Mike Reviews FWA Crunch – 02.04.06

Happy Crunching Friday Everyone!

We’re staying in the UK this week for a show from the FWA (Frontier Wrestling Alliance) as they present Crunch 2006. I actually decided to review this one because I was perusing an old edition of Power Slam Magazine and this show was covered in the results section. I thought it sounded like an interesting show and had a look to see if I could find it anywhere. Thanks to the FWA Files we’ll be able to watch this one, with Pac and Katarina Waters/Winter/Katie Lea being the two names most recognisable to you without much knowledge of the British Wrestling Scene from this timeframe.

You can view the full card for Crunch by clicking below;

FWA Crunch 2006 Card

FWA Crunch is emanating from the Broxbourne Civic Hall in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire

I sadly don’t recognise the commentator and he never says who he is, so I’m afraid I can’t give him his due credit here. Always mention your name at the start of the tape/video prospective commentators

Opening Match
Second Match in the Best of Three Series
The EntouRAGE (“The Specialist” Mark Sloan and Ollie Burns) Vs Maximum Head (Dan Head and Max Voltage)

Sloan ran the FWA when it was the Fratton Wrestling Alliance and then focused on running the FWA Wrestling Academy, with Burns, Head and Voltage all being students of his. Sloan and Burns won the first match in the three match series, so if Maximum Head lose here then that’s the series over with. There’s lots of quick paced counter wrestling in this one, with Sloan and Burns eventually cheating to cut Head off Max and target his left arm. Max sells that well enough, but then has a great chance to tag out when he flips over Burns, but instead he turns around to do a fippy arm drag when he’s wide open for the tag, which is pretty dumb and poor tag team psychology. They could probably do with turning down the ring lights a bit actually, as we’re dealing with four pretty pale dudes in there and it looks like all four of them are fighting on the helipad in Metal Gear Solid. Head eventually gets the hot tag and runs wild with headbutt’s, leading to things breaking down. Max gets tagged back in, but the Code Red attempt on Burns is broken up by Sloan. Maximum Head fire back with a combination Spine Buster/Buff Blockbuster move (Head does the Spine Buster and Max does the Blockbuster) on Burns and that’s enough for three after nearly 6 Minutes

WINNERS: MAXIMUM HEAD
RATING: *3/4

Thoughts: Some okay flippy stuff, but the psychology was a bit off, especially when Max was clean open for the hot tag but decided that he had to do another spot first, which just totally took me out of the match. The double team move at the end looked good, but this was three inexperienced guys and their trainer in there, and it showed

Nick Leftley from Maxim magazine joins ring announcer Jon Atkins in the ring, as Maxim are apparently writing a story on the FWA. This of course sets off the angle alarm, as FWA British Heavyweight Champion Hade Vansen and Nikita head down to the ring. Vansen and Nikita do the stereotypical “we’re cocky Heels who are above all this” promo and then get annoyed when it’s revealed that the article Leftley is writing will be all about Jonny Storm and not Vansen, which is Storm’s cue to join us, and he makes sure to call Nikita a skank seeing as it’s 2006 and all. Storm vows to win the belt tonight, which leads to a fight. Storm looks to be getting the better of Vansen and Nikita, but James Tighe runs out to attack Storm, as he was feuding with Storm and Jody Fleisch at the time. Thankfully the commentator mentions that Jody isn’t here tonight, to explain why he isn’t running out to help his friend. Vansen beats up Leftley, which makes me think there was no Maxim article and the guy was just a trainee, or that they decided to teach him how to take some moves for the purpose of the article. A quick Google search reveals that Leftley was indeed a Maxim writer so they probably taught him how to take some moves for the purposes of the article. Darren Burridge runs down to the ring to rescue Storm and Leftley, and we appear to have a match between Tighe and Burridge up next. Standard promo segment stuff here, although Burridge was fun on the mic when he challenged Tighe

Match Two
James Tighe Vs “The Pukka One” Darren Burridge

Tighe was one of the hot prospects from the FWA’s early years and he probably would have made his way to NXT at some point had he come along today because he had a lot of potential but WWE wasn’t as aggressive in signing UK talents back in the 2000’s as they’d end up being in the 2010’s. Burridge mostly made his name working for 1PW, where he teamed with Colt Cabana as Team SHAG, with his character mostly being an aggressive Londoner who refers to everyone as a “slag”, leading to him having a fun remixed version of the Blur song “Girls and Boys” where slag is basically every other lyric.

They almost immediately head out into the crowd here, with them trading shots in the front row before both stopping the count and heading in for some more technical based wrestling, which is where Tighe should have the clear advantage but Burridge gets to show off some technical skills as well. Apparently Tighe had to dress up as a clown at one point in 2005, which is something I have zero memory of but it doesn’t stop some of the fans singing Doink The Clown’s entrance music at him at one point in the match. After the brawl section and the technical wrestling section, we now move into a test of strength, as this match kind of feels like it’s been structured in reverse, as you’d think they’d start out with the knuckle-lock, move into the technical wresting part and then have it build to them eventually brawling, but that’s not what we’ve had here.

Burridge ties up Tighe like he’s Milano Collection AT, but stops to try and sing on the mic and that allows Tighe to break free and deliver a back suplex for the cut off. Burridge had no one to blame but himself on that one. Burridge doesn’t get worked over for long and is eventually making a comeback, getting a wacky elbow drop at one stage. Tighe manages to deliver his Tighe-Tanic lifting reverse DDT move, but Burridge kicks out at two and locks Tighe in some kind of lucha style submission for the win after about 13 Minutes.

WINNER: DARREN BURRIDGE
RATING: **

Thoughts: They couldn’t seem to work out what they wanted this to be, as it was part brawl, part technical battle and part comedy match, and it would have probably benefitted from them just picking a lane and sticking to it. Tighe was pretty decisively defeated here too, with Burridge kicking out of his finisher, taking most of the match itself, and then winning it clean by submission. Considering that Tighe Main Evented arguably the FWA’s biggest ever show in 2004 against AJ Styles at British Uprising III, this was a bit if a stepdown for him

Match Three
FWA British Tag Team Titles
Champions: Stixx and Stone (Stixx and Martin Stone) Vs The New Breed (Ashe and Curve)

Stixx and Stone had gotten their starts in the FWA as security for Alex Shane and would eventually move onto becoming wrestlers in their own right, with Stone going on to become FWA British Heavyweight Champion at the end of the 2000’s whilst Stixx would go on to run the House of Pain wrestling school up in Nottingham. Stone would also go on to become Danny Burch in NXT, if any of you remember that period in NXT history. The New Breed were stars from the early days of the FWA, basically doing a Hardy Boyz/Brood styled team, although they’re more of a generic babyface team here. Stixx and Stone are normally managed by Dean Ayass, the man who would probably be best known for being Paul Burchill’s manager in the FWA, but Ayass is not allowed at ringside for this one due to a pre-match stipulation.

The New Breed shine on Stixx to start, with it being standard babyface tag team stuff and looking decent. Stone ends up crushing Curve with a running senton and that’s enough for the cut off, with the champs using illegal double teaming and underhanded tactics (such as Stixx flinging Curve into the ring post outside the ring whilst the referee isn’t looking) whenever the situation allows. It’s usual tag formula stuff, with Curve selling well and the champs keeping it simple, and it works for the crowd, with Curve getting sympathy and the champions getting booed. It’s been a pretty flat atmosphere on Crunch thus far, as the building clearly isn’t full, but the people that are there are attempting to get into this one and making a bit of noise. Curve eventually manages to hold the champs off long enough to make the tag to Ashe, who runs wild with the hot tag and looks good. Ashe manages to hit the champs with a double Sliced Bread, but they are able to kick out and save their belts. Things breakdown following that, and it leads to both duo’s having chances to win it until Stone hits Ashe with a cane that Ayass left behind, and that’s the three for the champions after about 14 Minutes.

WINNERS AND STILL CHAMPIONS: STIXX & STONE
RATING: **3/4

Thoughts: Decent action here, with them working the formula and busting out some big moves in the closing stages. That’s the most invested the crowd has been so far at Crunch, as you could actually hear them in that one even though it’s not a full house. Solid tag team wrestling for the most part and it felt shorter than it actually was, which is no bad thing

Charlie Rage, a man who physically looks like a combination of both Rhino and Hiroyoshi Tenzan, runs down to beat up The New Breed following the match, and he would seem to be a new client of Ayass. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have Rage run down during the match as it would be a way around the Ayass not allowed at ringside deal? Ayass then cuts a promo but sadly the sound cuts out so I can’t hear what he’s saying

Match Four
Three Way Dance for the FWA Flyweight Title
Champion: “The Gift” Ross Jordan Vs “Unbreakable” Stevie Lynn Vs “The Man Gravity Forgot” Pac

Jordan was the inaugural Champion and would eventually go on to be known as RJ Singh and has wrestled sporadically well into the 2020’s. Stevie Lynn is a lad from Teesside who used to do most of his wrestling for 3 Count Wrestling in the North East of England. Pac is from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and wound up working for both WWE and AEW. Joran cuts an arrogant pre-match promo before the match, with the commentator getting in a funny line that you can tell that Jordan was trained by Alex Shane, as Shane has a very noticeable promo style that a lot of his students ended up using as well.

Future Rev Pro owner Andy Quildan is the referee for this one, as that was his gig before he got into promoting. Jordan is a clear Heel in this one whilst Lynn is a tweener and Pac looks to be the babyface. This one is all action, with it being first pin/submission winning it. Lynn shows off his tweener tendencies by helping Jordan double up on Pac at one stage, as they both see Pac as the biggest threat to a potential victory. Pac is lacking the stage presence he would go on to develop, and is also sporting a pretty unfortunate Screech from Saved By The Bell styled hairdo, but his high flying is already as smooth as butter.

Jordan and Lynn’s alliance of course crumbles eventually, which leads to Pac being able to get back into things now that the other two wrestlers aren’t exclusively focused on beating him up. Jordan catches Lynn with a DDT from the second rope, but Pac breaks that up and that gives us Finisher Madness™, where everyone hits a big move but their pin attempt gets broken up by someone else in the match. Pac gets an incredible Phoenix Splash styled dive from inside the ring out onto both of his opponents on the floor, with him getting dangerously close to smashing his face on the metal railings in the process. Lynn and Pac sadly make a hash of some kind of Irish Whip reversal spot, but they quickly get the crowd back when Pac delivers a Shooting Star Knee Drop to the back of a kneeling Lynn. Pac ends up delivering the 630 Splash to Jordan and that’s the three count after about 13 Minutes.

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: PAC
RATING: ***1/4

Thoughts: Putting Pac over was the right call here, as Jordan was a good character wrestler with a strong grasp of the basics, but Pac was the super exciting high flyer that would help make the division stand out, and just two shows in he was already over with the crowd, so sticking the belt on him made sense. This was a good match overall, with Jordan being a good Heel and Lynn’s work looking decent for the most part, even if he was lacking some personality. Pac was essentially a generic babyface who did really cool moves at this stage, but that was fine for the level both he and the FWA were at during this time and you could tell even in 2006 that Pac had something special about him

Match Five
FWA All England Title
Champion: Leroy Kincade Vs Jorge Castano

Kincade got a pretty big push in the FWA during the late 2000’s and was one of the big hopes for the promotion. Now he appears to be a film maker who released a film in 2022 called “The Last Rite”. Castano was in and out of the FWA from 1999 onwards, with him usually showing up to do a show or two each year after being somewhat of a regular fixture in the promotion up to 2001. Castano is a mystery opponent here, with him essentially filling the role of the “victim of the day” for Kincade, who was getting a bit of a Goldberg-like push as a dominant star at the time. Castano gets a flurry of offence, and looks good for the most part, but Kincade shrugs it off and puts Castano away with an impressive looking Spiral Tap after about 3 minutes as the crowd amuses themselves by chanting “Leeeeeeeeee-royyyyyyyyyyyy”

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: LEROY KINCADE
RATING: SQUASH

Thoughts: This achieved what it needed to, as Castano got a little bit of offence and then Kincade smashed him in order to keep his dominant push going. Kincade looked like a star here and you can see why the FWA was getting behind him at the time

Match Six
Hardcore Rules
Iceman w/ Greg Lambert Vs Paul Travell

Iceman is a deathmatch guy who is still going to this day, with the storyline here being that Lambert used to manage Travell but Travell has broken away from him, so Lambert has brought in Iceman to destroy his former charge. Travell’s whole thing at the time was that he had a barbed wire baseball bat called “Mr. Pointy” that he’d try to use in his matches, which should be allowed in this one seeing as it’s hardcore rules and the commentator is warning us to take the kids out of the room for this one. They quickly head out to the floor, giving us our crowd brawling segment. Travell gets the best of that, with Iceman eventually bleeding from something. In a funny moment, a kid in the crowd has an inflatable hammer and clocks Iceman with it, which is totally acceptable as there’s no way of that actually hurting Iceman and it lets the young fan get involved.

Iceman gets back into things inside the ring when he does his best Sid Eudy impression by stabbing Travell with some scissors, which leads to Travell coming up bleeding. Travell hides under the ring following that, with Iceman going to look for him, which allows Travell to grab Mr. Pointy and wear Iceman out with it. Thumbtacks come next, because of course they do, and each wrestler takes a tumble into them at different points, as the crowd doesn’t seem to be digging this as much any more as they were seemingly hoping for a fun WWF/WCW styled hardcore match and now they’re getting deathmatch stuff. Lambert ends up getting dragged into the ring and slammed onto the tacks when he tries to interfere against Travell, but that allows Iceman to Powerbomb Travell onto the tacks a couple of times.

Iceman then adds a Powerbomb onto Mr. Pointy, but somehow Travell kicks out at two from that, which does succeed in getting a reaction from the crowd after they went very quiet when the powerbomb was delivered. Iceman tries to powerbomb Travell off the apron through a wooden board that is set up between the ring and the metal railings after that, but Travell counters that into a rana in order to send both competitors tumbling through the board. Referee Steve Lynskey decides that neither wrestler can continue when they drag themselves back into the ring but neither seems to be with it, so the match is called a draw after about 22 Minutes. That would have worked more if they’d both been counted out or something rather than the ref just looking at them and going “nope, you’re not fighting anymore”.

NO CONTEST
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: Decent enough ultraviolent brawl, but it probably wasn’t the right match for the crowd and the finish didn’t really work in execution either. Still, for what it was it was an okay example of the genre

Lambert and Iceman steal Mr. Pointy following the match, so this feud will continue

Main Event
FWA British Heavyweight Title
Champion: Hade Vansen w/ Nikita Vs Jonny Storm

Vansen was an exceedingly boring wrestler who happened to be a protégé of Alex Shane, so he always got pushed and even managed to wrangle himself a spell in WWE developmental. He had one notable vignette in WWE, which was supposed to lead to an angle with The Undertaker, but that didn’t end up happening because someone clearly realised that it would mean that HADE VANSEN would have to wrestle THE UNDERTAKER and everyone came to their collective senses. Nikita would likely be better known as Katie Lea Burchill/Winter depending on whether you were watching WWE in the 2000’s or TNA in the 2010’s. She had been a babyface for most of her FWA run but they turned her Heel in order to help Vansen win the FWA British Title from his mentor. Despite giving him the top belt and pairing him with a gorgeous woman, Vansen still remained one of the most boring human being’s alive. Storm had been a big name on the British Scene for quite a while prior to this, with him having appearances in TNA, ROH and CZW in the 2000’s. Storm was mostly known for his feud with Jody Fleisch, with them essentially taking their match all over the world and usually delivering a fun bout when doing so.

Storm shines on Vansen to start and looks to do a dive, but Vansen uses Nikita as a shield and that causes Storm to hesitate, which eventually leads to Vansen giving Storm a powerbomb out on the floor for the cut off. Nikita for a long time had been booked as someone who would regularly mix it with the men during her babyface days, so her suddenly becoming a traditional Heel female valet feels like a bit of a tonal shift, but I guess it differentiated her Heel character from her previous babyface one. Vansen works Storm over with rest holds following that, with Storm selling it all well and Nikita getting in some cheap shots when the occasion allows. Watching this you can see why WWE did eventually hire Vansen, even if they didn’t go through with the Undertaker storyline, as he’s very much a “WWE Style” worker here. Nikita does cheat in full view of the ref by grabbing Storm’s ankle at one stage, and that means the ref kind of just has to ignore it because they’re not doing a DQ finish there, which is a bit of a shame. To any fledgling Heels that might be reading this; if you make the ref look dumb then the heat is on them and not you. Protect the ref!

Vansen tries winning by count out at one stage, but Storm manages to make it back into the ring at 19 and the bout continues. I saw Vansen do a match very similar to this with Jody Fleisch at a show around this time actually, complete with him doing the move on the floor and trying to win via count out. Storm eventually fights back, getting a Quebrada for a two count. Each wrestler has chances to win it down the home stretch, with referee Andy Quildan catching a stray boot to the face at one stage when Vansen tries a fireman’s carry. This allows Nikita to come in with a low blow, which sets up a DDT from Vansen in a good near fall. Quildan gets bumped for real soon after that, which brings Nikita in the ring, where she ends up taking a botched Wonder Whirl. However, Robbie Brookside from All-Star Wrestling (a promotion that FWA was feuding with at the time) heads down to cost Storm the match, meaning that Vansen can pick up the dodgy win after about 16 Minutes.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: HADE VANSEN
RATING: **3/4

Thoughts: This was okay, with Storm and Vansen both playing their respective roles well enough. Vansen is just not an exciting guy to watch and the heat dragged a bit because of that. The finish was a bit lame but it did set up a future match down the line, which was nice to see

Brookside cuts a bitter post-match promo on Storm, saying that he wasn’t going to allow Storm to win the belt and challenges the FWA wrestlers to show up to Morecambe on the 13th May to take on the All-Star wrestlers. Storm swears up a…well, storm and accepts the challenge for May

In Conclusion:

Crunch was an okay show for the most part. The production could have been better, but the general quality of the wrestling was fine for what was essentially a small regional Indy at the time. The better days for the FWA had clearly passed by the time Crunch happened, as Doug Williams was too busy off wrestling in Japan, Paul Burchill was a pirate on SmackDown, and the top level imports such as Steve Corino, CM Punk, Christopher Daniels and others weren’t coming over anymore. Even popular mid-card stars from the 2002-2004 peak like Jack Xavier and Simmonz either weren’t around anymore or had changed gimmicks, meaning that Jonny Storm and James Tighe were really the only remaining links to the better days (I suppose Vansen too, but nobody really liked him during that period so it doesn’t really count). They’d even had to replace Ulf Herman with Iceman in the “wacky big hardcore guy” slot, with Iceman not really having the charisma or presence that Ulf had in the role.

There was nothing wrong with putting on solid shows based around UK talent, especially if folks like Pac were being brought in and showcased, but the FWA’s big draw at the start of the 2000’s was that they presented a more American Indy style of wrestling and that they would bring over stars from promotions like ROH, TNA and CZW so that fans could see those guys on their front doorstep. Once the fans had developed a taste for that; it was harder to then transition into being a more British focused product. There was a notable drop in the production values here compared to 2003/04 as well, when the promotion actually looked decent for this level of wrestling and had things like pyrotechnics etc. 1PW was starting around this time as well, although their promotion was basically ALL imports with little British involvement, and that ended up being unsustainable. FWA had it about right in the first half of the 2000’s where they predominantly had a British roster but they’d bring over one or two imports per show. Sadly by 2006 that business model wasn’t really viable financially for the FWA anymore, but it was the model the fans had come accustom to, hence why there were notable empty seats for this show when Broxbourne had previously been a decent stop for the promotion.

I don’t think I can strongly recommend Crunch. It was a “perfectly cromulent” show as Scott Keith might say, but there are so many better FWA shows you could watch from 2002-2004 if you wanted to see what the FWA was all about at the time. I’d suggest checking out British Uprising from 2002, Frontiers of Honour 2003 or British Uprising III from 2004 to get an idea of what the FWA could do on its better days.