It was the night that truly should how much of a super power Jim Crockett Promotions had become it was The Final Conflict. The setting the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina and the main event was Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood vs Sgt. Slaughter & Don Kernodle inside a Steel Cage. Lesser known match was NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair fought Greg Valentine and Dick Slater alongside Gary Hart defended his Television Championship against Roddy Piper.
It was a blood feud between the two top teams in the area and this might be an unfamiliar idea of modern wrestling fans because of how underappreciated tag team wrestling is nowadays. These two teams are the reason that the fans were in the building. There were reports on the radio to not get off at the arena exit of the parkway, because the fans keep coming to try and witness history. "Radio stations had to go on air and ask people to turn around as the tickets were long gone. The highway near the arena was deadlocked with cars." (click here for a more in depth story) For fans that let there ignorance lead there opinions on the wrestling business it is clear that this fact is often times neglected. Wrestling fans forget our history and though we weren't there it's our job to not let it fall to the sands of time. Wrestling at one point was just respected as a way for fans to escape their daily lives and not manifested into a dream where everyone is a critic. This event proves that wrestling not only drew back in the day, but was more popular back then as compared to how it is now. Wrestling might be more mainstream, but it isn't more popular. The Final Conflict is one of many events that prove the plateau wrestling once stood upon and the same plateau we let it fall from. Think about a highway being deadlocked cars cause that many people were going to see wrestling! Would that happen today? Why not?
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At the NWA 70th Anniversary Show on October 21, 2018, we saw the Worlds Heavyweight Championship change hands when Nick Aldis regained the championship from Cody. The title hasn't been taken away from Nick since then and he has turned away all comers. Aldis was the only constant connecting previous ownership to current ownership in Billy Corgan. Last year, just as momentum was starting to trend in the right direction everything changed thanks to the current situation troubling society. NWA shut down and haven't held any tapings since early last year and again there has been only one constant for the company as other wrestlers walked away the Worlds Champion is still constant. Nick Aldis is unquestionably the flag bearer for the National Wrestling Alliance and will get back on the horse on March 21 when NWA returns to PPV.
It was announced by NWA President Billy Corgan that NWA Back for the Attack will be dedicated to fallen NWA star Joseph "Jocephus" Hudson who passed away last month. At this point, Aldis has held the "Ten Pounds of Gold" for 875 days and counting with his first defense in nearly a year coming against former NWA National Champion Aron Stevens. Check out the announcement video from Billy Corgan:
It has been a long time since I've seen anything regarding the National Wrestling Alliance, but now we've got some news worth noting. According to Billy Corgan his promotion is set to make a return on March 21, 2021, with a major event called Back for the Attack set to air on Fite.tv. NWA spent a majority of the last year on hiatus due to the current situation plaguing the world, but now they've there way out. New episodes of NWA Power will air starting on March 23 and they will also air on FITE for a low cost subscription bundle.
As far as fans returning to NWA events it will not happen in the near future as all NWA events will be without fans or crowd noise for the foreseeable future. According to an F4online.com article Corgan seems to have plans to still take the NWA to the next level and grow the audience it is just that COVID-19 curtailed a lot of the plans for the time being. In my opinion, shutting down last year was the right decision for the NWA, but at the same time it was horrible timing for the brand to shutdown as they were finally starting to build momentum in the right direction. Since the shutdown a number of stars have branched out to other promotions namely AEW and have found success with Ricky Starks and Serna Debb becoming fixtures on the program. Serna would actually defeat former champion Thunder Rosa for the title at a UWN Primetime Live event in October. Both Serna and Thunder Rosa have become members of the AEW Women's Division the biggest question I would have is does this mean that AEW and NWA could work together when the brand officially gets going again. Considering AEW already has an agreement with Impact and a rumored agreement with New Japan so the NWA would be an interesting next step forward for both promotions. ![]() After watching part of the Highspots.com produced documentary called Championship Wrestling From Florida: The Story of wrestling in the Sunshine State. I've decided that now would be the perfect time to announce the first inductee into the Wrestling Express Hall of Fame Class of 2021. Every year I've tried to change things up and add some new layer to new class like last year was the first year a stable was inducted into the Hall of Fame that being the Four Horsemen. This year will be the first year an announcer will be inducted into the Hall of Fame. In my opinion, there is only one announcer that can be selected to join any Hall of Fame first and that is the "Dean of pro-wrestling", the "Walter Cronkite of pro-wrestling" Gordon Solie. Some might disagree, but when the greatest modern wrestling announcer Jim Ross says he modeled his style off of Gordon that should tell how special Gordon Solie was during his prime. Gordon was on a level all his own and would provide an unmatched level of credibility to the program. He always treated wrestling with respect and in return the fans did the same as they grew to respect Gordon. For more then half a century Gordon was the voice of Championship Wrestling from Florida's weekly television show and Gordon was also the lead announcer for Georgia Championship Wrestling's television show. Later in his career following the closure of CWF, Gordon would move onto Continental Wrestling and USA Championship Wrestling both promotions based out of Knoxville. His last stop on a national scale though was as a member of World Championship Wrestling. Gordon at this point would announce weekly programs here and there early on but would transition to more of a PPV exclusive commentator near the end of his career. Much like Bobby Heenan is the manager all other managers tried to measure themselves against Gordon Solie will always be the announcer all other announcers measure themselves against as he is the greatest of all time and the newest member of the Wrestling Express Hall of Fame. As always wrestling gives us both great memories and memories we try and forget, but with the amount of moments worth remembering that have happened we are bound to forget some. The same could be said about some talent that were very much underrated during their career or never at the top of a company during a run this unfortunately makes it easier for fans to forget certain talent. These two are very different talent and had two very different careers while they worked in this great business. Sometimes we encounter those that deserve to be remembered and acknowledged. I would like to wish a very big Happy Birthday to all who are celebrating their special day today and especially to the one featured below
It has been a few months at this point since we spoke about the National Wrestling Alliance and that I've found anything worth updating you on. I will not go into much detail as to the why, because I'd prefer to keep that type of thing of my website. Either way though former VP of NWA Dave Lagana has resigned from his position and now plans are up in the air for the NWA. At last word the NWA was mostly ran based on the vision of Lagana. Corgan hasn't been an absent owner it's more that he hasn't been focusing on just the NWA which left Lagana to run things on the day to day. It was Corgan who wanted Zicky Dice to be Television Champion and have Ricky Starks chasing him be one of the main programs for the promotion.
However, neither Ricky Starks or Zicky Dice are under contract with the National Wrestling Alliance at this time as both men have moved on and Ricky even signed with AEW. At this point there really isn't much known about what the promotion has planned going forward, but we do know that Billy Corgan has a lot of things to figure out before we will see another episode of NWA Power. According to Sean Sapp on Fightful it was talked about that Nick Aldis could take over the position, but the current Worlds Champion doesn't not poses the same skill set that Dave Lagana has. It seems like it's just another road block in a never ending string of road blocks for a promotion that was just starting to build some forward momentum. It would surprise me at this point if the NWA will run another event before the end of 2020 due to this turn of events. For those wondering the Crockett Cup was postponed due to the current societal situation and I'm sure the matches at least the title matches will happen at a later date, but the tournament will have to wait till next year. After thirty one years the NWA made the decision to bring the former annual event back which was won by Thomas Latimer and Royce Isaacs who came into the tournament as the unproven commodity but left as champions.
It would've been interesting to see if Wild Cards would've been able to repeat or at least show just how far they've come in the last year. I for one would've been biased for the Rock N Roll Express to get close or win as this is the only thing they've never done before in their long careers. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't more intrigued by Scurll vs Aldis then I am by most of what can be found on regular programming for major companies. The NWA has been hit just like most other companies, but the recovery will be all the more beautiful. What is the first match you'd like to see from the NWA once the recovery period begins? I'm sticking with the Scurll vs Aldis saga, but I am really curious how the released WWE talent might fit into the ranks in the NWA or if they will even be brought in due to the smaller roster size the NWA has been keeping. We will have to wait and see I'm sure!! With the influx of new content coming on YouTube it was time to kick start a new series on the website or at least give a new series a try. Over the decades the world of wrestling has seen a number of feuds fall by the waist side for a variety of reasons, in most cases this has lead to some feuds becoming forgotten to the annals of history. Following the departure of Anderson & Blanchard the Midnight Express needed a new team to fight against. It was left up to Jim Cornette who the Midnight would feud with next and the choice was easy he selected Dennis Condrey and Randy Rose the Original Midnight Express. Cornette has always done great work, but having someone like JJ Dillon or Paul Heyman who could match him tit for tat on the microphone helped him up his game to the next level. To see the hot start this feud had and to know where it ended up it leaves the question of what could've been. It looked legit and like two unemployed wrestlers came in the back door and jumped the Midnight Express. It's been a little bit of time since we last visited the National Wrestling Alliance and for good reason since they had taken their normal pre-ppv hiatus last month and were going to spend the time away promoting the upcoming Crockett Cup event. At this point it seems like everything will be going as normal for the Crockett Cup this weekend as I've not seen or heard anything that would suggest otherwise. However, I would think the NWA had a plan in place with the current circumstances in mind and it just wasn't covered or reported on.
In a quote taken from pro-wrestling.net you can see the current plan for the NWA: "The National Wrestling Alliance released a video (available below) hosted by Stu Bennett that includes a breakdown of the content that the promotion will be releasing this week. The build to the 2019 Crockett Cup will be spotlighted today at 5:05CT/6:05ET, and the entire Crockett Cup 2019 event will stream on Sunday at 6CT/7ET on the NWA YouTube and NWA Facebook pages. On Tuesday, April 21, the NWA will stream Kamille’s NWA in-ring debut and her first words at 5:05CT/6:05ET." Full article can be found here!! Overall I think that the NWA could find a way to make things work and give fans an easy escape and a sense of normalcy during this very trying period of time. I'm happy that the NWA is using their deep archives to their advantage earlier this week the NWA released an episode of Houston Wrestling. For those who might not know it is very rare to find footage from Houston partially due to Houston being one of the few territories not under the WWE umbrella. This week we found out that the next episode of NWA Circle Squared was uploaded and it includes episodes 2 and 3 of the new series. Now not unlike when episode 1 was uploaded NWA placed NWA Power on a week hiatus. As Sean Mooney mentions during the episode NWA Power will not air this week and will return in two weeks with Super Power. For the most part this episode of NWA Power sets up the big episode of the show coming up in two weeks. Based on the programming schedule that Mooney announced during the episode it seems like we could be seeing a bit more gaps in programming for NWA Power in the weeks to come prior to Crockett Cup at the end of April. It is also worth noting that this episode of Power has two title matches including James Storm and Eli Drake defending the Tag Titles and Ricky Starks defending the Television Championship. One underrated match from the show was The Dawson's vs CW Anderson & Caleb Konley in a last chance match which basically means that the losing team will get released. I will also hopefully be able to provide an update on Circle Squared and what the future could hold for the Hawx Family from episode one. |
AuthorWith the rise of a social media presence for the NWA. It was fitting to move things for the site. Archives
April 2021
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