Latest Wrestling Blogs

The SmarK Rant for WWE Survivor Series Wargames 2022 – 11.26.22

I’m fighting off the flu tonight while my wife covers from Covid, so this may be a couple of days after airdate before I have a chance to finish the show.

OK getting Ozzy to do “War Pigs” for the opening is pretty cool, I’ll give them that.

Live from Boston, MA

Your hosts are Michael Cole & Corey Graves

Kurt Angle Claims Triple H Could Have Had “Five-Star Matches” With Braun Strowman

WWE Hall of Famer has suggested that Triple H and Braun Strowman could have had a series of classic matches if they had been involved in a proper storyline.

Rollins For Wearing “Women’s Clothing” On WWE Raw 

A former WWE writer was less than impressed with what Seth Rollins was wearing when he challenged Austin Theory.

Charlotte Flair Drops Big WWE Comeback Tease 

Charlotte Flair has dropped the biggest hint yet that she could be returning to the ring very soon.

NXT
Date: November 29, 2022
Location: Capitol Wrestling Center, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Booker T., Vic Joseph

This week is about the past and the future, as a group of Hall of Famers, led by Shawn Michaels, will announce the participants in the Iron Survivor Challenge. That would be quite the segment and it will determine most of the Deadline card. The main event is a rather big six woman tag so let’s get to it.

Dwayne Johnson Returns To Shop He Regularly Stole From To Make Things Right In Heartwarming Video
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson used to steal from a particular shop daily when he lived in Hawai’i with his family, and now he’s returned to the scene of the crime to make things right.

Austin Theory Shows Off His Incredible Ten-Year Body Transformation
Austin Theory shared a ten year old picture to celebrate his transformation as a professional wrestler.

The New Day Pay Tribute To Power Rangers’ Jason David Frank During WWE Live Event
Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston paid tribute to the late Jason David Frank at a WWE Live Event in Portland, ME.

Randy Orton Said To Be “Coming Along” After Surgery, Update On Whether He’ll Wrestle Again
As Randy Orton recovers back back surgery, his father ‘Cowboy’ Bob Orton has given an update on his condition.

Monday Night Raw
Date: March 3, 2008
Location: Conseco Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, Indiana
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

It’s finally Wrestlemania month and we are less than four weeks away from the show. The big story around here is the triple threat match between Raw World Champion Randy Orton and challengers HHH and John Cena. Other than that, we’re going to be seeing Big Show vs. a professional fighter, because wrestlers are…tap dancers or something. Let’s get to it.

Smackdown
Date: February 29, 2008
Location: Convention Center, Tuscon, Arizona
Attendance: 5,200
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jonathan Coachman

We are just over a month away from Wrestlemania XXIV and most of the top of the card is set. That means that the following weeks can be for a mixture of firming up the main events and building up the lower half of the card. That can include quite a few things and we’ll start this week. Let’s get to it.

The SmarK Rant for NWA Starrcade ’86: Night of the Skywalkers

(Hey great, so now I have Covid.  Thank god for sick time at work.  Carrying on with the Starrcades in the meantime.  This was written in 2016.)  

What the hell, let’s do it.  People have been bugging me to do the full version on the WWE Network forever now anyway, and since we’re at that point in the Observer Flashbacks now is as good a time as any.  As a note, I would once again like to compliment the amazing production department of the Network for cleaning up the master and making it look pristine again.  Given what they frequently have to work with, they do an astonishingly great job.

Update On Roman Reigns Following Survivor Series Incident With Kevin Owens

Following the news that Roman Reigns as “heated” backstage after Survivor Series, a new report has offered an update on what took place.

Backstage Update On Brock Lesnar WrestleMania Plans 

Who is in the frame to face Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania?

Eric Bischoff Comments On CM Punk To WWE Rumours, Questions Why People Would Work With The Star

Eric Bischoff claims CM Punk has “sh*t the bed” since joining AEW, before questioning Tony Khan’s lack of action during the infamous All Out media scrum.

Monday Night Raw
Date: November 28, 2022
Location: Scope Arena, Norfolk, Virginia
Commentators: Kevin Patrick, Corey Graves

We’re done with Survivor Series and that means it is time to start the very long road to the Royal Rumble. That could include quite a few things, but we are almost guaranteed some kind of fallout from Sami Zayn officially declaring his allegiance to the Bloodline. Other than that, a lot of the show is wide open so let’s get to it.

Triple H Planning To Bring Back The WWE Draft In 2023
According to a recent report, the WWE Draft won’t be making a return until next year!

Roman Reigns “Heated” After Unplanned WarGames Spot Caused Him To Suffer Potential Ruptured Eardrum
The Tribal Chief wasn’t pleased when a spot inside WarGames went awry!

Ricky Steamboat Wins On Return To The Ring At 69-Years-Old
Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat earned himself a nice victory when he stepped back inside the squared circle.

Update On WWE’s Plans For Roman Reigns And Sami Zayn
A new report details the plans for Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn following an emotional WarGames.

Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan, and Jim Neidhart are on commentary, beginning a new taping cycle in Portland, Maine.  According to thehistoryofwwe.com, the taping took place on July 30 and drew a crowd of 7,756 fans.

A replay of Jake Roberts’ heel turn on Superstars is shown.

OTA-KU CHAMPION LEGEND 1997:
(Jan. 20th 1997):
* The early months of 1997 have actually been pretty wild for AJW, because there was an Ota-Ku Champion Legend show in late January, and it featured a trifecta of impactful matches! It’s the first Red Belt defense of Kyoko Inoue, as she has to take on her partner, the sadist of beauty, Takako Inoue (no relation)! Also the WWWA Tag Team Champions (Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda) take on the up & comer squad of Tomoko Watanabe & Kumiko Maekawa- the guardians of the new generation!

The show starts with three intensely-clipped tag matches. It seems like the average length of an AJW match has shortened because none of these go over ten minutes.

TANNY MOUSE & MIYUKI FUJII vs. MIHO WAKIZAWA & RUMI SEKIGUCHI:
* Rookie Mayhem! And oh god it’s all the names I don’t recognize, plus the mouse. Rumi goes nowhere (she has no Cagematch profile), Fujii lasts a long time (2009-ish!), and Wakizawa has two separate multi-year runs. Tanny Mouse of course ends up a long-time comedy wrestler. The non-Tanny team is in matching rookie swimsuits, one in yellow and one in pink. Tanny’s in yellow and recognizable by… *sigh*… by her TAIL, and Fujii’s in a blue rookie swimsuit.

Discuss the world this Monday morning!

The SmarK Rant for NWA Starrcade 85: The Gathering – 11.28.85

(Hey, I’m still fighting through a lung infection that is thankfully not related to Covid, but I feel like hot buttered crap and I’m thinking Survivor Series is gonna be on the backburner for a while.  So let’s continue the Starrcading!  If I feel better my plan is to redo 97 and 99, by the way.  This was originally written in 2018, by the way)  

Hey, why not.  I had originally done all the World Championship Wrestling rants leading up to this one, but never got around to doing the full show.  It still blows my mind that I can just wake up and have someone suggest I watch Starrcade 85, and then just go “OK” because it’s right there on the WWE Network whenever I want to watch it.  Who cares if the current product is shit, you have more awesome wrestling then you could ever watch in one lifetime for $9.99 a month!