New England Championship Wrestling returned to the Knights of Columbus in Randolph, Ma on Friday night, February 1st in front of a packed house for its first event of 2013 – SNOWBRAWL.
The night began with an announcement that NECW Tag Team Champions, Da House Party would not be appearing. The duo signed this past week for an extended tour of Japan with the Zero-1 promotion, and after discussion with NECW officials, relinquished the titles. “Playboy” Jimmy James of The Crown Jewels was unable to appear due to transportation issues. It was announced that the tag team match scheduled for later in the night between “Superstar” Scotty Slade & “The Shure Thing” Mark Shurman and the team of Mike Webb & Nick Fareheight, would be a championship match with the winners crowned the new champions.
In the opening bout, Elia Markopoulos of The Crown Jewels took on arch rival “The Boston Bad Boy” Jason Rumble. Markopoulos scored a sudden victory with a roll up, and after the match Rumble challenged Markopoulos to a “Boston Street Fight” and put his career on the line, saying if he lost the match, he would retire from professional wrestling, but if he won, The Crown Jewels would have to break up and never team up again.
World Women’s Wrestling Champion, Alexxis Neveah retained her title over Nikki Valentine in a very competitive, hard fought match that went back and forth.
In a special challenge match, former NECW Heavyweight Champion, Slyck Wagner Brown returned to face the sensational Canadian star, Jeremy Prophet. In what will be a match fans talk about for quite some time, the two went to 15 minute time limit draw pulling out move after move with each man scoring numerous near-falls. After the bell, both men asked for five more minutes and officials obliged, but still no decision was reached.
From there, it was “Superstar” Scotty Slade & “The Shure Thing” Mark Shurman on one side and the team of Mike Webb & Nick Farenheight on the other. These two teams were unexpectedly facing each other for the vacant NECW Tag Team Championship. The battle raged back and forth until Mark Shurman hit Nick Farenheight with one of the tag team title belts out of the referee’s sight causing Slade to get the 1-2-3 on Farenheight making Slade & Shurman the new NECW Tag Team Champions.
In the main event, the NECW Heavyweight Championship was up for grabs between Antonio “The Promise” Thomas and Johnny Thunder. This was another back and forth epic battle that took place both in and out of the ring. Thunder had the chance to use a chair or the championship belt as a weapon, but for some reason dropped them without taking that advantage. It was a closely fought contest with both men earning the respect of the fans. It ended with Thomas scoring the pinfall on Thunder in a bout that could have gone either way. Post-match, in a display of respect and good sportsmanship, Thunder handed the belt to the new champion and raised his hand.
NECW returns to live action in March, the final date and details to be announced by Tuesday, February 5.