A BRAND NEW ERA … EXPLAINED
By Henry Higgins III

Who are The Brand?  Why are The Brand here?  What is their ultimate goal in Britannia Wrestling Promotions?  All good questions and every time you ask a Brand member, you receive a different answer.

The simply truth is simple.  Who are The Brand?  The Brand are dominant.  Why are The Brand here?  To impose their will on anyone stupid enough to stand in their way.  What is their ultimate goal in BWP?  To win every Championship, to physically dissect the Champions and (inevitably?) supplant Steve Saxon as the decision-maker within the promotion.

To do this, El Destello put together a collection of talent that both compliment each other, yet are totally different in style and approach between the ropes.  So talented are the group, even the untimely loss of their de-facto leader Destello didn’t derail the mission; it only galvanised the troops and spurred them on to greater things.

With that in mind, let us take a look at the members of the most dangerous, most dominant and most successful faction in Britannia Wrestling Promotions history.

Stacey Rose;  How can someone who looks so sweet and innocent be so devious and vindictive? Easy; because she thinks everyone outside of The Brand is beneath her and isn’t afraid to tell you to your face that you don’t deserve to breath the same air as her.

Quoted more than once for stating that the fans should worship at her feet for gracing their “horrible” towns with her presence, Stacey Rose may have a high opinion of herself, but when a person has the success she has had, maybe they have the right to feel that way.

A scheming harlot wrapped in a vision of beauty, it’s no wonder many an opponent struggles to focus on the match at hand when she is positioned at ringside. An unfair advantage? Perhaps; but no-one is making those opponents look in her direction, so maybe the fault lies with the lack of willpower present in the heart of every man who lays eyes on her. Greek myth talks of the Medusa and her effect on men should they gaze upon her. The Brand has their own Medusa… and she’s just as deadly.

Craig ‘Danzig’ Winters; Originally brought in as part of a tag-team with his brother, the elder (and some say most talented) of the two was officially inducted into The Brand for one reason and one reason only; lay waste to the fledgling Rookie Division.

Bringing with him a ferocity that few in BWP had seen, Danzig did exactly as was asked of him by disposing of competitors left and right on his quest to hold the BWP Rookie Championship.  Competing in four-way matches to earn a shot, he defeated three men in one night with surprising ease.

At the time, the title was held by Shaun ‘The Hammer’ Davies; a man many feel is unbeatable in BWP. Danzig doesn’t care about things like reputations, impressive physiques and winning streaks – all he cares about is winning and hurting his opponent(s) while he does that. He vocalised his reasons, but when ‘The Hammer’ vacated the Rookie Championship, there were more than a few murmers that he felt going against an opponent as sadistic as Craig Winters would leave him embarrassed and, worse, injured.  Electing to vacate rather than defend, ‘The Hammer’ inadvertently opened the doors to possibly the most violent and upsetting match in BWP history.

Before the belt was vacated, Jacob Israel had earned himself a shot at the title, but with the belt vacated, the intense Jewish competitor was left without an opponent.  BWP Management put together the previously mentioned four-way and Danzig emerged as the man who would oppose Jacob for the gold.

Wanting to prove to the world exactly why he deserved to be feared, Danzig issued a challenge for a Death Match … and, in a move he would live to regret, the co-challenger accepted.

What followed was the most brutal, most violent, most disturbing and downright dangerous match in Britannia Wrestling Promotions history as Danzig pummelled Israel on the way to becoming the Rookie Champion. Steel chairs, tables, chains, ladders and thumbtacks were all used to inflict pain and punishment on Jacob before Danzig put him out of his misery with a thunderous running forearm to the temple. So severe was the beating, many Rookies quit the promotion on the spot.

Not the biggest dog in the fight, but definitely the one with the sharpest bite, Craig ‘Danzig’ Winters is for real and to prove it.

Dean MacManus; After going through so much, Dean MacManus reached the pinnacle of his career by becoming the BWP Catchweight Champion.  At this point, life couldn’t get much sweeter for the darling of the fans… but then he lost the belt and a downward spiral began to take over. El Destello, smarting at having let the title slip through his fingers, engineered a rematch, took back what was rightfully his and sent MacManus’s career into a tailspin.

Sensing that his friend was becoming a lost cause, DJ King tired of carrying the “moping muppet” and left him laying in the middle of the ring. Of course, this was all a well thought out plan on the behalf of Mr. King to drag his best friend out of the pit of despair and back to the limelight.

Tough love was the order of the day and the battles were dirty, they were aggressive and they were successful in what they were designed to do; stop Dean from becoming the one thing all wrestlers fear – irrelevant.

Things came to a head when DJ King and Dean MacManus met in a Russian Chain Match with the proviso that if DJ King lost, he would be fired, but if DJ King won, The Brand would become one member stronger. It’s heart-warming to know that DJ King put his own career on the line to help his friend and, when the smoke had cleared, MacManus had been pinned 1-2-3 in the middle of the ring and The Brand swelled their ranks.

Initially reluctant to embrace his new-found association, MacManus tried to resist, but the fans had already decided that he was a lost cause. The booing that rained down upon him wherever he went finally opened Deans eyes to the truth; he couldn’t rely on the people, he couldn’t rely on the BWP locker room, he could only rely on himself and The Brand.

With this epiphany, The Brand’s OG is back to his best and ready to spin the decks on anyone foolish enough to step in his way. No warning shots, he’s shooting and shooting to kill.

Cyanide; Where to begin with Cyanide? Well how about the fact he stands at 6′3” tall and weighs close to 370lbs? Easily the single most physically intimidating force in Britannia Wrestling Promotions and possibly the most physically intimidating force in British wrestling period, Cyanide has cut a swathe through anyone placed in front of him, including the vastly experienced and brutally powerful Sabotage.

Covering himself in green paint, Cyanide often wins matches before the bell has even rung as opponents take one look at the man standing across the ring from him and lose the will to compete. I personally know of at least three wrestlers (who shall remain nameless) that turned up to a show, saw that Cyanide was facing them that night and simply turned tail, got back in their cars and went home. THAT is how scary a prospect wrestling ‘The Human Wrecking Ball’ is.

Not only is he visually overpowering and his strength inside the ring something to behold, Cyanide also possesses amazing agility for a man his size; dropkicks, leaping splashes and running around the ring like a man half his size all add up to making ‘Big Green’ pretty much the complete package.

It’s no stretch to say that Cyanide may be the best “big man” in British wrestling today and if anyone has a problem with that, you know where to find him… but what will be left of you once he’s done listening to you won’t be a pretty sight to behold.

The Brand’s enforcer is a dangerous man. With the entire faction backing him up, he’s deadly. Cyanide will only stop when he wants to stop, so whether it’s alongside DJ King against The Classic Combo for the BWP Tag-Team Championship or one-on-one versus Babyface Pitbull for the BWP Catchweight Championship, it’s not going to be long before gold is hanging over the shoulder of the not-so-jolly green giant.

DJ King; For the longest time, DJ King was a thorn in the side of El Destello, but eventually the man from Runcorn saw the light and realised that Destello was simply trying to convert DJ King to the cause. That this conversion had to take place in a violent manner was written in the stars and their rivalry culminated in the first ever BWP Death Match that traveled all around the building before ending in a double-knockout that shocked everyone in attendance that night. Realising that they were equals inside the ring, DJ King came around and on one fateful night, The Brand was formed.

From that day, it’s been one constant show of dominance from The Brand, even when El Destello was forced to retire due to injuries. Many felt this event would cause the faction to implode and disband, but DJ King said “f*ck that” and set about making The Brand bigger and stronger. First, he recruited Craig ‘Danzig’ Winters to the fold and then went about convincing his former best friend, Dean MacManus to do likewise.

While the former snapped at the chance to join a winning team, Dean MacManus took more persuading; although he came around to the idea when The Brand members were proved right and the fans turned on MacManus… even though he had done everything he could to please them.

DJ King has a litany of offensive manoeuvres at his disposal, but none more lethal than his version of the Go-2-Sleep. If… no, when he hits this knee to the face of an opponent, the match is over and another victim joins the long list that shows no signs of being finished.

Mr. King, as you should call him, isn’t the leader of The Brand (there’s no such thing; this is a union based on mutual trust and respect), but he is certainly the mouthpiece of the group. A skilled orator (ask your mum), DJ King can talk the talk as well as he can walk the walk, with many a foe bamboozled and bewildered by his verbiage alone.

The Brand is here to stay and with this group of five on the warpath, nothing is sacred, nothing is safe and nothing is going to stop them.

You have been warned and while this revolution will not be televised, it will be documented by yours truly so that history will remember the facts as they happened.

CREDIT: Henry Higgins III