On Monday, February 8, 2016, almost nine months after his last match, Bryan Danielson announced his retirement. With twenty-one words, including a hashtag, the much speculated future of the former WWE champion was revealed: it’s all over.
Up until recently, being a fan of wrestling could be a very expensive and space-filling hobby. If you were interested in having copies of events to watch on-demand, then a home video library would be the order of the day, especially if you were a fan of multiple promotions. Whether they were obtained legally or otherwise, wrestling fans around the world would have had to keep piles of VHS tapes and later DVDs in order to keep up to speed on their favourite groups.
On Friday, WWE released five talents from their NXT roster, including someone who was something of a comedy figure, and a former tag team that had really been forgotten about. These releases were a reminder of just how hard it is to make it, particularly in the current NXT climate.
As a wrestling fan, one of my personal goals for this year has been to broaden my horizons away from the current-day WWE product. Whilst the in-ring product isn’t bad (and with the quality on the current roster, how can it?), the creative tied to those matches can often be deflating. So, to provide some variety, I’ll be trawling the internet and reviewing random matches from around the world (as opposed to entire shows).
This past Monday’s news that Bret “Hitman” Hart is in the midst of a fight with prostate cancer came as a blow to his millions of fans. The news of Bret’s diagnosis comes weeks after his elder brother Smith received a similar diagnosis, and follows a spell where cancer has robbed us of the likes of David Bowie, Lemmy and Alan Rickman. We at BackBodyDrop of course wish Bret all the best in his battle.
January 30 marked Shinsuke Nakamura’s final match (for now) in a New Japan ring, with Korakuen Hall being the venue for his swansong. In the world of NXT spoilers, we already know that Nakamura has already sent in a video for a future episode of the show, to promote his debut on WrestleMania weekend. But first, there was the small matter of a farewell show.
When I first joined the internet back in 1998, wrestling was in the midst of what’s been nostalgically labelled as the Attitude Era. Whether you were a fan of WWE or the about-to-die WCW (or even ECW), there were likely guys on the roster who weren’t being pushed as much as you wanted them to. Although it was unlikely that they would ever usurp the top-line guys like Steve Austin, the Rock or Hulk Hogan, it was nice to have someone in the midcard to cheer who wouldn’t always be turned into a joke simply because they had supporters.
With WWE just about coming out on the other side of their horrific injury run, there’s a lot been said about how they’ve managed to get in the state they were in. Some have speculated that it’s due to training. Others, the ongoing need to impress to earn a (better) spot… but what about the schedule itself? Is there a need for house shows to continue in their current format?