Something that missed my all seeing eye was Community Pro Wrestling uploading their one year anniversary show onto the YouTube, a promotion co-operated by viral sensation Ravie Davie, and primarily taking place in front of one of the most fearsome audiences in professional wrestling, children from Govan. Though in 2022 they started branching out with 2023 seeing them due to come up to Peterhead of all places.

The CPW cards are always bursting with young central belt talent with the odd surprise thrown in for good measure. It also gives younger fans to see those that are on the WWE Network like BT Gunn live and in person.

Due to the set up of the venue, the Fairfield Club has the lower setting ring, which is always an unsettling sight for me after watching wrestling for over 20 years now. I don’t think I will ever get used to seeing it to be honest.

Casino Brutale interrupted the ring announcer, while they were trying to introduce Ravie Davie, Devine and Romero announced that CPW was now CBW, and Devine’s attempts to get a Casino Brutale chant going was met by a dafties chant. I will say this often, but I love this crowd and their exuberance to give the bad guys all the vitriol that they can muster.

Casino Brutale (Rabu Romero & Mikey Devine) defeated Fair City Saints (Alex Webb & Air Myles) by pinfall.

Despite being “baldy” and “dafties”, Casino Brutale were a tag team machine, they cut off the ring and took turns battering Alex Webb. Mikey Devine did have to endure a noogie in the opening exchanges from Webb much to the delight of the Govan crowd.

Every moment that the Fair City Saints opened up for some offense was met by big cheers, with Air Myles living up to the name by hitting a nice second rope moonsault onto Romero and Devine. The Saints even presented Casino Brutale to the front row who got a couple digs in, with Romero suffering an inflatable baseball bat to the face.

A match that turned on it’s head constantly, Romero and Devine hit Big Ending/Cutter combo to Webb that had a big kick out at two but Casino Brutale finally finished Webb with Aces High, a reverse STO/top rope dropkick combo, for the win.

I enjoyed the opening contest, two proper tag teams that worked well together but got the crowd invested in the comebacks. The pantomime villainy of Romero and Devine was also a delight to witness.

Anastasia defeated Molly Spartan by pinfall.

Spartan antagonised the crowd during her entrance, with the middle fingers flying from the children at ringside and we were barely two matches in. The two met for a shoulder block stalemate before Anastasia broke it with an impressive high standing big boot to the face of Spartan.

After hanging Anastasia over the top rope to take advantage, Molly went straight to the power game, clubbing and bullying Anastasia around the ring, including a second rope spinning axe handle. Anastasia eventually scrapped back with forearms and big boots before dodging a corner rush, putting away Spartan with a Claymore kick.

There was some hesitations from Anastasia who looked noticeably fatigued in run up to the finish, with Spartan picking up the pace to make up for it. The first half was solid, with Molly almost dragging Anastasia to the end. There was a moment where Anastasia whipped Molly into the ropes, they met in the middle of the ring and there was an awkward pause before Spartan grabbed Anastasia’s arm and whipped her to the ropes, I don’t know if that was a confidence breaker but Anastasia really lost a step afterwards.

A great performance from Molly Spartan. I’m a fan of Anastasia, but she unfortunately couldn’t recover from a couple missteps and was on the backfoot towards the end of the match.

CPW Championship Qualifier – Fatal Four Way – Eli Bulwark defeated HT Drake, LJ Cleary, and Martin MacAlistair by pinfall to advance.

Eli Bulwark coming out all guns blazing with his nightstick, only for his face to drop when the referee took it away was a brilliant start to this match. The majority of this was the other three trying to neutralise the juggernaut Bulwark.

There was a lot of action, but not an awful lot of flow. The crowd were indifferent for a lot of the match, it may have been a split in support for everyone that wasn’t Eli Bulwark, in any event it didn’t help. Not even a Canadian Destroyer from LJ Cleary could get a roar out of them.

MacAlistair, with his amazing light up boots, looked to have it won with a big DDT onto HT Drake but Bulwark pushed Martin out of the ring and pinned Drake to advance.

It looked like none of these guys were having much luck with the lower ring, with dives not landing as flush as the extra couple feet a normal sized apron allows.

The match was a bit of a muddle, nothing bad about the in-ring content but without an invested crowd it was a lot of moves with an abrupt finish.

Thatcher Wright entered to a chorus of boos. He challenged anyone to face him in a CPW Championship qualifier before picking a member of the CPW ring crew. Wright promptly attacked him from behind and won with a modified Nightmare on Helms Street.

Grado defeated Thatcher Wright by pinfall.

Watching Grado wrestle is like finding an old pair of trainers in the back of the cupboard. You slide them on and you feel the comfort, the memories, the overall peace they provide, the grooves hit all the right places.

It was your typical Grado match and the crowd lapped up every second. Thatcher got some digs in but Grado was in his element, controlling the crowd, feeding off their energy.

We got the flip, flop, and fly, the roll ‘n’ slice, the German Suplex deadweight spot, all VINTAGE GRADO. It’s fun to watch, and with Grado’s command of the audience it was always entertaining.

Just as it looked like Thatcher was going to pick up Grado for a final blow, he was hit by the rGrado outta nowhere for the win.

A lot of fun, what I enjoy with these rare Grado appearances is that even though he eventually beats the bad guy, crowd are sent home happy, and he makes his opponent look great.

Stanislas made his entrance, vodka bottle in hand, but was jumped by Leon Graves. Graves tried to use a pair of pliers to, I assume, take out Stanislas teeth but he was thwarted by Spiderbam who ran Graves off. Bit weird but the crowd loved them some Spiderbam.

BT Gunn defeated Spiderbam by pinfall.

The crowd woke up for this one as they went nuts for Spiderbam any time he got offense in. Gunn removed Spiderbam’s padded muscle top to reveal it was Steg all along and I was shocked, shocked I say!

This was a lot of fun with BT Gunn’s over the top facial reactions and bantering with the audience to rile them up. Spiderbam held up his end of the bargain though, he hit a couple nice short armed clotheslines, and some crowd friendly spots like count along corner splashes.

BT Gunn hit a spin kick to the face of Spiderbam to nab the pinfall.

Some good, clean, honest, sports entertainment that got a loud reaction and was really good in-ring.

Termination Z (Big Ross Hauser & Daro) defeated KoE (Adam King & Marcus King) by pinfall.

The match started with KoE in control, lots of tags back and forth, keeping Daro in their corner. Eventually Daro got the tag in to Big Ross it broke down, as tag team matches tend to do.

Daro was running about like a madman, with a running dive over the turnbuckle post onto KoE being a highlight.

Big Ross hit a big double chokeslam to KoE. Wrapping up the match by using Daro to hit a Rocket Launcher splash to gain victory.

A match of two halves with KoE being the best when it came down to straight up wrestling but when the structure of a match was lifted and it became a free for all Termination Z were unstoppable. A fun match.

The Govan Team (Ravie Davie & Cousin Zander) defeated The Purge (Stevie James & Krobar) by pinfall.

Before the match it was announced that if The Purge win they got 51% of all the raffle money going forward, but if they lost they would have to dress as Disney Princesses. A crowd pleasing chaotic brawl.

The Purge set up Ravie Davie for a spike piledriver, but Zander pushed Krobar off the ropes and Davie rolled Stevie into a jackknife cover for the win, and the crowd roared.

Krobar and Stevie James ran backstage but The Govan Team went in pursuit, they returned with The Purge donning some lovely dresses to close the show.

For my first Community Pro Wrestling experience there was a lot of positives, the opening tag team match was great, Grado versus Thatcher was highly entertaining, and the second half catered to the the sugar fuelled children in the front rows.

Some of the matches did quite hit the mark for me, but there was a good mix of wrestling, pantomime good and evil battles, it was a variety show for sure.