A Wrestling Pay-Per-View by the National Wrestling Alliance

After attending a five hour long Central States Wrestling show live today, I figured “what the hell” and dove right into an almost equally long NWA show! One of these days I need to try to make it to St. Louis for one of these shows since it seems like NWA comes back from time to time, and the crowd is always pretty great. It doesn’t seem like NWA 73 was a full year ago, but here we are, another trip around the sun and another notch closer to what a assume will be a hell of a 75th anniversary show, assuming the company keeps rolling into 2023. I’m honestly going into this show somewhat blind as I have neglected my NWA All Access membership for a few months, so it’s a testament to the quality of the program when I can just jump in and still have a blast. Without further ado, let’s see what day one was all about!

For anyone wanting to watch this, I would recommend Fite.TV. you can get some FITE credits (10 dollars I believe) with the following code: “6m6lyyn”. I’m sure there are other ways to watch it, but FITE has a solid interface and has been worth it so far.

“On August 27 and 28th NWA 74 anniversary event is live on FITE from the historic Chase in St. Louis, Missouri! The two nights event features pro wrestling stars such as Worlds Heavyweight Champion Trevor Murdoch, Nick Aldis, NWA World Women’s Champion Kamille, Thom Latimer, Chris Adonis, NWA World Television Champion Tyrus, and many more! But before we go live on pay-per-view, we’ve got an hour an action right here on YouTube ABSOLUTELY FREE!”

The Card:

• 1P The Country Gentlemen (AJ Cazana and Anthony Andrews) (with Joe Cazana) defeated Gold Rushhh (Jordan Clearwater and Marshe Rockett) (with Austin Idol) by pinfall Tag team match
• 2P Rhett Titus defeated VSK by pinfall Singles match
• 3P Rodney Mack (with Aron Stevens) defeated The Pope by submission Singles match
• 4P Caprice Coleman and Gustavo defeated Colby Corino and Wrecking Ball by submission Tag Team Match
• 4 EC3 defeated Matthew Mims by submission Singles match
• 5 The Miserably Faithful (Judais, Sal The Pal, and Gaagz The Gymp) (with Father James Mitchell) defeated The Ill Begotten (Alex Taylor, Jeremiah Plunkett, and Danny Dealz) by pinfall Beelzebub’s Bedlam match
• 6 Chris Adonis defeated Odinson by disqualification Singles match
• 7 Homicide (c) defeated Kerry Morton by pinfall Singles match for the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship
• 8 Rolando Freeman defeated Matt Cardona by pinfall Singles match
• 9 Max The Impaler (with Father James Mitchell) defeated Samantha Starr (with Baby Doll), KiLynn King, Tootie Lynn, Missa Kate, Madi Wrenkowski, Angelina Love, Jennacide, Natalia Markova, and Taryn Terrell by pinfall Burke Invitational Gauntlet for an NWA World Women’s Championship match
• 10 Cyon (with Austin Idol) defeated Jax Dane (with Chris Silvio, Esq.) (c) by pinfall Singles match for the NWA National Heavyweight Championship
• 11 Bully Ray defeated Mike Knox Tables match
• 12 La Rebelión (Bestia 666 and Mecha Wolf 450) (with Damián 666) defeated Hawx Aerie (Luke Hawx and PJ Hawx) by pinfall Tag team match for the vacant NWA World Tag Team Championship
• 13 Kamille (c) defeated Taya Valkyrie by pinfall Singles match for the NWA World Women’s Championship

My Thoughts:

As I’ve stated before, my methodology for this is to avoid giving arbitrary star ratings or anything resembling the typical ratings people give in wrestling reviews. I usually go through the show and pull a half-dozen or so things that I thought were significant or that I liked. You might think some of my choices are dumb and that’s okay – we all like different things!

Heyyy, It’s Caprice!

It’s probably on me that I have never seen Caprice Coleman in a wrestling capacity until now, seeing that he has largely been doing commentary for a number of years. This was by no means an amazing match or anything, but I was excited to see it! Overall this pre-show was solid considering it was four full matches, and despite some technical issues early on it’s worth a watch.

Crossover Appeal:

This show had a bit of a crossover with EC3 and his company Control Your Narrative (CYN). I can never get the Pro Wrestling TV app to work (on my phone or Roku!) so I have STILL not been able to ever watch the company. I did, however, absolutely love the previous two pay-per-view shows Free The Narrative and Free The Narrative 2, so I’m always happy when EC3 pops up doing cross-promotion. I would still like for Mims to get a rematch for the national title, but a high-profile challenger like EC3 is just as good.

Love Me Some Father James Mitchell:

I’m always a sucker for spooky or outcast tag teams like The Flock, The Oddities, and The Disciples of the New Church, so having Father James Mitchell in there with a weird NEW rag-tag group of weirdos was awesome. Aside from a particularly scary botch that made it look like Alex Taylor fell on the rope from the ladder, this was a solid match.

LOOOOOOOOL:

Matt Cardona’s first match back since his unfortunate bicep injury put him on the shelf was advertised as him choosing a hand-picked opponent, and that led to all sorts of speculation about who he was bringing in online. Rather than popping the internet with a huge name, Cardona chose the diminutive Rolando Freeman in what he figured was a cheap, quick win. Standing at possibly five foot one, Rolando seemed to be destined to failure…. until he snuck a surprise roll-up win out of nowhere! Easily one of the funniest and most fantastic parts of the show.

Stacked Women’s Division:

When it came time to get women for the Mildred Burke Invitational Gauntlet for an NWA World Women’s Championship match, NWA got some of the best women not fully signed to any big company at the moment. Kilynn King and Madi Wrenkowski (Now just Madi) are most well known from appearances with AEW, Max The Impaler was an ROH mainstay towards the end, and most would recognize Angelina Love and Taryn Terrell from TNA in it’s heyday throw in Jennacyde, Tootie Lynn and a debuting Samantha Starr (daughter of Baby Doll), as well as some NWA regulars and you have the makings for a GREAT rumble. I can’t wait to see Kamille vs Max, that match is going to rule!

The Reign Continues:

clocking in at 450 or so days and counting, Kamille has absolutely DOMINATED the NWA women’s division for well over a year now. Billed as a “belt collector”, Taya Valkyrie has been on a roll ever since she escaped the clutches of the tail-end of McMahon era WWE, and has been dominating in Impact as of late. She was, however, no match for Kamille, who once again proves why she’s on top! Awesome main event for a solid show.

Conclusion:

While I’m sad I couldn’t attend (despite living only like 4 hours away!) I was happy to watch NWA produce yet another solid pay-per-view. The good news is, this is only day one of a two day event, and tomorrow looks even better than today’s show! I’m kind of sad that there wasn’t an NWA Empowerrr show this year, but this show did a great job of highlighting almost every style of wrestling you can imagine, so I’ll give it a pass. Stay tuned for when I eventually watch the other half of this, which may end up being tomorrow – we’ll see!