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Matt Cardona Crowned The First-Ever Wrestling Showcase Champion
Taya Valkyrie retains her MLW Featherweight Title in the co-main event
On Saturday, September 3, 2022, in an afternoon surrounded by controversy, The Wrestling Showcase crowned “Alwayz Ready” Matt Cardona as its first-ever champion. After barely sneaking by wrestling legend, Tatanka, and using some questionable tactics to maneuver his way into the finals of the 8-man tournament, Cardona was able to overcome both “The Walking Weapon” Josh Alexander and “The Samoan Werewolf” Jacob Fatu and left Schaumburg, Illinois as the 2022 Wrestling Showcase Champion.
“This means so much to be the very first Wrestling Showcase champion. This year I’ve won a lot titles. NWA Words Heavyweight Champion, IMPACT titles, Internet Champion, but I got hurt and had to relinquish them all. So this is my first title since coming back, and I’m going to start a new collection of titles. But I’m honored to be the first-ever Wrestling Showcase champion,” said Cardona. “You look at the guys in that bracket and it was a who’s who of professional wrestling. I’m going to bring this title everywhere. I’ll bring this title to the U.K. later this month. I’ll bring this title everywhere because I’m the face of The Wrestling Showcase. It’s a beautiful title and I’ll carry it with pride.”
In the co-main event of the card, MLW Featherweight Champion Taya Valkyrie was able to withstand both Chelsea Green and Deonna Purrazzo and continue her MLW championship reign. While it originally looked like Green was going to steal the win and MLW Featherweight championship, The Wrestling Showcase’s host, “The Queen of the Mountain” Karen Jarrett was able to get the match restarted and Valkyrie scored the pin fall victory.
“I knew I had something to prove, to not only the fans and different promotions I’ve worked with in the past, but to myself. This year has been a love letter to myself to prove that I belong,” Valkyrie said after her match. “I’m always ready to fight, and put up a fight for a spot on the top of the mountain. And after today, if Chelsea and Deonna really think they should be the MLW Featherweight champion, they can come find me at MLW.”
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“This show could not have come off any better,” said The Wrestling Showcase’s lead commentator Josh Shernoff. “The crowd was incredible. The matches were incredible. But this show was a success in every metric, and I think that’s something that’s very rare in this industry.”
“To have the opportunity to work with the kind of people we were fortunate enough to work with, and to do something on this scale, we are really proud,” said The Wrestling Showcase producer Fred Shernoff. “We had a roster that loves this business as much as we do, and we just wanted to give this the opportunity to really be special. When we came up with this idea of The Wrestling Showcase we wanted it to be a celebration of the sport and the entertainment of professional wrestling and I think the show delivered on that, by all accounts.”
“As a talent, as a wrestler, I thought The Wrestling Showcase was going to be a glorified indy show,” added Cardona. “We got to the building, there was a format, there was a great entrance way. The ring, Mike Chioda made sure everything was up to par. This was a very well run show from beginning to end. The wrestlers, we loved being a part of it and we’ll be talking about it. There will be a list of people who are going to get into the tournament next time, just to be a part of a show like this.”
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