Mania, WWE cuts and more
There has been a lot of pro wrestling news over the last week, so let鈥檚 get to it.
Mania thoughts
For years, people wondered what WWE would do if a storm hit during WrestleMania at an outdoor venue.
Pro wrestling fans found out last Saturday night as the in-ring portion of the show was delayed due to a storm.
WWE had talent do impromptu backstage promos and, ironically, there were several top-notch promos given. Talent was shuffled onto the live feed with backstage announcers and no scripts were involved.
I wonder if WWE noticed what happens when talent is trusted to come up with their own promos instead of being pigeon-holed into saying exact lines written for them?
As far as the in-ring action, there were several matches that stood out over both nights.
Off the top of my head, the matches between WWE champion Lashley and Drew McIntyre, Smackdown women鈥檚 champion Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair, Cesaro and Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn and the Universal championship match between Roman Reigns, Daniel Bryan and Edge all stand out.
I would be remiss if I didn鈥檛 mention the effort given by Bad Bunny in his tag match with Damian Priest against The Miz and John Morrison. Bunny鈥檚 performance is one of the best in-ring debuts by a celebrity in pro wrestling history. ESPN touted Bunny鈥檚 performance as, 鈥溾�� one of, if not the, most impressive showings by a celebrity in the ring.鈥�
Two more Mania tidbits from last weekend before looking forward.
Despite Saturday night鈥檚 portion of Mania being delayed, WWE dodged a problem Sunday as a massive storm washed through Tampa early afternoon.
A buddy of mine who works for WWE sent me a video of the ringside area from the concourse and it was storming like crazy.
Also, there were no comp tickets for family or friends for the show and even Randy Orton had to pay for his family鈥檚 tickets. He posted online that he shelled out $20,000 for tickets.
WWE has announced Mania 38 will head back to AT&T Stadium just outside of Dallas next April, although no date was announced. This could mean that Mania could stay a two-night event.
WWE releases performers
For years, WWE has released talent the week after WrestleMania and this year was no different.
Ten wrestlers were released Thursday by WWE with the group consisting of Samoa Joe, Mojo Rawley, Billie Kaye and Peyton Royce, who made up The IIconics, Kalisto, Tucker, Wesley Blake, Bo Dallas, Chelsea Green and Mickie James.
The releases happened a year to the day of WWE鈥檚 last round of releases, and it will be interesting to see how WWE spins this later this week when it announces its quarterly numbers as it is coming off its most profitable year in company history.
AEW鈥檚 big rating
With NXT moving to Tuesday, AEW ran Dynamite unopposed, and its rating was the second highest in company history.
The show drew 1,219,000 overnight viewers and the only episode to draw more was the debut show on Oct. 2, 2019, when Dynamite had 1,409,000 overnight viewers.
Speaking of NXT, it drew 805,000 overnight viewers Tuesday night, its most since its Halloween Havoc episode this past October 28.
New WWE announcers
Two new announcers began this week for WWE as MLB Network鈥檚 Adnan Virk is the new play-by-play announcer on Raw, while Pat McAfee is the new color commentator on Smackdown.
Ranallo to Impact
While speaking of announcers, former WWE announcer Mauro Ranallo will handle the announcing duties for Impact Wrestling鈥檚 April 25 PPV titled Rebellion.
Two new WWE shows debut tonight
A&E will debut its new WWE Biography series tonight when it airs a two-hour piece on Steve Austin at 8 p.m., followed by WWE鈥檚 Most Wanted Treasures.
Treasures is hosted by Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, and I am intrigued by the show.
There will be several historical artifacts shown over the course of the series and I am curious if any of Killer Kowalski鈥檚 gear will be shown at some point. I trained briefly with Kowalski and when he passed away, an anonymous bidder bought thousands and thousands of dollars worth of his gear.
I have always assumed Triple H bought it because he was Kowalski鈥檚 greatest student, and maybe we will find out at some point.
This Day in History
In 1982, Hulk Hogan defeated Nick Bockwinkel to win the AWA championship, only to have the outcome overturned after both men used foreign objects.
This was the first of two unrecognized AWA championship wins for Hogan.