Jumpin Josh claims Cruiserweight title
Jumpin Josh is in, and Vinnie Valentine is out. The wake of Pure Power Wrestling’s “Heatwave” on Saturday night saw Josh as the new Cruiserweight champion and Valentine forcibly removed from the building after being fired as PPW commissioner.
Josh faced off against Travis “The Heat” Copeland for the Cruiserweight title in a battle of the two most popular wrestlers in PPW.
With the match well in hand, Copeland seemed ready to hit his frog splash finisher when he was knocked from the top rope by “Cowboy” Bryn Watts. The interference went undetected and Josh seized the opportunity to score a pin.
“It’s unreal,” Josh said following the match. “This is a dream come true, honestly.”
In becoming the new Cruiserweight champion, Josh has proven a lot of people wrong.
“I told everyone I wanted to get into pro wrestling, and everybody told me I was too tiny, too scrawny, and too small. You can’t do it,” he said. “But I did it.”
Following the match, Copeland had no hard feelings toward the new champ, but admonished himself for not being more aware.
“I should have been paying attention,” he said. “Cowboy’s always lurking around. He’s been lurking around Josh lately too.
“It is what it is. If I’m going to lose it to someone, I’d rather lose it to Josh than the Cowboy.”
Watts has a strict “no comment” policy and refuses to speak with the media – possibly to avoid answering for some of the more questionable tactics he uses in the ring and the flat-out cheating.
Josh said he was focused on the match and did not know what Watts had done at the time. He admitted it wasn’t the cleanest win, but said championships are won and lost on dirty plays.
“You look at the Stanley Cup final, or you go and look at the Super Bowl, sometimes the wins aren’t as clean as you want them,” he said. “But, at the end of the day, a win is a win.”
Josh becomes the youngest cruiserweight champion in PPW history at 18 years old – beating “Youngblood” Cody Blayde by at least a year. In contrast, “The Viper” Randy Orton was 24 when he won his first world championship, and Brock Lesnar was 25. It’s safe to say neither of these WWE superstars have ever had as much pop and fan support at a Lethbridge show as Josh.
Following the match, Watts called out Josh, telling the new champion he had a target on his back. Watts has beaten Josh on several occasions, and demanded to be part of a title match next month.
Josh welcomed the challenge.
“Here I am,” he said. “Bring it on.”
“If September comes around, and it’s a triple threat with THC and the Cowboy, I say the more the merrier,” he said. “Let’s get it on, boys.”
Following a disasterous opening match that saw Sydney Steele intercept Valentine’s megaphone and use it to brain Cyanide to collect the win, Valentine was forced to answer for his actions in June when he assaulted junior referee Ryley Pollard.
Claiming he had the right to do whatever he wanted as commissioner, Steele in particular disagreed and threatened to walk out rather than continue working under Valentine.
Half the PPW roster made their way ringside in a show of support for Steele, while Cyanide entered the ring with a chair to defend his manager.
It was at that moment Cyanide realized Vinnie had been indirectly responsible for his loss, and, with the losses mounting in recent months, he threw the chair aside in disgust and left Vinnie to his fate.
The angry mob collected Vinnie from the ring and gave him the bum’s rush out the door.
The Main Event of the evening was a brawl between Chris Perish and “Cougar Meat” Kyle Sebastian that held the crowd and saw the two men brutalize each other right up until the end, when Sebastian was disqualified for inadvertently hitting the ref with a chain. He lost the match, but Sebastian retains the title – which is all he really cares about anyway.
In the undercard, Angelica had a strong showing in her win against newcomer Kiai March; “The Headline” Shaun Martens and “The Big Sexy Beast” Bradley Graham used chaos and dirty tactics to beat “The Cheetahbear” Jude Dawkins and Rich King; and Watts welcomed newcomer Christian Strife to PPW with a low blow and roll-up pin while grabbing a handful of tights to secure the victory.
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