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REVIEW: WrestleMania 21: We’re The New Generation

March 21, 2020 • Admin

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? Wrestlemania XXI Date: April 3, 2005 Location: Staples Center, Los Angeles, California Attendance: 20,193 Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Tazz It’s the big one as things have to change at some point in WWE. I’m curious to see how this show goes as I haven’t seen the television leading up to it since the show aired so maybe the show will feel a little bit different. The theme is Wrestlemania Goes Hollywood, which has included some outstanding movie parody trailers. Oh and Batista an..

Ring of Honor TV Results – March 18, 2020

March 21, 2020 • Admin

Ring of Honor Date: March 18, 2020 Location: UMBC Events Center, Baltimore, Maryland Commentators: Caprice Coleman, Ian Riccaboni Host: Quinn McKay This has to be the last show from Baltimore right? If my math is correct, they should have seven or eight weeks of television from their last two shows, but after that it’s going to be interesting in a hurry. These shows have been good so far and hopefully the trend continues this week. Let’s get to it. Opening sequence. We open with a recap of Jay Lethal and Jonathan Gresham winning the Tag Team Titles in a great match at Final Battle. Battle Royal Beer City Bruiser, Brawler Milonas, Tracy Williams, Cheeseburger, Josh Woods, Brian Johnson, PJ Black, Silas Young, Blue Meanie, Rhett Titus, Maria Manic, Gangrel, Delirious, Eli Isom, Kenny King, Dragon Lee, Crowbar, Dak Draper, Danhausen, Leon St. Giovanni The winner gets a future World Title shot. Gangrel blows the liquid in King’s face during entrances and most of the people get in at t..

Can Brock Lesnar Still Appear At WrestleMania 36?

March 21, 2020 • Admin

Can you define essential? The wrestling world is in a very strange place at the moment and it isn’t something that we have ever really seen before. As a result, it is not clear where things are going to go on a day to day basis, which presents a problem as WrestleMania 36 is only about two weeks away. With that show coming, everything needs to be as right as possible, but that might not be the case. As you might have guessed, Brock Lesnar is going to be featured in a prominent role at this year’s WrestleMania. Lesnar is the reigning WWE Champion and will be defending his title against Royal Rumble winner Drew McIntyre. That is the kind of match that could easily headline the show, but it turns out that there might be something standing in the way of the match taking place as planned. Earlier this week, the United States and Canada agreed to close the border between the countries to all non-essential traffic. This presents a potential problem for Lesnar, who lives in Canada and might ..

Japanese Wrestling Promotions Wrestling With Audiences Again

March 21, 2020 • Admin

Don’t get ahead of yourselves in Japan. The outbreak of the Coronavirus has shake wrestling up in a way that no one has ever seen before. Things have gone from bad to horrible in a short amount of time in America but the problem started even earlier elsewhere. Some countries have been taking action against the virus for weeks now, but one country’s wrestling industry may be ready to start rebuilding. There are very few countries whose wrestling industries are near that of Japan’s. The country has a deep, rich history of wrestling with some of the most talented performers in the world, both past and present, regularly performing there. However, the wrestling industry has been hit hard by the virus, with several promotions halting events. That might not be the case much longer. According to 411mania.com, the DDT promotion ran a show in Japan with a live audience. Dragon Gate will be holding a show on March 22 and Stardom will hold a tournament on March 24. All fans will have their temp..

AEW Changes Course On Blood & Guts, Postpones Match

March 21, 2020 • Admin

That might be best for everyone. Wresting has never seen a time like this and it’s not entirely clear where things are going to go until it gets better. What matters at the moment is making sure everyone is safe, and there are various ways to do that while keeping the companies going. AEW is one of the few companies attempting to do that, and now they have made a move that will change the course that they take. While they are very popular at the moment and have been since their debut, AEW is still a very new company. There are a lot of things that they haven’t tried yet and that means they could be doing a lot of things for the first time. That makes for some interesting moments, and one of the things that they had announced sounded rather good. However, it won’t be happening as planned. AEW CEO and President Tony Khan announced via Facebook that the previously announced Blood & Guts match will not take place on next week’s episode of Dynamite. The match had been announced and advert..

Impact Wrestling Results – March 17, 2020

March 21, 2020 • Admin

Impact Wrestling Date: March 17, 2020 Location: Sam’s Town Live, Las Vegas, Nevada Commentators: Don Callis, Josh Matthews We’re almost to the last taping cycle from this company for a good while. Last week’s show ended with the announcement that Tessa Blanchard would defend the World Title against both Michael Elgin and Eddie Edwards at Rebellion. That’s kind of a problem now as there is likely no Rebellion, meaning this could be a rather interesting show if they didn’t edit things. Let’s get to it. The opening recap looks at the end of last week’s show, with Blanchard agreeing to the triple threat match. Opening sequence. Tag Team Titles: The North vs. TJP/Fallah Bahh TJP and Bahh are challenging after winning some singles matches and a non-title match to set this up. The brawl is on before the referee can lower the titles, meaning the champions try to hit Bahh in the head for some reason. Alexander gets hit with Poetry In Motion and a belly to belly from Bahh. TJP gets caught in..

New WrestleMania Title Match Confirmed

March 21, 2020 • Admin

There’s still time to build it up. We are coming up on WrestleMania 36 and this is one of the most unique shows in WrestleMania’s history. This time around the show is being spread out over two nights and that means WWE has a lot more room to add in matches. With so many wrestlers on the roster, it makes sense to put a bunch of them together and that’s what is going to happen. There are very few champions on the WWE roster as dominant as Bayley. Save for a five day Charlotte reign, she has held the title since May 2019 uninterrupted. As a result of her long reign, Bayley has cleaned out a lot of the SmackDown women’s division, leaving her with very few opponents to face. Therefore, a solution needed to be made and that was reached this week. This week on SmackDown, Paige announced that Bayley will be defending her SmackDown Women’s Title in a six way match at WrestleMania 36. Her challengers will include Lacey Evans, Dana Brooke, Tamina, Naomi and Sasha Banks. There is no word on whi..

REVIEW: Strive againstMania 14: The Night Everything Changed

March 17, 2020 • Admin

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? Wrestlemania XIV Date: March 29, 1998 Location: FleetCenter, Boston, Massachusetts Attendance: 19,028 Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler You might notice that things have picked up a lot since last year. This can mainly be attributed to the influence of Vince Russo, who isn’t remembered all that fondly. While his later efforts didn’t exactly work out very well (that’s putting it mildly), his early work with this kind of talent around him was a major part of the turnaround in the Monday Night Wars, w..

RUMOR: Daniel Bryan Gaining More WWE Backstage Influence

March 17, 2020 • Admin

That puts him in a pretty elite group. There are a lot of common criticisms that you hear about WWE today but one of the biggest is the lack of freedom that so many of the wrestlers have. Their promos and matches are planned in advance, meaning that they have very few choices in what they want to do. However, there are a few wrestlers who get some special treatment and another is getting more powerful backstage. There are very few wrestlers who reach the popularity of Daniel Bryan. After his rise to the top of the company in 2014, Bryan was a made man but then when he missed several years of his in-ring career due to a variety of injuries, there was no way around his incredible popularity. It helped that he could wrestle any style as a variety of characters so well, and now he is starting to get rewarded for all of his talents. According to Tom Colohue on the Dropkick DISKussion podcast, Bryan’s backstage influence is growing and he has been more influential in some of the decisions ..

Two More WWE WrestleMania Weekend Shows Changing

March 17, 2020 • Admin

Are you really surprised? The wrestling world has been changed quite a bit in recent weeks and it’s all been due to the spread of the Coronavirus. The disease has shaken up all kinds of things around the world and wrestling is no different, with all of WWE’s shows being moved to the Performance Center. This has been a rather strange situation, and now we know the next changes. WrestleMania weekend has a lot more going on than just WrestleMania itself. It really is a nearly week long series of events with all kinds of things going on at once. That can make things very interesting in a hurry and that was to be the case again this year. In addition to WrestleMania, WWE had announced Takeover: Tampa, the Hall of Fame ceremony, Monday Night Raw and SmackDown. Now, things are in for a big shakeup. According to PWInsider.com, WWE has issued a statement saying that neither Takeover: Tampa nor the Hall of Fame induction ceremony will take place as previously planned. At the moment, it is not ..

Impact Wrestling Doing Something Great During Coronavirus

March 17, 2020 • Admin

That’s a rather nice thing to do. You can’t look anywhere at this point without seeing some news about the Coronavirus. There are very few positive stories around and that is the case with professional wrestling as well. With so many bad things going on, it would be nice to see something good for the industry for a change and that is the case, albeit from a place you might not have thought of for awhile. One of the biggest issues with having wrestling companies stop running shows is the lack of wrestlers being paid. There are a lot of wrestlers who are going to be out of work because there are no places for them to go while the Coronavirus is on the rampage. That is the kind of thing that can change the industry in a horrible way, but one company is doing something rather nice. Current Impact Wrestling Tag Team Champion Ethan Page sent out a tweet thanking Impact Wrestling for paying the wrestlers for the shows that were canceled throughout the end of March. The wrestlers are paid on..

Another Big Match Added To WrestleMania

March 17, 2020 • Admin

The card keeps growing. We are less than three weeks away from WrestleMania and on Monday afternoon, we received the news that we had been waiting to hear for a long time: the show will indeed be taking place, but it will not be taking place in a stadium as expected. Instead, the show will be taking place at the WWE Performance Center. That means the card still needs to be built though, and now we know something else that will be included. There have been a lot of feuds and stories going on during the build to WrestleMania and one of the biggest has been the story of Seth Rollins and his army vs. the rest of the roster. Kevin Owens has been the top name fighting back against Rollins and that means things were coming to a head. The finish line was pretty clear and now it has been made official for good. During this week’s Monday Night Raw, Owens accepted Rollins’ challenge for a match, with Owens getting to select the place and time. Owens picked WrestleMania at the Performance Center..

New WrestleMania Grudge Match Confirmed

March 17, 2020 • Admin

And there it is. With all of the changes taking place about the status of WrestleMania, one of the biggest things that has gone under the radar is WrestleMania itself. The show is still taking place and that means we have to get ready for the actual event. With less than three weeks to go before the show, they have a few things left to set up and that was the case with this week’s Monday Night Raw. We are coming up on WrestleMania and a lot of the stories have already been set up. There are still some matches that need to be set in stone though and one of them is Undertaker vs. AJ Styles. Last week on Monday Night Raw, Styles made things a lot more personal by talking about Undertaker’s personal life, including Undertaker’s wife Michelle McCool. That was not going to go well and things are now official. This week on Monday Night Raw, Styles and Undertaker officially signed the contract for their match at WrestleMania 36. The signing came after Undertaker stormed the ring but Styles n..

EXCLUSIVE: WrestleMania 36 Could Be Having Some Major Format Changes

March 17, 2020 • Admin

As reported, WWE has officially made a decision regarding the fate of WrestleMania. The show will not be held inside the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. Instead, it will be at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. As of this writing, an announcement has not been made on the fate of NXT, Raw, SmackDown, and the WWE Hall of Fame, but it will be reported as the information comes in. After speaking with a source close to WWE, the show could be having some major format changes. The source stated that he does not expect to show to go by the normal seven-hour format, with two hours of the pre-show and five hours of the main card. In addition, he also stated many of the undercard matches could be snubbed from the card, in order to reduce the empty arena show. As shown by the past SmackDown and the “3:16 day” episode of Raw, both the Elimination Chamber and Royal Rumble matches were shown respectively to fill in network time. Since they control the WWE Network programming, ..

Monday Night Raw Live Coverage And Results – March 16, 2020

March 16, 2020 • Admin

Monday Night Raw Date: March 16, 2020 Location: WWE Performance Center, Orlando, Florida Commentators: Tom Phillips, Byron Saxton, Jerry Lawler The new era begins for Monday Night Raw as the show will be at the Performance Center for the time being. That is going to be the case for almost anything, including Wrestlemania as officially announced this evening. I’m not sure what to expect, but Steve Austin, Edge and Undertaker are going to be in the building (without many more people). Let’s get to it. Opening sequence. The announcers are in the ring to welcome us to the show and hype up everything happening tonight. After a clip of AJ Styles talking about Undertaker and Michelle McCool last week, here’s Edge to interrupt. He shows us a package of everything that has happened with Randy Orton over the last few months, which is quite the emotional ordeal. Back in the arena, Edge talks about the long road between the two of them over the last twenty one years. Edge knew that their caree..

BREAKING: WrestleMania 36 WILL NOT Take Place in Tampa Bay

March 16, 2020 • Admin

WWE has released a statement that WrestleMania 36 will not be taking place at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay, Florida. According to the Tampa Bay commissioner, Les Miller, the city was going to “pull the plug” if Vince McMahon did not make the decision to cancel the event. . Here is the statement from WWE.com: “In coordination with local partners and government officials, WrestleMania and all related events in Tampa Bay will not take place. However, WrestleMania will still stream live on Sunday, April 5 at 7 pm ET on WWE Network and be available on pay-per-view. Only essential personnel will be on the closed set at WWE’s training facility in Orlando, Florida to produce WrestleMania.” WrestleMania Update: https://t.co/DLbgSVYWZM — WWE (@WWE) March 16, 2020 As stated, WrestleMania, and all related events (i.e. Axxess, WWE Hall of Fame, NXT, Raw, and SmackDown) will not be held in Tampa Bay. There has not been an announcement on where these events will be, but the expectation..

BREAKING: WWE Officially Moves WrestleMania 36 To New Venue

March 16, 2020 • Admin

And there it is. Over the last few weeks, it has become obvious that something would have to be changed regarding WrestleMania 36. There was no way around the fact that the spread of the Coronavirus was not going to allow the show to take place as scheduled. With every other major sporting event shutting down, it was time to change something up as a result and that is what has finally happened. Once it became clear that something was going to have to be done, the question became how WWE would deal with the situation. There were several options available, but it was not clear how things were going to go. Could they move the show to Saudi Arabia? Perhaps have it in an empty stadium? Postpone the show until later in the year? Now we know the answer. WWE.com has officially announced that WrestleMania 36 will take place at the Performance Center in front of essential personnel only. All other WrestleMania related events in Tampa will be canceled as well, with no dates or locations announc..

RUMOR: WWE Considering Very Different WrestleMania Plan

March 16, 2020 • Admin

Well that’s different. There are a lot of things going on in the world at the moment and wrestling is no exception. With so many changes every few moments, you never can tell what is going to happen next. WrestleMania is currently twenty days away and it is looking less and less likely that any kind of traditional show will be taking place. However, there might be another idea. The changes that the Coronavirus have caused have shaken up the wrestling world, though WWE is managing to stick around with shows at the Performance Center. That doesn’t really work well for WrestleMania, but the company is running out of places to hold the event. With the traditional show not really an option, WWE is considering something else and it would be a first time situation for WrestleMania. According to TMZ, WWE is considering holding WrestleMania 36 in an empty stadium. There is no word on where the show would be held, or if the company would be required to have a smaller talent pool than usual to ..

WATCH: Shawn Michaels vs. “Stone Cold” Steve Austin From Wrestlemania XIV (14)

March 16, 2020 • Admin

The Austin Era has begun. WWE has posted a new video to its YouTube channel in which they show the full match between Shawn Michaels and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin from WrestleMania 14. It was here that The Rattlesnake earned his first WWE Championship. You can see the match in its entirety below: From our own Thomas Hall: They circle each other to start and there’s a double bird for HBK. Shawn pops him with a left hand and does it again a few seconds later. The champion runs away but gets caught back inside as Austin pounds away and pulls Shawn’s tights down to give the girls a thrill. A backdrop puts Shawn on the floor but HHH gets in a shot to Austin’s back. He sends Austin into the barricade which gets both him and Chyna ejected. Austin beats up HHH in the aisle but it lets Michaels get in a shot to take over. Shawn sends Austin into the dumpster shoulder first and we head back to the ring. The challenger comes back with right hands and there’s a Flair Flip which must feel like..

UPDATE: Strive againstMania 36 Likely to Still Go On, Under One Condition

March 16, 2020 • Admin

WrestleMania 36 is one of many events affected by the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic. NBA, NCAA, MLB, and NHL have all made precautions, by either postponing, having empty arena events, or canceling events altogether. For instance, while the initial decision was to have the NCAA March Madness tournament televised in empty arenas, it was changed to canceling the entire tournament (as well as the conference championship games) altogether. After a case was confirmed from Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert, all further NBA games were suspended. WWE has taken precautions by now having their events in empty arenas. The last event where a crowd was involved was last week’s NXT television event at the WWE Performance Center. Since then, future events will be held in an empty arena at the WWE PC until further notice, such as last week’s SmackDown, and the “3:16 Day” episode of Raw. For WrestleMania 36, this may also be the case. TMZ has recently reported that WrestleMania is still on the books for..