The Ascension (professional wrestling)

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search
The Ascension
The Ascension WM31 Axxess.jpg
Viktor (left) and Konnor (right)
Statistics
Members Konnor/Conor O'Brian
Viktor/Rick Victor
Name(s) The Ascension
Heights Konnor:
6 ft 4 in (1.93 m)
Viktor:
6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
Combined
weight		 487 Ibs (220 kg)
Former
member(s)		 Kenneth Cameron
Tito Colon
Raquel Diaz (valet)
Ricardo Rodriguez (manager)
Debut August 28, 2011
Years active 2011–present
Promotions FCW
NXT
WWE

The Ascension is a villainous professional wrestling tag team signed to WWE consisting of Konnor and Viktor. The Ascension was formerly a stable from 2011 to 2012. The Ascension originally started out in Florida Championship Wrestling as a stable consisting of Konnor (formerly Conor O'Brian), Kenneth Cameron, Ricardo Rodriguez, Tito Colon and Raquel Diaz. After several membership changes, Konnor and Viktor became established as a tag-team in NXT. Their 364-day NXT Tag Team Championship reign is currently the longest in the history of the title. In September 2015, The Ascension joined forces with Stardust to form a stable known as "The Cosmic Wasteland."

History

Developmental territories (2011–2014)

Florida Championship Wrestling (2011–2012)

On August 28, 2011, Ricardo Rodriguez announced the formation of a stable called The Ascension, with members including Kenneth Cameron, Conor O'Brian, Tito Colon, and Raquel Diaz. The first match to include all members in some capacity came on September 1, 2011, and saw Cameron, Colon and O’Brian, accompanied by Diaz, defeating CJ Parker, Donny Marlow, and Johnny Curtis.[1] On September 30, Cameron and Colon had a shot at the Florida Tag Team Championship but lost to then champions CJ Parker and Donny Marlow.

By October, The Ascension was no longer associated with Rodriguez, as video packages promoting The Ascension with new darker characters only featured the other four Ascension members without Rodriguez. By the end of November The Ascension had all but disbanded, as O'Brian fell to injury and Colon was called up to WWE to team with his cousin Primo (see Primo & Epico), meanwhile Diaz became Queen of FCW and distanced herself from the group. This left Cameron as the sole survivor of The Ascension and he continued to use The Ascension gimmick during his appearances. However the disintegration of the group would prove to be beneficial for Cameron as he would go onto a three month singles winning streak, beating the likes of Jiro and Calvin Raines until he finally lost to Colin Cassady on February 23, 2012.

On March 15, 2012 Cameron was accompanied to the ring by the returning Conor O'Brian in his match against Byron Saxton; the match ended in disqualification when O'Brian interfered. Cameron and O'Brian began wrestling as a tag team using the name of The Ascension, with their first tag team match together coming on March 23 when the two defeated Jason Jordan and Xavier Woods. The Ascension suffered their first loss when the pair lost to the Florida Tag Team Champions Corey Graves and Jake Carter in a title bout.[2] After this loss, the Ascension would go on another winning streak including winning a fatal four way elimination against the teams of Adam Mercer & Chad Baxter, Jason Jordan & Mike Dalton, and Brad Maddox & Rick Victor.[3]

NXT (2012–2014)

File:Viktor SummerSlam Axxess 2013.png
Viktor at SummerSlam Axxess 2013

On June 20, 2012, The Ascension made their debut on NXT, defeating Mike Dalton and CJ Parker with their double team finisher, Downcast.[4][5] They would later enter a rivalry with the Usos, with the Ascension getting the better end of most of the encounters between the two teams.[6][7][8][9] The Ascension also defeated another main roster team in Tyson Kidd and Justin Gabriel on the October 3, 2012 episode of NXT.[10] However, the team was disbanded after Cameron was released from his WWE contract on November 30, 2012 after being arrested.[11]

From there O'Brian worked as a singles wrestler, keeping the Ascension gimmick on his own for some time. Following O'Brian's victory over Alex Riley on the June 5, 2013 edition of NXT, Rick Victor appeared on the ramp, getting O'Brian's attention.[12] Victor would officially accompany O'Brian to the ring as his partner in the Ascension on the July 3 edition of NXT as O'Brian defeated Andy Baker. After winning a gauntlet match to determine the number one contenders for the NXT Tag Team Championship,[13] the Ascension defeated the team of Adrian Nevile and Corey Graves on the October 2 edition of NXT to capture the titles.[14] On the 8th of November the two were renamed, Connor O'Brian renamed to Konnor and Rick Victor renamed to Viktor.

Konnor at a WWE house show in 2013

For the majority of their title reign, The Ascension would battle and dismantle local wrestlers in mere minutes with very little to no offense from their opponents. Their first major title defense was against Too Cool at NXT's first live event, NXT Arrival, where they emerged victorious. The Ascension began demanding competition in the weeks following, moving up from local wrestlers to various combinations of teams made up from contracted NXT wrestlers. While still disabling and annihilating their opponents week after week, they were confronted by a team of masked wrestlers; El Local and Kalisto, who challenged them for their tag team titles at the second live event, NXT TakeOver. Though they were given their toughest challenge to date, The Ascension successfully defended their gold after hitting Fall of Man on Local.

The Ascension had a cameo on the main roster on the September 9, 2014 episode of Main Event to promote their upcoming title defense, defeating Los Matadores in a match to promote their title defense against the team of Kalisto and Sin Cara at the NXT TakeOver: Fatal 4-Way event. At the event, The Ascension lost the titles to Kalisto and Sin Cara, ending their reign a day short of a full year. That same night, they were in an altercation with William Regal and the debuting Hideo Itami. After feuding with and assaulting Itami for several weeks, a second international wrestler, Finn Bálor, joined Itami in his fight against both Konnor and Viktor. This led to a match on December 11 at NXT TakeOver: R Evolution, where The Ascension were defeated by Itami and Bálor.

Main roster (2014–present)

In the main roster, The Ascension changed their look, similar to The Road Warriors.

The following night on SmackDown, vignettes began to air promoting The Ascension's call-up to the main roster. They eventually made their official main roster debut on the December 29, 2014 episode of Raw, defeating The Miz and Damien Mizdow.[15]

On the January 2 and 9 episodes of SmackDown and the January 5 episode of Raw, The Ascension easily defeated local preliminary wrestlers in less than a minute, and also cementing their heel status after comparing themselves to legendary WWE tag teams including The Powers of Pain, The Road Warriors and Demolition.

On January 19 episode of Raw, dubbed as Raw Reunion, The Ascension confronted the reuniting New World Order members Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and X-Pac, and were about to attack them before they were interrupted by A.P.A. and The New Age Outlaws. This led to a match between The Ascension and the Outlaws at the Royal Rumble pay-per-view, which The Ascension won. On February 12 episode of SmackDown, they were a part of a tag team turmoil match against Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan, and they lost via disqualification. On the February 16, 2015 episode of Raw, The Ascension would attack Darren Young before Titus O'Neil made the save, reuniting The Prime Time Players. A week later on Raw, The Ascension would suffer their first loss on the main roster after Viktor was pinned by Young. At WrestleMania 31, The Ascension made their Wrestlemania debut in the André the Giant Memorial battle royal, where both failed to win the match. In May, The Ascension started a feud against Macho Mandow and Curtis Axel, and defeated them at Payback pre-show. on the May 21 episode of SmackDown, Ascension competed in a fatal four way tag match against the teams of Cesaro & Kidd, Los Matadores and Lucha Dragons where the match was won by Lucha Dragons. It was announced the Ascension would take part in a six team elimination chamber match for the Tag Titles. At Elimination Chamber on May 31st, they eliminated the Los Matadores and Lucha Dragons until they were eliminated by The Prime Time Players, ultimately losing the match. On the July 9 episode of SmackDown, The Ascension interrupted Randy Orton, before Orton attacked them. The Ascension would appear on mostly on Superstars and Main Event losing to the likes of The Lucha Dragons and The Prime Time Players. They finally picked up a win over Jack Swagger and Fandango on the August 14 episode of Superstars. On an August 27th edition of Smackdown The Ascension faced The Dudley Boyz but would go on to lose the match. After The Dudleys would put Viktor through a table.

The Cosmic Wasteland (2015-present)

On the Smackdown broadcast on September 3, 2015, The Ascension attacked Neville as he was making his way to the ring against Stardust, aligning themselves with him in the process and thus forming a group known as The Cosmic Wasteland, where in Stardust calls The Ascension his "henchmen". At Night of Champions, Stardust and The Ascension defeated Neville and The Lucha Dragons in a six-man tag team match in the pre-show. On the Survivor Series Kickoff, The Cosmic Wasteland, The Miz, and Bo Dallas were defeated by The Dudley Boyz, Neville, Titus O'Neil, and the returning Goldust in a Five-on-five traditional Survivor Series elimination tag team match. The Ascension returned to NXT on November 25, losing to Jason Jordan and Chad Gable.

Other media

The Ascension, consisting of the duo of Konnor and Viktor, made their video game debut as a part of the NXT Arrival DLC pack (Downloadable Content) in WWE 2K15. They are also part of WWE 2K16, once again as a duo.

Timeline

In wrestling

  • Entrance themes
    • "Let Battle Commence" by Daniel Nielsen (2011–2014)
    • "Rebellion" by CFO$ (2014–present)
    • "Written in the Stars" by Jim Johnston (2015-present) (used while teaming up with Stardust)

Championships and accomplishments

References

  1. ↑ http://www.wrestleview.com/viewnews.php?id=1321315185
  2. ↑ http://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=78916
  3. ↑ http://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=83079
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ http://www.pwinsider.com/article/73674/wwe-talent-arrested-released.html?p=1
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ http://genickbruch.com/index.php?befehl=bios&wrestler=1983
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ http://genickbruch.com/index.php?befehl=bios&wrestler=5476
Retrieved from "https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=The_Ascension_(professional_wrestling)&oldid=1234209"