For Brendan White and Kenneth Halfpenny, Epic Encounters will not just be another match presented by RevPro’s contenders division. Whilst the spirit of competition and will to win will no doubt be on display, this contest goes a lot deeper than that as what started as a professional rivalry has turned very personal.
Kenneth Halfpenny is the ultimate sportsperson. Dedicated, talented, competitive and without a doubt the hardest worker in the room. But these positive traits also lead to his key negatives. He is a bad loser and perhaps and an even worse winner.
In many respects he is the type of person you want on your team, a born winner and a natural leader, but at the same time his overly competitive nature can often lead to conflict and that indeed is the case here.
When Series 2 of the Contenders division started, it was almost quietly accepted that Gabriel Kidd was the leader of the division. Bringing with him a wealth of experience. Having wrestled some of the top names in the business, Kidd took the leap of faith & joined up to the Contenders division, leaving all those accolades and achievements behind him. With him came a maturity which other members of the division looked up to. But for Kidd his journey would see him joining up with former British Heavyweight Champion Katsuyori Shibata, leaving the Contenders Division, leaving RevPro, leaving the UK and making a new life for himself as a full-time member of Shibata’s LA Dojo.
Kidd’s absence left an opening for a new top dog in the division and there were two leading candidates to take that spot. One being the aforementioned Halfpenny, the other being ‘the workhorse’ Brendan White.
Brendan White is a man with whom what you see is what you get. A hard worker, with a no nonsense attitude. He takes his craft very seriously and in many ways, shares many similar traits to Halfpenny. Although you wouldn’t be blamed for calling him the humbler of the pair. Taking each setback in his stride and using it to motivate him to move forward, rather than consuming him with rage to the point he must right the wrong.
There was a professional rivalry between the pair, perhaps even jealousy in Halfpenny’s case and that all spilled over just prior to lockdown when the pair finally came to heated blows Live In Southampton, with the help of Mad Kurt stirring the pot. This was no longer just about the spirit of competition.
Time away from pro wrestling action & time away from each other will hopefully have done the pair good in terms of easing brewing tensions. But in being pitted opposite one another we can all but guarantee it won’t be long before that competitive spirit once again comes to the forefront.
In reality, whilst both men have claimed to have consistently gotten the better of one another in training there is very little to choose between the two. Before lockdown they knew each other’s games inside out, they trained together, they teamed together, they worked against each other. But now with 5 months having past there has been little interaction between the pair so it really could come down to simply who’s trained harder during their time off. Will it be ‘the hardest worker in the room’ or will it be ‘the workhorse’? Tune in THIS SUNDAY on FITE! to find out.
Epic Encounters One will be streaming THIS SUNDAY, August 23rd on FITE! 8pm BST/3pm EST/12pm PST To pre-order the event click here: https://www.fite.tv/watch/revpro-uk-epic-encounters-one/2p7wt/