(Hey, there. I had this written back in February, but family commitments and a lack of opening in the blog space kept me from posting this until now. I'm posting this today to get this out of the way while the Ramblemania 39 post is slated for a Friday morning release because... yeah.)
Anyway, I've heard bad things about this show. My hopes weren't high going in considering who was the reigning World Champion. Though I did see said World Champion on a Fox News program and sure enough, he had the ten pounds of gold with him, which must make William Patrick Corgan happy that the NWA is getting some exposure on a major network show. If only that would translate to viewers, buyrates, or any semblance of relevance.
I had no interest in this show, but the aforementioned friend loaned his DVD-R copy - because he has a set-up that lets him record shows on DVD-R even though that's a thing of the past; don't ask because I honestly don't know - and really wanted me to do this favor and watch the show to get my reactions. I told him fine, but on a special condition that we shall keep to ourselves... and no, it's not THAT kind of special condition, you sick bastards.
Anyway, digression over. On with the show.
Thom Latimer defeated some guy named Fodder in a Singapore Cane match that saw a bunch of canes used before Latimer locked this Fodder dude in a crossface submission with cane assist for the win. Fun little bit of violence, at least.
NWA Junior Heavyweight Champion Kerry Morton (son of Ricky Morton, who also seconds his boy) defeated Alex Taylor (seconded by some other dude) in a pretty good match to retain the title.
Thrillbilly Silas (a big, bearded man) defeated Kratos (I guess he dropped the JR from his name) in a match featuring two big fuckers beating the fuck out of each other, which the crowd actually enjoyed. Then Kratos ripped off a turnbuckle pad to clue the audience in that he's the bad guy... and they followed along. What a polite crowd. Not so polite was Kratos missing a move and slamming face first into the exposed buckle, which caused him to bleed buckets. I didn't think we needed a Jon Moxley tribute spot where one guy was bleeding all over the place, but there you go. Hope he's okay.
The Renegade Twins (Robyn and Charlette - no, that's not a typo) defeated NWA Womens' Tag-Team Champions Pretty Empowered (Kenzie Paige and Ella Envy) in a perfectly acceptable tag match to win the titles. The Renegade Twins are perhaps best known for being enhancement talent on the various AEW shows, so it's nice to see them win a match for once. Not much else to say here.
EC3 defeated Kevin Kiley via submission. Kevin Kiley is the former Alex Reilly of WWE fame and apparently, this was his first match in years. It shows because the guy seemed out of it a couple times and at one point, he tried to do a dive, but his foot got caught in the ropes and he crashed into the floor. I'm not going to slag on him, though; first match back, you're going to have some glitches, but I'd imagine once he gets back in the groove of things, he'll find that spark that he was missing. I wish him nothing but the best and hopes that he pushes onwards.
NWA World Tag-Team Champions La Rebellion (I forget their names) defeated Blunt Force Trauma (I didn't bother with their names, but one of them looks like Rodney Mack of WWE fame) via disqualification due to Aron Stevens hitting one of the champs with a glove. La Rebellion retain the titles. Crowd looked bored. Match was nothing. If this was supposed to be a big time marquee match on your card, it was a massive colossal letdown of biblical proportions.
Chris Adonis defeated Trevor Murdoch via Master Lock submission in a match that saw Murdoch dominate the match before Adonis made his comeback and locked in the submission. This was short and sweet, but I liked it.
NWA Women's Champion Kamille defeated Angelina Love to retain the title in a . I haven't seen Kamille wrestle in a good long while - or at least not since the last NWA show which was... whenever - and I think she's got more of a presence than she did before, not to mention she feels like an overall better performer. Hopefully, somewhere down the line, she can get a better deal elsewhere in the big leagues where she can get more exposure because she really deserves.
NWA National Champion Cyon (seconded by Austin Idol) defeated Homicide to retain the title. The crowd was all but dead for this match, which wasn't very good and made worse by the fact that apparently, both guys are supposed to be heels and thus you have no real reason to care. Oh well, at least they got paid.
And in the main event of a professional wrestling PPV, NWA World's Heavyweight Champion TYRUS - THE FORMER FUCKING BRODUS CLAY - defeated the Woo Woo guy, Matt Cardonas to retain the title. Both guys were heels. The matched sucked. Nobody cared. And look, I'm sure Tyrus is a nice guy in real life, but he did not look good. He was slow, plodding, and worst of all, not the least convincing as a monster big man world champion. Poor Cardonas tried, but he wasn't getting a good match out of FUCKING BRODUS CLAY and I was largely bored, which is NOT the feeling you want to elicit in the main event program for your top prize. But hey, at least Tyrus gets to parade the title on Fox, right, Billy? That oughta be worth something.
And then Bully Ray, who was doing commentary at the time, goes to the ring to greet Tyrus, who offers him a World title shot. What incriminating evidence does Bully Ray have against the professional wrestling industry that he is getting another World title match in another promotion. First Impact and now the NWA. How long before we see Claudio vs. Bully for the ROH title or hell, MJF vs. Bully Ray for the AEW Title. (Not WWE, though; I don't think Hunter is that desperate.)
Look, I'll be honest with you. I was watching this show out of morbid curiosity and figured why not give it a shot... and while there's a couple decent matches - the Kamille match being the highlight in my book - for the most part, a lot of it was largely forgettable and capped off with a pretty lame main event with a pretty lame finish, followed by a tease of another pretty lame main event for what I presume will be the next PPV that will continue to challenge WWE's run of terrible PPV names.
Well, you know what? I'm not even going to bother waiting for that third strike. I've watched two PPVs from the NWA and both of them have been disappointments. Sure, you'll luck out on a couple good matches here and there, but you're not paying for a PPV that only has a couple good matches, especially during a time when good wrestling matches can be found anywhere and everywhere, including on Youtube FOR FREE.
Sorry, Billy. No buys. Nuff said. No pun intended.
Later.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Keep it real and keep it clean.