For about as long as WWE has had a developmental system, that system has blatantly misused, if not outright squandered, tremendous wrestling talents. Steve Bradley was long considered the model wrestler in the farm system during its early days, the wrestler who everyone around him should aspire to be. Bradley was…
It’s never been a secret that pro wrestling isn’t on the level, with plenty of stories on the subject going back all the way to the 1850s. The true reason it was a prearranged exhibition may have changed from fleecing gamblers to increasing entertainment value and maximizing box office revenue with more compelling…
As a mainstream athlete, Antonio Inoki is probably best known for battling Muhammad Ali to a draw in an actual on-the-level fight—albeit one restricted by last-minute rule changes—after The Greatest backed out of plans to lose a traditional entertainment wrestling match. But Antonio Inoki is not a mainstream athlete.…
The biggest news in pro wrestling this week probably should have involved in-ring, canonical storyline fallout from WWE’s Royal Rumble weekend in Phoenix. And there was indeed news made there, or at least the set up for the next round between Ronda Rousey and Becky Lynch, which will likely be pushed as the first-ever…
What still stands as quite possibly the most viscerally memorable match in the modern history of World Wrestling Entertainment took place 20 years ago this week at Royal Rumble ‘99. How much of a compliment that is depends on your perspective.
On Monday, the self-described “conservative comedian” Steven Crowder tweeted out the guest list for his online talk show, Louder With Crowder, which streams on the Glenn Beck-owned BlazeTV. There is no reason any person should care about this beyond the fact that, among those guests, was the WWE star A.J. Styles.…
WWE’s television programming has taken a sharp turn in the past week or so, or more precisely thrown it in reverse and slammed on the gas. The last time pro wrestling’s dominant promotion truly broke through to mainstream popularity was 20 years ago, and came largely on the back of vulgar, sexed-up mayhem. In that…
The news officially arrived through a pair of statements, a rally outside TIAA Bank Field, and a subsequent press junket, but the Jacksonville Jaguars owners Shahid “Shad” Khan and his son Tony made their bold new foray into the pro wrestling business official on Tuesday. The name of the new promotion is All Elite…
“Mean” Gene Okerlund, the most iconic interviewer and one of the most well-known announcers period in the history of televised pro wrestling, passed away at the age of 76, WWE announced on Wednesday morning. No cause of death was given by WWE, although Okerlund’s son Tor later told the Associated Press that his father…
The long-beleaguered Impact Wrestling, which had been hunting for a new American TV deal, announcing a new destination last Friday. Starting on January 11, the two hour eponymous weekly Impact show moves from Thursday nights on PopTV (formerly the TV Guide Channel) to Fridays at 10:00 p.m. ET on the Pursuit Channel.
On Tuesday, the New York State Attorney General’s Office announced that they had reached a settlement in their suit against the Donald J. Trump Foundation over its (prolific) self-dealing and other assorted misdeeds. Beyond the usual Trump-scented malfeasance in which the foundation engaged, one detail especially…
Ring of Honor’s year-end pay-per-view event, Final Battle, will air live on Friday night from the Hammerstein Ballroom at the Manhattan Center in New York City. It’s become one of the biggest events in independent wrestling, but there’s more intrigue around it than usual this year, as it looks likely that several of…
WWE confirmed on Wednesday that Tom Billington, the former pro wrestler best known as Dynamite Kid of the British Bulldogs tag team, had passed away at the age of 60. He leaves one of the more hugely complicated legacies of just about anyone who has ever been a part of this hugely complicated business. In the ring, he…
Over the course of the last few weeks, a crush of news on the WWE talent development front has changed how many fans look at the company. A Monday report from WrestleTalk revealed major changes to the contracts for WWE’s United Kingdom-based developmental talent; the new language specifically limited who developmental…
On the internet, there are certain institutions we have come to rely on daily to keep truth from becoming nebulous or elastic. Not necessarily in the way that something stupid like Verrit aspired to, but at least in confirming that you aren’t losing your mind, that an old post or article you remember reading did, in…
Golden Boy Promotions, Oscar De La Hoya’s outfit, promoted its first mixed martial arts event on Saturday night at the Los Angeles Forum. It was built more like a boxing card than a traditional MMA one, with the main event getting almost the entire focus and the co-feature getting a polite bit of lip service. The…
Welcome back, Daniel Bryan.
When last we discussed Becky Lynch in this space, she was already a star but still a few weeks removed from turning on Charlotte Flair at SummerSlam. This was a problem for WWE, even if they only sort of seemed to know it then. Becky was and still notionally is a heel, but fans stuck with Becky as their favorite as…
Aside from its concessions to Saudi Arabia as part of a larger business deal with the murderous gulf autocracy, WWE’s recent programming has been as apolitical as it has been in ages. It’s the sort of thing that’s more notable in its absence, but the promotion’s classic xenophobic and jingoistic storylines are gone.…
The WWE Hidden Gems section of WWE Network’s on-demand library is one of the more reliably enjoyable things that the promotion offers, a weekly release of unseen or rarely seen footage from their vast archives that offers a compelling look at weird days gone by in the sport. Not every week is a home run, and there…
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