Stu Bennett added to the NWA commentary team, updated PPV lineup

General
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Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/12/03/stu-bennett-added-to-the-nwa-commentary-team-updated-ppv-lineup/

NWA aired its final episode of season one on Tuesday night featuring several news announcements for the ‘Into the Fire’ pay-per-view on Saturday, December 14th.

The show ended with Nick Aldis announcing that Stu Bennett (formerly Wade Barrett in WWE) will be joining the broadcast team replacing Jim Cornette at the pay-per-view.

Joe Galli thanked Jim Cornette for his contributions in their acknowledgment of his departure from the company but did not go into the details surrounding the exit.

Cornette was featured on the show on commentary with Galli for the two matches and a post-match celebration with The Rock ‘N’ Roll Express.

The show was built around The Rock ‘N’ Roll Express defeating Thomas Latimer & Royce Isaacs to win the NWA tag titles. The match only went four-minutes but Cornette did a strong job of going over The Express’ history and made the title change feel significant. Cornette stormed the ring to celebrate with The Express after the match.

They added a rematch between the two tag teams at ‘Into the Fire’.

The only other match featured Aron Stevens defeating Ricky Starks to receive a National title shot against Colt Cabana. Stevens faked a knee injury allowing The Question Mark to attack Starks behind the referee’s back and Stevens recovered to steal the pin. It will be a three-way at the pay-per-view involving Cabana, Stevens, and Starks.

Finally, Nick Aldis and James Storm selected referees for the first two falls of their 2/3 falls match on December 14th. Storm selected Brian Hebner while Aldis chose Tim Storm and they will flip a coin if they go to a third fall.

Aldis’ promo selecting Tim Storm and explaining why Storm is receiving the title match was the best thing on the show. Aldis shines in the role of world champion and is among the top speakers in the industry this year.

Here is the card for the ‘Into the Fire’ pay-per-view on Saturday, December 14th:
*Nick Aldis vs. James Storm in a 2-of-3 Falls Match for the NWA title
*Colt Cabana vs. Aron Stevens vs. Ricky Starks for the National title
*The Rock ‘N’ Roll Express vs. Thomas Latimer & Royce Isaacs for the NWA tag titles
*Allysin Kay & Ashley Vox vs. Melina, Thunder Rosa & Marti Belle (they will choose two members of Team Melina for the match)
*Mr. Anderson vs. Eli Drake
*Trevor Murdoch vs. The Question Mark

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Bad news Barrett? Is he doing the same
Gimmick?

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Does anyone actually watch Powerr for the actual in-ring. I think people watch it for the promos.

Granted it’ll be a lot different for the PPV but will it seem like a different product.

Nick Aldis must be on the radar of WWE and AEW.

Granted they are not in TNA anymore but sure Aldis hasn’t forgotten that James Storm threw Mickie James in front of a train lol

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I watched it for JC at times. He’s gone now so less reason to watch

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This last episode was really good, it tied up a lot of odd loose ends with the James Storm and Nick Aldis promos. Both guys did a great job with their promos.

The stipulation of picking your ref added some intrigue to the main event. This was a huge improvement over last week’s disaster of an episode.

Aldis is clearly the MVP not signed to a major company…he’s gonna be able to cash some big cheques eventually. He looks physically great, he dresses the part, he has gravitas that few have when he talks (he makes every word mean something).

Like someone mentioned above, let’s see how the PPV delivers when they’re not doing 7 minute basic TV matches. I hope it’s a great show, this is a really creative and different show and I wish them the best.

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Interested to see how Bennett does. I think they’ve built the main event pretty well and I’ll be watching.