Thank you, Brian Zane, for that wonderful line from your Worst Of 2023.
And yes, it fits.
So, for those who need further context, the above shot is taken from the aforementioned NWA Samhain PPV that took place last October and in case you need further clarification, that is indeed the Sinister Minister himself, Father James Mitchell, doing some of the coke live and in barely living color on Pay-Per-View. It served no real purpose in context to the rest of the show and in a vacuum, it was something that made you go “Why is that even a thing?”
So you’re probably wondering “Why is this even a thing?”
Well, you see, shortly before this PPV took place, Billy Corgan had announced that he reached a deal with the CW Network to air the weekly NWA Power show (as well as another show) onto their TV network, which seemed like a pretty big step forward to them. And then the spot above happened, someone posted it on Twitter, and all of a sudden, the CW were signing a deal to bring NXT over to the channel, while the NWA stuff was relegated to the CW app, which is almost as bad as having to watch two AEW shows on a shitty TSN app.
So yes, because of that spot, the NWA went from going on TV to being stuck on another app that fewer people use… but to label this entire show as god awful because of this one spot is being a bit unfair. After all, this show had plenty of other reasons that it sucked. And the few who did give the show a fair shake even went so far as to call it as bad if not worse than Heroes Of Wrestling from 1999.
That, my friends, is a bold statement.
So I am not afraid to admit that it’s been a good LONG while since I’ve touched anything involving the NWA as of late. Aside from this show, I’ve got one other NWA PPV that I’ve yet to watch and I’m wondering if I should even bother if THIS is the sort of thing I should expect. So because I’ve not watched much NWA as of late, I’ve had to resort to pulling up results from other places to figure out who’s who in these matches, as well as try to figure out exactly what the fuck is going on here. When a show is so bad that you had to look ELSEWHERE to understand the mess you were watching on screen, it’s a time for a massive overhaul.
In any event…
NWA Women’s Television Champion Max the Impaler, Alex Misery, Judais and Magic Inc. defeated Gaagz the Gymp, Koa Laxamana, Sal the Pal and Magnum Muscle – try and figure whether these names are supposed to be wrestling gimmicks or some mishmash of shitty horror names that weren’t good enough for an ASYLUM mockbuster – in a Devil’s Last Dance Ultimate Hardcore War… which, according to Sinister Minster James Mitchell – our host for the evening – supposedly has no rules, but apparently, this is a tag-team match of sorts and… dude, I’ve been looking up multiple accounts and recaps of this show trying to figure out just what in the Sam Hain is going on in this match and none of them – NONE OF THEM – could shed some light. So you’ve got a bunch of people with silly names doing a bunch of silly shit… and the whole thing becomes such a clusterfuck that it gets hard to keep up with what’s going on. Even my buddy – who actually followed the NWA stuff and keeps up with this stuff – had no clue what this match was all about. Great; now try and figure this out from the perspective of someone who ISN’T watching this show. Fucking atrocious.
And let me be clear on something. I did NOT get into this show expecting to hate it. I am not wasting my fucking time or money on something that I expect to get nothing out of. Even if I dive into something that I think is going to suck, I expect to get SOME semblance of entertainment value out of this. So while this match started this show off on the wrong foot, I wasn’t quite willing to write this show off after just ONE horrible match. I’d need a few more horrible matches to get that far.
Rush Freeman defeated Brady Pierce in a Loser Leaves Town Match… and apparently, Freeman’s brother is the ref, which results in lots of favoritism and such. Hey, at least the crooked ref isn’t afraid of showing off his bias here and Pierce trying for some comeback actually made this fun for a bit… and then Matt Cardona shows up, hits everyone with a chair, pulls Freeman over Pierce’s body and makes the three-count until the other Freeman bro’s limp hand… hence why I call this a “defeat” in quotations… though, if I’m going to offer sage advice to Pierce, he should consider this a win and ply his trade elsewhere. He’d probably be better off.
And so Matt Cardona grabs a mic and calls out Billy Corgan, who comes out and the two start having a verbal spat before Kamille shows up and whacks Cardona with a chair. The whole thing is supposed to come across as a shoot of sorts – that is, everything on this show is fake except for THIS – and I couldn’t help but laugh at this whole thing. Whenever they try to do this worked shoot business, it comes across as so phony and so fake that I just roll my eyes at the whole thing. This whole deal is just silly and I’ve no real interest in seeing where this goes. Two matches in and this show has put me in a sour mood.
Still, I hold out hope that something good would come out of this…
NWA Junior Heavyweight Champion Colby Corino defeated Joe Alonzo in a Pillar to Post Match to retain the title. A Pillar To Post match is apparently their fancy way of calling this a Falls Count Anywhere match… so why not just call it a Falls Count Anywhere match? At least I’d know what to expect. Other than the goofy stipulation name… hey, you know what? This was a fucking great match… and I don’t mean that in some “lowered bar” sort of manner. I mean I thought this was pretty damned good. Both guys were crazy talented, people seemed to be into them… credit where it’s due. These guys practically pulled this show out of the gutter through sheer force of will and I thank them for that. I just hope that they’ll eventually find some place where their talents could be better showcased, because this show isn’t doing them proper justice.
The Southern Six (Kerry Morton and Alex Taylor) defeated The Headbangers (yes, THOSE Headbangers of WWF Attitude Era fame) in a Rock ‘N Roll Match… which basically meant that every time your opponent kicked out, you had to take a shot… so this was basically an excuse for the Headbangers to get drunk… Look, I’m sure that Morton and Taylor are talented dudes and they were capable of far better than this… but this match was a sloth to get through. The joke was killed long before they took the first shot and I was just bored sitting through this stuff. Even the worst of the Attitude Era wasn’t this bad… actually, I take it back. Some of that stuff is actually worse and I speak as someone who actually lived it. Next.
NWA National Champion “Thrillbilly” Silas Mason defeated Chris Adonis in a Burning Lake Brawl to retain the title… not much of a brawl and really, I think they just pulled that name out of their ass to avoid calling this a straight wrestling match, which is mostly what this was. Apparently, both guys are heels and nobody knows how to react… well, that’d be one way of putting it. That having been said, the match wasn’t really all that bad, but a lack of reason to care might’ve hurt it a bit. Still, I’d give this a solid thumb in the middle… it’s the best I could offer at this point.
Violent J and The Brothers of Funstruction defeated Vampiro and La Rebelion in a Riddle Box Match… okay, so they have a bunch of boxes out there and each box has a bunch of stuff inside… lightsabers, bags of popcorns, dolls, balls, rubber chickens, stuff like that… and apparently, this shit is supposed to be funny. This is supposed to be violent yet HIGH-larious… and it’s not. And look, I like goofy shit. I like hardcore shit. I even like me some garbage wrestling… when it’s actually good and entertaining… and this is not. This match sucked. It’s actually one of the absolute worst things I’ve seen in the last 20 years at least. This may actually be worse than anything that came out of the WWE dregs of the 2010s. This might actually be WORSE than the infamous Iron Sheik/Nikolai Volkoff vs. Bushwhackers match at Heroes Of Wrestling. YES, IT’S THAT DAMNED BAD!
In a way, I’m glad to have witnessed this match… actually, you know what? I’m glad to have witnessed this entire show because I didn’t think that I would watch a PPV this year that was the absolute drizzling shits and not only did this show surpass that expectation, IT MANAGES TO OUTDRIZZLE EVERY OTHER FUCKING DRIZZLING SHIT SHOW THAT I’VE LAID MY EYES UPON. This was the absolute dirt worst show I’ve witnessed in all my years of watching this business and I’ve seen some truly terrible shows in my time. If someone offers you a copy of this show on DVD or VHS or whatever, TAKE THAT MEDIA AND BURN IT! THIS IS FUCKING HORRIBLE!
And you know what the worst part about all this is? There’s still more show…
Fuckin’ hell.
NWA Women’s Champion Kenzie Page defeated Ruthie Jay in a perfectly acceptable wrestling match to retain the title… and I feel so sorry for these two ladies because they had to follow THAT. On the bright side, Kenzie Page seems like a good talent and deserves a good run someplace else. It’s hard to get too excited about this match because, even with my limited exposure to recent NWA, this feels like a match that would’ve been better suited on TV and Jay never felt like a threat to Page. Still, a perfectly acceptable wrestling match may as well be as a six-star classic compared to everything else on this show, so I will take it.
NWA Tag-Team Champions Blunt Force Trauma (Carnage and Damage) defeated Mike Knox and Trevor Murdoch in a “Knights Of The Round” Table match… which is, indeed, a fucking table match… to retain the titles. I do like that the only way to win is to put your opponents through round tables; it’s not a huge thing, but it’s at least SOMETHING unique from the usual tables match fare, which is what this was. Other than that… eh, whatever. It’s not terrible despite the outside interference from masked men and little people. Not as bad as THAT FUCKING THING, but still, I was hoping for some UPWARD momentum towards the final stretch of this absolutely dreadful show.
NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion EC3 defeated Thom Latimer in a No Limits Match to retain the title… no limits meaning no DQ. I like the Latimer/Kamille get-up paying homage to Macho Man and Elizabeth… even Kamille isn’t quite as timid as Liz and that’s putting it mildly, but otherwise this was a more than serviceable main event that ended with Cardona running in and hitting Latimer to give EC3 the pinfall win and perhaps setting Cardona up as the next challenger. Well, that’d be interesting if nothing else, but after watching this show, my hopes are not high.
And that was NWA Samhain 2023… without question one of the worst wrestling shows I’ve seen in my whole lifetime. Actually, scratch that. This is THE worst wrestling show I’ve ever seen. Worse than December To Dismember 2006. Worse than any of the worst TNA or WCW shows I’ve seen. Worse than anything involving The Fiend – sorry, but I’m not backing off my belief that anything involving the Fiend sucked. And yes, I’ll make this bold statement right here and right now as someone who actually saw the Heroes Of Wrestling PPV when it aired on PPV back in 1999 – this show is WORSE than Heroes Of Wrestling… by several country fucking miles. I never thought that would be possible, but here we are.
This show left a bitter taste in my mouth. Sure, there were a few bright spots to be had here and there, but this was a case where the low points were so monumentally horrid, it practically nullifies what few highlights this show had. And the sad thing is that when all is said and done, the only thing that this NWA Samhain is going to be known for is the one coke spot that got killed off a potential TV deal and got a Gooker Award as a result. Let me tell you folks something; if THAT’s the only thing you care about, you could probably find the clip online if you look hard enough. There is NO REASON WHATSOEVER that anyone should waste their time on this pile of shit.
Fucking atrocious.
Where the fuck is that Cornette Face?
Nuff said.
POSTSCRIPT
So the NWA had announced their next PPV, which is the fourth annual edition of their Hard Times show. This was supposed to take place on March 2nd. Eventually, it was downgraded to a supercard that would air over several episodes of Power on that CW app that is used by fewer people than those who actually bought this PPV, which is apparently somewhere in the lower 200s. Good job there, Billy!
dtm666 