Continuing in the tradition of reviewing a title history when there’s a recent title change, here’s Tidal Championship Wrestling. They have a similar roster to British Wrestling Revolution, and like BWR they vacated all of their titles during the pandemic. Here’s a look at the title’s journey up to that point, minus a few matches that aren’t on Highspots.
April 13, 2014 – Leeds, West Yorkshire
El Ligero def. Marty Scurll {TCW Championship Match}
From Release the Kraken. More like release the disgraced wrestlers from their respective promotions, amirite? Jokes from the future are so droll. I spent most of this match looking at the awkward referee who was constantly blocking the action on the hard camera side and looked as though he didn’t know what to do with his hands. Most of this match was dull brawling through the crowd, followed by a bit of decent action in the ring, and then a sloppy finish. It was meant to be Ligero doing the turnbuckle reversal to counter a crossface chickenwing to a pin, but it was executed about as convincingly as a Roderick Strong promo. Ligero used it to become the first champion at 12:19. **
June 8, 2014 – Leeds, West Yorkshire
Rampage Brown def. El Ligero {TCW Championship Match}
From the inaugural High Tide. Why does the building-wide walk ‘n brawl endure? I get that it was popular in the Attitude Era, but is it still done today because it’s a relatively painless way to stretch for time? Once the very long tour of the facility ended, they put on a solid match for five minutes that ended with Brown hitting a piledriver for the win at 17:00. I’d love to know if anyone who saw this live remembers anything about it beyond the final result today. Brown lost the title six and a half months later to Liam Lazarus, who in turn lost it in a four way to Dara Diablo nine months after that. Diablo lost it back to Ligero after a three month reign. **¼
July 24, 2016 – Leeds, West Yorkshire
Rampage Brown def. El Ligero {TCW Championship Match}
From the third High Tide. This might seem shorter than their match from two years prior, but they brawled around the building for ten straight minutes before getting in the ring and having a proper go. In those ten minutes, Brown swung Ligero into the barricade and Ligero hit a perfunctory-feeling dive off of the ramp. Nothing else of note happened… for ten minutes. The rest of the match had ref bumps and interference both which led to nothing at all. They wrestled a couple more minutes and then out of nowhere started acting as if they’d been in a 60-minute war. The crowd wasn’t buying it and fell completely silent as Ligero hit Brown with the title belt in front of the referee. Brown came back with a rather cool powerbomb, and then Ligero stood there, because he was so tired you see, and let Brown hit him with a piledriver for the win at 10:09. None of this was convincing and that one powerbomb aside none of this was good. Watching them work in silence was painful. *½
December 16, 2017 – Leeds, West Yorkshire
HT Drake def. Rampage Brown {TCW Championship Match}
From Silent Nightmare #4: Wake Up Screaming. The crowd is completely hammered and singing Christmas carols with Brown’s name in the place of most of the words. Brown seems to be getting a kick out of it, but if I were having a match that was the culmination of my 18 month title reign, I’d be a little bummed that the fans were distracted by their own voices. He only defended the belt twice in ‘17, so maybe he just didn’t care that much. I guess TCW Championship matches can’t change hands by disqualification or count out, which explains the Ligero belt shot in the last match. This match is filled with walkin’ and brawlin’ which the commentator says is a staple of Brown matches. I’ve learned that the hard way. Once they got into the ring this turned into a solid bout. Brown wrestled in a fashion more reminiscent of the good stuff we’ve seen from him in NXT UK, and Drake was making the most of his big moment. It came down to Drake’s agility vs. Brown’s power and Drake’s agility won out. He hit Brown with this full nelson lift into a German suplex followed by a brainbuster for the win at 12:27. **¾
April 29, 2018 – Leeds, West Yorkshire
Joseph Conners def. HT Drake {TCW Championship Match}
From Bamboozled. They brawled outside the ring and outside the building, proving that this is more a TCW thing than a Brown thing. Most of the match took place in the ring though and most of the match was good. I’m surprised I’ve never heard of Drake before this because in this and the last match he did quite a bit that I found impressive. Conners, as usual, was more interesting on the indies than he’s ever been in NXT UK. They did bungle up the finish a bit, with Conners struggling to counter one of Drake’s moves to the Don’t Look Down. Conners hit it a second time on a steel chair seat for the win at 14:34. ***¼
June 22, 2018 – Leeds, West Yorkshire
HT Drake def. Joseph Conners, Naoki Tanizaki, and Dara Diablo {TCW Championship Four Way Match}
From the fifth High Tide. And now the real reason I wanted to do this review: Tanizaki! He was the Union Max Champ and the Dove Champion here. The match is much shorter than it should have been because Conners stalls forever to start when the drunk fans sing too much for Tanizaki. What we got was fine, just fine. There was the requisite brawling through the crowd, but it was nice to see Tanizaki being adored by fans up close. The action in the ring was all serviceable but not memorable, and in the end Drake rolled up Conners for the win at 8:20. Not the best use of Tanizaki, if you ask me. Maybe one day I’ll check out the rest of his month-long anglo excursion. **½
August 15, 2018 – Leeds, West Yorkshire
Sugar Dunkerton def. HT Drake {TCW Championship Match}
From Addicted to Bad Ideas. The Loiners love Dunkerton. And they took that love and exploited it by doing mostly comedy and very little in the way of action. I don’t blame them; there are like 30 people in this pub turned wrestling arena. Why kill yourself? Dunkerton caught Drake with a roll up for the win at 13:09. *¾
May 26, 2019 – Leeds, West Yorkshire
Chuck Mambo def. Sugar Dunkerton {TCW Championship Submission Match}
From All It Takes is One Bad Day. Mambo looks like Cid from Final Fantasy VII. I was ready to write this off early on because little they were doing was logical given the stipulation, including a short fight on the floor. But they quickly got back in the ring and hand a bonafide main event style submission match. Dunkerton never got control of things enough to get close to winning, and Mambo’s focus on surfboards eventually screwed up Dunkerton’s back enough to make him pass out to a dragon sleeper at 19:46. A pleasant surprise! ***¼
June 18, 2019 – Leeds, West Yorkshire
Joe Nelson def. Chuck Mambo, Brady Phillips, and HT Drake {TCW Championship Four Way Match}
From the sixth High Tide. Nelson seemed to be a surprise participant in this match as the bell rang before his entrance, but then nobody acted surprised to see him. The crowd was excited about it, though. I was sufficiently charmed by the indie silliness that occurred early on in this match. I was similarly charmed by the way these four subverted a few multi-man match tropes. I was less charmed by the brawl on the floor to the point that it made me completely check out for a while. I also hated the commentary, featuring two dudes using an over-it tone of voice and insider terms like “that heel turn is complete” and repeating “two” after two counts. Grow up, nerds. Being northern doesn’t give you an excuse to be too cool for the room. But mainly I was just happy at watching a second match in a row where everyone involved looked like they actually cared about the work in the ring. A lot of my good will was sapped when no fewer than seven people interfered and filled time by fighting with each other much more than with the competitors in the match while anyone not involved had to lie around pretending unconvincingly to be unconscious. Nelson hit Phillips with the Jon Woo and the Shiranui for the win at 22:19. This would have been so great if they’d cut out even half of the interference. ***
July 28, 2019 – Leeds, West Yorkshire
Will Kroos def. Joe Nelson {TCW Championship Match}
From the 3rd Annual Battle of LS2. The typical American accented commentator is back. I was out on him but compared to the goofs in the last match he’s great. It’s taken me two days to figure out what celebrity he sounds like but I’ve finally nailed it, Will Sasso. Kroos has a Terry Gordy/Takeshi Morishima thing going for him and I’m into it. The match saw Nelson relying too much on the Shiranui, even though it was clear Kroos had several counters to it and that he was able to kick out of it. The finish saw Kroos counter the move to an Island Driver (that unfortunately ended with Nelson’s head clearly six inches away from the mat) for the win at 12:11. **¾
September 29, 2019 – Leeds, West Yorkshire
Dave Graves def. Will Kroos and Brady Phillips {TCW Championship Triple Threat Match}
From Flabbergasted 2: Befuddled. Flabbergasted is TCW’s Unscripted/Mystery Vortex no set card format. That’s meaningless to me given the way I do these reviews, but figured you might want to know. This match had some irritating interference to remind us that Kroos is a bad guy, but aside from that it ripped. Kross threw his weight around a bunch. Phillips was as impressive here as he was in the four way from June, which is to say quite impressive for some random British indie dude I’d never heard of until today. And Graves was determined to make this feel special. Those things all came together in the final few minutes in a spectacular way, as Graves started hitting German suplexes on the much larger Kroos. Kroos grabbed Phillips during one such suplex and tossed him across the ring by the force of it. That wound up being a huge mistake for Kroos, as there was no one around to save him from Graves’ Cobra Clutch at 12:21. ***¼
This was looking grim but turned around near the end there. I’m especially interested in Kroos and hope he doesn’t get stuck in small indies forever. Apparently he had a cross-promotional feud with Brown before Brown got signed, so clearly I’m not the only one who sees something in him. I wouldn’t be mad about seeing more of Graves, Phillips or Nelson either. In a few weeks when I post my August 2021 title change reviews, we’ll see how TCW handled the crowning of all new champions on one night.
From Diamond Ring Kensuke Office Changes. They emphasize that Nakajima beat Dragon Gate wrestler Kenichiro Arai 
From Dynamite 131. This is a qualifying match for the Owen Hart Foundation tournament. Joe debuted at ROH Supercard of Honor, saving Jonathan Gresham from Jay Lethal (whose soul searching apparently led him to turn heel) & Sonjay Dutt after the main event. And now that ROH and AEW are the same thing, that seems worth mentioning. Caster’s pre-match rap was cute. This was real squashy, with Joe needing only two minutes to put Caster down with the Muscle Buster at 2:52. Lethal & Dutt pop up on the big screens and Lethal says he’d been trying to get a hold of Joe during his difficult soul searching time, and Joe never picked up. They have a present for Joe next week. N/A
From Dynamite 132. Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt were in the front row cheering on Joe. Sarcastically, probably, as they brawled with Joe at ROH Supercard of Honor XV. 
From Rampage 39. 
From Dynamite 137. 
From Dynamite 138. This is a 
From Double or Nothing. 
From PWF York Cougar Football Fundraiser. I didn't know that this match happened until over a month after the fact. This started out as a non-title match, but we'll get to why I've listed it as a title match in a moment. FTR have Mick Foley in their corner while their opponents have Bill Behrens. I’ve never actually seen Behrens do an on-camera gig before. He's holding a tennis racket, presumably as an Umaga to Jim Cornette. But it's confusing because there was actually a tennis player named Bill Behrens. They announce this match as having a 20-minute time limit. Only 11 minutes in, they say there are three minutes remaining. Until then, this was as run-of-the-mill as a modern FTR match gets. But the announcement snapped everyone out of their heat-on-Wheeler funk and forced them to go for desperate pins. They announce ten seconds remaining a couple of times, but no one can get the roll up pin they're looking for. The 20-minute time limit expires at 1
From NXT UK 183. McGuinness started by essentially saying that Fraser is going to pee or poo himself during the match. Unnecessary. Had Shawn Michaels been game to have a good match against Vader, this is what it would have looked like. Actually, a more appropriate and modern analogue is Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins from SummerSlam. Much like that match, Frazer used quick strikes and avoided his larger opponent’s signature big move to stay alive. Here it was the powerbomb whereas there it was suplexes. Here, Frazer also successfully damaged WALTER’s knee, which slowed the big man down and made it hard for WALTER to hit the powerbomb. Unfortunately for Frazer, WALTER was able to bide his time and clothesline Frazer’s legs out from under him. An inevitable powerbomb followed and won the match for WALTER at 14:02. I hate to say this because I’m happy that he’s healthier, but the way WALTER has slimmed down has taken some of the magic away from his aura. At least for me it has. That said, dude can clearly still go as well as ever in the ring. ****
From NXT 659. Strong was feeling it here, which is thanks in large part to the crowd being maniacally loud from the get go I’m sure. His whole game was fast and devastating stick and move attacks. That worked pretty well, as WALTER was dazed from time to time. But as with all good WALTER matches (which is pretty much all WALTER matches), everything WALTER does is devastating here so it takes very little for him to take back control. And eventually he did just that and hit the powerbomb for the win at 9:46 (shown of 12:18). After the match, WALTER gets on the microphone and says that his name is Gunther now. I did not think WALTER would be a victim of the renaming curse this far into his run. What will they rename Strong?! ***¾
From NXT UK 185. Andy Shepherd helpfully announces from inside the ring that the reason for the stipulation is that the feud has gotten so violent that it wouldn’t be safe to have fans around. Devlin says during the match that it’s because he thinks Dragunov could only muster the energy to win if he had the crowd behind him. I like that explanation a lot more. The only real reason I could think of to do this without fans is that there was a scheduling conflict with one of the wrestlers for the regular TV taping date and they needed to get this thing filmed. We just had such a long stretch of empty arena NXT UK episodes that I can’t imagine anyone was dying to get another taste of it. This aired the day after Adam Cole vs. Orange Cassidy in a match that was also no disqualification and falls count anywhere, and this served up everything I felt was missing from that match. Now you might say, “Brad, Cassidy is not the same kind of character as Devlin or Dragunov, how could you expect the same level of violence or intensity?” To that I say, when Cassidy started his match by breaking his own sunglasses and rapidly punching Cole, he was indicating that level of violence and/or intensity. And instead the match was mostly wacky. Anyway, this was not wacky. It was stiff and intense and featured weapons that made sense and spots the didn’t take forever to set up. Dragunov got in trouble when his eye injury acted up. Devlin took control and beat the crap out of him. I wasn’t wild about how meek Dragunov was when Devlin was zip tying his hands, but I did like that in the end it turned out to be an error on Devlin’s part anyway because Dragunov’s finisher requires no hands. And indeed, a bound Dragunov jumped off the steel steps (which had been brought into the ring) and hit the Torpedo Moskau on Devlin for the win at 21:43. NXT UK is still sneaking in these dope matches that no one is watching. Y’all should watch them. ****¼ 
From AAA Triplemania Regia. FTR come out with Vickie Guerrero. This was supposed to be explained at an earlier AAA taping but FTR and Guerrero all missed them. AAA is notorious for having this kind of luck/being incompetent lately. FTR is also wearing Eddie Guerrero tribute tights, with American flags on one side and flames on the other, I suppose to pay homage to his Gringos Locos and Latino Heat gimmicks. This match mostly sucked, but one cool spot saw FTR tie Pentagon’s mask to the ropes and force him to unmask with his hands over his face to stop them from climbing the ladder. That would have been a very meaningful moment to lead up to the Lucha Brothers winning the titles back, but unfortunately instead it led into nothing. He just got his mask back and the match continued on in its lame, derivative way. At one point, Pentagon was the only man standing, but instead of climbing the ladder he grabbed a table from the floor. So the titles mean enough to him that he’d unmask to stop his opponents from winning, but not enough for him to get the titles when he had a clear path to do it? Vickie powered Pentagon, causing him to voluntarily jump through the table and Harwood grabbed the belts at 12:12. This was abysmal. *
From AEW Full Gear. Silver was hamming it up a lot more here than he was the year before in New York. That said, this had stronger just-a-match vibes than the aforementioned match. After Silver ripped out Cassidy’s pockets, Cassidy turned up the heat and these guys put on a middle of the row undercard match. Not bad by any means, but nothing memorable either. Cassidy hit the Beach Break rather out of nowhere for the win at 9:42. **¾ 
From the second Honor Reigns Supreme. The commentators sold this as Gresham getting a big shot against a top ROH guy after being an also-ran in the Television Championship division for a while. This was terrific. Both guys did a fantastic job selling their respective targeted limbs, and Gresham in particular played the role of the tenacious underdog perfectly. He didn’t just watch to see where Lethal would have trouble executing his finisher because of the damage he’d done to the former ROH Champion’s arm, he pressed the assault whenever he could, taking out the arm to make sure the Lethal Injection would never come. But what he couldn’t do was stop Lethal from battering his knee and ultimately winning with a Figure 4 Leglock at 17:54. ****¼ 
From the second Masters of the Craft. Columbus has way more Gresham fans than Concord did. That’s a neat little advancement to the plot, innit? They both went after the same limbs that earned them dividends in their previous match. And then they went ahead and built an incredible match out of that story. At first it seemed as though Lethal wasn’t going to be able to get Gresham’s leg to give out. But about halfway through the match, Gresham’s knee was in trouble. Gresham was able to escape the leglock this time by using the momentum of Lethal pulling him away from the ropes to shift to an armbar. But Gresham’s focus on the arm bit him in the ass. Lethal went for the Lethal Injection and collapsed again, but when Gresham went for a roll up after that Lethal cut back on it for the win at 18:27. This is one of the best American examples that I've seen of a match building on the match that came before. Rather than try to outdo the maneuvers from their first meeting for the sake of a big crowd reaction, they adjust their game plans in logical ways that, to me, were just as exciting. I think this match is slept on, by virtue of the fact that I’ve never heard anything about it before watching it. ****½ 
From ROH Wrestling 364. In real life, 
From Death Before Dishonor XVII. Gresham and Lethal had been teaming, but Gresham grew frustrated and started heeling. Ultimately, he turned on Lethal. It took them a little while to get there, but once they got into a groove this was exactly what I wanted from this match. It was back to their old tricks, with Lethal targeting the leg to set up for the Figure 4 Leglock and Gresham targeting the arm to block the Lethal Injection and set up for his Octopus. In the end, Lethal tried the cutback trick that worked for him in Columbus, but Gresham countered to a pin and then put on the gnarliest Octopus for his first win over Lethal at 17:20. This is the best kind of wrestling series. And none of it felt stale because it was a year after they’d wrestled last and because they found ways to energize the old tropes. And that’s not to mention Gresham busting out what I can only describe as a sumo-style assault. Gresham and Lethal make up after the match. ****
From ROH Wrestling 500. During the pandemic, ROH made the most of their empty arena shows by kicking them off with a tournament to crown a champion for the revived Pure Championship. Gresham won the tournament, and this was his fourth defense of the title. Lethal and Gresham were still allies here. In an interesting move, the other match on this milestone episode was two other partners fighting in Jay and Mark Briscoe. They cut to a commercial break about six minutes in, though the action didn’t get beyond (admittedly fast-moving) mat wrestling until the 10-minute mark. That had me thinking this was going to go long, but things took a different turn. Both guys had abused the other’s shoulders, and Lethal used that to his advantage best. He forced Gresham to use his first rope break to stop a pin, and his second to escape a crab. Then, he used the failed Lethal Injection to bait Gresham into a crossface, forcing the champ to use his final rope break. But he made the mistake of giving Gresham a breather and was quickly caught in a head scissor takedown giving Gresham the winning pin at 14:06 (shown of 16:40). For an empty arena match, this held my attention. It was totally different than their previous matches while still using a couple elements from the rivalry to elevate it just a bit. Not essential viewing, but if you’re working your way through their series you shouldn’t skip it. ***¼ 
