IPW:UK: "From Behind The Announcer's Desk" May 2009
IPW:UK commentator Dave “Stats” Bradshaw reflects on an unforgettable month in the company’s history…
The accolade for the most significant moment of the past few weeks belongs to Alex Shane, who not only became the sixth man to wear the IPW:UK title but in the process was able to “right the wrong” he felt he had caused by indirectly helping the arrogant Iestyn Rees to become champion last September. The Showstealer admitted before his big match at Iron Fist in Swanley that he needed to prove he was still able to compete and be relevant in 2009, having not wrestled regularly for over two years. To my mind he blew that question out of the water with his performance against Rees – it looked as though Shane had never missed a day of ring time as he and the champion engaged in an epic war that told a hell of a story.
Shane’s pre-match comments must have played on the mind of Rees in the days before the match, as the challenger openly voiced the questions that some fans had been murmuring throughout his opponent’s reign – was he the finished article? Did he deserve to be the top man in British wrestling? Could he hold his own in a main event match that was expected to run for close to half an hour? Those questions were also resoundingly answered – the “Irresistible” one more than held his end of the bargain, controlling much of the encounter and leading by 4 falls to 2 by the time of the controversial ending to the match. After a super powerbomb by Shane, it looked as though both men would narrowly manage to answer the referee’s 10 count. But as Shane stumbled to his feet, Rees appeared to lose his grip on the rope he was using to pull himself up, causing him to fall to the floor and lose the belt via a technical knockout. I have looked back at the footage at least a dozen times now, and each time I am more convinced that Rees slipped because the rope was wet after a failed attempt to spray water in Shane’s face a few moments earlier.
Given the controversial nature of his defeat and the way he dominated so much of the fight, you would think Iestyn Rees would be falling over himself to cash in his rematch clause. But bizarrely, the former champion has not been seen or heard from since that night in Swanley – even Gilligan Gordon looked embarrassingly uneasy when I caught up with him a couple of weeks later and asked him about Rees’s whereabouts. Wherever he is sulking, Iestyn needs to pull himself together quickly because there are plenty of rivals threatening to leapfrog him in the race to be Shane’s first opponent.
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