Oriental Wrestling Entertainment
– After the recently announced international talent search by OWE, the first performer to be venturing to China has been confirmed to be Buffa. Buffa has a track record in Xhina, having performed initially for king of Pro Wrestling (KOPW,) he went on to also work matches for Gao Yuan’s We Love Wrestling (WLW,) and Middle Kingdom Wrestling (MKW.) He will arrive in China a few days before his March 16th debut, and I will have further updates on his time in China as it develops.
Buffa has a track record working for Pro Wrestling Zero-1 in Japan and was a strong player in the foundational years of modern US indie wrestling under the name K-Pusha, in the tag team “All Money Is Legal.” He will bring a wealth of experience and charisma with him to OWE. Of particular interest, to me, is the fact that Buffa will be, by my count, the foreigner to have worked for the most Chinese Pro Wrestling companies in the scene’s short existence thus far.
– Additional information has come to light about OWE’s “Road to Double or Nothing” after their March 3rd 2019 event in Shanghai. In an article published on their official WeChat page, they detailed many of the events of the night, including many of the match outcomes. What stood out the most, however, is the use of a fan voting system being implemented.
This system, run via a dedicated OWE mini-program inside the app, looks to rank the talent via paid fan support to help determine how the trials will progress in key ways. These trials, thus far, in story have been handled as single-elimination, randomly selected tag-team matches to qualify for a round robin tournament. The first inkling of how the fan votes will impact the end result of the proceedings can be found in things such as determining which eliminated competitor gets to come back to team with “Hyperstreak” Gregiry Sharpe in future matches after he won a multi-man scramble match to qualify for the trials.
For approximately one cent in RMB fans can purchase a support ticket. They then use the OWE social media application to give that ticket to one of the eliminated wrestlers. After approximately 5 weeks, according to my sources, the wrestler with the most support tickets will get a second shot at competing to go to Double or Nothing, by joining Sharpe in the Round Robin. The rankings will be updated , as I understand it, on Friday afternoons.
This kind of fan ranking system, as you may recall from my previous articles, is derived from OWE’s idol culture influence and aims to take advantage of China’s high level of online engagement. Exactly how much influence it will have on the end results of OWE’s “Road to Double or Nothing” story is, presently, unknowable. It will certainly be exciting to watch this uniquely Chinese adaptation of both idol culture and pro wrestling shape events over the next three months in the lead up to All Elite Wrestling’s May 25th debut event in Las Vegas.
The randomly paired teams who were not eliminated will move on to a round Robin tournament where the highest ranked team will earn spots at Double or Nothing. This would account for two of the 4 mentioned spots. The only round robin match date announced so far is set for March 9th.
– Episodes of this storyline will air to the west on platforms such as NEO-TV, Powerslam TV, and Twitch. OWE aims to have all of them come out to western audiences with enough time to be caught up on their storylines by the time fans are attending Double or Nothing.
SPOILERS BELOW THIS POINT
If you wish to avoid spoilers please hit Ctrl+F and search for MKW to skip down to news about that company. Otherwise read on for a list of who has stayed in the contest and who has been eliminated. I’d like to preface this section by indicating that I am certain of most of this information being accurate, but that a small set of details remains unclear to me at this time regarding who, exactly, is in the eliminated pool. I’ve decided to publish it nonetheless and will work to correct any errors as I determine them.
– The wrestlers who survived elimination in this opening salvo were (listed in order of team placement in the round robin chart found below)
“T-Cool” Tang Huaqi and “Monkey King” Wang Jin, “The Bull” Xiong Zhiyu and “Mongolian Warrior” Wulijimuren, Rekka (from NTW) and “Scorpio XX” Liu Xinxi, “Wild Wolf” Fan Hewei and “Lightning Leopard” Cheng Xiangke, “The Captain” A-Ben and “Commando” Duan Yingnan, Zhao Junjie and Zhao Yilong, “Hyperstreak” Gregory Sharpe with his partner TBD.
-The wrestlers I can confirm as presently eliminated are: Duan Dihang, Shuai Shuai, Tornado (blue pants) and Ren Yuhang, Xuan Xuan and Gao Jingjia. There are some names I’m.not certain of correct translations for and I’m working on getting that sorted out.
I’m personally very happy to see OWE running this storyline as their first ever round robin tournament, and I’m happy to see that the Japanese influence is very much at play. Western companies rarely, if ever, run round robins but they do so very much for the talent and audience.
Middle Kingdom Wrestling
As I had mentioned in my previous news round-up, MKW’s next event will be held on March 10th 2019. Since then, several interesting bits of news have come to light.
– MKW Champion Big Sam will not be able to compete at the March 10th event, as he required emergency surgery. His surgery went smoothly and hopefully his recovery goes smoothly too and he can continue blazing a trail in Chinese Pro Wrestling in the near future.
Unfortunately this leaves the former main event annulled, and brilliant rookie Michael Su without a flagship title match on the card. From what I have been told, American wrestler “Hyperstreak” Gregory Sharpe will be taking Big Sam’s spot across the ring from “Masterclass” Michael Su. This is significant because it was also framed to me as possibly the first step towards an OWE vs. MKW event, as OWE is Sharpe’s home promotion in China.
– Jason Cheng, also know as Cheng YuXiang, one of the WWE’s Chinese talent recruits, will be performing on the card in a match against Uncle Money, of MKW’s dominant heel faction The Stable. This is fairly significant as it will be an injection of fresh blood, trained at a prestige facility, to the fledgling scene. It’s hard to say how well the returning hero will fare, with his NXT career being exclusively on the mostly unfilmed Largo Loop, but he is sure to generate buzz with his WWE association. With Ho Ho Lun also working the same card it will also mark, as far as I am aware, the first event to feature this many former WWE Chinese talents in China. MKW have even dedicated an entire article to his return home to China.
– MKW also appear to be seeking new recruits to their ever improving training program, as illustrated by this article from WeChat. MKW’s efforts to bring new talent into the fold have, thus far, yielded some strong results with graduate Michael Su making my Top 5 Chinese Wrestlers Outside of OWE list within his first year of competition.