An anniversary is a time to reflect on the past, celebrate the present and look ahead to the future.

Fittingly, Jay Joshua has spent the past 12 months battling against men who were integral to RevPro’s past, the headline names of the present and the burgeoning prospects of the future.

At last year’s anniversary show, he squared off against two-time Undisputed British Heavyweight Champion Tomohiro Ishii at Crystal Palace.

After defeating Cowboy Way alongside Connor Mills in the final of the Great British Tag League the following night, he set his sights on Sha Samuels and the heavyweight championship.

Closing out 2025 as the newly crowned Undisputed British Heavyweight Champion, the Welshman strung together six successful defences of the greatest prize in independent wrestling, against Samuels, TK Cooper, Michael Oku, 1 Called Manders, Will Kroos and JJ Gale.

Those title defences were built upon the heavy-hitting, arse-kicking style that made Joshua an almost immediate crowd favourite with the RevPro faithful. There isn’t a wrestler in the UK with a more fervent army of supporters and his jerseys can be seen in crowds up and down the country.

His war with Manders, at High Stakes, was a battle between two frenzied bulls that were dead set on claiming dominance of the heavyweight division. Proper fucking wrestling.

The final stretch of his “Road to Wembley” saw the 30-year-old live up to his brotherly responsibilities by knocking his “little bro” Leon Cage down a peg or two – the boy has a 5 star match y’know.

Jay’s ascent to the main event stage at RevPro has been unparalleled in the current era. Sicker than your average, you could say.

Not since the days of monthly shows and relying heavily on marquee imported names has someone debuted and established themselves as a key player as quickly.

Since debuting in July 2024, Joshua has headbutted his way into the hearts of fans and elbowed his way past a litany of his peers to climb up the ladder.

He was a tag team champion, with Mills, less than six months after his debut and it took a smidge over eighteen months to become the main man in the entire promotion when he unseated Sha.

When he lost the belt to Michael Oku in June of this year, there was some concern over how he would figure into the plans for the Anniversary show.

Oku and Mills were on a collision course, Destination Wembley, that didn’t need any further drama added to it. That also meant that any crack at the tag team titles were on the shelf until further notice.

The signs were there that Leon Slater would be caught up in the implosion of the Slater Dojo, while another shootout with Manders didn’t seem logical with Cowboy Way focusing on the tag division.

It wouldn’t have felt right for somebody that had ascended to such heights to be crowbarred into an ongoing storyline or be thrown into a multi-person sideshow.

Instead of waiting around to see if he’d get thrown a bone, Jay Joshua called his shot. It didn’t take a five minute promo or an attack. A man of few words, it took the former heavyweight champion a couple of syllables to send a shockwave of excitement through the British wrestling scene.

“Zack Sabre Junior. Say Less”.

If Jay Joshua is “sicker than your average” then Zack Sabre Jr. is the gold standard. It would be easier to list what the technical wizard hasn’t achieved in professional wrestling than what he has. Let’s give it a go, anyway.

A two-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion. A two-time holder of both the IWGP Intercontinental and NJPW TV titles. The only European to ever win the G1 Climax. The first Brit to defend the IWGP Heavyweight Championship on British soil.

A former holder of the PWG World, wXw Unified and EVOLVE championships. A 3-time IWGP Tag Team champ with Taichi and a 2x GHC Jr. Heavyweight champion with Yoshinari Ogawa.

A serial tournament winner, he can count the G1, PWG Battle of Los Angeles, wXw 16 Carat Gold, PROGRESS’ SSS16 and the New Japan Cup (twice) in his trophy cabinet.

Sabre Jr. has even won the Bryan Danielson Award (for Best Technical Wrestler) NINE times. For a number of those wins, Bryan Danielson himself was actively competing.

One of the finest wrestlers of this and any other era, revered around the world by his peers and fans alike, Zack Sabre Jr. has also been integral to the growth of Revolution Pro Wrestling.

He is a four-time Undisputed British Heavyweight Champion, with his combined reigns totalling 1086 days (9 days shy of 3 years) and his 475 day reign as an Undisputed British Tag Team Champion with Minoru Suzuki means that he has amassed four years as a champion with the promotion.

Due to some of those reigns overlapping that, between 2017 and 2020, Zack Sabre Jr. was permanently a RevPro champion either in the singles or tag division.

He has competed and defended RevPro championships in New Japan, showcasing the promotion across the globe, walking into the Tokyo Dome with the heavyweight championship around his waist.

While Saturday night represents the culmination of months and even years of stories coming to a head, to celebrate RevPro and British wrestling here and now in the present, it’s also an opportunity to reflect on times gone by and how we’ve got here.

Without wrestlers like ZSJ, it’s unlikely that RevPro would ever have found themselves in the position to be able to host an event at Wembley Arena. Maybe wrestlers like Jay Joshua and others in the RevPro locker room never get the opportunity to perform on stages like this.

It wouldn’t have been right if the biggest night in independent British wrestling for nearly a decade went down without him.

“The Frontman” of TMDK will enter Wembley to a live performance of his Young Punks theme song by the band Mass Lines, swagger down the ramp and enter the ring to do what he nearly always does in RevPro – win.

Nobody has beaten Zack Sabre Jr. in a RevPro ring since he lost the Undisputed British Heavyweight Championship to Will Ospreay at High Stakes 2020.

At that time, Ospreay was already a highly decorated New Japan talent, fresh off a third reign as Jr. Heavyweight champion and was being prepared for an eventual semi-final berth in that year’s G1.

The last non-NJPW contracted wrestler to defeat Sabre Jr. in singles competition in RevPro was Kurt Angle at York Hall in 2016.

That is the scale of the mountain that Jay Joshua has to climb on Saturday night. He has to try and do something that Zozaya, Robbie X, Hechicero, Connor Mills, RKJ, JJ Gale, Jordan Breaks, Leon Slater and Michael Oku have all failed to do in the past. He has to beat the best technical wrestler in the world.

Joshua will have to bring every bullet, every implement of war in his arsenal, to even make this a contest. However, he does possess something that nobody else that RevPro has offered up to Sabre Jr. in recent memory has.

Whether Joshua can hang hold-for-hold, reversal-for-reversal,with a technical icon like Sabre is something that we’ll only know after the fact.

What we do know is that anybody can get knocked out and Jay Joshua has knockout power.

That is legitimate knockout power that can be unleashed in a moment’s notice, not from a signature move that needs to be built up. One headbutt or one well-timed elbow could be all it takes to switch off Sabre’s lights.

While the Anniversary show is an opportunity to reflect on, bask in and celebrate the achievements of Revolution Pro Wrestling and British wrestling at large, it’s also an opportunity for Jay Joshua to make the world sit up and take notice.

A victory would make global headlines. A stellar outing, regardless of the result, would set tongues wagging and the rumour mill circulating. Make no mistake, it won’t just be the fans in the building and watching the live stream who will be taking notice tomorrow night.

The bigwigs of professional wrestling, from Japan to America and Mexico, will be paying attention.

Jay Joshua has the opportunity to make them pick up their phones and to open up their chequebooks.

Say Less.

Image Credits: Revolution Pro Wrestling, New Japan Pro Wrestling