2022 Pro Wrestling Thread

Nice touch to have Cena tribute videos from the former Big Show and Daniel Bryan.

 

The biggest pop of the first two hours of Raw is for Chris Jericho.

FORBIDDEN DOOR!

 

Am I the only one thinking it's weird that they're celebrating 20 years of John Cena, when he's barely been around for the last five years of that? Shouldn't it be 20ish years of John Cena?

 

He's been around.

We just couldn't see him.

 

He's been under contract the whole time, and he's wrestled at least a match per year, although it was only one time in 2020. (A loss against The Fiend, which seems a million years ago at this point.) Plus, he's always been a very visible supporter of the company, and involved with things like Total Divas, even when he wasn't wrestling full-time.

 

Ciampa is being wasted on Raw.

 

The Dark Order was one of AEW's hottest acts when Brodie Lee was leading the charge. Now, they're down to 4 active members -- Evil Uno, Preston Vance, John Silver and Alex Reynolds.

Anna Jay and Tay Conti are off doing their own things, Colt Cabana has been dabbling in TV and other pursuits, and both Alan Angels and Stu Grayson (who has been Uno's partner for years) were not re-signed.

Obviously, a great deal is because of all the additions of more established wrestlers, which I do think is a necessity for AEW to keep up, but it's still kind of a bummer after how hot they were.

There's no telling really, but I wonder where things would stand now had Brodie still been around.

 

Their problem was that they never really had a big name established as the leader before Brodie, and when they lost him, Khan didn't give them anyone that would work. And no one in the group was going to be one of those top names at any point soon. They toyed with Page, but he was never really part of the group; he was just their buddy. Best bet they'd have had was to had Matt Hardy go with Broken Matt and become their leader, and that's still the only good option an could be possible since Jeff is gone now. I don't know who else on the roster would work unless they wanted to make Sting like a new mentor/leader and have Darby join up as their in-ring leader, but I don't think that would be good booking.

 

After Brodie died, they really couldn’t have anyone be the leader. Everyone would have been comparing the new leader to Brodie.

 

Wasn't Malakai Black rumored for that role at one point? He obviously went his own direction.

 

I think the only rumored leaders were Brodie and Hardy early in pandemic times, which is why they debuted on the same show (it was supposed to be Brodie's homecoming show in Rochester). I don't believe there's been any talk about new leaders since Brodie died.

 

Least surprising development of the year.