The NWA’s Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup Tag Team Tournament is one of the most prestigious competitions in the wrestling business. Over the years, legendary team-ups like the Road Warriors, Nikita Koloff and the late Dusty Rhodes, and Sting and Lex Luger have won the Crockett Cup, and in a few short days, ex-WWE superstars Trevor Murdoch and Mike Knox — known as Knox & Murdoch — plan on adding their names to the history books.
Ahead of the sixth annual Crockett Cup, Knox & Murdoch sat down with CinemaBlend to talk about the upcoming tournament. And during our conversation, Murdoch said participating in the tourney is “almost like fate” for the pair of 25-year veterans:
When we came together as a tag team, one of the things we discussed that if we were gonna do this, we wanted to be the best in our field, in our lane. So when we found out that we were going to be a part of the Crockett Cup, it almost felt like fate, to be honest with you.
For Murdoch, getting a chance to prove to the world that he and Knox are the best tag team in the business, and on a well-established platform like the NWA event, is a really big deal. Even if there was an extended gap between the first three '80s-set tournaments and its 2019 revival, it's still a classic that means so much to wrestling fans.
You can bet that Mike Knox is equally excited about participating in the Crockett Cup, which will be his second appearance. (He partnered with VSK as The Cardonas for the 2022 tournament, losing on Night 2.) In Knox's words:
I've been more excited about this Crockett Cup than I have been about a lot of things for a lot of years. I know me and Trev were new, but we're not new at this. … I love tag team wrestling, I think it’s a forgotten art. I think there are a lot of things that we can bring back into this game that haven’t been seen in a little while, and dominance is one of them. God-given size, speed, you know what I mean?
Unlike most of their opponents in the 2023 Crockett Cup, Knox & Murdoch’s run as a tag team has been quite brief, having only started up in March, when Knox came in and saved Murdoch from Daisy Kill and Talos' beatdown. Prior to that, the current teammates were bitter rivals, having faced off in a series of brutal matches when Murdoch was still the NWA World’s Heavyweight Champion.
But after his first tag team match with Knox earlier this year, Murdoch knew he and his new battering partner were onto something:
Mike and I knew the first match. We got done and went to the back and looked at each other like ‘Oh yeah, that’s the ticket right there, sunshine.’
Over the past couple of months, Knox & Murdoch have made up for lost time, and have been working together extensively to become a cohesive unit. And if all goes well during tournament weekend, the pair of former WWE superstars plan to take their act to promotions like AEW, Impact, AAA, NJPW, and wherever else to prove they are the best team in the business.
Near the end of our conversation, I asked which team Knox & Murdoch would like to face if they had a time machine. Without hesitation, Murdoch yelled out Stan Hansen and Bruiser Brody, two of the all-time greats of professional wrestling. Whether they were wrestling in the United States, in Japan, or Puerto Rico (where Brody was stabbed to death in 1988), the two larger-than-life wrestlers could give and take a whoopin’ like nobody’s business. Alas, we'll have to rely on our imaginations to envision how that match would have gone.
While we will never get to see Knox & Murdoch take on Hansen & Brody, wrestling fans around the world will be able to watch the 2023 Crockett Cup when it airs live 8 p.m. ET Saturday and Sunday on FITE PPV.
