The dust has settled from ‘ArdlerMania: Part Deux’, and Fair City Wrestling have a Fair City Rumble on the horizon. On this week’s edition of FCW Empire featured the first half of their ‘Fair City Rumble’ event.

Hailing from the Empire Zone aka The Tulloch Institute in Perth, the crowd was rowdy and ready for a bit of the wrestling.

Brodie Adler & Jay Robin defeated Moxie Malone & Fulton King by pinfall.

Brodie Adler and Fulton King kicked off with Brodie sending King on the back foot with punches into the corner. As the tags were made, Robin refused to fight Moxie… but a forearm to the face was enough to bring out his equal rights and lefts with a big clothesline to level Malone parallel to the ground.

Fulton and Moxie managed to isolate Brodie Adler as the quick tags kept the FCW Women’s Champion away from her corner, in no small part due to a big Uranage from Fulton King. Malone was persistent with sharp elbows to the side of the head but Adler got an opportunity to breath to land a second rope crossbody to Moxie to allow for the hot tag to get Jay Robin back into the bout to run wild over Fulton King, the match broke down with all four getting into the fray.

Some miscommunication saw King run through Moxie Malone with a clothesline, the aftermath gave Robin the opening to use the most devastating move in professional wrestling, the roll up, to keep the Juggernaut’s shoulders to the canvas for the win.

An entertaining opening match, as expected when it comes to Fair City Wrestling now. Jay Robin is getting into the groove of being a fan favourite, Brodie and Moxie showed plenty of fight to rewind back to ‘ArdlerMania: Part Deux’, and Fulton King was a big brute that created chaos. A great combination for a fun match. The Fulton King and Brodie Adler interactions were fantastic, with Moxie Malone adding some brilliant facials and extra subtleties on the apron from barking orders to wincing when Adler was taking King off his feet.

ADM vs Caleb Valhalla ended in a double count out.

ADM wasted no time by meeting Caleb Valhalla at the entrance way to spark a wild brawl. The fight was halted with a mega big boot from ADM on the outside, as the bell rung Valhalla ran through MacAllan with a spear to even the score.

The behemoth battle continued outside the ring, inside the ring, ADM chokeslammed Valhalla onto the edge of the apron. MacAllan seemed to retain control as the match got down and dirtier on the outside as her launched Caleb into the wall of The Tulloch Institute.

Valhalla threw himself high for an Enziguri to rock ADM, but The Clyde River Killer shook off a bulldog to return to mounting offense on the Viking. ADM ragdolled Valhalla with a butterfly suplex but he wouldn’t stay down for the count.

The Mighty Caleb just kept coming back, raining punches and getting redemption by driving ADM’s head to the mat with that bulldog. ADM dodged a spear and rammed his foot into the skull of Valhalla with a Claymore for another near fall.

The two titans fought onto the apron, Valhalla speared ADM, as they recovered ADM went to swing his foot to crush Valhalla’s head against the ringpost but there was a slip that caused both to crash to the floor as the count continued in the ring. As they stood on their feet referee Chris Quinn reached his ten count for the match to be thrown out but that didn’t stop the brawl continuing. Eventually there was separation as the ADM and Caleb Valhalla tale yet to reach its conclusion.

The Fair City faithful were invested in this match throughout. Yeah there was a little awkwardness at the end with, what looked like, Valhalla slipping but even with that it didn’t deter from the constant colliding of bodies with ADM and Caleb Valhalla making it feel like an epic battle.

FCW Heavyweight Championship – Ian Ambrose defeated Bruiser Brad Evans by pinfall to retain the FCW Heavyweight Championship.

The Infamous Ian Ambrose had to rely on his speed advantage in the early going as he went to work on keeping Bruiser Brad Evans pivoting and moving. After a dive to the outside it was looking to be all Ambrose but a top rope crossbody was caught by beefy Brad who slammed the champion to the ground to stop the momentum with an exclamation point .

Evans bullied Ambrose around the ring, all the while gaining confidence, Brad made the ring move by pulling himself to the top rope. Ambrose tried to counterattack but Evans flipped over Ambrose and returning with a glorious lariat to continue the dominance.

Ambrose managed to pop Evans over for a suplex counter, using the running momentum to get Brad onto his shoulders for a Fireman’s Carry throw. Ian kept coming back with more moves to try and keep Bruiser Brad on the mat, if he had a kitchen sink handy he would’ve thrown that in as well.

Evans looked to finish the match with the piledriver but Ambrose paid tribute to Paul Smackage with the small package to keep Evans tied up for the three count.

A hard fought match for Ian Ambrose’s first title defence since winning the title. Bruiser Brad Evans is an old school brawler, throwing his weight around, making everything look a little more devastating, then casually throwing in some agile manoeuvres just to keep everyone on their toes. Ambrose weathered the storm and showed his intelligence to make it past his giant challenge.

Three very good matches on this episode of Empire, a beefy edition with all three matches featuring big lads doing big lad things. Each offering something a little different in content to provide a variety of matches. A fun watch as we now have all eyes on the Fair City Rumble.

As an extra note, the clarity of the camera work was noticeable with the video quality looking crisper. Maybe I just cleaned my glasses but there was a definite upgrade in the production.

The show is available on YouTube: