So the Royal Rumble happened last month, emanating from the benevolent and progressive kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is the first time that WWE has held the Royal Rumble event outside of North America, where citizens of the benevolent and progressive kingdom of Saudi Arabia bore witness to the usual extravagant event that had already been paid for by the prince.
Normally, around this time, I would post some thoughts on the Rumble event under the Royal Ramble banner of this blog… but this year I’m going to do something a little bit different. See, a funny thing happened this year that I didn’t think would ever occur in all my years of watching wrestling. The Royal Rumble came and went… and I completely forgot about it.
Perhaps this had been due to the fact that last year’s event was held in February rather than its usual end of January slate, but the fact remained that I was rather busy that weekend and when I got on my computer late Sunday, I noticed that there were news bits on the Rumble and that’s when I went “Oh wait. That was today.” It’s not even a matter of forgetting it was taking place early (other side of the world, after all). It was a matter of forgetting that it was even a thing.
It was at this point that I realized… wow, I missed the Rumble. And I didn’t care.
What happened?
Well, before we tackle that question, let’s backtrack a bit because I need to provide you folks with a bit of background context on where I’m coming from.
About twelve years ago, I had a little website called the DTM Webstation that was hosted on a little Tripod space. Tripod, for those who don’t know, was a free webhosting service that had been home to some early websites and the original DTM Blog that eventually began in 2004. During the Webstation days, I wrote something called “The Death Of McWrestling” around 2003-ish, which denoted the decline of World Wrestling Entertainment after a largely successful Attitude Era.
Naturally, WWE has chugged along just fine. It’s had good years, it’s had bad years, and there have been some truly ugly years… but the company has strived.
And then in 2023, WWE was sold to the Endeavor group, who merged it with UFC to form a new umbrella corporation called TKO. And then a year later, Vince McMahon would step down from the company due to sex trafficking allegations – a case that is still developing as of this writing and has been touched on in the past. From here on out, it largely became the Paul Levesque show and honoring what a great creative force he happened to be. And to be fair, he was deserving of that praise as he was a large part of what became WWE’s resurgence from the depths of mediocry and banality that had plagued the last of the McMahon years.
But once the Cody Rhodes story came to an end at Wrestlemania 40 and we were just doing stuff… that’s when something happened. All of a sudden… the product became less interesting.
Well, I don’t want to say that it was sudden. The product was still very good and had put on some great shows with some great matches, but the stories they were telling simply weren’t that interesting. Cody Rhodes’ run as WWE Champion was a thing that existed until it came to an end at the hands of John Cena the following year at Wrestlemania 41. Oh, he’d get it back and be featured in more listless feuds before he had one with Drew that ended with him losing the title and transitioning to a feud with Jacob Fatu. I mean, hey, happy that Drew is the champion again; the guy’s been entertaining, but then you give him a match with Sami Zayn? Hometown favorite, talented dude, but nobody saw Sami as a serious contender. Even El Dandy doubts Sami Zayn.
And then there was the Judgment Day stuff – Liv gets hurt, are they still a thing, are they still a serious heel stable or are they the WWE equivalent of the Dark Order, but without the good comedy bits that make them engaging? Oh, you’ve got Dirty Dom; the kid’s gone a long way, but he needs to ditch this group and be him and Liv or Roxy or whoever. And hey, nice to see some new faces in the women’s side of the coin getting a nice push… if only you gave them more interesting stories rather than more cage matches where IYO SKY does her flying trashcan spot that everyone should see coming, but still take the trust fall because fuck pretending that everyone hates each other.
And then there’s AEW… oh, we’re still doing the Death Rider thing? Hey, at least we got the AEW title out of the briefcase, but… oh, we’re trying to make the Don Callis Family a thing now. Okada is on Neutral Gear for all his matches? Hey, nice to see Mercedes start her fall from grace now that she can’t find any more belt boys to carry her eleventy-billion belts… that decent into madness should be exciting and you took her off TV? Amazing. And Mark Briscoe just won the TNT title. Hey, that’s cool. Let’s have him drop it to McSon-In-Law Jr on his debut match! And then MJF is the champion again, doing his tired schtick again. There’s a lot of people doing their schtick again like they were five or six years ago… except it’s five or six years later and they’re all in the same place. And what happened to some of the other guys you signed? Injury? Time off? Creative has nothing for them?
And then you have TNA… oh man, 2024 was a good little run for TNA. So much so that I actually started watching the shows on a weekly basis. They even had me subscribed to their TNA+ Subscription Service, which I took advantage of for a special project that’s coming up later this year. But then the thing with NXT came along and the show started losing its way. The people I enjoyed watching in TNA would either be picked up by WWE, AEW, or move on. The shows became more about TNA vs NXT and this somehow was supposed to make TNA the second biggest thing in wrestling… not if WWE has anything to say about it; they want NXT to be that number two.
Granted, there’s a lot of potential choices for number two, if you get my drift.
So 2025 was the year that my wrestling fandom of sorts was being challenged somewhat. Granted, I feel like every year these past few years has been a challenge for my wrestling fandom, but this year was different. I felt less compelled to watch as much of the product as I could. Part of it was “This stuff is on Netflix and Netflix is an expense that I don’t need if I’m not going to use it” but also it was just an overall lack of interest in anything they were presenting. If someone wants to recommend a match out of the blue, I’d be like “Sure, why not?” And I’d be entertained by it. But not enough to go back and watch the shows to follow up or even be invested in the week-to-week affairs.
The last show I watched was probably this past year’s Survivor Series and that was mostly background noise because the show itself was just there. It was the annual Wargames affair where, again, IYO SKY does her trashcan spot off the top and the Wargames is just… there. I should be excited about this, but I’m not. They just turned it into another WWE thing. Meanwhile, AEW would hold their Blood & Guts show – their Wargames equivalent. And that would be a MUCH better show by comparison. The women’s match was bloodier and told a better story, while the mens’ match was bloodier and told a less better story. Neither match made me want to continue AEW because they drag these things out until next year, but at least what I got was a far deal better than WWE’s tepid offering and was more in the spirit of the Wargames/Match Beyond concept that McSon-In-Law appropriated for himself and just can’t be bothered to honor properly.
You know what I’ve been watching more of this past year? WCW. Yes, the promotion that has been dead for almost a quarter century got a Youtube channel open and they’ve been put up stuff every day. I made it a point to start watching the first year’s worth of Nitros via whatever they’d upload on the channel as well as DVD recordings that a friend of mine made when we had the WWE Network ages ago. Goddamn, I had a great time watching those shows. They were a fun throwback to a time that I hadn’t witnessed before – the early Nitros were after my fandom began and I never really took the time to sit down and watch these even during the days I had a stable Network to work with. Hell, I’d even watch some of their PPVs, which… were hit or miss, but hey, at least this stuff is (mostly) fascinating.
WCW in its latter days, on the other hand? Those can still fly a kite. I’ll sit through another listless WWE or TNA show before I put up with another one of these fucking aBROtions.
And, please, for the love of FUCK, do not suggest to me that I watch UFC or any other MMA promotion and leave all this “fake shit” behind. As much as I don’t care for the current wrestling products, I care even less about modern MMA. The fact that it’s “real fighting” does nothing for me. If people like watching that stuff, great, but I prefer my entertainment to be scripted and my assholes to be fictional. Thanks.
So yeah, about six weeks in and I haven’t watched much of the current product in either of the major promotions. Maybe the one SNME from Montreal, but most of my time was spent on the WWE Vault or WCW Youtube channels revisiting old material from years past. And whenever I’d drop whatever it costs these days for a one-month stay at Netflix, I find myself revisiting a couple old WWE PPVs rather than catch up on any of the current product. Hell, even AEW has sort of lost its luster with me. Outside of Blood & Guts, I can’t remember the last time I watched an AEW show and while I’m happy for TNA’s move to a more sizable US channel in AMC, I’m wondering if that came at the cost of their identity and if this will cost them more in the future. (They tell me the show has improved since its tepid AMC debut, but who knows how long that’ll stick before their WWE overlords mess with the booking again.)
Some folks had suggested Juggalo Championship Wrestling’s Lunacy series and when I tried one of their episodes, the first thing I saw was Vince Russo heading another “corporate takeover” of the company and every other episode preview had some sort of “swerve” advertised, which defeats the whole purpose of a swerve. Folks, I saw this shit when it was done in WCW and when it was done in TNA. I don’t need to see it again in a much smaller outfit written by a guy who’s been playing out of the same tired rulebook for decades now. It’s almost as bad as getting Jim Cornette to book NWA-style matches on the program… and you don’t even need THAT these days since we already have an NWA program on air… it’s called World Championship Wrestling and a new episode is posted on Youtube every Saturday at 6:05 on the WCW Channel. Relive old memories or enjoy this stuff through fresh eyes. Fun times, indeed.
By the way, Vince Russo recently turned 65 a couple weeks ago, so belated happy birthday to him. Jim Cornette turns 65 in September. Which makes Vince Russo eight months older than Jim Cornette. That makes Vince Russo the elder statesman of professional wrestling from ages past for the next eight months. Fear the reality, kids. But I digress.
Also, Billy Corgan’s NWA still exists. It’s a far cry from the pre-COVID period when it was an genuinely enjoyable show with compelling stuff, but it exists. I’d probably give that a shot one of these days, but I don’t have the CW App and really, what notable thing have they done since that one time where James Mitchell was snorting crack on PPV?
So this is my current take on the modern wrestling landscape. Yes, there are good things happening and chances are some fun stuff to look forward to down the road… I’m not so sure I could muster up the excitement in following any of it beyond a distance, but as the old, tired saying goes… anything is possible.
So, we’ll see… maybe I’ll watch Mania when it happens. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll catch up on the Rumble later. Maybe I won’t. In any event, I’m in no hurry to catch up any time soon, but maybe that could change.
Or maybe not. And really… does it matter?
Not really.
Later.
dtm666 