NEWS

They have a point to make. We are less than five weeks away from WrestleMania 38, which will be one of the biggest events in wrestling history. The show will take place over the course of two days in the 100,000+ seat AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. That is going to make it difficult to sell the place out so WWE is going to be having to work extra hard. They seem to have a plan in mind.
Earlier this week, WWE announced that the main event of WrestleMania 38 will see Universal Champion Roman Reigns vs. WWE Champion Brock Lesnar in a title unification match. According to Fightful Select, WWE production and commentary “hammered home” the idea of the match being the biggest in the history of WrestleMania this week on SmackDown, with the term being used multiple times during the show.
Opinion: This is one of those things where your viewing habits will determine how this goes. If you are a regular watcher of WWE television, you are going to get a bit sick of the term. That being said, if..

So much for that. WWE does a lot of different things with its wrestlers from one week to another and some of them are more interesting than others. At times it will seem like WWE has almost no idea what they are doing and that can make for some rather confusing moments. This time around, WWE seems to have already dropped an idea that they might not have used in the first place.
Earlier this month, Vince McMahon reportedly ordered that the team of Big E. and Kofi Kingston, who have reunited as a tag team on SmackDown, should not be known as New Day. According to Fightful Select, the edict has been dropped, as the team came to the ring on this week’s SmackDown with New Day graphics and the signature New Day entrance, though the team was still billed as Kingston and Big E. with no New Day name. However, the name may return when Xavier Woods is with the team. There is no word on why McMahon changed his mind on the edict.
Opinion: That is about as McMahon as you can get, as the idea was d..

You need to plan ahead. AEW has only been around for a few years now but they already have a great record on pay per view. The company has put together an exceptional pay per view catalog with some absolute classics. This includes an impressive midcard, and we might be about to see another example with Revolution 2022. However, the card might not be what was originally planned.
One of the matches currently set for Revolution is a six man tornado tag team match between Sting, Darby Allin and Sammy Guevara vs. the AHFO team of Matt Hardy, Andrade and Isiah Kassidy. According to Fightful Select, the original plans for the match did not feature Guevara and Kassidy. There is no word on why the change was made or what was originally planned for Guevara and Kassidy on the show.
Opinion: That’s an interesting change and I’m a bit surprised that Guevara, the reigning TNT Champion, has been added into a six man match rather than defending the title. That being said, Guevara is someone who can ..

Hopefully it isn’t too bad. Wrestlers can get hurt at any time and it is never a good thing to see. There are so many different things that can happen in a match, but some injuries are the kind that are built up over time. Some of them are more serious than others but there are a lot that take their time to heal. Unfortunately the latter is the case this time with a current WWE star.
SmackDown star Shotzi is in a new video on the Mondragon Chiropractic YouTube channel, where she talks about dealing with lower back pain. The problem is due to her pelvic bone being tilted forward, which has been treated with a variety of rehab exercises. Shotzi has only wrestled twice this year, including a Royal Rumble appearance that lasted less than three minutes and a match on this week’s SmackDown that lasted just over two minutes.
Opinion: That is never good to hear but at least Shotzi was already back in the ring this week. I’m not sure how bad things are for her, but she certainly seems to be h..

He’s a good Head of the Table. Over the last year and a half, no one has dominated WWE like Roman Reigns. Since winning the Universal Title in August 2020, Reigns has been virtually unstoppable with one big win after another. A lot of that has been due to his association with Paul Heyman, and now Reigns got to thank him a bit after something happened to Heyman this week.
A clip from after this week’s SmackDown has made its way online, showing Reigns hugging Heyman after the fans called Heyman a walrus. After the hug, Reigns led Heyman away so he could watch the rest of the six man tag dark match. Reigns and Heyman had both been on the television show earlier in the night, with Heyman speaking to Brock Lesnar during his contract signing with Reigns to end the show.
This was great. Check out what happened after SmackDown:
[This post contains video, click to play]
Opinion: This is one of those things that you get to see after the show is over and it makes things that much better. Reig..

He knows his stuff. There are very few people in the history of wrestling as controversial as Vince McMahon. While he is the most successful and influential names in the industry, McMahon is certainly not without his faults. There have been several instances where he makes some questionable decisions, but he still does know what he is talking about at times. That was on display with one of his biggest stars.
Ronda Rousey made her WWE return at the 2022 Royal Rumble, winning the women’s edition of the show’s namesake match. Rousey has released a video on her YouTube page talking about her return, which comes after her first run with the company was not well received by fans. During her return, McMahon told her to smile more, because even if she had not forgiven the fans, they had forgiven her, and the show is ultimately about the fans. Rousey said that it was a great point, as she had forgotten that the point of the show was to entertain the fans.
There is a lot here. Check out the fu..

They’re good at that kind of thing in NXT. One of the most common criticisms that you will see of wrestlers is that they are not real athletes. Critics will cite the predetermined nature of a match to say that everything about wrestling is fake, which is just not the case. What the wrestlers are doing in the ring is very real and shows you just how athletically gifted these people are. That was on display again this week.
According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, NXT held a powerlifting combine at the Performance Center earlier this week. There were different lifting groups for both men and women, with NXT Champion Bron Breakker and Zoey Stark scoring the highest in two rep bench press, while JJ Baron and Yulisa Leon and Kayden Carter scored the highest in the two rep box squat respectively. Here are the full results:
Two-Rep Bench Press, Men:
* Bron Breakker: 455 pounds
* Brutus Creed, Tony D’Angelo: 385 pounds
* JJ Baron, Bryce Montana, Von Wagner, Julius Creed, Josh Briggs: ..

Yes, again. Wrestlers are people who play larger than life characters on television. It is the best way possible to get them noticed by an audience, though it is rarely a reflection of who they are when the cameras go off. When that happens, things can go badly for them just like anyone else in the world and unfortunately that seems to be the case again with a certain wrestling legend.
According to Wrestlingnews.co, WWE Hall of Famer Tammy Sytch, better known as Sunny, has been arrested again in Keansburg, New Jersey. Sytch is facing a list of charges, including:
– OPERATING UNDER INFLUENCE OF LIQUOR OR DRUGS
– DRIVING AFTER DL/REGISTRATION SUSPENDED/REVOKED
– CARELESS DRIVING: LIKELY TO ENDANGER PERSON OR PROPERTY
– RECKLESS DRIVING
– FAILURE TO WEARSEAT EQUIPMENT-RESPONSIBILITY OF DRIVER
– DRIVING WITHOUT A LICENSE
– FAIL POSS DRIV LIC
– FAIL TO POSS DRIV REG
– FAIL TO POSS DRIV INS CARD
– FAILURE TO INSTALL INTERLOCK/DRIVE CAR W/O INTERLOCK
– OPERATE MV DURING LICENSE SUSPENSION-2..

He’s worth it. There are so many wrestlers on the WWE roster that it can be difficult to really stand out. It takes some special talent or abilities to really become one of the more prominent names around but you do see some talented stars rise to the top. Thankfully those wrestlers are rewarded for their efforts and that seems to be the case again with one of the biggest names in the company.
Earlier this week, it was reported that AJ Styles had signed a new multi year deal with WWE, which would pay him somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 million a year. According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the new deal makes Styles one of the highest paid stars in WWE today. Styles will be near the same level as Goldberg, Edge, the Miz and Kevin Owens, though Styles is making more than Owens is from Owens’ new contract. The only names above Styles’ level are Brock Lesnar, Roman Reigns, Ronda Rousey and Randy Orton.
Opinion: I don’t think anyone is going to disagree with Styles being one ..

Welcome back more? As is the case with any other athlete, you never know when you might see a wrestler taken out of action in the blink of an eye. Sometimes people just get hurt no matter how well they are trained or how much experience that they have, as an injury can be instantaneous or be built up over time. It can lead to some great returns though, and now a recent one seems to be going better than expected.
SmackDown’s Drew McIntyre was put on the shelf on January 1 at WWE Day One when he was attacked by Happy Corbin and Madcap Moss. McIntyre returned to the ring at the Royal Rumble later than month, though reportedly on a lighter schedule. However, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, McIntyre will be returning to the live event circuit starting this week. It is not clear how many many live events McIntyre will be working compared to his usual schedule.
Opinion: I’m glad that McIntyre is going to be around more often but I hope that he doesn’t try to rush back to a f..

They made the right choice. Every so often, a wrestler comes around who catches your attention in a very impactful way. There is something about them that makes you pay attention and any time they are on the show, you are going to focus on them. That kind of charisma is very easy to see and WWE certainly saw it in one of their stars. It was so obvious that they made a last minute change.
Rhea Ripley was a guest on the My Love Letter To Wrestling podcast and discussed her time in NXT. According to Ripley, her NXT Women’s Title win over Shayna Baszler was originally supposed to end in a loss, but WWE made a last second change when seeing how popular she was with the fans. Ripley was getting ready for the match following a pre-taped promo and the reaction was so positive that the result of the match was changed. She would go on to defeat Baszler for the title, which she would hold for a little over three months before dropping it to Charlotte at WrestleMania 36.
Opinion: I’ve heard a lo..

Welcome to KB’s Old School (and New School) Reviews. I’ve been reviewing wrestling shows for over twelve years now and have reviewed over 6,000 shows. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I’ll be posting a new review here on Wrestlingrumors.net. It could be anything from modern WWE to old school to indies to anything in between. Note that I rate using letters instead of stars and I don’t rate matches under three minutes as really, how good or bad can something that short be?
Wrestlemania II
Date: April 7, 1986
Locations: Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, New York City, New York/Rosemont Horizon, Chicago, Illinois/Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, Los Angeles, California
Attendance: 16,585 (New York), 9,000 (Chicago), 14,500 (Los Angeles), 40,085 (Total)
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Susan St. James (New York), Gene Okerlund, Gorilla Monsoon, Cathy Lee Crosby (Chicago), Lord Alfred Hayes, Jesse Ventura, Elvira (Los Angeles)
This is basically three miniature shows combined into one big..