Okay, so I really need you to explain the photo
you dropped in the shared drive this morning,
because for those of you listening, I'm looking
at a professional wrestler, clearly. Yeah, he's
definitely a wrestler. Right, but he's standing
on the turnbuckle looking very triumphant, and
instead of the usual... I don't know, sparkly
spandex or baby oil. He looks like he just parked
a Vespa outside a coffee shop in 1964. It is
a pretty jarring image the first time you see
it, isn't it? It's totally wild. He's wearing
a literal parka and a tailored suit underneath.
He looks like he's about to start a fight between
the mods and the rockers on Brighton Beach, not
wrestle a match. Well, that visual dissonance
is exactly the point. Because you are looking
at flash Morgan Webster and that aesthetic isn't
an accident or a wardrobe malfunction It is the
entire engine of his career He has built this
global reputation by being the mod father of
professional wrestling the mod father that feels
like such a specific, almost niche flavor to
bring into a wrestling ring. I mean, usually
gimmicks are really broad, right? Like, I'm a
scary monster, I'm a rich guy. But I appreciate
the British subculture of the mid -1960s feels
like a very deep cut. It is a deep cut, but honestly,
that's why it works so well. The mod subculture,
if you think about the Who or the movie Quadrophenia,
the Sharp suits the scooters, the soul music.
It was all about working class kids aspiring
to... higher style right looking sharp exactly
looking clean and sharp even if you were living
in a really gritty reality which now that you
say it actually fits the wrestling narrative
perfectly because wrestling is gritty and sweaty
and painful yeah but you're constantly trying
to present this polished larger than life superhero
image. Precisely. And Webster, whose real name
is Gavin Watkins, he's from Bryn Mawr in Wales.
He took that very British, very working class
cool and just weaponized it. But the reason we're
doing a deep dive on him today for you all isn't
just because he dresses well. Right, we have
a ton of source material here spanning his whole
career. Yeah, from the British independent circuit
to WWW to Impact Wrestling. And our mission today
is really to understand how this guy from Wales
used this distinct persona and incredible technical
adaptability to become a history -making champion
in multiple major promotions. Well, let's talk
about that in -ring style. because looking at
him, he is not a giant. The stats we have say
he's five foot nine, about 165 pounds. In the
land of wrestling giants, that's pretty small.
So I assume he's flying around a lot. He is.
He's absolutely a high flyer. He can do the 450
splashes, the dives to the outs, all the things
you really need to do to survive as a smaller
guy in the modern era. But if he was just a high
flyer, he'd be one of a thousand guys doing flips
right now. So what's the differentiator? Webster
is different because he blends that aerial ability
with a very traditional European technical wrestling
style. It's a true hybrid style. Okay, pause
there for a second, because I hear technical
style a lot when I watch wrestling, but I've
never really understood what it means mechanically.
Yeah. What is he actually doing that's different
from just punching a guy? So imagine the pace
of a match. A high flyer wants the fast chaos
movement confusion. A European technical wrestler
wants to slow everything down to a grinding halt.
It's all about leverage. Leverage like joint
manipulation. Exactly. It's about grabbing a
wrist and twisting it in a way that the joint
isn't supposed to move and then using that pain
to dictate exactly where your opponent's body
goes. So it's almost like chess versus checkers.
Yeah. It's chess where you are physically hurting
the other player's pieces. Webster will hit a
high -speed move to completely disorient you,
but the second you hit the mat, he's not posing
for the crowd. He is grabbing a limb. He's tying
you in knots. That makes him incredibly dangerous,
then. Very, because he can wrestle the big guys
by chopping them down systematically, or he can
wrestle the fast guys by just grounding them.
It lets him work with literally anyone. And that
adaptability makes total sense. If you can only
do flips and you fight a guy who catches you,
you're basically done. But if you can grapple,
you always have a plan B. And that is exactly
what has kept him employed for well over 15 years.
But before he settled on the Modfather persona,
which is just a great nickname, by the way, he
went through the usual identity crisis that almost
most indie wrestlers go through. Oh, I saw this
in the notes and I desperately need to talk about
it right now because he has wrestled as Flash
Morgan. He's been simply Morgan Webster. But
there is one name on this list that stopped me
dead in my tracks. Kevin McAllister. Yes, the
one and only. Please tell me you meet the child
from Home Alone. The very same. Just how does
that work? Was he sitting paint cans on strings
in the arena? Was he dropping hot irons on people's
faces? How does that translate to a wrestling
match? Look, the independent scene, especially
early on, is a place for pure experimentation.
Sometimes that experimentation is brilliant,
and sometimes it's literal slapstick comedy.
I mean, I'd pay to see it. Right, and I don't
have the footage of those specific matches, but
you can imagine a young wrestler trying to find
any connection with the audience. Everyone loves
Home Alone, right? It gets a cheap pop, but it
is a novelty act. You cannot be a serious champion
as a kid who got left behind by his parents in
Paris. There's a very hard ceiling on that gimmick.
The Modfather sounds like a champion. Kevin McAllister
sounds like the opening match at a local birthday
party. Thankfully, he pivoted away from that.
And he started really grinding. If we look at
the timeline, he debuts in 2010. And for the
next several years, he is just traveling up and
down the UK, wrestling for Celtic wrestling,
often for very, very little money. The totally
unglamorous side of the business. Very much so.
But this is actually where the most important
relationship of his entire career begins. Because
in 2011, he teams up with a guy named Mark Andrews
to defeat a team called Method and Madness. Mark
Andrews. That name comes up constantly in his
story. Every time I turned a page in the research
there was Mark Andrews. You really cannot tell
the story of Flash Morgan Webster without Mark
Andrews. They were opponents at first and then
partners. They spent years in cars together,
driving to tiny shows, sleeping on floors, wrestling
in front of maybe 50 people. Which has to build
a crazy amount of chemistry. A level of chemistry
you just cannot teach because in wrestling you
are literally putting your life and your body
in someone else's hands. Trust is the currency.
And Webster and Andrews developed a massive shared
bank account of trust very early on. So they're
cutting their teeth in Wales doing the hard miles.
But at some point he has to break outright. He
can't just stay local forever if he wants to
make a real living. The breakout really starts
around 2015, and it's not just about who he's
beating, but the caliber of talent he is standing
across the ring from. I want you to look at the
names he faced in this specific period. Okay,
let's see. I see Zack Sabre Jr. I know he's huge.
Keith Lee, also massive. Wait, he beat Will Ospreay.
He did, yes. Even I know Will Ospreay. He is
like the god of modern wrestling right now. He's
absolute headline news. He is arguably the best
in the world today. But in 2015, Webster beat
him. And that tells you two really important
things. One, the UK scene at that time was an
absolute pressure cooker of generational talent.
You had future global superstars battling in
literal bingo halls. And two, it means Webster
was keeping up with them. Exactly. He wasn't
just a warm body to be tossed around. He was
actually winning. And this leads right into his
run in progress wrestling. Right. I've heard
of them. They were like the cool punk rock promotion
in London. Progress was the epicenter. It was
to British wrestling what CBGB's was to punk
music. Webster completely thrived there. He won
their natural progression series to a tournament
by beating Zach Gibson in the finals. That tournament
is specifically designed to highlight the next
big thing. Wow. So a huge stamp of approval.
Huge. But he also won a match with a name that,
well, I always have to explain it to American
audiences. Oh, I see it here in the service material.
The Thunder Bastard match. The Thunder Bastard
match. Yes. I just love British slang so much.
It sounds Absolutely incredible, but I have no
idea what it actually implies. Is it a weapon?
A type of weather system? It's essentially a
chaotic multi -man survival match. Just think
of it as a demolition derby with human bodies.
Winning that at Chapter 64 earned him a title
shot. It proved he could handle pure chaos. But
I actually want to highlight something that happened
in Revolution Pro Wrestling around the same time,
because it teaches us something crucial about
the business of wrestling. OK, this is ref pros.
This is where he won the Cruiserweight title.
Yeah, he won the Ref Pro British Cruiserweight
Championship from Ryan Smile in December 2017.
It's a huge moment. The crowd goes wild. The
culmination of a massive chase. And then wait
the notes say he lost it five days later. Five
days to Curtis Chapman. That just seems, I don't
know, cruel or just bad planning. Why give a
guy the championship belt if you're going to
take it away before he can even wear it at the
grocery store? It feels incredibly cruel, but.
In wrestling booking, it is a very specific device.
It's called volatility. Yeah, because if everyone
holds a title for six months, the audience gets
comfortable. They start predicting the shows
and they stop worrying about their favorite guy
losing on a random Tuesday. By having Webster
lose it in five days, the promoter sends a very
clear message. Do not blink because anything
can happen here. Oh, I see. So it's tragic for
the character, but it's fantastic for the show's
ratings. Exactly. And honestly, it makes him
the underdog again instantly and being the underdog
is where Webster absolutely shines. Which brings
us to the big leagues because WWE comes calling
in 2018. This is during that period where WWE
was basically trying to buy up every talented
person in the UK to start their own brand right.
It was the NXT UK expansion. They scooped up
Pete Dunne, Tyler Bate, and of course, Flash
Morgan Webster. He debuts at WrestleMania Access,
where he actually loses to Pete Dunne. He competes
in the UK Championship tournament. He's on 205
Live teaming with Cedric Alexander and Mustafa
Ali. He is suddenly on a massive global platform.
But the absolute cinematic climax of his career
up to this point has to be Cardiff. I was reading
the recaps of this event and the atmosphere sounded
completely insane. Rarely does major premium
live events in Wales. So you have a stadium full
of Welsh fans who are just absolutely desperate
for a hometown hero. And they get Webster and
Mark Andrews. The Hometown Boys. Reunited. They
are booked in a triple threat tag team match
for the titles. It's them versus Gallus who are
these big bruising Scotsmen and the grizzled
young veterans James Drake and Zach Gibson who
are just absolute masters at making people hate
them. So the stage is perfectly set. You've got
the foreign threats, the pure villains and the
local. dog heroes. And the match itself is a
masterpiece of emotion. There are so many moments
where it looks like they've lost. The crowd is
agonizing over every single near fall. And when
Webster and Andrews finally hit their finish
and get the three, the noise in that building,
it's not just cheering. It is a collective cathartic
release. Because they became the first Welsh
champions in WWE history. First ever. And they
did it together. Think about that narrative arc.
They start in 2011 in tiny gyms in front of literally
nobody. Eight years later, they are standing
in the middle of Cardiff holding gold belts for
the biggest wrestling company on earth with their
countrymen screaming their names. That is the
ultimate dream. It's the movie ending. You just
roll the credits right there. You'd really think
so. But professional wrestling doesn't stop for
happy endings. They had a decent run with the
belts. In June 2021, they actually formed a really
cool faction called Subculture with a female
wrestler named Danny Luna. Oh, right. I read
about this. It really leaned heavy into that
mod aesthetic, right? Using specific music genres
and looks to unify the three of them. It was
a great package, but then the harsh reality of
the corporate wrestling world hit. August, 2022,
the release. WWE released a massive wave of talent
as contracts ended and budgets were cut. Webster
and Andrews were let go. I just cannot imagine
what that feels like. You're on top of the world.
You're making history in your home country, and
then you get a phone call and you're just unemployed.
It's completely devastating. And for a lot of
guys, that really is the end of the road. They
fade away. They go back to the local indies and
just kind of exist on nostalgia. You know, they
sell eight by tens that say, remember when I
was in WWE. But Webster didn't do that. No, he
didn't. And this is where the resilience part
of our deep dive really comes into focus because
he didn't reinvent himself as some bitter new
character. He didn't try to erase his past. He
took the subculture brand Webster Andrews and
Dan. and he took it straight to Impact Wrestling,
which is now known as TNA. That's a huge jump
because Impact is on American television. It's
a totally different environment than the UK indie
scene or even NXT UK. It's very different. The
production style is different. The camera work
is different. The wrestling pacing is much more
TV centric. And they didn't just show up to smile
and wave to the crowd. In May, 2023, they debuted
and immediately targeted the Impact World Tag
Team Champions, ABC, Ace, Austin, and Chris B.
And they chased them for a while, right? It wasn't
just instant gratification where they walk in
and win. No. They actually failed at first. They
lost at an event kind of under siege. And honestly,
that failure is really important. and it showed
the American audience that they weren't just
being handed things because they were ex -WWE
guys. They had to earn their spot here too. So
when did they finally climb the mountain again?
Slammiversary, 2023. This is one of Impact's
absolute biggest shows of the year. They are
in a four -way tag match. So it's Subculture
versus ABC versus Brian Myers and Moose versus
Rich Swann and Sami Callahan. So absolute chaos
again. Total chaos. And once again, amidst all
that noise and bodies flying everywhere, Webster
and Andrews walked out with the Impact World
Tag Team Championships. That is seriously impressive.
Because to win titles in WWE is one thing. That's
a huge achievement. But to get fired, cross the
ocean, go to a rival company on American TV,
and win their titles too? That proves the first
time wasn't a fluke. It completely validates
them as a world class tag team, regardless of
whatever corporate logo is on the turnbuckle.
They joined a very, very short list of people
who have held tag team gold in both of those
companies. But looking at the timeline data here,
this reign in impact was also kind of short.
Yeah, it was about six weeks. They ended up losing
the belts to the Rascals Trey Miguel and Zachary
Wentz at an event called Emergence. Is that frustrating
for a wrestler? To climb the mountain again,
prove all the doubters wrong, and then get shoved
off a month later? I mean, I'm sure personally
it stings a bit in the moment. You want to be
the champion forever. You want that long run.
Yeah. But professionally, no. Because the permanent
accolade is Impact Tag Team Champion. Nobody
puts for 42 days on the plaque. That's a great
point. Once you win it, you are in the history
books forever. You have proved your commercial
value. And looking at his trophy cabinet here,
the value is just undeniable. NXT UK Tag Team
Champion. Impact World Tag Team Champion, Attack
Pro Wrestling Champion, Attack 24 -7 Champion,
RIV Pro British Tag Team Champion, King of Chaos
Champion, and he was even ranked number 300 in
the PWI 500 way back in 2018. And that PWI ranking
is a huge deal for a listener who might not know
because it includes thousands of wrestlers globally.
Being in the top 300 means you are in the elite
tier of the industry. And remember, he has been
active since 2010. That's the other really remarkable
thing here, consistency. He hasn't had massive
multi -year gaps. He's been grinding working
with top -tier talent like Wild Boar, who he
helped Dragon Pro titles with, and he's been
doing it for 15 straight years. And he's still
going right. The source data implies he's still
active back in Rev Pro and Attack Pro Wrestling.
He absolutely is. The cycle just continues. He's
back on the scene. He's still wearing the parka.
He's still hitting the high spots. And he's still
tying people in knots on the mat. So when we
take a step back and look at Flash Morgan Webster
as a whole. What is the ultimate takeaway for
you? Is it just that he dresses really cool?
I think the big takeaway is that he fundamentally
understands packaging. Look, if you go to any
wrestling school, there are hundreds of athletic
guys who can do a 450 splash. There are hundreds
of guys who can execute a perfect wrist lock.
But by wrapping that specific skill set in this
very visually striking mod packaging, he made
himself completely unforgettable. You literally
cannot describe him to someone without describing
his look. Oh, you mean the guy in the parka.
Yeah, that is pure marketing genius. It really
is. The elite branding. He's not just a wrestler.
He's an entire aesthetic. Exactly. And the second
major takeaway has to be the undeniable power
of partnership. Yeah, we just keep coming back
to Mark Andrews over and over. Because it's so
rare in professional wrestling, usually tag teams
exist just to break up. One guy gets jealous,
he turns on the other, they have a bloody feud
and they go their separate ways. The rockers,
the shield, almost everyone eventually breaks
up. But Webster and Andrews have stuck together
across independent promotions, across continents,
through firings and hirings. It's like a rock
band that refuses to break up even when their
record label drops them. And because of that
intense loyalty, they are so much greater than
the sum of their parts. Webster is a great wrestler.
Andrews is a great wrestler. But subculture,
the unit, is championship material anywhere on
the planet. It's just a really cool, inspiring
story. From a working class kid in Bryn Mawr
to becoming a guy who children all across Wales
look up to. And doing it all while flat out refusing
to compromise on a very specific mid -60s fashion
choice. I still to this day do not know how he
wrestles in those tailored suit pants sometimes,
but he always makes it work. Right. Maybe they're
made of some secret spandex blend we will probably
never know. Trade secrets of the mod, father.
So before we wrap this up today, I want to leave
you all with a thought. Because we talk a lot
about professional wrestling as a purely individual
sport. Everyone wants to be the world champion,
right? Everyone wants to be the singular face
on the poster. But Flash, Morgan Webster's career,
suggests something entirely different. His highest
highs, WWE Impact, they came when he was sharing
the spotlight. That is undeniably true. So here
is the question for you to mull over. In an industry
that is so heavily built on ego and selfishness,
is the smartest career move actually finding
someone else to share the load with? Is the lone
wolf archetype actually a trap? And is finding
your perfect dynamic duo the real key to longevity
and success? It's a fascinating thought. Maybe
we all need a mod father to our Mark Andrews.
Or, well, Mark Andrews to our mod father. Thank
you so much for joining us for this deep dive.
Go listen to some of the Who put on a sharp parka,
and we will catch you next time.