Meet Warhorse: How Jake Parnell transformed into the Independent Wrestling Champion
There is a new IWTV Independent Wrestling Champion, and his name is Warhorse.
On September 21 at Black Label Pro's Turbo Graps 16 Tournament, then champion Orange Cassidy entered the field as a mystery entrant and put the title on the line in his first round match with Erick Stevens. When Stevens defeated Cassidy to become the new champ, he declared that he would defend the title all tournament long. Stevens was able to successfully defend the championship in the four-way semi-final, but came up short against Warhorse in an epic tournament final.
Warhorse's path to victory saw him defeat international standout Lucky Kid in round one and Jody Fleisch, Danny Adams and Carlos Romo in the semi-final, before besting Stevens in the main event.
Warhorse has regularly appeared on the top ten challengers list for the Independent Wrestling Championship and has held major championships in both Zero1 USA and Black Label Pro. Formerly known as Jake Parnell, the six year veteran has been a standout of the Midwestern indie scene for some time, and has been expanding his profile to other regions over the last year.
First rising to prominence as one third of the Viking War Party, to a large extent it was Warhorse's rivalry with fellow Midwestern stalwart Gary Jay that put him on the map as a singles competitor. Their feud - which started in Zero1 USA and saw Warhorse's mouth ripped open by a turnbuckle in one particularly brutal encounter - has carried over to a multitude of other promotions all over the country, including a last man standing bout that main evented IWTV's Wrestlemania weekend show Family Reunion.
As Jake Parnell he carried the moniker Warhorse for some time, with the metamorphosis becoming complete this Summer. After a series of tough losses in Black Label Pro, St. Louis Anarchy and coming up just short in the Scenic City Invitational final, Warhorse entered the Turbo Graps 16 Tournament motivated to prove all critics wrong. He did so in definitive fashion and is determined to be a fighting champion having already successfully defended the championship four times in four different promotions, with a fifth defense against former champion and current AEW star Orange Cassidy scheduled for this Saturday (10/12) at Beyond Wrestling's Sodom And Gomorrah which airs LIVE here on IWTV.
The era of Raw Horsepower has begun.