There have been a few discussions as of late about the need for promotions to fully advertise the card for their upcoming shows.

There isn’t a week that goes by where someone isn’t asking RevPro to announce some matches and NORTH sparked an incredibly interesting debate about investment in the product and why people still feel the need to know what they’re investing in on a show-by-show basis. Great to see a promotion actively engaging in fan feedback, by the way.

For many, it comes down to money and time. Costs everywhere are sky-high and wages aren’t rising to match that. On top of that, travelling to shows often comes with the need for fuel, train fares or hotels. A promotion might charge £20 for a ticket, but that night out at the wrestling could end up costing you £200.

There are also an insane amount of options in this country – @BritWresAwayDay recently posted a 242-strong list of all “active” UK wrestling promotions – so dividing time and money between several of those soon adds up.

Wrestling being much more readily available in terms of live streaming/on demand platforms means that it can be much easier, both practically and on the wallet, to watch from home and you need a jolt of excitement to make that trade off.

Rather fittingly, while reading everyone’s opinions on NORTH’s query, I had just finished booking a trip to see Atomic Pro Wrestling because they had fully announced and heavily promoted a card that tickled my fancy.

With some annual leave to use up and the prospect of a card that either featured wrestlers that I enjoy watching or hadn’t yet been able to see live, I headed off on the journey from the mighty Boro to Liverpool for some midweek wrestling action.

One of the biggest factors in getting me on the train over to Liverpool and through the doors at Content was that the Atomic socials were rammed with pre-match promos. There was a promo, often from all the participants, for nearly every match. That gets you thinking. That gets you buzzing.

I was away from BritWres at the height of the “Midweek Graps” days, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from the Atomic crowd going into the evening. While it was basically a weekend for me, you’d assume that for the majority of the crowd they would be heading to work in the morning.

There is nothing that routinely puts me off attending shows more than being in deathly quiet crowds. It makes me uncomfortable and can often kill my interest in going to a particular promotion or specific venue.

Luckily, in Liverpool at least, Thursday is the new Friday. The crowd at Atomic are lively, engaged and up for a good laugh.

That’s exactly where we started the show, with a good laugh and a bit of fun, as the HWO of Sam Bailey, Tom McColl and Critchy faced off with Troy Ryan and the Party of Power.

Party of Power are the Scandinavian tag team of Flex Powers and Benny Bacchus, 80s-inspired strongmen who came over to help Troy Ryan in his continued efforts to get his hands on El Horno, the leader of the HWO. The Meat Party team name for the three big units almost wrote itself.

Troy Ryan looks the absolute business and continues to grow as a singles competitor. It’s not going to be long before he’s a main player across the country.

This was the perfect way to open the show and rid the crowd of any post-work brain fog, with Party of Power quickly becoming fan favourites, while the HWO pulled out all of the naughty boy shenanigans you’d expect.

The Meat Party lads outmuscled Bailey, McColl and Critchy and picked up the win after chucking the three rascals all over the ring, with Ryan pinning McColl.

Having been pinned, McColl faced the ire of El Horno, with Critchy having to get in between his paymaster and his mate. Cooler heads looked to have prevailed until Critchy chose Freddos over friendship and kicked Tom in the balls, pounding on his former tag partner.

The next match was the only match that hadn’t had some form of pre-match promo (apologies if I missed something) but given that it pitted Lilly Winter against Lucy Sky, that was enough to get me onboard.

Winter is an absolute star with young girls. For them, it must be like having Elsa come to life. This wasn’t the first time that I’ve been in a crowd where a kid has screamed their lungs out for Winter.

This was exacerbated by how vicious Lucy Sky was in this match. She’s one of those wrestlers who can easily flip-flop between popular badass and a bully depending on her opponent and she was certainly positioned as the latter here.

Sky seemed fixated on making the kids in the crowd cry (on a school night as well) by battering Winter into the canvas, with one of them letting out an incredibly Scouse shout of “leave her alone”.

A big knee looked to have wrapped things up but Winter kicked out, getting a huge cheer from the crowd. That only served to piss off Sky even further as she unloaded a barrage of ground and pound. When Referee James Greenwood tried to pull Sky away, she turned around and walloped him leading to a disqualification.

That made Sky look like an unhinged monster and added another layer of sympathy/support for Winter. Job done.

Right, it’s time for an important, serious discussion. He might have been a dick about it but *DUCKS FOR COVER* Nathan Black is right. It is ice lolly. It’s not lolly ice.

Black has swiftly become one of the most popular acts on the BritWres scene. He’s a genuine entertainer and being hilarious makes him someone that you want to cheer for. However, he’s at his best when leaning into full dickhead mode as he was at Atomic.

He followed up a foul-mouthed tirade, where he singled out individual fans to tear down and slagged off Liverpool, by doing his best to avoid his opponent Joe Kessler at all costs. God, I’m not often glad to barely be scraping 5’7″, but I am when Black is on one and I can hide behind people.

This made Kessler look like an absolute beast because despite his GODDAMNN SIIIIIIIZE, Black wouldn’t step to him directly, instead having to use shenanigans to open up opportunities for sly attacks. I don’t blame him, to be fair, Kessler is in some shape.

He would beg for Kessler to show mercy or hide behind Ref Sandy before seizing the advantage.

Irish whips are considered silly (and they are a bit), but there was one here where Nathan sent Kessler crashing into the corner with so much velocity, that it got an audible gasp from the people around me.

As the old saying goes “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” and Joe Kessler wasn’t to be fooled again when Black went back to his begging off tactic one too many times, levelling him with a massive lariat to the back of the head for the win.

When it was announced that the final match before the interval was going to be Grizzled Young Veterans against (for one night only) the Merseyside Murder Squad, I was buzzing.

Not just because it was one of the matches I was most looking forward to, but I was busting for a piss and a pint so was going to use Scott Oberman’s feature film-length entrance to get those done without missing any action.

Except he and Dan Evans came out together and kicked right off with GYV before even making it to the ring. Bugger. It didn’t help my bladder when James Drake was chucked into the wall I’d been leaning on a few minutes later. Wrestlers are big and scary.

I’ve not seen Dan Evans since the old Tidal days in the Darlo Dolphin Centre. He looks miles better nowadays.

Oberman’s outlined his desire for this match due to feeling ignored by Gibson and claiming that he is now “Liverpool’s Number 1” in an excellent promo that allowed Oberman fans to rally around him as one of the main men of this new generation while letting GYV fans view him as an insecure gobshite.

Given that he’s quite unpopular amongst his peers, he’d been forced to reunite with Dan Evans to avoid taking on GYV by himself and large portions of the match saw Scott and Zack square off.

There are obvious shades of Gibson in Oberman’s game and those were highlighted in gigantic marker pen here, with Gibson shouting “that looks familiar” when Oberman landed a double-handed throat thrust on Drake that is right out of his own repertoire.

Early on, it looked like Gibson found Oberman almost amusing but when the young upstart started to gain an upper hand, the veteran soon switched and gave him an absolute kicking.

There have been times when GYV have been accused of holding back or wrestling in first gear when they’ve come back to the UK. That was definitely not the case here as they had a proper scrap with Oberman and Evans.

Fuelled by a nearfall from a top rope cutter on Gibson, Oberman stood over him, screaming that “this is my city now” which earned him a massive slap across the chops. That sent Oberman over the edge, who retrieved a steel chair from under the ring, only to have it wheelkicked into his own face by Drake leading to GRIT YOUR TEETH and a GYV win.

I did go to the toilet after this, by the way. I didn’t piss myself. Just in case you were concerned.

Big fan of the half-time clock that Atomic displayed on the screens. Not only is it helpful for fans but it keeps the company honest from a time-keeping perspective. That’s something other promotions could learn from.

As the crowd came back into the “main bit” of the venue – Content is split into two for Atomic shows between the bars/seating area/merch tables and the wrestling – Pele came out wearing street clothes to inform us that there had been a change to the scheduled match.

Hollie Barlow was unavailable so rather than having to find a last-minute partner to take on Vanity, Pele had found the Scottish duo some new opponents in Atomic Pro Wrestling Tag Team Champions Quintessential, with the belts on the line.

Quintessential’s ring gear, which looks to be a nod to a classic 90’s Liverpool away kit, is bloody lovely.

Vanity are fast becoming one of the best tag teams on the scene and as they start to branch out further afield across the UK, they’re going to become a major favourite for anyone that likes good wrestling. Do you like good wrestling? I like good wrestling.

It’s difficult to “review” this match because as things were starting to really heat up, Christy Quinlan clearly suffered some sort of complication and it knocked things off kilter. He has since announced that he tore his MCL on a dive to the outside. Wishing you all the best for a full and efficient recovery, mate.

It’s shit when people get injured especially at this level where they haven’t got the benefits that come with a TV contract. Support these people where you can.

On a lighter note, the match between Ian Skinner and Joe Blazr being advertised as a “hot singles match in your area” got a chuckle out of me.

This current guise of Joe Blazr as “The Admired” is a real box-ticker. Do you need a smarmy, horrible little greaseball for your show? Joe Blazr is your man.

Masking his small man insecurities (I’m allowed to say that) with a jet-setting, flashy persona makes Blazr instantly hateable. Everyone knows a Joe Blazr. He looks like he has a BMW on finance, thinks Wayne Lineker is a boyo and only eats HelloFresh meals. I would like to punch him in the face.

Both men had gone at each other in pre-show videos and they went at each other in the ring, neither holding anything back. I really like the two sides of Ian Skinner where he’s a bit daft and cheeky on the mic, Mr “Loads of Friends” and all that, but when the bell rings is capable of being a bit of a hard case.

Remember when I said Blazr is instantly hateable and that I’d like to punch him in the face? You should, it was only a paragraph ago. He made me feel that even more deeply when he used a referee distraction to boot ol’ Skinzy in the bollocks and plant him into the canvas to steal the win.

Speaking of feelings. This next match made me feel. This was the match that got me into the building. Knowing I had some annual leave to use up, I’d had my eye on popping over to Atomic for a few weeks. When they announced that Tony Wright would face Declan McCarthy, I booked my hotel and train immediately.

I do not like the term “faves” because I’m a 31 year old bloke that grew up in an area where anything that wasn’t super-macho got you battered and locked in bins, but Tony Wright and Declan McCarthy are two of my favourite wrestlers in the UK.

McCarthy fascinates me because if he stopped beating up people that I like, I think we’d get on quite well. Some of the things he hits on in his promos and the way he treats wrestling are exactly what I want from the sport, as a fan.

The way he was able to twist a personal circumstance in the lead-up to this match, citing a panic attack before his previous encounter with Tony, to both simultaneously run down who Wright currently is in Atomic and uplift who he is capable of being in one fell swoop was superb.

If McCarthy had entered that first encounter at a disadvantage, either physically or mentally, he faced Tony on an even footing at Refresh. This was reflected in the opening stages of the contest, with both men equal in technical exchanges, neither able to open up a significant hole in the other’s defence.

As things wore on, both men’s natural physical advantages began to take hold, with Declan using his power to try and counteract Tony’s speed.

Unfortunately, this is where me and McCarthy fall out a bit. Unable to gain a clear advantage, he resorted to grabbing hold of Tony’s tights as he rolled him up for a pin. That’s not cricket.

He was caught red-handed by Ref Sandy and while we don’t condone cheating around here, it’s hard to feel sympathy for McCarthy as moments later Tony used the ropes to clinch a pinfall of his own. What goes around, comes around and all that jazz.

That result leaves things open for Atomic. Despite the win, we didn’t really see the best version of Tony Wright while McCarthy can feel aggrieved that, at least in his mind, Wright hasn’t truly beaten him. It makes you think. It makes you feel.

The main event of the evening was a No Holds Barred match between Atomic Champion Teddy Reay and Chase Alcala, where Reay’s North West Strong and Alcala’s Trail of the Dead stablemates were banned from ringside.

If I was gonna be a fucking nerd, and let’s face it, I’m spending my spare time writing about pro wrestling so I am fucking nerd, having a No Holds Barred match where anything goes but then needs a referee bump to allow other people to get involved without any disqualifications is weird.

If Keinen Krishna had decided to get himself involved, for example, does Teddy Reay then lose the match by disqualification? Is it a No Contest? I don’t know. Whatever.

The match itself was rather enjoyable. This is how you send people off to work the next day because it’s impossible to be in a bad mood when hours earlier, you’ve seen someone get powerbombed into tacks or you were right up close to two blokes braining each other with chairs.

Beers were flying as Reay and Alcala brawled on the outside, beating seven shades out of each other before introducing all the standard NO DQ fare.

I mean this in the best possible way – Teddy Reay is an oddball. He was absolutely the hero here but there’s this weird aura around him where he could snap at any minute and put a glass over your head. When you’ve got that, you can go against anyone and beat them.

Referee James Greenwood was knocked down, which allowed the aforementioned interference from Trail of the Dead and as they circled Reay, two of the North West’s best came to his rescue. However, it wasn’t his North West Strong brethren who battled the Trail to the back but the Grizzled Young Veterans. G’won the boys.

Despite all of the toys that were in play – there’s a couple of gnarly photos on Teddy’s Instagram showing the aftermath of being powerbombed into a heap of tacks – one of the nastiest moments was when Reay unleashed a barrage of punches on Alcala.

The “Rat King” definitely watched Omega vs. Ospreay from All In, like we all did, where Omega showcased the effectiveness of some proper punches in a wrestling match and Reay did his best rendition here.

If you actively hate somebody, why wouldn’t you punch them dead hard? Fuck doing snapmares and Irish Whips, just belt someone as hard as you can.

Reay was able to put Alcala down finally with a springboard splash-type move to retain his championship. Being able to move past someone who has evidently made his life difficult must’ve been a relief for the “Rat King”.

That relief was fleeting as Joe Kessler came down to the ring to square up to Teddy before launching into full on berserker mode, attacking Teddy, Greenwood, ring crew and Teddy’s partner.

After the show, Kessler revealed the cause of his actions. He blames Teddy for an injury he suffered at the same time that his Grandad was in hospital, which caused him to miss his Grandad’s final moments. Heavy shit, that.

Teddy has since answered back, turning down Atomic’s offer of suspending Kessler and instead demanding to face him in October.

Less than a week out from the show, you’ve already got your main match announced. It’s key to getting fans to part with their hard earned money.

I’d already decided halfway through the show that if I was based in Manchester or Liverpool that I’d be at Atomic every time. Midweek wrestling is good for the soul. I’m definitely going to be there on February 4th in the days before AEW Dynasty and if I can swing it with work, will be back before then.

That’s the benefit of advertising and promoting. You can make a fan out of someone.

Image Credits: Atomic Pro Wrestling