REVIEW: Purpose Wrestling - Into the Light

Purpose Wrestling: Into The Light
Merton Arts Space, London
Friday, April 8, 2022
Reviewer: Dave Sewell (@davesewell04)

It was off to the library for some more Purpose wrestling. I didn’t have my plane mad son today so could part at Ruislip instead of Heathrow.

I left mine about five, arriving in Wimbledon around 6.30, quickly popped into McDonald’s for a McFlurry then popped to Starbucks for a coffee where I said hello to Skye Smitson who was wearing an Alexxis Falcon t-shirt, which made me smile.

While checking my messages I received a photo from my mates showing the Starbucks I was in and telling me to hurry up.

Once inside the venue we noticed there wasn’t as many chairs as usual so the crowd was a little bit smaller than usual, there was a small programme with the match card and future dates showing that Purpose Wrestling was going monthly,

Ring announcer was Chris Hatch and after all the house rules we began with a quarter final match for the new men’s title.

Connor Mills vs Doug Williams - Purpose Championship Tournament Quarter Final

We began with a promo from Mills saying he saw Doug wrestle Eddie Guerrero 20 years ago but now he’s no longer got it and that for the last five years he has been stealing the show and if Doug is lucky he can shake the hand of a true great after the match.

The early part of the match began with Doug using all his experience to outwrestle Mills and keeping him grounded. Eventually Mills gained a bit of control, after dropping Doug face first onto the turnbuckle followed by a basement drop kick to the back of the head.

Doug got a big suplex and went for the Chaos Theory which Mills counted with a rebound lariat which got a two-count.

The end came when Doug hit a sit out powerbomb followed by a cross face which Mills got his foot on the rope for. Doug then hit the Chaos Theory for what would’ve been the win but for the unwelcome appearance from The NIC, with Charlie Carter breaking the pin (no dq?) and distracting the ref while Oisin Delaney distracted Doug leaving him open for a big boot by Mills followed by the Burning Hammer for the win.

The NIC (Charlie Carter and Oisin Delaney) vs Oli Peace and Robbie Taylor

This match saw Taylor step in for the unavailable James Toner. I really hate to write this but this match was terrible, easily the worst I have seen all year. It started with NIC jumping their opponents before the bell (again), then a brief fight back with Taylor hitting Peace instead of Delaney - leading to a Taylor beatdown which lasted an eternity.

There was a hot tag tag out again, after a minute of all four men in the ring (during this Taylor did do a double sliced bread which was the one big part of the match).

Peace has Delaney in a full Nelson, Taylor misses and hits Peace again who’s had enough of this and simply walks off. One Black Flag later mercifully ends the match

David Francisco v Man Like Dereiss- Purpose Championship Tournament Quarter Final

Thankfully this livened thing up a bit with both competitors being impressed by our MLD section, which had all our lot in Dereiss t-shirts and wearing different coloured sunglasses (check mine or Dereiss’ Twitter for pics).

The early going had Francisco showing greater strength, getting the better of the shoulder licks. Dereiss built up a bit of steam, busting out a flying head scissors and a leg lariat, this was a pretty good back and forth match though Francisco always seemed to be a bit ahead.

I thought Francisco had this one with a cloverleaf but MLD made the ropes. But after a missed 450 Francisco won with what can best be described as a delayed Rock Bottom.

The part I find interesting is I think every time Francisco wins at Purpose it’s a different move, post match MLD came up and gave us all fist bumps. This brought us to first half interval where we had the aforementioned group pic with Dereiss.

Alex Windsor vs Safire Reed

Next up we had one of the best around in Alex Windsor against one of the most promising up and coming young stars Safire Reed, who looks better each time I see her.

This was predictably a good match, with the early going being all Alex - who made great use of her size advantage against the much smaller Reed.

She had Safire in a painful looking Surfboard and big spots include some Alex powerbombs Safire hitting three German suplexes in a row and a claymore from Safire which got a 2.99.

In the end Alex won with a kick to the chest followed by the Emerald Fusion (I must ask her the name of that next time we speak). This was definitely a step up in class from Safire but she held her own her and I definitely put down as a name to look out for.

We then saw Jordan Saeed come out to the ring and call out Rex Armstrong, who was at the bar and pretty much laughed at Saeed until he brought his daughter into it.

Rex then came to the ring, getting my fellow Grapple Theory reviewer Iwan MacKenzie to hold his beer. A match was made for the next show between Rex and JJ Lynch vs Saeed and RJ Singh, with the added stipulation that the losing team must disband not just from Purpose but from everywhere.

Experiment in Terror (LK Mezinger, Elijah and Skye Smitson) vs The 87 (Alexander Roth, Roy Johnson and Warren Banks)

This was an absolutely brilliant match. Skye came out with her two belts from other promotions, which looked very good. The underlying story sub on this was could Skye Smitson drop kick Warren Banks?The short answer, no, but they did drop kick the smallest member of the 87 in Roth.

There was really good chemistry between the teams, Skye showed great strength in lifting up Banks for a double stomp off the top rope from Elijah.

The end came with all participants in the ring and a Banks spear on Elijah, a Roth Superman punch on Smitson and a Johnson pounce on LK, followed by the 87 finisher where Johnson holds Smitson on his shoulder, similar to the Big Ending, while Roth hits a top rope double stomp.

The OJMO vs Nino Bryant - Purpose Wresting Title Tournament Quarter Final

Then it was on to the final match and if there was any doubt before, this was match of the night by a country mile.

The stipulation before this was if Solomon Lamb (who has put out a vid to the OJMO saying he’s going to be everywhere, leaving OJ anxious) was going to show up OJ would automatically qualify.

So, when OJMO came out with his Destination Everywhere cohorts they were told if they don’t leave then Nino would automatically qualify.

Seriously, I cannot not do this match justice in pure words, when it drops just watch it. Both men countering the others moves, OJMO in particular reversing moves into half crabs - the second one he cranked to such a level I’m not sure how Nino made it to the ropes.

He also hit a Frog Splash onto the apron and a Fosbury Flop on Nino whilst outside the ring on a chair. The end came with a top rope Hurricanrana by Nino, followed by a satellite DDT. Fantastic match here and OJMO’s selling really is on a different level.

Once again, another fantastic show from Purpose Wrestling, with the only low being the NIC match.

Hopefully Purpose will carry on going from strength to strength, the announcing of monthly shows could be promising, only time will tell.

Thanks for reading

Dave

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