5 Talking Points From OVW Thanksgiving Thunder 2022

OVW Thanksgiving Thunder 2022, taped at the company’s home base of the Davis Arena, Louisville, KY, on November 22nd (airing November 24th), was an entertaining show from start to finish and displayed well why Kentucky’s favourite promotion has such a fervent fanbase. There was storytelling, big characters, fast paced action, beefy men battering each other and comedy – in fact, you could argue that what OVW is doing now is what Billy Corgan’s current aspirations are for the NWA, except that OVW can be seen as doing it that much better as things currently stand.

Here are the top five talking points coming out of OVW Thanksgiving Thunder 2022!

1. Omar Amir & Luscious Lawrence are your new OVW Tag team Champions

After a three and half month reign of terror, The Fallen are no longer at the top of the tag team tree in OVW. While the reign of D’Mone Solavino & Ronnie Roberts had been a strong one, it would only be so long until Luscious Lawrence, a man who The Fallen had put in hospital, would be back and looking for revenge.

The Luscious One certainly got his revenge here in what was most certainly the match of the night. This was a great old-school tag match with Omar Amir in the ‘Ricky-Morton-In-Peril’ role for the majority. ZDP clocked Lawrence in the head with a tag belt to begin with, sending Luscious to the outside, leaving Amir at the mercy of not only the two members of The Fallen but their cronies ZDP and Shawna Reed as well. Lawrence managed to get back on the apron but Ronnie and D’Mone managed to continually frustrate Luscious by hitting him with a cheap shot or pulling him down from the apron before Amir could make the tag.

Eventually, Lawrence made the hot tag to a big pop and things began breaking down. The Fallen looked to recover but a big Island Time from Omar on Ronnie – on top of D’Mone! – was enough to seal the deal. 1-2-3 – new champs!

The Fallen aren’t going to take this lying down, and I’ll be interested to see if there will be rematches down the line, but this was a lot of fun. Congratulations to the new champs!

2. Mahabali is Your New OVW Heavyweight Champion

Ca$h Flo was the man to beat here. Not only was he able to claim the OVW Heavyweight Championship as his own but he also holds the OVW National Heavyweight Championship as well. I’m sure, however, that was little comfort to him as he went from holding two titles down to just one, courtesy of a certain ‘Indian Lion.’

We’d been building up to this fight for a while, and while Shera is a former National Heavyweight Champion, that belt wasn’t on the line here and besides, Shera had his eyes on the one title he hasn’t held – the OVW Heavyweight Championship.

Ca$h Flo didn’t make it easy for the ‘Indian Lion’, being able to match Shera’s strength and even copying moves as if to say, ‘anything you can do, I can do better.’ Things went further awry for Shera when he missed a charge and ended up connecting with the ring post. Flo went after the arm and cranked away with a cross armbreaker. The spirit and resolve of Shera would not be tamed, however, and he eventually caught Flo in the Sky High to win the match and begin his first reign as OVW Heavyweight Champion.

This was a fun big man encounter and the right time to give Shera the run on top. He has his doubters, but I’m happy to see how Shera’s run will play out. Congratulations to the new champ.

3. Luke Kurtis Avoids Kal Herro

One match OVW fans were anticipating at OVW Thanksgiving Thunder 2022 was Kal Herro getting his hands on OVW Rush Division Champion Luke Kurtis.

However, on the night, Kurtis sent in a video feigning a cough and explaining that, while he doesn’t care about Kal, he wasn’t prepared to make his other fellow wrestlers sick. With that, he sent his lackey Star Rider down to the ring to handle business instead.

Kal wasn’t in the mood to play games and the pair wrestled an aggressive, entertaining match. Rider went for the brain buster but Herro managed to sneak a roll up to take the win. A physical and perhaps moral victory but Rider wasn’t having things end like that. Waiting for Herro to get to his feet, Rider struck with a big running knee to the head and followed up with the double foot stomp from the top rope.

It’s clear a truce between Kal Herro and Star Rider/Luke Kurtis is not going to occur anytime soon.

4. Jack Vaughn Also Does Not Appear

It was supposed to be a triple threat match for the Kentucky Title: Ryan Von Rockit vs. Doug Basham vs. the champ, “The Veteran” Jack Vaughn. But like Luke Kurtis earlier, Vaughn wasn’t there. No, he wasn’t ill; he was in Europe! By videotape, he asked Basham to meet him at the airport to pick him up and said that Basham could handle this match for him. Big mistake.

Before Basham even got in a single tie-up, a frustrated Rockit cracked him with a genuinely hard-looking guitar shot that left Doug out for the count on the mat and resulted in the match being thrown out as a no contest.

Having two champions who were advertised to appear on the show, only for them not to do so, was not a great look, as it swerves the audience without giving them a clear explanation. I do trust that there were legitimate reasons for this, however, and we were compensated by a solid Kal Herro/Star Rider match and a genuine shock in the sudden braining of Basham with a guitar. If nothing else, it keeps the stories going.

5. Jesse Godderz Beats Tony Gunn – With a Little Help From His Friends…

Trust Jesse Godderz to find a way to turn bad odds to his advantage. The idea of a lumberjack match was to keep out interference and to stop Jesse running away from Tony Gunn, who was desperate to get his hands on his ex-partner and dish out some vengence.

‘Shotgun’ did just that, raining down hard fists on ‘Mr Pectacular’, who constantly tried to escape. The babyfaces held no truck with that, sending Godderz straight back into the ring, but the heel side was a lot more forgiving, forcing the face side to come over and protest. As this continued to happen as the match progressed, it led to things breaking down and the two sides getting in each other’s faces.

Tony Gunn made the most of this by diving out of the ring on top of the assembled lumberjacks and Godderz. Back in the ring, it looked like the match was Gunn’s for the taking. But he hadn’t counted on Adam Revolver and Shannon the Dude, the two men Godderz brought out to the ring with him. As Revolver distracted the ref, Shannon the Dude slipped ‘Mr Pectacular’ a pair of brass knuckles, which Godderz quickly used to lay Gunn out and claim the 1-2-3. Never say that Jesse Godderz doesn’t come out with a plan.

A very fun main event, but not one Tony Gunn will be happy with the result of. What is he going to have to do to get a fair match with Jesse Godderz?

I get the feeling we’ll find out very soon…