REVIEW: Wrestling Resurgence - Iron Women Of Resurgence
Credit: Wrestling Resurgence/@AlecHugill1
Wrestling Resurgence: Iron Women of Resurgence
Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester
Saturday, March 12, 2022
Reviewer: Iwan MacKenzie (@iwanmack)
My day started off with a trip to London Victoria Coach Station to grab the 09:30 coach to Leicester with my good mate Dave. We arrived at around 12:15 and got to our humble abode for the night: Travelodge Central. Will say, very friendly staff and central to many pubs and restaurants but felt the amenities were lacking in the actual room. Decent place to stay the night though.
We got an Uber to the venue and met up with our mates Dylan and Ashleigh amongst others. The doors were a little late but it’s BritWres show so it’s expected, but full credit to Resurgence they had everyone in on time and made Accessible Entry the priority which you love to see.
Also, running sheets for what was happening across both shows were given out so that people could catch up on the stories of the promotion.
SHOW 1
The show started on time and it should be said our host Beau Belles did a smashing job across both shows. As somebody who's known her for a good few years as well, I was really proud of her in how well she has done.
Charli Evans came out first in a promo segment. She said her planned match with Kanji was off due to both of them being not medically cleared. She shouted out both Resurgence and GOOD for presenting wrestling in a different way and presenting her vision of pro wrestling.
She then vacated the Resurgence Championship, she said that she's putting Evie first before Charli and thanked all the fans.
Credit: Wrestling Resurgence/@theheaddrop
This was gutting to hear, first because it’s a performer in Charli Evans who I have a lot of time for and somebody that I really hope heals and comes back even better than she was before. And it's a shame that the Kanji/Charli match, that was a ticket seller for me, wasn't happening.
But you can't be angry as these things happen and wrestler’s health always comes first. I’d also like to commend Charli Evans for being so open and honest when it comes to talking about the struggles of mental health, it's not a taboo subject and we should all be talking about this.
We at Grapple Theory would like to echo the sentiments of Iwan here, we wish Charli the best in her recovery and commend her openness when discussing her battles with mental health. We love you Charli, take all the time you need - Jamie, Grapple Theory
So, as a result of this there were a few card changes on the day. Let’s see what happened (well I was there so I know what happened but you, the reader, may not know that yet)
Mercedez Blaze vs Charlie Morgan - Iron Woman of Resurgence Tournament Quarter-Final Match
Credit: Wrestling Resurgence
This was a good match, helped by being on first in that it warmed up the crowd for the rest of the card and was good for the kids seeing a goodie/baddie Match.
Blaze in particular was really good, especially giving the crowd what for, which I was worried on her entrance as nobody was booing her. But, she settled into her role really well here. Plus being against Charlie Morgan, who’s one of the biggest babyfaces on the scene, helped here for Blaze’s heel tactics to shine.
We had Blaze win this match with the Tower of London to advance through to the next round.
Gia Adams vs Ivy vs Skye Smitson
As we found out before show day, these three had stepped in at the last minute to have an additional match for the show, so big props to all three women here.
Great to see Gia Adams again, who I rarely see but I think is excellent. She definitely needs more exposure across the scene. There were big boos for Ivy and Skye when I saw them, Ivy gave me a stare of death.
We had Ivy claiming that she was really smart because she has a degree. I asked her what her degree was in, she said Marketing and Business which led to one of the heckles of the night from Ashleigh “Oooh, Somebody is doing well for themselves!” I laughed a lot.
Ivy wanted to team up with Skye to take out Gia but Skye said she’s already got three tag partners, so Ivy decided to bargain with Gia instead so they could team up but the match soon got started.
For a match that was very last minute, this was really good, all three worked really well together and played their parts well. As I said before, Gia stood out here, she's great as are both Ivy and Skye who are great entertainment on these kinds of shows. We had Skye win this after hitting the Cobra Clutch Slam on Ivy.
Alexxis Falcon vs Lizzy Evo - Iron Woman of Resurgence Tournament Quarter-Final Match
Credit: Wrestling Resurgence
This rivalry has been getting a lot of plaudits across the scene since shows restarted, with their feud being mostly centred in TNT Extreme - with the pair also having a match in PROGRESS during the empty arena era.
This was a really good match, it's evident to see that these two have real chemistry with one another. It’s not too dissimilar from the Kanji/Evans chemistry, even though the styles are different.
Really great to actually cheer for Alexxis for once as well, who’s normally a heel when I see her, and she came out to her banger theme of “She’s a Little Angel '' by The Little Angels.
We had Alexxis win this match after hitting the Falcon’s Fury, but Lizzy didn’t take this win well as she blindsided Alexxis after and injured her knee severely, here which wasn’t good for Alexxis going into the next round. You’d think Lizzy would be in a better mood, Liverpool won 2-0 earlier that day over Brighton.
Alex Windsor vs Laura Di Matteo - Iron Woman of Resurgence Tournament Quarter-Final Match
Credit: Wrestling Resurgence
Even though I enjoyed the first half of this show a lot, I did feel that at this point business picked up. This match was an absolute banger, these two have got great chemistry with one another and play to each other’s strengths so well. Alex was overpowering and stretching out Laura through, with Laura having to earn her comebacks against Alex.
Make sure to put this on your Watchlist when the VOD becomes available of this show for sure. We had Windsor win here with a variation of the Emerald Flowsion (that’s what I can best describe it as), it did the job for sure.
Rhio vs Evie Madden - Iron Woman of Resurgence Tournament Quarter-Final Match
Credit: Wrestling Resurgence
This match had an uphill battle as I felt the crowd was a bit burnt out from Windsor/LDM, but credit to both women here as they pulled out something completely different and it really worked.
I’m a big fan of Rhio and was cheering for her at first but it soon became evident that she was the big heel here as she tried to kill Evie, which led to the crowd and myself going for Evie. This was basically Monster vs Underdog and it worked.
Rhio is incredible as the vicious heel that can just tear her opponents limb from limb and Evie Madden is someone I really enjoy watching, her selling in this match was great and her valiance to fight back was genuinely brilliant.
We did have Rhio win this though after the Purple Haze as she stood ominously over Evie after the match.
Jetta vs Rhia O’Reilly vs Clementine vs Ava Everett - Artcore Match
Credit: Wrestling Resurgence
For the first time since June 2019, Artcore was back in Resurgence. The rules of this match are; No DQ, but art based crafts can be used. We also had Lauren the ref in some art dungarees just to add to the vibe.
Jetta changed the lyrics to her song to “Nobody draws it Jetta”, me and her started singing it at the same time and she gave me a high five for having the same thought about it.
Ava had the Hump about her canvas not being as big as the rest of the field and we fans gave her grief. She asked if I was better than her, then proceeded to stand me up and dress me up as her as I drew for her. I just wrote “Ava sucks and Clementine is going to win” as Ava threw Crayons at me.
Our life model for this Artcore Match was Rich Tea who I recognised from a book launch show a couple of years ago, where they were Little Dick in the Big Dick Energy tag team.
The gimmick is a drag artist playing a stereotypical bloke in the “Lads, Lads, Lads” culture. They came out spraying Lynx Africa and to Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”.
Now, I Understand the gimmick and what it meant to this match but I didn’t feel the crowd cared here about this and when they were taken out the match properly kicked off.
Rich was taken out after he made insults about the participants being moody because they were on their periods, as they were taken out with a canvas over their heads. Guess it was a self portrait…
We had Jetta and Rhia destroying each other’s work first, they then defaced my picture that Ava claimed for herself, with the only picture left being Clementine’s who was in her artistic mind place through this.
Clem was able to hide this with a member of the audience as the foursome went brawling around the ringside area. Rhia was able to find the painting and Clementine ended up destroying her own work over Ava’s head and went into a rage, this was the highlight of the match.
We had Rhia hit the Rhiajustment DDT on Ava, then Jetta clocked Rhia over the head with a canvas to pin and win the Artcore Match.
Really enjoyed this match, it was a good laugh and ended the first show on a high. Post-match, we had Rhia attack Jetta. Charlie ran in for the save before Skye came into attack Charlie, as backstage staff (Including Brady Phillips) came out to separate the two teams. Jetta and Charlie Morgan challenged the Uprising for the EVE Tag Team Championships for the evening show.
Intermission
Show finished around 16:15, and us lot walked into the city centre and ended up in Tim Horton’s. Now, if you’ve never had Tim’s before, it’s like McDonalds and Greggs had a baby and it’s fantastic. Plus, for this month, from 5pm-11pm all evening meals are £2.99! An amazing offer, so I had a Double Tim Burger, Waffle Fries and Fanta Zero all for that low price.
A great dinner was had. Will say that the toilets here , though we're not that good at all, I won’t go into detail.
Walked back to the venue around 18:00, doors were late again but John apologised and we still started on time though. Not as many people in as the afternoon show, which was a shame but unfortunately it's those kinds of times where COVID is still a thing and unfortunately can throw a spanner into the works.
Had a good chat with the Mecha Shotei brothers here, especially Eddie telling me about Deathmatches in Derby, plus picked up a Resurgence shirt for a fiver and an awesome All Japan Women Pin Badge.
SHOW 2
Rhio vs Alexxis Falcon - Iron Woman of Resurgence Tournament Semi-Final Match
This was a fantastic opener, continuing the respective stories of both women from the afternoon with Rhio looking to tear through Falcon in similar fashion the way she did with Evie Madden.
Alexxis still holding the knee injury from Lizzy Evo’s attack, with Alexxis limping to the ring and shying away from her usual splits upon entrance.
Rhio jumped on Alexxis as soon as she could and went on the attack from there, with Alexxis in peril throughout. She was able to fight back and had the crowd believing that she could pull through, even kicking out of the Purple Haze towards the end.
Unfortunately the knee injury proved to be too much for her as Rhio locked in a Half Crab for the submission win and held it in after the bell had run. She went to leave and just went back to attack Alexxis some more, which I love to see heels do - they’re the absolute scum of the earth with no regards to people's well regard.
Now I know a babyface having an injury in a tournament is a cliche but sometimes cliches are good and this worked so well as both women are excellent and played their parts to perfection in this. Thumbs up from Me!
Alex Windsor vs Mercedez Blaze: Iron Woman of Resurgence Tournament Semi-Final Match
So how do you follow up a banger? With another banger of course. My word this was in contention for best match of the whole day.
I’ve been a Mercedez Blaze fan for years now, since seeing her debut match in 2018. She’s improved so much since then but I didn’t know she had this performance in her.
Easily the best performance of her career and she looked fantastic in beating down Windsor and genuinely had me questioning to who was going to win as it could have gone either way.
Alex Windsor was on for her second great match of the day and hit a massive Pop-Up Liger Bomb which was incredible. You’re going to hear me sing her praises later in this review, but my god what a wrestler she is. This is what going to live wrestling is about to see these high level wrestlers shine in front of your eyes.
We had Windsor win this with her Emerald Flowsion variation, one to mark down for the watchlist folks.
Clementine vs Ava Everett: The Lion, The Witch and Wardrobe Match
So after two straight great matches, it was time to see something completely different as a wardrobe came to the entrance way for the match. This Chronicles of Narnia parody content could be won once one opponent was locked into the wardrobe, like in a Casket Match but with a wardrobe.
We had Ava Everett as the White Witch complete with hat, cape and facepaint, coming out to “Season of the Witch” by Lana Del Ray - there were chants of “where’s your broomstick?”, “where’s your cauldron” and “where’s your black cat?”
Meanwhile Clementine was out as the Lion in a callback to the Theatre of Wrestling live performance that went onto YouTube last year.
Now as you may know, I like to chant and I was in my element here as I got out chants for Clementine of “Rawr” to the Imperial March, “In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion wins tonight” and me changing up the Hyan song to “you are, you are, lion, lion!”
Clementine broke into fits of laughter as did many others. I had a guy come up to me afterwards to say that he loved my songs, thank you if you’re reading this.
Now onto the match, this was an absolute hoot of a match, very much a big comedy match but you needed this at this point of the night and was something really enjoyable for all of those in attendance.
Ava threatened to eat the children in attendance, Clem chased her around the ring, Ava beat up Clem leading to “RSPCA” songs and my mate Ashleigh threatening to call Paul O’Grady.
Ava used sleeping powder on Clem to get her to fall asleep so she could win and told everyone to be quiet only for Joe Kennard on commentary to shout loudly “the lion is asleep!” which drew big laughs here. A “this is awesome” chant even broke out for him.
Clementine woke up and was able to use Ava’s tactics on her as she used the sleeping powder on Ava to lock her into the wardrobe to win and return to Narnia! Buckets of fun.
The Uprising (Skye Smitson & Rhia O’Reilly) vs Charlie Morgan & Jetta - EVE Tag Team Championships Match
Back from our break and it was time for our title match and rematch from EVE’s Signature Brew Debut in 2021, where Jetta and Charlie picked up the win as Jetta pointed out herself before the match.
Whilst I enjoy everyone in this match and generally didn’t mind it, I will say that this was probably the weakest match of the day for me. It had good energy to start off and I enjoyed the heat segments from Uprising to Jetta and the way Jetta sold.
The things that hampered this match were a few slip ups, especially with the ropes which were cleaned after the match had finished. But I will say that they recovered well from these slip ups which is a sign of a true pro.
My other issue was something I generally feel with Uprising matches and that’s that they follow the same structure; normally a hot start of the match, then a big beatdown segment leading to the hot tag, bit of back and forward and then they win the match.
It feels just like as the match gets cooking it ends, which is a shame because I feel the matches have got the potential there and I like Rhia and Skye as a duo. It's the only barrier I feel with their matches, but that’s just my opinion.
We had Uprising win this match with an Assisted Curb Stomp to Jetta for them to retain their championships as their second reign with the belts continues.
We then had Beau introduce Lizzy Evo, who wanted to get something off her chest. She was on the offensive from the off, berating Beau for talking for her, having a go at me - calling me “an ugly man” and at one point did break and start laughing at something someone said, which I couldn’t hear.
She soon recovered by telling a guy to shut up and said she could smell his breath from a mile away! She was having a moan that she’s the best in the country and wasn’t booked on the second show and challenged anyone in the back, which led to Laura Di Matteo appearing. And we already had a referee in the ring…who’d have thunk it?
Laura Di Matteo vs Lizzy Evo
This was good, maybe didn’t get into that next gear for me, but it was a good match and was able to be a ‘shop window’ into showing off Lizzy Evo as a heel. She was really berating the crowd here, having a go at the ref and disrespecting Laura. Laura showcased herself well here as well as the underdog getting back in the fight.
In a bit of a surprise move, we did have Laura win this with her Four V’s Submission Hold (I won’t butcher the Move’s actual name). Lizzy got the “Ah” point of shame from me only for her threaten to go for me and pointed the “Ah” finger at me.
Alex Windsor vs Rhio: Iron Woman of Resurgence Tournament Final Match
This is what it all came down to. Alex had gone hell for leather in her two previous matches, whilst Rhio was able to brutalise her opponents in her two previous matches. It was down to these two titans of the squared circle to find out who the Iron Woman was.
This was the match of the day for me, maybe cliche to say that the final was the best match but these two absolutely pulled it out of the bag here. It was a fantastic way to bow out of a great day of wrestling.
These two just traded big shots and bombs from the offset with them even brawling around ringside and into the coffee shop area which the crowd couldn’t see but when it was obvious that they may be a little longer.
I got out of my seat to what was happening because I put myself in danger to bring the good people of Grapple Theory the best report.
We had them brawling all around the coffee shop, exchanging punches in the big armchairs and ruining the Mecha Shotei merch area, those poor pin badges…
Back in the main venue and with me, Dave and Ashleigh being out of our seats, Alex decided to throw Rhino into our them - thankfully they didn’t go flying.
Back in the ring and these two just threw themselves at each other and threw big moves out there hoping anything would get them the win, in some ways reminding me of the big All Japan women main events from the 1990s.
We had Rhio hit a Purple Haze to a nearfall, Windsor hit a Top Rope Sunset Liger Bomb but in the end it was Windsor with the variation of Emerald Flowsion to get the win and win the inaugural Iron Woman of Resurgence Tournament to many cheers and a standing ovation from the audience.
Post match, Windsor spoke about winning, and said that she wants to go for the championship as WAR’s “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” played us out.
Post Show, met a few of the wrestlers and then said bye to Ashleigh as me and Dave popped into the King’s Arm for a Coke and a cob (that’s a bread roll), before calling it a night at the hotel.
Also to mention quickly, we had breakfast the next day at St Martins Coffee Shop, lovely breakfast and friendly staff, would highly recommend if you’re in Leicester.
CONCLUSION
My word what a day of wrestling this was. You had so much variety throughout the day with so many different styles of wrestling and 15 incredible women throughout the whole day, making this such a great live experience. Also shoutout to Beau Belles as the MC and our ref’s Laura and LK Ashley for their work throughout this day.
For me, this was the Alex Windsor show throughout the day, she had three matches during the day that were all high quality and will be on my LMOTY candidacy, with the final being in the top five, easily.
What a wrestler Alex Windsor is, she’s been on fire since her return in August last year and has not disappointed in the ring, an absolute credit to the British Wrestling scene.
The same praise needs to be heaped on Rhio as well who has improved massively since I first saw her years ago and with the North West Strong connection has done so well for herself over the last few months. I’m glad she’s got her name out there.
Clementine was fantastic that day, I need to mention as well, in completely different matches from the rest of the cards. She shone through here so much, one of the most talented performers in the whole country.
If you’ve never been to Resurgence and you can, I’d urge you to get to this wonderful promotion. It’s wrestling that's just fun and simple and plays to the casual audience and more experienced fans at the same time without insulting anybodies intelligence.
What they’ve done for the Iinclusivity for the audience and wrestlers is truly awesome, easily one of my favourite promotions in the country. Even though I’m from London, I will happily make the trips to these shows as I’m getting my money's worth.
They’ve got shows coming up through the year with their next show in the Y Theatre on April 23rd for a double header featuring former IWTV Champion WARHORSE, get yourself to it if you can, you will not be disappointed whatsoever.
Thank you all for reading, you can follow me on Instagram on @IwanMack where you can find me GrapsMeets from this show and many more, and make sure to check out the Grapple Theory website for many reviews up and down the country and articles on a wide ranging subjecting including which British wrestlers should be Gladiators (Heidi Katrina should be Jet).
Thanks for Reading
Iwan Mackenzie