As the famous ditty goes, “Oh I do like to be beside the seaside”. Something about seaside towns has always resonated with me. 

Whether it be the flashing fluorescent lights of an arcade, the intoxicating smells of a PROPER chippy, the bite of the wind whipping in from the coast, the sharpness of the sea air when it fills your lungs, the cheap pints, the sense of community or nostalgia from childhood trips, something feels different when I’m by the seaside. 

As well, wrestling feels different by the seaside, something that became apparent on a recent trip to Cleethorpes to watch British Wrestling Revolution’s first show of the year – Warning Shot. 

I understand and respect that many people enjoy professional wrestling for a multitude of emotive reasons, be that as a method of escapism from the shit life throws at you, as an outlet for their creativity and to express themselves or to find belonging in a like-minded community. 

That can lead people to view wrestling through different lenses – some people see it as an art form, a breeding ground for drama and cinema, as a sport grounded in realism, as a fantasy land where nothing is off limits  or simply as pure entertainment – which is one of the reasons there is so much in-fighting and aggravation online. 

The people of Cleethorpes and Grimsby, while they might fall into those camps individually, ultimately come together under the roof of the Cleethorpes Memorial Hall and view professional wrestling as professional wrestling. They believe. 

It’s a throwback to a time before the internet, social media and all of the secrets of the world of wrestling being laid bare for all to see and it’s absolutely brilliant. Irate Grandmas give the baddies stick, the kids cheer on their favourite heroes and break into fits of laughter when wrestlers tiptoe the line of acceptable language.

The crowd creates a raucous atmosphere and has a fantastic night in a way that feels different to other places on the British independent wrestling scene.

BWR have tapped into this by being a promotion that taps into the traditional dynamics of good and bad, while also providing all of the modern day action of 2020s wrestling. 

At the start of Warning Shot, after the crowd was welcomed by ring announcer Youngy who treads the line of Saturday night host and seriousness very well, resident bad guys the Violence Party entered to a chorus of boos as they outlined their objective of keeping the BWR World Championship around the waist of leader Scotty Rawk. 

This led to the evening’s title challenger Hard Man Dan coming out spoiling for a fight. A young prospect on the Northern scene, HMD received louder reactions than some of this country’s established premier talent, a theme that would continue through the night.

He was joined by Reece and Rogan of Yorkshire Tough and they were up for a scrap. A brawl ensued with Yorkshire Tough bringing violence to the Violence Party. To make sure that the violence continued, Reece and Rogan offered Jack Turner and BA Rose a shot at their BWR Tag Team Titles. 

This was proper fucking tag team wrestling, boys and girls. Since coming back into the BritWres fold last year, I’ve been quite uninspired by the tag team scene but this match hit me like a Yorkshire Tough double team move. 

Both teams could call upon a number of combo moves, they had matching gear and looked like they would be mates with their partner away from the ring. I want to believe that a tag team has common goals and interests

There was a great heap of BLOKES FIGHTING BLOKES to boot, which will always hook me in. All four lads looked like they could’ve been playing for the England Rugby team earlier in the evening, trading big time power moves and punches. I’d watch these four go at it again and again.

A mucked-up attempt at interference from VP cannon fodder Jimmy McIlwee gave Yorkshire Tough the opening they needed to secure the victory. 

The following match saw another fan favourite, the guy known as BOI, take on Brady Phillips. Like Hard Man Dan before him, BOI received a hero’s welcome from the Cleethorpes massive while Phillips received a welcome that included a few two finger salutes. 

Brady, who is part of the Bred For Better stable in BWR, is tailor made for the role of the arrogant div who is “far too good for the likes of BOI”.

He takes it as a personal insult that he’s matched up against you, as if you deserve to be in the same ring as him. It’s a role he excels at and when the rest of the country wakes up, it’ll take him to the top of the tree in the UK. 

Of course, Brady went too far with it all, grabbing trainee Luna Rae by the face and shoving her down when she wouldn’t give him a chair, which would come back to bite him later on in the show. 

BOI, as all good boys should, intervened to save Luna Rae but would eventually be on the receiving end of a Phillips piledriver and a loss. 

As Phillips cleared off, Robbie X stormed the ring and attacked  BOI, before demanding the microphone. Furious at the lack of respect he’s received after sacrificing his body for 15 years for “you people”, Robbie said he was here to deliver a warning shot of his own to the entire roster as he laid out a number of the trainees. The Nanas were not happy with Robbie here. 

There would be someone everyone was happy to see in the next match as Ace Matthews defended the BWR Open Division Championship. No, it wasn’t Ace Matthews that people were happy to see but we’ll get onto that in a second. 

Watching Ace in his incredibly endearing duo with Wing Commander Nash at True Grit over recent months had almost made me forget about how irritatingly brilliant Ace Matthews can be in his self-help guru guise. 

Being presented a stunning new belt, Ace laid out new rules for the Open Division title. Anyone of any weight class, gender and identity (except BOI) can challenge and WHEN (if) Ace successfully defends the championship four consecutive times, he can cash it in for a shot at the World Championship, Option C style. 

The first of those defences would be happening right here, right now and the call for an opponent was answered by the familiar melody of Mundian To Bach Ke and the return of Amir Jordan. Brothey is back and the Memorial Hall nearly had to have a whip-round to fund a new roof. WHO’S ‘ERE? AMIR!

Jordan and Matthews is a combination that would work at any show in the UK, no matter the stage, setting or audience. Trading technical holds to start, Ace soon pulled out his trademark shenanigans which eventually culminated with him rolling Jordan up for the 1-2-3 with his feet on the ropes. 

It’ll be interesting to see if anyone can overcome Ace’s buffoonery, or tactical genius as some may call it, or if he will indeed be able to score all 4 defences before cashing in for a World Championship match. 

Lizzy Evo, on the other hand, is sick and tired of waiting to cash in her title shot via the Anarchy Briefcase as reigning champion Kira Chimera of the Violence Party, had not turned up to defend her title against Lizzy. This didn’t seem to be a one-off either, judging by the ferocity with which Lizzy addressed her. 

Pissed off and eager to take it out on someone, Lizzy told any member of the Violence Party to come ‘ed and take the beating she’d prepared for Chimera. Turner and Rose, still licking their wounds from earlier in the night, forced a very reluctant Jimmy McIlwee to take up the challenge. 

Evo dealt with McIlwee in quick fashion, with a running knee to the back of the head getting the pinfall. Seeing Lizzy Evo be such a beloved hero here was incredibly strange given how I’ve seen her character portrayed elsewhere, but it’s certainly something I could get used to. 

It was even weirder to see Ricky Knight Jr. as a full-on, no fence-sitting #1 good guy. There are no shades of grey in Lincolnshire, that’s for clouds. 

BWR feels like an old-school territory days promotion and Ricky Knight Jr. is the king of this territory. He was treat like a superstar by this crowd and it’s easy to see why RKJ so easily connects with the BWR crowd. 

Here, he came across as a Jack the Lad character, a cheeky chappy, the life and soul of the party who everyone knows and likes but equally everyone knows not to cross. There’s one of those lads in every council estate in the country.

Everyone in the BWR crowd probably knows someone like that and it creates an instant familiarity that maybe RKJ doesn’t get at other promotions, or doesn’t get to exploit. 

His opponent, Myles Kayman, falls into a similar category of instilling instant familiarity for a crowd, but on the opposite end of the spectrum to RKJ. Whereas RKJ was able to hit that from a positive sense, Myles Kayman instantly reminds you of the arseholes in your life.

Depending on when you hit your early twenties, you might refer to them as the TOWIE crowd, the Geordie Shore wannabees, spice boys, Ibiza warriors or straight up dickheads. 

Kayman takes RKJ’s cheekiness and turns it into arrogance, ramps up the cockiness to ten and wants to let you know how tough he is rather than showing you. It made for a certified banger of a match as someone who is “Ibiza Tough” went against council-estate hard. 

Kayman kept pace with Knight throughout the match but everything he did was 5-10% less effective. His slams didn’t have the same impact on RKJ who was able to recover quicker when they traded strikes, Kayman couldn’t deliver as much punishment as he received from Knight and there aren’t many wrestlers on the planet who can go chop-for-chop with Ricky Knight Jr. 

Seriously, those chops hit differently when they’re ringing out around a small hall. 

That isn’t a criticism of Myles Kayman in the slightest. It was the perfect undertone to a match that presented RKJ as always being one step ahead. Myles Kayman is destined for great things in this business but he isn’t at RKJ’s level yet. 

A cracking back-and-forth match reached its conclusion when RKJ hit his signature ‘Kishi Driver to win. Please search this match out when the show goes up on bwrondemand.vhx.tv.

The two showed each other respect at the end. There’s a potential tag team run in these two, you know. 

Following the interval, Bred For Better were back out as Brady Phillips took a ringside seat to watch his stablemates Riley Nova and Joseph Conners take on the Rowe Bros. 

While Joseph Conners has been a mainstay of the UK scene for over a decade and it was great to see him again, it was the less experienced participants in this match who caught the eye. 

The Rowe Bros are going to get some major opportunities over the next few years as an exciting, athletic duo who’re incredibly easy to root for. They’ve already got a catchy tune – the themes at BWR are bang on by the way – and I can see them becoming big favourites everywhere. 

They’d blow the roof off gaffs against the Bryants or CPF. 

Conners and Brady’s protege Riley Nova is someone else who’ll go far on these shores. The comparisons to Brady and Conners are evident, but there’s also hints of Joey Hayes and Nathan Cruz to his game. 

As Bred For Better struggled to keep the Rowe Bros grounded, Brady tried to interfere but he was cut off by Luna Rae, getting her payback for earlier in the show (PRO WRESTLING CAN BE SO SIMPLE), and the Rowes flipped their way to victory. 

After announcing that BWR would be hitting the road this summer for a day out in Scarborough – count me in, lads – Youngy set the stage for our main event of the evening as Scotty Rawk defended the BWR World Championship against Hard Man Dan. 

When I’d been prepping to make the trip to Cleethorpes, I’d seen some discussion amongst BWR fans whether Hard Man Dan was truly worthy of a title shot and main event status. 

I won’t pretend to have followed Hard Man Dan’s journey through the company but the reception he received on his entrance and throughout the match answered that question for me. Was Hard Man Dan worthy of this opportunity? YES KING. 

Scotty Rawk may be a deplorable, sleazy human being but he isn’t daft. Hard Man Dan’s most obvious weapon is his right hand so Rawk went after his right arm, making every strike HMD less and less effective. 

The crowd rallied round Hard Man Dan, the young man rising to the challenge and battling through the pain. However, they were silenced when Rawk dropped him with the Bastard Driver to signal the end of the match. 1…2…NO WAY. Hard Man Dan kicked out! 

That burst of adrenaline meant HMD went into overdrive and inadvertently led to him knocking down the referee. 

Shenanigans ensued with Violence Party coming out, HMD clearing house, Scotty Rawk hitting a top rope Spanish Fly, attempted belt shots and HMD finally landing a massive right hand. As the referee counted the three, the Memorial Hall went beserk. Hard Man Dan had beaten Scotty Rawk. The Violence Party was finally over. 

Except he hadn’t and the Violence Party was still raging on. BA Rose had put Rawk’s foot onto the bottom rope. After a brief conference between the officials, the match was restarted and Rawk took advantage of Dan’s bewilderment hitting a low blow and a concussive heel kick to retain his title. 

Like a pack of Hyenas, Violence Party set about Dan until Yorkshire Tough and BWR legend Tyler Devlin came out to make the save.

Devlin, who is now the acting commissioner of the company, let Scotty Rawk know he was sick of all of the bullshit. On March 15th, Rawk, Turner and Rose will be in a tables match against Hard Man Dan and Yorkshire Tough. 

As Rawk, Turner and Rose fumed, we didn’t have to wait until next month for some tables. In their hasty retreat, they had left Jimmy McIlwee at the feet of Yorkshire Tough. For the third time that evening, McIlwee ate canvas as he was blasted through a table to cap a fucking excellent evening of professional wrestling.

I never thought I’d say this but I can’t wait to go back to Cleethorpes.

Image Credits: British Wrestling Revolution, @Elliottt93