When It Comes, It Comes: Brian Myers – The Most Professional Champion

Brian Myers is once again a champion.

*^{Brian Myers is your new Impact Wrestling Digital Media Champion.}*

Myers challenged and defeated Impact Wrestling’s Digital Media Champion Rich Swann in a great Dot Combat match on the Countdown show for the July 1st Against All Odds Pay-Per-View.

^{Impact Wrestling Digital Media Championship Match: Rich Swann (C) Vs. Brian Myers.}

This is Myers’ first singles championship since 2016 when he held three titles concurrently: Five Borough Wrestling’s FBW Heavyweight Championship, Grim Toy Show’s GTS YouTube Wrestling Figures Heavyweight Championship and Pro Wrestling Syndicate’s PWS Television Championship.

Though Myers is a three time World Tag Team Champion (twice in WWE as Curt Hawkins with Zack Ryder and once in Total Nonstop Action/Impact Wrestling with Trevor Lee now Cameron Grimes), this win also marks his first singles title reign within one of the main American TV wrestling companies.

*^{GFW invaders Brian Myers & Trevor Lee (aka Cameron Grimes) defeated The Wolves to become the 39th TNA World Tag Team Champions.}*

Myers was never presented as a serious singles championship challenger in WWE: he would get a few shots at the top titles of Florida Championship Wrestling and NXT in WWE developmental but would be kept tag focused during his first main roster run.

^{Hawkins & Ryder defeated The Miz & John Morrison (C), Finlay & Hornswoggle and Jesse & Festus for their first Major titles.}

Though he’d win a slew of titles during his 2014-2016 independent run (arguably the most notable of which was the A-1 Alpha Male Championship for which he feuded with current Impact World Champion Josh Alexander), his WWE singles title opportunities would be limited to a 7 second SmackDown match with Dolph Ziggler for the WWE Intercontinental Championship and chasing (quite literally) the WWE 24/7 Championship. Being best known in his second WWE run for a very entertaining 269 match losing streak (which he was good enough to turn into a positive), this is not terribly surprising.

^{Curt Hawkins went 0-269 after his return to the SmackDown brand in 2016.}

His tag team accomplishments are, of course, nothing to dismiss: holding twelve Tag Team titles overall and being recognised by Pro Wrestling Illustrated as a three time World Champion for his wins over The Miz & John Morrison (Great American Bash 2008), The Revival (WrestleMania 35 Kickoff 2019) in WWE as well as against The American Wolves during a Bound for Glory 2015 feud in TNA.

^{Hawkins & Ryder won the WWE RAW Tag Team Championships almost 11 years after their first WWE Tag Tag Team title.}

In WWE developmental, he was a two time Deep South Wrestling Tag Team Champion and one time Ohio Valley Wrestling Southern Tag Team Champion as one half of The Major Brothers as well as a one time FCW Tag Team Champion with The Dude Busters (Caylen Croft & Trent Beretta) in NXT precursor Florida Championship Wrestling.

While training under the great Mikey Whipwreck, he would win his first few titles with Brett Matthews/Majors. In their pre-WWE careers the duo would become two time New York Wrestling Connection Tag Team Champions as well as holding the Premier Wrestling Federation (New Jersey) Tag Team Championships.

^{Horror stories aside, much of Deep South Wrestling is lost to time but this fun tag title match was preserved by WWE on Zack Ryder’s Iced 3.}

Since leaving WWE for the second time, Myers has also picked up the the WrestlePro Tag Team Championship with Joey Janela and the Create A Pro Tag Team Championship with “Smart” Mark Sterling (these two had a banger for the titles with Bear Country on the first FWF Live show).

^{CAP Tag Team Championship Match: Brian Myers & “Smart” Mark Sterling Vs. The Shook Crew.}

Tag Team wrestling matters and championships aren’t everything (“green is better than gold brother!” is something I assume someone has said) but this feels like a very significant win for Myers and as a fan I’m delighted to see him get this opportunity.

“No matter how big or how small, when you win a championship it means the company has trust in you and that will never get old. If anyone tells you otherwise, they’d be lying to you.” – Brian Myers (2021) via Daily DDT

Impact’s Digital Media Championship is a relatively young title (est. October 2021) that didn’t receive the warmest reception from a lot of fans initially due to a name that no one seems to particularly like. But this intergender division began picking up steam during a feud between Matt Cardona (Myers’ longtime tag team partner and Major Wrestling Figure Podcast broski) and inaugural champion Jordynne Grace (the current Impact Wrestling Knockouts Champion) which saw the title elevated to receiving a presence on the flagship TV show and a main PPV card for the first time after previously being exclusive to pre-show streams and web matches.

^{Digital Media Championship Dot Combat Match: Matt Cardona (C) Vs. Jordynne Grace}

Once the titleholder, Cardona did a very good job as a traveling champion and defended the gold on PPV and live streams for River City Wrestling, WrestlePro, Zicky Dice’s Trouble in Paradise 2 and Beyond Wrestling. Hoisted by his own petard somewhat, Cardona would then be bested in one of these extracurricular defenses by former World Champion Rich Swann on a PPV for Pro Wrestling Revolver.

^{Digital Media Championship Match: Matt Cardona (C) Vs. Rich Swann in PWR}

Myers entered title contention when former champion Cardona escaped with the physical title belt still in his possession and handed it to his fellow Major Player due to an injury which also forced him to relinquish the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship. With Swann being the champion and Myers holding the belt, the two met on June 19th in a title match on Slammiversary’s Countdown show and Swann would leave undisputed.

^{Digital Media Championship Match: Rich Swanna (C) Vs. Brian Myers}

But Myers made a No Disqualification “rematch” count and is once again a champion in Impact Wrestling. As a fan, I hope this clean victory over a former World Champion is the beginning of a sustained push for the Most Professional Wrestler who while always performing well has drifted through a few different angles on TV (The Learning Tree, Most Professional Commentator, Major Players) and gone through more than a few tables since challenging Christian Cage for the World Championship at Impact’s Emergence PPV on August 16th 2021.