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Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling, the promotion founded by Dusty Rhodes, released its Relaunch show on YouTube. This was obviously designed to be a pilot for the promotion, feeling like a mix of old WWE developmental FCW and a reality show where the talents gave some background on themselves with sit-down interviews. As a first effort, it was good and obviously gave you a sampling of what TCW would want a weekly series from the promotion to be.
The majority of the roster were made of Nightmare Factory students, so if you were looking for perfection in the ring, you were, as the song goes, looking for love in all the wrong places. Instead, it was a roster of talents working hard to get reps and improve while finding themselves inside the ring. From that perspective, you had to appreciate and enjoy the show for what it is meant to be - a show that can hopefully help build a talent pipeline to the WWEs and AEWs of the world. These are talents who will get their chances as they mature and improve.
Brandon Benefield and Gerard Bonner were the announcing team and they did a very good job.
Teil Rhodes, listed as Executive Vice President, came to the ring and welcomed everyone to the show at the start. She noted she was excited to be here and said they had a special video for everyone to watch. It was a really well produced video showing material from TCW's original incarnation, including Dusty Rhodes, which always pulls at the heartstrings, interspersed with some of the current TCW talents. The theme was that it was their time to make their mark.
The East Coast Outlaws defeated The Supastarz, Nikki Eight & Tommy Mars, to be crowned the first TCW Tag Team Champions. Outlaws were heels and cheated to win, holding down the leg. The Supastarz were obviously inspired by Motley Crue, playing hair metal babyfaces, even coming out with a guitar and drum sticks. Match was solid tag bout.
Angelica Risk defeated Hyena Hera with a Cross Rhodes to become the first TCW Women's Champion. Hera did a nice out of character interview, explaining how her ring name was somewhat inspired by Bull Nakano, using a fierce animal as her in-ring personality. She came off well soft-spoken, a huge leap from her heel persona when she came to the ring. Risk talked about how she uses her middle name as her ring name, noting that her mother had her when she was 15 and was her mother's angel. Risk used a 505 (619) several times but the story was she shocked Hera with the Cross Rhodes to score the pin and win the title. Solid.
They aired a video package introducing Adrian Ward. This was far and away the best thing on the show from a real, emotional standpoint thus far as Ward told his story of living in a van to afford training at The Nightmare Factory. Pro wrestling was his escape in life after he witnessed his father stab his mother and was taken away by child services before living with his Uncle. Ward noted that his Uncle had passed away two weeks ago but before he did, he left Ward a message (which they played) saying Ward was in the right place and where he needed to be to live his dreams. There was zero way after watching this, you couldn't have wanted to get behind this guy and wanted him to live his dreams.
Aaron Solo cut a backstage promo. He ran down Ward and said he isn't championship material. Solo said that Ward lives in a van but a champion lives in a nice house like Solo does, in the Bay Area. He said he can respect Ward's drive but his sob story about being in a van and sacrificing, that's just professional wrestling. He said Ward can add another sad chapter to his story by failing to beat Solo for the Nightmare Factory Championship.
Adrian Ward defeated Aaron Solo, with a spinning Boss Man Slam, to become the first Nightmare Factory Champion. You couldn't help but be happy for Ward watching this. Solo did a great job here as the heel on top of him and also trying to maximize every second by not wasting time and getting pins, acting like he wanted to win the match, which is a small thing but is lost on a lot of talents today who go out to perform moves instead of acting as if they are in a legitimate competition.
The main event saw QT Marshall team with the "TCW All-Stars" Luther Biggs, Scotty Riggs & Glacier, who all worked the original incarnation of the promotion, defeating Sunny Daze, Owen Knight, Duncan Mitchell & Adam Priest, with Matt Griffin. Marshall was a babyface here. Riggs was in ridiculously great shape thanks to DDP Yoga. The crowd was having a good old time chanting for the babyfaces and doing The Clap with Riggs. Daze challenged Glacier. A lot of this was giving all the legends a moment to shine. It broke down into everyone battling and the referee was knocked down. Griffin got into the ring to interfere but the lights go out and to great fanfare, THE YETI comes to the ring. He delivers Bionic Elbows and chokeslams to the heels. Biggs picks up the win after QT nailed a Diamond Cutter.
Who had the YETI on their 2024 Bingo Card? Certainly, not I.
A good sampler for what TCW could bring to the future.
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