NWA Powerrr

[El-P]

1 hour ago, WingedEagle said:

Without knowing how much he paid I don't see any basis for calling Corgan dumb or a money mark.

He wanted to buy IMPACT from Dixie ?

It's interesting that Corgan was interested in getting a pro-wrestling promotion when he was involved in ECW back in the days and may even have been interested in buying ECW at one point. The guy clearly wanted to be involved in pro-wrestling forever. That doesn't make him smart about it, but he at least knows what he's getting into and has a love for it.

[WingedEagle]

4 minutes ago, El-P said:

He wanted to buy IMPACT from Dixie ?

It's interesting that Corgan was interested in getting a pro-wrestling promotion when he was involved in ECW back in the days and may even have been interested in buying ECW at one point. The guy clearly wanted to be involved in pro-wrestling forever. That doesn't make him smart about it, but he at least knows what he's getting into and has a love for it.

Haha fair point about Impact, but by the same token for the right price I'd buy it too. 

[The Thread Killer]

One of the main reasons Corgan wanted to buy TNA is because they already had everything you need to run a Professional Wrestling company in place (except for competent ownership and management) so he wouldn't have needed to start from the ground up (like he ended up having to do with the NWA).  They had a full roster, and even more importantly trained TV production staff and equipment, and even a TV deal (TNA were on Destination America when Corgan came on board, before Dixie Carter managed to Dixie Carter that deal and they ended up on Pop TV.) 

Corgan has said that if he had taken over TNA as the sole owner he would have pretty much rebooted the entire organization - including renaming it, but he what really made him want to buy TNA was all the infrastructure that was already in place, which would have saved him a ton of work having to start from scratch, basically.  That's smart business on his part.  And when he found out Dixie Carter was...Dixie Carter, he walked away from the deal, and even sued and got his money back from Panda Energy.  That's also impressive from a business standpoint, because Lord knows Dixie left a lot of unpaid people in her wake...including Eric Bischoff.

[C.S.]

Reminder: Today is the last day to order NWA Into the Fire at the $19.99 preorder price.

Of course, Fite is fucking useless, logged me out, and won't send me a password reset e-mail. 

Their loss, and the NWA's, I guess.

[The Thread Killer]

1 minute ago, C.S. said:

Reminder: Today is the last day to order NWA Into the Fire at the $19.99 preorder price.

Of course, Fite is fucking useless, logged me out, and won't send me a password reset e-mail. 

Their loss, and the NWA's, I guess.

I decided to give this show a chance, and the price was right so I preordered today.  Thankfully I didn't have the issues you did, @C.S. and my order went through okay.

This is the NWA's chance to prove to me that watching Power for 8 weeks is going to have a satisfying payoff, I hope they can do it.

[Mad Dog]

Yeah, I put the money down for it. Probably going to do a podcast review of it good or bad.

[The Thread Killer]

According to the NWA, the pre-sales for Into The Fire have already quadrupled those of NWA70.  They seem pretty pleased by the amount of sales so far, based on their reaction on Twitter.  They keep tweeting thanks to all the fans who have already ordered.  By the way, when I pre-ordered on Fite, it gave me the option to share the news, so I shared it on Twitter and Nick Aldis liked my tweet.    I think this means he and I personal friends now.  That's him AND Sabu!  And the difference is, when Nick Aldis tweets, I can actually understand what he's saying!

[sek69]

The funny thing is Billy walked away from ECW because he (probably rightly) felt Heyman saw him as just some dumb money mark to fleece, and then years later people called him the mark for buying the NWA trademarks. People were also mad at him because it ended the short lived NWA On Demand service that was opening up the Houston vault. 

He has ended up doing more for the NWA name than anyone since Crockett, considering it ended up getting any level of recognition in 2019. His Achilles Heel so far seems to be not handling it well when old school wrestling people start acting like....well, old school wrestling people. 

[C.S.]

20 hours ago, The Thread Killer said:

Thankfully I didn't have the issues you did, @C.S. and my order went through okay. 

Unfortunately, I didn't get my first password reset e-mail until 11:40 p.m. - just enough time to still order the show and get the preorder price - but, alas, after I went to bed and too late for me to actually see the e-mail.

So, I lose out. It's just as well, because I've cooled off on the NWA considerably (I skipped last week's show and I've yet to watch this week's) and the PPV looks like trash.

I'm sure it will still be fun, and I'm sure I would've enjoyed it, but I guess it wasn't meant to be. 

For all of the problems WWE Network has, they are miles ahead of every other wrestling streaming service. My own fault for "waiting until the last minute" but also Fite's fault for having such a bad website and NWA's fault for ending a price promotion on a Saturday night (WTF?). 

[The Thread Killer]

One thing that bugs me a bit and I find it a little strange, is that either Eddie Kingston and Homicide aren't working the PPV, or the NWA is not hyping their match in advance.  Either way, it's odd.  If they can find room for the fucking Question Mark on the card, there should be something they could have done with Kingston and Homicide.  Maybe those guys were only working the first set of tapings and now they're done with the NWA, I don't know.  You'd also have thought they'd have found a match for Caleb Konley as well.

Oh well, at least I'm not paying to see the Dawsons, so that's something.

[El-P]

20 hours ago, The Thread Killer said:

One thing that bugs me a bit and I find it a little strange, is that either Eddie Kingston and Homicide aren't working the PPV, or the NWA is not hyping their match in advance.

So against whom are the Rock'n'Roll Express working then ? Yeah, either way that's odd. Although Homicide looked bored as hell. 

20 hours ago, The Thread Killer said:

Maybe those guys were only working the first set of tapings and now they're done with the NWA, I don't know. 

Man, AEW should jump on Kingston and pair him with Ortiz & Santana. They worked against each other in IMPACT so they are familiar, it would be the perfect act with Kingston on the mic working a match once in a while (since he wanted to retire).

[The Thread Killer]

The Rock n' Roll Express are defending against The Wild Cards at the PPV.  I can only assume (and hope and pray) that The Wild Cards are going to regain the titles. I have no issue with the NWA using the RnR's as a novelty for their name value, but not as the champs.  Hell, they could have fought the Dawsons in the opener and beat them and I doubt anybody would have complained.  I'm not as down on The Wild Cards as most seem to be (although I think Bram is by far the more talented of the two) and I'd have much rather seen them fight Kingston and Homicide. I agree that Homicide looked like the didn't want to be there.  That's the problem with taping two months of TV in two days...if a guy is having one bad night, he ends up looking bad on an entire month's worth of television.

[El-P]

18 minutes ago, The Thread Killer said:

The Rock n' Roll Express are defending against The Wild Cards at the PPV.  I can only assume (and hope and pray) that The Wild Cards are going to regain the titles. I have no issue with the NWA using the RnR's as a novelty for their name value, but not as the champs.  Hell, they could have fought the Dawsons in the opener and beat them and I doubt anybody would have complained.  I'm not as down on The Wild Cards as most seem to be (although I think Bram is by far the more talented of the two) and I'd have much rather seen them fight Kingston and Homicide.

Thanks. 

Agreed. The Wild Cards stuff looks just thrown together and Eddie did cut a promo about the Rock'n'Roll, so maybe infact he's just not working there anymore, because it seemed logical for them to challenge for the tag titles. The Wild Cards seem quite ok now that I've seen a bit more of them. I've also seen Royce Isaac on a Bar Wrestling show, and he looked like a decent worker in that context. 

[The Thread Killer]

I haven't actually seen the entire Crockett Cup tournament from this past year, which is where The Wild Cards ended up forming.  I've been meaning to check that show out for the longest time but haven't.  I think the Briscoes actually fight the Rock and Roll Express on that show, if I'm not mistaken.

[El-P]

Just now, The Thread Killer said:

I think the Briscoes actually fight the Rock and Roll Express on that show, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah. Super fun match too. I don't remember the rest of the show TBH (nor if I actually watched the entire thing actually).

[The Thread Killer]

I am actually going to try and check that show out.  I think Nick Aldis (my close personal friend who liked my tweet) defends the World Championship against Marty Scrull on that show as well.

[Migs]

1 hour ago, The Thread Killer said:

I am actually going to try and check that show out.  I think Nick Aldis (my close personal friend who liked my tweet) defends the World Championship against Marty Scrull on that show as well.

He does! My recollection is the match is fairly good, not a classic but very enjoyable. They went for a classic and landed a bit shy of there.

That show also has PCO and Brody King against the Briscoes (although it might be the least of their matches together this year).

[C.S.]

1 hour ago, El-P said:

Eddie did cut a promo about the Rock'n'Roll, so maybe infact he's just not working there anymore...

This would be a disaster. They are easily the best and most compelling team in the NWA, and Kingston has singles star written all over him. 

[The Thread Killer]

I checked out Eddie Kingston's Twitter page and over the past couple of days he has re-tweeted the announcement from the NWA hyping up the good pre-sales for Into the Fire and a hype video for the PPV originally posted by the NWA.  That would seem to indicate that he's still involved, hopefully. 

Then I looked for Homicide's Twitter account and discovered he hadn't tweeted since 2017.

[El-P]

4 minutes ago, The Thread Killer said:

Then I looked for Homicide's Twitter account and discovered he hadn't tweeted since 2017.

Hey, good for him. That's smart.

totall off topic : there's this misanthropic French hip-hop artist with only one Tweet on his Twitter since 2010 : "Read books instead".

[Alucard]

Final card for Into the Fire tomorrow night:

NWA WORLDS HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP 2/3 FALLS MATCH
*Brian Hebner refs 1st fall, Tim Storm refs 2nd fall, coin flip determines ref for 3rd fall.*
Nick Aldis(c) vs. James Storm

NWA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
Colt Cabana(c) vs. Ricky Starks vs. Aron Stevens

NWA WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS MATCH
The Rock 'n' Roll Express (Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson)(c) vs. Wild Card (Thomas Latimer & Royce Isaacs)

Eli Drake vs. Ken Anderson

Allysin Kay & Ashley Vox vs. Melina & Marti Belle

Trevor Murdoch vs. The Question Mark

Thunder Rosa vs. Tasha Steelz

[C.S.]

If Fite wasn't such an awfully designed site (it logged me out and refused to send me password reset e-mails until it was too late for me to get the preorder price), I'd probably be watching this right along with you guys.

But boy hoo boy, nothing about that card is exactly making me regret missing out.

Still, I'm sure it will be a fun time and exceed expectations, even if only marginally. 

[Coffey]

NWA Into the Fire PPV

(this post will be full of spoilers)

 

Love the entrances. Love the commentary. Entrance wise, for those not watching, they get music and come down the stairs of the crowd the way Lucha Underground used to do. Bad News Barrett/Stu Bennett is the color commentator & sounds great so far.

Don't love the first match. (Drake Vs. Anderson). Anderson looks like shit. Match was slow. Eli Drake won. That's the right decision. He has more potential going forward than Anderson does. Finish wasn't great. Better in idea than execution.

Crowd is good. Ring looks awesome. Hopefully they do some roster changes after this PPV for the next set of tapings. Need new blood, for sure.

Now a Nick Aldis in studio interview/promo. That's what Power is for, yeah? But it's cool, whatever. Nick puts over NWA, the title & the upcoming match. Says the Cowboy has a chance to become immortal if he can win the title tonight. Reminds us that Kamille has the night off. James Storm comes out. They build tension for the main event. Good segment to be honest.

Replay of the debut of Melina & beat down of Allysin Kay with the Marti Belle heel turn.

Tasha Steelz Vs. Thunder Rosa. I've never heard of Tasha Steelz but she moves really well. She seems better than Thunder Rosa. She got a prematch promo to hype herself up & did a pretty good job with that too. Rosa took an awkard bump from a headscissor takeover but had a great tree of woe corner running dropkick to make up for it. Rosa tried to do the Mexican Surfboard (I think that's what it's called) spot to carry Tasha to the corner to repeatedly hit her head into the bottom turnbuckle. Dragged her face on the ground walking to the corner & then accidentally dropped her before the turnbuckle part.  Rosa wins with her junk double stomp finish that never comes close to looking like it connects. Not a great match but crowd was into it & Tasha seems like she has potential. Post match, Ashley Vox comes out to pull Rosa off of Steelz. Thunder Rosa beats her up too & gives her a Shoulder Breaker. Then pulls her elbow out of the socket to injure her before the women's tag match later tonight.

Question Mark coming out now, with "Student Stevens" wearing a Karate gi. They have a Mongrovian flag to perform the sacred Mongrovian flag ceremony. The Question Mark is also apparently the 1998 Mongrovian a cappella champion. A fan in the crowd loudly yells "I'm a Question Mark mark!" Double Tough Trevor Murdoch comes out to stop the Nikolai Volkoff singing. This is going to be a segment where you either love it or hate it but I thought it was funny. Murdoch threw the Mongrovian flag onto the ground, Student Stevens grabbed his leg to run interference & when he got back into the ring, Question Mark caught him with the Mongrovian Spike for the finish.

The Wild Cards Vs. Rock 'n Roll Express tag title rematch. RnR come out with Kingston/Homicide aka Outlaw Inc. The Wild Cards come out with The Dawsons. Morton hits a suicide dive. The Wild Cards give Morton a John Cena style Attitude Adjustment into a Sitdown Powerbomb double team move which was pretty cool. Ref doesn't count the pin though because he didn't see a tag made. Ricky Morton still playing face in peril in 2019 is something else. Hot tag to Gibson. Gets a near fall after some heel team miscommunication. Ricky Morton hits his Canadian Destroyer. On the outside, The Dawsons & Outlaw Inc. start brawling. Shockingly, the Rock 'n Roll Express retain the tag titles after a double dropkick finish. Match was what you would expect, really. Not PPV caliber to be honest.

January 24th on Fite TV is the next NWA Pay-Per-View. Will feature the return of the NWA Television Championship. So that's a World Title, Women's Title, Tag Title and two Midcard titles for a roster of about 20 people. So, I hope they're bringing more people in... 

Eli Drake comes back out for an in-studio promo. Says he wants a title shot after beating Ken Anderson. Says he's as good as anyone in NWA. Anderson sneak attacks him from behind. Beats him with a chair, hits him with his finish. Guess that feud, sadly, isn't over. K.

Women's tag match time. Allysin Kay comes out by herself after the attack on Ashley Vox earlier. Melina still does the splits on her entrance, surprisingly. ODB shows up to fill in for Ashley Vox. That's pretty cool. Get that food truck money, girl. Allysin Kay has looked great. She's moving really well, fast & looks good. Melina on the other hand, not so much. Marti Belle played a decent pinball for Kay early. ODB/Kay win after ODB hits Belle with a TKO (that looks quite bad).

NWA National Championship Triple Threat is up. Easily was the best match of the show so far. Got quite a bit of time too. Starks is good. He's going to be a big star in the future. Outside interference from The Question Mark led to Aron Stevens stealing the pin & winning the title.

Time for the main event. NWA World Heavyweight Title match, 2-out-of-3 falls. Different referee for each fall. First fall, Brian Hebner. Second fall Tim Storm. If there's a third fall, coin flip to determine the ref. Kamille backstory angle as well. This should be interesting. 

James Storm wins the first fall with the Last Call Superkick, quickly, after Aldis was distracted by Kamille coming out & him yelling at her to get to the back. Storm leads 1-0. Tim Storm is the ref for the second fall now.

Second fall, The Cowboy is on Aldis early. Throws him into the stairs. Gives him a vertical suplex onto the outside studio floor. Aldis barely gets back into the ring at the count of 9. James Storm immediately throws him back outside, follows him & works on his injured leg a bit. The crowd chants Use the Tree. Nick Aldis reverses an Irish Whip on the outside of the ring to send James Storm into a Christmas tree. The crowd chants Merry Christmas. James Storm goes for a second turnbuckle double-axe handle but Nick Aldis catches him & gives him an overhead belly-to-belly suplex. James Storm fights back after dodging a clothesline & hits the Eye of the Storm - which is that spinning Crucifix Powerbomb move. Nick Aldis stole a fall with a small package to tie it up at one fall apiece.

Official coin toss comes up heads and surprisingly, Brian Hebner wins the toss to ref the third fall. Back-and-forth match with both men hitting big bombs. There's was a great Figure-four Leglock spot. 

Hebner got hit with a Clotheslines & took a great bump. He's out of commission so Tim Storm is taking over as the ref of the third fall. James Storm hits his head on an exposed turnbuckle & is out cold. Nick Aldis puts his passed out body in the Texas Cloverleaf & Tim Storm calls for the bell as James Storm can't answer him. Really good main event. Nick Aldis is still the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion. Stu Bennett on commentary is talking about how "James Storm didn't quit there. Tim Storm, whom wasn't even the referee, called for the bell." So they might be doing an angle going forward. No referee tomfoolery, which I was expecting. Kamille played a part in the first fall but I was expecting to see her again but she didn't come back out during the match. Some good stuff going on there.

Marty Scurll, outta nowhere, shows up. Looks like he wants an NWA Worlds Heavyweight Title shot. Crowd is chanting holy shit.  Show goes off the air with the crowd chanting Marty Scurll's name. 

Good fun show. Felt like a really good TV show. I don't know if that means it was worth a $20 PPV tag but it was worth checking out, I thought. Entertaining throughout. 

[Coffey]

2 hours ago, Coffey said:

NWA Into the Fire PPV

(this post will be full of spoilers)

  Reveal hidden contents

Love the entrances. Love the commentary. Entrance wise, for those not watching, they get music and come down the stairs of the crowd the way Lucha Underground used to do. Bad News Barrett/Stu Bennett is the color commentator & sounds great so far.

Don't love the first match. (Drake Vs. Anderson). Anderson looks like shit. Match was slow. Eli Drake won. That's the right decision. He has more potential going forward than Anderson does. Finish wasn't great. Better in idea than execution.

Crowd is good. Ring looks awesome. Hopefully they do some roster changes after this PPV for the next set of tapings. Need new blood, for sure.

Now a Nick Aldis in studio interview/promo. That's what Power is for, yeah? But it's cool, whatever. Nick puts over NWA, the title & the upcoming match. Says the Cowboy has a chance to become immortal if he can win the title tonight. Reminds us that Kamille has the night off. James Storm comes out. They build tension for the main event. Good segment to be honest.

Replay of the debut of Melina & beat down of Allysin Kay with the Marti Belle heel turn.

Tasha Steelz Vs. Thunder Rosa. I've never heard of Tasha Steelz but she moves really well. She seems better than Thunder Rosa. She got a prematch promo to hype herself up & did a pretty good job with that too. Rosa took an awkard bump from a headscissor takeover but had a great tree of woe corner running dropkick to make up for it. Rosa tried to do the Mexican Surfboard (I think that's what it's called) spot to carry Tasha to the corner to repeatedly hit her head into the bottom turnbuckle. Dragged her face on the crowd walking to the corner & then accidentally dropped her before the turnbuckle part.  Rosa wins with her junk double stomp finish that never comes close to looking like it connects. Not a great match but crowd was into it & Tasha seems like she has potential. Post match, Ashley Vox comes out to pull Rosa off of Steelz. Thunder Rosa beats her up too & gives her a Shoulder Breaker. Then pulls her elbow out of the socket to injure her before the women's tag match later tonight.

Question Mark coming out now, with "Student Stevens" wearing a Karate gi. They have a Mongrovian flag to perform the sacred Mongrovian flag ceremony. The Question Mark is also apparently the 1998 Mongrovian a cappella champion. A fan in the crowd loudly yells "I'm a Question Mark mark!" Double Tough Trevor Murdoch comes out to stop the Nikolai Volkoff singing. This is going to be a segment where you either love it or hate it but I thought it was funny. Murdoch threw the Mongrovian flag onto the ground, Student Stevens grabbed his leg to run interference & when he got back into the ring, Question Mark caught him with the Mongrovian Spike for the finish.

The Wild Cards Vs. Rock 'n Roll Express tag title rematch. RnR come out with Kingston/Homicide aka Outlaw Inc. The Wild Cards come out with The Dawsons. Morton hits a suicide dive. The Wild Cards give Morton a John Cena style Attitude Adjustment into a Sitdown Powerbomb double team move which was pretty cool. Ref doesn't count the pin though because he didn't see a tag made. Ricky Morton still playing face in peril in 2019 is something else. Hot tag to Gibson. Gets a near fall after some heel team miscommunication. Ricky Morton hits his Canadian Destroyer. On the outside, The Dawsons & Outlaw Inc. start brawling. Shockingly, the Rock 'n Roll Express retain the tag titles after a double dropkick finish. Match was what you would expect, really. Not PPV caliber to be honest.

January 24th on Fite TV is the next NWA Pay-Per-View. Will feature the return of the NWA Television Championship. So that's a World Title, Women's Title, Tag Title and two Midcard titles for a roster of about 20 people. So, I hope they're bringing more people in... 

Eli Drake comes back out for an in-studio promo. Says he wants a title shot after beating Ken Anderson. Says he's as good as anyone in NWA. Anderson sneak attacks him from behind. Beats him with a chair, hits him with his finish. Guess that feud, sadly, isn't over. K.

Women's tag match time. Allysin Kay comes out by herself after the attack on Ashley Vox earlier. Melina still does the splits on her entrance, surprisingly. ODB shows up to fill in for Ashley Vox. That's pretty cool. Get that food truck money, girl. Allysin Kay has looked great. She's moving really well, fast & looks good. Melina on the other hand, not so much. Marti Belle played a decent pinball for Kay early. ODB/Kay win after ODB hits Belle with a TKO (that looks quite bad).

NWA National Championship Triple Threat is up. Easily was the best match of the show so far. Got quite a bit of time too. Starks is good. He's going to be a big star in the future. Outside interference from The Question Mark led to Aron Stevens stealing the pin & winning the title.

Time for the main event. NWA World Heavyweight Title match, 2-out-of-3 falls. Different referee for each fall. First fall, Brian Hebner. Second fall Tim Storm. If there's a third fall, coin flip to determine the ref. Kamille backstory angle as well. This should be interesting. 

James Storm wins the first fall with the Last Call Superkick, quickly, after Aldis was distracted by Kamille coming out & him yelling at her to get to the back. Storm leads 1-0. Tim Storm is the ref for the second fall now.

Second fall, The Cowboy is on Aldis early. Throws him into the stairs. Gives him a vertical suplex onto the outside studio floor. Aldis barely gets back into the ring at the count of 9. James Storm immediately throws him back outside, follows him & works on his injured leg a bit. The crowd chants Use the Tree. Nick Aldis reverses an Irish Whip on the outside of the ring to send James Storm into a Christmas tree. The crowd chants Merry Christmas. James Storm goes for a second turnbuckled double-axe handle but Nick Aldis catches him & gives him an overhead belly-to-belly suplex. James Storm fights back after dodging a clothesline & hits the Eye of the Storm - which is that spinning Crucifix Powerbomb move. Nick Aldis stole a fall with a small package to tie it up at one fall apiece.

Official coin toss comes up heads and surprisingly, Brian Hebner wins the toss to ref the third fall. Back-and-forth match with both men hitting big bombs. There's was a great Figure-four Leglock spot. 

Hebner got hit with a Clotheslines & took a great bump. He's out of commission so Tim Storm is taking over as the ref of the third fall. James Storm hits his head on an exposed turnbuckle & is out cold. Nick Aldis puts his passed out body in the Texas Cloverleaf & Tim Storm calls for the bell & James Storm can't answer him. Really good main event. Nick Aldis is still the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion. Stu Bennett on commentary is talking about how "James Storm didn't quit there. Tim Storm, whom wasn't even the referee, called for the bell." So they might be doing an angle going forward. No referee tomfoolery, which I was expecting. Kamille played a part in the first role but I was expecting to see her again but she didn't come back out during the match. Some good stuff going on there.

Marty Scurll, outta nowhere, shows up. Looks like he wants an NWA Worlds Heavyweight Title shot. Crowd is chanting holy shit.  Show goes off the air with the crowd chanting Marty Scurll's name. 

Good fun show. Felt like a really good TV show. I don't know if that means it was worth a $20 PPV tag but it was worth checking out, I thought. Entertaining throughout. 

Show over. I was happy with it. 

[gordi]

Thanks for the write-up. Sounds, as you say, Like a fun show but not one I'd wanna pay 20 bucks to see. 

Also: 

 

Spoiler

Goddamn Mongrovians! Why you gotta break down my Shitty National Championship Triple Threat match?