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Chains & Knucks Are A Thug's Best Friend

Posted: Oct 14th 2008 By: CMBurnham

Are they a championship calibre team? Absolutely. Are they the best tag team in the state? Some are calling them that. Can they win a match without using a foreign object? Based on this past weekend, it seems the answer to that is a resounding "No".

The subjects of discussion here are ComPro Tag Team Champions The Gentlemen Thugs. Long believed to have all the tools needed to dominate the Oklahoma wrestling scene, they don't seem content with just holding one title. So last month, at the initial MWA event, they challenged Southern Tag Team Champions The Old School Express for those titles as well. They were not victorious that night, although they did defeat Jason Jones & Jake Boulder the next night in a non-title match. This past Friday, Shane Morbid & TAP Champion Cast-Iron Cothern met up with the Express again, but this time it was in singles competition.

The first pairing saw Cothern square off against Jake Boulder. The tall lanky champion took "The Mucker" to the distance until Shane Morbid threw Cothern brass knucks, which he used to knock Boulder out and gain the win.

Later in the show, the other pairing got into the ring and it seemed like the fans were in a time warp as once again, after a hard fought match, the knucks became the item of interest. Cothern threw it to Morbid, who knocked Jones senseless and Morbid got a 3-count. But this time, right after the referee had finished and the bell had sounded, Boulder ran down with another referee. He frantically explained what had happened at the end of the match to the assigned referee, then both refs backed Morbid into a corner. The backstage ref then proceded to stick his hand far down Morbid's tights, looking for the knucks. And he found it, drawing loud protests from Cothern, but to no avail. The referee reveresed the decision and awarded the match to Jones by DQ. But that wasn't good enough for "The Space Cowboy". He took the microphone and said that if they wanted to use knucks, he wanted to make it legal, so he proposed an "Old School Butt Whoopin' Match" for the November MWA event. The Thugs seemed a bit reluctant, but when faced with the possibility of facing an enraged Old School Express that very night, they agreed to get a month to prepare and went back up the ramp.

Both men were involved in the 12-man Over-the-Top-Rope Battle Royal to determine the #1 contender to the MWA Title, but neither won. That honour went to 3rd generation star Max McGuirk. Cothern chose to take the next afternoon off, but Morbid was booked for the W4CW event in Okemah, where he faced off against perennial nemesis El Super Colibri. As is often the case in their matches, Colibri's speed and agility kept him alive for a while, but the power, size advantage & ruthlessness of "Mr. Endurance" proved impossible to counter and Morbid got the win.

Saturday evening, The Thugs proudly entered Sheridan Avenue Christian Church with their tag team gold and their manager Boss Campbell. Campbell said that the only reason they came back to ComPro was because owner Mike Two promised them a real tag team to face off against. Cothern said that the titles didn't mean anything to them, they just wanted to hurt people. In FACT, they would rather be in California, but Mike Two paid them a lot of money to bring the titles back and put them on the line. Mike Two had obviously prepared well, because he brought in a huge surprise in the form of The Hot Shots, Chase Stevens & Cassidy Riley. The former TNA superstars had reunited and certainly were not even on the short list of teams that Campbell & Cothern were expecting to face, but they were not going to waste the opportunity. They addressed the crowd and put over their accomplishments, then set to work against the champions. Even thought it had been almost 6 years since Stevens & Riley had tagged together regularly, they showed no rust as a unit and took the champions to the limit. Eventually, the Thugs were able to isolate Riley and work him over, but after a lenghty time stuck away from his partner, he made the tag and Stevens took over, cleaning house on both men. With Cothern on the outside and Boss Campbell tending to him, Riley gave Morbid a Death Valley Driver and pinned him. The crowd erupted as Stevens took the titles, gave one to Riley and stood triumphant in the ring. But it all ended like a balloon too close to a sharp pin. Referee John the Encourager saw a chain sticking out of the back of Riley's tights (planted there by Morbid). Even though he had not seen it used, he drew the conclusion that the Hot Shots had done so and immediately reversed the decision, awarding the match to the Thugs and returning the titles to them. Despite the chants of "Rematch" by the crowd, the Thugs quickly chose to retreat out the front door, once again running scared from confrontation.

The Thugs can't completely rest on their laurels though, as they are scheduled to defend their belts against former champions New Canada on October 25 at ComPro's Halloween Bash.

Tags: ComPro, The Gentlemen Thugs, MWA, The Old School Express, Jason Jones, Jake Boulder, Shane Morbid, Cast-Iron Cothern, Max McGuirk, W4CW, El Super Colibri, Boss Campbell, Mike Two, Chase Stevens, New Canada