Stevie Knight
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| Stevie Knight | |
|---|---|
| Statistics | |
| Ring name(s) | Stevie Knight |
| Billed height | 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) |
| Billed weight | 205 lb (93 kg) |
| Born | February 4, 1976 Grimsby, England, Great Britain |
| Debut | June 1991 |
Stevie Knight, born February 4, 1976, is a well-known British professional wrestler who has recently branched out into other forms of entertainment. Stevie Knight has been featured in just about every British promotion in the last 15 years and has appeared on both the only nationally televised wrestling shows in Britain in the last 16 years.
Stevie is known as one of UK wrestling's best talkers with fantastic charisma, brawling and technical skills.
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[edit] Early career
He began training in April 1991 after being a big wrestling fan his entire life and started putting up rings and taking photographs for famous promoter Max Crabtree. He made his professional debut in June 1991 at Whitby, Yorkshire, at the young age of 14. He wrestled extensively in and around Europe for the following ten years working as many as 10 shows a week for various promoters.
In 1997, Stevie travelled to Germany and France and a tour of the Middle East. The following year, he worked for numerous promoters on a full time basis and made a short tour of Belgium.
In 1999, he worked on British television for 'Ultimate Wrestling Alliance', the first nationally televised wrestling show in Britain in over 10 years, and was crowned UWA television champion in June of that year. He also wrestled a famous match for the UWA in a three-way with Doug Williams and Kerry Cabrero.
He wrestled in the United States of America for 12 weeks in late 1999, picking up extra bookings and the offer of work in Puerto Rico. While living in America was a guest trainer at the Jimmy Valiant wrestling camp.
In the year 2000, he cut back on wrestling schedule due to a devastating neck injury suffered in the USA when the ring collapsed after a move of the top rope. Stevie needed surgery to remove fragment of bones from his spinal column and it appeared his wrestling days were over.
In April 2000, he opened up the “Steve Knight School of Wrestling” attracting as many as 20 people to classes and producing numerous now full time wrestlers.
In June 2003, after having intense physical therapy returned to wrestling with numerous promoters and was soon wrestling 3 – 4 times a week for numerous British promoters and was crowned BCW Champion on December 5, 2003 in Kilmarnock, by defeating Drew Galloway, who was declared champion the same night.
[edit] The FWA years
Stevie Knight enjoyed a high profile run on the British wrestling scene with the Frontier Wrestling Alliance from 2003 to 2006.
On August 2, 2003, Stevie – who had recently made a comeback to the ring after injury - won the FWA Tag Team Championship with Alex Shane at the Dome in Morecambe. The title reign was short-lived as Knight and Shane dropped the belts back to The Family two days later at his home ground of Cleethorpes.
Knight became a regular with the FWA as a heel, appearing at Hotwired 2003 and as a guest ring announcer at FWA British Uprising 2 on October 18, 2003, where he insulted female wrestler Nikita. This led to false speculation that Knight was the wrestler who had placed a bounty on Nikita’s head. ‘The Shining Light’ eventually got a one-on-one match with the glamorous grappler in Morecambe on May 29, 2004, which he lost by clean pinfall.
In July 2004, Knight began a quest to win back the tag team titles, which saw him try out various partners including Dirk Feelgood. He eventually settled on Mark Sloan, and the two struck up an unlikely alliance. As they chased the belts then belonging to Hampton Court, the wisecracking Knight and the strait-laced Sloan appeared on Sky TV’s The Wrestling Channel FWA TV show in several hilarious segments where ‘The Specialist’ tried to train Knight, who never took his training seriously. The Knight-Sloan tag team came to an end after they lost to Hampton Court on November 13, 2004, at the Coventry SkyDome at British Uprising 3.
In 2005, Knight embarked on an equally ridiculous quest to win the FWA British Flyweight Title, even though his ground-based ‘old school’ brawling and scientific wrestling style were not exactly the typical lucha libre style used by most flyweight wrestlers. In several matches, Stevie would precariously try to climb to the top rope to attempt a moonsault, only to think better of it when the fans chanted: “You can’t do it!” Stevie’s quest flopped as he was pinned by newcomer Stevie Lynn at War On The Shore on March 26, 2005.
On March 18, 2005, he teamed with long-time friend Doug Williams in a match with Pro Wrestling NOAH Japanese legend Mitsuharu Misawa and Yoshinari Ogawa for BCW in Carluke, Scotland. The following day at TWC International Showdown, an event that drew 3,500 fans to the Coventry SkyDome, Knight teamed with Stixx and Mark Sloan to lose to Jack Xavier, Aviv Maayan and Ross Jordan.
On June 18, 2005, Stevie turned 'babyface' after he tried to retire from wrestling, only to be challenged to an FWA Title match by his former partner Alex Shane. ‘The Shining Light’ accepted the challenge but lost to Shane in a tremendous brawl. After the match Knight received a standing ovation from the Morecambe Dome crowd. He agreed to continue his career for one more match, and beat Shane in a non-title lumberjack match back at The Dome on July 30, 2005. After this bout, Stevie was attacked by a face from his past, a former opponent from the 1990s, Johnny Angel.
Stevie and his wife briefly moved to Spain in autumn 2005 with the intention of starting a new life there, but things did not work out and he returned to the UK in early 2006.
On March 4, 2006 Stevie made a surprise return to the FWA and attacked Johnny Angel at War On The Shore 2. He and Angel were then the final two in the Gold Rush rumble only for All-Star Wrestling’s Five Star Flash to interfere, meaning Knight and Angel were co-winners. Afterwards Flash and Robbie Brookside attacked Stevie, who cut a memorable promo on Brookside to set up the FWA v All-Star Inter-Federation Cup match for the next Morecambe show. On May 13, 2006 Stevie captained FWA to reclaim the Cup from Brookside’s ASW squad, although Knight himself tapped out to Brookside in a Survivor-style elimination match due to an ankle injury.
Stevie resumed his feud with Johnny Angel and they wrestled in brutal arena-wide brawls at Cleethorpes on September 23, 2006, and at Worcester on November 19, 2006. The feud was decided in an ‘I Quit’ match at Morecambe on February 3, 2007 when Knight lost, the referee stopping the match after Stevie was knocked cold by an Angel tombstone piledriver and had to be helped from the ring.
[edit] The XWA years
As of 2007, Stevie Knight is semi-retired from pro wrestling, despite still being in his early thirties, and pretty much wrestles exclusively for the XWA in Morecambe.
The FWA changed its name to the XWA and ran its first show under the new name on April 7, 2007. Stevie Knight, who had been omitted from the XWA’s team to defend the British Inter-Federation Cup against WAW because XWA owner Greg Lambert was concerned over Knight’s various injury problems, turned heel on this show by blasting Darren Burridge with a kendo stick, costing XWA the Cup.
Stevie received a blistering heel reaction from the Morecambe crowd on June 29, 2007, when he pinned Declan O’Connor and declared himself ‘Mr Deal Or No Deal’.
'Mr Deal or No Deal' then entered a feud with Sam Slam. He and Ricky Knight beat Sam and Darren Burridge by DQ at XWA Last Fight at the Prom on November 24 2007 in Morecambe. On February 2 2008 'The Shining Light' incited a near-riot with a controversial win in the XWA's annual Goldrush 15-man rumble, lastly eliminating Sam Slam (who had earlier thrown Stevie over the top rope when officials were distracted by an outside-ring brawl between Jonny Storm and Johnny Phere). Fans pelted the ring with rubbish in disgust as Knight celebrated his win.
Stevie challenged Jonny Storm for the British Heavyweight Title at "XWA War On The Shore at The Dome IV", Morecambe, on Saturday April 12, but failed to win the belt. Although he pinned Storm for a three count, referee Richard Young and ringside enforcer Stixx agreed to restart the match because Stevie had illegally thrown powder in Storm's eyes. Storm then pinned Knight after a superkick.
[edit] Career as promoter
Having promoted wrestling events since 1994, Knight promoted his biggest show at the KC Arena in Hull, on August 2, 2004 which drew over 1300 fans. Under the name of IWP, the show was supposed to be headlined by Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts, who failed to show up. Fans were offered refunds but all declined and were glad they did. Featuring an all-British card, this was one of the best quality UK wrestling events of the year, and was headlined by a match of the year candidate No DQ three-way match between Zebra Kid, Doug Williams and Paul Burchill. Stevie himself wrestled on the show, teaming with Kev O’Neil and Jack Storm as Team England to beat Team Scotland – Spinner McKenzie, Drew Galloway and The Highlander.
IWP returned to Hull on November 6, 2004, for a show headlined by D-Lo Brown versus Paul Burchill. The event again drew an excellent crowd of over 1000 people.
In January, 2005, Stevie Knight was touched by the plight of the victims of the tsunami in South East Asia. He managed to pull together over 50 wrestlers from all promotions from all over the UK to wrestle for free on a charity show in Cleethorpes to raise money for the victims.
In May and June 2005, Stevie promoted the FWA’s Carnage Tour – centred around D-Lo Brown and Joe Legend, stars of ITV Celebrity Wrestling. The intention was for FWA to run shows at new venues in the Yorkshire area to build up new fan bases for the promotion. Unfortunately ITV Celebrity Wrestling was a flop and the Carnage Tour shows failed to draw as expected. Stevie personally lost thousands of pounds as a result.
Stevie was also the regional promoter for several FWA shows at the Winter Gardens in Cleethorpes from 2003 to 2006.
[edit] Stevie Knight "Deal or No Deal"
In July 2007, Stevie appeared on Britain’s biggest game show Deal or No Deal (presented by Noel Edmonds) on Channel 4, regularly watched by over 5 million people. After serving his time as one of the ‘wing’ contestants opening the boxes for the main gameplayer, he finally got his chance to play the game and take on the Banker on August 29 2007. Stevie took a Deal at £10,0001 but had he played on, would have won £100,000. He was later voted one of the most popular contestants ever on the show.
[edit] Championships and accomplishments
- British Championship Wrestling
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- BCW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
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- FWA Tag Team Championship (1 time, with Alex Shane)
