Wrestlecrap Induction – NWA World champion Tyrus
Let me tell you, as far as being a wrestling booker and public relations strategist, Billy Corgan is a hell of a rock band leader.
Sorry, William Patrick Corgan.
Back when William purchased the NWA in 2017, the TV product he made was kind of fun to watch. Produced on a weekly basis, “NWA Powerrr” was a goofy throwback to the 80s studio wrestling aired on WTBS, and it was even taped in a setting very reminiscent of the former Techwood Studios where Jim Crockett presented wrestling awesomeness for years. Although Corgan didn’t have a TV deal for his “TV show” as such, It had a comfortable setting on YouTube where you could tune in for free and get a solid 45 minutes of wrestling on a weekly basis. The product was presented as a serious deal, and the champion was Nick Aldis, a serious fellow. There were occasional problems due to the difficulty of keeping people from getting poached by better-paying promotions, but I was always willing to give it a look and it was a fun time.
Then came Covid.
Unable to book shows with crowds for a long period of time, the NWA product, such as it was, fell into a long period of dormancy and lost whatever momentum and goodwill they had built up. Well, mostly goodwill, aside from Jim Cornette getting fired for making racist jokes as color commentator, and producer Dave Lagana getting fired as a part of the #SpeakingOut controversies of the time, and Marty Scurll getting fired for somehow being even creepier than the other two. But other than THAT, it was smooth sailing. When they finally returned in 2021, they were depending on a new deal with FITE TV to survive, which meant that fans had to pay a monthly fee in order to watch the shows. For most people, this was a price they weren’t willing to pay. In fact, any price above “zero” was a price they weren’t willing to pay.
But William Patrick Corgan had a plan. You see, he understood wrestling in a way that us common fans don’t, and he knew that the solution would be to bring in the most awful person he could think of and push him as hard as he could, especially if, as a bonus, he was also one of the worst wrestlers of the modern era.
There was only one choice for the job!
Even worse than him, brother.
No we’re talking about Tyrus, the former Funkasaurus of WWE under the name Brodus Clay, who was awful enough that even being a dancing fat guy wasn’t enough to save his job with Vince McMahon.
Like keep in mind that the bar to amuse Vince McMahon is so low that he keeps Ron Simmons in a drawer in his office just in case he needs someone to pop out and go “DAMN!” at any given moment because it apparently NEVER STOPS BEING HILARIOUS.
See what I mean? COMEDY GOLD EVERY TIME.
Thankfully for Tyrus, once he was cut loose from the stuffy world of WWE, he was free to move to Fox News as a commentator and freely express the nutjob right wing views that he had apparently been holding back for years while playing a family friendly dancing idiot. Oh, and as a bonus he was accused of sexually harassing a co-worker once he got there, although the allegations were later dropped because she supposedly lost the evidence. Funny how that happened.
In 2021, he was signed to the NWA and immediately won the TV title, which was enough of a groan-worthy moment for me to stop reviewing and watching the NWA product right then. Watching him try to wrestle was, how to put it, like watching someone pushing a large car up a large hill in order to get it to the gas station because it’s out of gas. But in this case the large car was Tyrus and he was always out of gas and never made it to the station to get refilled. And it was like someone filmed the large car slowly rolling up the hill and then played it back at half-speed and that’s a Tyrus wrestling match for you!
The man gets blown up just having his arm raised by the referee!
So of course in 2022 he won the NWA World title from Trevor Murdoch, in a match charitably described as one of the worst atrocities ever committed to PPV, and he’s still champion as of this writing. You see, William Patrick Corgan decided to explain to fans, in a New York Post interview, that they weren’t real fans of his company if they didn’t want to pay to see Tyrus. Corgan noted that “when Tyrus walks in the door, he brings the heat”. The problem of course is finding a door wide enough to accommodate Tyrus.
Apparently having someone saying awful things and having even worse matches was the kind of old school heat that Corgan remembered from his youth. Perhaps he was confusing Rush Limbaugh with a wrestler?
Regardless, Corgan has claimed that Tyrus going on Fox News and showing off the NWA title on “Gutfeld!” is somehow helping the NWA name due to the exposure, because “he’s not running a charity.”
Perhaps he should, because based on reports he would likely be losing less money that way.