Category: Wrestling News

Lucha Underground’s Bright Path

Even though I had heard the news earlier in the month, I was ecstatic to see the debut of Alberto El Patron in Lucha Underground. A big name in the world of professional wrestling it is wonderful to see more and more stars like this join the company. With a cinematography style that seems to be right from the handbook of any motion picture, to names like Mark Burnett (producer of hit shows such as Survivor and The Apprentice) and Robert Rodriguez (acclaimed film director known for Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, and Sin City among others) producing it, Lucha Underground has the resources to become the next big company in professional wrestling.

Giving Alberto El Patron the mic to tie some loose ends shows well on the part of Lucha Underground in that storylines are written with a proper conclusion in mind and the fans are never left hanging. The El Rey Network, the channel that Lucha Underground airs on every Wednesday night at 8pm, airs back-to-back episodes of Lucha Underground leading up to the new one. If you missed an episode, story line, or are confused with a storyline’s direction due to missing an episode, it’s very easy to get caught up and not lost in the shuffle.

The more big names, the more viewers, and the more comfortable the show gets as time goes by, the greater the chance there will be for more serious competition to the likes of TNA and WWE and, like in anything, competition and multiple options for fans can never be seen as a bad thing.

-Celine

Safety Concerns

On the February 6th edition TNA Impact, Jeff Hardy was perched at the top of a cage when he took a dangerous fall, slamming on the steel steps below before crashing on the hard ground. He remained motionless for some time before regaining his composure from being knocked out cold.

As much as we all love professional wrestling, it is times like this when we need to remember that things like this can happen at any time with such a dangerous profession. They put their bodies on the line every night for our entertainment and it’s moments like this that remind us just how much they give every time they perform. Even TMZ, a mainstream site, published a story on the Hardy incident. While thankfully he is all right, it shows that while wrestling is gaining popularity by being featured in mainstream media, and has increasingly so in the past few years, safety is always the number one priority and serious injuries are never overlooked. No injury should ever be overlooked but it’s nice to see those outside of the wrestling universe express and show concern.

Here’s to many more years of exciting professional wrestling while being safe in the process.

-Celine

The beast vs The Warmaster?

With Brock Lesnar’s contract coming to an end after WrestleMania there is speculation that the beast in carnet will return to the Octagon. After all Dana White has went on record saying that he would welcome Lesnar back.

With the rumors of Lesnar’s return comes the potential of another return. That return could be none other then “the Warmaster” Josh Barnett. The last time we saw Barnett in the octagon was at UFC 168 in December of 2013. He was finished early by Travis Browne which came as a surprise especially after making quick work of Frank Mir with a deviating Knee months prior. Following the lost to Browne Josh underwent successful knee surgery in April of last year.

Since Josh has been MIA from the MMA scene he has went on to capture the Metemoris Heavyweight title by defeating Dean Lister; someone who hasn’t been submitted in 19 years!, He was picked up by NJPW to do English commentary and started his own podcast (which since then has been put on a hiatus.) Before all that though Josh gained a collective number of wins in the UFC, strike force and PRIDE.

Barnett was recently a guest on the MMA hour and he expressed interest in returning to the octagon as soon as possible. His opponent in mind? None other then the current WWE world Heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar. Barnett had this to say about the potential match up.

“For me I think of it as the business side of things. Not the business side of oh, I’m going to make so much money, but the business side of two pro wrestlers, the styles, seeing the two of us go out it is because people will find interest in it and the fight will be interesting itself. Not just in ‘Hey, I’m some guy who’s going to bully some other guy who’s got less experience, and then I act like I’m king shit of turd mountain.’”

One thing is Forsure if this bout does indeed happen it is sure to be a good wrestling match up of sorts between two former heavyweight champions. It should be noted the even if Barnett vs Lesnar doesn’t happen Barnett still wants to make a return sometime soon.

Are you excited about the possible match up of the beast vs the Warmaster? If not Lesnar who else would you want to see Barnett face? Further more do you think the 37 year old catch wrestler still has one more ufc world Heavyweight title run in him? If the match up between Lesnar and Barnett happens will the Warmaster be the one to defeat the 1 in 21-1? Or will Lesnar conquer Barnett just like everything else?

All these questions and more will soon be answered. Stay tuned.

-Vanessa (@GreatLove91)

WWE’s main roster unhappy with NXT booking?

How could anybody in their right mind be upset with the booking of NXT? After all it’s the highest rated weekly wrestling show. According to an online source at “wrestling inc” many of the superstars and divas on the main roster are upset and frustrated with the fact that the superstars and divas down at NXT get more time.

NXT is a weekly show with a running time of an hour. That’s two less hours then the flagship show “Monday night Raw” and one less hour to the runner up show known as “Smackdown”.

The frustration within comes from the fact that the guys and girls in developmental actually have a chance to develop a story line and let it season. On the main roster however we have story lines that lack any real direction and the ones that do have direction seem to be recycled from years ago.

Then there’s the wrestling in general, now I’m not saying this as a dis to the wrestlers on Raw or Smackdown but the wrestlers down at NXT seem to be head and shoulders above them. I mean NXT Rival this past week was better then anything I’ve seen on the main roster in a LONG TIME.

This screams ONE thing to me. The problem isn’t NXT. The problem is Vince McMahon. Vince has built an empire and for that he deserves to be respected but the guy needs to step down. He is stuck in the times. In the day and age of social media wrestling isn’t what it use to be in the 90’s or even 80’s. The fans will root for who THEY want not who Vince tells us too.

The owner of this site (Trevor) and myself have both agreed that a call up to the main roster almost seems like a demotion these days. For example I’m a huge Bayley fan but I’m scared to death of what the main roster would do to her career. Anybody remember how awesome Emma was on NXT? The main roster did NOTHING for her career. Who’s to say the same thing won’t happen to anyone that’s called up to the main roster from this point forward? I mean hello The Ascension is a prime example.

So can we blame the main roster stars for their frustration? They bust their asses off and sacrifice so much to be on the road nearly 365 days a year and for what? To get sloppy matches, hardly any promo time, and silly gimmicks?

It all boils down to this, the sooner Vince steps down and Hunter takes over the better. Not just for the fans but for the wrestling business as a whole. There’s nothing wrong with using the word entertainment because after all that’s what the characters are for, but it’s about time we get back to good o’l fashion wrestling.

As we wait for a greater day for professional wrestling in regards to Raw and Smackdown I advise you watch NXT if you don’t already. NXT alone is worth the $9.99 we pay for the WWE Network, and aside from that I can’t think of a better way to spend a Wednesday night.

-Vanessa (@GreatLove91)

Discovery Praises TNA Impact Wrestling Viewership On Destination America

Discovery Communications issued the following press release praising viewership for TNA Impact Wrestling on Destination America during the month of January.

DESTINATION AMERICA SCORES BIG WITH FIRST MONTH OF PREMIERES FOR IMPACT WRESTLING

More than four million viewers tune in during first four weeks of premieres

(Silver Spring, MD) – Destination America recorded its best January ever in Prime HH delivery with premieres of Impact Wrestling. The all-new season kicked off on Wednesday, January 7th, with Impact Wrestling LIVE, ranking as Destination America’s best Wednesday evening in network history delivery of M25-54. The show also ranked as the 6th most social television program for the evening with #Destination IMPACT reaching a collective 73M impressions on Twitter.

Premieres of Impact Wrestling settled into their regular Destination America timeslot on Friday, January 16th. For the month of January, Impact Wrestling ranked as the #9 series in ad-supported cable for delivery of M25-54 on Friday nights. On Friday, January 23rd, the network garnered its highest rated and most watched Friday evening in network history for delivery of P25-54 and M25-54, ranking as the #3 sports telecast in cable (behind only NBA Basketball and the X Games on ESPN) and out-delivering networks including A&E, NGC, ESPN2, TNT and FXX among M25-54.

Throughout January, Impact Wrestling posted record-breaking numbers, delivering an average of 276K viewers among P25-54.

Continuing to build momentum, Destination America’s Impact Wrestling recorded its best premiere to date on Friday, February 6th, delivering an average of 345K P25-54, while earning a 0.85 rating among M25-54. Since premiering on the network in January 2015, 4.2M viewers have watched Impact Wrestling on Destination America.

NJPW New Beginning Results

Sho Tanaka def. Yohei Komatsu

Tiger Mask & Mascara Dorada def. Manabu Nakanishi & Captain New Japan

Rob Conway & Chase Owens def. Jushin Liger & Hiroyoshi Tenzan

Kota Ibushi def. Tomoaki Honma

IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: Young Bucks def. (c) ReDRagon (Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish) and The Timespitters (Alex Shelley & Kushida) – Young Bucks are new Champs.

IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship: (C) Kenny Omega def. Ryuske Taguchi

Kazuchika Okada, Kazushi Sakuraba & Toru Yano def. The Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro Takahashi & Tama Tonga)

Yuji Nagata, Satoshi Kojima & Tetsuya Naito def. Shinsuke Nakamura, Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi

IWGP Tag Team Championship: The Bullet Club (Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson) def. (C) Meiyu Tag (Hirooki Goto & Katsuyori Shibata) – The Bullet Club are the new Champs

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: AJ Styles def. (C) Hiroshi Tanahashi – Styles is the new Champ

 

 

Is WWE Planning To induct Larry Zbyszko Into The 2015 Hall Of Fame?

PWInsider reports that WWE is planning to induct former AWA World Champion and WCW announcer “The Living Legend” Larry Zbyszko into the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2015.

Zbyszko is a regular at NXT tapings in Orlando and has appeared at WrestleMania Axxess in recent years.

The Story Behind Stories

When Curtis Axel came out on Monday Night RAW last Monday, furious that he was never “officially” eliminated from the Royal Rumble, it served as a way of tying up a lose end to that storyline. Dean Ambrose came out and threw him over the top rope, thus “officially” eliminating Axel. While I was impressed with the closure given to that particular incident, the differences between Brock Lesnar and Daniel Bryan’s treatment as champion remains to have something that can be nitpicked. Triple H addressed Daniel Bryan’s injury and the fact that he had to constantly defend the title every 30 days.

Once again, there was no mention of why Brock can sit on the title for much longer than 30 days without stepping in a WWE arena but Daniel couldn’t. If there was a mention made that was somehow missed, there should be more emphasis placed on it. Does Brock have a special contract? Are the rules universal for all WWE World Heavyweight champions or not? Things like that can affect consistency in story lines and here’s to hoping that it can be sorted out more clearly the longer Brock has the title.

-Celine

The Altered Road to WrestleMania? 

It’s no surprise that the ending of the Royal Rumble was extremely controversial. While the fans were excited for someone new and exciting, they should have specified who they had in mind when it came to “pushing someone new.” Roman Reigns was not the one fans wanted to see win the Rumble, even though he is a “newer” member of the roster. #PushTheYoungAndNewTalent, right? From arguments that he wasn’t ready yet to fans’ resistance to accept someone that the WWE is “force-feeding” us if you will, last Monday’s RAW appeared to be attempting to fix the error.

Seth Rollins and Daniel Bryan had a match, in which Bryan was victorious, and the winner will face Reigns at the new FastLane pay-per-view event where the winner from that match will go on to WrestleMania to face Brock Lesnar for the title. If Reigns wins, that means the original plans appear to remain in tact. If Bryan wins, that supports the notion that the WWE is listening to its fans and is actually altering the story lines in response to the resounding boos and negative feedback after Reigns’ victory, especially from the Royal Rumble crowd. Such a situation shows how WWE can be aware of its audience and how it deals with unexpected backlash.

-Celine

The Royal Trouble with Reigns 

The Royal Rumble is historically one of the most anticipated PPVs of the entire year. It ignites the Road to WrestleMania and sets the standard for what’s to come in the approaching months as well as how WrestleMania itself will be. However, this year the PPV was greeted with different emotions. For one thing, the triple threat match between Brock Lesnar, John Cena, and Seth Rollins for the WWE Championship easily stole the night and is very well in the running to be match of the year. From high spots to extreme displays of athletic abilities, it kept fans on the edge of the seat, and from the sound of the “THIS IS AWESOME” chants of the Philadelphia crowd, it’s not far off to say that it’s easily in the running for match of the year.

However, that all changed by the end of the night. The Royal Rumble match itself ended the PPV, and some may argue that the triple threat match should have been the closer, leaving fans with excitement in their minds as opposed to fans potentially being upset with only a mere 1 in 30 chance of their favorite winning. Realistically, names like Bray Wyatt, Dean Ambrose, and Daniel Bryan were more believed to be the winner, but there was always the thought of Roman Reigns. After all, he threw out wrestler after wrestler last year so was easily in the running to be a favorite.

While the Royal Rumble match is always filled with surprise entrants (Diamond Dallas Page, the Boogeyman, and the biggest surprise of the night, the WWE return of Bubba Ray Dudley, who received one of the biggest pops of the night), it’s a showcase of talent to win and headline WrestleMania. It’s one of the most significant honors one can have in their career. The common battle cry of the fans is to have a new, young, fresh face for the WWE. #PushTheYoungTalent. However, when Roman Reigns was crowned the winner of the 2015 Royal Rumble, the sound of boos in the arena was deafening. People were not impressed.

While there is no denying that Roman is talented, there are numerous reasons why the fans were not happy with the outcome. For one thing, it may not have necessarily been Roman’s victory that pushed fans to such extreme dissatisfaction that #CancelWWENetwork trended on Twitter all night. Daniel Bryan was eliminated early. The two of the last three remaining men were Kane and Big Show, two wrestlers that the audience knows will not win because it’d be too obvious with their massive size. Bubba Ray Dudley, the fans not knowing at the time whether his comeback was a one-time deal or the re-start of his time with the WWE, did not stay in the ring that long at all. The thought that Rusev may win by surprise after never officially being eliminated earlier in the night when he returned to the ring and attacked Reigns lasted for only less than a minute.

Add these factors to an audience that did not welcome Reigns with a warm reception when his music hit and he walked down the steps to the ring in the first place all contributed to such negative backlash.

Let’s take a look at Reigns, himself. If the fans were booing even before he entered the ring, there’s a resentment towards him early. What happened to fans wanting the WWE to push young, new and exciting talent? It’s a scenario of “be careful what you wish for”.

Reigns has the size, the presence, and the looks to be the future poster boy of the company. One can see him in mainstream media more likely than someone like, say, a Daniel Bryan based on size and appearance alone. And that’s also the thing. There is criticism that it feels as if the WWE is trying to “make” fans accept and love Reigns. While he’s a likable character, he is still very “green.” In other words, there is a long way to go with him. He needs more work in the ring and more work on the mic. From Shield alum alone, looking at the likes in-ring wise of Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins compared to Reigns is like night and day. While Ambrose and Rollins cut their teeth in the indies over the years, Reigns is much newer to the world of professional wrestling, and it shows. While the fans want the pushing of new talent, the fine print should have mentioned a specific person. Many believe Reigns is not there yet. It’d be better to love and accept him more organically as opposed to because “we have to.” Reasons like that may be why the fans were so upset. When even the massively loved Rock couldn’t help Roman from the boos, it was obvious there was a problem.

In a professional manner, the next night on RAW, the WWE acknowledged the hate towards Roman, who explained how the fans aren’t the ones going in the ring actually fighting these matches. “If” the company is pushing him, he’s taking advantage of the opportunity. He went on to say how life’s not fair and the audience received an air that Roman will give it his all at WrestleMania in the title match against Brock Lesnar. Whether people like him or not, he’s doing his job and what he’s told, and you can’t fault Reigns himself for that.

While I’m personally a fan of Reigns, I still would prefer he had more time to develop more. Maybe WrestleMania will be an excellent opportunity to solidify his status as a top-tier superstar on such a grand scale, granted he remains in the match. Whether you were thrilled or disgusted with the way the Royal Rumble ended, it will be interesting to see how the story line will progress, how Reigns in particular will improve, and how his road to WrestleMania will look now, especially amidst the vocal reaction of the WWE Universe.

-Celine