Underworld Wrestling Show One Review

Emanating from the dark underbelly of Melbourne is a brand new wrestling organisation, although don’t call them that to their face they prefer to refer to themselves as a “fight club.” 

The unique rules of Underworld Wrestling play into this fight club mentality. Each no-title bout is contested under  a 10 minute time limit with winners awarded points for the various methods of victory, a pinfall win grants one point whilst a submission or knockout is awarded two points. These points come into play when ranking contenders to the Underworld Championships, male competitors require eight points whereas female competitors require four in order to challenge the current champions.

Presentation wise Underworld Wrestling has a unique aesthetic. By employing grainy footage for backstage segments the show has a visceral, forbidden and underground feel. JXT and Gino Gambino were unsurprisingly brilliant in each of their segments, JXT was comedic and empathetic whilst Gino was an angry, vicious, irredeemable figure that was totally believable.

Once the show hits the ring the presentation is clean and precise visually, although audio wise the crowd was a little too loud and drowned out the competitors at times.

The matches throughout the debut show were all very interesting, with some lesser known competitors able to effectively establish themselves quickly. The women stole the show with Vixsin immediately becoming a force to be reckoned with ahead of her future championship bout.

Speaking of the Champion, Erika Reid was challenged by Avary in a match which was the standout on the show. One moment in particular which stuck in my mind was when Avary attacked Reid by sticking a screwdriver through Reid’s earlobe, this buried itself into my memory because of how disturbing and gruesome it was.

Whilst I understand the importance of the commentary establishing the points system on the first show I did have one minor gripe. Constantly during the show the commentary team would mention, “the harder to achieve KO or submission victory” yet on this show all but one match was decided in this fashion. So is it really that much harder to achieve than a pinfall?

Overall this is a very compelling new take on professional wrestling. Every match has a sense of urgency to them, which should help draw in non-wrestling viewers.

Watch Underworld Wrestling 1 at: www.underworldwrestling.pivotshare.com

As always I love to hear readers thoughts on Twitter @Appsy_JAM or Facebook on my page J.A.M. 

Read future J.A.M interviews by subscribing to J.A.M Zine over on Patreon.