wrestling Page 20 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
WWE Is Bigger Than Ever, But Its Audience Is Definitely Dwindling
As Luis Paez-Pumar noted here last Thursday, WWE is currently flailing its way through a ratings panic. Two weeks ago, Monday Night Raw did the lowest non-holiday ratings number in its history, posting an average of 2,158,000 viewers across the three-hour show; hour three was at 1,898,000 viewers. T...
WWE's Stale Creative Is Ruining Its Ratings
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a WWE wrestler comes out to the ring to cut a promo, gets interrupted by someone, who in turn gets interrupted by someone else. This goes on until a tag match is thrown together featuring everyone in that derailed promo train. This is such a common occurrence...
WWE Is Getting Back At The Revival for Wanting Out, And It Isn't Working
On this week’s edition of WWE’s flagship television program, Monday Night Raw, viewers were treated to a segment in which the tag team The Usos, theoretically the good guys, revealed that they had invented “Ucy Hot,” their own sweat-activated version of Icy Hot, and secretly deployed it to the trunk...
Dean Ambrose Is Going To Be Bleeding As Jon Moxley Again
When we last discussed Dean Ambrose in this space a few months ago, news had just broken that he had given WWE his 90-day notice and would not be renewing his contract. That Ambrose was parting with WWE was, at bottom, a sound business decision; with All Elite Wrestling and other promotions bidding ...
CM Punk Got Back Into The Ring, But Does He Want Back Into Wrestling?
CM Punk has been back in the news—or, anyway, back on wrestling websites— this past week for two separate and very different reasons. One of those is fueling giddy speculation about a potential comeback. The other is a bit more complicated....
Sasha Banks And Luke Harper Are Emblematic Of WWE's Talent Mismanagement
Let’s leave aside the draconian contract clauses, and also the sadness of WWE losing one of its best talents and potentially alienating another. The specific failures to get the most out of Luke Harper and Sasha Banks, respectively, are various and complicated, but fundamentally simple at bottom. T...
Sasha Banks And Luke Harper Want Out Of WWE, But That's Easier Said Than Done
On Tuesday, WWE wrestler Luke Harper tweeted a statement saying that he has requested his release from his contract. This was just a week after Sasha Banks, fresh off an abrupt end to her and Bayley’s storyline push as Women’s Tag Team Champions, reportedly asked for her own release from the promoti...
Invisible Men, A Pizza Party, And Sexism: A WrestleMania Week Diary
WrestleMania week is invariably a dizzying experience, and the one that recently sprawled over the course of a full week in and around New York City was no exception. There were way too many shows this year spread across too many locations, and even sleeping in my own bed every night, not attending ...
Idiot In The Ring Tackles Bret Hart During WWE Hall Of Fame Ceremony
Tonight’s WWE Hall of Fame ceremony in Brooklyn was briefly derailed when a person in a rasta cap jumped into the ring and took down wrestler Bret Hart during his speech. How much did Vince McMahon pay that guy?...
WWE Is Trying To Defuse Its Own History With A Storyline
Kofi Kingston isn’t the sort of wrestler that gets to compete for a WWE championship, which is why his quest for that title stands out as one of the most interesting angles on Sunday’s WrestleMania slate. A long-time midcarder who found his greatest success as one-third of The New Day, Kingston caug...
WrestleMania Week Is Testing The Limits Of How Much Wrestling One City Can Bear
As exhausting as WrestleMania week can be, especially with fans gladly taking on the growing second-shift slate of late night shows, last year’s Mania week in New Orleans was one of the most manageable in recent memory. It was good, too, but the surprising thing was how user-friendly and accessible ...
High School Wrestling Ref Who Forced Teen To Cut His Dreadlocks Preparing To Sue For "Emotional Distress"
The New Jersey high school wrestling referee, who forced a teen to cut his dreadlocks or forfeit a wrestling match in December, has begun the process of filing a lawsuit, claiming that he suffered “emotional distress” and “defamation of character” in the aftermath of the incident, according to The I...
Eric Angle Charged With Assault After Lifting Youth Wrestler By His Neck
Former pro wrestler Eric Angle, brother to WWE star Kurt Angle, currently coaches a youth wrestling team in Pittsburgh, Penn. At a tournament on Saturday, Angle was captured on camera lifting up one of his wrestlers by the neck and tossing him back down to the mat....
WWE Signing Stokely Hathaway Is A Sign That Wrestling Managers Are Back
When WWE announces a new class of signees for its Performance Center in the Orlando area, the notable names tend to go public in advance. WWE infamously instructs its incoming talent not to tell anyone, but those wrestlers still have to finish up their independent dates before joining the promotion,...
Ronda Rousey Is Highlighting WWE's Problems With Breaking The Fourth Wall
WWE works best when it sticks to the rules. This is more a question of storytelling than it is of sport, although that’s always true. This is why someone unfamiliar with the beats of professional wrestling but attuned to how narrative works can understand wrestling even if they don’t comprehend the ...
WWE's Mustafa Ali On Refusing To Portray A Terrorist
Adeel Alam is WWE’s Mustafa Ali. Here he discusses the journey to finding his current character and his determination to rise above playing just another bad guy in a head scarf....
Where Drag Queens Drop From The Rafters
NEW ORLEANS— Late on a Saturday night a little over a week before Mardi Gras Day, a warehouse in a semi-industrial corner of downtown is thumping with bass and jammed to its damp cinderblock walls with people, with more spilling out into the gravel yard. Inside, the temperature is at least 10 degree...
Jushin Thunder Liger, Japan's Greatest Wrestling Export, Is Set For One Last Ride
On Thursday, Jushin Thunder Liger, inarguably one of the most influential figures in the history of the global wrestling business, announced his retirement at a press conference in Japan. The 54-year-old masked wrestler, whose real name is Keichi Yamada, will travel the world on a farewell tour slat...
King Kong Bundy Was The Biggest Of The Bad
King Kong Bundy, the biggest man I ever saw undressed, is dead. He was 61. No official cause of death has yet been issued....
King Kong Bundy Was The Biggest Of The Bad
King Kong Bundy, the biggest man I ever saw undressed, is dead. He was 61. No official cause of death has yet been issued....