Previously on NWA Powerrr: “Momma Storm” made her debut, revealing herself to be Local Talent in an American Gothic wig. Plus, May Valentine has a vlog, and the power of the Midwest compels Eddie Kingston.
If you’d like to keep up with these columns, you can do so on the NWA Powerrr tag page. Remember, NWA Powerrr and all its extra Rs is free to watch on YouTube, so check out episode eighteen if you haven’t already:
What You Missed At ROH Free Enterprise
On last week’s episode, NWA World Heavyweight Champion Nick Aldis gave Marty Scurll a stipulation if Marty wants another crack at the Ten Pounds of Gold: if he loses, he has to refund the ticket price of everyone in the building as an apology for sucking. He then said he’d be at Ring of Honor’s free show in Baltimore (with $60 meet and greets), Free Enterprise, for a yes, a no, or a counter-offer.
At the show, Nick teamed with Rush and lost to Scurll and his tag team partner, PCO. If you aren’t familiar with ROH’s top talent, Rush is one of the founders of Los Ingobernables in Mexico, dresses like a bull sometimes, and works a style best described as, “dropkick you until you’re dead.” PCO is the former Pierre Carl Ouellet, the former Quebecer who became a wrestling pirate and was mostly a forgotten relic of ’90s tag team wrestling until returning to the public consciousness in 2016 as a death match Frankenstein. All you really need to know for this NWA recap is that after the match, Scurll offered his counter: if he doesn’t win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, he’ll write Nick Aldis a check for $500,000. Aldis accepts.
I don’t blame Aldis for taking the offer — it’s half a million dollars into his bank account if he wins — but I hope I’m not alone in thinking this booked backwards, and kinda makes Scurll look like a dick. His counter to giving fans money if he loses is to give the bad guy the money instead? Are you drumming up support for Marty Scurll with the narrative that he actively prevented everyone in the building from the chance to get their money back? It seems like the more noble progression of this would’ve been to have Aldis be the one to suggest Marty giving him half a million dollars if he loses, and then Marty coming back with, “I won’t give you the money, but I’ll give it to the fans I let down.” Hooray for classism and the rich making each other richer, I guess?
(note: I know it’s a lot more cost effective as a promotion to have a wrestler give another wrestler money as part of the story so you don’t actually have to spend that money, but if Marty’s winning, you don’t have to give it away anyway. So does that mean Aldis is definitely retaining? If not, and you didn’t want to actually spend that money, why’d you write it into the story?)
On this week’s show, Aldis and the worst member of Strictly Business behind two valets, Royce Isaacs, cheat to win against the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express. Isaacs pins Robert Gibson with both of his feet on the middle rope (pictured), which you probably don’t actually need to do to keep Gibson on the mat. At certain points in the match you can see Ricky Morton have to walk over to him and give him something to grab onto to get up at all because, let’s be honest with ourselves, it’s a guy in his sixties who spent his career jumping into the air and falling on his hips. Not everybody is the medical marvel that is Ricky Morton. For those keeping score at home, this is twice that the NWA World Heavyweight Champion has had to take a shitty shortcut to win a match against Morton.
All in all it’s a good day for Isaacs, who defeats the elderly by cheating AND gets into another pissing contest with an injured jobber about whether or not he’s allowed to talk to Isaacs’ girlfriend. I kind of love Royce Isaacs as a total scrub who rode Thom Latimer’s coattails to moderate success, found himself a member of a faction led by the company’s champion, and keeps flipping out strangers at random intervals because he’s overwhelmed by imposter syndrome and an inferiority complex and doesn’t know how to process them.
Thommy Lats also does well this week, being a cheerleader for Kamille as she puts the fear of God into Joe Galli and then winning a match against Strictly Business’ good dude nemesis, Tim Storm. I like that Latimer is the exact opposite of his tag team partner: strong, tall, handsome, confident in his relationship, and able to win wrestling matches. He just dodges a running charge from Storm, Braun Strowman-style, and Implant DDTs him to win. You know the move is impressive, because Tim Storm’s neck is thick enough to withstand anything short of a direct nuclear blast.
Afterward, “Momma Storm” returns to chide her “son” for losing. Tim Storm does a great job of wanting to punch her in the face, but refraining because he doesn’t even want to haymaker the IDEA of his loving, elderly mother. I mostly wanted to include this bit because the crowd starts chanting, “FIGHT YOUR MOM,” which is the new best wrestling chant.
Honestly I Miss The Fake Commercials
Just want to point out how weird it is that the show’s two commercials are about how kids shouldn’t play tackle football until they’re 15, and The Russian Nightmare Nikita Koloff being a servant of Jesus Christ. I guess it’s no weirder than WWE going to commercial so Frank Thomas can hold his latest public press conference about how hard his dick’s been lately. Did the waffles and tire iron industry go under when we weren’t looking?
Take Off Your Pants And Crockett
After Eddie Kingston’s new charges The Bouncers win a low-flying hoss battle against The Dawsons (much to King’s delight), Cowboy James Storm commits the second most heinous crime of his wrestling career by desecrating the sacred Crockett Cup.
It’s not so much a desecration as it is breaking the unwritten rules of sports, as Storm pours beer into it and drinks out of it without having actually won it. Points to Bad News Bennett for pointing that out. He passes it over to the Bouncers as well, because James Storm values rampant alcoholism above all else. As a fun side story, Eli Drake actually refuses to drink out of it and drinks water instead, because he’s still living down how hilariously drunk he got at Christmas.
YouTube Closed Captioning Thinks Zicky Dice’s Name Is “Stinky”
LOL
Television Champion Ricky Starks gets his second win of his Lucky 7 by going the distance with Matt Cross in a rematch from Hard Times. I really like what they did here by having the match go to a time limit draw, as it establishes that not all 6:05 time limit draws are created equal. Starks never looks like he’s trying to run out the clock and keep the championship through manipulation or deceit; he’s going for the victory the entire time, and just runs out of it. That’s important, especially to differentiate the time limit draws I’m sure future heel champions are going to be collecting by the seven.
Afterward, Outrageous Zicky Dice shows up in a shirt that looks like a Fruitopia commercial and mocks Starks for not winning the match, hitting low key the best line of dialogue on NWA Powerrr so far:
“Well well well, what do you know? It looks like you couldn’t get the job done. Ricky, do you know the difference between me and you? Y’all wanna know the difference between Ricky and Zicky? I SAID DO YOU WANNA KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RICKY AND ZICKY? Well … Zicky Dice finishes every time. Out-landish.”
hahahaha, same
The Women’s Division Is Moving Forward
… because, and in spite of, Melina.
Alfred?
There’s a lot of movement in the women’s division this week, most notably Allysin Kay confronting Marti Belle about how she’s been brainwashed by Melina. Marti insists she’s a Latina lion and not just, “someone who just looks cute all the time, posts all these cute pictures,” and Kay astutely points out that Melina’s jerking everybody around and manipulating the title picture. It’s interesting that they’d go there considering that was kinda Kay’s plot until Melina showed up and the alignments got swapped around, but it works. She says she’ll always be there for Marti, and Marti gets upset and bails. Marti Bails.
Anyway, that leads into Melina squashing Tasha Steelz and declaring that she herself is getting the next NWA World Women’s Championship match, which as been “sanctioned by Melina.” Unfortunately, Melina can’t even get through a few minutes of total control without doing things like this:
It’s not good. I think everyone involved WANTS it to be good, and SAYS it’s good, but it’s just … not. It’s a bad look when you dominate a match as the “living legend,” and the comparatively inexperienced challenger getting little to no shine is the one that looks good. Let’s hope Melina gets royally boned by our half-skeleton Women’s Champion, and we move forward with the stronger in-ring competitors going forward.
Any Questions?
Finally, in case you’re wondering what the best character in the NWA was doing this week, here’s ?THE QUESTION MARK? interrupting Trevor Murdoch’s demands for a National Championship match by singing the entire Mongrovian national anthem, and challenging Murdoch to face him instead. Dave Marquez putting his hand on his heart, and then Question Mark putting his hand on Marquez’s hand is super funny.
Murdoch’s promo is really good as well and plays on a lot of observable history — Aron Stevens ran from him, ran from Scott Steiner, and won the championship in a match where he mostly hit behind a Christmas tree — all the while sounding like Lout Brothers from Ren & Stimpy.
Next Week:
No Powerrr next week, as we’re getting the debut of “NWA Circle Squared,” described by host Sean Mooney as, “a reality competition show where pro wrestlers get their chance to be seen, heard, and wrestle in front of the world with the hope of getting an NWA wrestling contract.” We’ll have to wait and see if it’s more Tough Enough, the Diva Search, Game Show NXT, or TNA Gut Check.
Wait, were any of those good?
[checks notes]
“Say, see you next week and move on.” All right, well, see you next week!
