NWA POWERRR results: The Wild Cards retain NWA tag titles on promo-heavy new episode
FanSided is back with all the happenings from the Nov. 12 episode of NWA POWERRR, “More Questions than Answers.”
Tonight’s show kicked off with announcer David Marquez interviewing the very busy Rock ‘n’ Roll Express. They talked about what happened in last week’s impromptu tag team main event, and were excited to see Eddie Kingston and Homicide in their match later against the Wild Cards. Kingston and Homicide then came out and said that since RnR gave them the stamp of approval, there’d be no way they’d lose their match tonight.
Trevor Murdoch defeated Caleb Konley
This was short but good match meant to get Trevor Murdoch even more over with the home crowd. Murdoch used a massive spinebuster on Konley midway through this. Konley made a comeback later in this short match and used a handful of double stomps but missed a quebrada into the ring when Murdoch got his knees up. Murdoch won after a diving bulldog off the top rope, not unlike Rick Steiner’s old finisher.
Next, after a quick video of him losing to Ricky Starks last week in a 2-out-of-3-falls match, Aron Stevens came out in a tunic without pants, only pink kneepads around his ankles, looking like legwarmers at first glance, and pair of white boots. Stevens suspended his no-eye contact rule claiming it wouldn’t be necessary: He’d said he’d be quitting the NWA after the “miscarriage of justice” last week. The crowd enjoyed booing the hell out of Stevens, even singing the old Steam hit that’s been a part of pro wrestling chants for decades to him. He said he was going to accept a deal to star in The Shogun of Malibu, and be done with professional wrestling from there.
Again, this was a good segment, but we can only take it so seriously when you see the same audience members wearing the same clothes in the front rows as the wrestlers and announcers pretend like what they saw was a week ago. It’s just hard not to unsee an older fellow with a Santa Claus beard in matching orange jacket and nightcap, thus taking the viewer out of the experience. Any disillusions on the program will slowly erode the product with its fanbase if not taken care of soon. POWERRR depends so much more on suspending disbelief than other North American wrestling shows at the moment, so attention to detail is more important than ever with a project like this one.
Thunder Rosa and Marti Belle defeated Crystal Rose and Brooklyn Creed
The Allisyn Kay/Marti Belle/Thunder Rosa angle from last week was next, where Thunder Rosa ambushed Kay and enticed Belle to join forces with her. The match tonight was their first as a team, where they took on the two enhancement talents, Rose and Creed. This was really, really short, and only Thunder Rosa looked like she had a handle on what she was doing in the ring; she was impressive, as per usual. Belle was in for such a short amount of time that I can’t seriously critique her or the two others much. Overall it was fine, and Thunder Rosa came out looking like a superstar.
After the match, David Marquez interviewed Belle and Rosa. Belle claimed she teamed with Rosa because she doesn’t care about her past and that Thunder Rosa is her future. Rosa then called Marquez a “gordito” in Spanish, then cut the rest of her promo in Spanish as Belle translated. She said there is a phoenix coming back and that it’s coming for Allysin Kay. These two could be an effective promo together with more chances to practice together.
A clip of James Storm losing the NWA National title to Colt Cabana from last week’s episode was shown next, followed up with a cookie-cutter heel-ish promo with good delivery on how said match was not “fair and square” last week. He implied there was some sort of conspiracy involving him and possibly Aldis. He said he has bigger fish to fry, and that he’s not worried about tadpoles but is coming for the killer whale, Nick Aldis. For the record, I sincerely hope Storm never thought about frying tadpoles.
We cut back to David Marquez at the announce desk with new NWA National champion Colt Cabana, who is pretty underrated at doing serious promos. He began firing up in response to James Storm’s promo when Ricky Starks came out. He lurked around for a few moments before telling Cabana that everybody knows crocodile leather is his pleasure, but he’s now “kinda sold on gold,” implying he wants a shot at Cabana’s National title soon.
?The Question Mark? defeated Dan Parker
The Question Mark received loud, ironic chants from the studio crowd. He did a missile dropkick and a thrust chop that Parker oversold for before winning this bout that lasted no more than a minute. The crowd liked this.
The next segment was a trailer for a mini-documentary on Thunder Rosa a.k.a. Melissa Cervantes, who recently fought her first MMA match for Combate Americas, titled Into the Cage. It looked cool, and we’re excited to see more of this down the road.
We were back with Jim Cornette and Joe Galli next. Galli said he was determined to get down to the mystery of Kamille, Nick Aldis’ “insurance policy,” and why she won’t speak (to Galli). This becomes harder to understand as weeks go on, and it’s beginning to come off like Galli is obsessed with Kamille while simultaneously being positioned as a babyface announcer.
Eli Drake was out and said that if Kamille could speak, she might say that the only man who could get to Nick Aldis is himself. Fans started chanting “Question Mark.” He said the only name in Kamille’s mind was Eli Drake. NWA World Tag Team champions the Wild Cards came out next. Thom Latimer told Drake to stay out of his business and to shut his mouth. Royce Isaacs did the same and walked off. Ken Anderson snuck up behind Drake next and said he heard Drake was looking for someone with a big mouth, and that all Drake would have to do to get Anderson in the ring would be to say his name. The crowd had fun booing Drake and cheering the Question Mark and Ken Anderson. Drake, like most times, was all cadence and style with pure mumbo jumbo content. I’m not sure what the intent of the segment was, maybe to get as many wrestlers onto an episode at once, but it had a speed dating feel to it.
A message from NWA owner William Patrick Corgan was up next. He thanked fans for the support and explained that the best way to get tickets to shows was through their new mailing list on their homepage. He also mentioned that they’d make a huge announcement soon and it appears that it’ll drop first via the mailing list.
Galli interviewed NWA World’s Heavyweight champion Nick Aldis next to address James Storm’s comments earlier in the show. Aldis said that the he, the NWA and the fans owe Storm nothing. He explained that he earned everything he’s gotten up until now and said he planned on staying at ringside for the next match to make sure.
The Wild Cards defeated Eddie Kingston and Homicide to retain the NWA World Tag Team titles
The four brawled from the bell. Homicide landed a big front suplex a few seconds into the match. Things slowed when the Wild Cards took control of Kingston and worked him over in their corner of the ring with punches and stomps until a big “Eddie” chant broke up. Galli said Kingston was in “the wrong barrio” tonight. Yikes.
Kingston finally landed an Ura Nage on Latimer, then tagged out to Homicide, who tore through both Wild Cards for a few moments. During Homicide’s comeback, Jim Cornette went on a rant about “grown, adult men” in the NWA, referencing Latimer first. “There aren’t any grade-school kids and midgets to fight for you [here]!” and “Nobody’s cosplayin’ wrestling in this match” were some of Cornette’s most self-indulgent lines. The irony is that Cornette only got himself over here, coming off like much less convincing Jeff Van Gundy than a wrestling announcer. Kingston tagged back in and tried suplexing Latimer over but his knee gave out in storyline. The Wild Cards came out with the win after Latimer used a pop-up power bomb and Isaacs used Hush Money on Kingston for the win.
Afterwards, Kamille stormed out to ringside and wanted to speak with one of the Wild Cards. Aldis held her back and told her to go backstage when James Storm came out, followed by Eli Drake, the Dawsons, Ken Anderson and Colt Cabana. We couldn’t hear what anyone was saying because production dubbed Dokken’s “Into the Fire” over the shouting, meaning it was just for show tension, or that booking plans to go in another direction than they’d initially planned.
Final thoughts
This was the most promo-heavy episode of NWA POWERRR so far. If story and character development is what you care about most, this might be worth your time, because this hour was devoted to pretty much just that. Aron Stevens was entertaining, as was Trevor Murdoch in his brief match. The Wild Cards and the team of Kingston/Homicide will most likely have better matches down the road, as this seemed like a condensed version of what all four can really do.
The weak points on tonight’s show were that many of the promos weren’t just rushed but tangled and confusing, especially regarding the National title. Expect more shows like this until their December pay-per-view, Into the Fire.