Looking back at Wrestlemania XXXIII

It's hard for me to look back objectively at this year's Wrestlemania. Why? Because so much of it seemed to be booked by executive committee rather than through good storytelling or in a lot of cases, even great wrestling.

This is as close as I'll come to mentioning the awful tag line this year.
Image credit: WWE.

Don't get me wrong. The show had great bits. I think it was superb after weeks of weeks of Austin Aries talking about it on commentary that Neville beat Aries through a poke to the eye. Brilliant. Mojo Rawley winning the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal worked wonderfully too. Mojo may be reviled by a lot of smarks but he's really building a following with his pseudo-Warrior gimmick and a chance for him and Gronk to shine together is a true Wrestlemania moment.

That was the pre-show. Unfortunately, the main card didn't deliver nearly as well as the free giveaway across platforms.

AJ Styles and Shane McMahon did what they could with who they were. Owens and Jericho wrestled a decent match, but it seemed wanting from two talents as good as they are, probably because it was meant as just a first match in a series. Neither women's title match was allowed to shine as well as they could, especially with less than twenty minutes on the show devoted to them combined.

Rollins / Triple H and Orton / Wyatt were both pretty much what anyone expected, all though I had held out a vague bit of hope that Bray Wyatt might retain. Brock Lesnar and Goldberg gave exactly the match they needed to give with a initial punch of offense from Goldberg before Lesnar dismantled him with Suplex City.

And for the second year in a row, the main event was absolute crap built to force feed us Roman Reigns. Sure, this time he played the heel a bit more in the lead up, but he's still not a heel in any practical way. The booking was beyond asinine and as a final match for Undertaker, it just felt like an insult. Reigns just isn't capable of putting together a great match with anything less than a true mat genius in their prime and he just wasn't able to give Undertaker the great sendoff he deserved. The final moments of the night were moving, sure, but unlike so many others I could not embrace the somberness of them after the twenty minutes of garbage that came before it.

Instead, the real Wrestlemania moments of the show were nestled right in the middle of the card. The point of the Cena-Nikki and Miz-Maryse feud were made clear when John proposed in the center of the ring. It was a touching moment and truly a unique bit of Wrestlemania history.

But the true highlight was the return of the Hardy Boyz (complete with a Z) in the tag team ladder match. While working as a weird combination of their classic gimmicks and Broken Matt / Brother Nero, they put on a solid showing in what was their second ladder match in as many days. (Jeff Hardy looked exactly as banged up as he should have after the reportedly insane ladder match with the Young Bucks the previous day.) They took home the tag titles that night in a great welcome home. Interestingly, it was the first time the titles changed hands since the best Mania of all time, Wrestlemania X7, where they lost the belts to Edge and Christian in TLC II.

The best description I can give Wrestlemania is a slog. For seven hours of entertainment, it was far from the caliber the biggest company in the world should be able to deliver on their grandest stage ever year. And the sacrifice of great matches made at Takeover the night before just made the weekend feel rather bland.

In almost everything, Wrestlemania 33 felt like paint by numbers WWE, but so has much of the booking since January. Hopefully with the big show of the year out of the way, Vince can fade back into the shadows and the company can return to putting on some of the absolute stellar shows they put on over the last six months of 2016.

Later this week, I'll talk about the actual best show of the weekend, one which is about as far removed from huge WWE extravaganza as you can imagine.

The inaugural Impact Wrestling Top 10

I have written several unique Top 10 lists in the last couple years of producing The Wrestling Weekday. But somehow Impact Wrestling has always escaped my coverage. Considering the year end Top 10 featured a long time Impact star now in WWE at #2 and an actual Impact star at #1, it seems the time is ripe to feature the first ever list of Impact talents!

Image credit: Impact Wrestling. 

1. Ethan Carter III: While it currently feels like EC3 is treading water a bit at the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017, he is cemented as a perennial main eventer on the Impact roster. He could still make huge moves in the year ahead, especially if the company decides to play off the loss of his storyline aunt from the roster. 
2. Drew Galloway: I am not a fan of Galloway as a heel. He made one of the best faces the company had to offer, while as a heel he feels like just another bad dude in a sea of bad dudes. But he has definitely made waves since his in ring return and looks to have a solid run as Grand Champion. 
3. Decay: After Total Nonstop Deletion, Abyss and Crazzy Steve are in a bit of a random space, but they continue to be one of the best units on Impact Wrestling, even if it seems unlikely they will challenge for the tag titles much this year. 
4. Davey Richards: Davey's path upon his return seems clear. After a short uniting of the Wolves for a few weeks, he will take a heel turn against his former partner. Hopefully, Impact uses Angelina Love as his mouthpiece during his heel run, because while Davey can go in the ring, he is still one of the worst talkers on the Impact roster.
5. Jade: If Impact is smart, they will start to build a major part of their promotion around Jade. The perennial #1 contender to the Knockouts title, the former Mia Yim has to be on WWE's radar now. She has the potential to be a game changer in the world of women's professional wrestling and Impact would be wise to market on that. 
6. Moose: Unlike Mike Bennett, Moose was smart to make the jump from ROH to Impact. Impact not only gets him in front of more eyes, but it also helps him develop more attention on his career as it continues to grow. He might still have a future in WWE, but with a more solid place on Impact, he can develop the same kind of following that has helped names like Styles, Roode and Samoa Joe in WWE.
7. Eddie Edwards: He finished 2016 as TNA World Heavyweight Champion, but his obvious impending feud with Davey makes the continuation of his reign seem unlikely, especially with Lashley after him this week. But Eddie has cemented himself as a growing star for the company, and arguably far more valuable than Davey.
8. Lashley: It seems likely Lashley will win the title just a few hours after this posts. Outside the #1 pick, no one on this list did as good a job as reinventing themselves in 2016 as Donald Trump's former wrestling buddy. His dominant work week in and out on Impact Wrestling builds upon his goal of making professional wrestling seem credible and he does a great job of that even when he's warring with Eddie Edwards at the Hardy compound. I never thought I'd say it, but I've became a big fan of this man in the last year. 
9. Rosemary: The Knockouts Champion is easily one of the most over talents on Impact television. With a compelling character, a unique in ring style and a propensity to do things in the ring to make a true impact, the former Courtney Rush is a figure a company could be built around. Along with Jade, she makes a strong case for Impact to double down on the Knockouts side of the roster. 
10. The Broken Hardys: Broken Matt Hardy was the top wrestler of 2016 as chosen by the readers of The Wrestling Weekday and the staff of the ESO-PRO podcast. But Brother Nero did his own reinvention in the second half of the year and even freed from his obsolescence, he still is in a much better place in his career in 2017. No tag team is as in demand in 2017 as the Hardys. The twenty year veterans look to make a huge mark with international matches that will likely be rebroadcast on Impact Wrestling broadcasts, even as they continue to push the boundaries of storytelling in the year ahead. 

Image credit: SI.com.

The Broken Brilliance of 2016's Greatest Wrestler

"Wrestling Weekday, I knew you'd come!"

In 2017, TNA could not even make the list of the Top 10 Wrestlers of the year. But as the promotion puts their first star on the list, he comes in as the greatest star of the year.

Image credit: Matt Hardy.

Matt Hardy started 2016 with his second reign as TNA World Heavyweight Champion. But strangely, that might have been the low point of the year for him. His reign came with a heel turn and a new enforcer in Tyrus, but it never quite worked. The reign ended just a few weeks later with Matt's loss to Drew Galloway.

From there, he started a feud with Jeff Hardy and the true brilliance started to come forth. After two straight brutal losses to his brother, it seemed like Matt might be done with wrestling. But just a few weeks later, Jeff's old alter ego Willow appeared in the ring despite Jeff already being present. But after beatings at the hand of three different Willows, Matt revealed himself as the mastermind of the false form. He declared himself broken, a shadow of his former self obsessed only with the deletion of Jeff, a man he would now only refer to as Brother Nero.

He lost two more matches against Brother Nero, but Matt had one more battle in mind with his brother. The war would continue at Matt Hardy's personal compound, in a battle Matt dubbed "The Final Deletion."

And in one night, the wrestling world would change forever.


From there, the Broken Brilliance finally started to shine. Now the sole owner of the Hardy name, he brought the now "obsolete" Brother Nero into his fold. From there, the tag titles became their target, but it seemed clear this was still Matt's show. From appearances on just about every wrestling podcast still in character to promo after promo to premonition after premonition.

Over the course of the year, Matt became the biggest star in TNA by leaps and bounds, and arguably the most talked about wrestler in the world. He made King Maxel, Senor Benjamin, Vanguard 1 and even The Dilapidated Boat famous names in the wrestling world. An epic feud with Decay started the path to Delete and Decay.

He ended the year with Total Nonstop Deletion and the Tag Team Apocalypto. But Hardy's Great War is far from over.

"Delete! Delete! Delete!"

The 2016 End of the Year Honorable Mentions List

For the next two weeks, The Wrestling Weekday will look at some of the best wrestlers in the world, the men and women that shaped the industry in 2016.

Tomorrow, the list actually starts to get into wrestlers that earned multiple votes before the Top 10 list starts full speed ahead on Tuesday. All remaining vote getters, the ones that fell short of the Top 10 but received votes from multiple sources, will be revealed next week.

But for now: on with the first list of Honorable Mentions, presented in point order from lowest to highest.

Image credit: WWE.com.

Sami Zayn did not have a spectacular 2016 clearly as he received only a single 25th point vote. He stands alongside James Ellsworth, an ignominious spot if ever there was one, and Hallowicked, a talent I might have ranked much higher if I was anywhere near to caught up with Chikara in 2016.

I expected The Miz to get a bit more support because of his great work on Smackdown Live in the second half of 2016. He just missed my list and perhaps failed to make a few others as well. Similarly, only I was impressed enough by Baron Corbin's work in 2016. Admittedly he only had a few great weeks in NXT at the beginning of the year and his impressive work since Survivor Series with a huge lull in the middle, but he is decidedly a talent that grew exponentially in the year. He's easily one of the best WWE developmental talents without an indie background ever.

I also was a bit surprised that I was the only person to rank the Cruiserweight Classic winner TJ Perkins at all and that he came in behind Randy Orton in points total. NJPW's Katsuyori Shibata and TNA's Lashley both came ahead of him on my list though, as both showed amazing growth in ring and, in Lashley's case, character-wise in the year.

Andy Sheets gave the only votes for Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa, two talents that just barely missed my list. He also gave a vote to Tomohiro Ishii, a man that fell out of the NEVER division in NJPW early in the year but had a few great showings for ROH as their Television champion.

Sami Callihan (or Jeremiah Crane for certain fans) did amazing work on the indies and in Lucha Underground this year, showing why WWE seriously missed the boat with Solomon Crowe. I can see him entering a few more folks radar in 2017.

A bunch of tag team wrestlers got single votes as well. Nick Jackson, Matt Jackson, Jason Jordan and Chad Gable only received votes from yours truly, while John Morgan Neal gave Heath Slater and Rhyno their only props. Other talents that made their most significant strides as part of a tag team in 2016 also fell in this place, such as Bray Wyatt or Brother Nero, Jeff Hardy.

I thought Rich Swann deserved a place on the list here as well, as he's the man that seems to have lit a fire under the Cruiserweight division as 205 Live kicks off. Dalton Castle and Pentagon Dark (#10 in last year's poll) get similar rankings, I expect for similarly great character work backed by strong in will skills.

Much like Sami Callihan, I felt Cody Rhodes deserved a place on this list. He's electrified audiences in huge ways since his time as Stardust ended and he took to basically every non-WWE wrestling company. He may have lost his last name (a real poor move by WWE in my opinion), but he's showed why he deserved a higher spot on the card than he ever received on the WWE stage.

Kofi Kingston and Big E both made last year's list (at #8 and #5 respectively), but only got one vote this year. Ricochet (a.k.a. Prince Puma) fell similarly, dropping to only receiving a single vote after ranking at #7 last year. Just ahead of them was the final member of The New Day, Xavier Woods, who fell just short of the 2015 list but through increased in ring presence really cemented himself as a strong third member of The New Day in 2016.

Image credit: Lucha Underground.

We close out today's list with a few of the folks that ranked in several folks' Top 10 positions. Lucha Underground's Cage and NJPW's Kushida and Kazuchika Okada all made Andy Sheets' list in the #8, #7, and #6 spots respectively. Joe Crowe named Goldberg as his sixth best wrestler, an impressive feat for a man with two minutes of ring time in 2016. But they were an impressive two minutes, we all must admit. I ranked Finn Balor at #6, higher than I expected most people to do so, but I was shocked to see him make no one else's list. The first WWE Universal Champion dominated NXT in the first half of the year and impressed on Raw for the month he was on television. It still amazes me he didn't get props from anyone other than yours truly. Finally, Jeff Yelton gave a fifth place vote to ROH's Adam Cole, saying “The two-time ROH World Champ has come from being a bland good guy to a great heel. And he can go in the ring. I keep wondering when WWE is gonna call.”

With this list I have revealed all but twenty names that received votes in the 2016 Top 10 Countdown. The ten final Honorable Mentions will be revealed next week, but for now, stay tuned for tomorrow and the reveal of the #10 wrestler in the world today, despite almost all of their acclaim coming from one tiny venue in Southern California.

Drew Galloway: the champion TNA needs, not the one it deserves

Image credit: ImpactWrestling.com.

The Dark Knight meme is strong as I look at the crowning of Drew Galloway as the new TNA World Heavyweight champion on this week's Impact Wrestling. As the first man to successfully cash in the World title Feast or Fired case, the former Mr. McIntyre finally ascended to the place he should have been at months ago in TNA: on the top of the card.

But in many ways, it feels like yet another hotshot move by TNA where they make the right call for ratings a little too late. Galloway has been left as something of a cipher in recent weeks, only inserted into segments when he's needed rather than naturally being involved in storylines. His matches with Kurt Angle were great, but Drew isn't a talent that needs the approval of an aging veteran to be a main event star. He should have been crowned champion months ago but instead had to step aside for a lackluster run by consummate midcarder Matt Hardy as the top star in the company.

This is far from the first time or the last time that TNA made a decision that seems designed to try and bring back viewers alienated by bad booking decisions of the past, but at this point in their company's history, it might be time to consider just booking in ways to make fans happy more often. I'm not saying the hero should always win by any means. EC3 had a great championship reign as a nefarious evildoer. But most fans taking the time to check out non-WWE brands have moved past a need to see WWE nostalgia acts at the top of the card.

That doesn't mean TNA fans don't love the Hardy Boyz together or individually. They are still a strong pair of wrestlers, but they are not the kind of figures TNA should ever bank on at the top of the card ever again. With their age, their wear and their history of drug abuse, TNA has enough rising stars, both home grown and from under-utilized WWE runs, to build a great roster.

It just needs to start doing that. Keep the focus on Galloway, EC3, Mike Bennett and other focal points like Tyrus, James Storm and Bobby Roode. Even Eric Young and Bram have something to offer. Use WWE talents that have passed their prime like Lashley and the Hardys as key figures on TV, but not as the major stars TV regularly focuses upon.

Ultimately, Impact Wrestling seems to slowly be righting their own path after disastrous years in 2014 and 2015. Here's hoping they can continue that route instead of miring themselves in the same old mistakes the company has made time and time again. But they need to show a lot of fans consistency in storytelling before they ever start attracting viewers. Programs like Lucha Underground and NJPW on AXS have proven niche marketing can work for professional wrestling. It is time that TNA stops trying to be WWE and find what it's best at it. And I suspect that is good old school wrestling stories in the Southern tradition. I can think of few stars that can fill that formula quite as well as Drew Galloway.

If all goes well, the future looks bright for TNA to finally #StandUp.

A few words on Mr. Anderson

It came out yesterday through the internet release of a profanity laced promo at the UK based ICW that Ken Anderson, better known to most as either Mr. Anderson or Mr. Kennedy, has left TNA. Apparently, Anderson was released from his contract following the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania tapings in late January. It is a sign of how poor his push had been in recent months that no one even noticed he wasn't around for the last several weeks.


In the wake of his promo, a lot of rumors have spread on the internet about his release. His contract was apparently terminated, but we really don't know anything more than that. Supposedly he had an attitude problem backstage at those tapings, while other sites have conjectured he might have drug or alcohol abuse problems.

Too much of that sounds like damage control for TNA, a company that has ate up and bled away talents for the last several years. Multiple stars have left TNA on extremely negative terms since AJ Styles started the trend in late 2013. In recent weeks, TNA has tried damage control due to recent news stories about the company, up to and including the release of details of contract negotiations between the company, AJ Styles, Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson.

Mr. Anderson may have all kinds of problems. I have no clue and neither do you. But in a company that pushes top talents away, perhaps it is best to give him and not TNA the benefit of the doubt. This is the company that hired Anderson as a hot free agent only to book him in storylines that made a mess of his gimmick and killed all the momentum he had coming out of a WWE firing that seemed mostly geared towards keeping Randy Orton happy. His only main event feud for the company came against Jeff Hardy at the height of the Immortal storyline, where Jeff was known to often be in a drugged out stupor while champion.

And he had to carry around that awful purple belt as
champion. Image credit: Dennis Gates Jr.

Maybe Anderson did have an attitude problem. I would probably have one too after working for a company that did nothing to help my career for the past several years. And hey, they built his entire gimmick around him being an asshole for years. But again, we don't really know the story.

Sometimes it's best not to believe the rumors. I personally hope Mr. Anderson continues to find success as he enters the world of independent wrestling.

POP is good for TNA, but is it enough?

Drew Galloway is just one of several stars with a huge upside for TNA, but
only if TNA spends the time to book them as the hot young talent they are.

The first two episodes of Impact Wrestling on POP TV offered solid wrestling entertainment with some solid talents whether it be from veteran Kurt Angle, journeyman Drew Galloway or TNA originals like Bobby Roode and James Storm (now reunited as Beer Money.) The company seems to be forming a talent pool that will support them moving forward, framed around Ethan Carter III, the former Derrick Bateman who has become a true superstar since his move to the closest thing WWE has to a competitor.

But despite strong matches from the above plus the likes of the Beautiful People, The Dollhouse, The Wolves, Tigre Uno and more, the company still seems scared of innovation. The focus in the main event continues to be a younger homegrown star versus an industry veteran, even when that veteran is as past his prime as Matt Hardy.

And because of their lack of innovation with their cast, it often feels like much of their talent isn't all that important. Sure EC3, the Hardys and Angle are huge stars, but everyone else ends up feeling like they're just filler for the stuff TNA management cares about. An excessive focus on the main event picture has been a problem in WWE sometimes as well, but two weeks into the new show, every thing not involving the four men above just seems thrown together.

The sad part is that it doesn't have to be this way. They've got Dave Lagana on the writing staff alongside Billy Corgan. He has a history of crafting solid scripted television, the kind of clever writing that Lucha Underground has every week. While the title holders may not even be featured on every episode, the writers behind Lucha Underground understand that making sure every feud they develop feels important, whether it belongs at the bottom of the card or at the top. They fill the rest of the show with multi-talent matches or create random challenges thrown out by owner Dario Cueto to keep the progression moving. It's simple booking, but when the focus is quality weekly serialized television, it helps Lucha Underground surpass Raw and Impact Wrestling in quality almost every week.

I'm not saying that TNA can ape that style perfectly, but restoring the focus on simple storytelling surrounding great in ring action won't hurt the company. Coupled with a few smart moves in who to push and TNA could rise from the ashes yet again. The balls in their court.

Will a new TNA take shape at Bound For Glory?

I don't watch much TNA anymore. When it was on Spike, replays would appear on the site and be easily viewable by yours truly. Destination America does not do the same, nor do they offer the show on content partner Hulu, so I am left to follow most of TNA's storylines through recaps. Sometimes that leaves folks with a more negative view of a program if a reviewer personally doesn't like a segment (or vice versa.) But I have to say that while it doesn't have the depth of name talent previous TNA pay-per-views had, the upcoming Bound For Glory sounds incredibly solid.

The BFG poster is not helped by the large
image of the currently suspended Bram.

The show is headlined by a triple threat match for the TNA World Heavyweight title as champion Ethan Carter III defends against Matt Hardy and Drew Galloway with Jeff Hardy as special guest referee. I personally think this sounds like one of the weakest matches on the card not because the talent involved isn't great, but because the booking clearly implies typical TNA shenanigan booking to end the show. The big pay-per-view should have a decisive finish and it just seems doubtful that with his enemy EC3 and his brother Matt in the ring that Jeff will call it down the middle.