5 Star / Dominant Wrestling (Spike TV)

By sheer chance I was flicking through the channels on Saturday evening and came across a new wrestling show (well, new to me anyways).

Now that I can no longer view TNA (except on YouTube) despite being able to get Pop TV, I thought I'd give this a go, as a  new wrestling fix.

Venue was the Dundee Ice Arena (used by the local hockey team) and to be honest it looked a pretty low-budget affair. I was going to switch over, until I saw some of the names on the bill. It featured the current 5 Star Champion John Morrison...never heard of him, but apparently he made a name for himself in WWE. Another WWE legend in the form of Rey Mysterio, plus a bunch of ex / current TNA talent, including Nick Aldis (a.k.a Magnus), Galloway, Moose, PJ Black and a couple of other former WWEers in the shape of Carlito and Chris Masters.

Sadly, like TNA it lacked atmosphere for much of the show, largely due to the half-empty arena, though the cameras did their best not to dwell on the empty section. The crowd were lively in parts...mainly when local hero Galloway was on the mic and in the ring, but quiet for much of the time.

Much like ITV's recent effort, the show featured a series of eliminator matches, leading to a title match, with the difference being reigning champ Morrison also had to compete to make it to the final.

Like TNA, the quality of the matches was hard to fault, but the show was rather badly let down by the lack of a decent, noisy crowd and the relatively sparse arena decoration / props etc.

Oh and the title belt is pretty crappy, compared to the more ornate belts used by other promotions.

Unlike ITV, however, this is apparently not a one-off and Spike will show a series of shows around the UK, culminating in a big event in Manchester later this year. There was also an announcement of a 128-man tournament...presumably an effort to attract unseen up-and-coming talent across the country.

Review here http://www.nerdly.co.uk/2017/01/29/5-star-wrestling-dominant-wrestling-dundee-review/

I meant to mention this but couldn't be bothered, it's been advertised locally for a few months, personally I couldn't go as it was my grans birthday

Interestingly there was a local turf war going on that night as SWE was running a show the same night, most fans I know went to that one

5* are a bizzare promotion, they're funded by a video game company and ran a series of stadium shows that didn't draw well but had some talent that wouldn't come cheap like Mysterio and Omega, they ran these shows in the name of capturing footage for a game I'm unsure was ever released

They then disappeared for about a year and then next thing you know the first live broadcast of British wrestling in like 30 years is coming from Dundee

Go figure

Lol - very strange!

From what was said during the show it seems like they want to make a proper go of it this time and become a major UK promotion.

The other strange thing is that they don't seem sure what they want to call themselves. The show / franchise is apparently called "Dominant Wrestling", but the ring mat and belt say 5* Wrestling...  


EDIT:
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Just found this short fan video...gives you a flavour of the event...