Tuesday night’s edition of NWA Power was advertised as their ‘Supershow’ leading into this Friday’s pay-per-view and headlined by Nick Aldis and Ricky Morton meeting for the NWA championship in the main event.
Robert Gibson came out to start the show and is rooting for his best friend to defeat Aldis tonight.
TASHA STEELZ VS THUNDER ROSA
This is a rematch from the December pay-per-view. Rosa took most of the match and lifted Steelz and executed a driver sending her into the match for the victory in 2:47.
David Marquez tried to ask Rosa what was up with Melina and Rosa said to speak with Melina.
Nick Aldis shot a promo on Scurll announcing he would be at the NWA tapings this weekend, so in turn, he’s going to be at ROH’s Free Enterprise event on February 9th and encouraged NWA fans to wear the promotion’s colors to the free event. This felt like it was an old promo as Aldis ended by teasing a match with Scurll for Free Enterprise even though it’s been announced it’s a tag with Aldis & Rush vs. PCO & Scurll in Baltimore.
Joe Galli interviewed Royce Isaacs and Mae Valentine. We established that Isaacs is on a losing streak and he revealed the two haven’t slept together. Valentine said there is nothing wrong with being pure or making your man wait. This story came out of nowhere and I can’t say it worked with the tone the show has established.
THOM LATIMER VS TREVOR MURDOCH IN THE TELEVISION TITLE TOURNAMENT
It’s a time limit of six minutes and five seconds.
Latimer dominated the match, hit a pop-up powerbomb and the missed Murdoch in the corner, Latimer was rolled up with a roll-up in 2:30 and Murdoch won without landing a punch. I guess Latimer is also practicing celibacy and thus, on a losing streak.
Allysin Kay and Melina were at the podium and it was clear they were freestyling with each other as Kay nearly threw off Melina’s rhythm during her promo. Melina said that Kay will have to face Thunder Rosa before her AND, in order to get to Thunder Rosa, Kay must beat Marti Belle. To his credit, Stu Bennett called out how backward this is that the champion is the one jumping through hoops to get a shot at the challenger.
ALLYSIN KAY VS MARTI BELLE IN A NO DISQUALIFICATION MATCH
They had a decent match for the time allotted and this was a rare hardcore style match on this program. They certainly didn’t overdo it with the lone weapon being a chair that each used. Kay was about to nail her with the chair, then tossed it onto the mat and Belle tried to grab it, was lifted onto Kay’s shoulders and spun off with Kay pinning her in 4:42.
So, it’s Allysin Kay vs. Thunder Rosa on Friday at the pay-per-view and likely involvement from Melina.
The Pope and Eddie Kingston were out next. The Pope was disappointed in Kingston and Homicide’s loss last week, which Kingston said they should not have taken due to Homicide’s shoulder injury but was pressured by The Pope. Kingston isn’t entering tonight’s Gauntlet match as he’s concerned with Homicide. Kingston is a fantastic promo, but The Pope storyline has taken the team away from being focused on this cycle.
Kyle Davis subbed in for Joe Galli, who was losing his voice at the start of the show (this was the final taping of their two-day marathon session), although he was back for the main event.
Aron Stevens held a self-defense seminar with The Question Mark inside the ring demonstrating with two masked students. Stevens was very entertaining, although this did start to drag late in the segment. It culminated with Stevens going to break a board to earn the fourth degree on his black belt when he turned his back and the masked student hit him with the board. It was Ricky Starks under a mask.
Starks said he ‘never forgets’, although the championship committee did forget about him because Scott Steiner is getting the National title shot against Stevens this Friday.
LAST CHANCE GAUNTLET MATCH
This was done like a mini-Royal Rumble with eight participants starting with CW Anderson and Caleb Konley.
Jocephus was out third and his suspension is up but was instantly eliminated. Colt Cabana, Dave Dawson, and Aron Stevens were the next entrants.
Zicky Dice came out to cut a promo and said he’s undefeated and only a pay-per-view wrestler (he’s also in the tournament). Dice is a great personality that is getting attention on this show.
Sal Rinauro and Ken Anderson were the last two to enter. Anderson eliminated Rinauro and Konley with the Mic Check. Rinauro attempted a springboard and just wiped out on the canvas and was a brutal looking botch that I was surprised they didn’t edit out.
Stevens was hiding under the ring and returned but Anderson and Cabana tossed him out. Stevens was accidentally hit with Question Mark’s Mongrovian Spike and you need to watch Stevens sell this thing, it was excellent.
Anderson and Cabana shook hands but Anderson quickly spun Cabana and hooked his tights to steal the pin and win the match at 12:35 and get the last slot in the tournament.
Afterward, Anderson hit Cabana with a knee to the gut and the Mic Check before he sent Cabana into the post and was the full turn from Anderson.
James Storm and Eli Drake simply came out to have a fun segment trying to outdo each other with their promos and it was awesome. This is the perfect environment for these two. Storm had everyone stand as he conducted a prayer asking God to let Morton kick Aldis’ ass and then Drake explained why he wanted Aldis to stay in America and become a citizen so everyone could kick his ass. This was great stuff.
They revealed the two open slots in the Television title tournament are going to Matt Cross (M-Dogg 20 and Son of Havoc in Lucha Underground) and Dan Maff representing ROH. There were promos from Maff and Flip Gordon setting up their appearances at ‘Hard Times’ on Friday.
Billy Corgan was out to call the main event with Galli and Bennett.
NICK ALDIS VS RICKY MORTON FOR THE NWA CHAMPIONSHIP
Corgan had Strictly Business and Robert Gibson banned from ringside.
It was a super basic match as the crowd was behind Morton and they kept it simple. Aldis bailed to the floor as Morton went after him and got poked in the eyes and run into the post.
Mortin caught Aldis like he was Ric Flair and tossed him off the turnbuckle, then executed a huracanrana roll-up for two, which was his big spot of the match. Morton applied the figure-four and Aldis fought to the rope. Morton went for a cradle, it was reversed and Aldis grabbed at the tights for the cover at 11:00.
The match was fine, and it relied on the promos building it up rather than the end-product. I don’t think you could have gotten away with this as the main event of the pay-per-view.
A promo for Villain Enterprises cut into the feed with an announcement that Marty Scurll is showing up at ‘Hard Times’ with a tease that it’s to confront Aldis.
Here is the updated card for the ‘Hard Times’ event this Friday at 7 pm Eastern on pay-per-view:
*Nick Aldis vs. Flip Gordon
*Aron Stevens vs. Scott Steiner for the National title
*Allysin Kay vs. Thunder Rosa for the NWA women’s title
*The Rock ‘N’ Roll Express vs. The Wild Cards vs. James Storm & Eli Drake for the NWA tag titles
*Trevor Murdoch vs. The Question Mark in the TV title tournament
*Dan Maff vs. Zicky Dice in the TV title tournament
*Ken Anderson vs. Tim Storm in the TV title tournament
*Ricky Starks vs. Matt Cross in the TV title tournament
*Semi-finals and finals of the TV title tournament
FINAL THOUGHTS
This was easily the longest episode of the show and I felt that 90-minutes was a long time for this show.
It was a nice build to the pay-per-view, although the big directions of Nick Aldis vs. Marty Scurll, Allysin Kay vs. Melina, Colt Cabana vs. Ken Anderson, and Aron Stevens vs. Ricky Starks that were focused on heavily this week are not being paid off on Friday with ‘Hard Times’ as a bridge for those programs.
Those that stood out for me on this show, as always, it’s Nick Aldis at the top, who is such a key player in the presentation of this show and carries the weight of being the focused-upon performer in so many segments. Allysin Kay has tremendous poise in her role and I think she is one that the national companies have missed out on because her promos have been on display throughout the run on Power and it’s a great asset of hers. Aron Stevens is also great in this comedy role and is fully committed to the bit and plays off the crowd so well.
I expected the main event to have a bigger feel to it, and they tried with Corgan being added to the commentary team, but I felt they never got the match to a point where people were believing Morton could win or coming close the first episode with Tim Storm going for the title one last time. The build-up to that match had been a strong element of Power over the past weeks, so by the time you got to the match, there was a heightened expectation with the work put into it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ9q72-ZqJ0
