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New Age Dogs Use Old Age Tricks To Retain IZW Tag Team Titles

Posted: Aug 15th 2016 By: CMBurnham

In wrestling, one of the key components is the concept of a feud. Most feuds involve two wrestlers, but sometimes they can be triangular, especially when a title is a stake.

That concept doubles when a tag team title is the prize. And something interesting can happen in a triangular tag team feud that does not happen in a regular feud. Sometimes enemies become partners, at least temporarily.

The IZW Tag Team titles have been held by the Diamond Dogs since March 19, 2016. That day marked the beginning of the fifth title reign for Luke Langley and Graham Bell and is memorable primarily because Damien Morte and Jordan Jacobs both went through a flaming table, with Morte suffering the worst of the injuries. But Jermaine Johnson also suffered some undisclosed injuries and the Dogs were left with an easy run as champions, lacking any established competition.

When Morte healed, he and Rage Loan made it quite clear that they wanted to regain the gold they had not held together for almost 5 years. But an interesting situation presented itself in this scenario. With Johnson sidelined, Jacobs won the 2016 Impact Player of the Year Tournament and made it clear he wanted to win the IZW Title. That left Jermaine Johnson potentially without a tag team partner when he returned to IZW. But Johnson was fully in support of his best friend and instead went back to the past of IZW to revive the most popular tag team from the heyday of IZW.

Johnson reunited with IWR Tag Team Champion Montego Seeka and brought back BLK-OUT.

So now, the Diamond Dogs went from famine to feast as far as challengers to their titles went. And perhaps that made them feel a little uneasy when it came time to defend those belts at Evolution. One-third of the problem for the Dogs was dealt with because Seeka was competing at the IWR event in Shawnee. But that still left Nemesis to contend with. And the Dogs wanted no chance of leaving without their titles. So, sometime prior to the IZW Tag Team Title match that night, Rage Logan was mysteriously attacked and left unconscious and unable to compete. While there was no footage of the Dogs participating in the attack and while they never actually admitted to the deed, it was fairly obvious that this was the dirty work symbolic of the Future Hall of Famers.

So, believing they had no opponents for the night, the Dogs and their manager Shawn McHale came to the ring. But after gloating briefly about unexpectedly having the night off, an enraged Damien Morte came running down the entrance ramp. Morte demanded revenge for his partner and announced that he had no problem with taking them on two-on-one. But that plan was somewhat upset when Jermaine Johnson arrived.

One week prior to this, Nemesis and faced BLK-OUT and Nemesis won in controversial fashion when Morte spit green mist in the eyes of Johnson, blinding him and making it easy to score the victory. While Morte and Johnson could not call themselves close friends at the moment, neither man wanted to see the Dogs unfairly have the night off. So Johnson offered to be the partner of Morte and set aside their differences to try and liberate the tag team titles from Langley & Bell. Morte warily agreed and the match was set, much to the dismay of the Dogs. And for a first time pairing, Johnson and Morte worked surprisingly well together.

But that unfamiliarity with each other would eventually catch up with them and the Dogs would find a way to isolate Johnson. After suffering a significant amount of punishment, Johnson was able to make the tag and all four men ended up in the ring at the same time. Morte attempted once again to utiilise the green mist, but accidentally blew it into the eyes of Johnson, rendering him once again unable to see and allowing the Dogs to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

One week ago, the Dogs once again found themselves putting their tag team gold on the line. But this time the odds were certainly stacked against them as they faced BOTH Nemesis and BLK-OUT in a Triple Treat Match. And after some unpleasant words from Langley and especially Bell which were directed towards the school-age children present for the special Saturday Morning event at the Back to School Bash rally in Lawton, both challenging teams wasted no time in taking the fight straight to the champions. Since this was an outside event, all six men made their way out of the ring and up through the crowd, with Langley and Seeka ending up in the inflatable Bounce House that was nearby at one point.

The constant pressure of two teams taking their frustrations out on the champions certainly seemed to take its toll and even when the Dogs managed to evade competition and try to force their challengers to beat each other up, the Dogs could never let their guard down. Because whichever team got the first pin in a Triple Threat Match won the match and the titles.

But being the crafty competitors that they are, Langley and Bell had one final ace up their sleeves. Knowing that in a Triple Threat Tag Team Match, anyone can tag anyone from the outside in, Bell and Langley ended being the two legal men in the ring and while members of BLK-OUT and Nemesis were preoccupied with each other, And pulling a play out of the playbook of the New Age Outlaws, Langley pinned Bell to retain the titles.

With IZW only having one more confirmed event, the desire for both Nemesis and BLK-OUT to capture those IZW Tag Team Titles increased to monumental proportions. And the Dogs are fully aware of that. September 10th may be the day when the Dogs can finally write their name in concrete as the final, and in their mind, most superior, IZW Tag Team Champions.