On Tuesday, WWE wrestler Luke Harper tweeted a statement saying that he has requested his release from his contract. This was just a week after Sasha Banks, fresh off an abrupt end to her and Bayley’s storyline push as Women’s Tag Team Champions, reportedly asked for her own release from the promotion. On Monday Night…

WrestleMania week is invariably a dizzying experience, and the one that recently sprawled over the course of a full week in and around New York City was no exception. There were way too many shows this year spread across too many locations, and even sleeping in my own bed every night, not attending any WWE events (a…

It’s that time of year: Springtime, when casual wrestling fans return to the fold for WrestleMania and its many surrounding events. Perhaps this is happening to you, whether of your own volition or because you are being dragged into it by a friend or family member. If you’re rusty, this year’s overstuffed WrestleMania…

As exhausting as WrestleMania week can be, especially with fans gladly taking on the growing second-shift slate of late night shows, last year’s Mania week in New Orleans was one of the most manageable in recent memory. It was good, too, but the surprising thing was how user-friendly and accessible it all was. Mania…

There is just so much pro wrestling, spread over so many promotions and so many years. There is so much, in fact, that a great deal of it—not just forgettable Reagan-era bouts but legitimately legendary matches featuring iconic performers giving dazzling performances—is presumed lost. These matches might well be out…

Few relationships in professional wrestling’s history have been more bizarre than the long-running and extremely fraught one between The Ultimate Warrior and Vince McMahon and McMahon’s wrestling promotion. Over the course of decades, the relationship featured multiple splits and just as many lawsuits, WWE producing a…

The local television behemoth Sinclair Broadcast Group is infamous for its extreme right-wing politics and dedication to seeding those beliefs into its local news broadcasts. Ring of Honor, the wrestling promotion that Sinclair owns, has somehow avoided being stained by its parent company’s broader creepiness. The…

When WWE announces a new class of signees for its Performance Center in the Orlando area, the notable names tend to go public in advance. WWE infamously instructs its incoming talent not to tell anyone, but those wrestlers still have to finish up their independent dates before joining the promotion, and that kind of…

On Thursday, Jushin Thunder Liger, inarguably one of the most influential figures in the history of the global wrestling business, announced his retirement at a press conference in Japan. The 54-year-old masked wrestler, whose real name is Keichi Yamada, will travel the world on a farewell tour slated to end in…

Last week, WWE announced that the D-Generation X stable would be the headline inductees at the 2019 WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony over WrestleMania weekend in April. This week, The Honky Tonk Man was added to the lineup of honorees. If the WWE Hall of Fame is going to exist, it should have all those wrestlers in…

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.