SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
OPENING MONTAGE – MISS: They’ve finally updated the video package that highlights the current roster and champions, but now we’re using Pantera?! No more Dokken?! No more “Into the Fire”?! Ladies, gentlemen, fellow friends beyond the binary, I guess they’re moving on past the retro feels. I mean, I like metal and all, I prefer death and black, but Pantera just doesn’t open a show like the dated sounds of Dokken.
TIM STORM WITH GALLI – MISS: This isn’t a miss because of anything Tim Storm did; in fact, Timmy was great as always. I liked how this wasn’t his babyface fire promo, but just Tim just shooting the stuff with his NWA family. Next week, he’ll fight Thom Latimer, in a match he asked for so he can vie for the World Title once again and he also shook off any retirement talk. He put the crowd over saying he values the time he gets to perform for the NWA family and the focus is on beating Latimer. So far so good. Galli asks about Kamille’s presence ringside, which causes her and Latimer to come out and it just goes off the rails when Galli interrupted everything because Mama Storm is here! Nope, some short guy in a bad wig with a walker, not Tim’s mom is here. The best part about this back half of the segment is that Tim Storm acknowledged that it’s just a man in a dress but didn’t condemn or downplay any gender identities. For this show, and how obtuse they can be? Tim Storm just babyfaced his way deeply into my genderqueer heart. Unfortunately though, this segment was just awful and a bad use of Tim Storm.
MATT CROSS VS. CALEB KONLEY – HUGE HIT: Ricky Starks, who fought Cross at Hard Times in the first round, is a guest on commentary and is asked how life has changed since becoming TV Champion, and he answered something about how everyone and their mama is asking for handouts. The ring and audience sounded like they were more heavily miced up, so a lot of commentary missed me.
“Don’t blink, these guys are quicker than a hiccup,” says Galli, and they immediately go into a choreographed interchange but it was effective in setting up the idea that these two are of similar styles and horsepower. That is going to be the story of the in-ring action. Two men of similar size and speed countering and recountering each other in a dazzling display. Allow me to also mention that Caleb Konley is wearing red and black diagonally halved trunks with the Three Arrows on the bum, he’s babyfacing into my anarchocommunist heart too! It’s like NWA is trying to right all of their social wrongs in the first ten minutes!
Konley had some great offense, well timed superkicks and believable near-falls but in the end, Cross goes over with the moonsault. It’s a shame really, because Caleb has the goods with his selling ability and move set, if only they just get behind him finally. Cross and Konley shake hands, which seems to be a mainstay in babyface-vs-babyface encounters involving Konley, but at some point, the losses will pile up far too much to reposition him up the card. That said, this is probably the best men’s match to air on Power. I’d recommend yall watch it.
NICK ALDIS PROMO – HIT, AS USUAL: A soft spoken Nick Aldis is basically E.F. Hutton at this point. Looking directly into the camera as if he expects all of us watching to move out the way so that Marty Scurll can see this, he’s mad that it’s been seven days and still no response from Marty. The genius of Aldis here is twofold. On one hand, he says Scurll doesn’t have to necessarily accept but he must respond and can even make a counteroffer; how benevolent is the World’s Champ?! But on the other hand, he tells an allegory of a wolf on a hill that was just brilliant. “Are you realizing the wolf on the hill is not as hungry as the wolf climbing the hill, but when the wolf on the hill is hungry, the food is already there?” Daaaaaamn, Nick. Kayfabe or not, he just completely sold me on Marty Scurll being afraid. Nick Aldis, you magnificent bastard.
THE POPE AND DAWSONS WITH MARQUEZ – HIT: So the NWA is still acting like we all saw Pope orchestrate the hit on Eddie Kingston, but we all know no one saw it. Don’t act like that was on Hard Times unless there was a separate feed for the UK or something! Pope is loud and boisterous about how he still likes Eddie but thinks Homicide is a loser. The stunning revelation here was in Eddie Kingston defending Homicide, saying Homicide saved him from committing suicide! No idea if that’s a shoot, but if it is, you can’t EVER have Homicide and Kingston break up. EVER. So if that was ever on the drawing board, take it down now. Eddie Kingston, though, is by far the best promo in NWA. Where Tim Storm is white meat fire, Eddie’s fire is realistic and makes you forget that this is all a work.
HOWEVER! Tim Storm is a queer ally, Eddie Kingston, sadly isn’t tonight. He debuted two fat guys named the Bouncers as his backup, but in describing them he said they have two pretty smiles, pause. For the uninitiated, saying pause is a New York cishet man thing. When complimenting another man or saying something that could be misconstrued as gay or provide double entendre as to something that could be gay, they say pause. It’s stupid and shallow and shortsighted, and though it’s true to Eddie’s character and probably his person, it still hurt to hear such foolishness. And we were off to such a good start too. All that said, Kingston still cut a hell of a promo. Pope, though, he plays his character well, I just don’t like it.
MAY VALENTINE’S DIARY – MISS: What is this? She’s just talking about her social media and goings on in her life, and by goings on, I mean her outfits. This is all just stupid and I’m not even going to discuss it. Her voice drones on and on about Royce and being in love and him finally winning a match and her making a friend (in Rinauro, I guess?). This was just awful, awful stuff.
NWA NATIONAL TITLE MATCH: TREVOR MURDOCH VS. SHOOTER STEVENS (W/ QUESTION MARK) – NEUTRAL: This match was fine and both wrestlers played their parts well. Shooter is still committed to the gimmick, bowing to his sensei and making Marquez reannounce him as a third degree black belt; Murdoch fighting from underneath and relying on vintage style offense. Stevens was looking for the cheap way to retain the belt, going for either a countout or time limit draw, which is totally smart as well. Murdoch played to the crowd and is so over that when he finally took control with two minutes remaining, the crowd was ready for him to win. It came to a time limit draw but after the bell, Murdoch hit his top rope bulldog and own three count, which Galli put over big saying, “if only Trevor Murdoch had 20 more seconds, he’d be NWA National Champion right now!” See, the match was fine, and they did enough to make me think this will continue through to Crockett Cup, but it was a title match where you never really thought the title would change hands. If you have a title match where you don’t believe there’s the chance for a change, it’s hard to really care or invest in a match. That’s what made this one suffer for me and just miss being a hit.
ZICKY DICE CHALLENGE – HIT!: No real reason to include this but I was just happy to see Zicky Dice. Here’s the gimmick though: if NWA’s YouTube channel goes from 184,000 subscribers to 284,000, he’ll do whatever we want!
TWO MINUTES WITH MOONEY – HIT!: Excellent use of Sean Mooney, putting him back in the production room and having him sum up ongoing storylines, advancing storylines, and previewing upcoming matches. This is way better than the use of video packages, although their videos are great, but between the opening montage and the videos in between, it can be overkill. Mooney is perfect here and lets us know a few things: Aldis and Rush vs Villain Enterprises at Free Enterprise; Melina requested to be next for a title shot; Tempur-pedic and Ricky Starks are now best friends on Twitter. No, I won’t explain that last one!
DRAKE & STORM VS JOCEPHUS & MIMS – NEUTRAL: Allow me to channel my inner Todd Martin… “It was a match.” I love doing that. Not much to see here, it happened and was mostly just to feature the tag champs and keep them over with the crowd. Jocephus was treated better than Mims as he should be, Mims took the real beatdown where Jocephus got some even exchange with both tag champs. Our tag champs go over with Drake slingshotting Mims via fireman’s carry into a backstabber by Cowboy. Good to see a tandem finish even if it was a bit clunky.
MAIN EVENT – NWA WOMEN’S TITLE REMATCH: ALLYSIN KAY VS. THUNDER ROSA (C) – HIT, HIT, HIT, HIT, HIT: I was a bit critical of the first half of their match at Hard Times and I stand by that because it was just a bit slow and felt like two people taking turns as to who would be in control. This match was not that. This was hard hitting, very stiff at times, and I’m sure most of that is due to the compressed time of NWA Power as opposed to a PPV, but also because this is a rematch and this rivalry is well established as a blood feud at this point.
Thunder Rosa is creeping toward babyface more and more with her attire (not to mention a moment near the end where she actually fired, but there was a point in this match where Marti Belle came out and clearly Rosa wasn’t happy. Both she and Kay wanted her to go away but Ashley Vox and Tasha Steelz came out for reinforcements (as Melina was on commentary sans headset, for some reason).
We got excellent mat wrestling at the top, rough forearms throughout, a HUGE shoot slap from Rosa to Kay followed by a very stiff charging forearm from Kay. Rosa had some very believable near falls closer to the end and an exchange where the two slugged it out mid-ring until they exhausted themselves. I’m a sucker for this spot because I’ve seen street fights. They last for a few seconds because swinging punches is incredibly tiring. These two had already been fighting for minutes, but the added cost of slugging it out and leaving each other winded provides a touch of realism.
I never thought Rosa would lose, but the match was credible enough to keep me engaged, something Stevens-Murdoch couldn’t do. Rosa went over after hitting a slingshot on Kay and rolling her up and arching over her for an extra-leveraged schoolgirl, as Galli or Bennett said. I guess if there’s a schoolboy, may as well be a schoolgirl, but what about a non-binary schooled pin, huh, NWA?! HUH?!
OVERALL – HIT: This was a bit of a weird show from the word go. The new Pantera theme threw me off because it doesn’t fit the vibe and it sucks. We didn’t get the opening montage recapping weeks of stories. We did get awesome matches in Konley vs Cross and Rosa-Kay II though, and I think both are the best matches in the Power era for their respective divisions. Sean Mooney was cast perfectly and we got Zicky Dice promising to do something outlandish. But when you add in the bland Shooter-Murdoch match and the awful May Valentine segment, it brings everything down a bit, but not enough to outweigh two really good-to-great matches.
WATCH THE SHOW HERE…
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