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Langley Sets Eye On Singles Gold

Posted: Jun 4th 2019 By: Michael Hunt

There are many words to describe Luke Langley.

“Singles Champion” are not two of them.

A top level competitor, Langley has been almost pigeon-holed as a tag team competitor for most of his career. With Graham Bell, the K. C Wolves (or more recently, the Diamond Dogs) were one of the most successful and dominant tag teams in Oklahoma. Voted Tag Team of the Year multiple times in the Oklafan.com Year-End Awards, they held tag team gold in IZW, SRPW & UWE, just to name a few feds.

But a couple of years ago, the operatives from Black Diamond Industries agreed that it might be more advantageous to split their missions and double their revenue. So Bell and Langley, while not breaking up as a team, began to pursue singles goals. Bell has become one of the most well-travelled members of the Oklahoma roster. And Langley has focused on achieving that one goal he has never had: a singles Championship. While Bell held the SRPW United States Title back in 2012, Langley has never been able to add a singles title to his impressive resume.

Recently, Langley has focused his attention in the championship picture of two federations. At BPW, Langley has formed something of a mentorship with BPW Oklahoma Champion Tommy Dean. That partnership has helped to counter the dominance of the Payroll. At the end of April, Brandon Groom was able to win the BPW Lionheart Title from Brian Dixon and Groom knew that he wanted to set the right tone for his championship reign so he announced that he would be defending his title against Luke Langley at the June 1st BPW event. That event opened with Groom bringing out his daughter Sunshine, who was supposed to sing Happy Birthday to her father, but Langley interrupted that celebration to up the ante with Groom. Wanting to prove that he is the best in the state (Something many thought he had accomplished when he beat Jon Cross at the OKX event), Langley challenged Groom to a 2-out-of-3 Falls match for the Lionheart Title. And during the course of that challenge, he mentioned that the BPW Oklahoma Title was also in his sights. This brought out Tommy Dean, who said that if Langley beat Groom, he could have a match for the BPW Oklahoma Title. The thought of capturing two championships certainly lit an extra fire under Langley, who upped his game as he knew he would have to against Groom. With the match tied at 1 fall each, the referee was momentarily stunned when Groom hoisted Langley for the Fall From Grace. This brought Brian Dixon out to try and upset the match, but Tommy Dean was quick to come to his mentor’s aid. However, a miscalculation by Dean resulted in him hitting Langley with a spin kick instead of Dixon. Groom disposed of Dixon and capitalized on the fallen Langley with an O’Connor roll and bridge, retaining the Lionheart Title. Langley’s frustrations began to boil over as he and Dean went nose-to-nose while Dean tried to explain what happened. At the end, Langley went to the back a defeated man, but one who kept his temper in check. But that was not the end of Luke Langley for the night.

The main event saw ASP 5-Star Champion Prince Mahalli make his BPW debut and challenge Dean for the BPW Oklahoma Title. That match would be interrupted by the Payroll, who commenced a gang-style beatdown until Tommy Dean’s brother, Jerry Storm, came to his rescue. The Payroll then challenged Storm & Dean to a tag team match, which assured them that the numbers were still in their favour. But Storm revealed that there was one more tag team partner they knew they could count on and revealed that Thrash had become the latest member of the Payroll to defect after losing to Storm earlier that night. This reunited the Era of Chaos, but still left the match as a 4-on-3 Handicap affair. And then the music of Luke Langley hit and he offered his services as the fourth teammate. Tommy Dean wasn’t sure he could actually trust any of these men to be his partner, but had to set those feelings aside as the 8-man tag was made official by newly restored BPW commissioner C. M. Burnham. And despite their differences, Dean’s team was able to overcome the Payroll and Mahalli and send the fan home happy. But before they left, Langley made it clear that he wanted the opportunity to face Dean for the BPW Oklahoma Title and intended on taking that title on July 27th at the next BPW event.

Even after all that, Langley’s championship opportunities were not done for the weekend. The next day in Oklahoma City, All-Star Pro made their debut in their new venue and the main event was advertised as ASP Champion Johnny Kove defending his title against Tim Rockwell, who was making his ASP debut. But before that match could commence, Langley interrupted the proceedings again. He mentioned the respected Kove and that he was very familiar with Rockwell and while he felt that the match was good, he wanted to make it even better by making it a Triple Threat match. Kove said he was a fighting champion and the match was on. As with all of Langley’s matches, it was full of high-risk moves and high-impact offence. In the end, Kove was able to retain, by pinning Rockwell. Langley once again was not able to walk away with championship gold, but certainly made an impression on the champion’s mind.

Langley is a man of multiple nicknames, one of which is the “One Eyed Wolf”. And like a wolf, he seems to be relentless in his pursuit of this goal. Fans have recently seen that Langley knows no bounds when it comes to achieving his missions and with this one being as personally fulfilling as it is to him, it seems doubtful that Langley will give up on it easily. A singles title is almost guaranteed to come Langley’s way before the end of year. And then there will be new missions to accomplish.