Category: Wrestling Musings

All posts related to pro rasslin’ that isn’t covering specific shows or events.

Braun Strowman Released From WWE… Again

Source: https://www.f4wonline.com/news/wwe/shayna-baszler-cora-jade-braun-strowman-dakota-kai-among-wwe-nxt-releases/

Yeah, it’s that time of year where WWE drops a whole bunch of people from their employ and one of them happens to include Braun Strowman… again.

So now he gets to team up with EC3 again so they can control the narrative, right? Right?

In all seriousness, I almost feel sorry for the guy because they brought him back a couple years ago and really didn’t do much with him. I don’t know; it seems like they just wanted another big guy and now that they got some younger big guys, Strowman’s time was pretty much done. Anyway, I wish him (and all other releases) all the best in whatever they do next.

Hopefully, Miro/Rusev gets a good run before he eventually gets dropped in favor of whatever NIL-ID prospect they fish out of the Soviet Union in five years or so.

“Johnny, the Soviet Union doesn’t even…”

“QUIET!”

-_-

One Last Note On This John Cena Thing Before We Move On

So there has been a lot said about the way that this much-anticipated John Cena heel turn has turned out. How it was supposed to happen at Mania, but was pushed up. We all saw Cena cut one decent heel promo and just repeat it ad naseum. We saw the eventual Wrestlemania main event that saw John Cena win his record-setting 17th World title and not feeling like a big deal. And of course, we saw Dwayne interject himself to push things onwards, only to not show up at the moment where his presence not only would have made sense, but was also necessary to give this limp dick feud between Cody and Cena some substance.

And then of course, we have Dwayne on that McAfee shithead’s show saying that he didn’t show up because he decided that he had to go now because his planet needed him… but made a point to mention that he would have done things differently. There’s a rant from Busted Open radio host Dave LeGreca where he railed on Dwayne for this interview that you can look up. It pretty much sums up some of the issues I have with this thing, but the only thing I could say about Dwayne is… nothing. Just fuck off, Dwayne. Go back to your home planet and hopefully die along the way so that the actual creative people can work on the creative.

There were only two big things to come out of Wrestlemania that I thought were worth a damn; Dominik Mysterios’s IC title and the surprise appearance of Joe Hendry. Both got big pops from the crowd, both produced memorable moments, and at least one of them is going to get a spot on one of those Top whatever RKO videos that WWE likes to produce every so often. Hell, I’ll even give a nod to IYO SKY actually retaining her Women’s title because I actually like IYO SKY more than I let on around here and was happy to see her get her time to shine.

Everything else? The Jey Uso World title win? The 17th John Cena World title win? The 752,089,827,615th New Day tag title win? The return of Becky Lynch for a random tag match?

Meh.

So this John Cena retirement tour that’s going on… I don’t care. Oh goodie, another John Cena vs. Randy Orton WWE title match is on the horizon. Haven’t had one of those in a while, in no hurry to save the date for the Backlash show that this match is going to take place in. Someone please wake me up when we get the nigh impossible match of John Cena vs. Joe Hendry at Slammiversary or something. Then I’ll start to give a fuck because Joe Hendry could potentially get a big rub and raise his stock for his eventual jump to WWE that’s going to eventually happen.

Dude, I was almost tempted to say that this man saved Wrestlemania… but that would be pushing it.

Okay, so that’s all I have to say about this John Cena thing. I’m shitcanning the Netflix subscription for the foreseeable future. I’ll use the last week or so to catch up on a couple PPVs I’ve been wanting to watch, but after that, I’m sticking with the classic WCW content that’s been going up on Youtube. Or I’ll stick with TNA, which has been fine for the most part. I can lay off the WWE viewing experience for the foreseeable… and therefore, I will gladly follow HHH”s advice at the end of that roast and fuck off elsewhere. They don’t need my viewership these days.

Also, note to self, cancel Disney+ while you’re at it. Now that you saw Andor and blew through some of the better Home Improvement episodes, you can dump the service and stick with… whatever’s on Prime Video, I guess.

Actually, hold on… there is that Dracula ’79 Blu-Ray that I recently ordered.

Yeah, I’ll go watch that.

Later.

A Personal Request

To anyone who is subscribed to the WWE Youtube channel, I want you to do me a big favor.

If, at any point, WWE decides to upload the entirety of Triple H’s Hall Of Fame induction speech on their Youtube channel, do me a favor and send me a link. That way, if I ever have trouble falling asleep, I’ll know where to look.

Thanks. Much appreciated.

When Did You Sour On Dwayne?

Once upon a time, there was a fellow named Dwayne Johnson, who trained to be a wrestler and would be the most electrifying man in sports entertainment. And then he decided to begin a Hollywood career that would span many hits and misses. Every so often, he’d come back to the place that first gained him his celebrity and do a couple token appearances saying a few token catchphrases… and people were into it because it’s the Rock.

And then something happened…

Dwayne decided he wanted to do a little more and all of a sudden, people weren’t liking him as much. Why was this? How did this happen? I couldn’t begin to tell you because some people still like Dwayne while others have long since soured on him. The question of when did someone sour on Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson over the years really has no answer save for the one that’s relevant to you.

So it’s no secret that I don’t hold Dwayne in such high regard these days, but there used to be a time when I was a fan of his. Rock had charisma, he had a gift for gab, he had limmericks that… good luck trying to get that stuff over in modern times, but the point was I dug what the guy was doing. And even when he was in Hollywood and he would come back for the occasional one-off, the guy still had it.

You can go back and read the old blog posts of back in the day when Rock vs. Cena was going to be a thing and let me tell you – while the story wanted you to root for John Cena because he was the full-timer who wouldn’t ditch WWE for Hollywood aspirations (spoiler: of course, he would), I was on Team Rock because now we’ve got a professional working their magic while everyone else was amateur hour. And when Rock beat Cena at Wrestlemania that year, it made me very happy.

But then something happened along the way… Rock came back and decided that he was going after the WWE Championship. Okay, cool… except said championship was currrently in the hands of one CM Punk, who was riding a wave of popularity that, despite a few hiccups, resulted in him getting a year-plus long reign with the WWE Championship. And the people who have been following this man was hoping that he would hold onto that title until Wrestlemania, where he’d presumably main event by virtue of being the champion.

Alas, it was not to be.

And so, at the Royal Rumble, The Rock defeated CM Punk to win the WWE Championship. And all of this was to set up the rematch between Rock and John Cena – the match that was billed as Once In A Lifetime turned out to be Twice In A Lifetime. While I knew that was going to happen, I was really hoping that someone would see sense and not go this route… but yeah, Rock became champion at the expense of CM Punk and that’s when I soured on  ol’ Dwayne.

Don’t get me wrong. The guy can cut great promos. He still has that gift for gab. But I wasn’t into his schtick anymore. Probably because I prefer Classic Rock, who was more crass and vulgar without having to be more vulgar in his wording.

I’ve only seen a handful of his movies. The last one I watched was probably Black Adam. From what I hear, a lot of his movies aren’t all that great unless it’s Moana or whatever it’s called. His ego has been called into question. Maybe that’s why he bought some stake in TKO, so he can manipulate WWE creative in ways that make no sense, but he can say that we’re twenty steps ahead and just enjoy the ride.

Which usually tells me they have no fucking clue what they’re doing and they’re just making shit up as they go along. Whatever pieces happen to fit is more by chance rather than by design.

So yes, whenever Dwayne shows up on screen at a WWE show, my first question is almost always going to be “What did he fuck up this time?” What was once a highlight on WWE programming has now become a harbinger of dread… okay, maybe not that extreme… but I’m still gonna ask, “What did Dwayne fuck up this time?”

So… yeah… that’s the story of Rock going sour.

On a final note… fuck off, Dwayne.

Later.

Minor Traffic Violations At Wrestlemania XLI

Some traffic related incidents occurred at last night’s Wrestlemania 41 event… and before anyone asks, the Ramblemania post will be up this coming Wednesday and yes, it’ll cover both nights. There will also be a RAW After Mania posted later that day.

Anyway…

Stone Cold Steve Austin drives an ATV down a ramp and hits a barricade that startles a fan at ringside. Apparently, the fan was unharmed, but none too happy about the incident. Do I smell a lawsuit? Who knows? Maybe WWE offers the fan a makegood package or something as an apology for the incident.

This was clearly an accident and Austin probably slipped or something. Obviously, they’ll need to be more careful next time.

And then after a show, a fan was hit by a tour bus as it was headed towards the WWE press media thing. If the fan was running after the bus, that’s probably on them. And if the fan was just standing there… that’s also on them because they should know better than to stand in the way of a tour bus that’s in a hurry.

This was clearly an act of stupidity on the part of the fan and hopefully, they have learned to fuck off out of the way of incoming traffic.

Have a safe Easter Monday, kids.

Someone At TNA Is Smart…

Source: https://itrwrestling.com/news/nixed-wwe-plans-for-joe-hendry-revealed/

Apparently, TNA World Champion Joe Hendry was supposed to appear on WWE television so he could feud with THE MIZ and then take a pinfall loss… and then someone at TNA (someone named Ariel Shnerner) said no because they didn’t want their reigning WORLD CHAMPION to lose to THE MIZ.

That TNA executive deserves a raise for protecting the integrity of their World title.

Hey, remember when WWF-contracted wrestler TAZZZ defeated WCW-contracted wrestler Mike Awesome for the ECW World title at a random ECW house show and then appeared on Smackdown as the ECW World Champion where he took a pinfall loss to Triple H? Because Pepperidge Farm sure as shit does.

And look, I’m sure Joe would have been happy with the added exposure of being on MONDAY NIGHT RAW with the TNA World Title on his shoulder… but even he would have to balk at sacrificing the integrity of that title (for whatever that’s worth these days) to show up on RAW and lose to THE MIZ.

It only goes to show that even in the much-ballyhooed Paul Levesque era that you all worship on a pedestal, there comes the occasional dumbass attack that produces stupid ideas like this.

 

25 Years Later And Ready To Rumble Is (Still) The Worst Movie In Human History

Twenty-five years ago, on this very day, Ready To Rumble was unleashed onto the world.

I never watched this thing in theaters, but even back in 2000, I’ve heard about how bad this film was. Not just in terms of being a bad wrestling movie, but also just a bad comedy in general. It wouldn’t be until a couple years later that I’d eventually get around to renting a copy of Ready To Rumble from the video store and see for myself what I was missing. After pressing PLAY, I bore witness to what everyone else had been raving (or raging) about these past few years. Shortly afterwards, I opened up Frontpage on my computer, started a new document, and proceeded to write the words “Ready To Rumble is the worst film in human history.”

This would have been back in 2003-2004 when I was still renting videos and also when I was first putting up stuff on the IMDB site. At some point, I was going to post this little write-up on there until I realized that I had more than whatever the usual word limit was for IMDB user submitted reviews… and also there was more than a fair share of colorful metaphors… so it never saw the light of day… well, until the move to this blog, which you can find here.

About a decade later, I’d revisit the movie as part of my Slideshow Movie Review series and I’m not quite sure that I truly vocalized my disdain for this film. So now, here we are and… listen, I am not going to try and convince you that this is a misunderstood masterpiece. That much is obviously when the title of this post is “25 Years Later And Ready To Rumble Is (Still) The Worst Movie In Human History.” And to this very day, I have yet to see a movie that I would consider to be worse than Ready To Rumble. I’ve seen plenty of juvenile films in my day. I’ve seen plenty of utterly terrible films. But none of them were as bad as Ready To Rumble.

Hell, if the day ever comes and I break my long-standing moratorium on Ghostbusters 2016 to give that a watch, you know what? Yes, that movie is gonna suck, but I can guarantee you that it won’t be as bad as Ready To Rumble.

(Maybe that’s why I don’t want to watch that movie now that I think about it. Imagine the horror I’d feel when the possibility exists of a movie that is WORSE than Ready To Rumble. I don’t even want to contemplate that.)

Look, I’m sure there are movies. People can come up and tell me that the Deuce Bigelow movies are the nadir of comedy films. And yeah, those are bad… but you already know going in that those movies are aiming for the lowest common denominator. Ready To Rumble aims a little lower than that. It’s a terrible movie that is so unfunny and yet reprehensibly stupid that it somehow makes you stupider with each passing second that your eyes and brain are exposed to this vapid piece of garbage. Now would I have had this same kind of contempt for this film had I not been a wrestling fan? And the answer would invariably be yes. In fact, if I had not been a wrestling fan or if I had downright hated wrestling, I probably would’ve despised this movie even more.

Look, I just rented a painfully dull and unfunny film called Leonard Part 6 from Amazon for the expressed purpose of watching a movie other than Section 31. Yes, the one with Bill Cosby… and yes, it is every bit as bad as people made it out to be. But you want to know something? The worst thing that I could say about this movie was that it was BORING. None of the jokes landed. None of the bits worked. All the actors were phoning it in. It was deathly dull. And yes, I would have considered this a big ol’ waste of time… but on the flip side, I did not walk away from Leonard Part 6 with the same kind of contempt and utter bile that I got from watching five minutes of Ready To Rumble.

Some time ago, F4WOnline guy Bryan Alvarez teamed up with former wrestler Lance Storm and indy wrestler/former MMA guy “Filthy” Tom Lawlor to review this movie. Alvarez, a former wrestler and a normally intelligent fellow, had claimed that this movie is not the worst film ever made. When pushed to name a worse one, he admittedly couldn’t name one, but maintained that this was not as bad as people say that it is. This proves that Ready To Rumble has the capability of rotting brain cells of any person who willingly exposes them to repeated viewings of this thing.

Anyhoo… here we are.

Twenty-five years later AND STILL the absolute worst movie in human history… Ready To Rumble.

See you all in another twenty-five where we get to do this shit all over again.

John Cena Was Always The Heel

On Saturday, March 1st, 2025, at the WWE Elimination Chamber premium live event from Toronto, 16x WWE World Champion and once franchise player John Cena did the unthinkable when he aligned himself with DWAYNE and beat the crap out of undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes, finally turning heel for the first time since 2003. Wrestling audiences and the WWE Universe were in awe, citing this as the greatest turn in recent memory.

My reaction to the turn? Took them long enough.

You folks need to understand something here. What John Cena did wasn’t going against his principles. He was simply doing what was best for the company that made him a household name. John Cena was all about doing what was best for the brand. If that meant toning down his act to be more acceptable to the kiddies, if that meant being the goofy do-gooder in the same vein as Hulk Hogan (minus the bullshit), if that meant siding with the company over things that fans took issue with, then that’s what he was going to do. People claimed that John Cena sold out, but really, they’re just seeing him for what he truly is.

See, in my eyes, John Cena was always the heel. Whenever he would be in a program against somewhat who deserved a run with the WWE title, I’d be rooting for the other guy. One only need to read my wrestling musings from the late-2000s to early-2010s when I would refer to Cena with juvenile names such as “John Worthless” or “John Useless” or some other stuff like that. Every time there was an up-and-coming talent that was catching fire and John Cena was somehow involved, that was usually the kiss of death for that up-and-comer. See, it wasn’t about Cena giving the new guy the rub, but rather it was about Cena taking the spotlight from the new guy; the idea being that “hey, if I pair up with this guy, people will stop booing me.”

They try this every single time and it not only almost fails every time, but the guy that they paired Cena up with that was popular with the fans… well, he’d be off to jobber territory, seen as collateral damage in the effort to make Cena look really, really strong. And so the end result becomes not only is Cena no more loved than before, but eventually, they figure out how to chant JOHN CENA SUCKS in line with his theme song. How bad was Cena getting it in the ass from the crowd? When Rock came along and Cena decided to be the defender of WWE honor because he’s a full-timer versus the part-timer Rock who says he cares but really doesn’t… people were rooting for the part-timer. It got to a point where anytime they try to do this part-timer vs. full-timer thing these days, nine times out of ten, they’ll cheer for the more popular part-timer because the full-timer comes across as a whiny geek.

And so one day, John Cena’s time in the ring is limited. He spends more time in Hollywood, he gets meme’d, he comes back for sporadic appearances to put over younger talent, including Austin Theory… with whom they’d proceed to do fuck all with afterwards. And when John Cena decided to go for one last farewell tour… well, this year’s he’s gonna win the Rumble… that didn’t pan out… so fuck it, he inserted himself into the Elimination Chamber and he won the match… and then he turned on Cody… and then he cut his promo a couple weeks later about being in an abusive relationship with the fans, who were just awful, awful idiot losers that kept booing him no matter what stunts he did to get their approval.

Nothing he said in that promo was untrue… but he’s just admitting what most of us already know. But then comes the unspoken part… people boo him being in the spot he’s in because they’d rather see other people be in that spot. In a sense, John Cena’s journey was similar to that of Roman Reigns when he first broke away from the Shield and WWE would attempt every trick under the sun to get people to like the guy because THIS TIME FOR SURE… and it never happened. In fact, what did happen was that Roman took time off for leukemia, came back, took time off because of COVID, and drastically reinvented his whole schtick to become the Tribal Chief he is today. So yes, he started off as a babyface hero nobody wanted, became one of the biggest heels that people started to like, and now he’s one of the top fan favorites in the company. Took him long enough to get there, but he got there.

This John Cena heel turn… if you want to call it that… isn’t going to mean anything in the long term. It’s not a paradigm shifting event like Hogan being the third man. It’s more along the lines of Andre The Giant, who was a fan favorite for years and often neglected by all who mattered, taking matters into his own hands by joining with evil forces to confront the fans’ new beloved babyface. It adds intrigue to the WWE Championship picture at Wrestlemania 41, but that’s about all it’s going to do.

And you know what? I’m fine with that.

I’ll admit that I wasn’t too keen on the whole Cody/Cena thing and even with this latest wrinkle, I’m still a bit on the cautious side of things. Still, you’ve got a bit of spice in a feud that desperately needed it. And if nothing else, fuels potential speculation for what happens next.