NEWS

That didn’t take long. Like any other business, wrestling is going to see a lot of turnover. Wrestlers can come and go at any given time, whether or not they have a long term contract. Even if someone is scheduled to be around a company for a long time, they might be left at home or just not used in one way or another. The opposite can be true as well, which seems to be the case.
Earlier this month, WWE began a tournament to crown a new Intercontinental Champion thanks to Sami Zayn being stripped of the title. One of the first round matches saw Daniel Bryan defeat Drew Gulak, which wasn’t exactly shocking. The surprise came the next day, when Gulak left the company following his contract expiring. That was more than a week ago though and things have already changed.
As of Monday, Gulak is once again listed as a member of the SmackDown roster on WWE.com. Also, according to Fightful.com, Gulak appeared at the most recent SmackDown tapings and will appear in a segment on this week’s sho..

Welcome to KB’s Old School (and New School) Reviews. I’ve been reviewing wrestling shows for over ten years now and have reviewed over 5,000 shows. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I’ll be posting a new review here on Wrestlingrumors.net, starting today. 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?
WrestleCade 2018 Supershow
Date: November 24, 2018
Location: Benton Convention Center, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Commentators: Blake Chadrick, Cyrus Fees
So this is kind of like WrestleCon Thanksgiving with a big wrestling convention and a few shows, including this supershow. I’ve wanted to go down to this for a few years but I might as well take a look at the major show. This could be anywhere from great to horrible and it’s hard to guess one way or another. Let’s get to it.
National Anthem. ..

We’re on the way there. WWE is still rolling on with their events despite the Coronavirus, and that means it is time to get ready for Backlash. The show is one of the more generic pay per views on the calendar so the show is sold on the strength of the matches involved. That can work well enough under the right circumstances and now we know another part of the card.
Back on the May 11 Monday Night Raw, Becky Lynch announced that she was pregnant and forced to vacate the Raw Women’s Title. As a result, Ms. Money in the Bank Asuka became the new champion. This sent her off on a new path in the company, but it also made her the most hunted wrestler in the division. We now know where she is going to start as champion and it’s a different kind of challenge.
This week on Monday Night Raw, Nia Jax defeated Charlotte and Natalya in a triple threat match to earn a shot at Asuka’s Raw Women’s Title at Backlash. Jax won the title after breaking up the Figure Eight to Charlotte and hitting a Sam..

A pre-cursor to the present. WWE has posted a new video to its YouTube channel in which they show the House of Horrors Match from Payback 2017 between Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton.
You can see the match in its entirety below:

From WWE.com:
From the moment Orton was driven up to the House of Horrors, he encountered a series of terrorizing sights. When he dared to approach the house, Orton spotted Wyatt in the window and proceeded to kick the door open. There, The Viper stepped into a dwelling filled with truly unspeakable evil. Among the dark distractions that filled every corner and shadow of the space, The Eater of Worlds appeared from nowhere and unleashed an all-out assault, dismantling both his opponent and the house. Whenever Orton managed to gain an advantage, Wyatt would disappear, then use the interfering horrors of his establishment to regain the advantage.
The first part of this showdown culminated in the House of Horrors’ kitchen, where both Superstars ruthlessly brawled ..

The two most difficult words in wrestling. WWE has posted a new video to its YouTube page in which they show the full “I Quit” Match for the WWE Championship between John Cena and The Miz from Over The Limit 2011.
You can see the match in its entirety below:

From WWE.com:
The Awesome One knew he’d have to pull out all the stops if he wanted to leave WWE Over the Limit as champion, which is why he immediately took advantage of the fact that there were no disqualifications. Calling on the aid of his VP of Corporate Communications, The Miz turned the bout into a makeshift Handicap Match and brutally double-teamed Cena with Alex Riley from the opening bell. Attacking their loathed enemy with everything that wasn’t nailed down, the vile duo abused The Champ, but he would not give up.
When his physicality didn’t get the job done, The Miz borrowed a trick that The Rock used in his 1999 “I Quit” Match against Mankind and played a recording of Cena screaming the only two words that can bri..

News from where? WWE has a lot of wrestlers on its roster and it can be rather hard to come up with something for all of them to do. With so many people around, at some point you have to start putting them together, just for the sake of finding a place for them all. A stable can help with that, but a recently formed group might already have been split up without much notice.
Over the last few months, we have seen the rise of stables on Monday Night Raw. Both Zelina Vega and Seth Rollins have amassed a group of wrestlers each, with one name from Vega’s team even jumping over to Rollins’ side. That is the kind of thing that makes for some interesting moments, but they weren’t even the only two stables around. They are now though, as something seems to have changed.
Last week on WWE Main Event, Ricochet defeated Shane Thorne, who had Brendan Vink in his corner. MVP was on commentary for the show, as he has been for the last several weeks, and made no mention of being associated with Vin..

It took long enough for WWE. The Coronavirus has changed the way the wrestling world works and not exactly in a good way. The biggest change has seen the lack of fans in attendance for the live events, meaning the shows have lost a lot of their atmosphere. There are not many things that wrestling promotions can do to combat this, but now the top company in the world has done something about it.
WWE has a lot of people on its roster and that can come into play in some good ways. While they have all kinds of talent on their three main television shows, they also have some extra stars on the NXT Florida circuit that you almost never see. This gives them a wide variety of names and that offers them some choices if they ever need extras. Those were on display this week.
This week’s Monday Night Raw included several NXT wrestlers standing between the stage and the ring where they acted as fans throughout the event. There were around twenty wrestlers present and were advertised as NXT wrest..

Monday Night Raw
Date: May 25, 2020
Location: WWE Performance Center, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Tom Phillips, Byron Saxton, Samoa Joe
It’s Memorial Day and that means the tributes will be strong this week. We’re also on the road to Backlash and I’m not sure what that is going to mean. We do at least already have a World Title match with Drew McIntyre defending against Bobby Lashley. Odds are we get more gaming hijinks between the Street Profits and the Viking Raiders. Let’s get to it.
We open with a long Memorial Day video.
Opening sequence.
There are NXT wrestlers around the stage to act as a makeshift audience. It took long enough.
We start with the Kevin Owens Show and he likes having the fans around here too. Owens brings out Asuka as his guest and that means a quick plug for the Man/Mom shirt. Owens: “Now available at WWEshop.com”. We see clips from last week of Nia Jax attacking Kairi Sane but getting taken out. Before we can see where that goes, here’s Charlotte to say..

205 Live
Date: May 22, 2020
Location: WWE Performance Center, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Byron Saxton, Corey Graves
We’re back with another edition of the show that continues to exist. The Cruiserweight Title tournament is starting to come to a close and that means absolutely nothing around here, as tends to be the case. Hopefully we can get some good action around here, because it’s not like anything matters when it comes to stories. Let’s get to it.
Opening sequence.
Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Ever Rise Burch and Martel lock up to start but a cheap shot from the apron lets Parker come in to hammer him down. A leg trip lets Burch take Parker over to the corner so Lorcan can get the tag. The rapid fire uppercuts set up the half crab that gave them the win on Wednesday but Martel sends Burch into them for the save this time.
Lorcan gets taken into the corner for the alternating beatdown, setting up the snapmare into the chinlock. That’s broken up and a running Blockbuster allow..

Main Event
Date: May 21, 2020
Location: WWE Performance Center, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Tom Phillips, MVP
It’s back to this one again and I’m running out of ways to come up with ways to talk about this show. There isn’t anything worth seeing on it most weeks, but you never know when you might see something that throws you a little curve ball. Hopefully that is the case again here, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up. Let’s get to it.
Opening sequence.
Jinder Mahal vs. Akira Tozawa Mahal goes straight to the power to start but Tozawa slips out of a slam and kicks away at the leg. A superkick drops Tozawa but Mahal would rather slug away than cover. Tozawa gets whipped hard into the corner and it’s the knee to the face to keep Tozawa down. The chinlock goes on and some knees to the back keep Tozawa in trouble. Another chinlock goes on because this is a match that needs two of them. Tozawa fights up and hits a quick Shining Wizard into a missile dropkick for two. A whip into the corn..

That’s a big one. If you have been a WWE fan over the last five years or so, you are familiar with Roman Reigns and the mixed reactions that he receives from the audience. Reigns has been one of the most controversial figures in wrestling history as he is incredibly talented and WWE desperately wants him to be their next breakout star, but the fans do not seem to want to cheer WWE’s handpicked star. That might not be a problem for the time being though.
Like many other wrestlers, Reigns has not been around since the Coronavirus pandemic began. As a leukemia survivor and father to newborn twins, Reigns has not been willing to participate in WWE events due to health concerns. That is a completely understandable decision and one that several other wrestlers have made. It presents a problem to WWE though and now they are doing something about the situation.
According to Tom Colohue of Sportskeeda.com, WWE writers have been told to assume that Reigns will not be returning anytime soon. Th..

Oh Brother. Like him or not, there are almost no wrestlers in history on Hulk Hogan’s level (and there is a serious case to be made that there is no one on that level). He modernized the wrestling world and turned the WWF into a global phenomenon, only to go to WCW and become one of the greatest heels of all time. That gives him the kind of legendary status that almost no one has approached and it gives him certain respect in wrestling. We almost saw that again this year.
While you may not realize it, we are coming up on forty years since Hulk Hogan first won the WWF World Title. That was quite a long time ago and while it might seem like yesterday that Hulkamania was the strongest force in the universe just a few days ago, Hogan is now in his late 60s and has not wrestled a match in nearly ten years. However, that streak was nearly broken on the big stage.
According to Wrestlingnews.co, Vince McMahon had signed off on the idea of Hogan entering and winning the Andre the Giant Memori..