REVIEW: Defiant Wrestling Episode #6: With Some British Flare

Welcome to KB’s Old School (and New School) Reviews. I’ve been reviewing wrestling shows for over ten years now and have reviewed over 5,000 shows. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I’ll be posting a new review here on Wrestlingrumors.net, starting today. It could be anything from modern WWE to old school to indies to anything in between. Note that I rate using letters instead of stars and I don’t rate matches under three minutes as really, how good or bad can something that short be?

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Defiant Loaded #6
Date: January 13, 2019
Location: 02 Academy, Newcastle Upon Tyne, England
Commentators: Dave Bradshaw, James R. Kennedy

So I took a look at this back when it was called WhatCulture Pro Wrestling but they’ve since rebranded to Defiant so someone wanted me to look at it again. We’re in England of course (as opposed to Newcastle Upon Tyne, Indiana) and the big draw here is Pac (Neville) facing David Star in Pac’s hometown. I wonder if he’ll be over. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the previous show with various clips of various wrestlers and matches with no context.

A guy named General Ameen is looking for who stole General Phantasmo’s glasses. While he’s gone, he needs a guy named Simon Miller (who used to work for What Culture) to run things tonight. Simon, who looks like a younger, deflated Goldberg, says he’ll handle things while Ameen investigates things. Ameen is off to the battlefield.

Opening sequence as I try to figure out what in the world I’ve gotten myself into.

South Coast Connection vs. The Models

This is an open challenge from the South Coast Connection (Ashley Dunn/Kelly Sixx) with the Models (Danny Hope/Joey Hayes) answering. The Models do their strut before the bell as I try to remember that Kennedy isn’t Drew McIntyre (the voice resemblance is uncanny). Hayes dances out of Dunn’s headlock to start so Dunn goes with a dropkick to take over. A leg lariat gets two but Hayes drives him into the corner for the tag off to Hope. That lasts all of ten seconds before it’s back to Hayes for a snap suplex.

The Models get into a rhythm of double teaming but Hope takes too much time dancing on the ropes (seems to be a bad trend for them) and gets punched out of the air. It’s off to Sixx for the first time and everyone else is sent outside with a suicide dive taking out Hope. Back in and Hope catches Sixx, allowing Hayes to enziguri him down for two. Sixx breaks up a double suplex and sends Hayes outside, leaving Hope to take a spike over the back reverse piledriver (Adam Page’s Rite of Passage) for the pin at 5:58.

Rating: C. Completely watchable match here and a nice choice for an opener, as tag matches often are. The announcers did a good job of playing up the Models as being a big deal on the indy scene with a ton of experience so the win actually means something. Not a great match or anything but for a pretty quick win for the Connection, it was all it needed to be.

Post match Dunn says it’s usually not the best time here in Newcastle because nine times out of ten it’s negative. They recently fought a guy named Benji (the fans seem to like them) but he lost. They’re the kind of guys you can come up to at a bar and get a bit more time from them than the bigger stars. It’s time they remind you who they are, drawing a WHO ARE YA chant. Will Ospreay brought them here and they’re going to email him and have him fix things. They’re about to be elevated. I’ve heard worse heel turns and Dunn isn’t the worst talker.

Lana Austin didn’t agree to face Bea Priestly, especially not in a falls count anywhere match. The word WHAT is shouted a lot as she finds out about the stipulation.

Ameen asks Benji if he knows about Phantasmo’s glasses but Benji says just get some new ones because they only cost two pounds. Ameen: “To the battlefield!”

After a very big and full of praise introduction, here’s British wrestling legend Marty Jones for a chat. He’s been hearing the British wrestling is finished for a long time and now look at all this. Jones talks about some of the great times and makes some soccer jokes before talking about running a training school in Oldham. He’d like to introduce us to two of his students, who happen to be the nephews of the Dynamite Kid, who passed away about six weeks earlier. These two are part of the Breakout Division, which seems to be a newcomer division (hence the name Breakout more than likely). Tonight, we’re going to have an exhibition.

Thomas Billington vs. Mark Billington

These two are seventeen and fifteen with Jones saying they haven’t even been training for nine months yet. They start fast with Mark grabbing a belly to back to back suplex and some armdrags into a wristlock as Jones watches on. Some monkey flips can’t get Thomas anywhere other than into a standoff but some legsweeps work a bit better to put Thomas down.

Thomas catches him on top and slips while trying a superplex. A jumping Tombstone knocks Mark silly and the Swan Dive (required) makes it even worse. Instead of covering, Thomas tries a suplex and they fall out to the floor in a hard heap for a double nine. And here’s the Connection, now in Ospreay shirts, for the no contest at 4:04.

Rating: N/A. There’s something weird about rating a match between two people who combine to be only slightly older than I am. They certainly have some energy to them and they know how to do some things, but at the same time they were packing in way too much stuff for four minutes. To be fair though, that’s kind of the point of an exhibition. It’s not fair to rate two trainees the same way I’d rate professionals but they were trying and could have been far worse.

Post match the Connection says they don’t want to hear from an old man like Jones, who asks the fans for some applause for these two young boys. Jones wants to know who the Connection thinks they are because as much as Ospreay has taught them, it’s not as much as his boys know. Jones even insults the Connection’s hair before leaving. I’d assume a tag match is imminent.

John Klinger recently came back and won the Ringmaster tournament. He rants in German before switching back to English to say he will thrill us.

An unnamed guy has a very closeup interview, talking about hidden Easter eggs in videos he’s been sending in. He talks about 801 days passing since he set foot in WCPW and how Primate must remember. Primate needed help to beat him when the unnamed guy was told he was too wild for YouTube.

Now Primate has become the face of Defiant while this guy has kept making movies until someone kept coming back to have him pick up the slack. He’s started pre-production and is ready to be back to deal with Primate. They were going to make the rise of the Sick Boy and the premiere is soon. Heck of a promo here and I can live with not saying the guy’s name as the fans probably know who he is. I want to see more from this guy and his feud with Primate so this blew away everything else on the show so far.

Omari vs. Conor Renshaw

The announcers can’t stop talking about what we just saw and I can’t blame them. Renshaw goes right at him and scores with a suplex for two. Omari superkicks him down and gets two of his own off a gutwrench suplex. A springboard double stomp to the back sets up a swinging Downward Spiral (the O Zone) to finish Renshaw at 1:28. Just a step above a squash and Omari looked good while it lasted.

Post match Omari talks about Nathan Cruz attacking him recently. If Cruz is really the Mr. Professional that he claims to be, he’ll face Omari next week.

Ameen yells at Miller (on the phone) for not getting his dry cleaning on time. Martin Kirby (Internet Champion) comes in to be interrogated about the glasses. The only thing Kirby is guilty of is stealing the show. He’s so awesome that he’s not even going to defend the title anymore. Ameen pulls out the Defiant Rule Book (clearly not a phone book with a piece of paper on the front), which says he has to defend the title for free on YouTube. Actually hang on, as Kirby knows a rule of his own: if he wins the title from someone from Europe, he doesn’t have to defend the title if he doesn’t want to. Ameen: “WHY DID I PUT THAT IN THERE???”

Mark Haskins (again, not named) wants the Anti-Fun Police next week. They need some name graphics around here.

Preview for next week’s show.

Preview for Unstoppable.

David Starr vs. Pac

Starr is a cocky guy with approximately 192 nicknames. Pac’s (with a great video saying ERROR: GRAVITY LOST) Open The Dream Gate Title isn’t on the line. The fans sing what sounds like a song about Pac coming home. Starr gets a chant of his own and they lock up after over a minute of soaking it all in. A shoulder puts Pac down but he nips up to show off a bit. Pac is back up and moonsaults over Starr out of the corner before kicking some invisible dirt behind him.

Starr gets serious by tearing the tape off of his shoulder as the songs continue, this time with Starr being treated rather badly. They go to the mat with Starr not being able to get very far by pulling on the leg. A crisscross lets Starr get two off a Thesz press, followed by a crotch to the head. The crowd lets Starr know that he screwed up (more colorfully of course) and the fight heads outside with Starr going into the barricade. Back in and Starr’s comeback is countered with a kick to the head and the big middle rope moonsault drops him again.

Starr is trying but Pac is feeling it so far. A missile dropkick gives Pac one and we hit the chinlock. Back up and a brainbuster onto the knee gives Starr his first big offense nearly ten minutes in. Starr picks up the pace with a victory roll and a top rope elbow for two each, followed by a gutwrench faceplant. Product Placement (arm trap German suplex) is blocked and Pac grabs a slingshot cutter for a rather pleased reaction. Pac’s still great looking top rope superplex makes Starr bounce before the two count and the fans aren’t sure about this aggressive side.

They slug it out until Pac superkicks him but Starr nails an elbow to the face. Back to back lariats get a nice near fall but Pac blocks a superplex attempt. The Red Arrow misses and Starr grabs a Crossface. Thankfully Pac realizes that he’s a few inches from the rope and moves his leg over for the break. Starr doesn’t know what to do so it’s a Canadian Destroyer, which is countered into a backdrop to bump the referee. Pac kicks him low and the Red Arrow finishes Starr at 19:15.

Rating: B+. Yep he’s still got it and I continue to be astounded that WWE felt Enzo Freaking Amore was the way to go instead of Pac. The guy can go like this and looks like that but for some reason he wasn’t good enough to do anything but put over the goon with the catchphrases? Starr looked great as well, but that tends to be the case more often than not.

Post match World Champion Rampage comes out to stare Pac down before heading to the ring and granting Starr a title shot at Unstoppable. Starr accepts and promises to beat the censored out of Rampage because he’s really good at professional wrestling

Overall Rating: B-. Much like last time, I could see myself watching this more regularly. The wrestling was more than passable with an awesome main event and a really good promo from someone who seems to be named Sick Boy. They have some talent around here and I could go for watching some more of this. It’s more proof that it’s not about the size of the stage or budget (though those help) but rather how well you present what you have. Pac felt like a star here and they set up a heel turn for the Connection. It went well and there were things that made me want to come back. Not too bad at all.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his Amazon author page with 28 wrestling books. His latest book is the History Of In Your House.

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