Marty Scurll

Scurll in January 2018

###

Littleport, Cambridgeshire, England, United Kingdom

**Martin** "**Marty**" **Scurll** (born 26 July 1988) is an English professional wrestler. He is best known for his work in New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), where he is a former one-time NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Champion and IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion.

From May 2017 to late October 2018, he was a member of the Bullet Club stable, which splintered into the new faction The Elite. The latter left ROH at the end of 2018 which led Scurll to form a new stable with ROH's new signees King and PCO called Villain Enterprises, which debuted during December's post-Final Battle television tapings, during which became also best known as the leader of the stable, before leaving ROH due to the public Speaking Out Movement scandal.

He has wrestled for numerous promotions around the world - such as the U.S. based Impact Wrestling, Ring of Honor (ROH) and ROH partner Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG), the UK's Progress Wrestling and Revolution Pro Wrestling (RPW), Germany's Westside Xtreme Wrestling (wXw), and the Australia based World Series Wrestling (WSW), and many more. Alongside Zack Sabre Jr. he is a member of popular tag team the Leaders of the New School.

## Professional wrestling career

### New Japan Pro Wrestling (2017-2021)

On May 12, Omega fired Adam Cole from Bullet Club and gave his spot in the stable to Scurll. On 3 May 2017, NJPW announced Scurll as a participant in the 2017 Best of the Super Juniors tournament. He finished the tournament with a record of four wins and three losses, failing to advance to the finals. On October 9, after Will Ospreay defeated KUSHIDA to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, Hiromu Takahashi entered the ring to seemingly challenge Ospreay, but before he could do so, Scurll came out, "snapped" Takahashi's fingers and made his own challenge to his compatriot Ospreay, which was accepted by the champion. On November 5, Scurll defeated Ospreay to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship. Following the match, Scurll and Ospreay continued arguing, while KUSHIDA came out to challenge Scurll to a title match at Wrestle Kingdom 12. Finally, Takahashi also came out, this time wearing a helmet and gloves to prevent the other challengers from knocking him out or breaking his fingers, and made his own title challenge. Scurll then declared that he would take on all three challengers. On January 4 2018, Scurll lost the title to back to Ospreay at Wrestle Kingdom 12 in Tokyo Dome in a four-way match, also involving Takahashi and KUSHIDA.

   On May 3 at Wrestling Dontaku, Scurll and Young Bucks defeated thier stablemates Guerrillas of Destiny and Bad Luck Fale to become the new NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Champions. From May 18 to June 4, Scurll took part in the 2018 Best of the Super Juniors tournament, finishing the tournament with a record of four wins and three losses, failing to advance to the finals of the tournament, due to losing to Hiromu Takahashi in their head-to-head match.

On August 12, Loa on behalf of Bullet Club OG challenged Scurll and The Young Bucks to a title match, which was made official by NJPW President Harold Meij who was at ringside. This led to part of the Bullet Club Civil War storyline, Scurll teaming with The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson) losing the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship to Bullet Club OG stablemates Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa and the returning Taiji Ishimori, who joined on Bullet Club OG's side.

On August 20, it was announced that Scurll would take part of a four-man single elimination tournament to crown a new champion, after Hiromu Takahashi was forced to vacate the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship due to a neck injury. On October 8 at King of Pro-Wrestling, Scurll was defeated by KUSHIDA in the finals of the tournament. On January 4, 2019 at Wrestle Kingdom 13, where Scurll, Hangman Page and Yujiro Takahashi took part of a Gauntlet match to determine the #1 contenders to the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship and were the first team to be eliminated from the match.

Scurll returned to NJPW for the first time since Wrestle Kingdom at The New Beginning in USA event on January 30, 2019. Between May 3 and June 5, 2019 Scurll participated in the 2019 Best of the Super Juniors tournament, finishing the tournament with a record of seven wins and two losses. Since the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic started, Scurll was prevented from entering Japan due to the travel restrictions. When the Speaking Out Movement scandal broke out, Scurll began having public backlash. It was later reported by Dave Meltzer and the Super J-Cast podcast that Scurll was part of the January 22nd taping of Strong in Port Hueneme, California and was rumored to be involved in a post-match angle with Rocky Romero. However due to public backlash on social media, Scurll became blacklisted and censored of all cards and promotional material by the promotion and has not returned ever since.

## In wrestling

* **Finishing moves**
	+ *Bird of Prey* (Inverted crucifix transitioned into a sitout side powerslam)
	+ Crossface chickenwing
	+ *Black Plague* (Swinging Double Underhook Suplex)
	+ *Scurll Driver* (Side Package Piledriver)
* **Signature move**
	+ Bridging double chickenwing
	+ European uppercut, sometimes while sliding to a kneeling opponent
	+ Falcon arrow
	+ Gory special
	+ Jackknife powerbomb
	+ Kneeling reverse piledriver
	+ Multiple kick variations
		- Missile drop
		- Rope-assisted enzuigiri
		- *Just Kidding!* (Feint superkick, followed by a second to the knee, with theatrics)
	+ Knee smash to a kneeling opponent
	+ Lariat
	+ Low blow
	+ Multiple suplex variations
		- German
		- Inverted
		- Rolling release
	+ Octopus hold
	+ Pumphandle neckbreaker
	+ Snapping opponent's fingers (with theatrics)
	+ Suicide dive sometimes transitioned into a swinging DDT
	+ Tornado DDT (Sometimes used as a setup for the crossface chickenwing)
* **Nicknames**
	+ "**The Villain**"
* **Entrance themes**
	+ "**One True Villain**" by Hot Tag Media Works

## Personal life

As part of the Speaking Out Movement, Scurll was accused by a woman of sexually abusing her five years prior when she was 16 years old and intoxicated. Scurll admitted the incident took place but insisted it was consensual due to the UK age of consent. He later released another statement, saying that while he did not "become aware of her age until after the encounter, the reality of the age disparity is not lost on me."

## Championships and accomplishments

* **DDT Pro-Wrestling**
	+ Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship (1 time)
* **New Japan Pro-Wrestling**
	+ IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
	+ NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 【『Super Jr.』出場メンバー決定！】Aブロックにリコシェ、オスプレイ、ドラゴン・リー！ マーティ・スカルが初上陸！ Bブロックにボラドール！ 金丸、ACHも初出場！  (in Japanese). *New Japan Pro Wrestling* (2017-05-03). Retrieved on 2017-05-03.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Marty Scurll . *Revolution Pro Wrestling*. Retrieved on 2017-03-15.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 IPW:UK profile . www.ipwuk.com.
4. ↑ *en: The Junior IWGP throne is vacant. KUSHIDA, BUSHI, Ospreay, and Scurll have all entered the Junior Heavyweight championship tournament!* (in English). *New Japan Pro-Wrestling* (2018-08-20). Retrieved on 2018-08-20.
5. ↑ https://soundcloud.com/hot-tag-media-works/marty-scurll-entrance-theme
6. ↑ Ironman Heavymetalweight Title . Wrestling-Titles.com. Retrieved on 2016-08-29.
7. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `PowerStruggle2017WON`