Aussies Abroad: Fletcher shocks the world and Ripley’s return for WarGames

Welcome back to another week’s installment of Aussies Abroad, where we take a look at the Aussies kicking ass in the world of pro wrestling overseas.

Let’s start this week’s coverage off with the major upset at AEW Full Gear, with Aussie legend Kyle Fletcher picking up a win of a lifetime against ex-friend and former International Champion Will Ospreay. The highly physical match ended in a series of terrifying and vicious moves by Fletcher, beginning with a piledriver from the ring apron onto the steel steps, which saw Ospreay completely down and out on the floor outside the ring. Fletcher was quick to throw him back in the ring and followed a surprising kick-out with a massive brainbuster from to the top rope onto the ring turnbuckle. The harsh move saw Ospreay down for the three-count. The clean pin over Ospreay caused shockwaves worldwide, but we Aussies are excited to see Fletcher prove himself as the ruthless wrestler he is.

Let’s move over to WWE with the latest drama between Adelaide legend Rhea Ripley and current Women’s World Champion Live Morgan. In the lead-up to WarGames later this week, Ripley made a big-time return to television as the final member of the baby face team now consisting of Bianca Belair, Jade Cargill (prior to her injuries attained last week), Naomi and Iyo Sky, set to battle Nia Jax, Liv Morgan, Raquel Rodriguez, Tiffany Stratton and Candice LaRae. Morgan’s brutal attack on Ripley wasn’t enough to keep her down for long when she returned to Raw despite still healing from a fractured right orbital socket. Ripley made her presence known with a simple yell of “WarGames” to Morgan’s face before landing a head-butt of her own to the champion. Ripley also showed up on Smackdown last week after Jax decided to involve herself in a tag match. Naomi’s fellow WarGames team members quickly joined the feud to give us a bit of a preview as to what’s to come at this year’s WarGames.

Over in NXT, fellow Adelaide power-house Zaria (formerly known as DELTA) once again completely dominated the locker room, picking up another win with her qualifying match against Wren Sinclair. Zaria has now qualified for the Iron Survivor Challenge and is set to bring the South Aussie heat to this year’s event. The match started strong for Zaria, and she only continued to supply the hard hits throughout the match, including an impressive double suplex and some BIG clothelines. It was eventually a signature spear followed by an F5 that saw Sinclair down for the three-count.

Over in AEW, The Aussie brutality continued with Buddy Matthews defeating Dante Martin, Komander, and The Beast Mortos in a Four Way match on Full Gear’s Zero Hour. The match, as expected, started strong for Matthews, who easily took out everyone within a few seconds, before finally getting his hands on The Beast later in the match. Although Martin and Komander were able to use their quick-thinking skills to get a couple of hits on Matthews, it was eventually a MASSIVE stomp to the head of Martin that saw Matthews pick up the win.

Unfortunately for fellow Aussie Harley Cameron, things didn’t go too well in her match with Nyla Rose against Mariah May and Mina Shirakawa. The match saw some hard hits from both teams, and some impressive moves from Cameron including some ferocious hits to May. It was, however, a doomsday bulldog that saw her down for the three count.

Earlier in the week during Dynamite, the Don Callis Family, featuring Fletcher, also took down the team of fellow Aussie and newly-returned Mark Davis, Powerhouse Hobbs, Ricochet, and Will Ospreay. The match came after an interesting Aussie Open reunion, that saw Davis confront his former long-term tag team partner. What would have been a hug between the two was stopped short with Davis confronting Fletcher over his recent harsh actions.

Over in Japan, Aussies have continued to dominate the scene, including TMDK’s latest win against Hiroshi Tanahashi, Jado, and Katsuya Murashima with NJPW. The TMDK team has now picked up another win with the tag 5 of the NJPW World Tag League.

Aussies Chris Vice and Kira Summer have also continued their work in Japan this week with Pro Wrestling NOAH and TJPW. Although Summer wasn’t able to pick up a win last week, she still bought the Adelaide heat for her work overseas. Vice picked up a win with Satsuki Nagao and Takuya Sugawara against Kazuyuki Fujita, Shuhei Taniguchi, and Yu Owada.

Aussie legend Lena Kross has also been making her way across the world to bring the Aussie heat to rings worldwide. Kross recently picked up another massive win in Japan against Manami with Sendai Airport Girls Pro Wrestling.

Till next week!

Imogen Evans

News Writer + Aussies Abroad. Based in Adelaide and winner of the 2023 CPA Young Journo of the year, has been a news and arts journalist for a number of years working across radio and print, but has decided to take her wrestling addiction to PWDU. You can find her at any local wrestling night across the state with a beer in-hand and a front-row ticket to the action.