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Someone Wicked Comes Back To WFC!

Posted: Aug 10th 2022 By: CMBurnham

The thing about the Devil is....he's a master of deception. He tells you things you want to hear to get you to lower your defences. And then, he pulls off the greatest acts of evil while you stare aghast, unable to believe that he was actually going to do what he said he was going to.

New WFC Champion Wesley Crane can sit back and laugh because we all fell for his plan. A plan that he carried out in his absence. A plan that had us all believing one thing when something else was clearly the truth.

Over two months ago, Crane seemingly sat on top of the world. He was the new UWE Champion. He had formed Haven with Duke Cornell and brought CPW Champion Tommy Dean onto his side during a tag team match where Crane and Cornell took on Dean and Luke Langley. Langley believed he could trust Dean, but that trust was betrayed in the match as Dean turned on his partner and joined the ranks of HaVen. At that point Crane made it very clear that he would be the next WFC Champion. But WFC felt that it had a saviour in the form of WCR Champion Sam Stackhouse, who literally chased Crane out of WFC (the last we saw of him).

And then things seemed to go sideways. Crane took time away from wrestling due to social media pressures. It appeared that he had given everything up. HaVen was left without their leader, though Dean and Cornell did well for themselves in his absence. The "Self-Proclaimed Satan" appeared to have retreated to his lair, never to be seen again.

We should only have been that lucky.

This past Saturday saw WFC put on its biggest show ever and one of the featured matches in that show was supposed to be Luke Langley defending the WFC Title against Josh Woods. But due to a scheduling conflict with AEW, Woods was forced to withdraw from the match. WFC Director of Operations Richard Pierce said that the fans did not have to worry as he would find a suitable opponent for Langley. And Langley was not concerned at that point, as he was a fighting champion and looked forward to demonstrating that quality against whoever stood across the ring from him.

The day of the event, Langley was being interviewed by Anna Lynn when the other members of HaVen attacked Langley, specifically focusing on his neck. The brutal 2-on-1 beatdown continued until the referees arrived to break it up. And it appeared that Langley's title defence would have to be delayed. But Pierce was not interested in that scenario. He called Langley out to the ring and told the obviously injured champion that he had selected an opponent. At that point, the curtain opened, the music played and Tommy Dean and Duke Cornell arrived. Langley, like the rest of the WFC Faithful, were confused. Both men had matches later in the night. Was one of them going to wrestle twice? Had Pierce sanctioned a Handicap Match? What did their presence mean?

Those questions were answered when Wesley Crane made his return to WFC, storming down the rampway and making his way into the ring. The Devil was back and Langley was completely in his sites.

Crane tried to blinside Langley in the opening moments of the match, again targeting the obviously injured neck, but Langley was prepared and dropped him with a Saito suplex. And Langley benefited again when Dean and Cornell were ejected after Langley hit a suicide dive. At that point, it was one-on-one and Langley thrived for a minute or so before Crane countered a Super-Rana with a neckbreaker of the turnbuckle. Langley was able to come back from that and hit Crane with the Hesitation Dropkick and the KneeVD, but Crane continued to target the neck before connecting with the Hell Stomp. That led to a pin attempt by Crane, but Langley had plenty of energy remaining. Crane then repeatedly slammed Langley's head over and over into the ringpost. Langley tried to wind up for a big punch, but Crane ducke and Langley accidentally collided with referee Jesse Beeler. At that point, Langley hit the Brain Buster, but there was no referee to count the pin. There was also no referee to order Cornell and Dean to the back as they returned, so Langley had to handle that on his own and he did a flip dive on them to wipe them out. Langley then came back and prepared to connect with the Hyper Beam as the referee began to stir to consciousness, but when he spun Crane around, Crane kicked Langley straight in the balls. He then put Langley down with the Hell Driver and Beeler was present to make the count.

In this instance, Luke Langley could not get the job done. But more importantly, with Crane's victory, a huge shadow of darkness fell over WFC. Given the situation with Richard Pierce, Stevie Caballero and Dr. Nightshade, things are even more concerning with Crane now in possession of the championship belt. It appears that the Devil has made his return. And whatever he is offering, the roster of WFC cannot afford to entertain it, lest Crane subject the company entirely to his evil ways.