NEWS

There’s the next one. We are less than a month away from AEW Double Or Nothing, which means the card is already starting to come together. AEW only presents a pay per view every quarter and that means they have a lot of time setting up the card in advance. There will be a variety of title matches on the show and as of this week, we have another one of them set.
An AEW Women’s Title match was set for Double Or Nothing this week on AEW Dynamite. Thunder Rosa will be defending against Serena Deeb, who challenged Rosa for the title match. The challenge comes after the two had a brief interaction last month. This will be Deeb’s first ever shot at the title, though she did defeat Rosa to win the NWA Women’s World Title in October 2020 and successfully defended it against Rosa on Dynamite the following month.
Opinion: This is the kind of match that the show needs, as it had been set up in recent weeks and was then made official this week. That isn’t a complicated situation and AEW didn’t bo..

History has been made! We are in a very interesting time in wrestling as the lines between the companies have virtually gone away. You can see wrestlers show up in one national company after another and it makes for a series of interesting matches. Some of them can be rather interesting and a title can make them even better. That was the case this week with a rather intricate situation.
This week on AEW Dynamite, Interim Ring Of Honor Women’s Champion Mercedes Martinez defeated Ring Of Honor Women’s Champion Deonna Purrazzo to unify the titles. The match saw Martinez, an AEW wrestler defeat Purrazzo, an Impact Wrestling wrestler, for a Ring Of Honor title. There is no word on if Purrazzo will be making regular appearances for AEW going forward.
Opinion: This is something that sounded like a good idea on paper but AEW did not do the best job of hyping up the match. The match had quite the unique setup but it was treated as just another match that happened to headline the show. AEW sti..

That could be worse. There are all kinds of injuries that could keep someone out of action. One of the worst parts about an injury is waiting to see how long the injury is going to put them on the shelf. It could be anywhere from a few days to several months or anywhere in the middle. That was the case again recently, as another wrestler is on the shelf for a little while.
This week on NXT, Brooks Jensen was examined by a doctor about an arm injury suffered at the hands of Von Wagner. As a result, Jensen will be out of action for six to eight weeks, though the doctor had said that Jensen could have been out of action as long as ten to twelve weeks. There is no word on if the injury is legitimate or just part of the storyline between Jensen and Wagner.
Opinion: That could be worse, though I’m not sure how long Josh Briggs is going to be able to hang on his own. The team isn’t exactly red hot in the first place but they were figuring out something with Fallon Henley involved. Hopefully..

Dynamite
Date: May 4, 2022
Location: Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena, Baltimore, Maryland
Commentators: Excalibur, Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone
I’m not sure how but we’re less than a month away from Double Or Nothing. Last week’s show saw the announcement that CM Punk would be challenging Hangman Page for the World Title at the pay per view so at least they have the top match set up pretty far in advance. Let’s get to it.
Opening sequence.
Owen Hart Foundation Qualifying Match: Jeff Hardy vs. Bobby Fish Adam Cole is on commentary and Matt Hardy and Kyle O’Reilly are at ringside. Fish takes him into the corner to start and kicks away at the leg, setting up a dragon screw legwhip onto the other leg. They head outside with another dragon screw legwhip sending Hardy into the barricade and we take a break.
Back with Hardy making a comeback and dropping Fish to go up top. The Swanton is broken up though and it’s the super Falcon Arrow to put Hardy down for two. Fish grabs the kneebar bu..

Add it to the list. WWE presents quite a bit of television content in any given week, with at least two hours of programming three nights a week. That allows them to offer quite a bit of material, but that is not all they do. In addition there are also regular or in some cases semi-regular specials. Now WWE might be considering adding another one for a show that doesn’t have that many.
According to the WrestleVotes Twitter account, WWE is considering presenting another NXT Stand & Deliver special later this year. The show would be paired with one of the main roster’s stadium shows, which include Money in the Bank in July, Summerslam in July or Clash At The Castle in September. WWE’s preference is to hold it over Money in the Bank weekend, but Summerslam seems more likely. NXT’s most recent Stand & Deliver took place over WrestleMania 38 weekend in April.
WWE has discussed adding another Stand & Deliver event for one of the 3 big stadium shows happening this summer. I’ve heard the pre..

That’s a strong point. WWE and AEW are the two most dominant wrestling promotions in the world with almost no one else even close to them. That seems likely to be the case for a long time to come, but there are few ways to compare the two. It can be done though, and now we have some numbers that shoe one company dominating in one specific area of fan interest.
According to Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston, WWE has dominated the Google searches in professional wrestling with 80.1% of all professional Wrestling searches in the year so far. AEW came in second with 12.4% and New Japan Pro Wrestling was third with 5%. No other promotion broke more than two percent. While the gap is closing, it is still seen as a long time before there is any real competition.
Opinion: While there are several factors to consider here (including how much longer WWE has been around), it is rather telling that WWE is this far ahead of AEW, and anyone else for that matter. WWE dominates the level of interest fr..

They aren’t done yet. Television has long since been the life blood of most wrestling promotions and it makes perfect sense. Fans are able to watch wrestling at a given time because they know when and where the show will be airing. That is at least in theory, as sometimes there is a little bit more to be seen, as was the case this week, with a special bonus taking place after a broadcast.
The main event of this week’s NXT saw Bron Breakker successfully defend the NXT Title against Joe Gacy. After the match, two of Gacy’s minions appeared behind Breakker to end the show. WWE has posted a clip from after NXT went off the air, showing the minions attacking Breakker, at Gacy’s instructions. They then put Breakker on a stretcher with barbed wire attached and carried him to the back.
This was certainly different. Check out what happened after NXT:
[This post contains video, click to play]

Opinion: Your taste on the angle may vary, but there is one major problem with the whole thing: Bre..

At least they had an idea. With so many wrestlers on the WWE roster, it can be difficult to figure out something for everyone to do. That can get even harder on a single show, as the time in the ring comes at a premium. WWE does what they can but there is always going to be someone left out. It was true last weekend as well, but there was a specific reason on a couple of occasions.
WWE was on a European tour last weekend with Sheamus as one of the bigger names appearing on the shows. However, Sheamus did not wrestle on two of the four shows, missing both Saturday and Sunday’s events. According to PWInsider.com, this was due to WWE wanting to give Sheamus’ associate Butch more ring time. As a result, Butch wrestled on the shows instead, challenging for the Intercontinental Title on all four shows.
Opinion: At least Sheamus is healthy and that is what matters most. This is something that makes sense, though I’m still not sure how well Butch is going to do as someone who runs away and i..

Talk about a game changer. There are certain wrestling shows that are part of the fabric of the industry and Monday Night Raw might be at the top of that list. The show has been on the air for almost thirty years and has run over 1,500 shows. While most of those shows have come on the USA Network, there have been more than a few which aired elsewhere. It turns out that the show was almost off of the network entirely.
According to Wrestling Observer Radio, Monday Night Raw was almost canceled at some point in 1996 or 1997. A new executive was brought in to run the USA Network and did not want wrestling on the channel. The show was about to be canceled but the ratings increased enough that the executive had to keep it on the air. It was not clear what would happen if the show had been removed from the network schedule.
Opinion: This is an interesting story, but not so much for the history. I find this to be more interesting because of what it says about a wrestling show. Just because a..

Content is key. AEW has shaken up the wrestling world in just a few years and that should continue to be the case for a long time to come. The company has changed the way everything works and a lot of that has been due to its flagship Dynamite series. Rampage has served as a supplement, and now we might be getting a new series, albeit one in a different style.
According to Fightful, WarnerMedia has sent out a fan survey, revealing that a new behind the scenes AEW series will be debuting on TBS. The idea of the series is a look backstage at how AEW works, with the wrestlers themselves telling the stories. The survey asked fans to consider a list of possible titles for the show, including:
AEW: FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
AEW: FIGHT TO THE FINISH
AEW: TO THE MAT
AEW: TO THE TOP
AEW: ROAD TO THE BELT
AEW: BREAKOUT
AEW: GRIT AND GLORY
AEW: All Access
AEW: THE CLIMB
AEW: ON THE ROPES
AEW: UPRISE”
There is no word on when the new series will debut.
Opinion: This is one of those things that makes..

It might be over already. WWE has a lot of television time to fill in any given week and that means you are going to see a lot of names on various shows. Some of those names are going to appear more often than others, often being rather successful. That means a few are going to have to take the losses though, and now another star might have been added to the wrong side.
This week’s Monday Night Raw featured a handicap match where Miz and Theory defeated Mustafa Ali in less than three minutes. According to Wrestling Observer Radio, this means that Vince McMahon might have already given up on Ali, who returned to WWE TV last week after several months away. There is no word on what this means for Ali, or what he is expected to be doing in the coming weeks.
Opinion: This is how things tend to go in WWE, because they do not exactly like to waste time. If you do not get over in the way the company wants them to in short order, it is seen as the wrestler’s fault and that is where things fal..

NXT
Date: May 3, 2022
Location: Capitol Wrestling Center, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Wade Barrett, Vic Joseph
It’s Spring Breakin, which is somehow a name that has never been used before. It’s one of those big time shows that has a pair of title matches included, capped off by Joe Gacy challenging Bron Breakker for the NXT Title. The show is looking stacked enough to be good so let’s get to it.
Pretty Deadly is by the pool to welcome us to the show, while admiring their Tag Team Titles. After running down the card, they jump into the pool and we’re ready to go.
North American Title: Cameron Grimes vs. Solo Sikoa vs. Carmelo Hayes Grimes is defending and Trick Williams is here with Hayes. Sikoa and Grimes take turns chopping Hayes and a heck of a backdrop sends Hayes bailing to the floor. Back in and Hayes is hiptossed into Sikoa but pulls him in for a hurricanrana. Hayes hits a springboard clothesline on Sikoa but Grimes takes him down, setting up a high crossbody to Sikoa for t..