Overdose: The Interfed

One month after Best of the North West, RWL returned to Manchester for its second interfed.

And this time, things got considerably bigger.

Overdose: The Interfed brought together wrestlers representing RWL, NAW, NWW, WCWe, HGWA, XWA and DCW, turning what had begun as a collaboration between three promotions at Best of the North West into a much wider gathering of the UKBYW scene.

Once again, the show took place inside the GPW Training School.

And once again, RWL hadn’t actually asked permission to run there.

From the Forums to the Ring

Overdose was significant for RWL for reasons that went far beyond the matches themselves.

Until this point, Valo and much of the RWL crew knew many of the people from the wider UKBYW scene primarily through the UKBYW forums. They had talked online, followed each other’s promotions and become familiar with the names involved, but Overdose was the first time they actually met many of them in person.

Suddenly, the names and usernames from the forums were standing in the same building.

The existing relationships with HGWA and XWA continued, while wrestlers from NAW, NWW, WCWe and DCW joined them.

Many of the relationships formed that day would continue long after the show itself, including friendships and working relationships with people such as Steve Farrell and Dave Williams.

One of those connections would quickly lead somewhere else.

Farrell ran National Alliance Wrestling, or NAW, out of the Houghton Regis and Luton area. NAW was almost like an interfed every month, bringing together some of the top wrestlers from different backyard promotions around the country as part of its roster.

The relationship formed at Overdose helped open the door for Valo and Jayyy to become part of NAW, taking the two RWL founders further into the wider UKBYW scene.

For a group that only a short time earlier had been wrestling on cardboard beside a main road in Blackburn, things were moving remarkably quickly.

Before They Were Famous

Looking back, Overdose also featured some names whose wrestling careers would eventually travel considerably further.

Competing in the semi-main event was Natrix, who would later become better known as “Wild Boar” Mike Hitchman.

Also present at the show was Napalm, who would go on to become “Flash” Morgan Webster.

Both would eventually establish themselves within British professional wrestling before making their way to WWE.

At the time, though, they were simply part of the same UKBYW community that RWL was only just beginning to properly meet.

Welcome to Farrell World

The show opened not with a match, but with an edition of Farrell World.

Hosted by Steve Farrell, the segment featured Project S20, also known as John, alongside Alex McConnell and Nixy Nixxx.

It was an appropriate introduction to a show built around bringing different parts of the UKBYW scene together, before the wrestling itself got underway.

From there, Project S20 faced Nixy Nixxx in the opening match.

RWL Meets the Wider Scene

“Cyanide” Danny Cooper was next into action, representing RWL against Cassius of DCW.

XWA then took centre stage as Miracle Maker faced Mike McMichaels, followed by an all-NWW encounter between SRF and Oblivion X.

The existing relationship between RWL and HGWA was also well represented, with Kid Wreck facing Alex McConnell in an all-HGWA contest.

Cyanide would then return for his second match of the show, this time facing Nixy Nixxx and Mick McMichaels in a three-way match.

With Nixy representing both RWL and GPW, and McMichaels representing XWA and GPW, the match was a particularly good example of just how interconnected the different groups around the scene could be.

Promotion vs Promotion

As the show moved towards its final matches, the interfed nature of Overdose became even more apparent.

HGWA’s Chris Goodwin faced Dave Williams of WCWe, before WCWe’s Sand Dog took on HGWA’s Woodsy.

Then came the semi-main event, as Steve Farrell of NAW faced Natrix of NWW.

Years later, seeing Natrix’s name sitting that high on an early RWL card carries considerably more significance. At the time, however, he was simply another member of the scene sharing the ring with people many of the RWL crew had previously known only through the internet.

The Founders Meet Again

After a show featuring wrestlers from across the UKBYW scene, the main event came back home to RWL.

Jayyy faced Valo in an all-RWL main event.

Only a month earlier at Best of the North West, the two RWL founders had met with the RWL Championship at stake. Now they were closing RWL’s biggest interfed to date.

From years of wrestling together wherever they could find the space, to cardboard beside a main road in Blackburn, and now to main-eventing consecutive interfeds inside a professional wrestling training school in Manchester, the two founders once again ended the show together.

Unfortunately, running that show inside the training school was about to come back to bite them.

Eventually, Someone Was Going to Find Out

RWL had now run two interfeds inside the GPW Training School without the permission of GPW promoter Johnnie Brannigan.

The building itself wasn’t owned by GPW. The promotion rented space inside the gym for its wrestling school, where Valo, Nixy Nixxx, Ice and Mike McMichaels were training professionally.

That access had presented an opportunity.

RWL had taken considerable advantage of it.

Around a week after Overdose, Brannigan spoke to the owner of the gym and discovered what had been happening.

Understandably, he was furious.

Both Valo and Nixy found themselves firmly in the doghouse at GPW.

Nixy remained at the school and took the heat, while the fallout eventually contributed to Valo leaving GPW and moving his professional training to 21CW, another promotion based in Preston.

The incident also left Valo and Brannigan with a cold relationship afterwards.

Valo did eventually return to the GPW school, where one particularly memorable consequence was being put through some rather excessive bump drills.

With the benefit of hindsight, however, Valo has never disputed Brannigan’s right to be angry:

“I get it, I’d be pissed too. Someone used their property without consent, and if I was in his shoes, I’d be livid too. Johnnie was well within his rights to be angry at me at the time.”

RWL had learned an important lesson.

Having access to a wrestling school and having permission to run wrestling shows inside it were not the same thing.

Overdose was the night the names from the UKBYW forums became real people. New friendships were formed, new opportunities opened up and RWL became part of a much bigger wrestling community. It also marked the end of RWL’s brief career in secretly promoting shows from somebody else’s wrestling school.

Overdose: The Interfed