The National Wrestling Alliance will present the 2022 Crockett Cup live on FITE over the course of a two-night event on Saturday March 19th and Sunday March 20th. The event will be held at the Nashville Fairgrounds in Nashville, Tennessee, a former pro wrestling hot spot in the 80’s and the early days of TNA wrestling. It is the sixth iteration of Crockett Cup event and the first event since 2019, as subsequent events were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Six time NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion and Tennessee local Jeff Jarrett is the ambassador for the 2022 Crockett Cup.
The seeding and brackets were announced late Sunday night, early Monday morning the week of February 20th. The matchups promise to be something to see. The first-round matchups are as followed:
1. NWA World Tag Team Champions La Rebelion vs.
16. Winner of Four-Way Match on Night One
8. The End (Parrow and Odinson) vs.
9. Hawx Aerie (Luke & PJ Hawx)
5. Strictly Business (Chris Adonis & Thom Latimer) vs.
12. Gold Rushhh (Jordan Clearwater & Marshe Rockett)
4. Doug Williams & A mystery partner vs.
13. The Ill Begotten (Alex Taylor, Captain YUMA, Jeriamah Plunkett, and/or Rush Freeman)
3. The OGK (Mike Bennett & Matt Taven) vs.
14. The Fixers (Jay Bradley & Wrecking Ball Legursky)
6. Da Pope & Mims vs.
11. The Cardonas (Mike Knox & VSK)
7. Kratos & Aron Stevens vs.
10. Dirty Sexy Boys (JTG & Dirty Dango)
2. The Briscoes (Mark & Jay Briscoe) vs.
15. TBD
There’s quite a few things to digest in the bracket. First off, the match between the #4 and #13 seeds is a complete crapshoot. It was originally going to feature a continuation of the recent reunion of the “British Invasion” of Doug Williams and Nick Aldis. However, Aldis had to pull out of the tournament because of his NWA World Championship contest that weekend against defending Matt Cardona. So now, Williams has a mystery partner card to play which throws a wrench into this whole tournament. NWA President, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan, has given Williams the right to choose his own partner, no substitution will be made for him by the company. At the same time, his opponents have a formidable wild card to play themselves: Think the “Freebird Rule” of days past. Any member of the Ill Begotten (Alex Taylor, Captain YUMA, Jeremiah Plunkett, and/or Rush Freeman) is eligible to compete in this match.
Secondly, the Briscoe Brothers will be competing against an unknown tag team. This where it gets fun to visualize things: Things that would not happen even in an alternate universe, things that make your mouth water in anticipation. If you have paid attention to social media lately, you have surely noticed the war of words between The Briscoe Brothers and FTR (Dax Hardwood and Cash Wheeler). It has taken Twitter by storm, there is heat between the teams, there is history between the teams going back to Ring of Honor’s Final Battle event on December 11th, 2021. This is where Dem Boys were celebrating their win over Matt Taven and Mike Bennett and FTR showed up. A brawl ensued from there. Obviously, I realize FTR isn’t showing up in Nashville the weekend of March 19th, however, the Memphis Territory ran by Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler ran the fairgrounds in Nashville every Saturday night back in the day and FTR does consider themselves to be tagteam purists and wrestling traditionalists. I get goosebumps thinking about it, but it is still just a pipe dream. It’s not necessarily unprecedented for NWA and AEW talent to crossover, but that’s primarily been women’s wrestling.
The third thing to address is how did Mike Knox and VSK get into this tournament? And to top it off, as a nod to their best friend and reigning NWA World Champion Matt Cardona, they are calling themselves The Cardonas. How cool is this? They are in this tournament by association only but because of the heat magnet the NWA World Champion is, it works. People are going to want to see these two get their skulls bashed in.
So far, as of this writing on February 25th, three of the four teams have been announced for the Fatal-Four-Way: The Rip City Shooters (Joshua Bishop and Wes Barkley), The Bad News Boyz (Brandon and Brent Tate) and Violence is Forever (Dominic Garrini and Kevin Ku). Of course, we still have one more play-in team to be announced.
Lastly, OGK. Mike Bennett and Matt Taven have been making waves since ROH Final Battle in December, most notably in IMPACT! Wrestling. They have shown up on NWA Powerrr recently, making a lot of noise there. It is very cool how these guys are stepping out and not just fading away with the ROH sabbatical that is ongoing.
Now that I have listed the seedings, the matchups, and give some background on a few important pieces of information I would like to quickly breakdown the matchups and give my opinion as to what I believe will happen.
Predictions
NWA World Tag Team Champions La Rebelion vs 16. Winner of Four-Way Match on Night One: It really matters not who wins this play-in wrestling match, which I believe will be the opening match of the whole two-night show. They are the number one seed, the NWA World Champions. There is no doubt they advance to Round Two.
8. The End (Parrow and Odinson) vs 9. Hawx Aerie (Luke & PJ Hawx): Both of these teams have gained traction lately. But in recent episodes of Tuesday night’s NWA Powerrr and Saturday afternoon’s NWA USA have really played up the father/son angles with Luke and PJ Hawx. The two even wrestled each other on television not that long ago in an extremely competitive and sportsmanlike contest. I believe, if nothing else than for a proverbial feel-good moment the NWA pushes this duo into Round Two.
5. Strictly Business (Chris Adonis & Thom Latimer) vs 12. Gold Rushhh (Jordan Clearwater & Marshe Rockett): This is where it gets hard to decipher. You have two very awesome heel factions here; Strictly Business (Along with NWA Women’s Champion Kamille) and Memphis Legend Austin Idol’s Idol Mania Sports Management (Jordan Clearwater, Marshe Rockett, and NWA Television Champion Tyrus) and weekly episodes of NWA Powerrr and NWA USA have featured the company pushing every member of both these factions and the two teams involved here. Chris Adonis is the former NWA National Champion, losing the belt at the NWA PowerrrTripp show in early February, and you get the feel like they might continue focusing him more on singles action despite him no longer having a championship, but my gut tells me they are going to push Strictly Business here. Austin Idol’s faction is fantastic, there is zero denying that, but it just feels like they are almost there just not “there” yet. Strictly Business makes it to Round Two.
4. Doug Williams and mystery partner vs 13. The Ill Begotten: I do not really have much to say. The Ill Begotten has been used on TV a little more recently but there has appeared to be times of miscommunication and descension in the ranks between Captain YUMA and the rest of the squad. There is no doubt here. Doug Williams and his mystery partner move onto Round Two.
3. The OGK (Mike Bennett & Matt Taven) vs 14. The Fixers (Jay Bradley & Wrecking Ball Legursky): The Fixers have been great lately. This is going to be a great NWA team down the line. But for right now, they just need to learn how to pose pretty and count ceiling tiles. OGK coming in hot, being part of some serious talk around the business, they are going over. There is no way for the NWA to mess this up. The hype, social media, the story writes itself. OGK makes it to Round Two.
6. Da Pope & Mims vs 11. The Cardonas (Mike Knox & VSK): I really feel like this could be one of those toss up matches. Da Pope has had his own problems with Always Ready Matt Cardona and company in recent months so this would be a some semblence of comeuppance to put his boys down here. On the other hand, The Cardonas are getting that rub from being the World Champion’s boys here. I just cannot see them, with the worldwide exposure Cardona has brought to the Indie scene and elsewhere since his April 2020 WWE release, screwing the pooch here so to speak. Giving this team the win, helps continued heat on the NWA World Champion, especially since Cardona lobbied for this team to be part of the 2022 Crockett Cup. The Cardonas move to Round Two.
7. Kratos & Aron Stevens vs 10. Dirty Sexy Boys (JTG & Dirty Dango): Toss up match again. The crowds really seem to get behind both teams, and technically behind Stevens even though his team is the heels here. But the fans really love DSB…and the NWA has pushed DSB hard on NWA Powerrr as of late. You give the nabyfaces the win, make the crowd happy. Dirty Sexy Boys advance to Round Two.
2. The Briscoes (Mark & Jay Briscoe) vs 15. TBD: I do not care if God and mother Mary step out of the curtain. Unless its anybody other than FTR then the Briscoes make Round Two with ease.
Round 2:
(1) LA Rebelion vs (9) Hawx Aerie: This match interests me. I expect nothing less than an awesome story being told. As I mentioned earlier, the company has done a fantastic job working on building successful roles for the father-son duo in both tag and singles competition. I believe they will have a good showing and come out of this tournament with a little buzz. Even a future program with the tag champions, whomever that may be, down the road. Unfortunately, they are running into a buzzsaw in the NWA World Tag Team Champions. La Rebelion advances to the Final Four.
(5) Strictly Business vs (4) Doug Williams and TBD: I really like this move here as it is a rematch from an NWA USA program at the end of January, minus Nick Aldis. Thom Latimer and Chris Adonis work well together, I love everything Strictly Business touches. They are over, the crowd wants to fucking kill them at every event. But at the end of the day, you got to have some Babyfaces in the mix. Plus, despite whomever the Mystery Man is, Doug Williams is believable enough with his wrestling ability and skill that he can carry a team into the Final Four.
(3) OGK vs (11) The Cardonas: OGK, again, is coming in hot. They will be one of the most over, albeit hated teams in this tournament. I do not see how you don’t book them that way. And then, in my mind, Mike Knox and VSK come in with heat and baggage from being the World Champion’s homies. That comes with a little heat. So, I am very intrigued by this match-up. I think to me, seeing Matt Taven and VSK lock up will be nothing short of amazing. But at the end of the day this is where the sun sets on The Cardonas. It is a nice little run they had here, but OGK was brought into this tournament to help draw and they are just too hot right now with they are run to suffer a tournament lost in the 2nd Round. OGK advances to the Final Four here.
(10) Dirty Sexy Boys (JTG & Dirty Dango) vs (2) The Briscoes (Mark & Jay Briscoe): I have a feeling like this could be a real sleeper match. You have two hot, babyface tag teams doing battle for the right to make the Final Four. I do not have an in-depth analysis off this match here. All I am going to say is that The Briscoes “will do the Briscoes thing” and that means come in, steal the show, and win. Briscoes advance to the Final Four.
Final Four:
(1) La Rebelion vs (4) Doug Williams and Mystery Partner: Tag Team Champions La Rebelion will face their toughest challenge of the tournament so far here in Doug Williams and whoever his partner ends up being. The crowd will no doubt be hot for this, as they have given Doug Williams so much love on NWA Powerrr and NWA USA shows as of late. But this tournament is the Tag Team Champions tournament to lose here, and I do not see them taking a loss. La Rebelion advances to the Finals…
(3) The OGK vs (2) The Briscoe Brothers: This is the match I am probably most looking forward to of the Crockett Cup the most even if there’s not a guarantee that we even get this match. I feel like this will be a great contrast in styles while the potential for hard-hitting action and violence will be off the charts. OGK will give Briscoe’s their toughest challenge of the Crockett Cup so far and vice versa. In the end though, the flame gets snuffed out on OGK’s tournament dreams as we head to a best of the best number one vs number two seed Finals. The Briscoes advance to the finals.
Finals:
(1) La Rebelion vs (2) The Briscoe Brothers: This match will no doubt be a brutal matchup. I can see The Briscoe’s winning this tournament. I really can. But at the same time, the NWA has done nothing but push and support its reigning Tag Team Champions. I could see a swerve where they give the victory to the champions even though the whole premise of the tournament is that the winner receives an NWA World Tag Team Title shot. It is unlikely they go that route but as hot as the champions have been for this company, and they have had nobody better, it is within a ridiculously small realm of possibility.
Other matches on the card include:
NWA WORLD JUNIOR HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP FATAL 4-WAY MATCH:
Austin Aries vs. Homicide vs. Colby Corino vs. Darius Lockhart
NWA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP:
Matt Cardona (c) vs. Nick Aldis
This is shaping up to be one hell of an exciting month for the NWA. Tickets for this even are still available. The show will also be available on FITE.
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