NWA's Crockett Cup will return in 2019 after some meticulous planning.
The tag-team tournament, fondly remembered by many for its run between 1986 and 1988 was announced for a return after 30 years away. The revamped National Wrestling Alliance has sprinkled in some nostalgia with its new business plan, and Dave Lagana explained the decision to bring back the tried and true tourney format.
"We wanted to walk out with, I think, four headlines out of the show and the Crocket cup was one of them. And boy did we get a lot of hate when we announced Jocephus, and the Spiritual Advisor, and Hollywood from Glow were going to be in the tag match. But we knew we were going to about the Crocket cup at the end of it. The idea was to have somebody denigrate the tag team division like Jocephus and to have one of the guys that won the first Crocket cup announce that we were bringing it back. To me that was important. And here’s the funny thing. It only happened three times, but there is such an energy around it that we want to be truthful to what it was, honor the format that existed in a way that is scalable in 2019. And you know we are looking at various plays. We want the best of the best. I’ve gotten a lot of emails from a lot of people that want to be in the Crocket cup. And that’s great. That’s important and it shows the value. But we want the best of the best and that’s how the original was. It's an interesting idea, but it is tied to our history. I don’t need the footage because pictures and humans that exist, the people that were there. You know that’s the interesting part of this backpack culture, where I can walk in with a backpack and create anything anywhere. all I need is the environment and the talents and we can tell really compelling stories," Lagana said.
When we asked Lagana about the field, and how many participants we could see, he wouldn't commit. I also asked about the possibility of the Heatseekers joining the tournament. If you don't know who they are (Sigmon and Elliott Russell), that's okay -- many don't. But they were four-time NWA World Tag Team Champions who held the titles at the time they were vacated in September 2017.
"I think it’ll be the best 12, 24, 48, 64, I’m not gonna settle on a number until we know the scale of the event but I think if you look at the make up of the people that were on NWA 70. All 7 of those championships that we acquired…I called all of the people that had those titles. Every one of them stated exactly what was going to happen. You know, the promoters have their licenses even though none of them could produce for me executed copies of their licensing agreements, which was hilarious. Which meant I could have stopped it immediately because they didn’t have actual licensing agreements executed. I said you’re more than welcome to continue taking bookings as the champion up until this date, which was September 20 whatever. I said, at that point, most likely I’m gonna have you send me the titles back and then we will decide which ones we reboot and when. I said and if you play along you’ll get an at bat. Everyone that appeared on NWA 70 were the people that wanted the at bat. Everybody else was selfish, or went into business for themselves, or demanded a pay day, or did not communicate clearly enough or come to us," said Lagana.
As far as an idea for the tournament itself, Lagana would like to integrate many major promotions into the 2019 Crockett Cup.
"In reality our vision is every major promotion sends a team. Why not? And that’s the point that we are making is why not? Why can’t you? Why can’t WWE send a team? Why can’t Impact send a team? Because right now WWE has a 99% market share, I think that’s exactly it. Maybe its 95. You know and I would love for it to be on the WWE network, love for it to be on TBS, love for it be anywhere. We want to build out an attraction and see the best that is possible because I think fans really want to see it. I really do. I think they would love to know for one night. I think that was the success for All In and NWA 70. It was probably a very eclectic card. And I know the star marks were like I can’t really put my finger on what this show is. Who is it catering to? And its catering to our audience. You know, the fact that thousands of people attended live or on pay per view and event of a company that didn’t have a track record a year ago, to me, was really important of where this is going. By the time we run the Crockett cup, I hope in the first quarter of the year to be able to announce if it’ll be Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, we just want to find the right strategic time and the right strategic partner to run the show. For example if Triple H called us tomorrow and they wanted to hold a Crockett cup at an NXT Takeover, we would be open to discussing it. When Billy said we are open for business, we are. It’s when people want to take advantage that we are closed for business for some people and that has happened very much with a lot of people who start making deals with our IP, our titles, without us even being involved -- which is hilarious -- and then we find out and they’re like 'oh well I thought you’d be okay with it.' Talk to us about it. We have put a lot of work in. Nick (Aldis), Tim (Storm), Me, Billy (Corgan), everyone involved in this team have put a lot of hours in and we are very much invested in it," said Lagana.
You can see our full interview with Dave Lagana at the top of the page. You can subscribe to the NWA's Youtube page at this link. NWA will host a pop-up event this Saturday in Clarksville, Tennessee.
