Owen Hart’s passing in May 1999 stunned the wrestling world. To the wider world, the attention came as this was the first time in a long long time that a wrestler had died without it being the traditional “wrestler’s death”. It robbed fans of a talented, yet under-appreciated performer, and caused reverberations that tore a grieving family apart.
As part of my informal new year’s resolution to be more diverse with my wrestling watching, I’ve taken the plunge and have signed up for New Japan World – the NJPW version of the WWE Network, for the uninitiated. This past Monday saw New Japan’s version of WrestleMania – WrestleKingdom 10 – and with all of the buzz around WWE’s raid of New Japan, this was as good a time as any to start.
With WWE now reporting on the strong rumours of signing the New Japan foursome of AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, Karl Anderson and Doc Galloway, thoughts now turn to what WWE will actually do with their new arrivals. Now, I can only suggest that these are “Triple H signings”, given that these fit the template of the signings that he’s been credited with to date. So, with that preemptive idea in mind, here are a few “good idea, bad idea” suggestions for WWE and their newbies.
Twenty years ago, when wrestling was in the midst of the “Monday Night Wars”, part of the allure of the ongoing WWF vs. WCW battle was to see just who was jumping ship. Last night, hours after New Japan’s WrestleKingdom 10 show, we had 2016’s version of this, with news breaking of WWE “signing” the quartet of AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, Doc Gallows and “Machine Gun” Karl Anderson.
BackBodyDrop wraps up 2014 with our final awards at 2014, including some of our wishes for the year ahead. And a positive word to say about Grado too!
As we continue to wind down the year 2015, we continue our look at the year with some more of our awards for the best (and possibly the worst) of the year.
After picking out the top performer in 2015 in WWE (and believe me, it didn’t match the Slammys!), it’s time to rattle through a few more year-end awards. As ever, these are obviously my opinion, and my opinion only…
Throughout the years, there’s been a long list of “internet darlings”; wrestlers who have had a vocal following online, but have, for whatever reason, have struggled to make that breakthrough and have that popularity reflect into the mainstream (or at least, get the chance to do so).