NWA National Title

Well, Golden Boy Greg Anthony has done it.  He has regained his title from Jake Logan.  Logan had a nice little program with Anthony and got a few title defenses in.  He tried to pay some people to take out Greg Anthony, but Anthony overcame the odds, got the rematch, and regained the title.

I love Greg Anthony.  I also really like Jake Logan.  Both are great wrestlers and show the depth and talent in the NWA.  I don't think Logan has seen his last belt.

Meanwhile, Badd Blood continues to not get any shots at any belts anywhere.  That I don't understand.

Also Jax Dane made the Survival of the Fittest Final after beating Donovan Dijak.  He then finished 4th after getting eliminated by Lio Rush.  Rush did not win, but had the most eliminations.  If ROH wants to keep Dane, I wish him a good career.  If nothing is in the works, then I expect Dane to resume his title reign soon.

NEW World Champ

So at an NWA Texoma event the Godzilla Jax Dane lost to Tim Storm making Tim Storm the new World Heavyweight Champ.

Now, I have not bee the biggest fan of Jax Dane.  And I like Tim Storm.  However, here is the problem I am having.  Tim Storm has lost to Jax Dane so many times.  So, so many.  Including the last couple of major events.  The last two Cauliflower Club Main Events in Las Vegas have been Jax Dane defeating Tim Storm.  Once to unify the Nation and North American Title and once for the World Title.  I know there was at least one other match up where Storm lost head to head with Dane.  Now this could have been good if it had been a unified story.  As if there was some reason Storm continued to deserve title shots, or the wins were less than clean, but they were.  So, I struggle with this title change a bit.

There seem to more deserving people out there than Storm such as Badd Blood or Greg Anthony or Matt Rivera.  Or even a Jason Kincaid or Chase Owens if you wanted to go a real different direction.
But Jax Dane is appearing in an ROH event coming soon, and that may have prompted the dropping of the title.  And Tim Storm keeps the main place of business with the title as Texas.  Dane appeared pretty regularly in Smoky Mtn as well, but Storm has never been there.  Storm has appeared at Mid South a few times, so maybe they get to see the World title a bit.

I would think that Storm makes sense to enter into a feud with Raymond Rowe.  Current National Champ Jake Logan ought to get to be in the ring with the Storm too.   Storm could also bring it back to Louisiana to take on Vordel Walker.

Either way this is a big turning point.  Tim Storm's win seems out of no where, and it will be interesting to see how long it lasts and where Storm takes the title from here.


Current Champs:
World - Tim Storm
World Junior - John Saxon
Women's - Jazz
Tag Team - Iron Empire
North American - Tyson Dean
National -  Jake Logan

NWA Title Changes

It was a big weekend in the NWA, you could just feel it.  However, I did not guess it would be this big. 

NWA National Champion, Golden Boy Greg Anthony, lost the National Title to Jake Logan.  Now this one is not all that surprising as Jake Logan is a great talent.  He regularly appears in Texoma and Top of Texas and has been champ in both.  He is known all over Texas and he is going to make a fun and interesting champ. 

The one I did not see coming at all was the new NWA Women's Champ.  Amber O'Neal (Gallows) has been a good champ.  She may not have broken as much new ground as Santana Garret did, but she was very capable.  She dropped the title in a loss to Jazz.  Yup, that Jazz of TNA and WCW fame.  So the title is still in very capable hands.  It continues the tradition of real big name and talented women holding the best Women's title in the world. 

NWA World champ Jax Dane retained, and his reign is now over a year long.  His time maybe approaching an end.  Keep an eye on the end of the year for Jax.  With Jake Logan holding the National Title, and being based in Texas, it maybe time to move the World Title on someone else.  Georgia/Florida has the North American Champ in Tyson Dean, who has successfully defended in Combat Sports Pro, and is making a fine NA champ.  Who will Dane face coming up?  Greg Anthony himself should be considered a top contender and Badd Blood always seems a threat. 

As another important note, NWA World Tag Team Champs the Iron Empire will be defending the NWA World Tag Titles in Japan.  No, not New Japan.  That ship appears to have sailed.  Rather it is a very small promotion Diamond Wrestling or something like that.  Let us hope that they come home with the belt.  It is one thing to always be dropping the belt in New Japan or even in NOAH, but this would be different.  If they do drop the belts think Matt Rivera for World Title.  After all, teaming with Rob Conway for the Tag title is the same route that Jax Dane took.

Brand Split and Story Telling

I know I am in the minority in thinking that the brand split is bad, but I think it helps show how awful WWE is as a story-telling company. 

The big problem in WWE is much like John Cena always puts it: he has been waiting for someone to come and show up everyday and perform like he does.  This is the problem, but it is also very disingenuous.  The problem included John Cena.  No one can show up and perform and please crowds if Cena takes up all the air time.  Or whoever the champ is.  WWE focuses so much on their top title that Miz is right the Intercontinental title is pointless, and Rusev is often left off of Raw despite having the US belt.  The solution is not to split the brands and create new titles so that Kevin Owens is not WWE champion or World Champion, but rather RAW champion.  All this does is give a little bit more airtime to some top guys.  The shows still revolve around the contest for the top belt with usually one very long taking segment, one main event match, and often a back stage segment or another match in the middle involving the other challenger.  This happened on both Raw and Smackdown leaving almost no time for the Tag titles, US title, Intercontinental title, and Women’s title (although this one is growing), not to mention time to develop new people to be legit challengers for those titles.  Add in the segments that involve Cena/Lesnar/Orton if they are not currently the top title holder, and it is no wonder no one else showed up everyday to do the work because they were often not booked on shows.  Can’t show up if the show is full.

Instead of the brand split they should have just been willing to have shows without the world champ.  Shows where the main event was the IC title or the Tag Titles or the Women’s title.  A smack down that revolved around the Tag titles could give valuable time to tag teams.  Or a show where the world title is not on, but the IC title is treated as special would do wonders for the IC title and the careers of wrestlers not yet at the top slot.  Let me give some examples of stories that could be told if everything were still together.

The world title picture could be AJ styles vs. Ambrose, and Owens and the others could be feuding for the #1 spot.  Rusev vs. Reigns for the US title.  Charlotte vs. Sasha vs Bailey would be for the Women’s title.  Miz vs. Ziggler is perfect for the IC title.  And the tag titles need more discussion so hold off on that.

But each of those stories is unique.  Styles is looking to be the face that runs the place after beating Cena, but not having the title.  Rusev and Reigns is about the honor of Lana or about a Bulgarian holding the US title.  Charlotte having to deal with Sasha and Bailey is good because it shows the growing importance of the Women’s title.  I think the WWE went the wrong way with Miz.  Instead of taking his talking smack and showing Bryan is right about Miz being a coward it should be a time to show the contrast in wrestling styles.  Miz is calculating and not risk taking.  ZIggler is an oft injured big risk taker.  Great story. 

And each division has its story lines for others.  HHH picks Owens over Rollins.  I would have Zayn in that match rather than Reigns who is chasing the US title.  Notice his removal from that feud left the US title off the show.  Zayn then gets to show frustration that he beat Owens 1 on 1, yet Owens is #1 contender.  You have Natalia vs. Becky Lynch after Natalia turned on Becky and the story of can Nikki Bella overcome Carmela with the story mostly told in multi-women matches.  Plus you can add in Nikki trying to remain relevant as a former Diva in the Women’s division. 

And what the WWE is doing to the Tag Team division is criminal.  Bootie O’s vs. Old Farts.  Come on.  The New Day and the Wyatt family had a built in story other than mocking TNA.  The power of positive thinking vs. the darkness of the Wyatts.  I would have had the Wyatt family win the three on three match, but have Xavier overcome that fear.  Then have the Club win the titles when the Wyatts show up at a title match.  The Club now has the belts, but new Day and Wyatts feud on.  The Club can then feud with red hot Enzo and Cass while American Alpha wins a tournament to see who is next.  That tournament helps show Hype Bros and the story of Heath Slater.  This then goes into the Usos turning for being ignored and passed over by fans despite two time tag title reigns.  Makes sense.  You could also have a feud down card to open shows between BreezeDango and the Lucha Dragons based on looks and masks.  Better than a few seconds of Fandango getting chokeslamed by Kane.  Or really use the Vaudevillians as 50’s style wrestlers to contrast them to high flying groups of today.  Toe holds and chin locks vs. power bombs and planchas.  You still have time to sneak in a squash match with Nia Jax or Strowman to build them up for a future match.

I don’t really have that many new stories here.  But the point is I removed belts from some of them, but they still make good stories.  We know they can fit because for the most part they already are.  But instead of having Ambrose on every show, put him on every now and then allowing the star power of Owens and Zayn and Rollins to carry some shows without Ambrose.  And maybe main event those shows with the Club vs. Enzo and Cass or Miz vs. Ziggler.  This would also allow you to see who could really draw top dollar, which is the ultimate idea anyway right? 

The WWE’s insistence that every show has to end with something involving the top belt just makes us care less about the other belts.  The Smackdown in Lincoln was a good example.  The show closed with a talking segment between Styles and Ambrose.  Rather than the 6 woman tag that built up the Women’s belt or the Tag team title tournament.  Or the IC title that went on before all of it.  Miz vs. Apollo Crews should have been the main event.  But instead we get a chit chat time.  That robbed time from lower card guys.  Or if no brand split you could have had a US Title match against Reigns end in DQ or something. 

I just think the Brand spilt continues to stress where WWE is weak.  Now we have more belts when the belts they had already felt unimportant. 

Disagreeing with 537

I love FiveThritySeven.  I like stats, and this kind of web site is up my alley.  And when they cross over and talk about wrestling, my head explodes. 

However, this time I want to disagree.  The theme of the article is that the New Era in WWE was born in Japan.  I think they make a few mistakes.  I do want to say it is obvious that the WWE is much more open to other companies existing than in the past and do appear to be recruiting in Japan, but that does not mean that they are letting Japan dictate as much as the article implies. 

First the stat about the winners at Summer Slam and the amount of time they spent in Japan is a little misleading since the article is talking about being born in Japan.  AJ Styles went to Japan and wrestled a lot in Japan, but he was a made man by the time he got to Japan.  Japan has always been where independent wrestlers go to make real money.  Styles was already a superstar, so his matches over there should not really be factored in.  Luke Gallows became a star over in Japan, but had already worked for WWE in the past prior to going to Japan.  He even worked with CM Punk so much that Punk dropped his name in a RAW interview when Gallows got fired.  And it is true that Balor has major Japanese influence in his wrestling, but he did spend the first six years of his career in Britain.  It is there he actually began. 

Just for the record as an NWA fan, it was the NWA that saw potential in so many of these guys first.  In 2007 Balor lost in a tournament for the vacant NWA World Title to Brian Danielson (Daniel Bryan), who was later hurt and pulled out of the finals.  Most believe he was scheduled to win the World title.

So matches in Japan does not equal coming from Japan.

Their biggest piece of evidence is also their worst.  It is the pushes given to outright Japanese wrestlers as they have come over to the WWE.  Nakamura is 25-0 and Asuka is 73-0 and Itami was derailed by injury.  Now this sounds impressive.  Until you realize the problem is that none of these competitors is on WWE main roster TV.  They are all on NXT.  Instead of saying they have won so many matches in a row and thus their push is greater we need to measure how fast they were pushed up to the main roster. 

Kevin Owens was pushed immediately into the NXT title picture and while holding that title beat John Cena at a PPV.  He did all of that before he had his 25th match in WWE.  Now, he dropped that match back to Cena and the NXT title to Balor so he could be full time on WWE main roster before he ever got to 73 matches.  So who really had the better push?  Balor had to finally lose to Joe and drop the title so he could go to the main roster and immediately win the newly created WWE Universal championship before he got to 25 matches total.  Does that mean Nakamura had a better push than Balor?  Of course not.  And it has to be said that people lose more often on the main roster than on NXT.  If Asuka goes 73-0 on the main roster or Nakamura 25-0 with a title then we can talk about amazing pushes.  Right now you would have to say Roman Reigns is getting a bigger push than Nakamura as Reigns is a multi-time WWE World Champ and currently in the US title hunt going on after Balor at Summer Slam despite never winning the NXT title. 

And this remains the point.  Nakamura was the biggest or second biggest star in New Japan.  New Japan is easily the second biggest promotion in the world.  He helped sell out WrestleKingdom over and over again in the Tokyo Dome.  Yet, WWE has him in the developmental system.  He is in the minors.  Not only is he in the minors but is remaining their longer than Kevin Owens who was an ROH man.  Longer than Balor who was from New Japan, and a lesser star there than Nakamura. 

Itami was a big star in Pro Wrestling NOAH where he is a seven time champ.  He invented the move that Punk used, yet when Itami came to WWE he was forbidden to use it (until recently).  Not exactly the marks of a strong push. 

Asuka is an amazing 73-0.  Yet, Baley, whom she has beaten twice now, is on the main roster and Asuka is not.  The Women's Division is much thinner than the men's, but Asuka remains in the minors while everyone around her moves up to the main roster. 

Now it is true that a call up to the main roster does not mean better wrestler.  Sometimes people like Adam Rose get called up or Dana Brooke because you need a mid card comedy act or a flunky to help out the champ, but it is hard to argue for a strong push without making it to the main roster.  I doubt Asuka would think her career good if she went 235-0 without ever wrestling for the main roster.  She would probably consider it a failure.  As would Nakamura. 

So while I can agree that WWE is opening itself up to new things, it is too early to say the New Era is born in Japan and too early to say that the Era is even that new. 

Pro Wrestling Phoenix Wrestlerama report

Review of the Pro Wrestling Phoenix out of Omaha, NE Wrestlerama show

The show opened with a fun match of Con Ar Tist v. a guy whose name I didn’t catch.  The crowd was very into this match.  Con Ar Tist was a face (who would have guessed) and had a specialized theme song that had people chanting.  He dominated most of the match and hit his Choo-Choo finisher in the corner, and then when the crowd asked him to do it one more time he obliged.  Great opener.  Con Ar Tist was super over with the crowd, and he made a special point of coming back during the intermission to say hello to my 13 year old.  He immediately became my boy’s favorite.

The next match was Dalton Lee Roth and Purple vs. Rising Phoenix Champ and an Australian rule football guy with a very cute manager.  It was kind of an odd match as clearly PWP had been teasing a break up between Roth and Purple, but the heel tag team were not exactly a real tag team.  They smacked each other around.  In the end, the heels won, the Rising Phoenix champ looked strong, and Roth made the heel turn.  I wish the turn had been better executed.  Someone messing something up to give a reason, getting in each other’s way, or just frustration showing through the match. 

Then came Pat Powers, who is running for President.  He got mic time and was pretty good.  He teased a VP pick later, and wrestled a great match against Paco, who may have been a new guy.  Both showed good skill, but Powers pulled an injury card, and after the ref threw up the X sign (to who was a question), Powers hit his finisher on Paco and won the match.  Nice heel tactics, but it took a little too long to pull off.  Good in ring wrestling.

Then was the last match before intermission and it was for the PWP Tag Titles.  The Daniels brothers led by Axel Greece against Guns n Beer.  Guns n Beer are a fun tag team and were also pretty popular.  They did a good job.  One time holding out the whiskey bottle to encourage the stretch for the tag and it worked.  Fun stuff.  The Daniels brothers worked over a hurt shoulder and ended up with the win after manager help.  Nice match with a heel win. 

Opening the second half of the show was KLD (Kenneth Lee Davidson) against the Canadian Hercules.  This was a good story.  Was Hercules strong enough to overcome the very large KLD.  They did the shoulder block test, they did a test of strength (long time since I saw that and it made sense for the match), they did trying to suplex each other bit, and pulled out a very under used kick out at 1.  The wrestling was strong guy wrestling, but it was a beautiful story, and KLD picked up the win in the end with a very powerful looking chokebomb finisher. 

Then was Zac James against Devin Carter.  This was another great story match.  Carter had attacked James last time when teased retiring because of head injuries.  So the story was head injuries.  It played for the vicious nature of James’s opening.  Carter eventually shrugged him into a ring post and it then became a question of would James make the 10 count as he was motionless.  When he was going to make it Carter would go out and bang his head again.  Carter yelled at him to just lay down and quit many times.  It was perfect story telling.  Eventually Carter was overthrown with a sliced bread and was set up for a top rope finisher, but Pat Powers came out and clipped the feet.  This led to a Carter superplex and victory.  Nice match.  Carter is now the VP candidate, which was a little weird, and made the post match promise of revenge in a tag match also a little strange, but great over all. 

This led into the main event with the PWP champ, , putting the belt on the line against local legend Hype Gotti and Unbreakable Michael Elgin.  Elgin and Gotti can really go.  Both men showed great athleticism.  The champ is a bigger fellow and wrestled in that way, so the match of styles was sometimes harsh.  Hit a Vader Splash in the corner on Gotti, which was neat.  Gotti suicide dived on Elgin out of the ring then ran back into the ring and dove out the other side on the champ.  It was a small bar, so it was gutsy stuff.  Elgin showed amazing strength when he picked up the champ on his shoulders.  Of course his chops were awesome and a couple of the lariats I thought were going to take a person’s head off.  They did a superplex, powerbomb out of the corner combo with Elgin doing the superplex, but taking the bomb from the champ leading to the champ hitting his finisher on Gotti to retain.  Harder to tell the story when the three guys in the ring were all faces and it was kind of a one off, but a very good main event. 

Just a quick note on the National Title

I just wanted to post something about Greg Anthony and the National Title.  His home promotion of Mid South is a weekly show, and so he is there defending it often.  But a National title ought to be moving around.  He has gone to some places to defend it, but I have always hoped this would be a way Greg Anthony got around the NWA because frankly he would make a good World champ. 

I did just discover that the Golden One has been defending it in more places than I thought.  NWA Central States has had Greg Anthony out twice now.  I missed this because Central States is not always a very active or regular promotion due in large part to horrible regulations in Missouri making wrestling there difficult.  Still, two successful defenses this summer ought to be noticed.  Here is hoping for more Greg Anthony sightings.