Nick Wayne: The Insane Prodigy

They are many great young wrestlers in the world today. From people like Titus Alexander, Leah Night, Airica Demia, Tomoka Inaba, Shoma Kato, Hina, Rina, Hanan, Kevin Knight, Je'Von Evans, Billie Starkz etc. The future of professional wrestling is really bright at the moment and it will only continue to get higher and higher from here on out. There is one wrestler who has been able to gain a lot of accomplishment and that is "The Prodigy" Nick Wayne.

Credit: Ring Of Honor

Nick Wayne is a second generation wrestler who is current AEW/Ring Of Honor Wrestler. He is the current ROH World Television Champion of the older sister promotion, Ring Of Honor. He started his AEW run in the midst of Darby Allin & Sting's feud with Swerve Strickland and AR Fox. Christian Cage was included after AR Fox was kicked out and Cage would be the catalyst to Wayne turning on Allin at the first WrestleDream event in 2023. He was primarily with Christian Cage, Mother Wayne (his actual mother) and Kip Sabian as The Patriarchy stable from 2023 to 2025. From there, Nick, Mother and Sabian would continue to be together as The Matriarchy stable. 

I'm not going to go over his entire run in both companies because it's a lot to do anyway, but I am going to go over his run as ROH World Television Champion and his first Best Of The Super Juniors stint in New Japan since he will be entering the tournament for the second year in a row. I think he is the first AEW wrestler to enter this tournament back to back years. So let's get into it.

A Father's Connections

Credit: AEW

This was when Nick Wayne was still with The Partiarchy. In the month that Christian Cage was away, Nick Wayne's momentum was on the rise. He was already announced for the tournament at this point and on AEW Dynamite: SpringBreak Thru, Christian Cage wanted to test him before he heads to Japan on his own for the tournament. In the storyline, Christian Cage put a word in for Nick to a part of that tournament and it was contributed alongside his performances in DDT and All Star Jr. Festival. 

Along with that, Cage's first test for him was facing fellow Junior Heavyweight wrestler Komander for the ROH World Television Championship the following night on AEW Collision: SpringBreak Thru. I will say that, props to the creative team for making the Best Of The Super Juniors a big deal by doing these tests and obstacles as a precursor to the tough Round Robin schedule. I will give them credit for doing that. I don't think they will do it again, especially since Ring Of Honor has secured a new home in WJCT Studios and Nick Wayne has been good and really improved as champion, but sure.

Credit: Ring Of Honor

Before AEW Collision: SpringBreak Thru, Nick Wayne would make a pit to Ring Of Honor for a special main event match against Michael Oku, who was the RevPro Undisputed British Heavyweight Champion at the time. This YouTube special was taped before AEW Dynamite: SpringBreak Thru the previous night, and it is separate from AEW's SpringBreak Thru specials. However, much like all of ROH's YouTube based episodes, this is canon to both companies. This card featured Top Flight vs Ishii & Romero in the opener; Shane Taylor being Shane Taylor and La Catalina vs Taya Valkyrie to see who challenges Red Velvet for the ROH Women's World TV Title. 

This short YouTube special was a nice way to showcase wrestlers and further some progress with both TV programs. It was also a gateway for people to tune into AEW Collision as well. So it did accomplish the job. I will say that seeing this special reminded that Michael Oku got pinned a lot during this time. Like this man was leaving a lot of people with potential title shots and no one got a sniff of that since he didn't have the title with him. Fair play Oku. Fair play.

Credit: AEW

With that time to rest up, Nick Wayne would face Komander for the ROH World TV Title on the second last match on the card. This match was a really good one to watch that had more time than expected and both men made the most of it. At 11 minutes on the dot, Nick Wayne defeated Komander to capture the ROH World Television Title. This would be the first singles title Wayne has won in AEW and Ring Of Honor and he achieved the accomplishment of being the youngest men's champion in Ring Of Honor at the age of 19. He is also the second youngest champion in ROH history. Billie Starkz beat him by a few weeks to the youngest spot.

What makes a good victory is that Nick Wayne won the title on his own without any help. And he established the newest finisher in his arsenal, the Prodigy Plex which is a variation of Exploder Suplex '98. For me, it was bittersweet seeing Komander's reign come to an end since he was doing great as champion and just seemed like he got his legs cut from under him. (And I honestly think that he really did since he is in the same limbo he was before he won the title.) But I was hopeful that Nick Wayne would continue the momentum of the title and it has been a mixed feeling to be honest. And there are different parts of this reign.

Christian Cage's Father Tests Before The BOSJ Trip

Christian Cage was obviously happy with Wayne winning the title, but he decided to keep putting Wayne in seemingly difficult scenarios before his trip to New Japan Pro-Wrestling. He did this in the most scummy way since it is Christian Cage.

Credit: AEW

The first test for Wayne post title win is defending the prize against Former Two-Time ROH World Television Champion Jay Lethal. Lethal made the challenge and Cage accepted it on Wayne's behalf. Nick Wayne successfully defended it against Jay Lethal by using the Prodigy Plex. His final defense before Nick Wayne headed to New Japan was when he defend the belt against... RHINO?? Oh, I did read that right. This fight was shorter as it was 3 minutes and Nick Wayne retained the title despite the massive obstacle. 

Best Of The Super Juniors 32

Nick Wayne was representing AEW in the Best Of The Super Juniors while also representing Ring Of Honor as ROH World Television Champion. He would be competing in the B Block alongside: (at the time) IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion El Desperado, (at the time) ⅓ of the NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Champion SHO, Ryusuke Taguchi, (at the time) IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champion YOH, Titan from CMLL, Taiji Ishimori, MAO from DDT, Fellow AEW/NJPW wrestler Kevin Knight and TMDK's Robbie Eagles.

Credit: New Japan Pro-Wrestling

Nick Wayne would start off strong by beating SHO, El Desperado and Robbie Eagles in his first 3 games. That momentum got swiftly cut off by Kevin Knight in 4th bout and that was also crucial for Knight since he was on the verge of elimination. His final win in the tournament was against Ryusuke Taguchi which got him 4 wins out of the last 5. From there, he lost the last 4 matches to Taiji Ishimori, YOH, MAO and Titan (who'll bring up again in the next section). Wayne finished in 9th place as a result of tiebreakers and got a total of 8 points. 

Lucha Feista and Breaking Out

After returning to the United States, Christian Cage put his unrelated child straight to work as he already and had him defending the ROH World Television Championship in a four way match on the 4-Hour TV Special, AEW Fyter Fest. He faced ROH World Tag Team Champion Sammy Guevara, Lee Johnson and AR Fox. He retained his title to gain his V3 (or 3rd successful title defense). He and Christian Cage were aiming for the AEW World Tag Team Titles at AEW All In Texas. 

Credit: Ring Of Honor

While doing more tag team aspirations with Cage, Wayne would be handling his own weight in the singles division on Ring Of Honor TV. In his first ROH TV appearance being the champion, he failed to defeat Titan in the Proving Ground. Titan defeated him in Wayne's last Best Of The Super Juniors match and the Proving Ground led to his next title defense. After three AEW TV matches in relation to the tag titles, Nick would defend the ROH World TV Title against Titan at ROH Supercard Of Honor during AEW All In Texas week. He retained the title against to gain his V4 in probably his best bout in his reign as champion. 

Credit: AEW

AEW All In Texas would be the turning point for Nick Wayne as he, Mother Wayne and Kip Sabian turned on Christian Cage after losing a three way battle for the AEW World Tag Team Championships. If you know what happened throughout, you would know that Christian Cage absolutely deserved this. That man's an asshole. Adam Copeland made the save accidentally and the feud started from there. This would also be a change in stables as Nick Wayne, Mother Wayne and Kip Sabian are going under the stable name, The Matriarchy. The fact that we had Patriarchy and Matriarchy as wrestling stable names is actually kinda funny. 

Nick Wayne would be busy on Ring Of Honor as he has did a Proving Ground bout with Gringo Loco. His last match for a while was when he defended the ROH World Television Championship against Willie Mack on the first ROH YouTube Special episode. 

The Injury and Current Momentum Shift

As I said, Wayne's fight with Willie Mack would be the last for a while as he suffered a major ankle injury. This injury would have an interesting affect on the ROH side of things. Tony Khan said in Media Calls and Media Scrums that he didn't need an Interim ROH World Television Championship because Nick Wayne going to come back. However, the timeline of the injury would change which resulted in the title not being on ROH TV for 6 months. 

Credit: Ring Of Honor

Nick Wayne would make his return to Ring Of Honor on ROH On HonorClub #156 where he defeated Lucas Riley in the Proving Ground. He came back at the right time as Ring Of Honor would move their TV Program to WJCT Studios in Jacksonville, Florida, USA. On Episode 159 and the main event of the first TV Taping, Nick Wayne defended the ROH World Television Championship against Komander in a rematch from almost a year ago. That match was an absolute banger by the way. You should definitely check it out. His most recent match that he had was on Episode 161 by beating Alex Reynolds in the Proving Ground.

Credit: New Japan Pro-Wrestling

At NJPW Sakura Genesis, it was announced that Nick Wayne would enter the Best Of The Super Juniors for the second time in his career. This will also be the second time Nick will enter the BOSJ as ROH World Television Champion which he has held for a year now. I hope he has a good tournament and someone finally take that ROH World Television Title off him. I'm sorry, but I just want someone else to hold it even if it's gonna be bullshit.

Post: There are many things that I never thought of covering for a long period of time. I'm lucky enough that the time I have can make room for these kind of things. I was thinking of covering Nick Wayne, but I never made the full grasp on doing a blog about him. Now I just did and I hope it's gonna be worth something. I hope you have a great day and thank you all for viewing this.

Kind Regards,

ZERO (or Archer)