Another Monday, another edition of the longest-running episodic program of all-time.
The Road to WrestleMania is now unobstructed following last night’s Fastlane event. While everyone’s temperatures seem to differ as to how enjoyable the event itself was, there’s no doubting that the RAW side of things had the wrestling world abuzz following last night’s event.
After months of speculation, “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt made his return to wrestling programming just three months after being burned alive. This, of course, rivals only Triple H and John Cena’s Royal Rumble returns in terms of quick returns from injury.
Superhuman recovery abilities aside, Wyatt’s return (and Randy Orton’s subsequent loss to Alexa Bliss) was the major headline coming out of Sunday, at least the headline of prudence to tonight’s edition of RAW. However, it was far from the only major development to take place on tonight’s show. Like Wyatt’s return, Bobby Lashley and The Hurt Business were featured prominently throughout the show, however, perhaps for the final time. AJ Styles and Kofi Kingston put on one heck of a tilt (pardon my language), and the RAW Women’s Championship finally has a clear direction heading into the Show of Shows. Perhaps most importantly, Shane McMahon sang a song.
Lots to talk about from tonight’s show, so let’s get right down to the nitty-gritty.
Like a Pita Pit employee, we wrap.
Three Big Things
Fiendishly Good
Yes, yes, let’s get my Bray Wyatt bias out of the way early.
As has been noted before, I’m admittedly a little more bullish on this storyline than most. I love the supernatural in pro wrestling, and have been a Bray Wyatt fan since the character’s earliest days. Unlike some, I’ve quite liked how Alexa Bliss and Randy Orton have carried the feud on in Wyatt’s absence and was thoroughly looking forward to how the return of The Fiend kickstarted his expected ‘Mania feud with Orton.
First and foremost, a quick shout to the excellent vignette WWE played early in the evening showcasing Orton, Wyatt and Bliss’ recent history. Truly, the only thing better than World Wrestling Entertainment’s short-film production team is Tom Phillips’ terrible pun prior the vignette’s actual airing.
Anyhoo.
Tonight’s main event slot began with Randall Keith Orton carrying a can of gasoline to the ring. After a brief promo, Alexa Bliss made her entrance, finally taking the opportunity to open the jack-in-the-box that she’s carried for the past few weeks. Suddenly, the Fiend appeared behind Orton, standing completely still as Orton proceeded to not only douse the now-mangled Wyatt with gasoline, but hit him with an RKO. However, at that moment, Alexa Bliss sauntered into the ring, causing a long-enough distraction for Wyatt to lock in the Mandible Claw and hit Orton with a Sister Abigail for the 2nd straight night. With the ringposts ablaze, both the Fiend and Bliss pointed at the WrestleMania sign, with confirmation that Wyatt and Orton would face off at WrestleMania match announced to close out the show.
I know I’m excited. Are you?
The Nightmare’s Debut
We’ve finally got a clear direction for the RAW Women’s Championship, and whoooo boy, it’s a doozy.
No disrespect intended to the other members of the RAW Women’s roster, but to me, Rhea Ripley was Asuka’s only realistic ‘Mania challenger this year. While perhaps not the original plan according to rumours, thankfully, RAW had an ace in the hole in the form of The Nightmare. While yes, there are certainly some qualms with someone who finished as Royal Rumble runner-up simply asking for a title match, I’m a little more understanding given the circumstances.
Despite her complete absence from programming since the Royal Rumble, Ripley’s always been presented as a star whenever on WWE television, and that was the case again tonight. Immediately following Asuka’s win over Peyton Royce – more on that in the Coffee Talk section – Ripley’s made her entrance, taking her sweet time getting down to the ring before laying the challenge to Asuka. Both women came off great during the segment, and though there’s still work to be done story-wise, I’m sold after tonight. While I would have hoped it would have started a few months ago, I’m at least of the belief that these two will absolutely tear it up come the Show of Shows, so truly, I can’t complain too much.
Hurt Business Hurts Hearts 🙁
Love Hurts.
Get it? Because it’s the name of the site, but also, because it’s a perfect summation of my feelings on the presumed breakup of The Hurt Business.
The evening started positively enough, opening with a tilt between Big Bad Bobby Lashley and The Untanned Warrior, Sheamus. First and foremost, I enjoyed the Lashley/Sheamus match much, much more than I thought I would considering we saw it just last week on RAW.
I’ve got all the time in the world for a good ol’ fashioned rematch, but it’s certainly frustrating that those seem to be the case more often than not on our weekly programming.
However, as has been consistent over the past few weeks, the match directly played into more tensions between the members of the Hurt Business. Both MVP and Lashley chastised Shelton Benjamin and Cedric Alexander, claiming the duo made the WWE Champion look weak in assisting him in defeating Sheamus. They challenged the former RAW tag team titleholders to make it up to them, leading to a 2-on-1 handicap match against Drew McIntyre later in the evening.
The match itself was solid; admittedly I’m not a huge fan of the handicap match format, but considering the talents involved it was bound to be a neat match. I really, really loved Cedric Alexander in this one, but frankly, that’s nothing new for me.
The Business’ final segment of the evening was, perhaps, the most heartbreaking. Following their loss, Lashley seemed to fire both Alexander and Benjamin from the Hurt Business before entering the locker room area and offering a WWE Championship opportunity to whoever was able to take McIntyre out before WrestleMania. Admittedly I’m not sure why you’d be selecting from the best of the best of the 24/7 crew, but I digress.
Did the breakup feel rushed? Absolutely, especially considering the excellent, excellent work that the entire faction has done as a quartet over the past eight months. It truly doesn’t feel like their time, but hopefully, it leads to bigger and better things (somehow) for all involved.
Coffee Talk
- It was excellent to see that they’re presumably leaning into a Sheamus vs. Riddle match at ‘Mania following their interaction backstage tonight. If that’s the case, I’m 100% in, and would really love the Celtic Warrior to win out on that one.
- It was alluded to earlier, but I quite enjoyed the Asuka/Peyton Royce match. Personally, while it started a little slower than I would have liked, it really picked up by the end of it. Huge pop for Peyton’s Widow’s Peak-like move. Certainly something I hope to see again in the future.
- Another week in which I hope that after WrestleMania, we get a John Morrison singles run.
- Bring on Bad Bunny and The Miz! I have all the time in the world for Bad Bunny’s run over the past few months. By all accounts, he’s been an excellent person to work with, and if having him involved will bring new viewers to pro wrestling’s biggest night of the year, I’m all for it.
- The New Day’s rapport with AJ Styles and Omos is absolutely terrific. There were a few genuine laugh-out-loud moments during their back-and-forth prior to Kingston facing off with Styles. Overall, absolutely terrific.
- I don’t think I have to tell you that Kofi vs. Styles was absolutely terrific. Definitely well worth a rewatch.
- Reginald is obviously a very athletic human being, but I can’t say I understand where the story is going. Moreso, I’m really not sure if I want to. I really loved the story they were telling with Lana and Nia a few months ago, and if they’re leaning back into that, I’m not sure Reggie needs to be involved.
- Shane McMahon earns a thunderous round of applause yet again tonight for his wonderful song about Braun Strowman. I can’t make a comment to Mr. Strowman’s intelligence – I’m certain he’s a smart man – but I’ll never complain about a McMahon sing-song
- Strowman vs. Shane: The Dream Match is official.
Bags o’ Popcorn Rating
🍿🍿🍿.5/🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿
There were certainly some neat moments from tonight’s show. I really loved the Fiend/Orton/Bliss segments, and the in-ring action tonight was really, really neat. Rhea Ripley vs. Asuka is certainly a match I’m thrilled about, too.
Have thoughts of your own? I’m happy to hear ’em! Get ahold of me on the Twitter machine @SpennyLove and let me know what you think!
Later days!
Matt Taven has certainly made himself synonymous with Ring of Honor over his decade-long run with the promotion. The former World Heavyweight Champion has nearly accomplished it all with ROH, not only winning the promotion’s top title but taking part in a number of ‘firsts’ with the promotion.
As part of our recent chat for Love Wrestling, I asked him about being part of so many of Ring of Honor’s memorable moments.
“You were part of their first [internet]-pay-per-view and pay-per-view and the first event, not just for Ring of Honor, but by a wrestling promotion not run by a McMahon in 50 years,” I remarked to Taven. “The titles the obvious, easy one, I think, so outside of that one is there may be a first in Ring of Honor history that you’ve been a part of that tugs at the heartstrings or means a little bit more to you?”
“Oh man,” he said, taking a second to collect his thoughts. “Yeah, you hit the big ones. Man, there’s been so many things. I was gonna originally say if you didn’t list it off that the first iPPV to me was a stepping stone. But, the first pay per view, I can remember saying to my friends and family like ‘you can just order. You don’t have to do like the online, like, you can just order it off your cable box this weekend.’ It was me and Jay Lethal, which is crazy.”
“And maybe, this isn’t necessarily the first, but me and Jay Lethal’s cage match is the last cage match that they’ve done in Ring of Honor,” the former champion continued. “That’s something that I actually went back and watched recently and it’s like, man, [me] and Jay Lethal somehow have fought for the Television Title, we’re on the first pay-per-view, did the cage match, then years later, we’re fighting for the world title, went 60 minutes in Vegas, did Madison Square Garden together. There’s no greater rival that I’ll ever have in my career because so much of it to this point has been with Jay Lethal.”
Taven laughed.
“Put all these matches on a DVD and sell that bad boy, because whooo, we put some time in on that one!”
I took the opportunity to interject. “I was gonna say, you could sell ‘the best of Matt Taven,’ and then a ‘best of Matt Taven versus Jay Lethal.'”
“Right? Because if they had me just choose the best of Matt Taven, so many of it would be against Jay Lethal. Yeah, that first pay-per-view was a moment that I think a lot of us took a lot of pride in, because we were seeing that snowball roll downhill and get bigger and bigger and bigger. Where we went from there and where we continue to go it’s just – it’s really cool to kind of look back at moments like that and be like ‘remember all the way back there?’ Or, even when I was doing dark matches, that first match that you’re talking about a year in and I’m like sleeping on like some rundown hotel floor and I’m like, ‘man, remember those days?’ They were still fantastic, but they make these days even sweeter. It’s very cool to kind of see the progression of my career and to see the progression of Ring of Honor as a whole.”
It’s a career that, frankly, wouldn’t have been possible without Ring of Honor. A little less than a year after beginning his official wrestling training, Taven made his first appearance for ROH in a dark match.
“You wrestled your first match for Ring of Honor a little less or a little more than a year after you even started wrestling,” I commented to him. “How does something like that come about? Because you know, there are a lot of first and second-year Albertans here in professional wrestling that are very good, but they’re not getting noticed at that level. Why do you think you did?”
“Well, it’s a combination of two things,” Taven began. “The first thing is something that I was told by one of my idols in wrestling, and it’s so true, is that wrestling makes no sense, and it’s just dumb luck sometimes, and you can’t drive yourself crazy over that. You just have to kind of roll with the punches, so it makes zero sense that that happened.”
We both laughed at the simplicity of the statement.
“I’m gonna write that one in my notebook,” I chuckled. “That’s my new excuse for a lot of things on my end.”
“There it is!” Taven responded. While he continued to smile, Taven took a slightly more serious tone before pressing on with his advice.
“But the second thing, and what I always try to tell people, is that you just got to show up, you know what I mean? Even if you think you’re not ready you just – that face in the crowd.
I can’t tell you how many things have come to me because it’s like, ‘oh, man, we need someone to fill this spot. Hey, this kid’s always been here! You got tights? Get him in the ring!'”
“It was kind of the same situation with Ring of Honor. They needed an extra guy. I just happened to – it was in Boston, I lived there. I knew the guy, the other guy who was having a dark match. We had worked in another promotion, in Northeast Wrestling. He suggested me, I zoomed over there, and then the next day, I found myself in New Jersey, and it’s just one of those things where – I’m sorry, I didn’t go over there. I was actually just planning on being ‘oh, hi, does anyone need a water or anything?
‘”
“I was just, like, zooming over to this kid’s house to follow him around like a sheep anyway all day and it just happened to work out. That’s kind of one of the biggest things in wrestling is that opportunities come out of nowhere, and you have to take advantage of them, obviously, when they show up. But, you also have to be there so the opportunity can exist in the first place. I can’t tell you how many – and it’s one of the reasons why me and Mike Bennett are so close.
I’ve gotten so many opportunities from just following him around like a puppy dog. I mean, I had those dark matches in ’09 with Ring of Honor only a year after I started wrestling. But later, once Mikey was kind of getting his footing in Ring of Honor, I was showing up to the TVs and just getting dressed up and helping out. Obviously, other people knew who I was at that point, I’d been wrestling a little more time. But then, an opportunity arose and I was able to fill that spot.”
“I can’t tell you how many things probably – Madison Square Garden probably never happens if I’m just not being that annoying guy that’s like, ‘okay, I’ll be in the back seat here!’”
Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any of the above transcriptions.
Matt Taven joins Spencer Love to discuss being discovered by Ring of Honor, his time in Alberta, the ‘prove it’ mentality of the ROH locker room, Sexual Taven, the intricacies of a hair-versus-hair match, being a part of so many ROH firsts, and more!
VIDEO
AUDIO
HIGHLIGHTS
Defending the ROH Title outside of Ring of Honor:
“I think of it as how – because I’ve been a fan my entire life, so I always look at the guys who traveled the world and did all these things. When you hear those cool NWA stories about, like, Flair coming here and there and defending the title. To me, that’s what the World Championship is all about. I had some great experiences going to England with it. But like being the first-ever Ring of Honor World Champion to go to Arena Mexico was crazy. Being able to go up to Canada, and like, I had such an incredible experience winning the World Title in Madison Square Garden. For me, I mean, could there be a bigger moment for a wrestling fan? I can literally remember as a kid, you know, destroying all my parent’s furniture and being like ‘in Madison Square Garden, I’m the Champion!’ For it to actually come to fruition one day is just a dream come true. And so, that energy that kind of that gave me, I wanted to keep it going. To go and travel – and I started cutting a crazy schedule. It ended up biting me literally in the foot in the end, because I had to have surgery. But I wanted that because I felt like that’s what wrestling was all about. After achieving that dream. I was like ‘I know how to keep this feeling going, and it’s by going out there and showing everyone why I’m the Ring of Honor World Champion.”
The prove-it mentality of the ROH locker room:
“That’s always – and that’s what made Ring of Honor and still makes Ring of Honor so good, is that we look around the locker room, and I go, ‘damn, he’s really good. I got to step my game up.’ You know what I mean? It was that way when I first got in there, and I probably wasn’t ready for that. But, you know, you’ve got the Kevin Steens and the Roderick Strongs, and the Briscoes that are still there, and Jay Lethal, and Adam Cole, and it’s like, ‘oh, man, I gotta – these are thick, these are rough waters to swim in, and I’ve got to stay afloat.’ I think that that has always been a feeling: a competitive, a good competitiveness in the Ring of Honor locker room has always been there. I think if there’s anything that’s different now, it’s more of a team competitive. It’s ‘alright. Maybe if people doubt us, let’s show them if they tune in that they’re looking very foolish for ever doubting us.’ And we’re very supportive of one another now, but at the same time, man, I was watching the episode last night and it’s like, you got Shane Taylor and Dragon Lee and Gresham and Lethal and Kenny and Rush and you’re like, you start doing push-ups. You’re like, ‘I gotta do something to keep up with everyone!’ That’s a competitive spirit that I think has always been in Ring of Honor, and I think it’s always been the reason why Ring of Honor has been such an innovative force in the wrestling world.”
FOLLOW MATT
Twitter: @MattTaven
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It’s impossible to argue that WWE’s women’s division has been at the forefront of this era of pandemic wrestling. From top to bottom, the division has excelled during this unique time in the industry, with many seizing the opportunity at hand to create some of the most memorable moments of an otherwise downtime in pro wrestling.
One person closely working with the women of WWE throughout the pandemic has been current producer and former in-ring talent TJ Wilson. The former Tyson Kidd has been instrumental in producing some of the pandemic’s premier matches, including the 2021 Royal Rumble match and the critically-acclaimed Sasha Banks versus Bayley “Hell in a Cell” match where Banks claimed the Smackdown Women’s Championship.
Wilson recently joined us to chat about WWE’s women’s division as a whole, as well as some of the Superstars who have stood out to him over the past few months since we’d last chatted.
Of course, when talking about the Women’s Division throughout 2020 and early 2021, it’s impossible to start with anyone but Sasha Banks and Bayley. The two have routinely been recognized as two of, if not the, top stars in professional wrestling throughout the course of the pandemic.
It’s a sentiment that Wilson wholeheartedly agrees with.
“I mean, I don’t know [who] it’d be. Maybe I’ll be – I don’t know if I’m biased, but I do work with [Sasha and Bayley] a lot. I don’t know – if they weren’t the MVP’s of this pandemic wrestling, then I honestly don’t know who are [or] who is.”
However, he continues, it’s not just the former Golden Role Models that have been at the forefront of pandemic wrestling. It’s the entire women’s division that have taken their on-screen performances to another level.
“But, the truth is if you watch, a lot of our talent have stepped up and especially a lot of the women,” beams Wilson. “I was very proud of the battle royale on RAW maybe three weeks ago, right before the draft or the day of the draft during the draft. I was very proud of that match. I thought it was very well done. I thought all the talent were great. It’s cool to see them – I worded that wrong, but like the Triple Threat this past week on RAW – on Smackdown, sorry – with Natty and Ruby and Zelina and the Triple Threat the week before I thought was very good as well with Billie, Natty, and Bianca.”
“Natty, obviously, her works speaks for itself. She’s the longest – you know, I don’t know that there’s been a woman that’s wrestled in WWE as long as her without a break. Actually, I take it back. I know there hasn’t. And then secondly she has the most matches in WWE for a woman and the most wins. So her career speaks for itself. But, you got someone like Bianca who has a ton of potential and you know, the sky’s the limit.”
“And,” he finishes, “I think Billie Kay is gonna surprise a lot of people as well. Like I think that Triple Threat opened a lot of eyes that maybe hadn’t seen Billie in a certain light before. We already know that she has personality for days. We already know that. So, it’s good to show that she also has some ring prowess as well.”
Of course, throughout the pandemic, it hasn’t just been WWE’s women’s division that’s come to the forefront of the professional wrestling scene. IMPACT has earned well-deserved accolades for their presentation of the Knockouts division, while All Elite Wrestling has earned headlines recently with their #1 contenders tournament and the highly-regarded Britt Baker/Thunder Rosa Lights Out match on Wednesday.
However, Wilson is quick to go to bat for WWE’s women as the top division in pro wrestling.
“I just think, honestly, across all three brands – and I’m sure to you know it obviously extends further even than that – is just this wave of wanting to prove themselves,” he states. “I did it as an individual. I was smaller in WWE and in wrestling, and I wanted to prove myself. I understand that as an individual, what’s really cool is they’re not only doing it as an individual, but they’re doing it as a collective group. I’ve never come across someone to phone it in or just kind of get by.
They, if you have an idea for them and they don’t – you know, if it works, it works, but if it’s not like the – if they think that there’s maybe even a little bit better idea, that they want to keep searching until we find something even a little bit better. Something may kind of work, but they want it even to – they always go out with the mindset of making it better, better, better and, of course, going out with the goal of making [the idea] the best and then come back and kind of dissect what maybe could be better. They take it all to heart. I don’t know why, but in this last eight months of – I don’t know if it’s maybe just because my travels so easy – I just drive to Orlando and back, so I’m able to focus on things – I don’t know, I don’t understand. But, I’ve really seen it a lot the last eight months.”
“Obviously, Sasha and Bayley have had a big spotlight on them during this whole time, [with] whole time being during this last six, eight months. So, of course, them, too, but not just only them. Everybody else on that woman’s roster has really stepped up and it’s so cool to see. It’s cool to see that the ones in the lead are stepping up and the ones that you would maybe consider at the back are also stepping up. So everybody’s stepping up, and it just keeps growing and growing and growing.”
Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any transcriptions used.
Musician Ian Abel of the Ian Abel Band joins me to discuss his work with All Elite Wrestling, creating music for Cody vs Dustin, what makes this lineup of the Ian Abel Band unique, the process of moving the band to Nashville mid-pandemic, and more!
VIDEO
AUDIO
HIGHLIGHTS
A background on the band:
“What are we? A band of misfits, really! Who are we? We’re still trying to figure that out. No – so, currently moving to Nashville, because of everything is going on. The band’s kind of spread out right now. But we’ll be based out of Nashville starting out. And it kind of makes sense. I mean, we’re more of that, like, I call it modern-day outlaw country, which outlaw country think like Waylon [Jennings] and people. If someone hears us, they’ll be like, ‘I don’t know about that,’ but we’re just a bunch of musicians just trying to write about what I guess we go through.”
“I try to keep it all pretty personal. I never sit down and think ‘this is exactly how things are going to be.’ You know, I would have never imagined that I would have a song used in such an awesome way. Two songs used, but especially with ‘Shoes’ for the brother-versus-brother match. I don’t know if that answered your question, but as far as who we are, I’m still trying to figure that out, I think.”
Who he would like to write entrance music for:
“Three. Okay. Anna Jay because she’s awesome! Yeah, different. Anna Jay. I think she’s incredible. She’s also super gorgeous, and she’s – I follow her on Twitter, she seems awesome, and I think she’s going to be huge. I think she’s gonna be a household name sooner than later. Also, let’s see Orange Cassidy. I’m a huge Cassidy guy. Big time Orange Cassidy fan. I think I could write a sick one for him. And another one. Let’s go – screw it! Let’s go MJF! I can write some real real obnoxious I think.”
SL: “I was gonna say, you know, to go back to that outlaw comparison. He’s an outlaw in a very interesting way I suppose in a lot of ways, right?”
IA: “I guess Hangman would be the smartest one. Besides Anna Jay, Hangman, probably the smartest as far as music that we write. Hangman for sure.”
FOLLOW The Ian Abel Band
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While an opinion-based wrestling program is hardly the place for me to give a definitive opinion, one thing is for sure: Monday Night RAW took place tonight.
Yes, the longest-running episodic program in television history yet again started this week by hitting another milestone, smashing last week’s previously-set record for longest-running episodic program in television history by a full one program.
Truly remarkable.
Perhaps not as long-running but certainly long-overdue is Bobby Lashley’s now three-week reign as WWE Champion. Big Bad Bobby has been on fire the past few weeks since winning wrestling’s top prize and that was the case yet again tonight. Bob and the Hurt Business – excellent band name, by the way – continued to carry tonight’s wrasslin’ programming,
That’s not all that provided excellence tonight, though. Drew McIntyre made a major impact across all three hours of programming, looking great through all of them. Mustafa Ali was on our televisions, so don’t need to tell you that yup, that was terrific.
Most importantly, Shane O’Mac delivered the segment of the century that I will go to the grave defending and describe at length below for those who weren’t fortunate enough to witness the awesome power of The Money this evening.
No sense running back the whole thing in the intro, though. Like somebody putting a hat back on, we re-cap.
The Big Stuff
The section in which I write at length about the portions of the programming in which I felt passionate enough for paragraphs.
Shane McMahon is the Best in the World
Life, at its very essence, is a series of random events that all of us here on the planet Earth are simply muddling our respective ways through on the inevitable march to the end of our lives. While it’s a depressing thought, certainly, it adds all the more poignance to those rare moments of perfection that strike us all-too-rarely through our journeys on this floating rock in the Universe. Your child’s first steps. Finally getting hired for your dream job. Your wedding.
Shane McMahon and Braun Strowman’s segment on the March 15th, 2021 RAW.
Truly, folks: this segment had everything.
Hopscotch! Top-rope elbow drops to the outside! Broken tables! Goo reminiscent of the hit Canadian game show Uh Oh!
There will be so many who hated this segment, but to me, it was goofy done right. I loved it, I absolutely loved it. I said it earlier, but pro wrestling should be fun. This was fun. I quite literally dusted off my Shane McMahon ‘Mania 32 jersey.
What a day. Shane’s truly the best. You can’t un-sell me on this match for Fastlane.
Drew McIntyre is a Stud
The top of tonight’s programming confirmed what we’d all assumed for weeks: Drew McIntrye will challenge Bobby Lashley for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania.
This is good news indeed, and should bring smiles to faces and high-fives to hands everywhere. Their post-WrestleMania 36 tilt last year was a fantastic one, and after the incredible years Misters Lashley and McIntyre have had, both are fully deserving of a main event slot at the Show of Shows. Notably, Lashley cut a hell of a promo for the 2nd straight week, directly playing into Drew McIntyre’s comments later on in the segment. McIntyre’s sewing of the ol’ doubt seeds between MVP and Big Bad Bobby was absolutely fantastic, with Drew taking the opportunity to point out that, unlike earlier in their relationship, Lashley was fully capable of speaking for himself. It was a subtle touch and one that was only slightly played-to between the Hurt Business stars, but one that will certainly come up (at least, if my WrestleMania predictions are correct) in a few weeks’ time.
Huge shout-out to Drew showing up in a kilt, shirtless, to what looked to be a very formal meeting between a bevy of dapper dudes.
The Miz also took part in the opening segment. The best part of that was John Morrison’s hair. It must be noted.
Anyways, Drew cut a promo later in the night regarding his match at Fastlane against former friend and frequent foe Sheamus. It was also neat. Pretty standard stuff for ol’ Drew.
Naomi and Lana
Look folks, I have all the time in the world for complaints about thrown together tag teams, or some that seem to come about more randomly than your ‘traditional’ tag teams.
In argument to my own point, however, I present Lana and Naomi.
At its best, professional wrestling is supposed to be fun. Just as importantly, professional wrestling is supposed to be inspirational. To me, those are all qualities that both Lana and Naomi exemplify, which to me, makes up tremendously for perhaps the haphazard way they were put together. Frankly, far better writers than myself have described at-length as to why Naomi’s been so foundational to not only WWE, but as a representative of her community.
Even as recently as yesterday, this year’s Royal Rumble winner Bianca Belair was crediting Naomi as one of the individuals most fundamental to not only her desire to be a pro wrestler, but in today’s WWE locker room.
Lana, too, is someone who I think gets a bad rap as far as her abilities as a pro wrestler. I won’t make any argument that her transition to an in-ring talent has had it’s speed bumps, but to me, her impact in pro wrestling is much more than that. Her talent as a manager and as a mouthpiece is obvious, but over about the past two years, countless WWE stars have gone on record singing praises about her work ethic and desire to get better in the ring. I’m a sucker for effort, and it’s certainly not unnoticed. There’s been evident improvement in her in-ring work, and at this point, I think her reputation as a ‘bad worker’ is a little undeserved.
And hell, they’re fun! Try and tell me their joint entrance doesn’t make you smile, especially on a night like tonight where it was imperfectly perfect in it’s execution.
The match itself was entertaining, there’s multiple storyline developments coming out of it, and both Naomi and Lana are looking good in defeat. Do I think that they should be losing en route to their future tag title opportunity? Not particularly, but let’s not spoil a good thing, friends.
Coffee Talk
The section in which I present an amuse-bouche of thoughts related to tonight’s wrestling programming as they happened.
- Another shout-out to John Morrison’s hair. Truly glorious.
- I know, I know – there was a pre-match beatdown on Drew McIntyre, but to me, still seems like one of those matches you’d want you #1 Contender at WrestleMania absolutely dominating the guy who, in storyline, has been shown to be much, much weaker than his opponent over the past few weeks. Not a bad match by any means, but an odd decision.
- My goodness am I excited about the RAW Tag Team Championship match at ‘Mania. I haven’t been this excited about a big dude since Dabba Kato.
- R-Truth, really neat dude. I don’t even hate a product plug from that guy. Fully deserving of his championship.
- That Bad Bunny is an honourable dude. Giving up the title because he loves THIS BUSINESS.
- Pleased with the Damien Priest match, for obvious reason.
- I write this during the MVP/Bobby Lashley promo on Sheamus, but is it odd to anyone else that the other members of the Hurt Business have been appearing with Lashley and MVP more and more often?
- Shayna vs. Asuka should be a WrestleMania match, and very few things you say will convince me otherwise.
- Friends, by no means am I making a unique point here, but hot damn is Mustafa Ali an incredible professional wrestler.
- Friggin’ Riddle. I really thought Ali had ‘er there.
- Holy hot damn is Sheamus delivering the best run of his career.
That’s saying something, truly.
Bags o’ Popcorn
🍿🍿🍿🍿/🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿
Agree? Disagree? What’d you think of the flagship tonight? Get ahold of me
Laynie Luck joins Spencer Love for the first time ever for a brief run-down of her career to this point, including being part of The Collective, Rey Mysterio, how her upbringing affected her wrestling career, the Zelo Pro Women’s Championship, wrestling against Shotzi Blackheart and Kylie Rae for IMPACT, and more.
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Many wrestling historians would look to February 10, 2009, as the date that TJ Wilson made his WWE debut. Of course, any evening that one is referred to as Bret Hart’s number-one protege on live television is one to remember; however, technically, those historians would be incorrect. While his first official match with the promotion took place that evening, the then-Tyson Kidd’s first time inside a WWE ring actually came nearly 13 years earlier on Oct 5th, 1996, when he teamed with Davey Boy Smith Jr against Teddy Hart and another wrestler to pay tribute to Matthew Annis, Teddy’s younger brother and a close friend of all four boys.
Wilson was kind enough to share the story of the tribute match with me as part of our upcoming conversation for Love Wrestling.
“Not only was it your first match with the WWF, but it was a tribute match to Matt, if I remember correctly,” I asked him. “Maybe just take me a little bit through that and how it came about if you could.”
“Teddy’s younger brother Matthew.” Wilson started after a brief pause. “We were wrestling probably the end of June [1996]. We were wrestling in the ring up at Stu’s. We would record our little matches that we had. At that time, we had started to experiment with, like, starting to learn how to do like a Frankensteiner off the top rope and stuff like that which [was] very, very against the Hart family rules and very against Stu’s rules.”
I was incredulous, but not for going against the grain when it came to the legendary Stu Hart. It doesn’t take a degree in arithmetic to realize that perhaps both Wilson and Smith were young by wrestling standards to be taking a bump, nonetheless knowing enough to break the rules of the Dungeon.
“Wasn’t [Davey] like 11 at the time?”
Wilson laughed. “Oh, man. Yeah, he was. He’s 10! He [turned] 11 in August, but [was] 10 at this moment.”
However, the conversation took a somber tone.
“We were wrestling a few days before, then all sudden, Matt just felt really sick,” said Wilson. “He said his groin hurt. And then, he had like something crazy, like [a] 104-degree temperature or something. He goes to the hospital. We went and visited him that night, and he was kind of delirious a little bit. He was just saying, like, odd things.”
Wilson paused for a moment.
“That’d be the last time that I would ever hear him speak, that I’d ever hear him speak,” he stated somberly. “He went into a coma that night or the next morning. He’s there for like two weeks or something. He went there on Canada Day, and then he’s there for 15 days, or 14. I’m trying to think. He just – at one point, his leg turned the color of your shirt, like completely black. And then his arm, and then his other arm, and his leg, and then he was on life support. It just was one of those – it was terrible. This was the first time I ever really faced death, but really the first time – and it was someone younger than me. I think it really put mortality into like, a very real-“
“Just a real scope,” I interjected.
“Yeah, for us as kids,” Wilson agreed. “Anyway, then, out of that, we wrestled at Rockyford that year, which we’d wrestle – like, every summer Rockyford would do two, we’d do two shows at Rockyford. So we wrestled Rockyford on the Saturday, and then Sunday, Owen [Hart] flew us to International Incident. We were in the ring lesson [that] day at that pay-per-view. I remember – I was just telling this story to somebody in the locker room – but we’re in the ring wrestling and like Jim Cornette and Vince [McMahon] end up walking down the aisle, obviously talking about the show. The guy who had us in the ring was this guy named Matt Miller. And he’s like, he trying to whisper like ‘guys, get out! Guys, get out! Guys, get out!” But like, we’re kids, and we’re so nervous, man. We’re just like wrestling this match. We couldn’t wrestle on the fly. We’re wrestling this match that we’d like rehearsed.”
“We can’t just bail out of it now!” I laughed.
The three-time tag champion agreed. “Yeah! Next thing I know, like, oh, Vince is at the ring and we roll out. So I don’t know. Somehow, then one thing led to another. We hung out with Carl DeMarco that night. And then, next thing you know, he wanted – he was a part of like wanting us to – Carl DeMarco and Davey Boy were big proponents of us doing this match at the Saddledome. It doesn’t feel real, man. Every day right after school we’d go up to Stu’s and we’d like, again, kind of rehearse this match. In our minds, it was WWF, so we had to go all out. So we were doing everything possible. At this point, we’d already come across Rey Mysterio. We came across Rey Mysterio, Bash at the Beach ’96. Ever since then, like, our style changed a lot. We started getting in trouble a lot more from Stu – so thanks, Rey! But, we thought like – we don’t know, like, wrestling rules at this time. We’re kids, man! I’d just turned 16. Harry had just turned 11. Teddy is 16, and our other friend is, like, 15. And he doesn’t even – our friend’s cool, he was a very good athlete, and he just kind of stepped in to help us so we can do a tag match. He didn’t – like wrestling wasn’t really his thing, but he helped us for these couple matches.”
“Anyway,” Wilson pivoted. “Dude, next thing you know, we’re at the Saddledome the morning of, and the ring’s set up and we roll in and we do this match that we’d practiced. It’s probably like 12 minutes long, maybe 15 or something. It’s like wild. I’m doing a dive through the ropes. I’m getting backdropped over the top rope. And, I can almost take, like, a 450-style bump. Like, it was so ridiculous. I think somebody saw us doing that earlier in the day and was like, ‘what are these kids doing?’ And they realize we’re on the show. And then, next thing you know, Jack Lanza is telling us that we only have five minutes, no two guys on the floor at the same time, and now like – but, man, fast forward 24 years, if I was the producer of a live event right now. And let’s say Roman’s nephews roll up and they have a tag match, and I see them in the day doing superplexes and stuff-“
“’You guys are going to have to tone it down,'” I said in emulation.
“JBL asked me about it one time,” Wilson laughed. “He’s like ‘hey, Tyson. Were you in that match with Harry when you guys were kids?’ And I said yeah, that was me. He’s like ‘man, you guys went out there and did everything, and it made no sense, but you did every move!’ I said ‘yeah, yep, exactly. We were 16. I was 16. He was 11. Yes, we did everything we could think of, and we have way more planned. We had to go to the finish, or Earl Hebner said he’s gonna ring the bell and we’re gonna look stupid.”
Thanks to TJ Wilson for sharing.
Please quote Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any of the above quotations used.
GCW was back in the headlines last weekend for their recent announcement of their WrestleMania week plans. From April 8th-10th, the promotion will host a series of events as part of “The Collective: Remix” series.
The events mark a semblance of the ‘return to normalcy’ that many have been hoping for since, well, right around this time last year. Unfortunately, last year’s series of Collective events were unable to take place throughout WrestleMania week as they’ve traditionally done. However, rather than outright cancel the event, the promotion chose to host the shows in the fall with the shows finally taking place from October 9th-11th.
One of the prominent independent stars on the show was Laynie Luck, who I had the opportunity to chat with shortly after the event’s conclusion. “You mentioned the Collective [earlier],” I commented near the start of our conversation. “Just take me through the entire experience of it, because even as a fan sitting and getting to watch that much wrestling back-to-back-to-back for the first time in a while was great. Actually being there in wrestling as a part of it, what was that like for you?”
“It was a very long day, that’s for sure, but it was really good,” Luck laughed. “Our locker room was like this whole huge building that was attached to where we were wrestling at. It was literally huge. Everyone had so much space to spread out. So that was really comforting to where I’m not like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to be packed in like sardines with these people for 16 hours. Like, weak, there’s plenty of room to go outside and lots of fresh air going in and out – all the big doors were open and all that. So it was great, very comforting, and relaxing to have a huge locker room.”
“All the fans were, you know, doing their part as well,” Luck was quick to note. “If I looked around – if I was in the building, watching some of the wrestling when I looked around, people had their masks on and weren’t just sitting in these huge groups. That was really cool. As for that much wrestling, I genuinely can’t believe how much good wrestling happened in such a short amount of time. Like not just wrestling, but good wrestling.
”
“I’m gonna put you on the spot,” I informed her. “You don’t need to give me [just] one, but maybe a couple of your personal highlight matches [at the Collective] outside of your own.”
“Oh my gosh, for sure it was [Jonathan] Gresham and [Lee] Moriarty,” she replied almost instantaneously. “Gresham is one of my favourite wrestlers right now. (He) has been for a minute, but he’s just so smooth, and I wish I could move like that. And then, obviously, Moriarty coming up out of nowhere and just being so good for no reason. That was definitely the highlight of the night for me, probably.”
Of course, like many wrestling fans, Luck had to give a shout-out to one of the most entertaining individuals in the business today.
“Also, Juice, Orange Cassidy coming in, just being in the stands for that pop, I literally had goosebumps. I was tearing up. I was like, wow, this is like, this is what I want to be like. That’s the pop of my dreams.”
Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any of the above quotes.