2023 Pro Wrestling Thread

The Death Triangle vs. Elite match was pretty wild, which I guess is par for the course for those guys. Total spotfest — which hurts a match like that when you clearly see them setting up for the spots and checking their positions — but the pace was incredible.
I was a little disappointed that they had Omega climb the ladder alone to win it, though. With three belts hanging up there I thought for sure that either all three members of one team would climb up together in triumph, or they'd do some sort of spot where all six guys were up there fighting for the belts. Seemed like a missed opportunity.

 

Looking up Goldberg’s match listings on Cagematch, he was in the biz for 10 months before beating Raven for the U.S. title. He had lost one dark match to a guy named Chad Fortune (!) at a WCW Saturday Night taping. For those 10 months, he mostly beat jobbers or the mid card guys (Finley, Meng, Glacier, Brad Armstrong, Steve McMichael, etc).

It wasn’t until he beat Hogan for the title when he’d been in the business for about a year that he started facing main eventers on a regular basis.

 

Cargill debuted in 2020 (remember the Shaq angle?) and has been TBS champ since Jan. 5, 2022. Seems like she is stuck in the pecking order despite a massive build.

Also, per Cagematch, I learned FTR is on a five-match losing streak across all promotions. Their last AEW win - in a straight tag match - was March 30, 2022. Since then, their only AEW wins have come in 6- or 8-man matches. (Unless I missed one.)

 

The Shaq tag match was in March 2021, according to Cagematch. She’s had 49 matches so far, most of them on TV, and AEW wasn’t running house show matches. Goldberg had a lot of house show matches to get reps, albeit of the two-minute kind.

Not sure what FTR has done to piss people off. Guess it’s inevitable that they had to drop the belts; but they’re not even on TV that much.

 

Dax said on his podcast FTR would likely be off TV until at least April. That's when their current contracts expire - so they might be looking at moving back to WWE.

 

Well, most people on the A&E bio and Conrad pods think in hindsight that Goldberg was rushed and ruined, so maybe Tony Kahn doesnt want to Goldberg her since he always says hes committed to not repeating WCW’s mistakes.

On the other hand she isnt that good in the ring and they arent that good at booking women so I dont know that they get benefit of the doubt. Her lack of development is a big case for why they need a PC and/or house shows

 

Tony Khan said recently that they are trying to start running house shows in 2023. The main reason Jeff Jarrett was brought in was to head up that effort on the business and production side, except through some other happy accidents he wound up going back into the ring.

 

The biggest fracture in pro wrestling history this side of Hogan and Savage.

 

it makes sense from a development standpoint, JR talks about it all time. I dont know if theyll make any money but workers need reps. Id surmise a huge reason Bianca Belair and Rhea Ripley are way ahead of Cargill is sheer hours in the ring

 

I stopped watching wrestling a long time ago but lurk here every now and then. Goldberg v Hogan on Nitro was the most wrestling moment I’d ever seen. The crowd was beyond insane

 

It was. And completely insane that it wasn’t on PPV.