NWA: Host Of New Shows And Podcasts Revealed By Carnyland's YouTube Debut
New shows from Nick Aldis, Eli Drake and more were announced on Carnyland's debut.
This past Tuesday, fans of the National Wrestling Alliance were finally given the debut of the highly anticipated but notably mysterious Carnyland. Details on what this show would include were scarce and difficult to come across in the days leading up to its release, but the end product certainly didn’t disappoint.
Carnyland debuted live on NWA’s YouTube channel on 19 May at 6pm and was a half hour show focused around segments, promos and comical skits from the NWA roster. Even though Carnyland only ran for thirty minutes, fans learned a lot from its YouTube broadcasting, including what the show actually is as well as what side project shows will accompany it in the coming weeks.
The show itself was opened by a self-recorded speech from Eddie Kingston, giving it a short and surprisingly sombre introduction. Kingston’s main focus in this speech was talking about how the talent all missed wrestling, and that it came down to passion and not the money. However, this speech also made the audience uncomfortably aware of their mortality and the morbid edge to this was not helped by the ambient, downbeat background music which ran throughout this introduction.
The tone of this opening is made to look even worse once you consider the generally upbeat, satirical and comical theme that existed throughout the rest of the show. If this was meant to be an upbeat, meaningful opening then it was poorly executed and gave the show a sadly lukewarm feel early on.
Thankfully, this didn’t last as conversation between Stu Bennett and Joe Galli was used to explain the concept of Carnyland. Even though Carnyland will be its own weekly show running every Tuesday, it will also be the linking factor between a number of other shows that will be featured on NWA’s YouTube channel in coming weeks. NWA’s full upload schedule for the foreseeable is as follows:
Monday - What’s Causin’ Aldis
Tuesday - Carnyland
Wednesday - Inside the NWA
Thursday - The Eli Drake Show
Friday - Girl Powerrr
A number of presumably weekly features also made their first appearances on Carnyland’s debut. The first of which came in the form of ‘True Carnyland Stories’ which looks to be a short story feature including a different wrestler every week, talking about a bizarre or funny story from their careers fans probably haven’t heard before. This first installment starred NWA World Champion Nick Aldis who was a consistent figure in the show. Later on, Aldis announced his new podcast, ‘What’s Causin’ Aldis’.
Even though the name of Aldis’ podcast is questionable, it promises to focus on the finer points of the wrestling business with Aldis’ peers and friends appearing as guests every week. Thom Latimer and Crimson are set to be the guests on the first episode of What’s Causin’ Aldis, which will be hitting YouTube this coming Monday.
Other regular Carnyland features include Allysin Kay’s ‘Carnyland College’, ‘Tim Storm’s Carnyland History Lesson’ and ‘In These Uncertain Times with Jocephus’. Out of these three segments, Carnyland College seemed the strongest as Kay ripped into generic heel characters and got their promo traits down to a tee. This proved to be one of the most memorable features of the show thanks to Kay’s great performance and the suitably retro but professional production. Next week's edition of Carnyland College will be titled ‘Go Away Heat 101’.
‘Tim Storm’s Carnyland History Lesson’ was a fun inclusion, mixing informative factual history with comical made up history. The audio quality for this segment was notably poor though and quite muffled, meaning future installments will have to work on this. Despite this, Tim Storm was generally entertaining even if this wasn’t one of Carnyland’s highlights.
The previously mentioned Eli Drake Show was also announced as a regular NWA show during the Carnyland era. Details on what this show will be about or include are unclear but, the comedic focus became immediately clear in this short trailer style promo. It’s possible that this will be trash-talking style YouTube show or podcast with satirical undertones but we won’t find out for sure until the first episode airs.
Inside The NWA was also confirmed as Carnyland’s regular Wednesday night show and the first episode has since been uploaded on YouTube. This 1-hour documentary style show includes interviews with both Billy Corgan and Dave Lagana.
Closing the show was the combination of appearances first from ‘Shooter’ Aaron Stevens, before NWA Television Champion Zicky Dice concluded the show. All-in-all, Carnyland was a great show with fun moments and a generally enjoyable feel.