Condoms & Cigarette Packets

One week after Smack!YerBitchUp, RWL left the school sports halls behind and went back to the field.

After three shows indoors, with proper gym mats, a vaulting box and a roof, returning to Turning Medieval, the field that had hosted so much of RWL’s early history, was, on paper, a bit of a step backwards. There was no blue tarp. The rocks that had always done a convincing impression of a top turnbuckle were still in place, but with nothing laid out beside them.

Just bare grass.

It was also the setting for a very unusual sight in RWL’s history. For one of the first times, people who weren’t wrestlers had turned up to watch. Not many, just friends of the wrestlers, but it was an audience.

Spectators. At an RWL show. Whatever next?

A Show With the Handbrake On

Condoms & Cigarette Packets was a semi-interfed show, with outside talent from HGWA and NAW making the trip.

That meant RWL’s usual storylines took a backseat for the day. The Valo and Cyanide situation from the week before was parked, the Chris System was nowhere to be seen, and everything else RWL had been building was quietly left alone.

This was a standalone show. Nothing was riding on it except having a good time.

The 21CW Superstar

The show opened with “The 21CW Superstar” Hyogo Kantai, once again played by Valo.

21CW was a professional wrestling company running at Lava/Ignite in Preston at the time, and that was where the nickname came from. Valo had played Hyogo Kantai there too, which makes the title sound slightly more impressive than the match, a losing effort against Kris Travis and Scotty Hexx, known as Project Ego.

His opponent was Overkill, who had made his RWL debut at Smack!YerBitchUp only a week earlier.

It was a much stronger showing from him, and that was entirely by design. After a rather messy debut, the idea was to put Overkill against a more experienced wrestler in a shorter, more carefully thought-out match, giving him a better opportunity to show what he could do.

It worked, and it was a useful stepping stone before Overkill would be given a bigger opportunity at the following week’s Misery Business show.

Jayyy Is Back

For the first time since vacating the RWL World Championship, Jayyy was back on an RWL show.

No real explanation was given for where he’d been.

He faced “Cyanide” Danny Cooper, the reigning RWL Hardcore Champion, but there was no title on the line. The six minutes they gave each other were short, spirited and played out as a proper back-and-forth, which made for a very welcome return.

HGWA Come Calling

Then came something RWL hadn’t done before.

Alex McConnell and Mike McKnight had both been to RWL shows, but only at the Manchester interfeds. McKnight was in the HGWA Championship triple threat at Best of the North West, and McConnell faced Kid Wreck at Overdose. This was the first time either came for a show that wasn’t a true interfed.

They were there because they’d been invited, and that came down to friendship. Valo and Jayyy had built a rapport with the HGWA crew while travelling with NAW. They’d get the train to Hazel Grove, then drive to NAW shows with McConnell, Chris Goodwin, McKnight and sometimes Kid Wreck.

Both men were already established names in UKBYW, and their match lived up to it, a fast, action-packed standout that got the small crowd firmly on side. McConnell and McKnight both played to the audience, including a moment where McConnell “saved” a younger spectator from an angry McKnight.

That friendship would last, too. HGWA’s working relationship with RWL carried on all the way to the hiatus in 2018.

Alan Partridge Takes Over

While Alex McConnell and Mike McKnight were busy putting on one of the afternoon’s standout matches, Valo and Steve Farrell were apparently more interested in entertaining themselves.

Farrell spent a good chunk of the match doing his best Alan Partridge impression, with the quotes coming thick and fast. It wasn’t particularly serious, and it certainly wasn’t intended as a proper commentary team.

But it does mark a small first in RWL history.

This was the first time commentary could be heard on RWL footage.

And naturally, it involved Alan Partridge.

A promising start to RWL’s broadcasting career.

The King of UKBYW

Which brings us to the man himself.

Farrell had wrestled Natrix at Overdose, and Valo and Jayyy had been regulars on his NAW shows, but this was his first match at an RWL-run show. He arrived as a blend of Ric Flair and William Regal, a high-society rich snob and the king of UKBYW, and he came out with a microphone, fresh off a UKBYW tour.

“So this is the fed they call RWL… this is the place that after 8 grueling days on the road I finally end up and get put in a field full of condoms and cigarette packets, and get told I’m wrestling that. It’s quite ironic that I’m in a field full of condoms and cigarette packets and facing yet another law breaker.”

Eight days on the road, and that was his welcome.

The worst part is that he wasn’t exaggerating. The field really was littered with unused condoms and empty cigarette packets.

And just like that, the show had its name.

Valo vs Farrell

Valo was still the NAW Cruiserweight Champion, but the match with Farrell was non-title.

It was a cracking match for the time, helped considerably by the chemistry between the two. They worked well together in the ring, but just as importantly, their characters complemented each other, making the contest entertaining beyond the wrestling itself.

This was the first time Valo and Farrell had ever faced one another, but it would be far from the last.

They would meet again in NAW, and their rivalry would eventually reach a much bigger stage in 2009, when they faced each other in the main event of Arte Et Labore, RWL’s first-ever professional wrestling show.

Not a bad future for two blokes wrestling in a field full of condoms and cigarette packets.

Friends in a Field

Looking back, Condoms & Cigarette Packets wasn’t a show that changed anything in a big way. It had no storyline to speak of, a handful of spectators and a field full of litter.

But it had friends. A group of wrestlers from across the UKBYW scene turned up, got on well and put on a show for people who’d come to watch, and it did RWL’s standing in the scene no harm at all. HGWA and NAW had been part of the story since the interfeds, and this deepened it.

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A field full of litter, the king of UKBYW with a microphone, and a handful of friends watching. It gave the show its name, and RWL a few more friends.