Yeah, I kinda fast fwd'ed through everything after the 1hr mark until I got to the main event and I couldn't help but watch that.

So they put Ricky Starks over for the TV Title. Blah.

Pretty surprised to see that Thunder Rosa went over and won the title. Now I wish I could have seen that match, but man it seems like this was the wrong time to pull the trigger on a title win. No real idea what the thought process on this sequence was either:
1. Rosa gets pin in tag match, gets to pick opponent
2. Melina interrupts her and makes her pick a non-title match
3. A couple of weeks later, Melina gets her a title match
4. She wins title match

There was just no real build toward this match even happening at this show, let alone it suddenly being the spot for a title win.

Relieved to see that Scott Steiner didn't win Aron Stevens's belt at least.

Shooter Stevens.

I did not enjoy this PPV at all.

The good:

Murdoch vs Maff was ok.

Alids vs Gordon. I'm not a Flip Gordon fan but this was a good match and easily best on the card but nothing outstanding.

The tag match wasn't that great but it was fun and I like the angle of Kamille helping Drake/Storm win just so RnR Express didn't.

The bad:

Everything else.

It's 2020 and Trevor Murdoch just wrestled 3 matches on PPV including the main event. That's wild. He worked his ass off and you have to give him props but it wasn't pretty.

Also 3 matches of Ricky Starks going over including clean over Storm and winning a belt. I guess they see Starks as their homegrown young star but I just don't see it. He does nothing for me and this major showcase of him did nothing to change that.

Went through the exact same thought process as LKJ when Rosa won. The match wasn't great either, no storytelling, no real flow and a lot of botches including the finish. I'm kind of interested to see where they're going with this but the title win seemed so empty and really felt like the wrong time to do it. I've always thought Allysin Kay was a great heel and an awful face so hopefully they do some sort of double turn in the future but nothing in the match hinted at that.

Steiner and Shooter was absolute garbage.

I ended up checking out the replay. I actually liked the women's match a lot and thought it was maybe the best NWA match since Powerrr began -- they got about 20 minutes and outside of a couple sloppy overambitious exchanges everything was really good and it felt like both were trying to win and beat the crap out of each other. Kay impressed me more here than she has in her other matches and Rosa is obv great. It was weighted down a bit by a questionable story and Rosa being miscast as a heel -- she celebrated with Melina and Marti after and it just felt like her title win should have been more of a babyface coronation. But purely in terms of what they did in the ring, I liked it a lot.

Nothing else on the show really seemed above the level of Powerrr to me. Poor Tim Storm got hung out to dry by Ken Anderson no-showing (apparently Corgan might be pissed at him for doing something with Impact which would be great since I think Anderson has been a net negative on the show) -- he lost his first match to Ricky Starks fighting his second match and there was a weird spot where he hit his finisher and just didn't pin him. Starks doesn't do tons for me but I can see why they want to push the only potentially cool young guy they have.

Gotta tell you, this doesn't sound that bad to me. Obviously it would be ludicrous in other companies, but Murdoch and NWA is a pretty great marriage.

Hopefully this isn't seen as spoilery by the participants ITT, because I do avoid spoilers as much as possible, but since it was publicly posted and surely will show up this Tuesday...



Hell ****ing yes. Stoked to see Mooney in the NWA.

Ep. 16:

*I don't know if I ever learned the name of the last interviewer, but he was good. Happy to see Mooney, but I hope there's still a role for the last guy. (This feels inherently backhanded since I never bothered to know his name, but it's sincere all the same.)

*Not one of Aldis's strongest promos. He's great 90% of the time, but this was in the meh 10%.

*I'm enjoying what they're doing with Royce Isaacs.

*Err...I'm not super hard on botches, but that botch at the end of the Rosa-Kay match at Hard Times was pretty rough. It almost looked like Rosa was unsure whether she should go ahead instead of audibling into another finish that didn't suck.

*Thunder Rosa is nothing special on the mic, and honestly her gimmick lends itself to being one of those who shouldn't talk that much. The promo with her group was fine, but I again disagree with the route they took this burn toward a breakup between Rosa and Melina.

*Alright cool, the guy whose name I don't know is still around. Just when I was finally enjoying a Ricky Starks promo, he calls out Zicky Dice? Oof. I still liked Starks's mic work here. Not a Dice fan, but since the segment was setting up an immediate match I'm not mad at it; makes sense to give Starks a nice win to kick off the new title reign.

*Eli Drake and James Storm are great fun together. I can't help but think they're gutting their upper midcard by focusing them on the tag team division, but this company has shown a willingness to have team members do significant solo stuff too.

*I prefer the thought of Trevor Murdoch as a champion more than Aron Stevens as a champion. However, I don't think they should have him lose a tournament final for the TV title and then turn around and hotshot to a bigger belt within a couple of weeks.

*Not surprised that I'm saying much nicer things about Aldis's closing promo than I did about his opening promo. He is so ****ing good at the sit-down stuff. This whole last segment with Scurll was tremendous, and I think I'm immediately sold on buying the Crockett Cup.

Strong episode. I don't have a whole list going or anything, but of the 16 episodes of Powerrr I'm pretty sure I would put this one in the top four.

I thought this was really good too. Not much actual wrestling but I liked pretty much everything and it felt way more focused than some recent efforts.

Zicky kind of clicked with me this episode and I think he's good as a very annoying heel who mouths off and loses.

The Kingston/Pope segment was weird in that they seemed to just edit together a video package of a match instead of showing it (maybe it was botchy or something) but it clarified that storyline a lot.

The women's promo was strong. Melina is finding her groove as a heel and they are at least aware that Rosa is a babyface and are still moving towards that.

Aldis/Scurll stuff was great. As good as Aldis has been, this is really his first big title storyline on the show since the Tim Storm stuff has been off and on and the James Storm/Flip Gordon matches felt like they just kind of happened. Looking forward to this build a lot.

Ep. 17:

*The Tim Storm promo started off okay - though I could do without him trying to fight his way back into the world title picture when he lost that match in Ep. 1 - but I would like to permanently disassociate myself from anyone who enjoyed the Mama Storm nonsense. Trash.

*Trying to sell the replay of Hard Times by showing the end of Kay vs. Rosa when they're rematching for free tonight. The marketing people at NWA sure are earning that cabbage.

*Matthew Cross vs. Caleb Konley was struggling to get my interest at first, but it definitely got there for me. Good match. **** every fan who started an "NWA" chant at the end.

*What a fire promo from Eddie Kingston. Pope with the Dawsons makes a lot more sense than Pope with Kingston/Homicide. I'm not familiar with the Bouncers, but they have a terrible look and I'm immediately skeptical that I would like them.

*What in the blue **** was that May Valentine segment? Never do that again.

*I like Stevens and Murdoch both, but that match was not good. And the ending promises a rematch. Meh.

*James Storm and Eli Drake are fun, but I'm afraid I require some mic work if they're going to appear. If we can't get mic work, we should at least get a match that doesn't feature a referee in a man-bun.

*The Kay-Rosa match is announced as having "TV time remaining." Also the match starts a minute after the top of the hour. What is the time limit on this match? Anyway, good match to close the show out. They haven't followed a path I would choose for her face turn, but I'm still into the story.

Decent episode overall. Nothing special at all, but not bad.

Didn't have much to say about last week's ep except that the new theme is horrid and doesn't fit the show at all. Maybe just a matter of musical taste but man I hate it.

Ep. 18:

*I wish they had kept the "Into the Fire" theme, as the new one is much less to my liking. The visual part of the intro has improved though.

*So The Bouncers are an ROH tandem? And they're basically playing babyface against an NWA team in an NWA arena? Meh. It's striking how relatively svelte they make the Dawsons look when face to face. I wasn't hot to watch this match, but it was very solid.

*Where the opening tag pleasantly surprised me, Thom Latimer vs. Tim Storm was disappointingly dull. It feels like they've lost the string a bit with Tim Storm recently. The fake Mama Storm remains one of the most painful things they've done.

*Starks vs. Cross was okay. Difficult to get invested when I never bought that Cross was drawing live. IMO, just let Starks prevail on that last near-fall in the final minute; with that hard-fought of a battle, Cross still comes out of it fine, and it keeps away from this business where a match making it to the final minute ends up feeling like an inevitable draw.

*Interviewer doesn't mention Melina's name; Marti Belle rages at him and tells him not to say Melina's name. The Kay/Belle dynamic since Belle's heel turn has consistently been pretty weird. This was not a situation where Andre walks out and challenges Hulk for the title to turn heel; Belle physically blindsided Kay. Kay taking the high road just looks weak.

*Melina vs. Steelz was half-decent from a storytelling standpoint, and I did like the post-match promo. Melina was never great in the ring and has clearly lost a step from her peak, but I'm still absolutely in for her match against Thunder Rosa next week.

*I really wish Rock 'n Roll dropping the titles would have marked the end of them being this much of a focal point, but here we are. Main event tag match was whatever. Want them to dial the Rock 'n Roll stuff back a lot.

Episode wasn't terrible, but it felt awfully forgettable.

It's definitely a downgrade. It just sounds like pointless noise to me and I don't have same level of negative reaction, but I'm not a fan.

I decided to shrug and take a pass on Circle Squared. Someone tell me if I'm somehow missing out.

I wish they would quit scheduling weeks off from Powerrr in the middle of their seasons.

Another bullshit bait-and-switch ending.

They know exactly how to get me to quit a product. I'm not done yet, but they seem to be working on it.

Incidentally, since I had wondered about this:

Randomly watched the women's part of The Circle Squared tonight. The stuff with vloggers giving their opinion is really bad but otherwise it's a fun showcase of up-and-coming talent and a good idea for them to possibly unearth stars. Both women on the show showed more potential than some that are currently in WWE or AEW.

https://www.nationalwrestlingallianc...rr-live-events

To no surprise, Crockett Cup is off. I was counting on there being more episodes in the can, but at the moment it sounds like they're at least having to go into heavy editing mode, and there isn't going to be any episode tomorrow because they don't want to create marketplace confusion. No idea if that means they're just out of episodes in general until they can tape more content.

They dropped Kamille's in-ring debut on YouTube. Seemingly from the episode they yanked from airing when the COVID outbreak put them on hiatus.

Mixed feelings about the post-match vignette. Was inclined to be negative about it, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it at all.

Does Billy Corgan have any wrestling instincts aside from “promise something interesting at the end and then refuse to deliver?”

He teases an exciting announcement regarding the future of the NWA at the conclusion of a 90-minute show; the announcement is, “well, obviously we can’t bring wrestling back right now, but next week we’re going to debut a show that I can’t actually attempt to describe.” Great stuff, Billy.

Marty Scurll hasn't really adapted well to the studio setting with his promos. Seems like he's shouting everything. He's been really good in the past but nothing he has done lately has really impressed me too much.

Kamille needs a lot of work in the ring, she seems a little dangerous. I did like the package building her up though, she's definitely got something intriguing about her. If she can polish up her ring work she could be awesome.

I like the women's triple threat, just hope it's not being used to take the belt off Rosa because I think it would be way too earlier.

The guy that Tim Storm beat up for playing Mama Storm is a very unpleasant man.

Yeah Corgan thing at the end was lame.

My reaction to the Kamille video package - which they did release a few weeks ago along with her match, just those two things without the larger episode - was roughly the same as my reaction to when they ran that video package on Thunder Rosa pursuing her MMA dream. It was well done, and I enjoyed it, but I feel like its primary consequence will be to cause more of a babyface reaction for Kamille. Obviously they just ended up letting Rosa's face turn take its course, but I don't necessarily get the impression they would want to do likewise with Kamille right now. Rosa and Kamille are/were the two stars of their women's division that had a superhuman/otherworldly thing about them, and it just feels like humanizing them comes with its costs.

Agree that the triple threat setup was good. I'm only supportive of triple threats if there's either a credible booking reason that the champ should be functionally punished by being put in that situation, or if the champ can believably be written to ask for it. In doing the latter this time, I thought they did it believably, and I look forward to the match whenever they'll give it to us.

At least Billy's thing at the end - obnoxious as it was - did offer some hope that NWA won't ultimately be a total casualty of this pandemic.

Looks like they've got a cooperative deal of some sort with AEW. As much as I didn't care for the ROH crossover, I'm just glad we're getting some signs of life and indications that NWA's reboot isn't going away.

I can't exactly tell what this is, but I'll definitely tune in next Tuesday to check it out.