so you're thinking about watching RevPro?

Hey, you like wrestling, right?

Sure you do. You’re here, after all. And I bet you like Mercedes Moné—because she’s fucking awesome. Right now, as well as holding the AEW TBS title belt, she also holds a stack of titles from other promotions. And two of those are from Revolution Pro Wrestling*.

Of the promotions Mercedes has worked with, RevPro probably got the best deal. Since winning the title from Mina Shirakawa, she’s defended it at two regional events for the promotion. Ticket sales increased, streaming subscriptions increased, and the shows were mentioned regularly on AEW—with a clip from her title bout against Safire Reed airing on Collision, and the promo Safire shot for the match racking up a quarter million social media views.

With all of that attention, no-one could blame you for being curious. But starting to watch a new wrestling promotion can be intimidating: you’ve got to learn a whole new set of names, faces, gimmicks, and signature moves; you’ve got to catch up on lore; and you’ve got to memorise a new set of dates and times for new shows.

Let me make it easier. RevPro is probably my favourite wrestling promotion of them all, so I’m invested in wanting more people to yap about it with. With Global Wars and Anniversary coming up at the end of August, there’s no better time to jump in—so here’s your cheat sheet.

The current Undisputed British Men’s Heavyweight Champion is Ricky Knight Jr (aka RKJ). In case the photo didn’t make it clear: he’s a heel. A nasty one.

He won the title by defeating Michael Oku at Summer Sizzler back in July, in a particularly brutal match that included RKJ attacking Oku’s valet, Amira Blair, by throwing her into a barrier, and also shoving her into the line of fire of Oku’s big boot. He’s horrible.

He’s also kind of spectacular to watch, all explosive action and jumping off things that shouldn’t be jumped off. He’s got really catchy entrance music. And he’ll destroy, at minimum, two chairs per match.

At Anniversary, RKJ will be defending his belt against Sha Samuels, in what might be the challenger’s last ever match. Yep, he’s done one of those win-or-retire stipulations, so either way, it’ll be emotional.

Sha Samuels’s gimmick? He’s the East End Butcher. Um, because he’s from East London, and he shoot works as a butcher. His protégé is rookie Harry (fka Harry Milligan) and initially their relationship seemed based on, well, bullying, but it seems to have developed into something more wholesome.

Or maybe Sha just seems cuddlier compared to RKJ? RKJ has a match against Harry scheduled for the RevPro show in Southampton the week before Anniversary, and the smart money says he’ll be coming in hot…

Yep, there are two men’s titles, notionally divided by weight. The current Undisputed British Men’s Cruiserweight Champion is Nino Bryant, oldest of the Flying Bryant Brothers (more on them later).

At Anniversary, Nino will be defending his title against Robbie X. You might already be familiar with him—he’s the guy who refused Zack Sabre Jr’s offer to join TMDK in favour of joining Bullet Club War Dogs, completing his heel turn by swapping his glittery gear for an all-black look.

There’s not really a lot to this story. It’s face vs heel. You get the idea.

What’s likely to be more interesting is Nino Bryant’s relationship with the man who already haunts this narrative: Michael Oku. Oku recently took Nino under his wing, offering to become a sort of mentor to him. It made sense, because Oku is also a massive babyface.

Or… he was. But some of his title defences this year have been controversial. David Francisco was initially handed the win in a match back in February but, due to some referee shenanigans and a cheeky bit of rope-holding, got it taken back off him. Oku’s win over TK Cooper at the Rumble should also have been contested, as Oku refused to release a submission hold despite Cooper reaching the ropes—in full view of the referee.

Most recently, in a match against Liam Slater, Oku again refused to release a submission hold, leading to a DQ finish. Lots of champions seem to get corrupted by their titles—could that be what’s going on with Oku? And if so, could the now-titleless Oku come to resent his young mentee? Worth keeping an eye on, I reckon.

We’ve discussed the Undisputed British Women’s Champion already, but despite her limited appearances in RevPro, Mercedes Moné has done a decent amount of storytelling.

Her first title defence was at High Stakes back in April, against Kanji. Nottingham’s own tekkers specialist is a plucky babyface, and she won Mercedes’s respect. But her second, at Summer Sizzler in July, was against Safire Reed, and that ended a little differently.

See, Safire is a member of the Cut Throat Collective, a faction of ruthless heels in the women’s division. At the end of her match, her faction members Nina Samuels, Mercedez Blaze, and Lizzy Evo came down to the ring and attacked Mercedes—until Kanji came to her rescue.

If there were women’s tag titles, you might think maybe we’d be getting Mercedes and Kanji vs the Cut Throat Collective in some configuration. But there aren’t.

Maybe there could be? The Cut Throat Collective is currently wooing Anita Vaughan, Safire Reed’s tag partner in other promotions. Anita has, at this point, refused to join at least three times, but maybe if they just ask one more time…

Currently, the RevPro Undisputed British Tag Team titles are held by Young Guns: Ethan Allen and Luke Jacobs. They, um, well, they’re heels, and they’re from Manchester, and that’s about all they’ve got going on.

What has been going on in the tag division recently is the Great British Tag League. A round robin championship in the style of the G1 or the Continental Classic, it has two blocks, each with four teams:

In theory, the prize for winning the league is a title shot. But as you’ve probably clocked, the existing champions are also in the league. Maybe if they win they just get a night off.

At the time of writing, there were too many matches remaining to predict who’ll be in the final at Anniversary. What’s worth noticing, though, is a team that isn’t in the Tag League: Sunshine Machine.

The first thing you need to know about Sunshine Machine is, when they’re introduced to the ring, the announcer will say: “everyone knows, Sunshine Machine…” and the correct crowd response is to yell “RULES!” This doesn’t always happen, which is a shame.

The second thing to know is that Sunshine Machine have had an interesting 2025. After winning the tag titles at last year’s Anniversary, they lost them at Uprising in December. Their losing streak continued with defeats by the Young Guns in February and by Connor Mills and Jay Joshua in March. And after that? We didn’t see Chuck Mambo in RevPro for months.

Instead, TK Cooper went on a singles run. He took part in, and won, the #1 Contendership tournament for the Undisputed British Men’s Heavyweight Championship, and faced Michael Oku at the Revolution Rumble in June.

Throughout this entire period, Cooper (aka Teeks, which is what I’m gonna call him from here on because he’s one of my special little guys) insisted that Sunshine Machine as a team were “fine”, even though it really didn’t seem like they were. The first time we saw them together was at the Rumble, and, hey, you can read my archive for the lowdown on that.

The short version is: Sunshine Machine are fine, but they’re also not in shiny happy mode any more. They’re sick of being taken for granted, and not afraid to hit anyone with a steel chair. The tag division should probably worry about that. And everyone else, to be honest.

RevPro doesn’t really have a trios division as such, but it does have an annual Trios Grand Prix. Last year, that was won by CPF (in three-headed form). Maverick Mayhew, Danny Black, and Joe Lando are “Close Personal Friends”, and, uh, they like to talk about “steeze” a lot. (No, me neither). I guess they’re babyfaces, though their reliance on calling people “pussies” makes me side-eye them a bit.

Anyway, rather than winning trios belts, they were awarded trophies for winning the GP. Each trophy represents a wish. What does that mean? How do they work?

Honestly, we’ve spent the best part of this year not really being clear about it. But apparently each trophy can be redeemed for a match of their choice, and so far, they’ve used one for a no-DQ match against Young Guns.

The clock’s ticking on the other two: this year’s Trios Grand Prix will take place in Barcelona next month, and CPF will have to hand the trophies back if they haven’t cashed them in by then. So—come on boys, what’s it gonna be?

Of course, not every storyline involves a belt, so there are other storylines currently going in on RevPro. I’ll try to keep this brief:

Current X-Division champion Leon Slater (you might’ve seen him on the telly) was coached by Liam Slater (no relation), and they’ve recently teamed together in RevPro. Leon’s playing the cocky heel, while Liam’s postmodern gimmick means he prefers playing mind games—but who’s going to question his methods when you see the results?

Liam has recently been trying to convince Cameron Khai (formerly the protégé of much-missed Leyton Buzzard) to train with him. So far, his advances have been rebuffed, but with Leon nagging him, could Cameron decide to trust Coach after all?

We’ve had a couple of returns to the women’s divisions recently: Zoé Lucas has been reunited with her Pretty Psycho tag partner Amira Blair, and Alexxis Falcon has shown up to, well, generally, be a menace.

Zoé defeated Alexxis in a single’s match in Sheffield a couple of weeks ago, which led to a post-match beatdown. Amira ran out to help her tag partner and got clocked by Alexxis—exacerbating the pre-existing injuries she was carrying after her encounter with RKJ. Medics were called, and Alexxis apologised, but Amira had to be carried out of the ring.

Given that Zoé has already defeated Alexxis once, it doesn’t seem worth doing a rematch here. Be nice if we had women’s tag belts though.

One of the most exciting competitors in RevPro that I somehow haven’t managed to talk about yet is Zozaya. A Spanish high-flyer whose feats of daredevilry will inevitably see him picked up by the majors before long, he’ll probably be in the title picture soon, but right now he’s in a feud with hard-hitting heel Jay Joshua.

This is one of those feuds that’s based on interfering in one another’s matches and angry posturing rather than anything more emotionally meaty, but they’re both always worth watching.

I thought about putting David Francisco in the Undisputed Men’s Heavyweight Championship section, or in the tag team section, but ultimately he had to get a section to himself.

You’re gonna love David. A true chaotic neutral, the Centerpiece of RevPro and the home-away-from-home-away-from-home hero to the crowd in Southampton, he’s a smart, sneaky tweener who can cut a better promo in his second (fourth?) language than most wrestlers can in their first.

He’s currently working in the tag division alongside JJ Gale: despite David previously leaning rather more towards the heel end of the spectrum, and JJ being the self-proclaimed heart and soul of RevPro, the two of them are managing to work together surprisingly well. Yes, “can they co-exist?” storylines are nothing new in wrestling, but also: I love them, keep them coming.

If for no other reason than I love watching David singing JJ’s entrance music, I hope the Sons of Southampton never split up.

Wrestling promotions are about more than just the in-ring talent, of course. You can generally expect to hear two of the following three people on RevPro commentary: Andy Quildan (the promoter), Dave Bradshaw (play-by-play), and Gideon Grey (colour).

Gideon’s commentary is one of my favourite things about RevPro, but he does have some… idiosyncrasies you should probably be aware of. You can’t, for example, believe everything he says.

Running jokes include:

It should be noted, though, that Gideon is the only commentator willing to speak truth to power about things like cheating referees and booking favouritism. You could call him the voice of the voiceless, but it’d probably annoy him.

RevPro streams live and on demand, on its own service. It costs £7.40 a month, which is about $10. There are approximately 50ish shows per year, with the bigger shows included as part of the standard subscription; shows are usually on Sunday, except when they aren’t.

Since this is the UK, not all venues have great wi-fi, so the live streams can sometimes be a bit wobbly. High definition versions of shows are uploaded a day or so later.

This got out of control. I hope it was vaguely helpful? See you next time! xox

*Yep, Mercedes has two titles from RevPro: one’s the actual RevPro Undisputed British Women’s Championship, and the other is a sort of honorific. The Queen of Southside title used to be an actual championship, fought for in Southside Wrestling, a promotion that got bought out by RevPro. Mercedes got a BOGOF deal when she won the women’s title. It’s best to just go with it.)