A Pay-Per-View Event from the National Wrestling Alliance

What an incredible couple of weeks in Wrestling it has been! We’ve seen some stuff I’ll talk about in another review about AEW that may have changed the wrestling landscape for decades to come, but that isn’t to undermine the huge weekend that NWA has had! If you asked me what I figured would be the future of the National Wrestling Alliance as of one year ago, I probably would have pointed out the talent exodus due to the ongoing Covid-19 Global Pandemic and the fact that they lost their main creative mind due to the #speakingout movement. I honestly felt that they were about to die a slow, but painful, death and be yet another depressing footnote in wrestling history. Fast forward to now, and I couldn’t be more wrong! Yes, talent like Thunder Rosa and Ricky Starks are gone, but the sheer amount of hungry young talent that have swelled in to fill the void is amazing. For example, I would say the NWA has easily the best Women’s division in all of wrestling for at least the moment I write this, it will be interesting to see if Corgan can offer contracts and keep some of them locked down. Young wrestlers like Colby Corino and The End have stacked up with veterans like Crimson and Thom Latimer to bring a fully fleshed-out roster that stacks up with the best of many other companies.

NWA 73 was special as it marks not only the 73rd anniversary of the formation of the National Wrestling Alliance, but the first time in decades that fans have had a sequel (of sorts) to Wrestling at the Chase, the TV show that made many in the St. Louis area lifelong wrestling fans, a show that sadly ended right around the time I was born. In many ways, this was an homage to some of the best aspects of that past show, but in a way that marks a new era in NWA. Below I have laid out some of my favorite moments in the show, and why I liked them so much. I really have no interest in doing a match by match review style since hundreds of other reviewers do the same Dave Meltzer styled review system (star rankings). Honestly, that has been the reason I have rarely done wrestling reviews on my blog in the past. As many of you know, I don’t actually like assigning scores to any of my reviews-something that came from my past working for a video game website. In many ways, I learned that the number system was fairly arbitrary and largely dictated by companies (notice everything is generally above 75 percent no matter what is written). I’d rather explain why or why I didn’t like something and let the reader be the judge of whether its something they’d like. It’s because of this that I generally pick five or six things that I really enjoyed about the pay-per-view and highlight them. Let me know what you think of this, and maybe I can expand on it.

The Card

• 1P Lady Frost and The Hex (Allysin Kay and Marti Belle) defeated Jennacide, Paola Mayfield, and Taryn Terrell Six-woman tag team match 5:07
• 2P PJ Hawx defeated Colby Corino Singles match 6:57
• 3 Tim Storm defeated Thom Latimer and Crimson Brawl in the Lou match 9:10
• 4 Mickie James defeated Kylie Rae Singles match 5:35
• 5 Tyrus, The Masked Man, and Jordan Clearwater (with Austin Idol) defeated Da Pope and The End (Odinson and Parrow) Six-man tag team match 12:52
• 6 Chris Adonis (c) defeated James Storm Singles match for the NWA National Championship 14:03
• 7 Judais won after eliminating JTG[Note 1] Battle royal to determine the number one contender to the NWA National Championship 20:08
• 8 Kamille (c) defeated Chelsea Green Singles match for the NWA World Women’s Championship 12:33
• 9 La Rebelión (Bestia 666 and Mecha Wolf 450) defeated Aron Stevens and JR Kratos (c) Tag team match for the NWA World Tag Team Championship 14:04
• 10 Trevor Murdoch (career) defeated Nick Aldis (c) Title vs. Career match for the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship 16:25

Kamiile Vs Chelsea Green

My hat goes off to both of these ladies for their exemplary performance this past weekend. Kamille, coming off of a hard fought victory against Leyla Hirsch, moved into this match appearing a little worse for wear but somehow clinched victory yet again showing that she is the most dominant woman in all of the National Wrestling Alliance. I’ve always liked Kamille, despite the fact that her early moments in NWA were of someone that was mute an possibly being mistreated by her boss. Once that whole storyline was dropped she has been allowed to be the dominant force that she always could have been and I love it. Being a big fan of the Major Wrestling Figure Podcast means that I have a passing interest in the exploits of Chelsea Green, and hopefully the rebirth of her career post WWE. Considering the last time we saw her she wrestled an entire match with a broken arm, she had two solid nights of amazing wrestling, winning a battle Royale, and almost clinching a title win right after. Here’s hoping she has a long career in the NWA.

Mecha Wolf 450 and Bestia 666 win Tag Gold w/ Konnan’s Help

Being a big lucha libre fan, I always get excited when luchadors cross the border and wrestle for United States companies. I was always bummed out that we never really got to see Bestia 666 do much on Lucha Underground despite his introduction towards the end of the show, so finally getting to see him here was awesome. I was always a fan of his father Damian 666 when he wrestled for WCW in the late 90s. This was an awesome tag match, and I was excited to see Konnan appear once again on another company, if anyone has taken advantage of the so called forbidden door, it’s been him LOL

Heart throb Jayden Roller

I get pumped full of excitement every time a local Missouri wrestler shows up on a bigger show, so it was a matter of time it happened here for sure. I have seen Jayden Roller wrestle quite a few times for Harley Race’s World League Wrestling, and am glad he was able to make an appearance on a national scale. He’s one of those guys that you can tell has all the charisma he needs to move up in the wrestling world right from the get go. I know he had a little bit of controversy a few years ago, but it seems like that has been set right in some manner, and I’m happy to see it.

WOOOOOoooooooooo!

I’m never sure what to expect from a Ric Flair appearance on any given wrestling show, or perhaps that is what WWE has done to me, as his appearances on there have been very hit or miss. I was worried that his checkered health history would lead to a sad promo, but he was on fire here! Flair talks about the past of in NWA, how good it is to be back in Saint Louis, and finally talks about how there needs to be competition in wrestling because not everyone can go to WWE or AEW. he also talks about the “Forbidden Door”, and how it’s amazing all these companies are working together. Great speech from flair, and solid appearance helping the show put its anchor in the past as well as move forward into the future.

Trevor Murdock Wins!

Trevor Murdoch is the living embodiment of old school wrestling. In a so called “sports entertainment” world, one would imagine that he would never make it very far due to his style and appearance. That’s a far cry from how it was in the past, back when not everyone had to be a big roided-out muscle man to make it somewhere in wrestling. Murdock just looks like a normal guy, a blue collar dude that you could imagine having a beer with down at the local bar. That’s what his appeal is for many wrestling fans, and why it’s amazing that Billy Corgan took the chance of putting the belt on him in the main event of this pay-per-view. it doesn’t help that he is basically a local wrestler, seeing that he went to WLW pretty much right after he was let go from WWE more than a decade ago. He harkens back to a time when guys like Dusty Rhodes carried the belt with such prestige that even a polka dot suit in a rival company couldn’t tarnish the magic. Here’s hoping he can carry the strap for more than a couple months, even though I can imagine Nick Aldis will eventually get it back.

Conclusion:

After NWA Empowerrr, I knew it would be hard to top a solid show like that, but NWA 73 at least matched it and perhaps even outdid it. Outside of Japan, it’s almost unheard of for a company to do consecutive daily Pay-Per-View events until recently (and most of that was because of Covid). there’s always a risk that you will get diminishing returns on subsequent shows, but these two action-packed NWA offerings definitely proved that wrong. I honestly hope that moving forward, they do this again with a double bill to make the whole weekend special. If you have not seen these yet I would definitely recommend checking them out. I know there was special pricing for both on the Fite App, and I can’t imagine the shows will not get released on home video before too long. It’s an amazing time to be a wrestling fan right now, I can’t wait to see what the future holds.