The little purple notification came up! ‘Six Bouts For Five Pounds’ was live streamed on Twitch as Iron Girders Pro Wrestling let us in on seeing the new batch of Girders Built wrestlers, I recently had a chat with Astrid Day who was due to make her debut on this show, Astrid along with Kev.i.n and James Diaz, collectively Tall ‘N’ Tiny, have quickly been a favourite group for myself and the Iron Girders crowd.

As it is still available on Twitch, I sat down, got comfy, and got ready to have a watch.

General Manager Elijah Bulwak opened up with the pleasantries, battering through the microphone issues all cool, calm, and collected. Referee Michael Devine was donning the stripes. The Gallowgate was hyped, I was hyped, let’s flipping go!

Robbie Cardwell & Hailee Swift defeated Blonde Valentine & Ellie Armstrong by pinfall.

We were introduce to a new face straight away, Blonde Valentine slayed their way to the ring to team with Ellie Armstrong, a wicked combo. Hailee Swift, another debut, joined Robbie Cardwell for some tag team action.

Valentine had Cardwell’s number early on with a cranking headlock but some dip, dive, and dodgy managed to give Valentine an inverted Atomic Drop to take the upper hand and bring Hailee Swift into the fold. Blonde scurried to his corner at the earliest opportunity to tag in ‘The Plant Based Powerhouse’.

After weathering a flurry of offense, Armstrong caught a flying Swift to slam her to the canvas. Valentine was happy to get involved behind the back of Referee Devine to cause extra damage. Hailee managed to land the crossbody the second time of asking, dragging herself to a bouncing Cardwell who sent Valentine and Armstrong running into each other.

A Twist of Fate from Swift, and Swanton Bomb from Cardwell ended the night for Blonde Valentine.

This was a great opener. Swift and Valentine were comfortable in the Iron Girders ring and as it was in the Gallowgate it probably helped in that they showed little-to-no nerves. Hailee maybe missed a little bit of personality and expression but the in-ring work was solid to watch with Robbie Cardwell adding the colour by being a firm favourite.

Blonde Valentine looked to be in his element and certainly left an impression on the Girders audience, I’m looking forward to seeing more of all involved. I loved the callback to the crossbody that saw Hailee finally land on Ellie to open up the match and get Robbie back into the fray which ultimately saw her team victorious.

Open Challenge – BT Gunn defeated Jordan Wolff by pinfall.

Wolff wasn’t to be intimidated by his coach, but grew frustrated by Gunn’s counters to the opening exchange of holds before straight slapping BT in the face to rattle ‘The Oddity’. A straight kick to the gut following the reset didn’t endear Wolff to the Girders crowd.

BT returned the slap to the back of the head of Wolff before stopping Jordan in his tracks and giving him another slap before taking a visit to Chop City. Wolff when low with a dropkick to the knee to gain the advantage. Gunn absorbed the kicks to the chest, and returned the energy tenfold with the famous chops, but Wolff went back to the well by kicking out the knee of BT to send him sailing to the canvas.

Eventually the barrage of kicks was enough for BT, getting into a trade off before chopping the spine of Wolff that would’ve corrected any curve if that was an issue. Gunn kept fighting, and Wolff kept cutting off the momentum. Just as Wolff thought he had it all wrapped up, he ran into a spear that gave Gunn the win.

I’ve seen Jordan Wolff a couple times now on these streams and there has been promise but something not quite connecting, or I simply haven’t seen enough in the matches to form an opinion. This was as much as a win for BT Gunn as it was a showcase for Jordan Wolff who showed who Jordan Wolff is more than I’ve ever seen previously. There was plenty of back and forth, with the win from the veteran Gunn coming from the inexperienced Wolff taking a bit too long and having his eye off the ball. Very good.

Kez Evans defeat Kai Silva by pinfall.

It didn’t take long for Kez Evans to go from returning hero to arrogant bastard, a role that he relishes in, as he waited out the cheers for the debuting Kai Silva before slapping away a handshake to cement his attitude.

Silva evaded the opening lock up which riled up Evans to drop his guard for a couple hip tosses that left him taking a breather on the outside. Kez didn’t have much luck coming back in with Silva leveling him with a couple clotheslines and a right hand to send THAT GUY back up the aisle to have a rethink.

Evans suckered Kai to pursue him around ringside, stomping on Silva as he tried to re-enter the ring to take over, rattling the ring with a hard Irish Whip, and making his target the back of Kai Silva with scoop slams and stomps to keep Silva down, mocking the new kid while punishing him.

An elbow drop was countered by boot to the face of Evans to send him wobbly legged, giving Silva a chance to ram Kez face first into the all corners, taking Evans to task, almost wrapping the match up with a high impact sit out pop up powerbomb but Kez managed to lift a shoulder.

As both men tried to gain some sort of winning combo of moves, Kez used a waistlock to obscure Referee Michael’s vision in the corner before delivering a swift kick between the legs of Kai Silva for the tainted victory to rousing boos to send us to the interval.

Another effective showcase with Kai Silva showing a tonne of potential. My only criticism is his gear wasn’t flattering but if that’s my nitpick then I had a good time. Much like the other debuts, there was very little by way of obvious nerves with perhaps a couple minute hesitations. There was a backbreaker in the back third that Silva didn’t quite have his leg rigid for that was a bit scary as it looked to buckle when Kez made impact but it didn’t seem to shake him so that was a relief.

Tall N Tiny (Astrid Day, Kev.i.n, & James Diaz) defeated Tara Lenny, & Moxie’s Misfits (Stone Malone, & Big Mick) by pinfall.

TNT brought the get psyched mix as they burst onto the scene with a bit of Bon Jovi, hyped for the debut of Astrid Day who stood across from another debutant, Tara Lenny, who wasn’t letting the big support for Astrid get to her, exchanging shoves before grounding Day with a side headlock takeover.

Just as Astrid gained the upper hand, Tara was quick to tag out to Stone Malone. Kev.i.n demanded the tag because it wasn’t about the size of the dug in the fight but the size of the fight in the dug. Kev tried some quick pins but was sent into a tizzy with an Airplane Spin, only to rebalance to find himself to staring at Big Mick… and quickly tagged in James Diaz, because there’s having fight then there’s staring at a thunderball.

Mick managed to throttle Diaz, isolating him in the corner for his team to make quick tags as Moxie’s Misfits tried to chop down the big tree, with Tara happy to get involved. Diaz powered throw to bring Kev.i.n back in to give Stone Malone a taste of the same medicine as our plucky trio took turns laying in the kicks to Malone’s back.

Kev’s exuberance saw him distracted by Tara, which saw him get leathered by Stone while trying to give out his phone number before being in the middle of a Moxie’s Misfits sandwich. Kev wisely dodged a second to tag Diaz to get back in and get in about it.

Stone landed a lariat as Tara tried to sneak the pin on Diaz. As TNT and Moxie’s Misfits brawled out to the fire escape, it left Astrid Day and Tara Lenny in the ring, a kick to the stomach let Day hoist Lenny for a Fisherman’s Suplex to trapped her for three.

The trend continued with another entertaining match with lots of action. We didn’t get a whole lot of Tara Lenny, and with her back to camera for the majority of the match I couldn’t tell how invested she came across but in the moments I did see she presented a very confident figure. Big Mick and Stone Malone were a big brute of a team, almost treating Kev.i.n like a raw steak with the amount of a pounding they gave him.

Tall N Tiny were a well oiled machine, much like Tara we didn’t get a huge amount of Astrid Day due to the nature of a six person tag match but again the confidence was there as she fed off the crowd along with Kev and James jumping about on the apron. All six provided a good bit of entertainment.

Chris Kingston defeated John Robert Young by pinfall.

In the penultimate match of the show, Young started off by tying the loudmouth Kingston up, trapping him in his own turtleneck. Kingston tried to do a bit of the wrestling but Young had an answer for the attempts. There was a collision during a leap frog but Kingston was quick to grab a hold and ground Young.

Kingston tried to take a break but was brought back into the ring the hard way by being suplexed over the ropes, but regained the advantage by weaselling his way out of a waistlock by running Young throat first into the ropes.

The throat assault continued, just as Young looked to be taking control, Kingston would come back with a tornado DDT to hang him back over the top rope. Aiming his attacks at the neck and head, forcing John down with a neckbreaker.

But Young continued to be in the fight, slamming Kingston down with a gutwrench suplex but swung wildly with a lariat attempt to give Kingston the opening to land a Backstabber for the win.

While watching this one I drew comparisons to John Robert Young and Branagan, where the wrestling comes out as the most important part and charisma takes a backseat. As Branagan has had more time to evolve that whereas Young showed flashes but was more about doing the wrestling. He’s been in a few of the pre-show bonus matches and the Girders crowd have clearly taken him in as there was a lot of chants directed for Young and not just because he was in with someone so easy to dislike. I would be interested to see John Robert Young tangle with a Branagan or a Tommy Lockhart and really see what he can do.

Archie Williams defeated Adam King w/Marcus King by pinfall.

Main event Archie Williams, the girders in the Gallowgate were rocking for the referee to get in the ring, but Adam King was out to play spoiler by brushing off the early exchanges. A quick jump over gave Williams the chance to throw King down with a hip toss to ground King but it wasn’t long before Adam had Archie tied up in the ropes to unleash some stiff open hand chops to the chest that would’ve made BT Gunn proud.

Williams tried a string of pin attempts to send Adam King scuttling to this brother on the outside to regroup. Archie wasn’t backing down as he followed but a distraction from Marcus King lead him to be violently shoved off the apron and be the victim of a beating around ringside.

Adam King continued the pressure, driving his knees into the back of a second rope seated Williams, before driving him hard into the corner and flattening Archie with a suplex. Marcus provided more punishment on the outside while Adam kept Referee Michael occupied.

Despite the numbers being against him, Archie managed to roll back into the ring and keep coming back for more. King slapped the taste out of the mouth of Williams, who responded with a forearm so hard it sent Adam to the outside. A fired up Archie Williams tried to get a head of steam going but Adam King was too much of a juggernaut to keep down for long.

Williams dodged a corner splash to see Michael squashed in the corner with Marcus having no hesitation in getting involved to give Archie a flapjack/flatliner combo but Williams managed to get a shoulder up. KoE were done playing games but a second attempt to double team Archie saw Adam superkick Marcus and leave KoE red faced as Williams rolled Adam up for a pin.

KoE tried a post-match attack but it turned out Referee Michael Devine was actually one half of the Kings of the Fling Mikey Devine! He dished out a couple stunners to send KoE packing, KoE stood for Kicked Out Emphatically on this occasion.

Archie put out a challenge to face him and partner of his choosing to close out the show.

A classic underdog against the big bad bully scenario that was eaten up by the Girders audience. They willed Archie Williams to keep fighting back and he certainly did with an iron will to survive. It wasn’t a technical marvel of a match but the emotion provided made it a worthy main event when it came to showing the talent coming out of Iron Girders.

This was a highly entertaining show with those debuting giving a fantastic account of themselves with the bags of raw potential that we will only see get bigger and better in the months and years to come. Well worth a watch.

The full event is currently available on Twitch, go sign up and follow, turn on those notifications, and don’t miss out when they go live. March 29th is the next event at the Gallowgate, tickets are on sale now.

We host Iron Clash TV (available on the Iron Girders YouTube channel), check out some past matches from the promotion that is Girders Built.