By Thom McManus

‘Right Alec, you get the round in then the four ae us will jump in that ring through there. Tag team match. Mon’

‘Could ye imagine us jumping about in there but?’

Four auld guys in a social club they probably go to every Friday night are talking about professional wrestling. It’s in the next room and that is something a bit different. The auld routine is fine but this Friday is a little bit better because of CPW. They didn’t buy a ticket for this particular show but roughly 200 people did buy tickets and that’s a wee bit special.

Drumchapel is a community in every sense of the word and that’s what Community Pro Wrestling seems to be about, entertaining people who rarely have people come to them. If you’re from lower income areas, entertainment doesn’t really come to your doorstep all that often. You need to go towards the entertainment, but not this Friday. This Friday the entertainment was around the corner. This is something to take the weans to.

A night out in a gaff with a fully operational bar that keeps the weans happy? A fair chunk of the people in that social club will buy tickets every time Ravie Davie runs it because it’s a good laugh. Its not sitting through 20 minutes of two black pants wearing suplex monkeys, it’s actually a decent night for the adults as well. Not the usual wrestling fan adults in the sense that the amount of men with ponytails in the room was in single digits. Normal guys at the wrestling thing cause the wean likes it, is there any purer thing in this form of entertainment. We as fans of all this carry on accept that it’s a bit daft at times. That’s a bit part of its appeal. We all know it’s predetermined but you shout and scream for whoever you WANT to win. Not who you think will win, who you WANT to win. If you can get normal Da’s from Drumchapel interested in shows jam packed with eager, local up and coming talent you’ve got a hugely marketable thing.

The first match really set the tone for a night of emotional investment because I was only vaguely aware of Martin MacAlastair before last nights show and now him winning a wrestling match is all I want in this life. SBX has always been a very capable bad guy and absolutely sold the possibility that he would be the guy to lose to Martin MacAlastair. Excellent opener to get people who don’t give a monkeys about wrestling interested in what was to come. Everyone wants the underdog to win unless the underdogs happen to be Heart Of Midlothian Football Club.

Next up was The Wanderer Michael Brian Frank up against No One Oranger Jason Reed. Jason Reed has came on leaps and bounds since I last seen him live around 3 years ago so all credit to him for that. He really put Michael Brian Frank over in what I got the sense was his hometown. Seen a few people with his merch on and that’s a cracking thing too. Someone just trying to make an impression on a scene flooded with talent and getting that kind of backing. Jason Reed is really good now but I still hate him because I’m supposed to. Of all the villains on the show, he was the very best at getting everyones backs all the way up. Good match, Reed won but Michael Brian Frank had the people with him and CPW is all about the people.

First half main event was a tag team I now know are called Termination Z against Thatcher Wright and Eli, the reincarted Big Boss Man, Bulwark. I allowed my addiction to nicotine take over and missed the entrances to chuff a cigarette so didn’t know Daro and Big Ross Hauser‘s tag name. Big Ross is another one who’s came on a lot since I last seen him on a trainee show a few years ago. Daro’s got a bit of personality and they were very easy to get behind when the team on the other side of the ring are a weird mixture of a giant of a man who does a fantastic Boss Man Slam and the human equivalent of genital warts. Thatcher Wright’s act is very good. This isn’t a diss track at all but at the same time, f**k him and f**k Margaret Thatcher. They lost which was a definite highlight of the night because, and I can’t stress this enough to you, the reader…Maggie’s deid and the world’s a better place for it.

At half time I have smoked my last cigarette. I ask a nice lady outside if she’s got a spare until I get to a shop after the show. She hadn’t brought her cigarettes out with her but shouts her wee boy outside to go and get her coat so she can give me one. She ends up giving me three. Community Pro Wrestling is a place where you ask for one cig and end up with three and in this day and age, that’s just good business.

First match after the break was Renegade Wrex and Ellie Armstrong up against Soldato and Nicole Jasmin. Soldato is a very underrated talent and one of the most athletic wrestlers to emerge from Scotland in a long time. That lucha patter is fun for all the family really. Who doesn’t like a guy in a mask doing rapid moonsaults onto a guy who looks like he steals rare records out of independent record stores. A real bad beardy man who likes to shit on the little guy. Nicole Jasmin and Ellie Armstrong had some really entertaining exchanges and both seem on the right path. Armstrong as the badass heel who chucks folk about like wet washing and Jasmin doing mad acrobatic shit that makes folk go ‘ooooh did ye see that?’ It was all very good stuff and served its purpose. Keep the crowd up.

Next up was The Inhuman Xero up against Judas Grey. Xero is someone I’d seen a few times and was his usual eerie self, but this was my first introduction to Judas Grey. Wrestling has heroes, villains and it has another category. The ‘Something Else’ category and that’s probably where both talents in this match would be placed. It is far from an insult. The greatest wrestler of all time is in that category after all. Judas Grey has the biggest set of cojones in Scottish wrestling walking out in a social club in Drumchapel full of Da’s in tights and a skirt and that is not a statement to degrade him in any way. You wear whatever you want in that ring as long as the people buying a ticket give a shit. Plus he definitely suits skirts and seems like he’s having a nice day when he wears them.

The main event was pure late 90s WWE madness six man tag pitting The Govan Team against The Purge and their quite Purgey pal ‘The Prospect’ Dustin Alexander. People don’t tend to pay for a ticket to something and have that form of entertainment literally land on their lap but wrestling has always had that unique ability. Turn any match into a street fight and you turn what could have been a watchable six man with all the rules in place, into a mad ruckus of a match that had weans hitting the bad guys with inflatable hammers. If that isn’t professional wrestling I don’t know what is. Davie, Zander and Steg won after a tidy frog splash from Steg. These teams have always had mad chemistry, ever since they stole the show at an ICW show at the QMU and the two most recent additions to their squads add to what they have going. Don’t know if Alexander is officially Purged or just a wee bit purgey but I do know he is very good at this carry on already. Match ticked every box for sending the people home happy and that’s what it was all about. Making them feel something and packing out venues while you do it.

CPW is running shows all over the place. Buy tickets for them.