After Shock Preview for Future Shock 20

[Adam Grant]

Visitors to the FFW site find the latest edition of After Shock awaiting them. After clicking the play button to start the video, they find Jake Chandler sitting in front of the Future Shock Invasion UK event poster on a green screen. Sitting to his immediate right would be the reigning co-holder of the Unity Championship and Season Five winner, Mel Avilo.

Jake: Hello again, Future Shock fans. Thanks for joining me for After Shock, the show where we go over all things Future Shock both recent and future. This week, I have a returning guest. You know Mel Avilo, Season 5 Champion and half of the Brazilian Storm with Bianca Salvador, who are the current FFW Unity Tag Champions.

Mel gives a nod and a small smile to the camera.

Mel: Thanks for having me this time around, Jake. Especially for that...decorative introduction, as well as terribly accurate. Hey, at least someone from the earlier seasons is doing it right.

She grins widely and winks at the camera.

Jake: Well you never know who might be watching, could be some new fans who just started watching FFW and haven’t heard all your accolades yet. I like to catch everyone up to speed, since it’s kinda the point of this show, ya know?

Mel: Of course, but we’re not here to talk about me, certainly as I’m not part of the roster, and as it stands, am quite happy to just come along to the shows and watch what the next lot of talent have in store for us.

Jake: The 19th episode took place just a couple days ago, and the fallout from Future Shock Destiny really wasted very little time in unfolding. Angel went one on one with one of the two women in the current graduation poll, Carmen Gutierrez. She employed a ground and pound offense as she tried to keep Carmen from getting much air underneath her, which didn’t quite pan out entirely. Though Angel did pick up her first win since joining the Future Shock Prospect roster.

Mel: If there was ever a match that the other South American on the Future Shock roster needed win, it was that one. And if I’m honest...I don’t know if I;m surprised to have watched her lose it. Angel’s record across the board in her entire career has been...fairly hit and miss at best, but in saying that, she also has something about her that Carmen doesn’t for all I can’t put my finger on it. But as I said, she needed to win to give her some level of advantage going into the poll, as it’s certainly my understanding that Missy was the favourite. I don’t think losing to someone, regardless of past achievements, was ever going to accomplish anything positive.

Jake: You brought up Missy there. We heard from her on the show about all sorts of things, including this poll that closes Saturday night. So if you haven’t voted yet, folks, there may still be time depending on when you are watching this. But Mel, have you voted for anyone yet? And if so or planning to, I am guessing it will be for Missy?

Mel: I’ll be honest, I haven’t decided yet. I touched on achievements with Angel, and Missy does have a good deal of experience behind her that would make her a better fit on the main roster. But that said, Carmen’s extra experience of Future Shock and having taken on graduates and won, not to mention her relatively close match with Bianca before Destiny should give her something. But even with all of that, Carmen needs more time to hone herself. And if Missy has placed herself into the prospect roster after everything...does that really tell you anything about the people she’s faced in the past? There are few places that house the talent that this place does, even in its developmental roster.

Jake: There was certainly a lot of graduate talk. We found out at the UK show on June 13th that Cody Kincaid will be calling up two Prospects himself. And on the next Future Shock, we’ll find out the results of this poll between Missy & Carmen. By the time the UK show rolls around, Adam will have 3 women heading up to FFW. I hope he’s prepared for that. I’d have asked him, but I didn’t see him on the show. But you’re his girlfriend, so I assume he’s ready for all these call ups?

Mel: I haven’t asked him, actually. I presume he is, because he’s not the type to go about being unprepared for anything. But in any case, losing three women in the span of a month is going to be quite hard hitting on the roster, no matter who it is. I don’t imagine for a moment that there might be some kind of moment of the girls remaining realising that they need to step up to fill the hole, as Cody will only take those he believes are the best.

Jake: Also on the show, we saw Caitlyn Storm meet Ignis after the Fireshock Sisters maintained they were cheated in their tag team match at Destiny. It’s not a secret that I’ll probably never be a big Ignis fan, but she did what she does best: try to take an arm off until she got surprised with an inside cradle from Caitlyn. She also didn’t take the loss well.

Mel: Let it be said that I cheered when I saw Ignis take that loss. Bitch. Buuuuuuut at that same time, I wasn’t completely opposed to seeing FFW’s latest overly positive, happy-as-a-clam woman have the smile wiped off her face. Would have been nicer if it wasn’t Ignis doing it, but hey. I could rat on several things going on here, but we can’t call it anything less than an upset either. And being a fan of the stupidly positive for a night was interesting if nothing else.

Jake: We also saw the latest in what has become a series of videos on Staten Island, New York, from Valerie McKinley. If the idea is to antagonize and infuriate Angelina Fantastica, it’s working. What do you make of this latest video where she kinda….ripped off a homeless person?

Mel: Quite hard to rip off someone who has nothing, to be fair. But Valerie does have a point. Among Future Shock fans she’s almost entirely known for being “asstastic”. That’s not a testament to wrestling ability, that’s a testament to vanity and things that should not have a place in wrestling. Sure, Angelina is entitled to getting pissed off that Valerie picked where she did, but she can’t say that anything that happened there was wrong. Other than maybe the using the Cuban roots thing, but that might be a level of personal bias. After all, it’s in my own Twitter bio that I’m “the other Brasileira.”

Jake: In the main event, it was a favorite challenge for a lot of our viewers. They always request it when it’s available to be chosen. So we had a water joust rematch with Andi Takata and Casey Atherton. I’ll let you inform people about what went down there, if you like.

Mel: I admit, the Water Joust was always one of my favourites. Reminds me of shows I watched as a child in the 90s. But this was certainly different. In some ways a good thing, but downright weird in others. It started well enough, all things considered. But somewhere in there, Casey got hold of a lighter and rather than batter Andi’s head off, decided she’d rather set fire to it. And when that was over...Max Sato came back! With Avantasia and that was plenty to cost Andi the match. It’s not Water Joust if something doesn’t go bottoms up, and in this case it was Andi and Casey’s pugil stick. Which fell into the water. I’m still not quite sure how Andi did that.

Jake: Then after getting thrown in the pool after being shaken like a leaf, Max pulled Andi out and gave her mouth to mouth resuscitation….which more looked like he was trying to make out with her when she wasn’t at her clearest mindset. I can confirm that their suspension is over, and the Max Sato Experience didn’t waste any time in doing what they like to do best: cause chaos.

Mel: There’s nothing wrong with a bit of chaos; I’d go as far as saying it’s something that Future Shock became known for in its early days, though a large portion of that came via fan votes that didn’t make sense. Anyway...Max Sato is a disturbing man. Attempting to make out with a woman who he thought was unconscious is in some ways worse than the things he’s done before...and I never want to see a penis that doesn’t belong to anyone not named Adam Grant ever again. Especially not that.

Jake: I’ll go you one better and say I don’t want to see anyone else’s personally, friend or not. But be that as it may, we can now look ahead to the 20th episode coming up...and the last one before the UK Invasion show on June 13th in London at the O2 Arena. Tickets are gone for that show, by the way. The Future Shock Tag Title tournament will kick off that night when the BNB Wrecking Crew meet the Church of Oleska in the first round!



Mel: That is going to be a very interesting match. We’ve seen that Gillie and Mallory work quite well together, and Gillie has tag titles under her belt already which definitely helps. The Church have also looked good, but their outing was a good show too, even though part of that might also be some level of bias against Next Generation. The one against No Holding Back was unfortunate, but that’s the way it goes. It’s quite difficult to pick a winner in this, but I almost want to go against my better judgement and pick the Wrecking Crew, based mostly on in any sense, we’ve seen far more of them.

Jake: We’ll also have a rematch from Destiny. Bianca Reed made her in-ring debut that night against Missy, but claimed that Missy cheated during the match to help her pick up the victory. She immediately requested a rematch, and Adam’s given it to her. So we’ll have that coming up next show.



Mel: Well, Adam is a giving person, so I’m not shocked in that sense that the rematch is coming about. But I’m not sure what the rematch is going to accomplished. She quite soundly had herself beaten by Missy at Destiny so it looks like nothing more than having a mini fit over something she was actually in power to fix. It’ll be a must-win for Bianca, given that this could well be one of Missy’s last matches as a Prospect. But I don’t see it happening that way. She talks a big game, but I haven’t seen much to tell me she walks like she talks.

Jake: I already mentioned we’ll find out who wins the graduation poll that night. But in the main event, the two challengers for Future Shock’s prizes will meet. Freya, who has a shot at the Aspire Ring in the UK, will meet the #1 contender for the Future Shock Championship, Anna Giovanna. Both of them have very big matches coming up, so I expect they both will be primed and ready so as not to lose any momentum heading into the Invasion show.



Mel: All I gotta say about this is that if Anna doesn’t win, I’m calling bullshit. It’s not a slight on Freya in the slightest, but when you put these two side by side, Anna is just...she’s the better wrestler. Freya might be then going on to get the Aspire Ring and put it back in the hands of the alum, but I don’t see her having quite the fire she’s going to need against the driest woman to ever come into this.

Jake: Well we know that Adam, as well as many others, are pretty high on Anna. And given some recent actions made by Freya, do you think Anna better come expecting the worst? She’s giving up loads of experience to Freya as well.

Mel: Should she expect the worst? Possibly. Maybe. I don’t know. But experience doesn’t count for as much as it should. On paper Caitlyn should have lost soundly to Ignis, and we saw what happened on Tuesday. If Freya wants to establish herself as stopped caring, now is as good a time as any. I just don’t think it’s going to be enough.

Jake: We’ll find out soon enough. May 30th is the night to circle as the 20th episode will be live in Boston once again. All those matches, including the results of the graduation poll, and who knows what else will happen! Actually I do remember one more thing. Adam texted me earlier to say we’ll see the full brackets for the tag title tournament that night as well as 8 teams look to become the first Future Shock Champions. We already know one match obviously, but I’m looking forward to seeing the first round pairings.

Mel: As am I. We already know one, and that’s going to be a doozy of a match, as Valerie sometimes says. There’s the potential for rematches as well, such as Gardners against Ascension. That could do with a third round actually, pretty much nothing was sorted with that.

Jake: Make sure you join us May 30th for the 20th episode of Future Shock. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you back at the Future Shock Arena.

He gives a wave to the camera before the video cuts out.