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Double D: Duped and Dumbfounded

Posted: Dec 4th 2010 By: CMBurnham

The growing ire between Dustin Daniels and MSWA Mid-South Champion Johnny Z seems to have taken new steps and the crafty veteran appears to be showing just how fearful he is of the young opponent. Perhaps it's because Johnny knows Dustin presents the biggest challenge to him. Perhaps because Johnny is jealous of Dustin's popularlity. Or perhaps there's something else. Whatever the reason, Johnny has had to resort to the mind games he knows so well to get the upper hand on Double D.

For several weeks, Johnny had cast distraction on his issue with Dustin by focusing on the newest member of Impact, Inc., Jordan Jacobs. Jacobs hadn't won a match in IZW since September 18, when he defeated Dustin Daniels. As the losses grew, Johnny appeared to grow more and more frustrated, publicly berating Jacobs and making threat after threat to eject him from Impact, Inc. On November 20, it seemed like Jacobs had received his final chance as he was put in a matchup with Angel Williams. Johnny told him that if he didn't win he would be fired. Faced with a huge size deficit as well as a lack of experience against "The Widowmaker", it came as no one's surprise that Angel came out with a win in the opening match of that card. The fans pleasantly expected that it would be the last they ever saw of Jacobs, but that wasn't to be the case.

The next match saw Daniels receive a shot at the IZW Impact Division Title against Wage. It seemed that Dustin had the champion on the ropes when video appeared on the Zorthotron 420 showing Johnny & Jordan backing Erica into a corner. Dustin immediately ran to his gf's rescue only to be attacked by the combined Impact, Inc. pair. The "firing" had all been a ruse and Johnny was still congratulating himself when the show opened on November 27. Johnny & Jordan came out before Steve O could make his usual introduction and said that the previous week just showed how dumb Daniels was. Johnny would never fire his "ace in the hole" and Jacobs had proven that he was the only person willing to rid IZW of Daniels. Video once again appeared on the Zorthotron showing Dustin Daniels arriving at the arena and immediately Daniels' music hit. Daniels bolted to the ring and began pummelling Jacobs. Johnny protested, saying this was supposed to be his time. As punishment for Daniels' actions, he was to face the undefeated Jesse White later in the show.

IZW Co-Commissioner Sam Helton then arrived and said that week after week, Johnny's behaviour became more and more bizarre, but last week's actions against Erica were downright unprofessional. Sam wanted to book Daniels and Jacobs in a match against each other this night, but Johnny made that impossible. So, Jacobs instead would face Eric Rose. Both Johnny & Daniels remained at ringside for this match, each trying to counter the other while the two men in the ring strived to gain a win. Several times both men had the other pinned, but Daniels or Johnny would distract referee Mark Wilson, resulting in the pin not being counted. Eventually the tension began to boil over between the two rivals and while Wilson tried to keep them seperated, Jacobs rolled Rose up in a small package. But Erica then ran down from the back, slid in the ring and rolled the small package over so that Rose was pinning Jacobs. Wilson returned to the ring and counted 3, giving Eric Rose the win. And it appeared that perhaps things weren't as solid between Johnny & Jordan as originally thought as Johnny once again verbally abused him, eventually piefacing him as they went up the ramp.

The next day, all these players were at the MSWA event and the games between Johnny & Dustin continued. Impact, Inc., with La Reina de Corazones in tow, interrupted the Old School Corner segment as Tom Jones was interviewing IZW Tag Team Champion Kevin Morgan, who was trying to get some straight answers from his fellow IZW Tag Team Champion and MSWA Oklahoma Champion Xavior pertaining to his actions the previous show in the 6-man tag main event. Johnny said that the fans were there to see wrestling, not a remake of Brokeback Mountain. They don't care about Morgan's "relationship status" and if they did, they could just "go watch Dr. Phil". Morgan, growing more and more irate at the verbal baiting, told Johnny to "put up or shut up". And at that point, Daniels arrived. Although Johnny had power in IZW to prevent Daniels from touching him or else he'd be fired, those rules didn't apply in MSWA and Daniels ran straight for Johnny, but Jacobs interceded, blocking Daniels from making contact.

Johnny could see that he had no chance against the fired up Daniels and screamed for MSWA commissioner Shawn McKeaigg, who arrived and said that all the emotion in the ring had touched him on a personal level. As a result, he announced that the main event would put Kevin Morgan together with Xavior and they would face Dustin Daniels & Johnny Z. Both teams seemed surprised, especially Johnny Z, who protested all the way to the back.
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When the time came for the main event, Morgan & Xavior arrived seperately. Daniels came out next, but when Johnny Z strode to the ring, he was still dressed in his street clothes. When he got in the ring, Johnny said that he wasn't complaining previously about having to team with Dustin Daniels. He'd been "carrying this company for months", so he could certainly "carry" a partner like Daniels. What he was concerned about was that he had a knee injury which had not properly healed and while he fought through the pain at the previous show, he was not able to compete this night. So McKeaigg replaced Johnny with Jordan Jacobs, which didn't make Daniels feel any better. And then, to make things even worse, Johnny said that he still wanted to contribute to the match, so Shawn appointed him as the special referee. In what should have come as no surprise, Johnny slow-counted anytime that Jordan was pinned, selling the knee injury as the reason why he was slow to get in position. But when either Kevin Morgan or Xavior were pinned, the pace of the count was decidedly faster. And if the fans were hoping for tag team continuity, they got none from either side as even the members of Awesome X were reluctant to tag with each other and Jacobs and Daniels had obvious problems dealing with each other. But with Johnny obviously favouring Johnny Z, even Xavior had an issue with that as he and Johnny engaged in shoving contests on two occasions. The second one saw Johnny shove Xavior backwards into a schoolboy rollup by Jacobs, but Xavior was able to escape by 2. Xavior & Jordan ended up double clotheslining each other and that was when the turning point came. Xavior made the tag with Kevin Morgan, but Dustin Daniels dropped off the ring apron, refusing the tag with Jacobs. It certainly seemed like the only person in the match who was on Jordan's side was Johnny Z. As the match continued even Dustin began to cheer for Xavior and again short-armed his "partner". But as Kevin Morgan was going for the tag at the same time, Xavior unexpectedly did the same thing. Jordan got to his feet and tried to connect with a bicycle kick on Morgan, but Morgan sidestepped and Jordan connected with his boss's chin. Johnny was knocked out and Kevin quickly hoisted Jordan up for a powerslam. Dustin then ran in the ring, dragged Johnny's prone body over and slammed his hand 3 times on the mat, counting the pinfall.

While Dustin would love to get his hands on Johnny Z, the IZW owner has gone out of his way to make that almost impossible. Johnny has taken himself off the active roster in his own company so Dustin's best hope seems to be to get a one-on-one match with Jordan at Chaotic Christmas. Additionally, the issue of reclaiming La Reina still hangs over him in MSWA. While IZW Champion Jermaine Johnson wasn't present at the last MSWA show, Dustin certainly hopes that a match between the two of them will be signed soon as well. But it seems at this point that, while Dustin may have been able to achieve some short-term success, unless he's willing to compete at the same dark level as Impact, Inc., long-term wins may be out of his grasp.