New Wave Pro Wrestling
Rogue Nation #1
April 22, 2021
NWP Arena
Terre Haute, Indiana

Watch: IndependentWrestling.tv

All the matches for this are no countouts and no disqualifications.

The show opens with Earl Joseph, the general manager of New Wave Pro talking about how he’s been inundated by wrestlers asking to fight, leading to the creation of the Rogue Nation shows.

It then cuts to Mad Dog Connelly cutting a promo, where he screams “Dan is dead” over and over. He’s crazy. That’s it. That’s the promo.

We cut again to Connelly waiting in the ring. Eric Dillinger walks out while trash-talking Connelly. Dillinger enters the ring and is jumped by Connelly.

Eric Dillinger def. Mad Dog Connelly

Connelly gets a hot start with a nice spear. He walks into a Dillinger boot in the corner, which sets up a tornado DDT. Connelly tries to throw a chair at Dillinger as Dillinger does a tope, but ED catches the chair and throws it back at Connelly. Connelly is whipped into the corner post on the outside, though the bump doesn’t look very convincing. Dillinger superkicks Connelly as he comes through the ropes for a two. Dillinger hits a solid brainbuster for another near fall.

We get a strike exchange – both of these guys look good at these. This leads into a double down. Dillinger keeps bringing up Dan, which leads to Connelly charging in with an elbow. Connelly then sets up some chairs in the corner and gutwrench suplexes Dillinger into them. Dillinger gets set up on the top rope, leading to a striking battle that Dillinger wins. Dillinger hits a frog splash for the three in 6:34.

After, Dillinger cuts a short promo to the camera.

Solid match. A couple things looked weak – Connelly looked unsure when it came to throwing chairs around. **1/4

Orion Creed def. Anakin Murphy

Before the match, they both introduce themselves to the camera. We start with some chain wrestling. Creed tries a stalling vertical suplex, but Murphy reverses it into a small package. Murphy has a decent running rana. More chain wrestling leads into a DVD tease by Creed, but Murphy slips out, hits a headbutt, and then a Claymore Kick. Creed gets a pop-up GTR for a near fall with the highlight move of the match. Creed again teases a stalling move, with Murphy getting out. This happens again with Creed countering into a nice DDT. None of these spots look bad, but they have done the same counter spot three times now and that feels like overkill in four minutes. They get up to exchange some strikes – this is where Murphy’s looked the weakest, with his forearms.  Murphy gets a two-count off an enziguiri. Murphy hits an X-Plex for a very close near fall.  Murphy gets another enziguiri. Creed takes over with a shining wizard and then a spinning Falcon Arrow, which gets the pin in 5:14.

This was another decent match. Murphy took 90% of the match. Murphy is noticeably skinny, but he looks very young so he should fill out with time. They both looked agile. **1/2

Matt Brannigan def. Adam Rohrgeous & Nick King

We open the match with trade off purple nurples between King & Brannigan and eventually Rohrgeous, with Brannigan liking it. I’m getting bad flashbacks to another gimmick that was notable a couple of years ago. Rohrgeous takes over, beating down Brannigan, hitting a side backbreaker. Rhorgeous has now trash talked about Pop Tarts sucking twice to both guys. A Doughboys-inspired gimmick would be something. Brannigan gets a nice superkick to Rohrgeous. King gets a solid German on Rohrgeous, but then Brannigan hits a shiranui on King for two. Rohrgeous hits a Michinoku driver for two on Brannigan. King and Rohrgeous now start arguing because they agreed to work together and did so for 15 seconds. Brannigan gets a Blue Thunder Bomb on King for the pin in 5:56.

This was probably my least favorite match of the night. Triple threats without any kind of storyline are hard to pull off, and this basically broke down into moves. The work was fine, but this felt rushed and the first minute was comedy that I wasn’t into. *1/2

After the show, Connelly finds Anakin working out in the ring and starts a brawl with him. Anakin gets some space by ramming Connelly into a chair and runs off. Connelly slowly gets to his feet and stumbles after him to end the show.

Final Thoughts

Overall, this was an easy show to watch, clocking in under half an hour and almost all that time is matches. The play-by-play guy is maybe a bit too sedate, but it didn’t take attention away from the matches for the most part, so I appreciated that. There’s no ring announcer, but before each match they had the wrestlers cut about five seconds of a promo to introduce themselves, which is an interesting way to get around that. I would encourage promoters to not do multi-man singles matches that last six minutes in general – it doesn’t really do much to get anyone over.