Some matches just feel, I dunno….right. ICW could have done a lot of things with the tag team titles. They could have got a big name in like last year, even making this a triple threat and maybe getting more casual eyes on two of the best teams in the UK. They could have made it one of they four corners matches that naecunt remembers ever and chucked The Kinky Party and Kings Of Catch in there rather than having them in separate matches, but it wouldnt have been as good as the two separate matches will undoubtedly be. Its a testament to how well Bird and Boar have been established as genuine threats to Polo Promotions reign as the top guys in the tag division, that this could only be one team vs another. Nae shenanigans. Nae pals. Nae Iestyn (card always subject to Iestyn right enough) just two teams settling it once and for all. The fitness tests have been completed and Mark Coffey isnae feeling dizzy this time boyos. If toppling the legendary Dudley Boyz with a scoop slam last year was a buzz, winning back the tag team titles is the whole fuckin bee hive. The word “destiny” is chucked about too much in wrestling, but winning them back on the grandest stage of em all feels like “destiny” for Polo Promotions. It feels like their moment to have all eyes on them while they celebrate auld pals, just being auld pals….with shiny belts.
When I first clapped eyes on Jackie Polo, a large percentage of the audience had chosen NOT to clap eyes on him. Having only been to Celtic games and a couple of dozen gigs in my time until that first show, it was a surreal experience to see paying patrons willingly not watch the action they had paid to watch. So repulsed they were by “The King Of Chat” they chose to face the bar instead. It took a few shows to grasp what was going on, but when the penny dropped it was life changing. They were doing it because he had them eating out the palm of his hand. The same way he had them with the Lionheart This Is Your Life segment at the first ever Shug’s House Party where he had a large percentage of the crowd positively ragin’to the point they were ready to start flinging cups filled with their sweet, angst ridden tears toward the ring as if they’d just witnessed Hulk Hogan turning heel. Bad guy, good guy, chat show host guy, commentator guy, whatever hat Jackie Polo sticks on in the wrestling, he’s a fucking maestro at it. The fact that all that genius happened BEFORE Polo and best pal Mark Coffey took over the tag team division makes their legacy all the more impressive.
You see, Mark Coffey had done not too badly for himself as a solo act either. After going his separate ways from his brother and current ICW Champion Joe, Mark made the Zero-G division his own, holding the title on two separate occasions for over a year all in. A loss to the man now known as Finn Balor the only blip before he eventually surrendered the title to Kenny Williams for good. The level of support Mark received when he was handed an ICW Title shot against Trent Seven earlier in the year on a random Garage show shows you just how high Mark is regarded amongst the ICW fans and especially his colleagues. For the most part during his Zero-G run he also portrayed the bad guy, yet he was just that good in the ring that fans gravitated towards him. Individually they were great, but as a unit Polo Promotions bring the very best of each other to the forefront. A bond that only being real life best pals can form.
A match can’t feel this important on its own, and it would be remiss of me or anyone else to diminish just how brilliant Bird and Boar have been since establishing themselves as a proper rival to Polo Promotions in the ICW Tag Division. Until the 3 on 2 match at Shug’s, they were the first team who put a consistent streak of getting the better of the Polos together and even then they’d argue the only reason Jackie and Mark toppled them that night was the endless array of hauners they called upon to get the job done. An argument that becomes void when they have a sentient statue of a guy called Iestyn Rees in their corner all the time, but for that night only they could at least claim the numbers advantage wasn’t in their favour. As much as Polo Promotions getting the job done feels like something that just HAS to happen, imagine what the win would do for Bird and Boar going forward? The one’s who usurped the Polo’s and secured their spot as ICW’s premier tag team in the same building greats like 50 Cent, Gary Tank Commander and Prince have plied their trade. It would be a fitting end to a feud that in their eyes, they’ve always had the upper hand in. In their eyes, that night in the ABC was a mere blot on the copybook and The Hydro isn’t going to be them standing by watching the Polo’s fulfill their “destiny” but instead represents a chance at redemption for Bird and Boar for the events of that night.
A stunned silence followed Bird and Boar’s coronation as tag champs in Newcastle when the crowd who hadn’t seen Polo Promotions beaten in ICW for over a year, finally saw them toppled in brutal circumstances. The first thing that personally caught my eye about Bird and Boar was that brilliant double team finisher and when Mrs Patterson got her revenge that night the air of invincibility about Polo Promotions was clouded in doubt for the first time in a very long time. That vulnerability led to a wee period of turmoil with Scotlands BEEEEST tag team seemingly on the verge of splitting after a tough loss to The Kings Of Catch in Edinburgh. The thing about that is, as powerful as wrestling can be in making and breaking friendships, it can’t touch ones that existed before wrestling did. It can’t touch blood brothers who care about each other more than they care about their spot on the card, and that is what truly sets Polo Promotions apart.
Well that and the way they crowd react to them. A team who seemingly stand for all that is good and pure, getting told to “get tae fuck” by half the audience is a phenomenon to say the least. One that Jackie’s past in the company perhaps covets, but even at that, its been a long time since anyone faced the bar cause Polo was on. Its been a long time since he was the guy who snuck a wee Hillsborough reference in to a promo in Liverpool (and lived to tell the tale, all the more impressively) but that ability to get a reaction of some kind no matter what is a skill that cannot be taught. A skill that makes anything involving him must see.
No matter if you’re “Polo Promotions” or inexplicably “get tae fuck”, this match matters. It matters because the performers in it make it matter and considering the performers are an all Scottish tag team up against an all Welsh tag team, it makes it all the more captivating to see. Nae Young Bucks required to make this something worth your ticket money, just two sets of folk who have been pals since they were young bucks (that was such terrible patter, I apologise) going toe to toe for the gold. Nae stipulations, nae wildcards this time, nae imports, nae shenanigans, just two of the best tag teams in the UK going at it in a match that truly matters.
Buy tickets for The Hydro using the link below. Or be a dafty and don’t.
http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/icw-fear-loathing-x-glasgow-19-11-2017/event/3600517298384AB0?bba=1
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