The
Ascension
The Ascension is a professional wrestling tag team consisting of Konnor and Viktor,
currently wrestling for WWE. The Ascension originally started out in Florida Championship Wrestling as a stable consisting of Konnor (formerly Connor O'Brian), Kenneth Cameron, Ricardo Rodriguez, Tito Colon and Raquel
Diaz. After several membership changes, Konnor and Viktor became
established as a tag-team in NXT. Their 364-day NXT Tag Team Championship reign is currently the longest in history.
Contents
History
Developmental territories
Formation (2011–2012)
On August 28, 2011, Ricardo Rodriguez announced the formation of
a stable called The Ascension, with members including Kenneth Cameron, Conor O'Brian, Tito Colon,
and Raquel Diaz.[1] The first match to include all members in some
capacity came on September 1, 2011, and saw Cameron, Colon and O’Brian,
accompanied by Diaz, defeating CJ Parker, Donny
Marlow and Johnny
Curtis.[2] On September 30, Cameron and Colon had a shot
at the Florida Tag Team Championship but lost to then champions CJ Parker and Donny
Marlow.
By October, The Ascension was no longer associated with
Rodriguez, as video packages promoting The Ascension with new darker characters
only featured the other four Ascension members without Rodriguez. By the end of
November The Ascension had all but disbanded, as O'Brian fell to injury and Colon
was called up to WWE to team with his cousin Primo (see Primo
& Epico), meanwhile Diaz becameQueen of FCW and distanced herself from the group. This
left Cameron as the sole survivor of The Ascension and he continued to use The
Ascension gimmick during his appearances. However the disintegration of the
group would prove to be beneficial for Cameron as he would go onto a three
month singles winning streak, beating the likes of Jiro and Calvin Raines until he finally lost to Colin Cassady on February 23, 2012.
O'Brian and Cameron (2012–2013)
On March 15, 2012 Cameron was accompanied to the ring by the
returning Conor O'Brian in his match against Byron Saxton; the match ended in
disqualification when O'Brian interfered. Cameron and O'Brian began wrestling
as a tag team using the name of The Ascension, with their first tag team match
together coming on March 23 when the two defeated Jason Jordan and Xavier
Woods. The Ascension suffered their first loss when the pair lost to
the Florida Tag Team Champions Corey Graves and Jake Carter in a title bout.[3] After this loss, the Ascension would go on
another winning streak including winning a fatal four way elimination against
the teams of Adam Mercer & Chad Baxter, Jason Jordan & Mike Dalton, and Brad
Maddox& Rick Victor.[4]
On June 6, 2012, The Ascension made their debut on NXT, defeating Mike Dalton and CJ Parker with their double team finisher, Downcast.[5][6] They would later enter a rivalry with the Usos,
with the Ascension getting the better end of most of the encounters between the
two teams.[7][8][9][10] The Ascension also defeated another main
roster team inTyson
Kidd and Justin Gabriel on the October 3, 2012 episode of NXT.[11] However, the team was disbanded after Cameron
was released from his WWE contract on November 30, 2012 after being arrested.[12]
Konnor and Viktor (2013–2014)
From there O'Brian worked as a singles wrestler, keeping the
Ascension gimmick on his own for some time. Following O'Brian's victory over Alex Riley on the June 5, 2013 edition of NXT, Rick Victor appeared on the ramp, getting O'Brian's
attention.[13] Victor would officially accompany O'Brian to
the ring as his partner in the Ascension on the July 3 edition of NXT as O'Brian defeated Andy Baker. After winning a gauntlet match
to determine the number one contenders for the NXT Tag Team Championship,[14] the Ascension defeated the team of Adrian Nevile and Corey Graves on the October 2 edition of NXT to capture the titles.[15] On the 8th of November the two were renamed,
Connor O'Brian renamed to Konnor and Rick Victor renamed to Viktor.
For the majority of their title reign, The Ascension would
battle and dismantle local wrestlers in mere minutes with very little to no
offense from their opponents. Their first major title defense was against Too Cool at NXT's first live event, NXT Arrival, where
they emerged victorious. The Ascension began demanding competition in the weeks
following, moving up from local wrestlers to various combinations of teams made
up from contracted NXT wrestlers. While still disabling and annihilating their
opponents week after week, they were confronted by a team of masked wrestlers; El Local and Kalisto, who
challenged them for their tag team titles at the second live event, NXT TakeOver. Though
they were given their toughest challenge to date, The Ascension successfully
defended their gold after hitting Fall of Man on Local.
The Ascension had a cameo on the main roster on the September 9,
2014 episode of Main Event to promote their upcoming title defense,
defeating Los Matadores in a match to promote their title defense
against the team of Kalisto and Sin Cara at the NXT TakeOver: Fatal 4 Way event. At the event, The Ascension lost the
titles to Kalisto and Sin Cara, ending their reign a day short of a full year.
That same night, they were in an altercation with William
Regal and the debuting Hideo Itami. After
feuding with and assaulting Itami for several weeks, a second international
wrestler, Finn Balor, joined
Itami in his fight against both Konnor and Viktor. This led to a match on
December 11 at NXT TakeOver: R Evolution, where The Ascension were
defeated by Itami and Balor.
The following night on SmackDown,
vignettes began to air promoting The Ascension's call-up to the main roster.
They eventually made their official main roster debut as a face on the December
29, 2014 episode of Raw,
defeating The Miz and Damien Mizdow.[16]
On the
January 2nd and 9th episodes of SmackDown and the January 5th episode of Raw, The Ascension easily defeated local preliminary wrestlers in less
than a minute, and also cementing their heel status
after comparing themselves to legendary WWE tag teams including The Powers of Pain, The Road
Warriors and Demolition.
On January 19th edition of Raw, dubbed as Raw Reunion, The Ascension confronted the reuniting New World Order members Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and X-Pac, and were about to attack them before they were interrupted by The APA and The New Age Outlaws. This led to a match between The Ascension and the Outlaws at the Royal Rumble pay-per-view, which The Ascension won. On February 12th taping of Smackdown, they were a part of a tag team turmoil match against Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan, they lost via disqualification.
In wrestling
·
Double
team finishing moves
·
O'Brian
and Cameron
·
Konnor
and Viktor
·
Konnor's
finishing moves
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