New Generation Wrestling holds a special place in my heart. My first independent wrestling event was an NGW show in the market town of Northallerton in 2014, with the main pull being the appearances of Paul London and Brian Kendrick.

That show also introduced me to a number of my soon-to-be favourite wrestlers – Rampage Brown, Mark Haskins, Nathan Cruz and Liam Slater – as well as making me aware that I could access a strong level of live pro wrestling essentially on my doorstep without having to trek to London or other major cities. 

So as I plotted out the first wrestling adventures of 2025, as I attempt to reconnect with British Wrestling, NGW’s major outing at Hull City Hall felt like a must-do. The feeling was mutual for many as over 1000 people packed out the City Hall for Destiny 2025. 

There is a larger discussion to be had about the state of the British Wrestling scene – one I will have this year – but the whole North East/Yorkshire region is currently bouncing with bumper crowds and sold-out shows in recent times.

NGW presents themselves as a true family experience. They don’t walk any lines or showcase their roster  with shades of grey. Their shows are pure family night out at the wrestling, foam fingers and all, which makes for a great time. An engaged, noisy audience uplifts everything. 

The start of the show rubber stamped this as a 3 minute “catch up” video played on the screens – not all of the bumper crowd were going to be familiar with the goings-on and these videos continued through the night – before ring announcer Stevie Aaron opened proceedings.

I’ve not seen Stevie Aaron in years! His enthusiastic, holiday camp announcing style is absolutely perfect for a night in the local city hall, getting people whipped up before the matches start. 

The opening contest saw reigning NGW Tag Team Champions Yorkshire Tough defending their belts against the Gen-X (NGW’s cruiserweight/junior division) tandem of Robbie X and Jack Bandicoot. This match would be held under Gen-X rules, at Yorkshire Tough’s request, which meant a 10 minute time limit that ensured action which is exactly what we got. 

Yorkshire Tough are baddies here in NGW, as part of the NewGen faction with Myles Kayman and Vusyk which would come into play later, and got hammered with boos throughout. On the other hand, you wouldn’t have found a pair of more popular fellas in the city of Hull than Robbie X and Jack Bandicoot. 

Despite going through a bit of an attitude shift in other promotions, Robbie X was the Robbie X you’ve all come to know and love here, because he is respected in NGW.

Whereas he’s felt slighted by other BritWres companies and their audiences, something I’d love to dig into deeper, NGW is Robbie X country. They treat him like a superstar in Hull City Hall. 

The same can be said of Jack Bandicoot who was particularly popular with the kids. 

Though these were two of NGW’s very best Gen-Xers, Yorkshire Tough got about to Yorkshire Toughin’, focusing much of their offence on Bandicoot while keeping Robbie X sidelined with sneaky tactics and well-timed attacks. 

I’ve constantly stressed that wrestling shows, for me, should always start off with a match between distinct good and bad guys to get the crowd going OR something super exciting to energise the building. This match hit both of those targets with ease, as both teams pulled out fun tag team combos before Yorkshire Tough got the win in the allotted time. 

This brought out NGW Champion Myles Kayman to congratulate his stablemates before ripping on the crowd, saying that he’s sick of the rumours of dissent in the NewGen and that tonight they would put those rumours to bed when he retired Matt Myers and Yorkshire Tough won the Rumble. 

NGW favourite Dara Diablo came out to put an end to Kayman’s prognosticating, admitting that there aren’t many of the old guard of NGW left to challenge the NewGen, though he wasn’t about to go down without a fight. He hadn’t come to Hull alone. 

The lights went out and when they came back on, two hooded men had cut off the NewGens escape route as they and Diablo laid the boots to the baddies.

It was revealed that the two men were Joseph Conners and Riley Nova. Conners took to the mic promising PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE from himself, Diablo and his righteous soldier Nova. The Righteous Army rides again (now that’s a throwback). 

It didn’t feel *right* to be cheering for Riley Nova but it’s great to see him getting a shot on a platform like NGW and I’m looking forward to seeing how The Righteous Army fares against the NewGen. 

Something that did feel right was being able to boo Lizzy Evo again – she’s been a fan favourite on my recent travels – as she took on Hollie Barlow in a non-title match. 

Evo exchanged barbs with the crowd as she pretty much dominated Barlow in first gear, smacking the Mancunian about in a wrestling derby. As soon as Barlow showed signs of mounting a fight back, Evo quickly turned the pace up and ended the match with a running knee. 

I’ve seen Hollie Barlow in small doses so far this year and I can’t wait to see more of her, there could be a mega underdog run in her across multiple companies. 

This was light work for Evo, and she said as much on the microphone, saying it was “too easy” (which is a majestic phrase in a Scouse accent) and giving it the bigg’un asking if there was anybody else backstage who wanted a piece of her. 

A returning Alexxis Falcon, a hometown hero in these parts, answered Evo’s question but the Liverbird didn’t want any part of Falcon, quickly escaping behind the curtain. Falcon, who has come back from injury recently, will make her official NGW in-ring return on June 27th at the next big City Hall show. 

Another video came onto the screen in preparation for the next match where “Cowboy” Ace Matthews, who is on the search for a new friend, made his case for former TNA star James Storm to be his tag team partner on tonight’s show. Dead funny, dead silly, proper pro wrestling and this bled into the eventual singles match between the pair. 

The chokehold that TNA Wrestling had on the UK for over a decade should never be downplayed. I couldn’t tell you the last time I heard the name James Storm but he was welcomed into Hull City Hall like an old friend. 

Matthews was in his element here, needling Storm with choosing sparkling water over beer and trying to get the Cowboy to pose with him. Storm quickly had enough of this and started to put a whoopin’ on Ace, taking him around ringside so that he could interact with the crowd while dishing out left and rights. 

His offer of friendship rejected, Ace dove into his bag of tricks to try and score the pinfall, which eventually built up to Storm landing his patented Last Call Superkick, sending Ace’s gobful of beer spraying and giving Storm the win. 

If that was proper pro wrestling at one end of the spectrum, the match between Myles Kayman and Matt Myers was proper pro wrestling at the other end. 

Myers, one of the pillars of New Generation Wrestling, was putting up his wrestling career for the opportunity to dethrone Myles Kayman and put an end to the NewGens reign of terror. 

An NGW veteran of 17 years, Myers had been involved in the featured match of the companies three most highly-attended shows, was a multiple time champion and a beloved hero to this audience. 

Running a “family show” doesn’t exclude you from eliciting real emotion from an audience beyond the boos and the yaays, and these two took the crowd by the scruff of the neck and took it along on a thrill ride of a match. 

The pre-match stare down with the house lights dimmed gave this match an extra lick of big time paint, if the stakes weren’t enough to get you hooked in.

This was a masterclass in skullduggery from Myles Kayman. He hit his poses and mucked about trying to win by count-out or refusing to engage with Myers at the exact right times.

This allowed the audience to breathe at key points, as they were living and dying by every stroke of Myers’ offence, which meant the crescendo of the match hit its boiling point perfectly. 

After going back-and-forth for most of the match, it seemed like Myers was finally getting the upper hand as he decked Kayman and took to the top rope for his signature moonsault before Yorkshire Tough came running out to try and swing the balance back in Kayman’s favour.

The Righteous Army countered YT and as they brawled to the back, Myers landed a humongous nearfall that the 1000+ crowd sank their teeth into. 

A ref bump soon followed and of course this coincided with Myers hitting his signature cutter, scoring the visual pinfall that only led to a legitimate 2-count from the referee. 

What followed was Kayman’s pièce de résistance. Sat on the canvas at Myers’ mercy, Kayman started to beg off his opponent, apologising for his actions.

For a split-second Myers let his guard down as he turned to help the referee to his feet, a vicious smile flashed across Kayman’s face. It wouldn’t have been obvious to everyone in the venue but from my vantage point on the balcony, with the champion facing my side, it was clear as day. 

Exploiting Myers’ good nature, Kayman hit his challenger with a low blow before sending him crashing with a pop-up powerbomb. When Matt Myers kicked out at 2.9, Hull City Hall went berserk. He’d taken all of Kayman’s skullduggery, this was going to spark the turning point.

Then, Kayman extinguished that spark with a barrage of power moves before covering Myers for the 1…2…3. Myles Kayman regained his championship and more importantly, Matt Myers wrestling career was over. 

As Myers sat dejected in the ring, with the tears tumbling down, the NGW Army rose to its feet to give one of its favourite sons a standing ovation and final salute. 

He’ll have no recollection of this, but in the previous guise of this website, Matt Myers was one of the first professional wrestlers to take the time out of his day to give me some positive feedback on something I’d written. 

During a particularly tough period of my life, when I was trying to find some kind of outlet to regulate the things going on in my head, he was one of the first people to make me believe that I wasn’t wasting my time yapping about wrestling. 

That’s something I’ve always held onto, through different chapters of my life, and it was incredibly special to see what could be the final note in this chapter of Matt’s life. Without a doubt, this was the highlight of my reintroduction to British Wrestling in the past year. 

From watching him wrestle in front of double digits at the Dolphin Centre in Darlo, 100 people at the Stylus in Leeds, to seeing him here as a fully fledged headline act in front of over a thousand people was heartwarming. 

If this is truly the end, and you never know in wrestling, he deserved to go out on this stage, where he and Myles Kayman received a level of reception that some of the biggest names in independent wrestling have never and will never receive. 

After a brief interval the final match of the night began, the 20 person Destiny Rumble, where the winner would receive a championship opportunity. 

Man Like Dereiss, who had been previously advertised for the match, had pulled out of the show so NGW announced that his replacement would be entering the Rumble at #1 and he was here right now. 

Who’s here? Amir! That’s how you do suitable replacements, wrestling. 

The ring soon filled with Jordan, Sam Bailey, Robbie X, Caz Crash (a lovely surprise), Rory Coyle, Jack Bandicoot and Ace Matthews. 

Remember how Robbie X was being a nice lad earlier? Yeah, that would soon change. It started when Sam Bailey shoved Robbie and his partner Bandicoot into each other. This led to a heated exchange between the pair which gave Ace Matthews the opportunity to sneakily eliminate Robbie. 

Incensed, Robbie took Rory Coyle’s steel chair and flattened Bandicoot with it, firmly cementing his descent into full-on bad guy across the entire British Wrestling scene. 

Taking out a fellow fan favourite due to an accident and the actions of others was the spot-on way to get the Hull crowd to turn on Robbie, rather than having him dive into the “disrespect” element on the mic.

There were Bullet Club shirts in the crowd but the majority of the kids and parents here might’ve missed the point of that, but making him truly irredeemable by taking out Bandicoot, who was carried to the back, nailed it. 

Yorkshire Tough’s Rogan (entrant #8) eliminated Caz Crash, which immediately brought to mind the thoughts of what a match between Yorkshire Tough and The Proven would’ve looked like if Yorkshire Tough had come along a bit earlier. 

The gargantuan Colossus was out next and he was soon followed by the legendary Rampage Brown. The more things change the more they stay the same. We’ve all gotten older, some of us have had kids and the BritWres landscape has marched on but Rampage Brown is still the Daddy. 

The entrants and the action came thick and fast with Joseph Conners, James Storm, Simon Miller, Brady Phillips, Adam Maxted, Hard Man Dan, Kemper, Reece, Riley Nova and Dara Diablo entering the mix.

There was storyline progression with Ace Matthews trying to team up with Colossus before double-crossing him to eliminate the giant and James Storm, Yorkshire Tough throwing out new nemesis Riley Nova and the posterboy Adam Maxted taking on the baddies but the main standout for me came when Rampage Brown squared off with Kemper. 

Men only want one thing and it’s disgusting. It’s Rampage Brown vs. Kemper in a single match. The King of British Wrestling big men vs. the heir to his throne. Someone sign this up and take my money. 

The final four came down to Yorkshire Tough and Conners and Diablo, as Myles Kayman came down to ringside to cheer on his charges. This led to a briefly bizarre moment when Conners and Diablo decided to eliminate themselves…but it was the first step of the psychological warfare they’d promised earlier in the night. 

What better way to exploit the rumoured dissent within the NewGen than dangle the carrot of a shot at Kayman’s championship to his two henchmen? 

As Yorkshire Tough prepared to scrap it out, the battered and bruised figure of Jack Bandicoot limped from the stage. He’d never been eliminated. 

As Yorkshire Tough sprang, like a pack of jacked up hyenas, Bandicoot was able to escape their clutches for long enough to knock both of them over the top rope and secure his title opportunity to a MEGA REACTION from the NGW faithful. 

The show closed with a stare down between Kayman and Jack Bandicoot, which has already got me in the building for June 27th. You should be there too. 

Image Credit: New Generation Wrestling