5 Talking Points from NWA Nuff Said
The Renegade Twins celebrate winning the NWA Women's Tag Team Championships
The NWA’s Nuff Said PPV has been and gone, a solid show that showcased the workhorses of the Alliance and made a case for why Tyrus should be the NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Whether this show succeeded on that front, Nuff Said was a pretty good show that was very rarely less than entertaining.
Here are 5 talking points from the show.
1. The Tyrus Propaganda Machine is in Full Effect
The crowning of Tyrus as NWA World Heavyweight Champion was controversial, to say the least. The IWC and a proportion of the NWA fam were dubious at best and disgusted at worst. The idea of tradition and legacy had seemingly been disregarded. Nuff Said would be the site of Tyrus’ first title defence. Would he prove the doubters wrong?
While the match with Matt Cardona will likely not change anybody’s mind who is down on Tyrus in the first place, I will say the match was a lot better than I was expecting and while overbooked on the interference side, it was necessary to disguise Tyrus’ limitations and to that end, the match worked.
The match aside, there were two moments that effectively came across as pro-Tyrus propaganda. Of course, the Alliance is well aware of the criticisms of Tyrus, but it was curious that they should have chosen to put out two pretty defensive promos on-air when, on social media, they seem to have leant into the criticism and played up to it.
But not only did Tyrus cut a promo where he put down the ‘1500’ keyboard warriors running him down, but put over the fact that he is seen by millions every weeknight on Fox. Not only that, but Bully Ray got on the mic after the main event and put over Tyrus as being old-school and having worked hard to have got to his position.
Fair enough, the NWA are going to promote their champion positively, of course they are, but this came across a little defensively. If the numbers are true, that this PPV was the NWA’s highest-selling one yet, then the NWA should let that do the talking instead.
2. Bully Ray is Likely Tyrus’ Next Challenger
Bully Ray was not supposed to get involved in the main event. However, when Rolando Freeman and Mike Knox ran in, Bully came down to even the odds. This cleared the deck for Tyrus to get the win over Matt Cardona.
Afterwards, as mentioned above, Bully Ray got on the mic and put Tyrus over, saying he respected the champ for the hard work he had done to get to the Championship. Tyrus seemed surprised by the compliment but revealed he respected Bully Ray in return. That led to Tyrus saying that Bully Ray could have a title shot whenever he wanted, before reminding Bully that the pair are not friends.
That suggestive last line seemingly indicates there are going to be some twists and turns in this story and that one man is going to turn on the other. Perhaps Tyrus will revert back to heel mode after seemingly facing it up during his feud with Cardona. Perhaps Bully will feel disrespected and attack Tyrus. In any case, I think Bully will be a good foil for Tyrus. Both men can talk, and Bully can still get physical and pick up a lot of the slack in the ring. I’m certainly intrigued.
3. The Renegade Twins Are Your New NWA Women’s Tag Team Champions
The only gold to change hands at Nuff Said, the NWA World Tag Team Championships found new owners in The Renegade Twins, who beat the now-former champs Pretty Empowered to take the straps.
While the match was decent enough, the result is indicative of two things; 1) the NWA recognises that The Renegade Twins are great workhorses and will put on some excellent title encounters as champions; and 2) Pretty Empowered have improved a lot and are over enough that they don’t necessarily need to hold the titles to be over and have a position on the card. I think overall it was the right decision, and I think we’ll see some rematches between the two teams in the near-future.
Congratulation to the new champs!
4. Kamille Takes It Coast to Coast!
The No DQ match between NWA World Women’s Champion Kamille and Angelina Love was perhaps one of the most anticipated bouts scheduled for Nuff Said, and the pair didn’t disappoint in what was ultimately the match of the night. Kamille demonstrated how much she’s grown as a performer over her 616 days (at time of writing) as Champion by going toe-to-toe with a seasoned veteran like Angelina. The rough-and-ready fast-paced start, with Kamille jumping Angelina from the audience whilst wearing her street clothes, set the tone, and there were some hard bumps being taken throughout. Check the spear through the table above!
Perhaps the most talked about spot from the match will be the moment Kamille took to the air. It’s very rare you see Kamille take to the turnbuckles, so when she does it stands out. It certainly stood out here, as Kamille didn’t just pull out any old aerial move – she landed a massive coast-to-coast onto a prone, trash can-holding Angelina in the corner, booting the metal right into the challenger’s face. That a woman Kamille’s size can land the move is impressive as hell, but she executed it really well; she definitely made contact!
It’s moments like that which ensure Kamille continues to develop and that we will continue to talk about her for a long time.
5. Kratos Bleeds The Hard Way
If the women’s title fight was the match of the night, then the meat-slapper between Kratos and ‘Thrillbilly’ Silas Mason was a close second. The pair battered each other in a physical war that I didn’t want to end. But it was the ending that will perhaps be the moment we will be talking about for a long time to come.
Earlier in the bout, Kratos had taken off the top turnbuckle in one of the corners. It was obviously done to set-up Kratos tasting the steel later – swap Chekhov’s Gun for Kratos’ Turnbuckle – and indeed that was how it played out except for one thing: I don’t think Kratos was supposed to bleed like a stuck pig.
It’s hard to see on the video how it exactly happened – perhaps part of the buckle was sticking out or Kratos hit harder than he meant to – but The Most Feared quickly became The Most Bled as the claret gushed out at rapid speed, pooling queasily on the ring mat.
Referee stoppage soon followed, as did stitches for Kratos (and bizarrely, Silas covering himself in Kratos’ blood and – yuck – licking his own bloody hand). But you can’t take away from the fact that they had a hell of a match.
Fight forever? Sounds damn good to me. Just don’t cut each other, ok?