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Throwback SmackDown Shows that WWE Has Lost Its Grip On Nostalgia
Yesterday was the “Throwback Edition” of WWE SmackDown. Normally, this wouldn’t be something worth writing about, except that the show that normally gets the throwback treatment is Raw, which that has been on the air since 1993, and between the current WWE roster’s various rap beefs and the three or four times I’ve seen…
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Roman Reigns’ New Theme Song: A Review
Last week’s episode of Friday Night SmackDown was notable for two things: First, it was Daniel Bryan’s last night on the show, as his loss to Roman Reigns in the main event was a SmackDown Career vs. Title match. Secondly, far more importantly, it marked the debut of Roman Reigns’ new theme song, and…
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Stacking Belts Like Pringles: Impact Wrestling Rebellion Recap and Review
Rather than pretend to an expertise that I don’t have, I’ll be up front: I don’t watch Impact Wrestling, and I never really have. The company’s 20th anniversary is next year, and over the course of that time it’s existed in a very strange universe of its own making, simultaneously the only mainstream-ish alternative…
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Please, I’m Begging You, Don’t Make The Rock a Politician
I like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. I’m not alone in that, obviously—Johnson is one of the most popular wrestlers in history, a movie star who defines a generation of blockbuster action movies like Schwarzenegger and Stallone before him, and a decent enough social media presence if you’re into his particular brand of Cool Dad.…
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Blame It On the Rain: WrestleMania37 Night One Recap and Review
Night one of WrestleMania 37, WWE’s make-good on last year’s purchase of a bunch of non-returnable pirate gear it didn’t get to wear to last year’s WrestleMania, was the first time fans attended a main roster show since the COVID-19 pandemic moved WWE’s product into its Performance Center last March. WWE’s official attendance number…
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Hulk Hogan’s Skullet: A Review
In 2006, music critic Ray Suzuki gave Australian rock group Jet a rating of 0.0 in his Pitchfork review of their album Shine On. The body of that review was a YouTube video of a monkey drinking its pee. I think about that review all the time, like how much would I have to…
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AEW’s Mortal Kombat II Cabinet: A Review
In a real loss for me, a person who lives to see expensive stuff get wrecked for the sake of the great sport of professional wrestling, AEW’s Arcade Mayhem match from this week’s Dynamite featured more “wandering through the arcade cabinets looking for something to play” action than the CRT smashing I was hoping…
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Peacock Is Editing Racism Out of WWE Content. So What?
The WWE Network sunsets in the United States on April 4, as it becomes part of NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service. Launched in 2014 (after an initial conceptualization as a television network that never came to fruition), the WWE Network is one of the the promotion’s signature achievements, forever altering the global wrestling marketplace in…