PW4U G6: A Look At The Championship Reign That Ended Up Being Something Ridiculous

The end is indeed here.  Can you actually believe it… A championship reign that lasted 1275 days, defended successfully 20 times (I had counted 23, but looking through my records, it would seem that isn’t the case. How annoying) , 2 continents, 18 opponents, both male and female, each representing 7 different nations.  Won by Jurgen Heimlich, lost by Juken. Pretty ridiculous when you look at those statistics. I’ve fact checked every statistic and note from my trusty book of ‘career’ matches, so this is as accurate a record as there will be. three and a half years of my life/career was spent representing this championship, so that’s why I’m writing this piece. I consider this quite the achievement, especially in a world of wrestling where change happens all the time. I certainly won’t be doing this for every title I hold.

Let’s attempt to look back at this as best possible, through my hazy recollection. This will be long, and honest. I’ll give a bit of background where possible, and how I felt at the time, because that certainly affected different ‘eras’ of the run. I’ll add match videos, where available, I also haven’t watched any of these since uploaded, or since they happened so as to not cloud my recollection.

So, actually winning the belt. I actually knew I’d be challenging for the title quite some time ahead. I’d debuted for PW4U ‘accidentally’ back in December 2013, after replacing an injured Joseph Conners. I was then brought back in 2014 to participate in an ‘International Tournament’ where people representing different nations would meet up eventually in a 4 way final, the winner would then challenge for the G6 Championship, which, at the time was held by Max Angelus.

 

Challenging for the Belt – Max Angelus (c) vs Jurgen Heimlich vs Damien Dunne

Things changed and both winners challenged for the title. It was myself vs Damien Dunne vs Max Angelus.

I’ll always remember what Max said to me before the match, and I’ve run with that in every championship match I’ve ever had since, not just here. “This match sets the tone for the reign. Start it how you mean to continue”. So of course we had a screwy finish, foot on the ropes, false finish kind of thing. Max was very unselfish here, and was eliminated quickly, and left the floor open for Damien and myself to have the majority of the match. Championship in the bag to a chorus of boos. Excellent.

Watch full match

Watch highlights

Defence 1 – Danny Chase

So, a couple of months later, in November 2014, the first defence was up, and it was against a man I know better in-ring than anyone, Danny Chase. This match was OK, and on the back of this, we were booked against each other in a different promotion the following week. If I’m honest, I hated the finish to this match, I was asked to use a submission (a theme will come to light here) to finish, and I hadn’t really ever used one. I also loved doing the Romero Special surfboard at this time. Thinking on my feet, I tried to switch the Romero into some sort of layback dragon sleeper thing, and I think it looked sloppy. It felt flat after the work we’d done. a quicker paced finish might have been better here. Watch Here

Defence 2: – Chris Brookes

This particular match up was one I’d been after for a while. I’d admired Chris for a bit, after a brief twitter exchange when he was over in Amreica with CZW, at the same time I was in Thailand training.  I was pleased when this was booked. There were some good set pieces in this match from what I recall, and a decent first meeting. Unfortunately we’ve never worked since. I can’t recall the finish, although I remember this was a submission finish again. I’ think this was probably when I was trying out the bridging Fujiwara armbar. Fun fact – Chris wore Nixon Newell’s ring gear for this match… Watch Highlights

Defence 3 – Zak Northern

Onto defence 3, and another man I knew very well in the shape of Zak Northern.  Zak is someone I’ve worked against numerous times previous to this match, so I was confident that this would be a good showing. From what I recall this was OK. We’d planned a rope heavy match, so of course by the time we worked the match the ropes had loosened and were like shoelaces. There was an ‘Ultimate X’ match later on so the tension had gone there. This slowed down the action for me,  and wasn’t quite up to the standard we’d come to expect of ourselves, I think. A learning experience for the pair of us to be more versatile Still, we had a fun match. Again, submission finish.

I wish I’d have gone with my gut a little more at this time. I had the leg hook suplex in my arsenal by this time, and I feel as though visually that would have been better here. Never mind. It’ll happen one day.

Watch highlights

Defence 4: – EK Baki

So, here’s where the belt was taking me. Japan. Funny how these things happen, but this was the start of a slew of  international defences, and really, the place where I could start to push those numbers up, if successful. PW4U ran quarterly at this stage, and I wanted to bang in the defences.

First stop, Osaka, Japan. Man, I was fucking exhausted. I landed the night before, and then had a 10 hour minibus ride to Osaka from Tokyo. I also barely slept. I don’t sleep the day before I travel so I can skip jetlag and acclimatise quickly. 36 hours travel to Japan, then that cramped bus trip really did me in. I was concerned that I’d be too tired to perform.

Alas, the bell rang, and this match was real clunky. Baki and I didn’t gel here (incidentally we did have a couple of great tags after), I buggered up a bit and I didn’t enjoy the finish to the match, which was a waistlock rollup, holding the trunks.  I’ve never watched this match back, so it probably wasn’t as bad as I think. I just remember being tired as hell, which probably clouded my judgement of the match.

 

 

Defence 5 – Choun Shiryu

Wow, this match… To me this match was one of the most important in my career at the time. First of all – Korakuen Hall. Jesus fucking Christ. I’d had always dreamed of performing here. Historic. Iconic. Say what you will. Additionally, the first British championship defended in Korakuen Hall in well over a decade. A big audience in Japan, full of press, TV, magazine, important wrestlers such as Yoshihiro Takayama and Jun Kasai, to name but 2. This was important to me. I’m not ashamed to say that after this match, I stuck a towel over my head and shed a tear. A monumental goal achieved here.

My opponent was Choun Shiryu, a Chinese wrestler, who worked for then DDT brand Union. Well versed, quick, effective. This was easily my toughest match in this reign up to this point. I enjoyed this match, couple of bits I’d have liked to have done a little better, or paced differently, but otherwise I enjoyed it.

Here’s where that leg hook German came in to play. I’m glad it did as well, because that’s what got into a magazine, websites etc.

Take note, yeah…

Watch match

Defence 6 – P-Nutz

Last defence In Japan on this trip, and it was a special Ichigaya match. Ichigaya has no ring. I loved this match too. No reliance on ropes, using our environment, and mat wrestling. I’ve never seen this match back, as much as I’d like to.

We beat the shit out of each other, in a hard fought bout, we brawled outside the venue, we worked holds to wear each other down. I thoroughly enjoyed this  match. Lets fight again P-Nutz…

Defence 7 – Sawasdee Kamen & KOTORI

Final match of this tour, and it was another title match. I’d racked up 4 in 2 weeks, doubling the defence tally. A fun triple threat match on the purple Ichigaya mats, finishing with a dirty German on those mats on Sawasdee. I think the finish was a little underwhelming in hindsight, as it left KOTORI standing and watching the pinfall. Something to consider for future matches.

Fun story; I had to get changed super quick and head to the airport straight from the show, all sweaty and stinky. I couldn’t find the showers at Haneda Airport, so had to wait until my connection in Dubai to grab a super quick shower. Fun!

Defence 8 – Zak Northern, Noah & Robert Sharpe

A week after touching back down in the UK, it was back to business, back to Silverdale for PW4U. A four way match…

 

Historically, every previous G6 Championship title change had been in a multi-man match, so this was something to be wary of. 2 big characters to highlight

here, in Sharpe and Noah. This was originally going to be a fans pick the opponent match, but descended into a 4 way, you know how wrestling goes sometimes…

Anyway, I let the others do the hard work, and stole the win from  Robert Sharpe, after he hit his Neutraliser piledriver finish on Noah. Cheers Ugly Bob… we’ll see more of him, later in the story.

Watch highlights

 

Subchapter – The Sickness

Here’s where the story gets a bit messy for a while as far as PW4U matches were concerned. The failed ‘The Sickness’ project. This was an idea I wasn’t much of a fan of, and to me, I felt like it tainted this portion of the run. I didn’t enjoy this group at all, especially as it wasn’t much of a group. We unveiled Barricade as a member – he never returned. Danxig and I won the tag team titles –  he never returned to defend them. I was fairly pleased if I’m honest, as I never really felt as though we gelled together as a tag team.

On the opposite side of the coin, I was pleased to get the opportunity to do some fun stuff with Robert Sharpe, as Danxig’s replacement. This was something we could have potentially done anyway, without ‘The Sickness’, Rob as the downtrodden understudy, made for a cool sidestory, as when he got some retribution later on in the year, it was set up for some really fun stuff. I’m sad we never got to pay that off fully.

I always wanted to concentrate on making the G6 a valuable championship, and I felt the tag run diluted it for a short while. It made for a few nice moments here and there, I’m not ungrateful for it, I just think we made a few wrong turns with it here and there, and got off course. I did however see this opportunity as the promoter having a lot of faith in my ability at this stage. I should have repaid that by discussing those concerns more so, I feel in hindsight.

Defence 9 – Pyro

Defence 8, and a revisit to the world of Pyro. I’d just fought him in tag action at the previous PW4U show.  This was a fun little match, albeit one to further a feud and to build to something of a series between us. This  wasn’t anything spectacular, it never needed to be. A countout finish, which I then challenged him to a no-countout match, as I’d been embarrassed by

the loss… At least I still had the belt…

Notably, this was the last defence by Jurgen Heimlich. The character was put to rest at the end of 2015. That accent was getting hammy by this point wasn’t it?

 

 

Defence 10 – Pyro II

If I never had to talk about this match again I wouldn’t. I wrote an extensive blog about an incident that occurred. PW4u have since put the whole show up online (you can watch here if you so wish), and what I thought happened, actually didn’t happen. All that misery… I have no feelings on this match whatsoever and I’ll ignore its existence on finishing writing this. Anyway. DQ loss ‘Highlights’

Defence 11 – Pyro III

Get yer jeans ahhhht!! Streetfight madness on a Sunday afternoon.  This was fun. I never get asked to do gimmick matches for some reason, so I made sure this was fun.

 

Baking trays, chairs,Lego, riding a mop like a witch. This was fun.

Ol’ Pyro forgot it was streetfight so forgot his jeans. Jeans are streetfight clobber, don’t you know this!

You can’t go barmy on a Sunday afternoon family show, so we had a good time making this safe, and fun. That lego bump wasn’t though. Arse first. Even so, a victory saw the end of the Pyro trilogy.

 

Defence 12 – Sawasdee Kamaen & Emi Sakura

Back to Japan for a third visit and a bunch of potential defences here. Small Ichigaya mat show, and a triple threat. Tough competition, in Emi Sakura and Sawasdee Kamen. Fast paced, cool stuff, pinning Kamen for the retention, which left the path clear to head to Korakuen Hall the following week.

 

 

 

 

Defence 13 – Konoka Pehlwan

Here we are again, Korakuen Hall. This was an intriguing matchup for me. I’d seen the Pehlwan gimmick once before back in 2013, at an early Heat-Up show, and found it interesting. Asking around in the days leading up to the show, I asked about his style “Yoga style”, “Strange”, were some of the descriptions. I was kind of wondering how we’d go about making a cool match – I was determined to put on a better performance than before.

When people ask about whether the language barrier is an issue, usually, I’d say ‘not really’ but here, it really was.  This was the most challenging match I’ve ever had to put together. It was OK, but I think I gave my size advantage away too easily, and let myself be moved around, instead of taking full control, as perhaps I should have done, in the champion role.

I’m not displeased with this match, I know it would be better if it were to ever happen again. I actually got a decent magazine photo here, as well as the BBM website carrying some great photographs. Stuff like this has made it easier to negotiate with future trips overseas, since. I should probably stop getting injured before I’m due to head to those events…

 

Watch Match(Nico Nico TV version)

 

 

Defence 14 – Paksa

 

Defence 13, my final defence of this trip, and my final Japanese G6 defence. A return to Osaka. I was determined to erase the memory of the previous years Osaka match, and I wanted to go all out here. To my recollection, this was a fast paced, action packed bout, pretty much everything I wanted the G6 ‘Division’ to be all about. Mat wrestling, speedy exchanges, exciting set pieces. Of course, I’ve not seen this match back since, so I couldn’t comment much other than my own recollection. I wanted to let this audience know who I was. My opponent, ‘Paksa’ was, at the time, the ‘Thai Super Rookie’ and the Thai side of Gatoh Move really wanted him to step up here. I think he really did, even though that first kick to the thigh gave me a dead leg haha. I really enjoyed this match, and like a number of these defences, I’d like to revist it some day.

 

Defence 15 – Drill

When you look at a picture of Drill, you imagine “Big massive bastard. Probably does a lot of throwing”. Neither were true.

Drill comes to the ring with a Greggs carrier bag filled with Pork pies, and is Northern… Anyway, this was OK, Just OK. Still I got one of my favourite photos I’ve had in wrestling during this show, which I’ll stick below. I also did double duty on this show. In hindsight, I probably overlooked this match, and wish I’d have given it more effort. Submission finish – Armbarrrrrr

Defence 16 – ‘Gentleman’ John McGregor

This match came in at a time where I was getting a little frustrated with the championship run somewhat. Random challengers, no building of others in the division, I felt like there was no emotional investment in anyone challenging for the belt at this time. By this time, I genuinely felt as though nobody believed I was losing this belt anytime soon. That took a bit of fun out of it for me. I probably should have raised my concerns at this time, but instead I just let it go. I think I actually had one eye on losing those tag belts, which by now were starting to weigh heavy. I really wanted to build the G6 back up again. The match itself was OK, I felt, but nothing spectacular. I think it was probably my mindset, and not the opponent that affects my enjoyment of this era of the reign. Submission finish, by the way – bridging Fujiwara armbar…

Defence 17 – Ry Lloyd

The tag titles were gone now, and as far as I was concerned, so was ‘The Sickness’.

That weight off my shoulders, the G6 was back on. Ry Lloyd… theres a name that will come back to haunt me in this run haha. Anyway, this was an absolute ton of fun, and a good building block for things in the future.  Sunday afternoon show in a new venue, which to be fair, wasn’t the best for wrestling. Regardless, I enjoyed this, and helped inject the enthusiasm back into this run tenfold. I also threw an orange at the pregnant ring announcer. Bastard! If I recall, the finish was the ‘Justice Crash’ reverse DDT move I use. No submisisons…

Defence 18 – Robert Sharpe

Ahhh Robert Sharpe… A long and storied relationship between the pair of us, in real life.

In PW4U terms, Sharpe was pinned for the tag team titles back in March, and I slapped him round the chops. That was the setup here.  In real life I was looking forward to this feud as we’d really enjoyed working together in the tag team storyline, and I think the plan may well have been to have him take the title eventually. I had no issue with this, as to be honest, it was definitely time for someone else to take the reigns.

With that in mind, we started to lay the foundations here. Rob came at me and just lobbed me around for 10 minutes. It seemed at though the audience wanted to see me get the shit beat out of me, which Rob delivered, until I hooked a rope assisted small package. Chorus of boos, job done. I really enjoyed this. A perfect table setting match for a good feud.

Unfortunately,  the plan never got any further than this match, as Sharpe didn’t return to PW4U again. This was hugely frustrating for a number of reasons. Still, we’d reached the 1000 days as champion mark with this victory. Absolutely ridiculous haha.

Defence 19 – Noah

Oh man look at the hairline on that promo haha!

Defence 19. originally pencilled in for a continuation of the Sharpe feud, but yeah..

Instead, Noah. Firm fan favourite. Also, tag team champion. I was a little miffed with this matchup. I certainly didn’t want to make the tag champ look bad. It was very strange. Noah also wanted to showcase his wrestling ability a little more than normal, considering here at PW4U, he was a more character driven performer. We went into this just thinking about having a good solid match. This match was fine, I think we did ok. Finish was a waistlock takedown into an…. armbar! Submission finish…

Defence 20 – Ry Lloyd & Alex Bower

Sometimes, you head into a match and just think “fuck it. I’m gonna have a good time with this”. And sometimes, everyone involved thinks the same. We were all on the same page here. We just wanted to have an action packed match, that kept the audience entertained. It was all here, MOVEZ~1! It just felt like the match needed something different than everything else on the card that day. This was to me the best G6 match we’d had in PW4U, at least during my time there.  What kind of match would you expect from a match of this ‘weight class(?)’ really? Something like this for me.

I wanted to make this match so that everyone was always doing something. All too often in triple threats you’ll see the same thing – guys waiting on the outside, tower of doom in the corner, 2 heels dragging each other off of pins. Its so tiresome, and I really didn’t want any of that here. Enjoyable match, probably my favourite in a PW4U promoted event, and definitely my favourite triple threat match I’ve participated in.

Stole that victory from Ry, to pin Bower.

Defence 21 – Ry Lloyd

Here we are then. The finale. Let’s get the gripes out of the way real quick. The set-up for this match, wasn’t much. I’d have loved to have built a program beforehand to really garner some interest, and help tip Ry over a little more. For me, being a championship holder is all about making the belt mean something, and then when you hand it over, you set that person on their way as best you can. That’s why I feel a program would have benefited here. This could have kicked off instead of the Noah match, still included a triple threat etc. I had no doubt that we could deliver in-ring. None whatsoever.

Onto the match. This was 99% the match I wanted to send the belt off with. A slight stagger on a move at the end, a timing error on my part, other than that I was pleased with what we delivered.

This had to be everything I’ve learned or achieved during this run, and packaged off for Ry to take forward. Mat wrestling with exciting counters, interesting set pieces, a bit of looking the fool, a dirty, DIRTY cutoff. A final stretch that had that disbelief factor. I’m pretty sure again, noone thought I was losing here, which was absolutely fine. We might have the chance to get that reaction I craved.

Superkick, Candian destroyer, Swanton bomb

1  – 2  –  3

 

It was over…

 

 

1275 days. 3 1/2 years. Travelled the world together. That was it…

The reaction for the victory was fantastic. Mission accomplished. I think if we’d have done this in a familiar venue, such as Silverdale, the reaction would have been even bigger. Even so, I understand why it was here. This photograph is exactly how I wanted it to look on handing that belt over. Middle of the ring – defeated…

 

Concluding Thoughts:

I’ve tried to be as honest as possible during the writing of this piece. I think to be able to give an insight into my mindset, and frustrations during this period is important to be able to give an honest assessment on the whole thing. There were some cool moments and experiences as a result, and I achieved a hell of a lot with the belt, and with the support of Phil of PW4U, and his support staff throughout the last 3-4 years – Leanne, Kim etc. Thats something I’m extremely grateful for, even though at points in this it may have seemed otherwise. What I’ve learned about having frustrations, is that really, its better to raise concerns and offer suggestion, instead of letting it affect performance, which it certainly did for a brief period.  If you’ve a gut feeling that something won’t work – say so. I wish I had put up more resistance/suggestion to the ‘Sickness’ idea, for example.

Going forward, I don’t know where I may fit into the promotion at the moment, I’m going to have to figure that out over the next little while.

For the G6 Division – now I’m not holding it up, in an ideal world, I’d like to see some sort of actual division built around it. Build up the next couple of contenders, build the familiarity, instead of having random challengers. It makes people care, I wish I’d have pushed for that a little more.

Hindsight is great isn’t it?

I’ve no real idea how to conclude this blog/review, so I’ll leave it here.  I’ll list all of the entrance themes I used during my time at PW4U instead of the usual  ‘Song of The Week’ section.

Thanks for reading this long ass blog. Nearly 4000 words haha.

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Jurgen Heimlich – 2013 – 2015

The Sickness – 2015 -2016

Juken (PW4U Only) – 2017-2018

Rumbles. ..

I’m not entirely sure that I thought out writing the blog today. I’m sat riddled with lurgy, feeling rather grim. In all honesty though, its the first real opportunity I’ve had to sit and write about the past week. I’m busy, but busy means good moods and high motivation.

I think I covered all of the motivation stuff in last week’s blog, so I won’t retread old ground here. Being busy does have its downsides however, and one of them is that my Japanese studies have suffered in recent weeks, which is something I promised myself that I’d get back on top of this year. I’ll need to suss some time out to get that into my schedule more regularly somehow.

Anyway, onto the wrestling… this past weekend I headed to Leicester for the first time in quite some time, and to what was known as LCW, but now known as HOPE Wrestling I guess. The show is now in a different area than the previous incarnation, and I was unsure what to expect, if anyone knew/cared who I was etc. Additionally, I’d only be appearing in the rumble, and with 29 other bodies in there, includoing regulars and more known names in there,  it may have been a difficult task.

Luckily a fair few people remembered me, and if they didn’t,  I found a good bunch of feedback tweets and insta messages after, so I was pleased with that.

Like I said, I think rumbles are hard to stand out in sometimes. You find varying experience levels and people who are happy to hide in corners forearming away until they get thrown out. I really wanted to be busy as much as possible, so I did try and be ready for people coming in, or keeping occupied attempting to eliminate people. I did find myself in the corner a couple of times so I’d move over to someone else for a bit. As a result I got to work with a whole bunch of people, which was good and bad in equal measure. There were people I’d love to lock up with again involved, which was much fun.

Anyhow, I think in total I managed a good 30 odd minutes in-ring, which I certainly enjoyed.

I’d like to quickly address something. I’m jumping at as many opportunities to wrestle this year as I possibly can, and there are literally 2 places I don’t particularly wish to work, and I don’t get offered to anyway, so there’s no issue.  I’m not intending to cut anywhere else out at this time. I just want to wrestle anywhere and everywhere. I have don’t knowingly have any issues with anyone in wrestling, nor do I plan to. I also have no intention to be involved in anyone else’s issues. I get it, people don’t get along for various reasons. That’s your call, not mine. I just want to wrestle. That’s all most of us want in this industry.

 

With that out of the way, I’m looking ahead to the upcoming weekend, and a House of Pain double header.  I’ve 2 shows in one day at the Beeston venue this Saturday.  Unsure  of my matches at this time,  but I’m ready to go.

 

Saying that, I’m exhausted so I’m going to wrap up this week’s blog without all my social media garb. Just song of the week though…

 

Song Of The Week

Because nostalgia…

Finally… We’re Off The Blocks

Alright!

2018 wrestling is underway, and I’m really, REALLY motivated to progress this year. This weekend just passed I competed in my first 2 events of the year, and they kicked off the year on the right foot.

Two shows for House of Pain in 2 days, 2 completely random matches, as part of the ‘Lethal Lottery’ shows in St Anns and Calverton, respectively. These matches were genuinely unknown to me, which made a nice surprise.

The Saturday event saw my participation in an 8 person tag match, which was a lot of fun, and to be honest a good way to kick off the year. I encountered Lucas Archer in this contest, and it was kind of nice to interact with him again. We had a really interesting best of 3 type series a few years ago, in his rookie year, and he’s come on leaps and bounds since then, a I’m sure most will know. He has a good mind for the business, so I hope we get to face off in singles competition this year at some point.

Of course, as HOP fans will know, I was pinned in this match, by ladies competitor Hannah James, so being the generous fella I am, I offered her an opportunity at the House of Pain championship in the near future.  Now, I know some people still aren’t on board with intergender wrestling, and thats fine. You don’t have to like everything. For me, I’m on board with this, and I like the possibilities in story and emotion that could potentially be made here.. I’ve done intergender matches before in Japan, and just once here. I think maybe 2013/2014, against now inactive female wrestler Jenna. The landscape has changed since that match and in general I feel people are more accepting of this kind of a match. I guess we’ll find out in the very near future.

Onto Sunday, and Calverton. I like the Calvo shows, as they’re a lot of fun, with a good audience, always a fun way to cap off the months HOP shows. With being a mostly family crowd, its fair to say, that this isn’t a campy type crowd as such. They enjoy that stuff, but in moderation. They really seem to enjoy the finish stretch of matches, which is good, because thats my favourite part too. My opponent for this show was ‘Diamond’ Dave Andrews, someone I like quite a bit (shhh), he’s bags of charisma, and athletic too, which meant we could really build that end stretch up nicely. The end of this match was going well, and we were just hitting our stride, then a bit of miscommunication ended the contest a bit earlier than anticipated, however, a win is indeed a win, and I’ll collect them up nicely.  I enjoyed this contest too, and I wouldn’t mind revisiting this at some point.

So, a decent start to the year, wrestling wise. What about behind the scenes? Well, firstly, a slight delay on the new merch, but I’m hoping to release all of that shortly. I don’t enjoy the idea of pre-orders and having people waiting for orders, I want to be able to ship things out quickly. I know I enjoy not having to wait weeks for something I’ve paid for. So yeah, stay tuned for that.

‘Bad news’ out of the way,  lets get on with it; My motivation with wrestling has come hand in hand with my mindset behind the scenes. A huge amount of change has come with my workout regime, and diet. I’m not going to go into that full, as it’ll bore most of you, but all of the changes I’ve implemented have contributed to the ongoing improvement I’m seeing in my physical appearance already, and I’m only 4 weeks into the year.  If you want to follow that particular ‘journey’ (I hate that terminology), then instagram is your friend. I’m not trying to be an inspirational person, or patronising. I’m just just sharing my good mood. I also post a monthly progress photograph to track my own progress, because I’m certainly intrigued to follow my own change. Just don’t expect an inspirational quote montage.

I think thats a better length blog than the last at least anyway! I actually have stuff to talk about, anyway…  No point in talking about my ‘upcoming appearances’ as its a bit of an unannounced return for now.  Sure I’ll cover it in next weeks blog. Anyway, cheers for reading this weeks blog!

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Song of The week

Hanging around like a bad smell, song of the week is here. Its a fooking banger!

Insert Witty Title Here

Evenin’!

We’re into the new year (you already knew that, but I needed an opening), and the new year wrestling is starting to kick in. It’s cool seeing how much wrestling is happening in January this year, and more interestingly, how many cities across the country are getting midweek wrestling in the coming months.  I’ve often wondered why this wasn’t generally a thing here, having seen it thriving in Japan. I genuinely hope that this is something that gains traction and become’s a more common thing.  More work for everyone is a good thing.

Wow, that was a positive opening to the blog, what is this madness?

Well, to be honest I’m hugely motivated at the moment, and I’m really pleased that’s the case.  I got a lot of great feedback on my last blog post, which was the year in review, which, let’s face it, was really dreary. You know what though, it felt good to offload all of that, and I’ve left last year back there.  I reset at that point.   Since that I’ve ‘again’ taken a look at everything I’m doing. Few things tweaked, I’ve been on the hustle and I’m trying to put myself forward for as much as I can.  Christ,  I finally used the free Facebook advertising voucher that I’d been sitting on for most of last year  haha. Serious.  I’ve done more hustle in 11 days of 2018 than I did in 365 of 2017.  My gym regime has been stripped down and reviewed, and I’m really enjoying myself in the gym again. I’m hoping that work shows in the coming months, as I thought that that was something lacking in 2017.

A bit of merchandise news, I’ll be revealing 2 new tee designs at the end of the month, here on the blog first. They’ll be available to order immediately from that point, and then the official release the day after. Any shows after that, I’ll be carrying them along with other assorted merch items.

I’ve taken receipt of some overseas dates already, which I’m very excited about. A couple of new things on the agenda there. No travel issues this time, I guarantee it. You’ll have to decapitate me to halt those.

I’m not sure what else I can bang in here for this week’s update, I’ve not wrestled for a couple of weeks, outside of training. My year starts in a couple of weeks, so up until then I’m pretty much just prepping. I’ll leave it there for this week, but for those who want to see things a little more regularly, you can catch me across the ‘social media’ platforms by clicking the following links:

▪ Facebook

▪ Twitter

▪ Instagram

Song of The Week

Ya damn right it’s back. Song of the week returned.  I shared this song over on my personal Facebook earlier in the week, but i found myself listening to this a lot, so want to share it here.  A cover of one of my favourite Fear Factory songs, which I actually thought couldn’t be betteed.  This cover is better. The guys voice… caramel.

 

2017

So let’s talk about 2017 shall we?
All in all, I’d consider it to be my worst year since I became active.
I’m pretty sure I’ve had a year that to others, would be considered a rewarding one. To me it’s been a number of backward steps and my quietest overall for sometime.
I was debating covering this year chronologically but I dont wish to relive parts of the year.  Behind the scenes, a lot of life hasn’t been all sunshine and flowers and as a result has needed to take priority over the hustle of wrestling.  I’ve barely hustled if I’m honest, and anytime I’ve begun to start rolling the next knock came and that would take my focus. I don’t need to go into the factors that swayed me away from wrestling as some of its still pretty raw.
Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way shall we?
As far as actual in the ‘job’, 2 no shows to Thailand felt like the biggest steps back of the year,  and has as good as shut that door. A big shame as I had been looking forward to going back there. I don’t know why there’s been this string of bad luck, and I’d like things to have panned out differently. Thailand had been my doorway into Japan so I was kind of hoping that it would again help to lead the same way. Frustrating.
As mentioned before, I’ve barely hustled for work this year, so I’ve been very fortunate to be given opportunities in places. A long overdue return to LCW back in May was a lot of fun, but unfortunately was my only appearance there this year. I don’t know what happened there as I really enjoyed the match I had, which isn’t something I say much.

Another singular return to HOPE in Mansfield, which was a quickly put together match with Jake McCluskey, but felt pretty solid. Again, dunno why I haven’t been back.
Then a return to Southside after a few years away. Only multiman matches, which to be honest I don’t think were my strongest outings.  I always felt as though I was the person catching and taking all the flashy moves, or letting some of the other guys in tag matches make the most of their time. If I’d have been more selfish I may have been able to make more out of those opportunities. This wasn’t a redundant experience however, as I learned a lot about how to handle myself in these situations, and I certainly don’t begrudge anyone else making the most of their chances. That’s what this is all about if we really boil it down.

It’s really easy to let the negatives cloud the good things of this year. A lot of the above sit in the good category, it’s been more my lack of following up that’s held me back. Me.

Positives, well whilst I feel as though I’ve found my rhythm more in the second portion of the year, especially since working more in the heel role, I feel like I’m only really beginning to find my true stride here. I’m extremely determined to make up for this year and make up lost ground doubly.  I know that I have almost no real name value outside of my immediate local area, which I’m fine with at the moment. No one will be expecting much from me, based on the evidence of the last 2 years, which is an even bigger driving force.  I’m aiming to complete 80% of my 10 goals set for next year. Funnily enough, 3 of those are in my 2018 diary already, so I’m off to a decent start at least. If I fail I really can’t blame anyone but myself can I?

I’d been contemplating finishing up this year, but on reflection, this would be a silly idea. I see people say they’re ‘retiring’ or not working here, there etc. That’s fine. That’s their path, not mine. I feel like I’ve unfinished business. As I said in a previous blog, it’s an all or nothing year,so I really have to commit to that.

I’ve gone off on a tangent like I always seem to haha.

Good things about this year, continued the run with the Pro Wrestling 4U G6 championship. Think I’m up to over 1200 days with it now, which is absolutely ridiculous. It’s probably overdue me losing it now as I think the audience don’t think I will now. I’d also like to wrestle some of the other people on the roster who don’t fit in the ‘division’. Who knows what’ll happen in the new year..? And at least now I’ve had that match during the run that I’m happy with; that being the most recent defence in a 3 way with Ry Lloyd and Alex Bower.  I love a good mega indy super spotfest match every now and then.

The only real disappointing thing about PW4U was the feud I had going with Rob Sharpe, early in the year, which ended abruptly. We had a nice angle going and I was hoping to get a really good build out of it. The audience were certainly there for it. I was really looking forward to sinking my teeth into that feud. Never mind, eh.

Next we move onto the House of Pain championship. This had been a real long term goal, which I was pleased to achieve in June. There are a few things I’d have liked to achieved with this run, that haven’t quite happened to date, maybe that’ll change before it moves on. That being said I really enjoyed the series of matches I had with Kyle Kingsley during this period. He’s an overlooked performer on the scene in general I feel, and I hope more people look at him as time moves on. He’s very talented and should do well.

I managed a couple of defences, I think we’re up to 3 so far. Would like to have done more and add to the belt before it moves on, but we’ll see.

What else… well I managed to tick off a few smaller goals. Had never wrestled outside funnily enough so I did that a couple of times in the summer.  Black canvas. Red hot. Much burn haha. Good fun though.

Made progress in the gym somewhat,  but didn’t quite achieve what I wanted.  Was fun trying though.

I think that about covers 2017 in a nutshell. Mostly a bit rubbish but some high points to really bring them into perspective.

I’m not going to list my goals here,  I’m just going to tick them off as I go along, but rest assured,I will do all I can to achieve them. I want to be considerably more active in 2018.

Let’s make this a good year. I hope you’ll stick along for the ride.

Thanks for your support throughout 2017, I’ve appreciated every tweet, comment or interaction.

Photos courtesy: Brett Hadley Photography, Y2Grae Photography

 

 

 

It’s Only Words…

Righto, so I didn’t publish for the last two weeks due to being an absoloute numbskull. So, a triple edition is the order of the day I guess…

To condense things down as much as possible, and save you from reading a gigantic essay, I;ll cover the three matches I’ve had over the period since the last blog, along with a couple of other notes here and there.  And then I’ll get this back to a weekly blog haha.

Lets head back a couple of weeks, to the 26th November, a stop off in Calverton for House of Pain, to meet up, once again with ‘Visage’. Myself and Visage have met a good 5 or so times in singles matches this year, most of them fairly recently, so this was a bit of a challenge to come up with something different, as the previous three we’d had, we’d built off of the last contest.
What ensued was pretty much us copying each others moves, and a count-out finish. It felt a bit flat, and I think we’d both say it was the weakest contest we’d had to date. We’ve had some good meetings before, so our standard is pretty high now.

Moving on, to last weekend, and to Pro Wrestling 4U, for a ridiculous 22ND defence of the G6 Division Championship, in a triple threat match fetauring Ry Lloyd and Alex Bower. Now, I’d often felt that I’ve never had a match for the belt that I was pleased with. I’m big into building matches and the like, instead of ‘heres this months challenger’, because I want people to care when someone takes this belt eventually. Thats always been my objective with this run. Anyhow, onto the match… I came away from this feeling good.  I usually don’t enjoy triple threat matches that much, because theres always someone not doing anything, so that was something I wanted to avoid here.
We kept the match at a high pace throughout, avoided all of the cliche things you see in these kinds of matches,  and had a ridiculous closing stretch, that I really enjoyed being a part of. I really enjoy the last stretch of a match, listening to the audience react as we draw them into the close calls, and make them believe that everyone could have won this. Onto the next defence, which I think will be in March, some 1200ish days into the championship reign. Crazy.

Finally onto this past weekend, and another trip to Calverton for House Of Pain in the snow, for a singles contest with 1/2 of the tag champions Tommy Taylor. Tommy and I had never met in singles competition, despite both of us being around for ages.
Anyway, I really just wanted this to be action, action, action, because we were both more than capable of having a real stormer. In review, I watched this beck later on in the day, and there were a couple of bits where I felt I looked a bit off the pace, which was disappointing to me, personally. I strive to be really f*cking good, so I do place a lot of pressure to succeed on myself.
I did crack my head a little early on so there was a bit in the match where I was knocked silly and Tommy had to drag my sorry carcass through that. He did a ruddy good job in that respect. I did enjoy this match for the most part, and really, I think theres a lot of untapped potential between us down the line. I’ll stick a couple of clips up on the ol’ instagram during this week anyway.

Next week, I have the weekend off. December is traditionally quiet, but House of Pain are running 9 dates throughout December. NINE. Madness. I’ll be on a couple of them at the end of the month, I’ll post those dates a little later in the month.

So, aside from actual wrestling, I’ve been putting finishing touches to the merch launch, and the upcoming Big Cartel online store. These will all go live early in 2018, with a few different bits of merch here and there.  Additionally, I’ve been working on a little something else over the last week or so, which I’m hoping to have ready to go very shortly. This project is something new from me, so I’m doing what I can to make sure I’m fully happy with it before releasing it.

All systems go for 2018 – All or nothing…

Juken on the Web:

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Song of the Week

You love it really don’t you? I don’t know, but I do.

 

Some Cool Title

Back in front of the keyboard again, and really I’m trying to think of what I’m going to talk about this week haha. I’ve not wrestled since the last blog entry, unless you include training. Been keeping busy and working hard in the gym, switched up the routines etc. All the usual stuff really. I don’t see much point going into that in detail, as really, everyone in wrestling should be in the gym, no big deal really.

Moving Forward

Aside from that, I’ve been putting a few things in place ready for 2018. I’m really looking to try and push off into the new year with a degree of momentum. I’m putting a few finishing touches to a little bit of ‘rebranding’ to give myself a bit of a fresher feel, and this will feed into a little bit of a change in my look as we get into the 1st quarter of the year.

Additionally, after over a year off of the merch bandwagon, I’ll be launching a handful of new things alongside this ‘soft rebrand’. I think its always been key to keep evolving in pro wrestling, but its certainly been something thats been highlighted throughout 2017, and probably something that I’ve been a bit lacking with in the past.

World Warrior

The ‘World Warrior’ moniker is something I want to move away from pretty quickly. I feel as though its not something that fits anymore, especially with not doing much actual globetrotting for a while haha. It might have been noticable that I’ve been slowly removing the katakana lettering from the gear I’ve been wearing, because that too, no longer fits. Just the ring jacket to fix now…  As I said in the last blog, the next year is something of a make or break year for me, so I really need to find the best ways in which to present and promote myself.  I probably shouldn’t say such things so publicly, but if I fail to meet my targets for next year, then how can I hold myself accountable? Maybe I am/can be to open on the blogs at times, but ah well… If things don’t work out, at least you’ll be able to follow the story, and see where it doesn’t work out.

Not much else to cover really, so I’ll wrap up what has been something of a ‘nothing’ blog. Sorry for the lack of excitement – suppose thats the downfall of having a weekly blog haha.
Upcoming Shows:

26/11 – House of Pain, Calverton – vs Visage

Juken Across The Web:

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Song of the Week

Of course its back. No reason other than I love this song.

Back From The Wilderness… Or Something

 

Where’ve You Been Pal?

I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve sat down in recent months to try and get back into blogging. Of course, I did get to it back in June, and then I never followed it up. Theres a number of factors that probably contributed to it, but one of the sillier things that popped up was a Twitter troll account (people will know which one, its not around anymore though) , that seemed to take issue with my winning of the House of Pain belt. The blog I wrote, was seemingly the catalyst for the tweet(s) aimed my way. Usually, these kinds of things I’ll laugh at and move on. For some reason, I didn’t with this, and I allowed it to kick into a lot of self doubt that I’ve had through the first half of the year.
So yeah, after that I almost felt ashamed to still be wrestling at the level I feel I’m at. Additionally, I had/have my suspicion as to who ran the account – certainly someone on my personal Facebook friend account, and that’s what I think made it have the impact it did. It took a bit of a while, but I realised that, fuck sake, definitely need to have a thick skin if I wanted to continue to be wrestling.
What else happened? Well, I was due to head aback to Thailand (again), back in September, and that fell apart (again), which I think has pretty much left that route dead in the water. Theres no point in sugar coating anything, I was pretty much ready to walk away from all of this.

You Finishing Up Then?

Unfortunately for some, I haven’t walked away. I feel like if I did, I’d always be asking myself why I didn’t give it a better go. With that being said, I know that I actually have to give it a better shot, certainly better that I have over the last, say two years. I set myself a number of goals to achieve within the next year, and I want to achieve at least 80% of these within this timescale. They’re all achievable if I put in the effort that I’m aiming for, but the motivation has been something thats dipped off here and there throughout this year.

You Gonna Sporadically Blog Again?

I’ll definitely be blogging regularly again, starting with this one. Blogging before was pretty cool, I enjoyed the interaction I got through it, and itwas good to hear what people had to say about what was going on in my world. I actually enjoyed vlogging for that brief period of time I tried it, but just couldn’t commit to a regular time to do it.  My social media presence certainly needs to be a bit tighter, my facebook page especially has been pretty lacking this year.

Whilst an online presence shouldn’t be my major concern, which it isn’t, theres no denying its importance in pro wrestling in 2017 and beyond.

Its fair to say I’m very motivated to achieve my goals within the next year. If I don’t do them, hey at least I gave it a good enough try, and I’ll know that I had indeed reached my ‘ceiling’.

So yeah, thats my ‘story’ and update. If I mess up, well, its my own fault isn’t it. I’m enjoying wrestling again,  and long may it continue.

Juken Across The Web

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 Song Of The Week

Of course it’s back… 

T’blog Returneth!

Quick Blog Recap
Its been a good 6 months since I last blogged. I originally stopped doing it to try video blogging, but I stopped that pretty quickly; think I got to maybe 4 or 5 vlogs before I decided not to continue. I couldn’t commit to the same time every week to sit and talk into a phone camera for 15+ minutes every week.
I enjoy interacting with people on the ol’ Facebook page, and I quite enjoy typing things out in a slightly longer form, so reverting back to this makes sense for me.

Wrestling:
Alright, this is probably the real reason you’re here, so lets first do a real quick catchup, then onto recent events!
I’ll bullet point a handful of key talking points, and save going into a huge in depth recap.
House of Pain:

 

• Became #1 contender to HOP Heavyweight championship in December
• Loosely started tagging with ‘Bullet’ Haydn Tyler.
• Pinned HOP Champion Kyle Kingsley in a 6 man scramble match
• Tagged with HOP champion Kyle Kingsley on a handful of occasions.
• House of Pain championship match took place, June 17, in Beeston, Nottingham

Pro Wrestling 4U

• Surpassed 1000 days as PW4U G6 Division Champion (5 September 2014 – present)
• Lost PW4U Tag Team Championships in March, as temporary partner Robert Sharpe was pinned by new champions ‘The Barmy Army’
• Issues with Robert Sharpe following loss of Tag Team championships.

Miscellaneous

• Trainer at House of Pain wrestling Academy, with a weekly advanced session. Focusing on Japanese style training, implementing ideals, drill and philosophies as learnt from a handful of companies I’ve trained with.
• Occasional stand-in trainer at HOP
• Upcoming Asia appearances

 

With those key points covered, lets cover this past weekend.  Hopefully you paid attention to the HOP catchup section…

So, this last weekend. Just one match to talk about, but its one thats been a while coming. Finally got an opportunity to compete for the House of Pain heavyweight championship, which has been the only one I’d never competed for in my home company.
House of Pain has grown hugely in the 6 months since I last blogged. We’re currently up to 5 shows a month, potentially 6,  or at the very least, 6 venues across Nottinghamshire. This is an outstanding achievement, especially since 3 years ago we were doing one a month. So, I think now is an important time, for HOP, as we head into the busiest time we’ve ever had, in front of more audiences than before.
Onto the match then, and this was, as mentioned above, a match against Kyle Kingsley, someone who I’ve seen progress since he started out. We’ve wrestled a handful of times previously, and they were pretty solid affairs, especially considering our relative experience at the time.
So for this contest – high stakes, main event, rammed venue in Beeston (ironically my first in-ring appearance here), and a determination to leave it all in the ring. Also, really bloody hot!
The crowd were split throughout the match, and they were really loud all the way through, which was nice, especially considering the heat and the previous 5 matches being good. The match itself was fine, but the perfectionist in me feels like the end run of the match should have had a little more pace to it, if I’m being really picky. It didn’t detract from the audiences reactions, so I can’t grumble too much, and I’m sure there’ll be opportunity to have another match and tidy those bits up.
Onto the result – well after a good couple of years, high fiving and being all smiles, something changed. Well, the belt crunching off of Ol’ Kingo’s bonce to be precise. It was time to take full advantage of the opportunity, and pin the champ to take the victory. And the House of Pain championship.

Now, talking honestly, this has been one of my ‘career’ goals since I started out; to win a title in my home company. Its taken a while longer than I’d have hoped, but on a positive note, at least now I can perform at a higher level than I could have, had this had happened earlier on in my career, so I’m looking forward to hopefully elevating the belt some more. Thats my goal with every championship I might hold, to make it mean something, before I have to pass it on.

So, that just about brings us up to date with 2017. Looking ahead, I’ll be aiming to publish the blog weekly again, probably Wednesdays/Thurdays, depending on my training schedule.
Upcoming Appearance:

24/06/2017 – House of Pain, Rainworth Miners Welfare, rainworth, Mansfield, Nott’mshire
Juken vs BFD

Juken on the Web (click on relevant link)

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All photographs used on this blog by Brett Hadley: Photography 

And Finally…

something I used to do on th blog previous was to stick a music video on right at the end. I’ve no idea if anyone ever checked it out, but ah well..
I’ve a very varied music taste, so there might be something that you can at least tolerate at least once…

 

Always look on the bright side…

 

So, that’s it, is it?

December, and 2016 in wrestling finished. I always try to keep this blog posts upbeat, regardless of how challenging the week has been, but this past week has been one of deep reflection. I guess it’s pretty normal as you reach the end of a year, or to a pivotal moment in your career.

It’s probably been aided by the fact I’ve been typing out the ‘Year in Review’ blog as well, where I’ve been able to map out this year. It’s been an interesting year, and I’m sure you’ll understand all that by the time you’ve read that particular blog. In the meantime, let’s talk about this month so far…

Well, I say month so far, its my only booking of the month, after another group I was booked for seem to have disappeared… Alas, this months one booking was for House of Pain wrestling, and a return to Cotgrave.

I don’t mind retrospectively admitting that there had been times through the year where I wasn’t sure where I fit in the HOP scene, but for the most part, I’m booked higher up the card these days, which I’m happy about. Its kind of coincided with when I feel like I was making decent strides of improvement in wrestling, so at least someone is seeing my creativity. I think the frustration has kind of been the tale of 2016 in all honesty, but I’ll cover that in the year blog.

Back on track, and Friday in cotgrave. This has very quickly become.my favorite HOP venues. Many reasons for this; the venue is fantastic and a lot of doors can be opens for hop if this venue is built well. Its a new one for us, and I’m really interested in building new areas, like this and Hucknall, for example.

Booked in a 6 man tag match,  with a rumble later in the evening, it was set to be a steady evening. First up the 6 man, myself, Joseph Conners and someone who is becoming somewhat a regular partner Garrett Bond, were set to take on LJ Heron, Danny Thomas and ‘Mean’ Marcus Hood. This ended up being all shenanigans, until Thomas rolled me up for the win.

Later on in the evening was the rumble, which eventually came down to myself and Garrett Bond. Such irony. Eventually, we did battle on the ring apron, and I managed to stick a leg up as he ran at me, and won the rumble. Now the number one contender to the HOP championship. Now, considering that I am the only remaining active class of 2011 HOP roster member to never have won a championship, it’s kind of going to have to be one of those now or never situations.

I guess we shall see next year eh? On that note, that’s it for 2016. It’s been an odd year. Come back next week to relive it all. I promise that there will be upbeat bits haha

Song of the week:

This past couple of weeks have been a bit of a downer in general, but this song has always been one of those I listen to in such times. Love a bit of Ayumi Hamasaki