Name: backwards7
Entrance Music: The Streets – Turn The Page
Appearance: Black T shirt. Jeans. Nothing flash.
Style: Developed from Docklands Spar – a style of street fighting once popular around the wharves of East London. Originally this method of fighting blended bar room brawling with martial arts techniques learned from foreign sailors and included a knowledge of acupuncture and pressure points.
Trademark moves:
Hackney chin grip: The opponents chin is grasped in one hand and pressure points around the base of the jaw are exploited, causing extreme pain and humiliation as the victim dribbles saliva out from the corners of their mouths. Weak opponents can find themselves being manoeuvred around the ring, at arms length, unable to act through sheer agony and often crying like girls.
Doldrum: A calculated blow to the body knocks the wind out of the opponent. Almost instantly a follow up sweep directed at their thighs sends them crashing flat onto the floor of the ring. Opponents on the receiving end of a successfully executed Doldrum have reported a creeping sense of defeat and worthlessness in the aftermath that sometimes lingers for weeks following the fight.
Hasting’s Slip: Useful for escaping from secure locks and holds. The success of Hasting’s Slip depends on muscle groups in the arms and legs being aligned and then compressed so as to store large amounts of energy. When released, this stored energy causes the limbs to spring apart usually with enough impetus to break open a hold from the inside and frequently causing physical trauma to the opponent. During a bout with the now retired Brighton Hog, backwards7 escaped from a bear hug with such force that he broke both the hog’s arms and sent him tumbling over the ropes and into the neighbouring outdoor swimming pool where the performing dolphins lived. The move is named after the Limehouse escapologist – Charlie Hastings, whose most famous trick involved him being chained-up inside a barrel, that would then be nailed shut. Hastings would quickly slip out of his shackles, and then burst the barrel apart, from the inside.
