PTW#6: Total Blast From The Past
Total Blast From The Past was an event by PTW, their second one to be held in the Warsaw metropolitan area, after PTW#3 Legends. It was held in Legionowo, a satellite city north of Warsaw.
Build-up
The event's name openly refers to Total Blast Wrestling, a short-lived organization that held only two shows in 2010. TBW did not have any homegrown roster, and their matches featured mostly European wrestling talent of that era. Two of them appeared on this event:
- Canadian wrestler Starbuck, competing in Europe since 2003, mostly Finland and other Scandinavian countries.
- Norwegian wrestler Erik Isaksen, also a veteran of the Scandinavian scene.
Also announced were numerous foreign guests:
- English wrestler Scotty Rawk, once more defending his British Wrestling Revolution championship. This is his second appearance, after debuting at PTW#5 Gold Rush in February 2024.
- Welsh wrestler Flash Morgan Webster, known for competing on the British scene and several Tag Team Championships across different promotions worldwide, mostly with Mark Andrews. Flash also had a run in NXT UK between 2018 and 2021.
- American wrestler Dirty Dango, best known from his years at WWE as Johnny Curtis and later Fandango. Since his release in 2021, Dango has been touring the American independent scene.
- American wrestler Matt Sydal, most recently competing in All Elite Wrestling. This is his third appearance for PTW: the first was at PTW#2 Blackout, then Sydal main evented PTW#3 Legends. Originally he was also in the card for Gold Rush, but had to cancel at the last minute.
- French masked luchador Aigle Blanc, who competes on the European scene. In his prior appearance at Underground 11 he tagged with Senza Volto in the first round of PTW's inaugural Tag Team tournament.
- British wrestler Jonny Storm, now a regular face, appearing at all major shows except PTW#3.
- American luchador Samuray del Sol, best known for his time in WWE as Kalisto. Together with Sydal, they main-evented PTW#3 Legends.
- American luchador Lince Dorado, best known for his time in WWE as a member of Lucha House Party (with Kalisto and Gran Metalik at various times). Previously at Gold Rush, he had a match against PJ Black.
One more in-ring debut for PTW, not falling into either of these categories was Polish-born Babatunde Łukasz Ayegbusi, best known from his years in WWE as Babatunde, Dabba-Kato and Commander Azeez. Babatunde was released from his contract in September 2023, and according to Cagematch, had no wrestling matches since. He was billed as Baba-Thunder, a new name unveiled at Gold Rush.
Lack of advertising
The show was poorly publicized, relying instead on star power and brand value to sell tickets. The fans' support of the organization dwindled because of too much emphasis on the lottery instead of wrestling. This move was widely criticized in the wrestling community. PTW limited itself to announcing the match card one by one, on social media, and posting content made by the wrestlers themselves, like the Diana/Heidi vs Legia Łysych feud Instagram reel.
In stark contrast to previous major PTW shows, which featured their own, longer trailer videos based on the show's theme, fans never got one for this show. Instead, PTW released a basic, VHS-themed teaser video, which one user in their Facebook fan group id identified as a stock Adobe After Effects project with PTW's and the event's branding added.
A few days before the show, despite PTW and the ticketing partner kupbilecik.pl claiming a sold out event, it became obvious that the booked arena was not going to be filled.
Out of nowhere, Zbigniew Stonoga appeared and started giving away tickets (see The Stonoga Controversy for details).
Little to no information was available on whether the show would be streamed. Finally, right before the show, it was revealed that the event would stream for free on YouTube, as well as on FITE/TrillerTV for paid users.
Card
Toggle results
Host, ring announcer, General Manager: Arkadiusz Pawłowski
Commentary: Arkadiusz Paterek, Łukasz "Balik" Baliński, Paweł "Boryss" Borkowski
Referees: Klaudiusz, Seweryn
Dango cancelled his appearance last-minute, in a video story posted by PTW only hours before the event's start. In the video, he expressed admiration for PTW's product, and stated he has contracted COVID-19 and is unable to fly out to Poland. He was replaced by Bad Bones.
Recap
- In a pre-show interview, Pawłowski talks with Borkowski who reminisces about Total Blast Wrestling. They talk about August, a failed TBW wrestler, and later jokingly speculate if he could be Babathunder, because the two characters were extremely tall.
- Pawłowski also mentions that he and Borkowski should be feuding, given that he is from DDW, while Borkowski is from TBW.
- Notorious Polish businessman Zbigniew Stonoga is also interviewed by Pawłowski. He was present at Gold Rush, and is at the event to help promote it.
They promote the lottery, with Stonoga using his signature catchprases to emphasize the car's horsepower numbers. He also jokingly announces that, on the next event he wants a match against another Zbigniew, but Pawłowski tells him to avoid spoilers.
The mentioned person is Zbigniew Ziobro, real-life former Minister of Justice, with whom Stonoga has been feuding in Polish media and politics for many years.
- Pawłowski opens in the ring, this time without his signature knee drop, claiming to have a broken leg.
He invites Borkowski who reminisces about TBW, is happy about combining the past with the present at the event, and initiates "Total Blast!" chants.
- In the opening match, Fox eats the pin from Rawk. Afterwards, Marcelito offers a handshake, which Axel declines, and leaves the ring, visibly angry at Marcelito.
- Caravaggio enters, and cuts his typical promo panning the audience and mocking El Ogre, who lost to him at Underground 21. He claims to be better than the entire roster, and calls himself "a hero without a cape".
Sambor enters with Rusałka. Fans rib him with chants of "Wardęga" (referring to Polish Youtuber and prankster Sylwester Wardęga), and later "Wiedźmin 4" (Witcher 4, referring to the game series). He cuts a promo about fighting for his brothers and sisters, pointing at the audience, and calls Caravaggio a hog, not a hero. Caravaggio tries to attack him, but Sambor kicks him out of the ring with Szczerbiec and strikes a victorious pose.
- The main event ends with a screw finish: Dziedzic and Krampus entered, and laid out both Baba-Thunder and Puncher. This was apparently done to present a title challenge from Sinister.
Reception and aftermath
- The show was universally panned by the community, with a near marathon of live-streams from disappointed content creators:
Sunday: Istota Wrestlingu
Monday: Głos Wrestlingu followed by Blaze
- Most of the matches had no story behind them and no reason for happening. This could be blamed on poor booking, and recent roster exits forcing changes to prior storylines.
- The in-ring action was generally well received. Some matches stood out (both Triple Threat matches, the tag team fights, and the inter-gender match). Others were straight out bad or with incomprehensible booking.
- The booking of Longman vs Disco Pablo, and the screw finish of the main event, disappointed many fans.
- Fans noted that the live show's atmosphere was weird: crowds were mostly dead, the arena half-empty. The active fans were too few and sparsely seated to properly coordinate chanting. One sector of the floor seats, dubbed the "Stonoga sector" (seats allocated to his giveaway), was occupied by PpW wrestlers and their friends, and stood out due to their lively reactions, often shown on camera. This gave life to an otherwise silent crowd, and gained the rival organization some free publicity.
- The non-wrestling aspects were also criticized: lack of catering (food, drinks), poorly stocked merchandise stall, no information about a VIP-only meet and greet session, aggressive security staff.
- Apparent staff shortages: insufficient ring crew, members recognizable from other PTW events noticeably absent.
- Promoting the lottery aggressively even after the disappointing main event, both competitors still laid out was not well received.
- Next day's lottery winners draw was also universally panned.
- With the lottery's failure, commercial and critical flop, concerns about a potential demise of PTW became louder than ever before.
References