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Is 2019 the Year of Langley? “Smokin’ Ace” Captures Ryder Cup

Posted: Jun 17th 2019 By: CMBurnham

At the end of May, 2019, Luke Langley made it clear that he had his eyes on the BPW Oklahoma Title and the ASP Title, both of which would be his first singles gold in his 8 year career.

This past weekend, Langley put the WFC Hometown Heroes Title in his sights as well.

Black Diamond Industries’ top two agents, Langley and Graham Bell, were 2 of the 16 men in the 5th annual Ryder Herring Memorial Cup Tournament. Both men had been entrants in the Ryder Cup before. In 2015, Bell had defeated Ray Martinez to advance to the semi-finals, where he lost to Aaron Anders. Last year, Langley won his first round match over Duke Swellington, but came up short in the semi-final fatal 4-Way Match to current MSWA eXpree, EmpCW and WFC Champion Double D.

When 2019’s brackets were revealed several interesting notes could be taken from them, but the one that many fantasy bookers keyed in on was that Bell and Langley were in opposite brackets and that the tournament could potentially come down to both of them. Still, that was just one potential outcome and tournaments such as these seem almost impossible to predict given the talent involved.

Bell was the first of the Diamond Dogs to make his way to the finals, defeating El Fuego del Sol in a highly competitive match. Fuego relied on his aerial tactics, while Bell did everything he could to keep Fuego grounded. Ultimately, Bell caught Fuego with the Heart Grenade and pinned him after about 10 minutes of action.

Langley then faced off against Matt Durden in a strong contrast of Styles. But in addition to Durden, Samedi was lurking at ringside as well. Much of Durden’s game plan relies on his unpredictability and the psychological warfare he enjoys employing, but Langley was not put off his game by that and was able to pin the leader of the Sideshow to go on to round two. That infuriated both members of the Sideshow, who then began a post-match beatdown until Bell came to the rescue and helped his sometime-partner out. But damage had been done as Langley suffered bruised ribs in the attack, making him less than 100% going into the next day.

Both men did what they could to recover from the events of Night One of the tournament because the semi-finals of Night Two involved two Fatal 4-Way matches. Luck of the brackets saw Langley having to compete first against Curt Gannon, Brandon Walker and Dimitri Alexandrov. All four men had their moments to shine and at one point, Langley and Alexandrov formed a temporary partnership to compete against Gannon and Walker. But there can only be one winner and that ended up being Luke Langley, taking one more step towards winning this tournament. With his semi-final match over, Bell’s match occurred and the “Soldier of Misfortune” found himself in the ring with Brawler Morrison, Tommy Dean and Gemini [2nd]. Dean’s presence in this match was especially ironic since Langley had mentioned that he had taken Tommy Dean under his wing and established a mentor-relationship with him. If this provoked any sense of jealousy from Bell, that didn’t affect Bell’s approach to the match. This match was quite brutal, spilling out to the area around the ring and giving some of the fans a much closer view of the action than they expected to see, especially when Morrison used his body to launch against the others on the retaining barrier. In what could best be described as a war, a soldier is usually wanted and that is the role that Bell fulfilled, gaining the win and advancing to the finals.

And at that point, a match that only happened once before in Oklahoma was set to happen again as Graham Bell and Luke Langley were going to face each other 1-on-1 in the finals of the Ryder Cup. No matter who lost, Black Diamond Industries had won. And this may actually have been the problem in the finals for Graham Bell. In his mind, the mission was accomplished and before the match began, he spoke to his partner/opponent backstage saying that. The tone of his voice indicated that the finals were going to be more of an exhibition than anything else. But for Luke, this was much more personal. For almost 18 months, Luke had engaged in wars with men like Double D, Colt Killbane and Aaron Anders. But many have suggested that the build-up and match against Jon Cross forced Langley to go to a place that he had never been mentally before in his career and perhaps he never fully returned from. Langley was serious. Langley was focused. Langley was determined not to let this opportunity slip through his fingers again.

Obviously, if two tag team partners who have been partners for 8 years like Bell and Langley have, face off against each other, it’s going to be difficult for either to capitalise and catch each other off-guard because they know each other so well. And this was very apparent as the final match saw counter after counter evasion after evasion. What it also saw though, was a hesitant Graham Bell. A Bell who would set Langley up for something he would have no problem following through on against any other opponent, but would hesitate on with Langley. And even as the match progressed and Bell came to understand that Langley was determined to walk away with his hand raised in victory, Bell still found it difficult to put everything he had into the moves being executed against his best friend. Langley had no such remorse. Langley shoved all that emotion down. And it’s possible that when Langley was looking at Bell, he was seeing Jon Cross. At one point towards the end of the match, he even executed the same combination of moves that allowed him to beat Cross at OKX. But Bell wouldn’t be put down by that either and Langley found himself locking in the Keywork. Bell refused to submit and Langley fell back, grapevining his legs around the torso of Bell, immobilizing him in the middle of the ring. Even that wouldn’t bring an end to the match, but repeated kicks to the back of Bell’s head knocked Bell unconscious and the referee stopped the match and awarded the victory to Langley. And by winning the Ryder Cup, Langley now has an opportunity at the WFC Hometown Heroes Championship whenever he wants it.

After the match, Langley took the microphone and expressed admiration for both Bell and WFC Hometown Heroes Champion J. D. But he also made it clear that his next mission was to come for that HTH gold, no matter who had it. Many have suggested that at this point, there is no better wrestler in the state of Oklahoma than Langley. He just needs the singles gold to prove it. And perhaps, before the end of the year, he will have THREE pieces of singles gold (or even more?) to celebrate the Year of Langley.