New NWA Television Champion Crowned, Ken Anderson Pulled From Tournament

The National Wrestling Alliance crowned a new World Television Champion on Friday night at NWA Hard Times, live on pay-per-view from Atlanta, GA.

After multiple qualifiers spread across weeks of television, it all came down to an 8-man single elimination tournament. The first round saw young and hungry rising star Ricky Starks upset veteran Matt Cross, while Ring of Honor’s Dan Maff defeated Zicky Dice, and Trevor Murdoch narrowly moved past The Question Mark in a wild superheavyweight hoss fight.

Tim Storm was scheduled to face Ken Anderson in the opening round. However, it was announced early on in the show that Anderson was not medically cleared to compete, allowing Storm, a former NWA World Champion in his own right, to move on to the semifinals. Anderson did not appear on the show in any capacity.

Despite the first round bye, Starks scored yet another upset over Storm to advance to the final round. Not only did he face Murdoch, who had survived his second giant pummeling of the evening, but the young superstar actually won the match to become the new NWA World Television Champion.

The NWA has been grooming Starks for this win since the first set of Powerrr television tapings. In his first three matches he defeated Murdoch, and defeated current National champion Aron Stevens twice, once in a Best Two Out of Three Falls match.

At NWA Into The Fire, Starks challenged Stevens and Colt Cabana in a triple threat match for the National title, but was unsuccessful after interference from Question Mark. He bounced back with a win over veteran Eddie Kingston, and went to a 6:05 time limit draw with world champion Nick Aldis to gain a ton of momentum heading into the tournament.

Congratulations to the new champion!

It's come down to this!#NWAHardTimes pic.twitter.com/17HhqcjoG1

— NWA (@nwa) January 25, 2020