REVIEW: National Wrestling Alliance - Crockett Cup Day 2 (2022)

A Pay-Per-View Event by the NWA

Tonight was the second night of 2022’s Crocket Cup Pay-Per-View by the National Wrestling Alliance. Night one was largely a tag team tournament with all of the places being filled leading up to the semi-finals as well as a some promos. This show is the culmination of that series as well as title matches for every belt in the NWA at this time, as well as a NEW Championship for Junior Heavyweights. Considering how good a standard tag team tournament show is, night two is likely to be one of the better wrestling shows of the year so far. I am most looking forward to The women’s matches and the main event, but I’m sure something else will steal the show.

According to Wikipedia “The first NWA World Junior Heavyweight Champion was Ken Fenelos, who was awarded the title on May 15, 1945 by promoter Paul “Pinkie” George, the co-founder and inaugural president of the National Wrestling Alliance. For the first few years of its existence, the title was contested largely in Iowa, where George’s promotion was based.” After an insane amount of mergers, unifications, and parallel reigns, the belt was retired in 2017 when Billy Corgan bought the NWA, but that changes today. The KF on the belt refers to the original owner of the title, showing once again that this NWA honors it’s past. Past champions include Jushin Thunder Liger, Ricky Morton, Chase Owens, Danny Hodge, Verne Gagne, and Último Dragón.

The Pre-show including three matches is free on YouTube, check out my review for Day One, for 3 more!

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.

The Card:

1P Matthew Mims defeated AJ Cazana Singles match
2P Cyon and The OGK (Matt Taven and Mike Bennett) defeated Magic Jake Dumas and The Fixers (Jay Bradley and Wrecking Ball Legursky), and Idolmania Sports Managment (BLK Jeez, Jordan Clearwater, and Marshe Rockett) (with Austin Idol) Team War match
3P PJ Hawx defeated Alex Taylor (with Captain YUMA) Singles match
4 The Briscoe Brothers (Jay and Mark) defeated The Cardonas (Mike Knox and VSK) Crockett Cup semifinal tag team match
5 The Commonwealth Connection (Doug Williams and Harry Smith) defeated La Rebelión (Bestia 666 and Mecha Wolf) Crockett Cup semifinal tag team match
6 Anthony Mayweather (c) defeated Jax Dane by submission Singles match for the NWA National Championship
7 Jax Dane defeated Anthony Mayweather (c) Singles match for the NWA National Championship
This was Dane’s Champions Series cash-in match
8 The Hex (Allysin Kay and Marti Belle) (c) defeated Pretty Empowered (Ella Envy and Kenzie Paige) Tag team match for the NWA World Women’s Tag Team Championship
9 Homicide defeated Austin Aries, Darius Lockhart and Colby Corino Four-way match for the vacant NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship
10 Kamille (c) defeated Kylie Rae and Chelsea Green Three-way match for the NWA World Women’s Championship
11 Tyrus (c) (with Austin Idol) defeated Rodney Mack Singles match for the NWA World Television Championship
12 The Briscoe Brothers (Jay and Mark) defeated The Commonwealth Connection (Doug Williams and Harry Smith) Crockett Cup final tag team match
13 Matt Cardona (c) defeated Nick Aldis by disqualification Singles match for the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship with Jeff Jarrett as special guest referee

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 stopped awarding “grades” to things long ago, after my gig at a videogame site slid into them manipulating scores. 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!

That’s an Angry Crowd!

You don’t often see a crowd get so angry that they are one step from throwing trash in the ring and spitting on people, but that happened tonight when Jax Dane enacted his guaranteed title shot AFTER he lost to Anthony Mayweather and attacked his injured leg. As Mayweather crawled back into the ring amid a loud onslaught of boos, Dane flipped a couple of “Tennessee State Birds” to the crowd signaling that he did not care whatsoever what they thought. It was a noble effort, but Jax Dane is the new NWA National Champion.

The Hex:

Back when the Covid-19 Pandemic started and basically everyone quit NWA, I was pretty sad. At that time, it honestly seemed like Corgan’s NWA collapsed before it really got started. One of those wrestlers was Allysin Kay. Allysin Kay was one of those wrestlers that made her name in TNA years ago (as Sienna), and continued kicking ass all the way up to holding the NWA Women’s Championship for quite a while. Thankfully, Kay came back and formed The Hex with her friend Marti Belle, which has proved to be an unstoppable force in the women’s tag division. Pretty Empowered was perhaps their biggest challenge to date, but they once again proved that those belts are theirs without a shadow if doubt.

NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship:

Vacated since 2017, this was the introduction of the new NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship, based on a design for a 1960’s era NWA belt. Everyone in this match was pretty impressive – and with how much I enjoy “light heavyweight matches”, I knew I was in for a treat. I have issues with Austin Aries, but I won’t discount his skill in the ring. Homicide is a living legend, Colby Corino has been impressive for a few years now, and for my first time seeing Darius Lockheart, he impressed me. This was easily one of the better matches of the show, and well worth a watch.

Cardona (and Maybe Aldis) is About to Get His Teeth Kicked In:

Trevor Murdoch sat at home with a concussion after the vile acts from Matt Cardona not too long ago. At first, he was happy that Nick Aldis stepped up to take on Cardona, but realized that Nick never acknowledged the former champ, and that made him realize he was all alone in this. Turning on the NWA, The Fans, and with the taste of blood in his mouth, we’re about to see a new and improved Murdoch coming after that strap. Solid promo!

The Brickhouse is unstoppable:

Vowing to retire as a “one-time NWA Women’s Champion”, Kamille once again dominates the women’s division on this show. One has to wonder if her arrogant boast is likely considering how much Kamille has been winning, and not in the tired way other companies put a division on someone’s shoulders that turns the fans against the champion – Everyone loves Kamille. In one of the recent GCW shows I talked about how much I liked the darker edge on Kylie Rae, almost acting like a Doctor Jekyll sort of character that is smiley and happy until a switch is flipped and she goes crazy. Great match, Chelsea was insufferable as ever, Kylie looked great, and Kamille reigns supreme.

You Still Got It…..Clap….Clap….Clapclapclap

Rodney Mack is one of those guys that vaguely disappeared from wrestling after he left WWE and did indies back before this “Indy Renaissance” started up. Now he’s back in the NWA, and it’s been awesome. The dude is intense and looks every bit as the sort of dude you’d rather not piss off. He’s not too old yet, and hopefully has some more gas in the tank to do some more matches!

And Your Winners!

Jay Briscoe apologized again last week for a series of bigoted Tweets he posted about a decade ago, this time he at least seemed to be more repentant than “wE’Re JuSt SuM CouNTrY BoyS” which was the general tone of his last one. I have largely ignored them on shows up to this point because I don’t like supporting wrestlers that are notorious assholes in real life – who knows if he really changed his mind, but he is at least outspoken about the fact that he made a mistake. If I can support guys like Scorpio Sky or Sammy Guevara, I should apply my own logic to The Briscoes. To his credit, Jay at least took ownership of his actions, rather than going for the cop-out “I’m sorry you were offended” approach other public figures often take in situations like this. Dem Boys are one of the best tag teams in the world, and deserve every bit of that Crockett Cup! I can’t wait to see them wrestle FTR pretty soon, and hope they can move forward without doing any more idiotic stuff on social media.

The Nashville Screwjob!

While ending a big title match with a ton of run-ins and a “Dusty Finish” is peak WCW, I’ll let it slide with how much an angle like that obviously pissed the crowd off. Cardona is THE GUY to hate right now, as he does all manner of despicable things in every promotion he works for. His stuff in GCW alone is legendary, this just is the icing on the cake. Whether it be Murdoch or Aldis, the next Pay-Per-View Main Event better be a cage match, and it better be amazing!

Conclusion:

Great show, and as a whole, I would say this was better than Hard Times 2. Yeah, the main event ended in a way that I’m sure folks will be torn on, but it continues the storyline that Matt Cardona spits in the face of tradition and wants to pollute NWA with all of the baggage he brings from his tenure in WWE. Match of the night was wither the Junior Heavyweight match or the Crockett Cup finals with me leaning towards the latter. It’s been interesting to see how often Jeff Jarrett has been popping up as of late, and somehow looking better than he did when I met him at a TNA show in 2010! Can’t wait for the next show, and I REALLY need to not fall behind on watching Powerrr and NWA USA like I have been.