Basler’s Blog
by Al Basler
Out With the New and In With the Old?
On the latest edition of New England Championship Wrestling, Johnny Thunder defeated “Juicy” Justin Corino to capture the NECW Television Championship. While we’ve seen a new side of Thunder over the last few months, we saw a glimpse of the old Johnny Thunder in this match. Before we get to that, we do need to set the stage.
If you recall, on the prior week’s episode, in his semi-final match, Thunder scored a victory over “Sensational” Scott Levesque. But after the match, Levesque ambushed Thunder and did serious damage to his arm. Thunder headed into the finals at far less than 100%, while his opponent Corino, had picked up an easy win against Nick Fahrenheit, relatively speaking.
Corino took full advantage of Thunder’s injury and dominated much of the match. As the match wore on, and Corino couldn’t put Thunder away, the frustration began to mount for the New Jersey native. That frustration turned to carelessness and gave Thunder the opening he needed. The veteran Thunder hit a double-leg takedown into a cover and, with the help of the ropes for leverage, got the 3-count to win the championship.
After the match, with Corino in the midst of a temper tantrum, the new champion had some advice for his adversary: “Cheaters never win.” Adding insult to injury, if you ask me. Now, I don’t doubt that if Corino had the same opportunity that Thunder did, he would have taken full advantage of the situation in the same manner that Thunder did. You can’t argue that, at least on this occasion, Corino has a legitimate claim to being robbed.
Reaching into his old bag of tricks, it’s clear that Thunder is still willing to do whatever he feels is necessary to get the job the done. Maybe the injury to his arm and the stakes of the match resulted in a desperate man resorting to desperate measures. While you can’t really condone the blatant breaking of the rules, you can maybe understand why Thunder resorted to it. The question that needs to be asked is this: Was this a case of desperation or a return of the old Johnny Thunder? We’ll have to see what path the new Television Champion walks from here.