NWA’s Immortals Ready to Win Crockett Cup

Forney, TX – At the OC Theatre on April 4th, there are tag teams ready to make their mark at The Crockett Cup, The National Wrestling Alliance’s signature live event, where twenty-plus teams are looking for a chance to win the vaunted trophy. Among those names are last year’s winners, and current NWA World Tag Team champions The Immortals, Odinson and Kratos. They are the number one seed in the tournament, and Slamwrestling.net had a chance to sit down and talk with them on their mindset heading into the night.

“To make history, man,” Kratos said plainly. “Win this whole damn thing.”

“First ever win it twice,” Odinson chimed in. “That’s the plan. That’s what we’re going to do.”

Lofty goals, but the confidence both men exude in and out of the ring shows they are more than capable.

Odinson (Reginald Gibbs) is a product of Washington state, and the 6’4”, 265-pound Asgardian recalled the first day he decided to pursue work in the squared circle in 2012. “I packed up all my s*** and moved down to Atlanta, GA,” he said, “and trained at WWA with [WCW and WWF wrestler] Mr. Hughes as the head coach. I was there for like five or six years straight, training and doing all that stuff.”

Odinson even dropped this story about when he first started on the independent scene. “My first indie weekend was Freddy Yehi on Friday,” he said, mentioning the former EVOLVE wrestler from Georgia, “And then Scott Hall‘s son, Cody, on Saturday.”

That’s certainly a weekend right there.

“Scott was there kind of calling it with us and stuff before. So, it was nerve-wracking, and it’s on video now, like Scott recorded it, “Odinson chuckled. “It’s a tiny, tiny building called ‘Hard Times.’ Literally, the floor was like hardened dirt, like in somebody’s garage. But their house was connected, and their house was like…their bedroom was the changing room for all the wrestlers, and just a real tiny, run-down place. But I’m chilling with Scott Hall and his son.”

Kratos (J.R. Guidry) had a similar story, and the 6’2”, 310-pounder gave his side of what made him want to pursue professional wrestling at an impressionable age.

“When I was a kid, my dad worked at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, CA.,” he said, “And my grandmother was actually the head of security there. And I used to go to all the events, man, and obviously never, never missed a wrestling show.

Kratos recalled the first WWF show he went to with his dad. “It was a match between Papa Shango and the Ultimate Warrior,” he said. “Warrior came out, stood right in front of me, did his thing in the corner. And I remember vividly, I looked at my dad and said, ‘You know, this is going to be me one day. I want to do this.’”

Kratos then made good on his word by starting training in Northern California with Supreme Pro Wrestling, among other notable figures at the time. “I trained with Manny Fernandez for a couple of years, he said, “and then also, when I got into the MMA stuff, and trying to do more of conveying realism, I hooked up with Josh Barnett and trained with him.”

Kratos has more than lived up to his reputation as The Most Feared with those credentials.

While both men have started in different states and in different ways, they have both made the trip to the Land of the Rising Sun on various All Japan Pro Wrestling tours.

Odinson has been in various tag teams, most notably with Mike Parrow, who were known as The End in All Japan. “We were a lot different than anything they’ve seen in a long time, like two big jacked white dudes,” he laughed at the memory. “They don’t see that all the time over there, and we had the kind of Road Warrior-type gear and everything.”

“We went over there, and [our] first match, we beat the All Asia tag champions,” Odinson said with pride. “Four minutes, 20 seconds, our first match, Kouraken Hall, like [the] first thing we ever did was just squash the All Asia Tag Team Champions. So, we were rolling from there.”

Kratos himself had his own unique experience, too. “There’s another promotion out here [in California]. It’s called Pro Wrestling Revolution,” he said, describing the lucha libre company. “They brought Jun Akiyama for his debut here, and I was the one that was fortunate enough to wrestle him. [I] built a relationship with Akiyama, and he was the one who initially brought me out to All Japan, and I did that tour with him.”

What’s it like wrestling the man once nicknamed “Sternness?

“It was a surreal moment for me, because he is actually one of the guys that I used to study and watch tape of,” Kratos said. “And just being in the ring was cool, man. Just to know that I’m sharing a ring with a guy that, literally, I studied, and then to build a relationship with Him and Him be the one to give me the nod, to bring me over to Japan was pretty cool.”

At the time, both men were on different career paths and even found their way into the NWA after COVID eased up and the promotion could resume tapings. Odinson was still with Parrow, and Kratos did singles matches before teaming with Aron Stevens to hold tag gold. Odinson and Kratos even faced each other in a three-way match on night one of the NWA 75 pay-per-view, alongside “Thrillbilly” Silas Mason for the then-vacant NWA National championship.

To hear Kratos’ take on the subject, it was one for the ages. “Obviously, the stakes were awesome and high. But being in the ring again with those two guys? It’s [a question of] ‘Is the ring gonna hold us?’’ he remembered. “It’s like those two guys are massive individuals as well. So it was a great match.

“I mean, three-ways are what they are,” Kratos elaborated. “But again, being in the ring with those two pros, it was good. It was fun. And being on that stage at NWA 75 and doing what we did, it’s just a great platform to share the ring with those two guys.”

These days, Odinson and Kratos are better as allies than as rivals or foes. They first formed their tag team at Crockett Cup in 2023 and even won the NWA US Tag Team championships at the first Samhain PPV. Then they went on to claim the Crockett Cup in 2025 and, that same year, defeated Mike Knox and Trevor Murdoch to become the NWA World Tag Team champions.

As for how they’ve grown as a tag unit, both men expounded on what has made them so great. “I just think, [to] pull the curtain back a little bit, it’s just the growth of talent between each of us as individual talents growing that way and then coming together and proving what we do in the ring,” Kratos explained. “And that’s just dominate. There’s legitimately no one that could beat us.”

“Yeah, just knowing each other better and knowing how each other works,” Odinson added. “And not having to verbally communicate stuff, and just being able to look at each other and know what each other thinks, and [being] able to move smoothly and get our s*** done.”

On this night, they see a whole roster ready to cut their teeth in the ring, including rising stars like Jack Talos and Ren Ayabe, the Titans of Calamity. But Kratos and Odinson are not fazed, as they have stated in promos that they are prey to none, friends to few, and predators to all. The only question we at Slamwrestling had to ask was: What is the game plan heading into the signature live event?

For Kratos, it’s very simple: “Just ring the bell.”

As for Odinson, he tagged in to add this. “I mean, this is what we’re made to do. This is literally what we do, and this is what we’re good at. This is what we’re made for. So, I think that, especially bringing in the All Japan guys, we’ll be able to showcase all of our talents and prove why we are the world champions.”

You can see them as the NWA makes its debut on the COMET channel this weekend, May 1-2, 2026.