Author: Ian Hamilton

Independent group EVOLVE had the honour of hosting the first wrestling show on WrestleMania weekend, with a Friday evening event at Eddie Deen’s Ranch – a venue that the WWNlive promotions took over for the weekend. Fortunately, I’d ordered the live show plus the “on demand” offering for all of WWNlive’s events this weekend; as we’ll cover in another article, the group had a lot of issues streaming, leading to the group offering freebies as a make-good. So unless you were present at the ranch, the best way to catch this would have been on-demand, unless you like buffering…

WrestleMania weekend officially starts in the ring tonight, and BackBodyDrop.com – in conjunction with Wrestling-Online.com – brought you live coverage of an early candidate for show-of-the-year: NXT Takeover in Dallas, TX.

With the majority of the wrestling world watching in Texas, New Japan continued their track to next weekend’s Invasion Attack special with another show from Korakuen Hall. This show as made available for everyone, free of charge, via New Japan World, so expect a lot of references to buffering in this report!

It’s a match that went down in infamy. It’s been talked about for years as perhaps one of the worst matches in wrestling history, and it came from merry old England. April Fool! (is the guy reviewing this…)

We’re barely 24 hours away from the start of the long weekend of wrestling, and thanks to WWE, NXT and the litany of independent promotions live-streaming shows, you’re spoiled for choice – but with all of this choice, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. So, what’s on each show that’s gotten me excited… and worried?

WrestleMania weekend kicks off for WWE on Friday night, with a NXT Takeover event that many feel will overshadow the big show itself. During last year’s WrestleMania festivities, NXT held a (non-televised) show that many felt should have received some coverage outside of Stephanie McMahon’s Periscope account.

It is with great sadness that we report on the passing of Kris Travis, at the age of just 32. Travis was a stalwart on the UK scene, and had wrestled for a huge number of promotions since debuting in 2002. In late 2014, he featured as part of the second series of TNA’s British Bootcamp, and had been picked as one of the finalists in the series that was won by Mark Andrews. However, in October 2014, after the series had been taped, Travis was diagnosed with stomach cancer and underwent surgery. The British (and indeed, the worldwide) wrestling…

Unless you’ve been under a rock, you’ll be aware that it’s WrestleMania weekend – but despite WWE’s best efforts to ensure that they are the only game in town, there are plenty of other shows ongoing that you’ll be able to watch in person and online. Just in case the three-hours of NXT, six-plus hours of WrestleMania as well as the Hall of Fame isn’t enough, we’re taking a quick look at some of the other events going down across the weekend – some of which we’ll be recapping once the dust has settled.