No Peace Underground – Ankou (2021)

The Things I View For Love

I often throw names in the search bar of IWTV and watch whatever comes up. There are few promotions I actively keep up with, so that's how I discover stuff and see who's been doing what and where. This time, the name I searched was 'Aeroboy' because I just wanted to see him booked strongly after he was at least a bit robbed at KOTDM 2021. What came up was a familiar sight: No Peace Underground. NPU is a regular in my search results and I always, without fail, look at the card and think 'whoa, this looks amazing, why haven't I watched this already?' Then I click Play and remember why: NPU is fucking obnoxious.

NPU shows are like visiting a theme park and realizing that all the names that sounded like rides actually belong to fast food joints. Splash Mountain Poutine, Twisting Terror Borscht, Skyfall High Altitude Vegan Burgers. The food itself might be ok, but you can't help thinking that you could have had the same cheaper, closer by, and without the lingering aftertaste of disappointment.

This time around, one major annoyance is absent. Ankou is NPU's first 'ring show', after 3 years of priding themselves as a 'no ring deathmatch' promotion. I've been thinking long and hard to come up with a wrestling show that would be improved by removing the ring. I've considered Slavonic Violence Blood & Sand where matches take place in a sand pit fenced in with barbed wire. (It's still ring-shaped, but it's the closest I got.) They also had a regular ring a few times. There's no difference in quality though, so I can't say the absence of a ring is an improvement. Their shows are always fun. It just doesn't matter if they have a ring or not.

Unfortunately, Ankou seems to make clear that it doesn't matter for NPU either, but in the opposite direction. They have a ring now, but it's still not that fun.

Maybe I'm getting too old for this, but the whole vibe is just so try-hard. Commentary constantly rambles about how hard everyone (especially them) parties and how edgy and rebellious that is. I guess that's to be expected if you just put a mic in front of Joe Janela and call it a day, but that doesn't make it a great idea. Obnoxious commentary is just one symptom of apparently giving a shit about the production and watchability at home. It should be a high priority if your live audience consists of 50 people (as per Cagematch), but it clearly isn't. I find it both hilarious and annoying that NPU is vastly outperformed by Slavonic Violence – a literal backyard affair - in every aspect here. SV has better, more professional commentary, vastly better camera work, and just holding the show outdoors in broad daylight beats NPU's insanely annoying multi-colored wandering neon lights that make the whole show feel like an Eurodance music video from the 90s.

Ankou's line-up looked really, really appealing. Aeroboy, Rejects, Second Gear Crew, Crewe, Claxton - paired with the presence of a ring, that was good enough to give the show a shot. As of writing this, I still haven't made it to the end though.

---

For the opener, there's a five way scramble – a type of match that rarely sparks excitement, but ok. Tye Hull defeats Alex Hero, Beastly, John Ex Machina, and Robert Martyr in only 6 minutes. Then Parrow shows up and beats up the winner. As far as I can tell, there's no follow-up to this. Parrow isn't on the card at least. He is a big deal in NPU, so there should be more to this than 'lol I guess he just doesn't like the guy', but that's all I'm getting here.

---

Next up, there's a match between Jamie Senegal and Devon Monroe which I skipped because I just don't care. Apparently, this is not only NPU's first ring show, but also the first show that doesn't have mostly/exclusively deathmatches.

---

The third match finally steers the show in a more interesting direction – resident botch machine Jimmy Lloyd takes on Zicky Dice in something akin to a deathmatch. Although I'm busy cringing at commentary's claims ("Jimmy Llyod is one of the 5 best, if not THE best, deathmatch wrestler in the world today!"), this has my attention. Mainly because Dice makes it interesting with his antics. It's part comedy match, part deathmatch, and in this case, that works. Lloyd wins, but I still call it a victory for Dice because he survived mostly unscathed.

---

Next up is the match that led me here: Aeroboy makes his NPU debut against Lord Crewe, and it's also a proper deathmatch. I still remember the awkward NPU debut of Kevin Giza – who in the world thought it was a great idea to book him when there's no ring??? - and would have expected the same for Aeroboy if it wasn't for the 'first ring show' part. I'm really hopeful for this one. Then AJ Gray shows up, inserts himself into the match, it's all about him now, and he wins. MFW: :| I wanted to see the Aeroboy Show. Oh well, guess I'll have to look elsewhere. Solid match, but definitely nowhere near what I was hoping for.

---

There's something else that caught my attention when I read the card though: The Rejects (Murdoch, Bentley, Akira) vs. Second Gear Crew (Manders, Mancer, Justice). They are feuding over something. Excellent, that should be good. Murdoch's head isn't shaved. That would be even more excellent if it wasn't for the annoying neon lights. My poor ginger prince is a pink and yellow prince today. Actually, everything is a fever dream in neon-pink and bright yellow because NPU doesn't switch to normal light for matches.

During the match, the broadcast drops out for a moment. Commentary often can't see what's happening, and neither can I. Somehow, Murdoch and Bentley get handcuffed and commentary goes nuts over 'this wouldn't have happened if there was no ring to handcuff them to!' and the advantages of not having rings in general. The more obvious solution - simply not having handcuffs, which also has no other drawbacks - never comes up. The match goes on and on, and since two of the Rejects can't do anything, it's basically just a 8 minutes long triple beatdown of Akira.

Guess who won! I'll just assume this was relevant to the feud and move on.

---

Another non-deathmatch. Kevin Blackwood faces Treehouse Lee who, according to commentary, is the world's most misunderstood genius. I'm probably not smart enough to see it. Or too bewildered by commentary rambling about the through the roof eye candy in this match. How bizarre. Murdoch isn't here anymore. Are they trapped in a timeloop and still see the previous match? Anyway, I skip because I'm reviewing deathmatch shows here.

---

Things don't get more interesting after this: a long Rickey Shane Page promo. I think it's supposed to be a heel promo, but he talks about the stupidity of no-ring matches. That makes him the undisputed top babyface of NPU.

"Kids, don't do No Ring matches."

This is also where I took my break because I went back to check the card and had mixed feelings about my motivation to watch the rest. What's still to come is RSP vs. Jordan Oliver – which doesn't interest me at all – and another six man tag team match. It's Team NPU, consisting of Alex 'wtf is that gimmick' Ocean, my unsuspecting future husband Conor Claxton, and everyone's least favorite meth fiend G-Raver vs. - please say it isn't so – 44OH in the form of Atticus Cogar, Eddy Only, and Gregory Iron. I'll leave this exercise in extreme tunnel vision for later.

---

One day later

I decided to watch the RSP vs. Jordan Oliver match because why the hell not. The colored lights are so colored. Bright red and bright yellow merge to something out of Katy Perry's wildest coke dreams once again. At least the match is an actual match. It's slow, in part because RSP is – supposedly – heel, but also because it's just slow. My least favorite scenes are when the yellow lights hit the camera straight on, but if there are any fans of getting blinded out there – this is the show for you! RSP wins and the light turns bright green. It hurts less. Or at least different. Relaxing.

---

On to the main event, Team NPU vs. 44OH. I'm still baffled that someone seriously put Eddy Only in the main event. I'm used to people fawning over Atticus Cogar, but this is just confusing. The match has rules. That's unexpected and it could be either really good or really bad. It starts with one member from each team in the ring, then timed entrances every 3 minutes, and once all six are in the ring, the first pinfall or submission decides.

Before the match starts, an Atticus Cogar promo has him state his opinions about the opponents. In summary, Claxton is great and probably just here because he's filling in for the injured Casanova Valentine (I indeed wondered where he was; figured he was turned off by the ring), Ocean and G-Raver are attention whores and Atticus doesn't like them, but he does like having a ring. Honestly, I can get behind that. When the camera cuts back to the candy-colored ring, commentary claims this is also an elimination match. I don't think so, but we'll see.

"What Rickey said."

The first two are Eddy Only and Alex Ocean. So it's bad, but there's room to make it worse by sending in G-Raver next. Man, 3 minutes are such a long time. 6 minutes will be as well since the next entrant is Gregory Iron. Could have been worse, could have been much better. At last, the waiting paid off when Conor Claxton enters as the second one for Team NPU, and with him my interest in this match. It's 9 mins in now and commentary reminds me that this is supposed to be a deathmatch. I actually forgot that. Not a single weapon has been touched. Was there a rule that weapons can only be used when all have entered? Nobody said so. 12 minutes in. Atticus Cogar completes Team 44OH and introduces the concept of 'intensity'. Everyone else just kind of wanders around and sometimes does a move if they come across somebody else. Atticus also finally gets some stuff; chairs and doors. I'm usually pretty indifferent about him, but here, I'm positively surprised how much his involvement improves the match.

The ring, over 12 minutes into a 6 man death match.

But all good things must come to an end. G-Raver appears. A long scene of Cogar vs. G-Raver, with everyone else chilling on the outside, deflates my investment like a pool toy in a Bed of Nails match. Commentary accurately describes Team NPU: people who don't usually team and don't have much to do with each other. That explains a lot because that's exactly what it looked like since the match started. There's just no chemistry here, and for a blood feud, most participants seem fairly indifferent – about friends and foes alike. The addition of weapons hasn't improved things much. Atticus Cogar alone stands out as the one who's at least trying, but with 5 people who don't seem to care all that much, there's only so much he can do. After over 20 minutes, Team NPU wins.

My reward for sitting through this is a several seconds long close up of Claxton's crimson mask. He's not even excessively pink-yellow in the shot, but I do question if this was worth about 2 hours of my life.

Parrow never showed up again after beating up the winner of the opener, by the way. Guess he really just didn't like the guy.

---