Monday Night RaGE 6

Of all the RWL shows filmed during 2007, Monday Night RaGE 6 might be one of the strangest.

Not necessarily because of the wrestling, although there’s plenty to talk about there, but because the show was never actually released.

No full-show video. No music video. Nothing.

For a promotion that generally filmed its shows with the sole intention of turning them into music videos, that’s a rather impressive achievement.

Recorded on 29th October 2007, RaGE 6 took place at Turning Medieval in Blackburn, returning to the familiar blue tarpaulin positioned between the two large boulders. By now, the place had become something of a second home for RWL, with those rocks having been involved in more wrestling matches than some of the roster.

What makes this particular show unusual is that it appears to have been filmed in two distinct parts. The original taping took place as the sun was setting, while a second session happened later that evening, after a group of unexpected visitors turned up.

Between the two, there’s a considerable amount of missing footage, and piecing together exactly what happened has taken some detective work.

Fortunately, what does survive is rather interesting.

The Championship Valo Forgot

The only surviving match from the earlier portion of the afternoon features Valo taking on Teddie H.

The two were hardly strangers, having previously wrestled each other elsewhere, including at 21CW, but this was their first recorded singles encounter under the RWL banner.

Before they could get started, however, Valo had a problem.

He’d forgotten his NAW Cruiserweight Championship.

Despite having made his entrance, Valo refused to come down to the wrestling area until somebody fetched the belt for him. Quite why everyone else had to suffer because he’d forgotten something was anybody’s guess, but that’s heel Valo for you.

Eventually, the championship arrived, and Valo decided he could probably get on with his match.

Teddie, meanwhile, had some interesting company at ringside in the form of “Cyanide” Danny Cooper, the reigning RWL World Champion.

Cyanide had won the vacant championship at Entertainmania II by defeating Valo in their violent Ewood Deathmatch, and the rivalry between the two was still very much alive. His decision to accompany Teddie was another opportunity to get under Valo’s skin.

The match itself was fairly short, with the action eventually spilling outside the wrestling area. Valo managed to catch Teddie with the CorZonE, leaving him unable to get back before the referee completed the ten-count.

And just like that, Valo had scored the first countout victory in RWL history.

Not the most glamorous way to make history, admittedly, but a first nonetheless.

Unfortunately, this is also where the surviving record of the original taping comes to an abrupt halt.

Jayyy and Spyke were both present during this portion of the show, but neither appears in any of the recovered matches. Whether they wrestled, took part in other segments or simply watched remains unknown.

There may well have been more matches recorded that afternoon. If so, their footage has yet to resurface, and there’s no original music video to offer any clues.

What we do know is that the scheduled filming eventually finished.

Then some more people turned up.

And rather than going home, we decided to wrestle some more.

An Audience From Church Street

During this period, several members of the RWL crew regularly hung around with a group of people on Church Street in Blackburn town centre.

It was one of those places where people would meet up, socialise and generally spend their afternoons and evenings doing very little of particular importance.

When a sizeable group of them arrived at Turning Medieval after the original taping, we saw an opportunity.

RWL was still trying to establish itself and attract people beyond the immediate circle of wrestlers and friends. Here was a group who might be interested in what we were doing, and the wrestling area was already set up.

Why not put on a couple more matches and see if we could turn a few of them into fans?

It was a fairly spontaneous decision, but it resulted in the largest crowd RWL had performed in front of up to that point.

And unlike some of the earlier shows, where the audience consisted of two or three people standing around watching their mates, this lot were loud.

Really loud.

They were involved, they reacted to what was happening, and they gave the wrestlers something we’d been missing during many of the backyard shows: an actual crowd to perform for.

The only real problem was the time.

It was already dark.

Fortunately, somebody had a car.

The Rematch Clause

With an audience assembled, Valo challenged Cyanide Danny Cooper for the RWL World Championship.

Cyanide had captured the vacant title at Entertainmania II just under a month earlier, surviving a particularly violent encounter with Valo before successfully defending the championship against Overkill at RaGE 5.

But Valo still wanted another opportunity.

He made his entrance looking suitably furious, immediately giving members of the crowd abuse and generally making himself as unpopular as possible.

One spectator, Cat Bolton, decided to contribute to the proceedings by throwing something towards Valo, which caught him in the eye.

Not the greatest start to a World Championship match.

The incident visibly bothered Valo as he attempted to deliver his pre-match promo, but eventually he managed to explain why he was challenging Cyanide again.

According to Valo, the contract for their Entertainmania II encounter contained a clause guaranteeing him a rematch if he lost.

And, since he had lost, he was exercising that right.

Tonight.

Cyanide made his entrance to an enthusiastic reception, with practically the entire crowd firmly behind the champion.

There was a noticeable difference in the atmosphere compared with the usual RWL recordings. With so many new faces watching, both wrestlers seemed determined to put on something memorable.

And they certainly gave it a go.

The match was a hard-hitting affair, with Valo and Cyanide throwing themselves around Turning Medieval and making full use of the surroundings.

At one point, Cyanide launched himself from the large boulder onto Valo on the gravel below, an enormous dive that looked every bit as unpleasant as it sounds.

Not content with that, Cyanide then dragged Valo across the gravel by his feet, adding a little extra punishment for good measure.

Of course, doing all this in the dark wasn’t particularly sensible.

For much of the match, the wrestling area was illuminated by the headlights of a car, which had been positioned to give the camera and spectators a fighting chance of seeing the action.

It was a surprisingly effective solution.

Until the battery died.

Somewhere during the encounter, the headlights went out, leaving us with little more than moonlight to work with.

The camera also cut out several times throughout the match, meaning the surviving footage jumps rather awkwardly between sections of the action.

Between the darkness, the interruptions and the general quality of the recording, it isn’t the easiest match to watch today.

But what comes across is the effort being put in. We had a crowd, they were enjoying themselves, and we were determined to give them a proper show.

Even if we couldn’t actually see half of it.

Valo Finally Wins the Big One

Towards the end of the encounter, Valo managed to gain the advantage.

A thick piece of wood had been propped diagonally against one of the boulders, creating an appropriately unpleasant-looking landing area.

Valo took Cyanide onto the structure and delivered a Piledriver through the wood, before following up with the CorZonE.

The referee counted three.

And for the first time in his RWL career, Valo was the RWL World Champion.

It had been a long time coming.

Valo had challenged for the championship on several occasions throughout 2007, with his pursuit of the title becoming increasingly tangled up in the rivalry with Cyanide.

At Entertainmania II, he’d failed to capture the vacant championship in the biggest match of his RWL career.

Now, in front of the largest crowd the promotion had seen, he’d finally managed it.

Naturally, he was absolutely unbearable about it.

Valo immediately began boasting to the crowd and the camera, making it clear that this was what happened when somebody crossed him.

He’d beaten Cyanide.

He’d won the RWL World Championship.

He was finally on top of RWL.

There was just one tiny problem.

Cyanide had a rematch clause too.

And he wanted to use it immediately.

The referee agreed, Cyanide caught Valo with Crystal Clear, and three seconds later the championship had changed hands again.

Cyanide was the RWL World Champion. Again.

After all the build-up, all the effort, and that enormous Piledriver through the wood, Valo’s first RWL World Championship reign had lasted barely long enough for him to celebrate winning it.

It was wonderfully ridiculous.

The same contractual loophole Valo had used to get another opportunity at the championship had immediately come back to haunt him.

And just like that, the RWL World Championship had changed hands twice in one evening.

Valo’s victory marked his first reign with the title, while Cyanide’s immediate rematch victory brought his first reign to an end and began his second.

For a show that would never even receive a music video, it was a rather significant development in RWL’s championship history.

And considering the size and enthusiasm of the crowd, it was probably the most memorable way we could have ended the impromptu World Championship match.

Unfortunately, we still had another match to get through.

Following the World Championship

How exactly do you follow two World Championship changes, a huge dive off a boulder and a car battery dying halfway through the action?

Well, apparently, with Teddie H vs Adam Watson vs Project SEX.

And unfortunately, it wasn’t much of a follow-up.

The Triple Threat was a fairly uneventful encounter, particularly after the excitement of the previous match. There wasn’t much of a story to the action, with the three largely taking turns hitting moves until somebody had an opportunity to interrupt.

Watson connected with a Twist of Fate on Project SEX, while Teddie H managed the impressive feat of lifting the much larger wrestler for a Face Adjustment.

Watson broke up the resulting pin attempt, keeping the match going.

But rather than building towards a particularly exciting finish, Teddie managed to send both opponents outside the wrestling area before producing something from his back pocket.

An air pistol.

Because, apparently, that’s where we were taking things.

Teddie pointed it towards Watson and Project SEX, neither of whom returned to the wrestling area before the referee completed his count.

And so Teddie H won by countout.

The same show that had featured RWL’s first recorded countout victory had now somehow produced its second.

The finish was questionable, to put it mildly, and the match as a whole was something of an anticlimax after the World Championship encounter.

Project SEX wasn’t particularly impressed either, attacking Teddie after the match with a Clothesline before following up with a Slam.

And with Teddie laid out, the surviving footage faded to black.

Not exactly the grandest way to bring the evening to a close.

A Reference to Halloween Hell

There was, however, another interesting detail buried in the nighttime footage.

During the recording, Valo mentions that Adam Watson had taken out Kazuki Lyger at RWL Halloween Hell two days earlier.

This is particularly important because Halloween Hell, which we’ve placed on 27th October 2007, is one of RWL’s genuinely lost events.

We know the show happened, but no footage has survived, and very little is currently known about what actually took place.

The reference to Watson and Kazuki Lyger gives us one of the few surviving details about the event, although whether the incident happened during a match or as part of another segment remains unknown.

There’s also a recollection of Valo facing Shawn O’ Mercy in a Hardcore Match at Halloween Hell, but the result and whether Shawn’s RWL Hardcore Championship was defended have yet to be confirmed.

For now, it’s another reminder that what survives in the RWL archives doesn’t necessarily represent everything that happened.

Sometimes an entire show can disappear, leaving behind nothing more than a passing comment in another recording.

The DARKRAGE Tapes

And that brings us back to why RaGE 6 remained unreleased for so long.

The surviving footage was never organised into a finished show, and the recordings eventually became separated under several rather misleading filenames.

The original Valo vs Teddie H match was labelled as an unknown RWL show, with a reference to a RaGE 4 or RaGE 5 tape.

The opening portion of Valo vs Cyanide was filed as an unknown event from before RaGE 1, despite the match taking place months later.

Meanwhile, the remaining portions of the World Championship match and the final Triple Threat were stored under the name DARKRAGE, across four separate clips dated 29th October 2007.

It took a fair bit of work to establish that these recordings belonged together.

The lighting differences initially made the footage appear to come from different shows, while the filenames suggested a completely different chronology.

It was only after examining the recordings and piecing together the matches that the actual sequence began to emerge.

The sunset footage belonged to the original taping, while the DARKRAGE recordings captured the impromptu evening session.

Even now, the reconstruction is incomplete.

We still don’t know what else may have been recorded during the earlier part of the afternoon, and the gaps caused by the camera cutting out during the nighttime matches cannot be filled in.

Unlike most of the earlier RWL shows, there isn’t even an original music video to use as a reference.

But the footage we do have is enough to tell a rather interesting story.

More Than Just Another RaGE

Looking back, Monday Night RaGE 6 wasn’t an especially well-organised show.

The original taping is mostly missing, the nighttime matches were filmed under increasingly ridiculous lighting conditions, and the final Triple Threat was a fairly disappointing way to follow the World Championship encounter.

But there was something worthwhile happening beneath all the chaos.

For the first time, RWL found itself performing in front of a genuinely sizeable group of people who weren’t simply part of the existing wrestling circle.

And that hadn’t happened because we’d hired a venue, advertised a show or launched some elaborate promotional campaign.

It happened because a few people turned up after we’d finished filming, and somebody thought it might be a good idea to wrestle for them.

That sort of spontaneity was a huge part of what made the backyard era what it was.

Sometimes we’d spend weeks building towards a particular match or event.

Other times, somebody would turn up with a few mates, we’d switch on a car’s headlights, and Valo and Cyanide would end up fighting over the World Championship in the dark.

It wasn’t always sensible.

It certainly wasn’t always good.

But occasionally, those unexpected moments produced something genuinely memorable.

On this particular evening, we managed to attract our biggest crowd to date, record the first two countout victories in RWL history, and change the RWL World Championship twice.

Valo finally achieved something he’d been chasing throughout the year, capturing his first World Championship.

And Cyanide immediately took it away again.

Nearly nineteen years later, the footage has finally been pieced together into something resembling the show we recorded.

It’s incomplete, the camera work is rough, and the lighting becomes a complete disaster.

But that’s how it happened.

And after spending so long sitting in the archives under the wrong names, it’s nice to finally give RaGE 6 its proper place in RWL history.

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The biggest crowd we’d ever had, the first two countout wins, and two World Championship changes. Not bad for a show we never even bothered to release.