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Another Title Successfuly Hunted Down By The Gentleman

Posted: Jun 19th 2014 By: Michael Hunt

For quite a while, Jake O'Brien has functioned under the name ?The Title Hunter?. It was a nickname he adopted while in SWCW and it seemed to prove prophetic as he soon became SWCW Champion after using it.

Another nickname Jake uses is ?Gentleman?, as he considers himself a 21st-century aristocrat. This name has become much more controversial, as O'Brien used to be a soft-spoken fan favourite, but en route to capturing gold in OWA and ComPro, a distinct attitude change came over O'Brien and it now appears that personal gain is all he is concerned about.

The first vestiges of this attitude change came in April in OWA, when Jake faced Brian Breaker in a Title-vs-Career match. A few months prior, it appeared that O'Brien had won the OWA Title, due to interference from Brian Breaker. But upon seeing the tapes of the match, O'Brien did a very gentlemanly thing and returned the belt to The Canadian Red Devil because he did not want to acquire it in such a tarnished fashion. Breaker would eventually defeat CRD for the title and O'Brien faced Breaker in a 1-on-1 match that Breaker won. Frustrated, Jake announced that he would put his career on the line for another shot at the title. If he didn't win, he would be done.

When the day of the match came, O'Brien joined OWA Commissioner C. M. Burnham in the ring. O'Brien ran down a comparison of his qualifications to Breaker's and said that there were opportunities that Breaker had that he had not had yet. But he planned to take advantage of this match in order to gain those opportunities. Fans were expecting a solid match and while O'Brien admitted to being somewhat concerned, he tried to remain confident stepping in against Breaker with so much on the line. But shockingly, when the final pin took place and O'Brien won the title, it was because he grabbed the ropes to secure some extra leverage. And then, in a move that blindsided both Breaker and the fans, O'Brien took the championship belt and blasted Breaker in the head with it. O'Brien left the arena with his newly won title, but without the support of the fans that he came in with.

O'Brien's fall from favour with the fans of ComPro has already been partially documented in another article as he betrayed his partner Jonah Turk during a Lego Death Match for the ComPro Tag Team Titles against The Brotherhood of Mayhem. Since that time, O'Brien made it clear that is sole focus was ComPro Champion The Canadian Red Devil. One little hiccup in that plan was that, at ComPro's May event, rookie Nathan Estrada upset O'Brien, partially due to outside activity from CRD. CRD arrived at ringside and shoved Estrada's valet Chelsea into the ring. As the referee went to help Chelsea out of the ring, CRD snuck in and delivered a ChoadBuster to O'Brien. Estrada then rolled O'Brien up and gained the pin. It looked like CRD had the best of O'Brien, but after the match, in a surprise return, Richard Pierce came from the back. O'Brien and Pierce had no previous encounters with each other, but Pierce made it clear to O'Brien that he had a 100% foolproof plan to beat CRD, if O'Brien agreed to take him on as his manager. O'Brien accepted and the championship match on June 7 became much more interesting.

Pierce could hardly wait for June 7 to come around and when all the participants came to the ring, Pierce tried to convince CRD to just forfeit the match so he wouldn't get hurt. He said there was no shame in losing as ?all the people here are losers to some extent.? None of that was acceptable to CRD and the match was on. Partway through the match, referee Steve Shotzman got knocked out. O'Brien grabbed the belt and hit CRD in the head with it, but by the time the ref was revived he could only make a 2-count before CRD escaped. CRD returned the favour to O'Brien as the referee was still dazed, but the result was the same: another 2-count. As Pierce and Shotzman argued, what appeared to be a fan in an I