TJ Crawford Sits Atop Synergy’s Throne
The Cruiserweight Crown didn’t change TJ Crawford. Our eyes have finally opened.
It’s lonely at the top. Just ask TJ Crawford.
Within five years, the Windy City Kid has become one of the top prospects on the independent scene. Even during this crazy year, he’s wrestled up and down the East Coast. He considers Synergy Pro Wrestling to be his home, but lately, he hasn’t been welcome.
It all started at the Garden State Invitational in July, when TJ Crawford met Ellis Taylor in the finals of the Cruiserweight Crown tournament. Having dazzled the fans with his aerial offense and unbridled intensity over the past year and a half, Crawford stunned the Synergy faithful by taking a cheap shot – kicking Taylor below the belt – to win the crown. With such high stakes, it was easy to give the popular striker the benefit of the doubt.
One month later, Crawford removed any doubt that he had turned evil. Scheduled to defend the crown against The Whisper and Kasey Catal (who backed out of the tournament finals due to illness), he claimed an injury and offered his two opponents to battle it out themselves. However, after they tore each other apart, Crawford brought a bat into the ring to finish them off and retain the crown.
“It’s disheartening that someone I considered a friend and someone who I grew up with in this business wasn’t willing to give me a fair fight for the Cruiserweight Crown,” Kasey Catal told The Wrestling Estate. “TJ Crawford is a great athlete, but his cheap wins and brutal attacks won’t keep him at the top forever. Every ‘king’ will eventually get dethroned, especially when the power they accumulate goes straight through their fake blonde hair and into their blown-up head.”
Truly delusional, Crawford doesn’t understand why his peers and fans have, in his mind, turned their backs on him. “I feel I’ve helped build Synergy from a small New Jersey indie company to something people are talking about pretty regularly,” Crawford says. “Now I’m laying the foundation for what Synergy’s cruiserweight division will be. I said since day one that I’ll do whatever it takes to win.”
Still can’t sleep thinking about how @TJCWrestling retained the Cruiserweight Crown at #Heatseekers, and what comes next. To @CatalKasey & @The__Whisper … I’m sorry. You deserved better after your performances.
— Synergy Pro Wrestling LIVE OCT 24 (@synergywrestle) September 2, 2020
(credit @Jocay19) #wrestling pic.twitter.com/mLhp1fIr8E
Although the wrestling world may be disappointed in Crawford, perhaps we’ve refused to see his true colors for quite some time. After all, this is a man who abandoned his best friend and left him to rot in obscurity. Crawford got his start in the sport as part of the Beach Bums, a trio of Spongebob lovin’ surfer dudes. They rode a wave of momentum in WrestlePro, winning the Trios Championship and even appearing on Impact Wrestling.
The wave crashed at the dawn of 2019, as Freddy Flamingo announced via Twitter that the team had decided to go their separate ways. Well, Crawford made the decision for him, vowing to take life seriously rather than soaking up rays and listening to the magic conch. They collided at PWE’s Galactic Resolution and Crawford picked up the win after convincing their fellow Beach Bum Brody to betray Flamingo. As of this writing, Flamingo has quit professional wrestling.
“That Beach Bum character was just that – a character,” Crawford says. “I had to put on an act every time the music hit. Now everybody gets to see who the real TJ Crawford is.”
Humble Beginnings
Contrary to popular belief, TJ Crawford was born in New Jersey.
He moved to Chicago when he was 8 years old and moved back to the Garden State in January of 2016 to pursue his passion. Originally, he was to finish school before training, but after a few months at Illinois State University, he couldn’t wait any longer. Crawford couldn’t decide on a major, but he knew for sure that pro wrestling was his dream. WrestlePro just so happened to be only a half hour away from where his uncle lived, so he packed his bags and embarked on his journey.
Eventually, he did get his associate degree in audio communications, which made his parents happy.
“They’re my biggest supporters,” Crawford says. “If I’m on a show on FITE TV, my parents order it. If I’m on IWTV, I give them my log-in. If it wasn’t for them, I would still be living in Chicago with a normal neighborhood job like everyone else. They only want the best for me and they know I’m not going to half-ass anything I’m doing.”
While working for WrestlePro, Crawford heard through the grapevine about Synergy’s growing popularity. He reached out to Colin West (creative director at the time) for bookings, and was fed the standard line “whenever there’s a spot, I’ll let you know.” Matt Macintosh, a multi-time WrestlePro titleholder and future Synergy Champion, vouched for him, and a spot opened up on Black Saturday 2018. Macintosh beat Crawford, but the latter impressed in his debut.
“I gave him one match and the rest has all been TJ,” says Synergy owner Colin West. “He’s earned everything he’s gotten here. Every match, every spot, everything.”
For most of his first year in Synergy, TJ Crawford was just happy to be part of the show. Seemingly directionless, he filled in for a tag team match, participated in a battle royal, won a three way and was mauled by KTB. It wasn’t until he drew the ire of Aaron Bradley that his role in Synergy became defined.
In the fall of 2019, Crawford and Bradley waged war in an unsanctioned match, as well as a last man standing match. Both brawls included profanity, lewd gestures and plenty of weapons, even an unprotected chairshot to the head. Emerging victorious each time, Crawford considers those matches as some of his favorite. “Me and Aaron brought out the best in each other,” Crawford says. “We set out to do something that Synergy wasn’t used to. It was so crazy and dangerous and different from everything else on the show.”
When Dan and Heather Funkenstein, owners of Englishtown, NJ-based Funkenstein Wrestling Superstore, founded Synergy in 2017, their goal was to launch a family-friendly wrestling promotion. West was tasked with booking performers that connect with a P.G. crowd, put on a quality pro wrestling match and operate with a strong sense of character. That was the modus operandi until the Crawford-Bradley feud stripped Synergy of its innocence.
“Our feud at Synergy set the bar in that company,” says Alex Reiman, formerly known as Aaron Bradley. “TJ Crawford is one of the most talented professional wrestlers I’ve ever stepped in the ring with. Every time I thought I had him beat, he got right back up. The man is destined for big things.”
In retrospect, it wasn’t just Synergy that got edgier during the feud. Something snapped within Crawford, too.
Bow Down to the King
TJ Crawford kicked off 2020 by winning a fatal four way to earn a spot in the finals of the Cruiserweight Crown tournament. Unfortunately, his coronation would be delayed by COVID-19.
“It kind of sucked because I knew once everything resumed, it would be a restart for me,” Crawford says. “Before everything had shut down, I was picking up a lot of momentum. I spent the pandemic looking in the mirror and re-evaluating everything I was doing. What can I change about myself? What can I do to better my wrestling and my personality?”
Crawford went home to Chicago and spent the three months in lockdown watching more wrestling than he ever has. Hoping to improve his promo skills, he studied Mr. Kennedy and MVP, two guys that were on the rise in WWE when Crawford started watching wrestling in the mid-2000s. He also studied different incarnations of puroresu – All Japan, New Japan, Dragon Gate, Michinoku Pro, etc. – to add to his repertoire.
“My ultimate end goal is to make it to WWE, but right now, everything I’m doing is working toward getting to Japan and the New Japan Dojo in Los Angeles,” Crawford says.
@TJCWrestling entrance from @synergywrestle 3rd birthday party. pic.twitter.com/lq2u18TQGt
— Raze Lighting® (@RazeLighting) September 29, 2020
His first match back since the coronavirus outbreak was for XWA in Rhode Island. Despite being away from the ring for several months, he wasn’t too worried about his mechanics or conditioning. He just wondered whether the masked fans would react the same way they did before the pandemic. “Once my music hit and I walked out there, there’s no bigger adrenaline rush than that, especially when the crowd is excited to see you,” Crawford says. “You almost go into autopilot mode. I haven’t done this in so long, but now I’m here. You just go on instinct.”
He returned to Synergy shortly thereafter, surprising everyone with his new attitude. He was cockier, impulsive and uncompromising. Greed had swelled inside him, compelling him to break any rules and take any shortcut to achieve his goal. Maybe hypocritical, but fans expected Ellis Taylor’s dirty tactics. Crawford, on the other hand, was the guy you’d bring home to mom.
“When you’re the first person to ever wear the Cruiserweight Crown, and you haven’t lost a match here in a year, I guess you get a little entitled,” West says.
Originally scheduled to defend the crown against Ring of Honor favorite Cheeseburger, Crawford will now face a new challenger this Saturday at Synergy’s Shadows: CZW Wired Champion KC Navarro. “People see me strike hard and often, and I fly around a bit, but nobody has seen that I can grapple and wrestle with some of the best that there are. I’m excited for people to see that side of me,” Crawford says.
As we’ve seen these past few months, there are many sides to TJ Crawford. The totally tubular Beach Bum. The bloodthirsty warrior. The daredevil. The narcissist. The king.
But that side we all grew fond of before the pandemic – the hungry, wide-eyed kid chasing the American Dream – may still exist deep down inside. A vestige of that humble dreamer appeared when Crawford walked through the curtain after winning the Cruiserweight Crown, his first singles championship.
“Once I got to the back, the first thought than ran through my head is when the Beach Bums won the WrestlePro Trios Medallions for the first time,” Crawford says. “I was able to share that moment with two of my best friends in wrestling. In Synergy, I didn’t have those guys to share that moment with. It was bittersweet because it made me realize I could do this on my own, but man, I wish I had my brothers with me to experience this because that would be really cool.
But, you have to sacrifice some of those friendships and bonds to get where you want.”
Synergy “Shadows” takes place Oct. 24 at the Monster Factory in Paulsboro, NJ.
For tickets and more information, visit www.synergywrestling.com
Watch at 7 p.m. EST on FITE TV.
You can watch all of Synergy’s past events on independentwrestling
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Oh look my tweet is in this. Very good article as well.
TJ Crawford is the real deal.