wrestling Page 28 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
2017's Biggest Pro Wrestling News Story Capped A Year Of Ups And Downs
We had to wait nearly 50 weeks for the biggest wrestling story of 2017, and it’s only sort of a wrestling story. The most dramatic development in the sport this year was Vince McMahon selling almost $100 million worth of WWE stock to fund what appears to be his new, private company’s XFL revival, bu...
Vince McMahon Has Been Working Towards A GOP-Oriented Product For Years
While a pro-Trump political slant for the soon to be relaunched XFL is nowhere close to official yet, history tells us that Vince McMahon making a move in that direction would not exactly be very surprising. The WWE chief’s products have blatantly pushed right wing politics for years, and while ever...
XFL Plans Get More Concrete As Vince McMahon Tries To Prove Himself Again
The improbable unto implausible XFL revival story somehow continued to take shape on Thursday. After a week of conspicuously zero coverage from his network, ESPN’s Darren Rovell published an article on the prospective league that included a few new details. The new information was broken into two pa...
Timing Of Trademarks Suggests "New XFL" May Be A Response To NFL Protests
On Friday afternoon, I received a particularly surprising DM from someone whose information is normally solid, if not always reportable. The DM said that Vince McMahon is bringing back the XFL, with a press conference announcing the move on Jan. 25. The scuttlebutt was that not only had ESPN’s 30 fo...
Here’s The Bullet Club Leading The Crowd At The ECW Arena In A Backstreet Boys Singalong
Ring of Honor held its annual Final Battle event on Friday night, and it caused a bit of internet drama. ...
I Went To A Dive Bar Wrestling Show With No Ring And Nobody Got Arrested
December is a crowded month for pro wrestling in New York City. Ring of Honor has their annual Final Battle at the Hammerstein Ballroom, Evolve and local promotion House of Glory both have major shows, WWE has its annual Christmas week event at Madison Square Garden, and so on. The weirdest event of...
How Nicole Bass Was Slut-Shamed By WWE During Her Sexual Harassment Lawsuit
On Friday, former WWE, WCW, and Impact wrestling writer Vince Russo, pro wrestling’s favorite pariah, relayed a story on his podcast that piqued a lot of interest. “I never talk about this, because this is a touchy one, I can tell you one of the female wrestlers came up to me [and] told me that she ...
Former WWE Cruiserweight Champion Rich Swann Arrested For Domestic Battery And False Imprisonment
Former WWE Cruiserweight Champion Rich Swann was arrested by Gainesville, FL. police just after midnight on December 10 on charges of battery and false imprisonment. His alleged victim is his wife of nine months, Vannarah Riggs, who wrestles under the name Su Yung. The charge of false imprisonment i...
Impact Wrestling Tries To Earn Goodwill By Giving Up Matt Hardy's Gimmick
As part of its attempt to move on under new ownership and management, Impact Wrestling announced last week that it will be making new concessions to attract talent. After months of negative fan reaction when the company wouldn’t let Matt Hardy use his popular “Broken Matt” gimmick in WWE, Impact is...
The "Owen Hart Voice" Is WWE's Equivalent To The NFL's Sad Injury Music
Shortly after Ryan Shazier’s injury during Monday’s Steelers-Bengals game, I got a message from Tim Marchman. The NFL has that manipulative injury music, he posited, referring to the sad piano song that they play going into commercial breaks as a player is carted off the field. Doesn’t WWE have thei...
FloSports Has Put Its Ill-Conceived Pro Wrestling Service And Vertical To Sleep
On Wednesday, FloSports, a venture-backed company best known for its streaming services bringing non-televised amateur sports to your TV, unceremoniously ended its year-long experiment with professional wrestling. Dubbed FloSlam—they company has used “FloWrestling” for years for collegiate grappling...
Cody Rhodes Is Planning The Biggest Indie Wrestling Show Ever. Can It Work?
On Monday evening, Pro Wrestling Sheet’s Ryan Satin reported that Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks (Nick and Matt Jackson) are planning an imposing project for 2018: An independent wrestling supershow on the scale of a major WWE event. These three are arguably the biggest non-WWE draws in the United ...
WWE's Production Should Be Its Strongest Asset, But It Keeps Ruining Shows
On Saturday night, WWE put on one of its typically excellent TakeOver specials from its NXT developmental brand at the Toyota Center in Houston. Featuring a breakout performance from Velveteen Dream, an excellent world title match with a surprising ending, and the return of the beloved “WarGames” ca...
All Losers Brackets Should Be Called Repechages
What do you call the part of a double-elimination tournament where the losers go after their first loss? There is a reasonable case for “loser’s bracket,” “losers bracket,” and “losers’ bracket.” Let’s give loser’s bracket two losses; this isn’t the bracket of one loser. Losers’ bracket might be str...
The Sports Highlight Of The Day Is This Highly Dedicated Referee
Good wrestling referees will not hesitate to contort their body in whatever ways will afford them the best view of the action on the mat. You have to be locked in, and you have to commit. As this referee demonstrates, that means you sometimes have to motor across the mat like a damn skink....
Reports: Yokozuna Harumafuji Kōhei Attacked Rival At Bar, Broke His Skull
Harumafuji Kōhei, a sumo wrestler who’s attained the rank of yokozuna, hit fellow wrestler Takanoiwa Yoshimori with a beer bottle at a bar in October and left him with serious injuries, according to Harumafuji’s stablemaster, via the Japan Times....
ESPN's <i>30 For 30</i> On Ric Flair Glorifies Decades Of Sexual Misconduct
On Tuesday night, ESPN premiered its latest 30 for 30 documentary, one the network had been developing and hyping for years: Nature Boy, the story of legendary pro wrestler Ric Flair, widely considered the greatest of all time. The film—which was, according to director Rory Karpf, in its third cut a...
Chris Jericho To Test Popularity Of Japanese Wrestling After 19 Years In WWE
After IWGP United States champion Kenny Omega dispatched with challenger Beretta in the semi-main event at New Japan Pro Wrestling’s “Power Struggle” event on Sunday in Osaka, the Edion Arena darkened and the venue’s big video screen lit up. On that screen, Omega and the fans in attendance saw a vi...
Building A Pro Wrestling Hall Of Fame Is A Lot Easier Said Than Done
In traditional competitive sports, the question of what makes a hall of famer, while fodder for heated arguments, is relatively straightforward. While there is always context that can be added, who the best players are is a largely statistical matter. In professional wrestling, it’s completely diffe...