Review: Purpose Wrestling - March of the Dogs

Purpose Wrestling: March of the Dogs
Merton Arts Space, London
Friday, July 8, 2022
Reviewer: Iwan Mackenzie (@iwanmack)

So my day started off with a trip over to Olympia for London Film and Comic Con; I normally leave spaces between doing these Cons but seeing as I had a day off that day from work, thought I’d make something of it before Purpose.

Finished there around 15:30, went to Waterloo, to meet my brother Leighton and got to Wimbledon for a meal and drink at the Wibbas Down where we met many mates before Purpose.

Even though it was Wimbledon season, it was surprisingly quiet. Got to the queue after this and doors opened a few minutes late. The library was also very warm on this day, so plenty of drinks was the way forward. Also they’ve dropped the Raffle prices, I still didn’t participate.

Chris Hatch was our host as ever, who did a really good job although I was enjoying the alternative hosts of Hatch and Jessy Maria at Purpose, hopefully we can see Jessy again soon.

The East City Sovereigns (RJ Singh & Jordan Saeed) vs The 87 (Roy Johnson & Warren Banks) (w/ Alexander Roth)

Our first of many tag matches on this show, ECS came out in a new pair of matching trunks which we sang about as they were very red and very shiny.

This was a really good match to open the show, had good pace to it, there was a lot of good crowd interaction from all of them as well, including RJ calling himself the “daddy” and Jordan saying ‘hi’ to Dave Sewell after what happened with his promo in April.

Roy Johnson looked great here, I loved the energy of his hot tag, his gear and look were on point, I was very impressed. Unfortunately though it wasn’t to be for the 87 lads, Jordan riled up Roth on the outside and got chased which distracted the ref, RJ spat water into Roy’s eyes before delivering the DDT for the win.

As the Sovereigns pick up more victories with potential Tag Team Championships being in the future.

David Francisco vs Rob Lias

First time I’ve seen Lias since August 2021, he riled up the crowd as much as the crowd gave it back. Francisco was in a mood after being out of the final of the Purpose Championship tournament after his loss to Breaks last time.

He did take that out on Lias, after Lias was pushing it. This was good to see and a nice bit of storyline from the last event, but I felt it petered out too quickly and this just became a regular match which was disappointing.

This wasn’t a bad match per say but I can’t remember much about it really despite my notes from the show. We had Francisco win this match via the Crossface Submission.

The 0121 (Dan Moloney & Man Like Dereiss) vs The Super Chapman Bros. (Mad Kurt & Harry Chapman)

The three year rivalry of Moloney/Kurt continues here with it entering Purpose and Kurt being rilled up after Moloney destroyed him and Harry back in February. Both men’s tag partners were involved with the Mandem Section coming back out for Dereiss on this night.

Right from the off set, this match was just pure comedy with Mad Kurt singing the lyrics to his own theme, Harry saying Dan can’t beat his score on Minecraft and Dan calling Mrs. Chapman, all this with Dereiss bantering with the crowd.

The 0121 also got my mates grandson Roman involved in this match with Dereiss “acknowledging him” and also getting Roman to chop Mad Kurt.

This whole match was hilarious, everyone one in this match really put a load of effort into it and it was definitely felt in the crowd. We had Dan deliver the Drilla Killa to Harry to get the win for his team and send us all happy into the Interval.

Bullit & Oli Peace vs Jay Alexander & Robbie Taylor

This all stemmed from the last year of Purpose of Oli being teamed with random names like Nino Bryant and his two opponents Alexander/Taylor and always end up on the losing end.

He finally snapped in April leaving Robbie during their match with the NIC (which to be kind, wasn’t very good) so he has decided to pick his partner in the One Man Armory who was making his debut here.

We had a spilt crowd here with fans getting behind the younger wrestlers but some fans were actually cheering for Bullit and Peace to deliver the punishment here.

Most of this match was Bullit absolutely destroying Jay and Robbie with small flurry’s of offence from the babyfaces, more when Oli was in the ring.

It wasn’t enough though as Bullit picked up the win after the Bullit Bomb to Alexander; a really enjoyable match that was a good showcase for Bullit, plus Alexander/Taylor looked very good as well.

The AVA vs Amira ‘Windsor’

Originally this was supposed be Alex Windsor vs AVA but with Windsor Japan bound to face Maki Itoh, she needed a replacement, so Amira replaced her in a hilarious video released online before the show and then shown at the show.

So we had Amira cosplaying here complete with full entrance and her own Nicknames: “She is Plastic Willed, she is Aluminum, she is Alex Windsor from Wish and she was the Only One Available!” - I was absolutely roaring with laughter with this introduction, this was great.

We had AVA with an instant big boot and Neutraliser but Amira kicked out, truly showing she is Plastic Willed. Amira fought back from the initial attack and even hit the Windsor Cannonball on the outside.

Crowd was massively behind Amira here and every near fall was something the crowd bit on. I think the smart thing here was keeping this match short which was the right idea, as both women are still relatively early in their careers and I think a longer match would have exposed this.

We had AVA win this with the Neutraliser on the second time of asking, Amira clutched Alex’s jacket after the match.

Jordon Breaks & Nino Bryant vs Destination: Everywhere (Connor Mills & The O.J.M.O)

This had been built up for a while all stemming back to Breaks beating Mills last September which sent Mills down the Dark Path of Destination: Everywhere, with Mills pinning Breaks in December in an eight-man tag match, and ahead of their Tournament Final in August.

Meanwhile Nino has been battling D:E since they formed and even beat OJMO in April in Purpose’s greatest match to advance to the semi finals but was screwed over by OJMO, allowing Mills to win.

So it had all come to a head here and with the hype video they had before the match, this genuinely felt massive.

Have to say as well on their entrance, both Oku and Mills looked fantastic, with Breaks and Bryant’s entrance theme also fitting well together.

The match started off frantically with Breaks/Bryant double teaming Mills/Oku with many catapults on the outside and dives as well, Mills took back over though with a big Moonsault to both men.

Back in the ring, good heat worked onto Nino Bryant by D:E and built the tension of the hot tag for Breaks to get his hands onto Mills one on one, this was so engaging throughout and felt like a proper main event.

Breaks got back in and went buck wild on D:E with him using his technical prowess to neutralise them; at one point we had Breaks and Bryant go on a run of double teaming and looked to have the watch won but D:E were able to survive.

The same happened with Oku and Mills who went on a spree of double team moves including a Spike Tombstone on the outside and it looked like they had won but the bayfaces survived and the crowd was so into this.

The finish came with Mills setting up the Mills Cutter and Oku ready for the frog splash, Nino held Oku’s legs so Breaks could get out and pin Mills again with the European Clutch to get the win for the team.

When I write my top live matches of the year, this will be high up there for me, this was just absolutely amazing from start to finish and felt like high level Indie wrestling and I’d highly recommend people watch it when it hits YouTube.

Post-match, The NIC attacked Breaks and Bryant, Mills unveiled the Purpose Championship which I’ll be honest I’m not really a fan of personally, he says that he’ll be the champion of this venue and that us lot will be upset with the result and he’s the best in London, good promo from Mills here.

All of Destination: Everywhere attacked Breaks afterwards, before a parade of babyfaces came out to run them off to end the show.

Overall I really enjoyed this show! As some of you will know, I was down on the last show but this match did deliver to me, the only match that I wasn’t massively into was the Francisco/Lias match and that wasn’t even bad, though the Tag Team matches stood out and the Amira presentation was pretty spot on.

There’s good storytelling happening, I’m really invested in the main event scene especially. The only thing that I feel needs more emphasis is the Women’s division, more than one match on a show would be good at the least; plus those Raffle prizes need to improve.

Thanks for Reading. Follow me on Instagram @IwanMack

Review: Purpose Wrestling - March of the Dogs

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