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Match Report – Victoria Hall, Hanley, 20th September 2008
Ever since Kendo Nagasaki’s last
live appearance at Grays, Essex, in May, I’ve eagerly awaited the
next opportunity to him see live again. As usual, controversial and
strange events have surrounded Nagasaki since his last match, adding
even more heat to his feud with his opponents.
Firstly, as reported on the Kendo Nagasaki website, the Sword of
Excellence was taken from Kendo Nagasaki by Yorghos and Hakan during
a book signing at Grays on 19th July. Yorghos stated that he felt it
should be returned to Robbie Brookside, as Brookside had previously
won it fair and square. However, as we know, Nagasaki had previously
felt that Brookside simply didn’t measure-up, and this prompted
Brookside to mount his 3-man tag team challenge to Nagasaki at Grays
in May, the team including himself, Phil Powers, and, after Nagasaki
had rejected Yorghos’s presence in the team, Hakan.
Brookside’s team was completely demolished at the Grays match; this
was supposed to be their opportunity to re-claim the Sword of
Excellence, and their complete failure must have motivated Hakan to
team up with Yorghos and steal the Sword at Nagasaki’s book-signing
in July. This event was caught on LDN’s cameras, and subsequently
shown on the LDN Capital Wrestling show, and Atlantis Chronos Goth
issued a chilling warning to Hakan and Yorghos that their actions
would be very dangerous for them.
It later emerged on LDN Capital TV that Yorghos and Hakan had
decided to challenge Nagasaki to a ladder match. I felt this was
extremely ambitious of them – not only would they have to defeat
Nagasaki’s team, but they would also have to successfully avoid any
foul play by Nagasaki, who is, of course, notorious for bending the
rules to impossible degrees. This looked like it would be a
fascinating match, and I bought my ticket.
On the night, the hall was full – clearly, a great many people
wanted to witness this spectacle. There were a couple of very vocal
groups of wrestling fans who made their dislike for Nagasaki very
clear by chanting “Kendo sucks, Kendo sucks!” as they waited for his
bout to begin.
There was an additional feature staged that evening – early in the
evening, a large video screen showed a history of Nagasaki’s career,
and just before Nagasaki’s bout, a trailer for a forthcoming film
was also shown, called Kendo Nagasaki: Genesis In Portrait. The
trailer was very interesting, showing clips of Nagasaki’s life and
development, shown in animation, as painted by local artist Rob
Pointon, who was introduced before the screening. The animation was
very good, and there was a musical soundtrack and a narrative spoken
by Atlantis Chronos Goth; I’m really looking forward to more news of
the release of the film.
Then Nagasaki’s entrance music played, and the show began. Once they
were all in the ring, as usual, Atlantis Chronos Goth snatched the
microphone from the MC and welcomed the disciples of Kendo Nagasaki,
and then she belittled Yorghos and Hakan, ridiculing them for
stealing the Sword of Excellence for Robbie Brookside because he
hadn’t even turned up for the bout. Atlantis taunted them, saying
they were misguided. Atlantis then demanded silence, as usual, for
the Ceremony of the Salt, where Nagasaki performs his mystical
eastern blessing of the ring, during which the fired-up crowd didn’t
give Nagasaki the silence that Atlantis had asked for.
It would be a 2-man tag-team match, with Nagasaki partnered by
Blondie Barrett versus Yorghos and Hakan. The Sword of Excellence
was suspended above the ring, and the winners of the match would
have to retrieve a ladder from the back of the hall and take it
down, but with Nagasaki’s reputation, I knew it wouldn’t be that
simple.
Then the match itself began – and almost immediately all hell broke
loose. The referee never really had a chance of enforcing the rules
of a tag match, and again and again, the action spilled out of the
ring onto the hall’s stage. Even the normally law-abiding Yorghos
frequently double-teamed with Hakan against either Barratt or
Nagasaki, fighting fire with fire, and repaying rule-bending in the
same way. Then the ladder was brought into play…
It almost seemed as if Hakan panicked, perhaps fearing that he would
receive a beating like that which Nagasaki had given him at Grays in
May, and he went for the ladder in the hope of seizing the Sword of
Excellence and ending the chaotic match as early as possible – but
it was not to be. The presence of the ladder just raised the stakes
much higher, and there was some truly extreme violence. From my
vantage point near the ring I heard Atlantis yelling at Hakan, “I
told you that stealing the sword would be dangerous for you!”, as he
writhed in agony whilst being brutally beaten by Nagasaki on the
Victoria Hall’s stage…
I won’t go into too much detail before the match is screened on the
LDN Capital Wrestling show on The Fight Network (Sky channel 427),
but I can’t wait to see how the cameras captured it all. It was a
stunning match – there were, of course, winners and losers, but
everyone involved fought really hard, and sometimes even savagely,
and, as to be expected in any match involving Kendo Nagasaki, the
rules were bent as far as they possibly could be. This match was
unlike any other match I have seen for many years, and for that we
have to thank Kendo Nagasaki once again, for showing us yet again
why he is genuinely legendary, for good reasons and bad.
I noticed that by the end of the match, no-one was chanting any
silly taunts at Nagasaki – the entire audience was riveted by the
action, and quickly seemed to take sides, either for Nagasaki/Barratt
or Yorghos/Hakan. It was probably about an equal split, but at the
end of the evening there was a very long queue at the stage door for
autographs from Kendo Nagasaki, before he was chauffeured away in
his Rolls Royce limousine. Every time I see Nagasaki he surpasses
himself, reinforcing his status as legendary, and I can’t wait for
his next match.
Eric Holmes.
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