I recently had the distinct pleasure of speaking with NWA superstar and current world champion Nick Aldis, where the National Treasure and I discussed a variety of topics including what were some of his favorite title defenses during his historic reign, how his marquee matchups with Cody Rhodes both delivered on big stages, and gives general thoughts on Ring of Honor parting ways with Marty Scurll. Highlights, including the full video interview, are below.
Names his 2019 Crocket Cup showdown with Marty Scurll as his greatest defense of the NWA championship:
Fortunately for me the high-profile matches have all probably been my best performances as well, which is obviously what you want. Not to say that I phone it in on any title defense. I think you can ask anyone all over the world who has bought a ticket to see a title defense over the last two and a half years…there’s no one that will say he’s phoned it in. Certainly the Crocket Cup match with Mary Scurll in 2019 was to me I thought was my best. one day when I look back on my body of work…that will be a match that I show to everyone to say, “that’s a world title match.” A story, with layers, and grit, and heart and soul, and it made sense. It was athletic, and believable. It had everything. It had technical wrestling, it had high-spots, it had blood, but not gratuitous. It was two friends, there was emotion. It checked every box that I feel a main event NWA title match is supposed to have.
You don’t do any of this by yourself. The truly memorable moments in any wrestler’s career or any wrestling company’s lifespan…it will come down to a culmination of a team of people, usually dozens of minds all coming together and making this thing. In that case it was our company and Ring of Honor. At that point we had worked together some, obviously with ALL IN because that was a ROH event, and various other ROH tapings that I was involved with. That one you could just feel all day. Right when you walked in. That was the first time we re-introduced the old school blue canvas with the yellow NWA letters. We had the big banners…these sort of Rocky II style banners. You could just feel everyone from Mark Davis (head of ROH production) and the ROH brass…you could just feel everyone think, “man this is different.”
Says he’s super proud of the two matches he’s had with Cody Rhodes, especially the NWA 70th Anniversary two-out-of-three falls bout:
Obviously the Cody matches. I find it very flattering that even after all this time daily I’m still hit up on social media with, “we wanna see Cody/Aldis III.” Who knows if that’ll ever happen. Neither one of us are putting are eggs in one basket with that. If it happens it happens. The fact that we had two matches and they were totally different, and they worked great in totally different ways. Very proud of the two-out-of three falls match that Cody and I had in Nashville. It’s hard to go out for 45 minutes like we did and keep people, not just interested, but captivated, and to get a finish that gets a real emotional response for an outcome of a wrestling match…that’s what we live for.
His thoughts on Ring of Honor mutually parting ways with Marty Scurll:
We (NWA) still have a very good relationship with Ring of Honor. From what I understand Billy still communicates pretty regularly with Joe Koff (ROH COO). Anything I say here is just coming from me, it’s not the NWA’s official viewpoint, and people are aware of the fact that Marty and I are very close, we are as good of friends as anybody in the business.
I felt like it was a little unfair of Ring of Honor to take as long as they did. It seemed like there was a long period of inaction, and then a very sort of flat statement. “We have mutually parted way.” And on Twitter…you put it on Twitter. To me I felt like it was a little bit…I felt like it could have been handled more quickly and a little more professionally.