at Fear & Loathing XII. As for Molly Spartan, this will be her ICW in-ring debut, but she’s a familiar face to ICW fans having been a member of the broadcast team for a chunk of time. When it was announced she would be making the transition from microphone to wrestling boots in an ICW ring, there was an uproar of support for Molly online. Clearly, the fans have picked their favourite for the weekend’s show.

Grado vs Jaxn

At the Square Go!, former World Heavyweight and Tag Team Champion Jackie Polo made his return to the company, except he wasn’t in his usual Just Justice gear. He had retired that character following his loss to KUSHIDA at Shug’s Hoose Party 6. Instead, he was now known simply as Jaxn, engaging in a brawl with fellow returning star DCT, stemming from when DCT was last in an ICW ring before departing for Australia. That fateful night in September 2018, the man then known as Jackie Polo choked the living daylights out of ‘The International Sex Hero’, causing him to be taken out of the venue aboard a stretcher. Now, the dangerous Jaxn is coming to cause it against Grado, another former World Heavyweight Champion in his own right. ‘The Chubby Wee Chancer’ made an impression at the Square Go! as he came in all guns blazing dressed as Tom Brady. He’ll need the same sort of enthusiasm if he has any hopes of overcoming ICW’s most dangerous entity in successful fashion.

Andy Wild vs Alexander Dean

Andy Wild and Alexander Dean are two men who go way back. Outside of the ring, they used to be the best of friends, with ‘The Catch Provocateur’ always being by Wild’s side whenever he was battling his mental health issues. Now though, they’re at each other’s throats, all because Dean dumped Wild out of the Square Go! Match, having already been eliminated himself. The hard-hitting Irishman saw an opportunity that if he couldn’t earn a future ICW World Heavyweight Championship match, then neither would Andy Wild. ‘The Dad Bod God’ was of course one of the front runners to win the whole match, until Dean put a stop to his championship pursuits. What’s so important about this is that it isn’t just another match in Andy Wild’s schedule. ‘The Politickin’ Time Bomb’ has clearly gotten into his head so much that it’s distracted him from his training duties at the Fife Pro Wrestling Asylum (FPWA). Anyone who knows Andy Wild knows that he won’t stop until he achieves his overall end goal – if he has to run through Alexander Dean in order to become ICW World Heavyweight Champion, then so be it.