11/10 Global Wars UK 2016, Night One: Sabre Jr., Ospreay, Shibata, Nagata, Dunne, Scurll, Liger, Honma, more

GLOBAL WARS UK 2016, PT. 1
NOV. 10, 2016
BETHNAL GREEN, LONDON AT YORK HALL
REPORT BY DAVID GREEN, PWTORCH CORRESPONDENT

Revolution Pro Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling presented Global Wars UK 2016 Night 1 at York Hall, Bethnal Green, London, featuring NJPW vs RevPro talents.

(1) “The Villain” Marty Scurll defeated Jushin Thunder Liger by submission. This was a very fun opener. Scurll entered wearing a Liger style mask. Liger hit some nice high spots, including a top rope Frankensteiner, while Scurll blocked a palm strike with his finger snap. Liger mimicked Scurll with the “Just Kidding” superkick, but Scurll reversed a roll up into the chicken wing to get the win. Good sportsmanship was shown between both men after the match.

(2) Tomoaki Honma defeated Sha Samuels. Honma missed twice when going for the Kokeshi (no surprises there) but when he hit the third attempt, the crowd cheered hugely. The referee was knocked down, which allowed Samuels to hit a low blow, while his tag partner James Castle ran in to hit a running knee on Honma. Samuels failed to get a three count and held Honma up for Castle to attack again. Samuels got hit instead and Honma hit the top rope Kokeshi head butt to get the pin. A decent encounter.

(3) Yugi Nagata defeated Pete Dunne. Both men engaged in some nice technical exchanges in the early going, with Dunne gaining the advantage for a time. However Nagata took over with some vicious kicks and scored with his eye-rolling armbar. Dunne attempted some high impact moves and hit a top rope double stomp for a close fall, but Nagata hit the Backdrop Hold out of nowhere to score the three count. Both men tried hard in this, but there wasn’t a huge amount of chemistry.

(4) Chris Hero defeated Tomohiro Ishii. This was stiff as hell. A lot of forearms, elbows, kicks and chops. Hero hit a piledriver, but Ishii got straight to his feet. The same happened later, but Hero scored with a big strike immediately to get a very close two count, for which the crowd got to their feet. Hero eventually kept Ishii down for the three count after a Gotch piledriver. After the match, Hero attempted to shake the hand of Ishii, who refused. Hero nevertheless put Ishii over hugely on the mic.

(5) Will Ospreay defeated BUSHI. This was a great way to kick off the second half of the show. Ospreay scored with a Space Flying Tiger Drop, while BUSHI came back with a great missile dropkick. After the ref was knocked down (again!), BUSHI spat black mist into Ospreay’s eyes, low blowed him and got a cradle backslide, but couldn’t score the win. He then hit a destroyer piledriver, but Ospreay kicked out again! After some more exchanges, with the ref deciding to ignore the entirely blackened face of Ospreay, BUSHI was hit with the OsCutter, which ended the match.

(6) Los Ingobernables de Japón (Naito, EVIL & Sanada) defeated Moustache Mountain (Trent Seven & Tyler Bate) & “The Product” David Starr. This was a really fun match, with Starr adopting a drawn on moustache to show unity with his partners. There were plenty of shenanigans from both teams, but the match was action packed from the outset. Moustache Mountain scored with a tandem dive, with Bate getting spectacular height on his. In the ring EVIL hit his STO on Starr to score the win.

(7) Katsuyori Shibata defeated Zack Sabre Jr. to win the Undisputed British Heavyweight Championship. This was a rematch from their encounter at Summer Sizzler, which many fans were disappointed in (for reasons I can’t fathom, personally), but this match was an overall better encounter. A number of the crowd once again reacted negatively to Sabre, who slightly heelishly attacked Shibata’s taped up shoulder throughout the match. When he tried his penalty kicks, Sabre failed to do much damage as Shibata mounted a huge comeback. This went back and forth with great grappling, submission attempts and huge kicks and slaps. Sabre was unable to catch Shibata in the European Clutch, which had scored the win in the previous match, and Shibata caught him in the sleeper. Shibata positioned the champion for the PK and hit it, scoring the three count to shockingly become the new British Heavyweight champion. After the match, Shibata wanted a handshake, but Marty Scurll (who is technically the no.1 contender) came out to take Zack away without the handshake. Then Hero made his way to the ring to stare down the new champion ahead of their clash on Night 2. They each gestured towards the title belt, making it seem their match will now for the championship.

FINAL NOTES: A good show, with a particularly strong second half. After the time it took to get the crowd into the venue with some new security measures, it seemed some matches had some time cut. But the main event and Ishii/Hero are well worth watching. I’ll be back tomorrow with a report from Night 2, which will feature Hero vs. Shibata, Naito & Sanada vs. Scurll & Sabre Jr., and Will Ospreay vs. Jushin Liger among others.