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Are Championship Committments Overwhelming The Man Called Fuel?

Posted: Jun 25th 2019 By: CMBurnham

One of the benefits of independent pro wrestling is that you can go wherever you choose to. You can wrestle whoever you who choose to. And you get to acquire as many titles as you can.

But those can also be drawbacks, especially if you are both a singles and a tag team wrestler. For instance, take UWE Champion Fuel. He is also one-half of The NAW Tag Team Champions with Running Wolf.

But there’s a major difference between being a singles competitor and being a tag team wrestler. And some recent events in NAW now bring to light a big question: Can Running Wolf depend on Fuel as a partner? Let’s look at the evidence.

Prior to holding the tag team titles, Fuel was the NAW Lightweight Champion. He won that title in October 2018 from his brother, Anarchy [2nd] and made regular defences until losing it back to his brother on February 9th of this year. The next month, Fuel and Running Wolf won the NAW Tag Team Titles from Ryan Reed and the Mercenary. But then Fuel was absent for two months, forcing Wolf to compete on his own against NAW Champion Hurricane Ross in April in a non-title match. The pair were back together at the June show in Chewey, but were separated when NAW made its way to Belfonte, OK for a special event.

Fuel was booked in the opening match against Garrett Murphy and arrived in his street clothes, saying he had just spent the week as a mentor at church camp and he was exhausted, but he was not willing to forgo this appearance. Murphy had obviously been hoping for another non-appearance by Fuel and spent quite a bit of time on the outside of the ring trying to avoid the match. Fuel took he fight to him and even though he was a little hampered by the slacks he was wearing, was still able to put the pressure on the former NAW Champion. Sensing an ending he did not want to see, Murphy manipulated the referee so he was standing in front of Murphy while Fuel was behind him. Then, Murphy gave a rear kick to the groin, while blocking this from the referee’s viewpoint. Murphy followed that up with a schoolboy and a pull of the tights and gained a victory against Fuel. Fuel was able to pick up some revenge after the match, but still, he went home with the loser’s share of the purse.

This was in sharp contrast to Running Wolf, who took on NAW Lightweight Champion Michael Duplanti. Both men are time-tested veterans and knew and utilised as many of the tricks as they could. Wolf ended up being victorious after a Superplex, which marks his fourth victory in as many months. In FACT, Wolf has on lost one match since October of last year.

So, what can Fuel’s loss be chalked up to? Exhaustion from non-wrestling commitments? Perhaps. Duplicity on behalf of his opponent? Sure. But it seems like perhaps there is something else. Wolf has been a strong, regular competitor in NAW in 2019. Fuel has not. When he has been there, he usually wins, but he has been gone almost half the year. Are the commitments for UWE getting to him? Obviously, the argument could be made that being a company’s champion is higher pressure than being a tag team champion. More money. More prestige. But being a tag team competitor also requires that you carry a share of the load because your partner is expecting it. Fuel does not seem to be doing that. He and Wolf are fortunate that the tag team division in NAW doesn’t seem as deep as it used to be. But they can’t sit back and expect that to be the case forever. Fuel may be a dual champion right now. But if he is not careful, both shoulders could be missing gold before the end of the year.