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SRPW Championship Spotlight: Cody Burns and Psycho Sawyer

Posted: Nov 5th 2014 By: CMBurnham

The SRPW Championship is the goal that most competitors hope to achieve upon entering the company. But in the past couple of months, two people have made the title the near-exclusive focus of their professional existence. That title continues to be the source of much controversy as both men believe it is their property and should be theirs exclusively.

Recently, SRPW had the opportunity to put on 5 events at the Tulsa State Fair. This gave them the chance to display the best of their talent pool and standing at the top of that list was SRPW Champion Cody Burns. Burns had turned his back on the fans in order to gain the championship from Sam Stackhouse. But by the time that the Fair shows came around, a new challenger had arisen, one the fans seemed to believe was the rightful champion: Psycho Sawyer. On September 2, Burns put his title on the line against Sawyer in the main event of the first Fair event. It appeared that Sawyer was going to capitalise on his opportunity and bring home the gold that many thought should have already been his, but some illegal trickery from Buns allowed the unpopular champion to walk away with his title intact. This would not be the last time that these two would see each other across the ring at the State Fair.

The next night, Sawyer took on Anarchy 2nd. While not the prototypical Heavyweight contender, Anarchy brought a wealth of experience that outclassed Sawyer but the top contender to the SRPW Title overcame and gained the victory.

On September 28th, Burns and Sawyer once again found themselves across the ring from each other, but this time it was in a tag team situation. Burns teamed with Ray Martinez while Sawyer partnered with SRPW United States Champion Paul Puertorico. Martinez and Burns tried to stack the deck even more in their favour by bringing in Martinez's cousin, Tito, but it was all for naught as Puertorico and Sawyer got the pin and Sawyer once again showed why he was deserving of a title opportunity.

The next week, on October 3rd, Burns faced the challenge of Matt Majestic. Again, not the typical heavyweight, but certainly rivaling Sawyer in popularity. The The unpredictable offense of Majestic certainly put Burns on the defensive, but the 2nd-generation superstar knew that he outclassed Majestic in the power game and used that to his advantage, ultimately picking up the win. But that was not sufficient for Burns, who decided to take out some of the frustration from the previous week's loss on Majestic. This brought Sawyer out to the rescue and the powerful strongman quickly ran off the SRPW Champion. SRPW Commissioner Bobby Burns observed all of this and decided that the next night, Burns would once again defend his title against Sawyer. The fans erupted, knowing that one more opportunity would be granted the challenger and that was all he needed to become champion.

October 4th will go down as a very special day for Psycho Sawyer, as it was the day that many say he fulfilled his destiny by capturing the SRPW Championship from Cody Burns. The victory was celebrated by the locker room and it appeared that a new day for SRPW had begun with Sawyer's win.

But that new day did not dawn as quickly as many people believed that it might. On October 12th, Burns demanded his contractual rematch for the title and it was granted. Burns had been very vocal about needing only one opportunity to regain the title, but the talk did not seem to back up the words as Burns eventually found himself on the receiving end of a camel clutch. It appeared that Burns would have no choice but to tap out. But then, Bobby Burns rang the bell and, in a rather unconvincing tone, informed the crowd that the Athletic Commission representative had ordered the match stopped as the submission hold had been classified as a use of deadly force and could not be continued. None of this made sense to the crowd. Bobby and his son had been at odds ever since Cody had turned his back on the fans, but this did not allow Cody to regain the title. However, it did not really seem to help Sawyer either, as it certainly looked like Burns was on his way to submitting the match. A very controversial ending and a sign that things were not done between the two.

On October 25th, Burns once again made it clear that he wanted to get his hands on Sawyer and regain the SRPW Title. This time, he said he had brought someone whose purpose was to injure the current champion: Warhammer. The massive monster stood at Burns' side as they faced off against Sawyer and his tag team partner, Kyle Everlast. From the beginning, it was clear that they wanted to get their hands on Sawyer and injure him and Everlast did his part to try and make sure that did not come to pass. The overwhelming size and power of Burns and Warhammer, combined with the visual distraction of Mable at ringside, gave that team every ingredient needed to come out victorious and that is what they eventually did, with Burns pinning Everlast in the middle of the ring. Once again, this did not seem to satisfy Burns, who wanted to commit an extreme act of violence on someone and the prone body of Kyle Everlast presented itself as a perfect opportunity. Burns and Warhammer targeted the leg of Everlast, pinning it in a chair and looking to break it until Sawyer came to the rescue and drove the dastardly duo away. It seems like an odd choice for Burns and Warhammer to target Everlast that way, but perhaps it was because he had been incapacitated and was an easier target than Sawyer. In any case, a message was clearly sent to the champion that he could be a target at any SRPW event.

With the SRPW Championship laying in wait, Burns is certainly likely to turn up the level of viciousness he is willing to sink to in order to regain that title. Sawyer is not unaware of this and, as champion, is certainly aware that he must be prepared for all challenges. With the past record that Burns has demonstrated in the ring, Sawyer needs to have eyes in the back of his head if he plans to establish a legacy of championship dominance like other SRPW Champions before him.