This Is VALOR returned, as we head to St Ninian’s Church Hall for the first part of Break Stuff.

The cold open featured Chris Renfrew hyping up Sami Sparx prior to Legends Never Die, Sparx promised to never let Renfrew down.

There was no messing about with an intro, opening with Eastern Bloc being booed mercilessly from the Kirkintilloch crowd, they didn’t endear themselves any further by ripping up signs and making kids cry (brah). The jeers continued as Legends Never Die made their way out before we saw the happiest Saqib Ali ever, dancing his way out with stand in tag team partner Johnny Pressley, who replaced Jordan Saeed, to form The Dancing Habibis.

Triple Threat – Legends Never Die (Fulton King & Sami Sparx) defeated Eastern Bloc (Patryk Peterski & Jan Islav), and The Dancing Habibis (Johnny Pressley & Saqib Ali) by pinfall.

Fulton King and Sami Sparx were the first duo to receive a pasting, even Eastern Bloc were happily going after The New Age Kliq’s goons. Pressley and Ali had a bit of fun with Eastern Bloc until they turned around to find themselves in the way of a charging Patryk Peterski. Peterski continued to show dominance until he met The Juggernaut Fulton King head on.

King knocked down Patyrk as Saqib Ali returned to the ring to take it to the big Fulton, peppering King with chops to tried an stumble the big man. A jumping clothesline knocked Fulton into the corner and follow up tornado DDT had him down. There was little time to celebrate with Sami returning to get him sum, taking out Ali before having Jan Islav on him.

Johnny gyrated and flattened Islav to the ground as the constant motion of bodies eventually led to Peterski and King squaring off again. The colossal pair caught a diving Johnny Pressley to throw him out of the ring. LND and Eastern Bloc brawled until Pressley re-entered the fray with Patryk making Johnny his prime target, Jan stopped his tussle with Sami Sparx on the turnbuckles to assist and team up for an elevated neck breaker. Both members of Eastern Bloc covering Pressley until an unattended Sparx launched himself from the top with a Swanton to break the fall.

Legends Never Die preyed on the weakened Johnny Pressley, batting off the rescue attempts from Saqib Ali and driving Pressley down for Punk Tactics to collect the win in a chaotic triple threat.

Sparx and King attacked The Dancing Habibis after the match until Sami’s mum Amelia stepped into the ring to try and talk sense into her son. The verbal back and forth lead to Amelia slapping Sami and receiving a chair shot to the head in retaliation. A moment that looked to shock Fulton King watching on.

This is one of the first times in this batch of episodes where I think that commentary would have been beneficial for the release to make the chair shot mean more and provide better context. The match was a rapid fire mayhem, the teases of Eastern Bloc and The New Age Kliq maybe having something down the line, more specifically Patryk Peterski and Fulton King, was interesting. Overall no-one really got time to showcase themselves and the match was a big schmoz, an entertaining schmoz, but a schmoz nonetheless. …schmoz.

A dumbfounded Chris Renfrew met Sami backstage as Sparx doubled down to justify his actions were to prove his loyalty to The New Age Kliq.

Before the next match Krobar grabbed the mic to challenge Lou King Sharp to put his W3L Wrestling Showdown Championship on the line, if he had the balls. Sharp entered wielding a Singapore Cane in each hand, putting one down to hand the gold to referee Archie Williams to confirm his testicle status for the belt to be up for grabs.

W3L Wrestling Showdown Championship – Triple Threat – Lou King Sharp defeated Frank of the Cross, and Krobar by pinfall to retain.

Krobar and Frank immediately attacked Lou as the bell echoed around the hall, the tensions from their previous triple threat were lingering when Frank tried to sneak a quick pin with Krobar giving him a warning. Krobar brought in a chair to leather Sharp over the head with and didn’t see the point of wasting anymore time on the alliance with Frank of the Cross, clubbing him from behind.

Lou King Sharp broke a Krobar pin and set about scrambling the brains of his opponents, a shot to the skull each sent Krobar and Frank seated into opposite corners to be victim to a bit of chair surfing. Sharp sent Frank out of the ring with a projected dive through the ropes being thwarted by a God’s Country size forearm to the face.

Sharp was back on defence, absorbing Krobar and Frank taking turns to smash the contorted chair off The Blood Tourist’s body with Lou skirling in agony. Krobar tried to use the Singapore Cane but missed his intended target to smack it off Frank of the Cross to open Sharp to start swinging the cane himself.

Frank managed to recover to hoist Lou up and connected with a TKO onto the chair. Krobar saved his title hopes at the two count by barrelling into the pile and break the count. Krobar delivered a DDT to Frank of the Cross while Lou King Sharp fetched a barrier from under the ring to bash Krobar with. Sharp set up the barrier into the corner, only to be driven through it via a Death Valley Driver courtesy of the Kommandant of the Eastern Bloc, that snapped the barrier upon impact.

It was looking good for Krobar, he retrieved a couple extra chairs to pile into the centre of the ring as the battle headed up the turnbuckle. Sharp fought off Krobar to send him backwards into the pool of steel, a writhing in pain Krobar could only watch on as Lou came crashing down with a Frog Splash for the pin and to retain the W3L Wrestling Showdown Championship.

A fine match, but with it coming after the triple threat tag match it did feel a bit samey. The weaponry was used to add an edge to the bout with the three men kept in the ring for the most part, but the dynamic was similar and could have been better if it had a breaker match in between. It didn’t help that last week’s episode had a triple threat involving Krobar and Frank of the Cross which had the “are they on the same page” stuff early on. To put a positive spin, Krobar showed enough wherewithal to not leave the team up to go on any longer than necessary.

Chris Bungard joined Kayleigh in the ring to put an open challenge out for Red Dead Wrestling III. Krobar, joined by Jan Islav, interrupted the party, after talking up his upcoming match with Pitbull Gary Wolfe, he volunteered Jan to be the one to take up the open challenge. After the initial shock, Islav puffed up his chest and laid out his MMA background, hyping himself up in the process. Jan rushed into the ring and was immediately locked into an armbar and was tapping out instantly.

Chris Renfrew w/Irn Dru Marshall defeated Mike Musso by pinfall.

Mike Musso got the best of the opening lock ups to put Chris Renfrew to the mat with a shoulder tackle. Renfrew was insistent on receiving a handshake but Musso was wise enough to ball up his fist for a couple right hands instead. The Merchandise had a flurry, driving his knees into the chest of Renfrew with the third being interrupted by Dru Marshall pulling his leg.

Marshall’s involvement had him punched off the apron, as Renfrew tried to jump Musso to take advantage. Mike turned it around to send The Godfather of Insanity to the outside. Musso grabbed Dru and Renfrew for a noggin’ knocker which Marshall showed no effect from, which was great.

The match spilled to the outside and to the tuck shop, Mike Musso politely requested a hot dog and proceeded to stuff it into the mouth of Chris Renfrew and give him the handshake he so desired. Irn Dru tried to get involved again, Musso hurled him into the ring and picked him up for Blunt Force Trauma. Dru countered with a headbutt that was enough for referee Sean Moran to send Irn Dru to the back to leave it one on one.

Renfrew grabbed a metal bin that he soon found to be on the wrong side of it. The match broke down into a slugfest, returning back to the outside where Musso hit the Blunt Force Trauma to send Chris Renfrew’s head into contact with the edge of the apron, Mike rolled in a motionless Renfrew into the ring for the cover which was stopped by Marshall dragging Sean Moran out at two.

It was enough to distract Mike Musso to turn around and get Stunnered for Chris Renfrew and look up at the lights.

The New Age Kliq tandem tried to set up a post-match attack until Lou King Sharp came out all guns blazing to run them off. Mike declared his place in Team VALOR for Red Dead Wrestling III with Sharp ending the episode with a battle cry on the road to the showdown at The Grand Ole Opry.

As a main event to the episode it had it’s brawling antics but it was a match that stood out as more grounded in comparison to the two multi-man matches. The pace was kept well to roll with the crowd reactions.

A solid episode of This Is VALOR, it wasn’t perfect and some things didn’t quite hit for me. The Grand Ole Opry is becoming quite iconic for VALOR so when it returns to St Ninian’s it presents a different atmosphere and presentation. The VALOR crowd in Kirkintilloch are still very much up for being entertained but there is something missing in the air that is there when the shows are at the Opry in Glasgow.

The show is available on YouTube: