• Look Back In History
• Pmessages
• Quiz
• Stump The Staff
• Top Fifty
• Close

Oklafan Predicts: Jermaine Johnson Will Be The Man To Restore Prestige To The MSWA Oklahoma Title

Posted: Sep 25th 2009 By: CMBurnham

With a lineage that connects to OPW, OCW & TPW, the MSWA Oklahoma Title has one of the longest heritages in the state. It's a belt that has been around the waists of such Oklahoma performers as Michael Faith, Outlaw and current MSWA Mid-South & IZW Champion Aaron Neil. In earlier incarnations, Rocco Valentino held it a record 7 times and other men such as Red Eagle, Anthony Jackson and even Brent Albright all laid claim to it.

Given that kind of pedigree, you would think that the belt would be honoured and defended regularly. You'd also think that a one-year title reign with this belt would be an impressive feat.

On both issues, you'd be mistaken. Because, to be perfectly honest, the treatment of the MSWA Oklahoma Title over the past year has been akin to the treatment that the overflowing trashcan in the corner gets. It's ignored, it's dumped on and finally it's thrown out.

And this is really a shame, because the title deserves better. And now that it's in the hands of Jermaine Johnson, it will get better treatment.

That's right. Even though Johnson is one of the most hated men in MSWA, he still shows the potential to be a better champion than any of the last 3 men to hold that belt.

Over a year ago, the Oklahoma Title came into the posession of the Midnite Rider, a mysterious masked man who appeared at the same time that MSWA owner Bad Boy was forced to leave the company when he lost a Loser-Leaves-Town match to Outlaw. That proved not to be the case as Bad Boy and the Rider both competed against Outlaw in a Triple Threat Match for the title, which the Rider won. But the MSWA Board of Directors announced that there was no way to prove that the Rider was the same wrestler each week, since he refused to unmask and reveal his identity to them. So he immediately stripped of the belt and on June 1st, Bad Boy def. Aaron Neil and Outlaw to become champion.

This brief hiccup of a controversy seemed like nothing more than a footnote in the title history and Bad Boy continued his feud with Outlaw after being reinstated to the company. It seemed like Bad Boy was settling in to begin defending his belt against all comer. And at first, that was the case. But after facing Outlaw on June 8, Bad Boy wasn't seen again until July 20. He made two appearances in a row, defending the belt against Ronnie Storm on August 3, then disappeared again for two months. On October 26, he faced Xavior for the title. And once again, he took time off until December 12, when he put the belt up against Brock Landers.

Most federations would have stripped Bad Boy after the first disappearing act, due to the 30 day rule. But MSWA seems to have either a 60-day rule or a very loose enforcement of the 30-day rule. It's unclear exactly what the deal was. Perhaps, since Bad Boy owns the company, he was simply allowed to do whatever he wanted to as champion and no one could question him. Whatever the issue, when 2009 began, he seemed to be back on track, defending against Brock Landers, Xavior and current SWCW Hardcore Champion Maniac Mike.

Then, on April 5, after a successful title defence, Bad Boy disappeared. For 2 months, he never showed his face. Matches were held to determine #1 contenders to the belt but the champion never appeared to defend it. June 1, 2009 came and went, marking the one-year anniversary of Bad Boy's title reign. And it was absolutely meaningless, because he hadn't defended the belt in two months. Finally, on June 14, MSWA comissioner Outlaw had no choice but to strip Bad Boy of the belt (something he should have done months earlier, in my opinion). A decision was made to hold a Gauntlet Battle Royal to determine the new champion. And when that match was over, the new champion was Ky-ote Joe. This was something of a surprise, since Joe had only competed in MSWA one other time this year. But he had been a regular face in 2008, winning the Lethal Lotto tag team tournament, so it wasn't as if he came out of nowhere.

Ironically, one of the participants in that Battle Royal was the former champion, Bad Boy. Funny how he could show up to try and reclaim the belt, but couldn't be there to defend it for over 2 months.

Once again, it appeared that the belt was in capable hands and would soon be defended with prestige and honour. But in his three months as champion, Ky-ote Joe made exactly TWO appearances in MSWA. In the first of those (on July 26), he tagged with IZW Tag Team Champion Montego Seeka to advance in the tournament for the vacant MSWA Mid-South Tag Team Titles by defeating Austin Tacious and Xavior. In the other appearance(on September 20) , he lost to Jermaine Johnson. That means that, like Bad Boy before him, Ky-ote went 2 months without defending the title.

I'm sure that a lot of you are probably wondering about the title of this article. How, you might ask, can I claim that Jermaine Johnson will restore prestige to this belt when he had to rely on outside assistance from T. M. S. to win it? Very simple. Ever since Jermaine joined Impact, Inc., he's been at EVERY MSWA show. Even on September 20, when Johnny Z was off accepting the Humanitarian of the Year award from the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, Jermaine was there. And to be honest, on this particular date, it would have been understandable for him not to be there. The night before, he and Monteego Seeka had sucessfully defended the IZW Tag Team Titles against Revolution in the first-ever "Three Stages of Impact" Match. A standard match, followed by a Falls-Count-Anywhere Match, followed by a Submission Match. All four men put their bodies on the line for that one, but Jermaine had no problem showing up to add to his collection of gold.

And THAT is why Oklafan says that Jermaine Johnson will be the man to restore prestige to the belt. Because he is willing to show up and do what he does best to prove that he is one of the top stars in the state. Under the old conditions, just being the MSWA Oklahoma Champion would have been enough to do that. But with the shoddy treatment of that title over the past year, it will take someone special to overcome the reputation the belt has. Hopefully, Johnson can do just that. But trust me when I say that you won't see him shying away from the spotlight and hiding with the title for months at a time.

-----------------------------------

And now, some editorial comments...

I never use this site to voice my personal opinion. I like to let the articles speak for themselves. The closest I get to personal opinion comes with the formation of the Oklafan Top 50 and my staff and I get a year's worth of headaches in a month after that one, which is why we only do it once a year.

But the inspiration for the article above comes from personal frustration at watching people who obviously don't care walk around with belts and diminish their importance.

A lot of people give me a lot of credit for things that I don't deserve. I don't know "everything" about pro wrestling in Oklahoma. To be honest, I know less than just about anyone in a locker room when it comes to how the business is supposed to work. But I do understand that if you are given a belt, you are being given a responsibility. It means the promoter or booker has faith in you that you can carry a front postition with the company and represent them. They trust you. They rely on you.

For over a month, I've watched this belt get shit on. Maybe I take it personally because of the ties it has to Tulsa wrestling. As I said at the beginning of the article, you can trace the lineage of the title back to OPW, when Jimmy Kane won it in 1997. In 12 years' time, I have never seen anyone treat the title with the disrespect that I saw over the past year-plus.

I've heard rumour that Bad Boy was preoccupied with matters concerning his night club. I have no idea if that was true. If it was, why couldn't he just be man enough to step forward and say, "I can't show up to my own federation right now and I need to drop this title?" Why couldn't he just do the right thing?

I thought it was a very odd choice to put the belt on Ky-ote Joe. On one hand, it gave a Native American the Oklahoma Title, which is appropriate in some respects. But Joe had only been in the federation one other time this year. What about guys who had been around more regularly like Xavior, Tyson Jaymes, The Canadian Red Devil or Dexter Hardaway, just to name a few? Does their loyalty mean nothing? Even then, I still could have accepted Joe as champion, but he flaked out the same way that Bad Boy did. There's no other way to explain it. On at least two occasions, Joe found a way to make it to the IZW show in Lawton on Saturday, but couldn't manage to find his way to MSWA in Midwest City on Sunday. Still, I'll give him credit for showing up to drop the belt, rather than being stripped of it like the owner of the company.

Now, please don't misunderstand me. I know that things happen. Problems come up, life gets in the way. And I'm willing to understand those circumstances. For a fed that only runs every other week, I think having a stated "60 Day rule" is smart as it gives you more flexibility to build the programmes and feuds and also allows for when champions or contenders are unable to make it due to illness, emergency, etc. But if you are booked on shows outside the state on days when you should be defending your title, there's a problem and it needs to be addressed.

I'm sure there will be several people who will want to contribute their two cents to this, call me a mark for a belt or some other such thing. Let me just try to sum things up this way: if you, as the performers, stop caring about things, the fans will stop caring about things. And the federation goes down in the dump. If you want the fans to believe that the belt is important, that the title holder is someone important and that they should pay attention when he comes out to put that belt on the line, then you've got to treat it as such. And that's my main concern here, that you're doing the fans a disservice by not having the respect to show up and make the belt something important.

If you have something you wish to say in response to this, the contact button is located to your left.

Tags: OPW, OCW, TPW, MSWA, Michael Faith, Outlaw, IZW, Aaron Neil, Rocco Valentino, Red Eagle, Anthony Jackson, Brent Albright, Jermaine Johnson, Midnite Rider, Bad Boy, Ronnie Storm, Xavior, Brock Landers, SWCW, Maniac Mike, Ky-ote Joe, Montego Seeka, Austin